U-Boat Captian career length?

[Redshirt]

Just curious, I started out in 1939 and now im in mid-late 1940 and on my 8th patrol with GWX1.03 had my fair share of promotions and got almost every medal under the sun (just need the diamonds for my knights cross) so I started doing some reading around the place it seems even the best of the u-boat captins only managed 15-16 patrols.... am im curious as to why so few patrols(aside from the obvious lose rate) I would have thought those captians who started out in 39 would have got a few more under there belts?

From my general WWII knowledge german servicemen didnt really have a tour of duty unlike the allies, so what am I missing here? Where U-boats at/in port for longer periods than modeled in SHIII? :hmm:

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

Just curious, I started out in 1939 and now im in mid-late 1940 and on my 8th patrol with GWX1.03 had my fair share of promotions and got almost every medal under the sun (just need the diamonds for my knights cross) so I started doing some reading around the place it seems even the best of the u-boat captins only managed 15-16 patrols.... am im curious as to why so few patrols(aside from the obvious lose rate) I would have thought those captians who started out in 39 would have got a few more under there belts?

From my general WWII knowledge german servicemen didnt really have a tour of duty unlike the allies, so what am I missing here? Where U-boats at/in port for longer periods than modeled in SHIII? :hmm:

the few patrol rate's are couse of the following things:

1. long patrols
2. sub upgrades
3. new subs who on they'r turn need upgrade's
4. death

[GoldenRivet]

well lets have a look at U-boat.net at Otto Kretschmer's service record as an example.

from april 1940 to March 1941... an 11 month period he had completed 8 war patrols for a total of 119 days at sea.

on average this means that each patrol would have been about 14 and a half days long. (combined submerged and surfaced runs preying off the english east cost and the close in western approaches in SH3 yields a similar figure)

also for the same period of time he would have received approximately 216 (or so) days in port.

if you divide these days in port evenly among the gaps between the 8 patrols you will see that he had roughly 27 days in port between each patrol (on average)

from there we can determine that it would be historically accurate for a high scoring commander to complete 8 to 10 patrols per year, with 20 to 30 days in port between assignments.

most commanders were retired after so many patrols at sea.

most likely reasons for a career to end:

1. Death
2. Capture
3. Injury preventing further assignments to sea duty
4. Promotion to a point where the officer's value puts him out of the action
5. Placed in command of a flotilla
6. Germany wanted its officers learning from the experiences of those who had been into the action - often commanders were rotated to training flotillas to ensure that future officers received the best possible training and received the most current information on tactics and threats.

except for the career I am using now - i usually play with two major considerations on "SH3 Commander"

1. Realistic career length enabled

2. Days in port set to 30... if the U-boat is badly damaged i will exit the game and reset days in port to 50 to simulate dry docking and repair of the sub taking a long time.

typically, this yields about 9 patrols per year... unless i have a couple of sperts of bad damage then it will be a lower patrol figure.

If you finish off a career with high realism settings and find yourself "retiring" after anywhere between 8 to 15 patrols and you have gained over 100K tons
that would be a pretty historically accurate figure IMHO

[Redshirt]

hmm interesting indeed.

currently not playing on realistic career length lol - i dont give my odds of living out the war as being to great.... and i thought SHIII took into account time in dock to repair damage or make upgrades to your boat? Or is that just take out of the time you specify in SH3 Commander and not added onto?

[SmokinTep]

I have 12 patrols finished from Sept 39 to June 41

[dcb]

I'm in November 1941, at my 20th patrol. First, on type VII, patrols tended to be short - easy to understand why. Now, I've moved to a type IX-C and only getting to patrol area takes as much time as a full patrol in a type VII. So I expect to have more days at sea and less&longer patrols. I hope the next patrol will be after December 1941, and on to the US Eastern coast - if I survive the current one, of course.

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

Jochen U-124 :from september 1939 till september 1943 i have 31 patrols with a total of 123 days on sea. a total of 239 ships sank (warships 135/merchants 104) and a total of 655.474 tons.

Jochen Mohr : september 1939 till january 1940 6 patrols and 16 days at sea.
54 ships sank (warships 24/merchants 30) with a total of 220.758

KJM: from june 1940 till december 1940 i got 7 patrols with 41 days at sea.
sank 177 ships (warships 88/merchants 89) and a total tonnage of 706.002

oberleutenant on the first and Kapitänleutenant on the others :rock:

[GoldenRivet]

hmm interesting indeed.

currently not playing on realistic career length lol - i dont give my odds of living out the war as being to great.... and i thought SHIII took into account time in dock to repair damage or make upgrades to your boat? Or is that just take out of the time you specify in SH3 Commander and not added onto?

SH3 by itself decides how many days you stay in port based on the length of your patrol... the longer the patrol, the longer the time in port, the shorter the patrol, the shorter the time in port. if you buy upgrades those take extra days to install. bigger the upgrade bigger the days off...for example: buying a new set of flak guns might take 2 days, buying a new conning tower might take 15 days, buying a new boat might take two months. its a nice "gamey" way of doing it... but SH3Commander makes it more historical.

[JScones]

SH3 by itself decides how many days you stay in port based on the length of your patrol... the longer the patrol, the longer the time in port, the shorter the patrol, the shorter the time in port.
Not quite correct. By default SH3 will apply a 28 (or 31 depending on mod used) day "rest" period. This 28 days is applied regardless of whether your patrol was 100 days or 1 day long.

Added onto this will be extra days for repairs and upgrades as you stated. I stress "extra" because if repairs and upgrades are less than the 28 days, SH3 doesn't add them. If repairs and upgrades are more than 28 days, then the days spent in base will be the upgrade days, NOT the upgrade days plus 28 (regardless of what the career screen states). Anyone who's been around for longer than 18 months will know about the SH3 "time travelling" bug that's related to this.

SH3Cmdr changes this behaviour to be more historically accurate. For example, when the randomise days in base option is selected, SH3Cmdr determines the number of days spent in base within the following limits (by default, but can be modified by the user):

- between 5 and 30 days during 1939
- between 5 and 45 days during 1940
- between 10 and 50 days during 1941
- between 15 and 55 days during 1942
- between 20 and 60 days during 1943
- between 25 and 65 days during 1944
- between 25 and 65 days during 1945

This is based on research of actual U-boat patrol dates.

It means that during 1939, for example, you could be back at sea with 5 days...or it could be 30 days.