Tell us what you are upto in your current campaign

[Jimbuna]

Started a carreer with manual targetting.
Three patrols, no torpedo ever touched any ship.
Read again and again the GWX 3.0 part about manual targetting.
Going back to auto targetting.

I taught myself by firing from a range of 500 metres then gradually upped it to 800 then 1000 etc.

Obviously the further away you are from the target the error of margin becomes magnified but practice does/should eventually make you quite proficient.

[BillCar]

Started a carreer with manual targetting.
Three patrols, no torpedo ever touched any ship.
Read again and again the GWX 3.0 part about manual targetting.
Going back to auto targetting.

That's how it was for me at first, but a couple weeks after I started playing, I got really good at it. Now I never use manual targeting, and I think my record for distance is a single-torpedo kill on a passenger cargo at a distance of 4000m.

It's definitely worth sticking with it until you can do it – it's way more rewarding!

I strongly recommend using the fixed-wire method to get the target's speed for your solution, by the way. I only do the 3m15s plotting thing when overhauling now, but it's rarely necessary – I usually just sail towards my hydrophone contact, spot it, and overhaul outside their visual range). Using the fixed-wire method gives you a very, very accurate speed reading on your target, and most importantly, it gives it to you immediately before you maneuver to fire.

[Gilbou]

That's how it was for me at first, but a couple weeks after I started playing, I got really good at it. Now I never use manual targeting, and I think my record for distance is a single-torpedo kill on a passenger cargo at a distance of 4000m.

It's definitely worth sticking with it until you can do it – it's way more rewarding!

I strongly recommend using the fixed-wire method to get the target's speed for your solution, by the way. I only do the 3m15s plotting thing when overhauling now, but it's rarely necessary – I usually just sail towards my hydrophone contact, spot it, and overhaul outside their visual range). Using the fixed-wire method gives you a very, very accurate speed reading on your target, and most importantly, it gives it to you immediately before you maneuver to fire.

Until now I have found ships. Sea is calm. I come from astern. I take a lot of time to identify ships. Sometimes I go around the book 4/5 times before I found the good ship. I pause the game so I can set the height using the mast, then speed. I see my depth to 3/4 of the ship's depth.

I try to get within 1 km or so. But then, the ship goes in front of the sub quite fast so I don't have much time. I calculate the distance again, the speed usually did not change so it's just distance and AoB. To calculate the AoB I go to the map, use the protactor so I can calculate the AoB. I set everything and when I check, the torpedo has the good settings.

I shoot, and all the time the torpedo either goes too much to the left and misses the ship or it goes too much in front. I have done 3 patrols, and spent my time shooting salvos of 2 torpedoes and seeing all of them miss.

And I got no clue in how you can make a torpedo hit anywhere but at the middle of the ship.

[Obltn Strand]

Practice makes perfect. I did two careers with auto targetting. After a while there is no challenge anymore.

1000m or so are maximum firing distance for me although sometimes I have to try my luck at greater distances.

Your 4000m is admirable BillCar:salute: I shot Orecarrier at distance of 5000m. Scored a hit to Auxilary cruiser at full 100% realism and no map update. But it had more to do with luck than skill. Can't complain though.

[BillCar]

If you're shooting from a gyro angle of roughly 000, the distance also doesn't matter (assuming that you're in range, and keeping in mind that closer is always better until you hit 300m). Just the speed and the AOB.

There are some tutorials on calculating the AOB by other means – I've gotten very good at determining it simply by looking at the ship.

What will help you very much is to "overhaul" the ship – this means passing it, getting in front of it, and then adjusting your angle so that you are lined up to shoot it before it arrives at the point where you will shoot – this will give you more time to check your calculations.

It is also very important to remember that, after you turn off the automatic TDC to put in the target information and AOB, you *MUST* turn auto TDC back on. The reason for this is that as you turn the periscope or UZO with the movement of the ship, this information is being fed to the TDC and will adjust it. For example: if you are stationary, and a ship doing seven knots comes at you with a 45º AOB, as you follow its progress closer to you with the periscope, the TDC will update itself based on your calculations – as the ship's AOB becomes larger relative to your boat, the TDC will reflect this.

This means that if you overhaul, arrive ahead of time, and establish the target speed is 6 and the AOB is 20º (for example), then you can put that information into the TDC, switch it back to automatic, and track the target with your scope until you hit a gyro angle of zero. Hopefully when you hit gyro angle zero, you're at roughly 90º AOB. If you're off to the point where it will be a problem, get your engines moving, and order rudder hard in the direction of the ship's movement. You may need to adjust the targeting computer again. Try and turn so that you wind up with a zero gyro angle coinciding with a roughly 90º AOB, and remember to switch your TDC back to automatic again once you've adjusted the AOB. I have yet to miss a ship while doing this, even making some snap shots while turning hard (just make sure your tube is open, and have your finger on that red button for the second you've got a good gyro angle and aimpoint coincidence).

You can choose your aimpoint with the periscope – it will send torpedoes where you aim it, basically. If you're only able to aim at the middle of the ship, it may be because you are locked onto it. If you want to aim at the stern or bow or other areas, disable the lock so that you can freely move your periscope.

Remember also to open your torpedo tubes BEFORE you fire. If you fire without doing this first, the tubes still have to open, so you may wind up losing critical seconds, between firing at your aimpoint and the torpedo actually leaving the tube, which can lead to misses.

Additionally, when selecting a salvo, make sure you don't set the angle too wide, since with two torpedoes, neither goes directly to your aimpoint – they go however many degrees on either side of it. I personally do not fire salvos – I fire one torpedo at a time, but quickly, so I can still get two torpedoes out about as fast as a salvo was. I don't have to worry about the salvo angle, though, since I am aiming each torpedo myself.

If I've given any wrong information here, hopefully someone more knowledgeable than myself will come along and correct it – but I can promise you that this all works for me, and I've gotten so that I very rarely miss now. Usually, if I shoot at a ship and it doesn't sink, it's because I sent the torpedo underneath it in rough seas, or it was a dud.

[BillCar]

Practice makes perfect. I did two careers with auto targetting. After a while there is no challenge anymore.

1000m or so are maximum firing distance for me although sometimes I have to try my luck at greater distances.

Your 4000m is admirable BillCar:salute: I shot Orecarrier at distance of 5000m. Scored a hit to Auxilary cruiser at full 100% realism and no map update. But it had more to do with luck than skill. Can't complain though.

Thanks! I only took that shot because it was my last stern torpedo, the ship was passing the optimal gyro angle, and I was getting frustrated with maneuvering around it. So I said "well, this looks right to me" and let her go. I was very thrilled when she went to the bottom!

Your 5000m beats my 4000m handily, though! :salute:

But yes, I agree, 1000m is a good distance. I sometimes go up to 2000 on larger targets when pressed for time in convoy attacks, but that's about it.

I also don't have map updates on. One simply has to get proficient at whatever method of plotting and firing solution one chooses to use!

[Falkirion]

Continued first patrol of U-207, 1940.

The crew and I having transferred from our faithful boat U-47 to a new Type VIIC and making one successful convoy attack were ready for more of the same.

We tracked a convoy just north west of Rockall bank, they were headed to transit the area and I wanted to have depth on my side during the attack. We made contact visually in the middle of the night, luckily the lead escort had his back turned and we cut to starboard to avoid being spotted but it was a close call nonetheless. After making a quick rough estimate of their course we did an end around to get out bow tubes lined up. We centered our sights on a small tanker and a whaling ship. Small tanker was on the other side of HMS Rodney. Darn brits must have some kind of ressurection technology, because we sent her to the bottom two patrols ago (I know this is a game generated thing but it still ticks me off that ships wont stay gone, especially when I've sunk the 2 BBs that comprise the class) We fired off a spread of 3, then dove down to 200m and went straight to silent running.

End result, 1 whaling ship. Was really annoyed my tanker torp prematured on its way to target because I'm sure it would have sunk it too. We evaded for around an hour then the 2 Flowers that were hunting for me disengaged and returned to the convoy. We surfaced about 20 minutes after they'd left and continued south east to try and hunt up some shipping in the mid atlantic. We've got a total of 4 torpedos left.

[krashkart]

^^ I have a feeling that the rest of my convoy intercepts will be in foul weather. :wah:

My boat collided with a KM destroyer and sank, shortly after setting out from Wilhelmshaven for her fifth patrol. January 3rd, 1940. So long, '47. :-?

[Obltn Strand]

Thanks! I only took that shot because it was my last stern torpedo, the ship was passing the optimal gyro angle, and I was getting frustrated with maneuvering around it. So I said "well, this looks right to me" and let her go. I was very thrilled when she went to the bottom!

Your 5000m beats my 4000m handily, though! :salute:

But yes, I agree, 1000m is a good distance. I sometimes go up to 2000 on larger targets when pressed for time in convoy attacks, but that's about it.

I also don't have map updates on. One simply has to get proficient at whatever method of plotting and firing solution one chooses to use!
Rough estimate and didn't hit where it supposed to:oops:
It was my last bow torpedo against a convoy.

[Chef]

Went out on patrol before the start of the war. The weather was horrific for weeks while I awaited the start of hostilities. Upon receipt of the war order authorizing hostile action against British shipping, the weather cleared up and a 10K ton tanker sailed into view. It's a good start for U-52. Aaarrrggg! :arrgh!:

[krashkart]

Went out on patrol before the start of the war. The weather was horrific for weeks while I awaited the start of hostilities. Upon receipt of the war order authorizing hostile action against British shipping, the weather cleared up and a 10K ton tanker sailed into view. It's a good start for U-52. Aaarrrggg! :arrgh!:

Take that sucker down, Chef. :up:

[Dissaray]

I was hunting off the east coast of England in late september of '39 and saw a ship just pluging away at sevin knots and having a good old time. It was daylight and conditions were good so I thoght I would try some long range torpido work. I fired from just outside of 6.5k and waited. I had the speed set to medium speed so it would make it all the way to the target with steam left over but still make decent time to target. As the torpido tracked to target I was watching the attack map to see if it was lined up right for a hit. It was a beutiful shot, 000 gyroangle and 90 degree AOB at the point of impact give or take a few degrees. Five minits or so ticked by as my eel went out to meat my new friend and sure enuf it found him but to my shock and dissmay the damn thing didn't blow; it was a dud.

Well I wasn't having any of that went to full steam ahead and shelled that most offencive ship into oblivion.

[krashkart]

^^ My favorite approach for merchant shipping. Shell 'em till they explode. I try to save my torpedoes in case I run afoul of a convoy or warship. I always seem to run out anyway. :DL

Currently, it is January 7th, 1940. Had to save the game and exit for a breather. We are at around 35 meters depth, somewhere in the Channel, trying to sneak away from a very ticked off English destroyer. Managed to put a TI aft under her props but she kept going. Didn't take them long to determine our whereabouts.

Put our tail-end towards her and went flank. Was hoping she would straighten out behind us, but the Brits are no fools. Was thoroughly bummed to see the destroyer jinking in. Now we hide and hope for the best.

[BillCar]

U-53, Type VIIB, Oblt. z. S. Jochen Luebke

Departed Wilhelmshaven November 16th. Passed through Strait of Dover, sinking one large merchant and one ASW Trawler on the way. (ca. 12,500 GRT).

Sank another large merchant south of Portland.

Sank a small merchant south of Plymouth.

Sank a small coal tender.

Sank another large merchant.

Sank a coastal freighter.

Sank a medium cargo.

Sank a passenger cargo.

Sank a small merchant.

49,000 GRT. Docked Wilhelmshaven November 30th, hull integrity 100%.

[Snestorm]

12.jan.40.
11.07. Underway. Assigned Patrol Grid BE94.

19.jan.40.
12.03. AF47. Alarm! Aircraft.

23.jan.40.
08.10. AM33. Heavy Fog. Proceeding submerged as much as possible.

06.feb.40.
16.20. BE32. Fog has finaly cleared.

08.feb.40.
14.20. BE94. Arrive on station.

10.feb.40.
14.00. BE94. Departing grid.
Will return on a track closer to the Southern, and Western Approaches.

15.feb.40.
08.02. Radio Report.
Enemy Large Convoy. AM01. East. 7 Knots.
Full Ahead.

16.14. Patroling Western AM01. (Hoping they didn't pass).
Sound Contact. Convoy. Begin information gathering.

18.27. Fire Tubes 5 & 6 on a T2 Tanker. Daylight Submerged Attack.

18.29. Sunk T2 Tanker. Course 093. Speed 7.
2 x T1 Torpedoes.
(Only 1 Torpedo struck the target. There was second impact one minute later.)
Lead Escort is a V Class DD.

20.30. Surface. Full Ahead.

22.44. Flower Class Corvette (Rear Escort) spotted and bypassed.

16.feb.40.
00.06. Night Surface Attack. (Followed by dive).
Target = C3 Cargo. Fire Tube 3.
Course 093. Speed 7 Knots. Range 3.000 Meters.
Torpedo Impact. No sinking. Unknown if it was targeted ship.

02.30. AM29. Surface. Full Ahead.

06.35. Night Surface Attack. (Followed by dive).
Course 103. Speed 7 Knots.
Tubes 1, 2, and 4 at T3 Tanker (T2 x 3)
Tube 3 at Coastal Merchant. (T1 x 1)

06.37. T3 Tanker (11.653 GRT) sunk.
Coastal Merchant (2.044 GRT) sunk.

07.22. Begin Torpedo Reload.

08.58. All Bow Tubes Loaded.
(No reloads for my external stern tubes).

09.20. AM29. Surface. Full Ahead.

11.27. Convoy sighted.

13.15. AM02. Daylight Submerged Attack.
Course 192. Speed 7 Knots.
Fire Tubes 1,2, & 4 at C2 Cargo. (T2 x 3).
Fire Tube 3 at Coastal Merchant. (T1 x 1).

13.16. C2 Cargo (6.451 GRT) sunk.
Separate impact heard.

13.38. Small Merchant (2.338 GRT) sunk.
(Not the intended victim, but no complaints here).

15.57. Last T2 Torpedo fired at Flower Class Corvette.
He had engine trouble and could only make 1 Knot.
Had the last G7E set to Magnetic and loaded while following in the Corvettes baffles.
Attempted to put it "up her stern".
Missed.

20.40. Surface. Homeward bound.
All Torpedoes Expended (12 in all. No externals carried. No stern reloads.)

17.feb.40. 11.40. AM28. Alarm! Aircraft.

26.feb.40. 12.29. AF75.
Sound Contact. Multiple Warships. Long Range. Moving NNW.

03.mar.40. Docked at Wilhelmshaven.

Patrol Results: 5 Ships. 33.357 GRT. (All sailing in convoy).

U37 Totals: 3 Patrols. 77.741 GRT.

[Randomizer]

4 October 44 - U-877, a Type IXC40 departs Flensburg on first patrol for the Skagarrak via the Kaiser Wilhelm canal. Designated patrol area is inside the Gulf of Saint Lawrance BB51.

8 October 44 - Dived 13 times in 24-hours to avoid aircraft.

10 October 44 - While pursuing a lone merchant surpized by twin-engine aircraft suffering considerable damage and two dead. Attack periscope destroyed. Continue patrol after repairs.

21 October 44 - Contacted warship group while exiting the Denmark Straight in bad weather. Single shot with electric torpedo from Tube V missed a four-funnel destroyer. No counter attack but unable to re-target any of the task force.

29 October 44 - Entered the Straight of Belle Isle seperating Canada from Newfoundland. Dived and commenced submerged operations using snorkel twice daily for battery charging.

30 October 44 - Engaged small convoy in bad weather and high seas. Boat broached during a periscope observation and was located by escorts. Launched two FAT's at convoy, one hit with no known results. Depth charged to destruction in 90 metres of water over four hours of counter attacks. Unable to surface, boat lost with all hands from progressive flooding in square AH8732: 54 killed.

[krashkart]

January 12, 1940

Just returned to Wilhelmshaven and glad to be back. This patrol was exciting, but very long and incredibly stressful. It was our second consecutive patrol to the Western Approaches, to the same grid as last time.

Encountered more warship activity throughout the Channel than expected, and plenty of merchants. My attempts to conserve our cache of torpedoes was mostly unsuccessful, although the English and the French are now short one destroyer apiece.

Upon completing our patrol we scouted north into the Irish Sea, encountering numerous aircraft. Spent much of the daylight hours submerged. Perhaps 20 hours into our reconnaissance I realized that Bdu had contacted us the day before, reporting a possible task force well northwest of our position. Despite our best efforts to intercept, nearly four days had elapsed by the time we reached the area. We found only empty ocean.

The Brits harried us with their aircraft all along the way, one encounter being so far from any shore that at first I thought perhaps the task force could be nearby. Spent an additional 48 hours scouring the surrounding ocean and found absolutely nothing.

We steamed back home, passing north of Scotland. Again, more aircraft, but there was some moderate merchant activity east of the Scapa Flow area. Gave the gunners something to play with.

My crew and I are exhausted beyond belief, and quite demoralized over missing the task force. Perhaps another day we will succeed, but for now it is a glass of Beck's, two plates of hot unspoiled food, and as much sleep as I am permitted.


Note to self:

The crew are overdue for rotation. Dismiss WO after next patrol, if it is possible to promote his subordinate. He has earned his own ship.

[BillCar]

U-53, Oblt. z. S. Jochen Luebke

Patrol 4:
Departed Wilhelmshaven, December 21st, 1939.
Patrolled AL38. While on the way, sank a coastal freighter off Lerwick. Sank a few assorted merchant vessels, in the AL and some of AM.working my way up to roughly 25,000 tons. Headed towards AM53, encountered a large freighter, and sank same for about 10,000 GRT. Noticing the smoke, 3 motor torpedo boats approached and opened fire as U-53 crash dove. 10 minutes later, a destroyer was overhead, dropping depth charges, all of which were avoided. Having exhausted all but one torpedo, U-53 abandoned her foray into the Irish Sea and headed back to Wilhelmshaven, torpedoing a medium cargo on the way for 5200GRT. Docked at Wilhelmshaven with roughly 41,000GRT sunk, January 21st, 1940.

Patrol 5:
Left Wilhelmshaven, February 13th, 1940.
Assigned AN11.

February 16th
AN14 encountered one tugboat, and sank same with deck gun for 1100 tons. Heavy seas and overcast weather beginning February 16th at 14h00.

February 18th
AN11
Arrived on station.

One ore carrier detected, extremely heavy fog. Nearly collided. Ordered emergency back and hard to starboard, fired one fast TI under her stack from 300 metres. Sank for 8500GRT.

February 19th
Concluded patrol of AN11. Heading towards Hebrides.

February 20th
Received contact report at 02h14, enemy slow convoy heading west between Scottish north coast and Scapa Flow. Aborted course and proceeded to intercept.

Heavy fog, heavy precipitation, and heavy seas. Arrived ahead of projected convoy path and proceeded at 2/3 head-on towards it, performing frequent hydrophone checks.

20h15
Raising periscope at 13m depth, was shocked to see keel of approaching ship, despite darkness. Ship passed within 3 metres of conning tower without detecting U-53. This ship was a Flower class frigate. Lost visual contact with same less than a minute later, and surfaced.

On surfacing, U-53 found herself in between two columns. Torpedoed one tramp steamer and one passenger cargo. Combed with searchlights. Seven starshells up within seconds, and 4km distant, muzzle flashes. Ordered crash dive and spent two hours evading. No damage. Tramp steamer sank at 22h13 and passenger cargo sank at 22h40.

Surfaced and ran flank to overhaul convoy once more. Slipped in past a destroyer and made for a large cargo. Hit her with one torpedo to bow and another under her stack. She sank for 9,000+ GRT. Four starshells up, shellfire coming from distant destroyers. Crash dive. Evaded for two hours again. Four ships depth charging, sounded like two corvettes and two destroyers.

Surfaced at 5h00 and overhauled again. Nearly collided with a medium cargo. Hit with two torpedoes and crash dove.

Escorts must have been getting sick of U-53 at this point, as the depth charging was nearly constant. U-53 successfully evaded for one hour, after which point medium cargo succumbed to damage and sank for 5200+ GRT.

In the two months I'd been playing, I'd never been HIT with depth charges in this game – they've bounced me around a bit, but never come close enough to do damage. That changed at 06h45, when, through carelessness, U-53 was caught in one of the non-stop patterns from the four angry escorts. I can attest to it being genuinely nerve-wracking and much more involving than any "horror" game I've played. Deck gun was destroyed, conning tower beaten up, and front end of boat flooding fast. Secured from silent running and went to flank speed while the damage control team worked their magic. Miraculously, we controlled the flooding, and were able to evade successfully for another four hours before surfacing. Few torpedoes left, so we made way for Wilhelmshaven. On the way, we nearly collided with another medium cargo. Sank it with remaining three torpedoes and headed for home.

Docked in Wilhelmshaven with ca. 35,000GRT sunk, February 28th, 1940.
Awarded Knight's Cross.

[Falkirion]

Fun isn't it Bill? Never had my heart pounding so much when I had my damage control team working to save my boat from damage suffered from my stupidity (BB Rodney vs U 47 surface battle in GWX3.0. I nearly sank)

Never been hit by DC's though, always dove below 200m if I need to. 200m is about the reach of Allied sonar early in the war.

Update to my patrol log. Made contact with a convoy in the BE's earlier. Scored a hit on a modern tanker, dove and reloaded my rear tubes due to my fronts being exhausted and my rear shot missed its victim (Although I'm pretty sure I shot too close. Arming distance for TI's is 400m isn't it?) No contact with 2 J&K class escorts. Tracked now damaged modern tanker for just over an hour (Convoy was less than 1/2 an hour away. Maneuvered to engage with deck gun. Put 20 rounds into his hull. 1 modern tanker down for one eel fired at it and a couple rounds of DG ammo. I high tailed it out of the area as my watch crew spotted a J&K class DD on its way back. Dove to 120m to avoid and vacated the area, now trying to overhaul the convoy due to some juicy meat in the convoy.

[Jimbuna]

Arming distances are usually 300 apart from the Falke which is 400. http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

[BillCar]

Fun isn't it Bill? Never had my heart pounding so much when I had my damage control team working to save my boat from damage suffered from my stupidity (BB Rodney vs U 47 surface battle in GWX3.0. I nearly sank)

Never been hit by DC's though, always dove below 200m if I need to. 200m is about the reach of Allied sonar early in the war.


Yeah, I usually sink like a rock to about 210 if I'm reasonably sure I'm going to be evading for a long time. The waters I was in were only 75m deep, though, which is what made it possible for them to keep pinging me. I just got a little careless because I'd never been hit before, so I let my guard down. Big mistake!

PS:

Patrol 6 – Left Wilhelmshaven for AN34, April 18th, 1940. No contacts. Sailed north and around the coast of Norway. No contacts. Sailed towards Scapa Flow. Encountered one ASW Trawler, ordered WO to engage with deck gun. Our newly-trained gunnery PO did a wonderful job, scoring three hits from close range (we had approached under cover of darkness to about 1000m off her stern). She stopped returning fire and began to nose down, so ordered cease fire.
Off Dundee, encountered one coastal tanker. Sank with deck gun.

Sailed down the eastern coast of England. No contacts for days on end. Encountered one medium cargo off Newcastle-on-Tyne and sank with two torpedoes. A measly 7000+ GRT when counting the other two boats.

In my frustration, I decided to raid Hartlepool. I had done this once before and got away clean. I went in in very poor visibility. As I was punching information into the TDC, the WO screamed that we had been spotted. Those would be his last words, as one seconds later, a shell slammed into the conning tower, killing him outright. He had been awarded the Iron Crosses Second and First Class, as well as the Knight's Cross. I had promoted him to Leutnant z. S two patrols ago, and was getting ready to promote him off to commission his own boat.

It was not to be. We dove to 17m too quickly to recover his body from the tower. We began picking our way out of the harbour with three ASW Trawlers and one destroyer above us. They had a hell of a time depth charging us, as the water was so shallow that they would wind up blowing themselves up. As a result, they weren't able to score any hits for the first three hours. At the top of the fourth, though, they caught us in a pattern – all four dropped depth charges within a few seconds of each other (I watched this underwater through the attack scope).

Port diesel destroyed. Deck gun destroyed. Attack scope destroyed. Observation scope destroyed. Hydrophone damaged. Aft batteries damaged. Fuel tanks damaged. Fore batteries damaged. Heavy flooding.

Went to flank and secured from silent running. Damage control worked their magic, though by the time they had, we were down to 10% of our diesel.

Went to one knot and stayed at that speed for the remainder of evasion. Noticed that they were now only depth charging to our stern, and quite some distance away. Stayed down for another 7 hours before surfacing at night in the midst of a storm. Limped home with one engine. Docked at Wilhelmshaven with 7683 GRT sunk, 12 torpedoes left, hull integrity at 4.82%, and personal effects for Leutnant z. S. Heinz Giebler's wife and children. We'll be in port until August.

Guess I'd better not let my frustration get the better of me. It was too reckless and irresponsible. I'm lucky only the one crewmember died.

[Falkirion]

Okay just wrapped up patrol 9. Due to foolishly deleting a save after my last post I have to change my patrol log.

Nailed an empire type freighter in the BE's with a single torp. Split him. Then proceeded to waste 2 torps on a Tramp steamer which was bow heavy. One from 90 shot and one from a 0 shot. I pulled the plug after that, headed back to St Naz with 9 ships down. No lost hull integrity despite enduring a few DC patterns. So far U-207 has had a great start to its career under my command.

Now to switch out my officers and get some new blood into the crew before I start Patrol 10

Ouch Bill. Looks like you had a heck of a time on that patrol. Shame you lost the crew member too. 9 patrols and no lost crew for me. That's going to change soon I think, Allied ASW is picking up. Heading into 41 in a patrol or two's time. After that I'm in for a ride if my boat survives that long.

[Dissaray]

The WAW campain is into September of '43 and things are geting intresting. I was sent out to patrol just south of Ireland. After all preperations were made I cast off the lines and made for open water. All the suden I recived multipul radar warning signals over France coming out of the north. I moved to the watch deck and spun around to see what this was all about and saw a flight of bombers coming right to port.

Not about to let this stand I set my crew to the guns and added mine to the choris of flack and shells already rising from other ships. All in all we did fairly well, we hit two of the six bombers that came to play with us. Didn't get credit for any of the kills though we did cause signifigant damage.

With the base safe we moved on. On our way up the French coast we saw a few more bombers but they never saw us. That is untill night fell. Out to the west I saw two AA guns puting ammo on target and was reciveing a radar warning. Not worried I didn't dive, figuring who ever was out there shooting would kill the bomber; it didn't. Who ever was shooting out there sunk, a nutral wreck apeared on the map and moments later the bomber shows up near me.

I dive to parascope depth to keep safe from them. Moments later I was looking at damage reports and steming flooding. I poped up the Obs scope to check them out and saw that they had this big search light on their plain and some how knew where I was under the water. With no casualteis and nother broken perminantly I decided to press on.

The only contact I have seen was an ore carier flying a British ensign. Two torpidos later it was a sinking ore carier. It was two easy shots but I was rather impressed with them, the ship was trying to evaid me and I still managed to nail him. Unfortunatly both the torpidos hit in about the same place, in the starbord-bow quarter. Don't know how they maid me though, I was a ways off and submerged. I did ping them a few times to get distance, can the merchants sence that? I am under the impresion that only the war ships are equiped with sound equipment. Eather way that is another 8k+ GRT for her Ady and the U-556.

[krashkart]

Cool post, Disarray. I'm looking forward to 1943, if the boat survives that long. Sounds a lot more exciting than early '40. :)

[utops]

Stalking to Ark Royal, but but... i have only one eel...
Where i supose to put her?
Under with magnetic pistol or maybe impact near bow?
1940.12
North of the Scapa Flow,calm sea.

[Dissaray]

If the calm seas persist to the time of attack I would go with magnetic right under the funnles or the same pistol right under her chin. Eather will put them in a world of hurt and may crack the keel and get you a very big kill.


I just had the most exciting attack in my WAW campain. I found a nice little hunter killer taskforce to play with. I scoped it out and found a target I have never killed befor, a cairer; a bouge class to be spacific. It had a light lookng cruser and two bucky class distroyers for freinds. I let them slip right past me and then fired on them. Four eels streeked out twards the target three were set to make a lader search paternin the direction the target was traveling, on a narow patern; the other was a dumb runner. All four missed the target and I almost fell into dispair. Then as I watched my attack screen trying to figure my next move out I saw three of them make a turn, just like I had programed them to but forgot in all the excitment.

The first to strike must have hit amidship as it was right in line with the red hydraphone line and the second struk aft of the first. The third torpido missed the back end of the target but found a new friend in a bucky that was very much suprized. By this time I had evacuated the torpido rooms of all my men, seeing as I was going to catch hell for what I had done it was probly saifer for them in the middle of the boat. I knew that I had one kill beacouse my target sank shortly after I hit them and I was very much pleased with that. As the pissed off American ships started looking for me the other ship I hit very unintentaly sank.

Now I only had to escape two ships, much more preferable to three I say. Unfortunatly I didn't escape unscathed. I lost my 1, 3 and fith torpido tubes, both my parascopes all of my radar and radardetection equipment my flack gun disapeared and my deck gun was damaged beond use. And that was in the space of two depth charge attacks that landed sucsesful blows, out of at least 10 attempts in around 5 game hours. In a third attack that was marjinaly sucsesful they damaged my port propeler but that was fixed. To my suprize I didn't lose a single man. There were several wounded but nothing my medic couldn't handle. I guess that was my lucky break.

Now I just have to find a way to get my battered boat home in one peace.

[Snestorm]

Assigned Patrol Grid DJ13 (Atlantic. WSW of Gibralter. NW of Afrika.)
D. 31.mar.40 til d. 3.jun.40.

D. 31.mar.40
18.34. Underway from Wilhelmshaven.

D. 3.apr.40 (SW of Bergen)
19.24. AN29. Ship Spotted. Periscope Depth. Norsk.

D. 4.apr.40 (NW of Bergen)
18.51. AF87. ALARM! Aircraft.

D. 5.apr.40
10.45. AF79. ALARM! Aircraft. Minor damage to Deck Gun.

D. 9.apr.40 (NW of Shetlands)
15.35. AF77. Sound Contact. Merchant. Closing.

16.25 AF77. Submerged Daylight Attack. Light Fog. Wind 10.
Course 089. Speed 7 Knots. 1 x G7A Torpedo.
C2 Cargo (6.446 GRT) Sunk.

D. 16.apr.40
13.43. AM29. Radio Report. Enemy Convoy. AM51. East. 7 Knots.
Full Ahead for AM52.

21.40. AM52. ALARM! Aircraft. No D.C.s dropped.

22.20. AM52. Surface. Full Ahead.

D. 17.apr.40
00.21. AM52. Dive for sound check.
Convoy Detected. Already East of us.
Surface. Full Ahead. Course 111 T.

00.55. AM52. Ship Sighted. Tanker. 4.300 Meters.

00.58. AM52. Ship Sighted. Meduim Range.
Corvette coming at us. Dive! 102 Meters.
V.C.S. through D.C. attack.

01.23. AM52. Corvette returning to Convoy.

01.52. AM52. Convoy heading into the shallows of NW AM53. Aprox Course 082.

03.20. AM52. Surface. Full Ahead.

05.29. AM52/AM53. ALARM! Aircraft.

05.49. AM52/AM53. Sound Contact. Warship. Closing. Abandon Convoy Persuit.

D.18.apr.40
09.32. AM54. ALARM! Aircraft.

D. 30.apr.40
23.10. DJ13. Arrive at Patrol Grid.

D. 1.maj.40
22.04. DJ13. No ships sighted since d. 17.apr.40. Heading towards Gibralter.

D. 3.maj.40 (200 Miles WSW of Gibralter).
10.15. CG89. Sound Contact. Merchant. V.C.S. (Variouse Courses and Speeds).

11.38. CG89. Little Merchant. Course 116. Speed 7. Greek/Greak(EN. SP?). Græsk!

D. 6.maj.40 (60 Miles W of Gibralter).
03.44. CG95. Heavy Fog. Patrol Report Sent (1 Cargo - 6.446 GRT).
Beginning Return Trip.

04.01. CG95. Radio Message Recieved. Keep up the good work.

04.54. CG95. Sound Contact. Merchant. Unattackable due to Heavy Fog.

D. 18.maj.40
17.12. AM19. Radio Report. Convoy. AM17. East. 7 Knots. - Full Ahead!

20.44. AM17. Radio Report. Convoy. AM17. East. 7 Knots.

22.05. AM17. Sound Check. Convoy Detected WSW of us. - Surface. V.C.S.

22.20. AM17. Visual Contact with V Class DD & Convoy. - Periscope Depth.
Moonlit Night. Clear. Wind Speed 0.

22.54. AM17. Convoy Course 084 (per me). Speed 7 Knots (per Radio Report).
T2 Tanker - Tubes 1, 2, 4 (G7E) - Fire. C2 Cargo - Tube 3 (G7A) - Fire.
All Torpedoes on U37 are set to 3 Meters. Impact Pistol.
(No changing the pistol of a loaded torpedo. Can't be done while loaded.)
New Depth - 103 Meters. New Course - 309.

22.56. AM17. Impact! (Seconds pass). Impact! Impact!
T2 Tanker (10.872 GRT) Sunk.
No information available on the separate impact.

23.16. AM17. DD returning to Convoy. No other Warships heard.

23.48. AM17. Begin Torpedo Reload.

D. 19.maj.40
01.00. AM17. Surface. Full Ahead.

02.30. AM17. Convoy Sighted. V.C.S.

03.37. AM17. Convoy still on Course 084. Speed 7 Knots.
Submerged Attack. Dawn's Light. Fog Light. Wind 7.
T3 Tanker - Tubes 1,2, 4 (G7E9) - Fire. C2 Cargo - Tube 3 (G7A) - Fire.

03.39. AM17. New Depth 102 Meters. New Course 309.
Impact! (Again, the seconds pass). Impact! Impact! Impact!
T3 Tanker (11.673 GRT) Sunk. Again, the separate hit was inaffective.

06.01. AM17. Surface. Full Ahead.

07.36. AM18. Convoy Sighted.

08.09. AM18. Long Range Daylight Surface Attack (4.200 Meters).
Convoy still on Course 084. 7 Knots. Light Fog. Wind 7. Own Speed 2 Knots.
Coastal Merchant - Tube 5 (G7A) - Fire.
Coastal Merchant (2.042 GRT) Sunk.
Evade on surface. Undetected. No Warships spotted.

10.45. AM18. Submerged Attack.
C2 Cargo - Tube 2 (G7E) - Fire.
Impact. No Effect.
V.C.S. Evading the DD.

13.40. AM18. Surface. Full Ahead.

15.42. AM18. Sound Check. Convoy Detected "Moving Away". Surface. Full Ahead.

16.20. AM18. Convoy Sighted.
The Sound Man was mistaken.
Convoy was NOT "Moving Away", but on it's original course. Problem!
Turn and fire a snapshot with Tube 6 (G7A).
Last torpedo. Miss. Run NW! No visual contact with the DD.

29.maj.40 (Near Bergen)
22.40. AF76. Pass Northbound Commerce Raider.

3.jun.40
Fuel Reserves 50%. Hull Integrity 100%. Dock at Wilhelmshaven.

Patrol Results: 4 Ships Sunk - 31.033 GRT

U37's Total Tonnage: 4 Patrols. 17 Ships - 108.774 GRT.
(Highly successful in comparison to my past carreers, so far.
Love my IX(A)!

[BillCar]

U-53, Oblt. z. See Jochen Lübke.
Patrol 7 – July 20, 1940 - August 5, 1940.
Patrol Grid BF15

Sailed through the Channel from Wilhelmshaven without any problems. No contacts until 9 days into the patrol, when encountered two small freighters spaced 12 hours apart in BF13, sinking both.

The following day, sank two coastal freighters seven hours apart in BF16.

Sank a Nipiwan Park-type tanker on July 31st at 16:37 and a Granville-type freighter at 21:07 that same day.

August 1st brought a passenger-cargo sunk... and a radio contact report of an enemy large convoy moving south from AM97.

I picked my spot, cursing the bright sky and flat sea. But, as I overhauled them, I was blessed with fog, rain, and waves. Excellent.

At flank speed, I sidled up on the port side of the convoy, picking out an Empire-class freighter. The escort was off to my port side, about 2 kilometres out, without any idea we were nearby. I was running parallel to the Empire and when I got so that she was at my 110º, I started my turn, with the tube already open and the speed (8knots) dialed in. Two torpedoes from 800 metres, and she sank like a stone. I was already at 35 metres into my crash dive, and by the time I hit 70 and went quiet, I could tell that the escorts were heading to the wrong area. They dropped four depth charges in total – no more... and I surfaced after half an hour to overhaul again.

This time, I picked out an ore carrier. Because of dud torpedoes when trying to take out the Nipiwan Park tanker, I was down to just stern tubes. I overhauled the convoy and then cut across its front at flank, angling in to reach the ore carrier in the middle. One torpedo just ahead of midships, and down she went. After that, I was out, unless I wanted to load my external stern torpedo – impossible in rough seas.

Started a course for home. On the way, we got into a gun duel (and rammed) at motor torpedo boat, sinking it. Later that same day, we sank a medium cargo with the deck gun. The two attacks on the convoy, the motor torpedo boat sinking, and the medium cargo sinking all took place on August 2nd.

Headed back through the channel at standard and docked at Wilhelmshaven with 34600GRT sunk.

My crew was awarded promotions and medals, and I now have a Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.

Total sunk after seven patrols: 222,202GRT. Too bad that Patrol 6 was such a horrible wash, with only a bit over 7000GRT sunk and one dead 1WO.

[Jimbuna]

U-99

Still picking them of as they come and go to and from the Med 200km west of Gib.

[KL-alfman]

U-99

Still picking them of as they come and go to and from the Med 200km west of Gib.


what date and which u-boat do you play?

with my current type IXB I avoid that area at all due to the massive air-cover ......

[BillCar]

what date and which u-boat do you play?

with my current type IXB I avoid that area at all due to the massive air-cover ......

I'm floating around down in DH and CG right now on my 8th patrol in a Type VIIB – but it's still only September of 1940, so there's not a real air cover concern yet. :)

Pretty sure jimbuna is a IXB commander.

[Jimbuna]

what date and which u-boat do you play?

with my current type IXB I avoid that area at all due to the massive air-cover ......

Nov 40 (originally VIIB) in a IXB

I'm floating around down in DH and CG right now on my 8th patrol in a Type VIIB – but it's still only September of 1940, so there's not a real air cover concern yet. :)

Pretty sure jimbuna is a IXB commander.

You are correct....simply love the IX's :DL

[KL-alfman]

You are correct....simply love the IX's :DL


me too.
but I see them as a different weapon (from beginning of 1942):
hunting lone merchants far from the convoy-routes
hunting far away from home-ports
hunting where no well-trained ASW are

the type VII is IMO the boat for fighting the convoys as they approach Britain. they are even capable to evade DDs in shallow waters.

both of them have their advantages.

[krashkart]

On Patrol 7, early 1940.

Our first contacts of the day: two Fiji Light Cruisers steaming fast toward England.

Submerged after my comfort level on the surface reached critical, launched a full spread of four TII so as not to spook my quarry. Narrowly missed the lead ship, hit the trailing cruiser near amidships. My first cruiser encounter and kill! :yeah:

The lead ship is quickly weaving away from us, and I've already expended into our reserves trying for that luck shot. We need a torpedo that would somehow follow him. Doubt we will be able to sink this one, but we did at least nail that other one. :DL

[BillCar]

U-53, Type VIIB, Oblt. z. See Jochen Lübke.

Patrol 8:

Departed Lorient on September 20th, 1940. Assigned DH32. Sank one Granville freighter on the way (off the west coast of Spain), but encountered no contacts while patrolling DH32. Headed east, towards Gibraltar.

What a goldmine. Everyone travels in pairs, which just means that I get a two-for-the-price-of-one deal. Sank a pair of coastal freighters on September 29th in CG78, one torpedo each. They were timed so that the impacts were practically simultaneous.

October 3rd was a busy day. In CG95, I sank one large merchant, two coastal freighters, and two Granville freighters. By this time, I was operating exclusively within the strait of Gibraltar itself. On October 4th, I sank two coastal freighters, one small freighter and, best of all, two large merchants within minutes of each other. Nailed one last merchant on the way back.

Docked at Wilhelmshaven with 60,946GRT sunk.

[Falkirion]

U-207. 2nd war patrol, 10th overall for captain and crew.

Departed St Naz with escort late November after refitting with new hydrophones and batteries. Some crew swapped out for newbies. Currently steaming around the BE's after having made our patrol area in BE15 for 24 hours. No contacts yet but hopefully a convoy comes our way. I've got 14 eels and lots of patience.

[Snestorm]

Nov 40 (originally VIIB) in a IXB



You are correct....simply love the IX's :DL

Time to change the boat number, ain't it, my fellow IXaholic friend?

[Snestorm]

Underway d. 1.jul.40 from Wilhelmhaven.
Bound for AM47.

D. 16.jul.40.
AM01
10.54. Radio. Convoy. AM18. East. 7 Knots.

AM18
16.02. Managed to find Convoy, and gain a forward position.
Problem 1: U37 is right in the Convoys path. (I prefer working from outside).
Problem 2: Heavy Fog set in.
Tryed to go deep and avoid, but my positions was (unintentionaly) perfect.
Made a U-turn to match the Convoy's Course, and started up from 90 Meters, at 2 Knots.
Preset the UZO to my 270, and Targets 090. 7 Knots (from Radio Report).
Range 300 (limit of visibility). (Torpedoes turn offsets the minimum range).
If anything happened into my preset Perescope it would get 3 x G7Es. Course 105.
Came up JUST outside the Convoy's Starboard Side.

17.23. Open Tubes 1, 2, 4. Periscope Depth (From 20 Meters).
17.26. Merchant. 7 Degrees past perfect. Fire! New Depth 101 Meters
17.27. Impact! Destroyed! Impact! Impact! Full Ahead.
17.28. "We have been detected". New Course 059.
17.42. Last D.C. heard.
17.59. "Warship moving away. Medium Range.

Result: Little Merchant (2.335 GRT).
Followed via Hydrophone and short surface runs until the situation was futile.
Fog wouldn't lift. Shallows and Aircraft Operating Range were closing in fast.

D. 19.jul.40. AM47
06.00. Arrived On Station. Heavy Fog!
Remain On Station until d. 25.jul.40.
Send Status Report and head North.

D. 27.jul.40. AM19.
12.19. Radio Report. Convoy. AM17. East. 7 Knots.
Full Ahead for AM18.

16.22. Radio Report. Convoy. AM18. East. 7 Knots.

AM18

18.52. Dive for Sound Check. "No Sound Contacts". (I don't man the hydrophones).

19.05. "Sound Contact. Merchant. 003. Moving Slow. Closing. Long Range."

20.27. Firing Tubes 5, 6. (G7A x 2). Target is T2 Tanker. Course 088. 7 Knots.

20.28. Torpedo Impact! (The other missed). No sinkings. (Daylight Submerged)

D. 28.jul.40.
02.01. Damaged Tanker Spotted. Lots of smoke. Hi Convoy!

02.51. Fire Tubes 1, 2, 4, on T3 Tanker. Course 086. 7 Knots. Dive! (Surface Attack).

02.53. 2 Impacts. T3 Tanker (11.673 GRT) Sunk. (G7E x 3)

04.38. Surface & Persuit.

AM27

05.58. Flower Class Corvette sighted. (Rear Escort)

06.55. V & W Class Destroyer sighted by me. Periscope Depth.

07.25. Fire Tubes 1, 3, 4. (G7A x 3) at T2 Tanker. Fire Tube 2 (G7E) at C3 Cargo.
T2 Tanker (10.817 GRT) Sunk. Course 086. 7 Knots.

07.53. Pass directly under Warship (nose to nose) undetedted. (102 to 113 Meters).

10.15. Surface & Send Patrol Report. All 12 Torpedoes Expended.
(Type IX(A) External Stern Tubes not reloadable
No external reloads carried. Ever!)

D. 12.aug.40.
20.00. Docked at Wilhelmshaven.

Patrol Results: 3 Ships Sunk. 24.879 GRT. 100% Hull Integrity.
U37 to date: 5 Patrols. 132.653 GRT.

For me, this boat is doing great. Ekstra happy with boat & crew.

[Jimbuna]

Time to change the boat number, ain't it, my fellow IXaholic friend?

My current favourite is U-124 http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[Snestorm]

My current favourite is U-124 http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

Good choice.
"Patrols_0" U-124, no?

[ReFaN]

attacking convoys near my favorite spot of Rockall.

1 torpedo, one ship. Been playing with manual targeting and magnetic torps a bit and i love it!

100 thousand tonnes from one patrol :)

Kptlt-Werner Clausen U-479 Out!

i reserve myself from impending messages that tells me of being more aggresive, doing so will result in a fine of 5000 Marks.

[Jimbuna]

Good choice.
"Patrols_0" U-124, no?

Yes :yep:

[KL-alfman]

U-110 (IXB)
Kaleu Artur Stein
01.06.1942

left Lorient on April 25th to assigned grid CA76.
long and uneventful patrol across the atlantic. wheather was bad at the U.S. east-coast, didn't expect that. a lot of small tankers and coastal freighters sighted, only few ASW and even fewer aircraft. sank in 10days 3large freighters and an ore-carrier. tried one-shot kills but had to finish two of them with a second eel (so 16eels left). headed then up the coast to the south-east of Nova Scotia, tried to search for convoys which usually gather there for their voyage to England.
and finally in BB8896 on the first of June I spot:
23 merchs (mostly large ones)
2 DDs (one Swan, one V&W) - no side-escorts!!! :D
and right in the middle for the first time in-game: a U.S. Brooklyn-class.
they are heading east and already got attacked by an AI-boat, because 2or3merchs already burn ....
it's 10:00a.m., I will shade the convoy till evening and then conduct attacks from AOB90 until I run out of torps.

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/972/brooklyns.jpg (http://img31.imageshack.us/i/brooklyns.jpg/)

[ryanglavin]

Yes :yep:

My personal favorite is my Pregnant sea cow, I love not being on dry land for 250 game days in a row :).

(I combine 2 patrols when I resupply at the Brake, just seems more realistic. What now Kentrat!?!)

[ReFaN]

U-479 Positioni Grid AL27

Large convoy, Shadowing until nightfall


:woot:

[Coyote88]

So I'm toiling off the coast of Scotland in game, while watching Olympics curling on tv in real life, and we get a contact that proves to be a J-class destroyer approaching us at a pretty good clip. We wheel about and I get only a few moments to judge the target speed - about 16-17 knots, I think - and I'll have to take the shot from about 2500 m. "Los!" and the eel is away, while I watch on the F6 screen. My torpedo seems to be running too slow to intercept the destroyer, while on the screen the skip has put too little weight into his stone and is screaming "Hard! Hard!" to his sweepers, and I'm screaming "Hard! Hard!" at the torpedo, which still runs too slow and we both miss our shots.

[WolfyBrandon]

U-759, currently in port at Brest for re-supply after 12th patrol.

Last patrol was long and tiresome but not unsuccessful. Orders were to patrol grid BE99 then head to the northern shipping lanes to look for allied targets. After finishing our patrol grid and moving north we commenced a decks awash surface attack against a reported convoy from BDU at night. Tube one hit the forward section of a C2 Cargo on the left outside lane of the convoy and shortly after, tube two hit the rear section of the same C2 Cargo, but target refused to sink. Tube three and four slipped past the first lane of ships and headed into the convoy. Tube four detonated in the center of the convoy against a C3 Tanker resulting in a critical hit making it explode into a giant fireball which was seen from our bridge. C3 Tanker documented as the first ship sunk that patrol. Tube three ran a bit longer and impacted a small merchant making it sink shortly after. We could see the lead destroyer turn in our direction with search lights scanning the surface so we dived before being spotted. After three DC runs that never came close, the warship broke off and returned to the convoy. The next morning we surfaced and headed north and days later we spent the 1st of the year (1942) in grid AK98 after seeing no other targets. Later we moved to get in position of another convoy in some rough water, but the convoy zigged and we were spotted by one of the outside frigates. After coming under attack we crash dived to evade DC’s. None came close even with the frigate trying to ping us since we managed to get far away from the last known position. The rest of the patrol was a lot of sailing and a lot of rough weather so we finally headed back to port for re-supply.

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1538/page111lk.jpghttp://img521.imageshack.us/img521/951/page222u.jpg

[ryanglavin]

U-759, currently in port at Brest for re-supply after 12th patrol.

Last patrol was long and tiresome but not unsuccessful. Orders were to patrol grid BE99 then head to the northern shipping lanes to look for allied targets. After finishing our patrol grid and moving north we commenced a decks awash surface attack against a reported convoy from BDU at night. Tube one hit the forward section of a C2 Cargo on the left outside lane of the convoy and shortly after, tube two hit the rear section of the same C2 Cargo, but target refused to sink. Tube three and four slipped past the first lane of ships and headed into the convoy. Tube four detonated in the center of the convoy against a C3 Tanker resulting in a critical hit making it explode into a giant fireball which was seen from our bridge. C3 Tanker documented as the first ship sunk that patrol. Tube three ran a bit longer and impacted a small merchant making it sink shortly after. We could see the lead destroyer turn in our direction with search lights scanning the surface so we dived before being spotted. After three DC runs that never came close, the warship broke off and returned to the convoy. The next morning we surfaced and headed north and days later we spent the 1st of the year (1942) in grid AK98 after seeing no other targets. Later we moved to get in position of another convoy in some rough water, but the convoy zigged and we were spotted by one of the outside frigates. After coming under attack we crash dived to evade DC’s. None came close even with the frigate trying to ping us since we managed to get far away from the last known position. The rest of the patrol was a lot of sailing and a lot of rough weather so we finally headed back to port for re-supply.

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/1538/page111lk.jpghttp://img521.imageshack.us/img521/951/page222u.jpg

How did you get the German flag on the rear of your tower? As in which mod? Cause thats pretty cool.

[WolfyBrandon]

How did you get the German flag on the rear of your tower? As in which mod? Cause thats pretty cool.

The wonderful ( DFa UpDnRot Flags [Final2] by Anvart )

;)
WolfyBrandon

[BillCar]

I am happy to say that my save game files easily made the migration to my brand-new Macbook Pro with Windows 7 Professional on it. So I am still in the middle of patrol 9, still in BF13, and just sank a coastal freighter. The weather has been absolutely miserable (non-stop rain, wind, fog, 15 metre waves) for about two weeks now. Doesn't stop me from sinking ships – in fact, it makes my job easier, since I can sidle right up to them in the dark and horrible visibility and pop them with a fast TI from 400m.

Already sank 20,000k +.

Also, the game looks a lot better now that I can install fancy mods that up the graphics!

[Blackhawk1006]

April 13th 1940 - About 56km from Narvik, HMS Warspite along with 6-8 Destroyer Escorts are about to pass through the Fjord I'm in. I've chosen a good ambush position and have 3 fish left.

So far destroyed 3 Merchants, and 1 C&D Class Destroyer.

[ReFaN]

U-479.

Special orders from BdU.

Break trough Gibraltar, new base is La spezia!

uh oh

[frau kaleun]

U-35 U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Oblt Peter Schmidt, Kommandant

Left Wilhelmshaven on 2nd patrol, Aug 24 1939 with orders to proceed to patrol grid BF19

Completed 24 hr patrol of assigned grid just prior to receiving word of outbreak of hostilities

Have been patrolling sector BF at my discretion since 3 Sep with total of 4 ships sighted

7 Sep, 02:18
Grid BF24, ship sunk: English coastal freighter, 1870 tons.

8 Sep, 07:13
Grid BF24, ship sunk: English deep sea trawler, 547 tons.

8 Sep, 09:21
Grid BF24, ship sunk: English motor vessel, 112 tons.

8 Sep, 03:32
Grid BF24, ship sighted, English torpedo boat patrolling area of our recent attacks. Ship spotted our periscope and briefly gave chase; attempted stern shot before diving with no success.

8 Sep, 07:21
Proceeding NNW through grid BF24 toward St George's Channel

-----------------

So, how inadvisable is it to continue north through the channel between Ireland and England in Sep 1939, rather than going west around Ireland on the return trip to Wilhelmshaven? I've seen precious little in the way of traffic, and fuel could be an issue if I take the longer route (altho I know I could just teleport home, but I don't wanna if I don't have to). And I'd like the opportunity to take on some decent targets, OTOH I'd like to finish a 2nd patrol in base and alive if at all possible. :D

[KL-alfman]

So, how inadvisable is it to continue north through the channel between Ireland and England in Sep 1939, rather than going west around Ireland on the return trip to Wilhelmshaven?


I guess the smaller type II has good chances to go unnoticed even in shallow waters. but I'm not so experienced with that kind of boat (loved my VIIB and am now riding a pregnant sea-cow).
ASW isn't that sophisticated in your time of war, so you shall survive. :up:

[frau kaleun]

I'm in a VIIB, but one reason I'm considering the route now is that it seems unlikely I'll ever choose go that way again, lol.

[ryanglavin]

I guess the smaller type II has good chances to go unnoticed even in shallow waters. but I'm not so experienced with that kind of boat (loved my VIIB and am now riding a pregnant sea-cow).
ASW isn't that sophisticated in your time of war, so you shall survive. :up:

Alfman don't steal my pregnant sea cow! I've sailed with her through all the seven seas! Sad thing is, I've done that too.
Before I got my new operating system a month, I Went from Bordeax to the Meditteranean, then back out and wen north to the artic, then south down to the pacific, traveled east to my new base in Penang. Sunk 50K tons on a 356 day patrol; I beat kentrat, but Donitz thought it was a waste of fuel.

[Snestorm]

I'm in a VIIB, but one reason I'm considering the route now is that it seems unlikely I'll ever choose go that way again, lol.

The Elcos can be a pain in the tail.
They always seem to know when oxigen is becoming a problem, and won't go away.
In the North Channel it's just ASW Trawlers, which aren't quite so bothersome.

[Snestorm]

Had to do it. Tonnage was getting too predictable, easy, and unhistoricaly high.
So I toughened up SH3, and restarted U37's carreer under much harder conditions.

Patrol 1. U37 IX(A). 2. Flotilla. Patrol Grid AM32.

Underway d. 1.sep.39. 00.52.

D. 9.sep.39. 17.54. AF78. 23 Miles North of The Shetlands.
Coastal Merchant (2.042 GRT) Sunk.
Daylight Surface Attack in Medium Fog.
Course 090. 6 Knots. 3 x T1 Torpedoes.

D.10.sep.39. 02.13. AF78. 30 Miles North of The Shetlands.
C2 Cargo (6.447 GRT) Sunk.
Night Surface Attack in Medium Fog.
90 Degree shot. 2 Stern Tubes. Passing Port to Port.
Course 093. 7 Knots. 2 x T1 Torpedoes. Both Hits.
It took 5 more torpedo hits to finaly sink him! Cargo of wood?

D. 13.sep.39. 23.40. AM32. Arrive On Station.

D. 15.sep.39. 11.26. AM32.
C2 Cargo. Missed with last 2 torpedoes.
Daylight Submerged Attack. 2 x T1 Torpedoes.
"Course 341. 9 Knots"

D. 25.sep.39. Dock at Wilhelmshaven.

Patrol Result: 2 Ships Sunk. 8.489 GRT.

[BillCar]

@ Frau Kaleun: you'll be fine in early 1939. I have had success going through into 1941, but you have to pick your moment (same with the English Channel later in the war).

You'll want to run surfaced as much as possible, and dive to 20 and run silent as soon as anything is spotted. Run silent even if it's an Elco, as they might radio something with hydrophones (you'll start seeing destroyers at the north end of the Irish Sea by October or November 1939, playing with GWX).

I pass through the English Channel by running surfaced at standard or full. If I see *anything*, I go to 20m and run silent at 1 knot until the SO tells me they're moving away at long range. Then I'm back on the surface and running at 1/3, decks awash until I can't see them, and then fully surfaced running at standard after that.

I've done this well into 1941 without any problems. Planes are the biggest fear. Don't go too high on TC (with the caveat, of course, that if you go high enough you can cheat and avoid planes all together, but where's the fun in that?).

[frau kaleun]

Thanks for the tips. But what are my chances of finding/sinking any targets while passing through? Am I just going to be in "avoidance" mode all the way? If so I might resign myself to teleporting back to base if fuel runs low and take the long way 'round.

[krashkart]

Frau:

I'm playing stock SH3, unsure if this matches your setup. Irish Sea does yield some merchant shipping here and there. Farther north you might encounter some heavies like C2, close to and out in the open waters. Also north over Scapa Flow. Hope that helps.

[BillCar]

Thanks for the tips. But what are my chances of finding/sinking any targets while passing through? Am I just going to be in "avoidance" mode all the way? If so I might resign myself to teleporting back to base if fuel runs low and take the long way 'round.

You'll find things to sink, for sure, and you don't have to be in avoidance mode all the time the water is still reasonably deep (deeper than the English Channel). I do sink ships in the Irish Sea and English Channel, you just have to pick your battles. When convoys start running, you can pick a lot of them off when they come down through the north end of the Irish Sea. It's great for that, because they have to come through that bottleneck on the way to Liverpool.

[KL-alfman]

Alfman don't steal my pregnant sea cow! I've sailed with her through all the seven seas!


I beg your pardon!

(isn't it common phrase yet?
to prevent further copy-right violation I suggest you to install strict means of DRM!) http://www.my-smileys.de/smileys3/emotlol.gif

[ryanglavin]

I beg your pardon!

(isn't it common phrase yet?
to prevent further copy-right violation I suggest you to install strict means of DRM!) http://www.my-smileys.de/smileys3/emotlol.gif

:har::haha: But shes mine! I sunk the U.S.S. West Point in the Indian Ocean of all places...

[frau kaleun]

Irish Sea does yield some merchant shipping here and there. Farther north you might encounter some heavies like C2, close to and out in the open waters. Also north over Scapa Flow. Hope that helps.

I do sink ships in the Irish Sea and English Channel, you just have to pick your battles. When convoys start running, you can pick a lot of them off when they come down through the north end of the Irish Sea. It's great for that, because they have to come through that bottleneck on the way to Liverpool.

Well, I think I'll give it a try, maybe hang out for a bit just outside the Bristol Channel and then scoot north past Ireland. Definitely going north around Scapa to see what turns up there provided I have any torps left... ATM it looks like I'll run out of fuel before I run out of eels, which would be a shame.

I also wondered about messing about in "Irish waters" given that she's neutral... altho I doubt the game takes that into consideration, I didn't know if keeping closer to the Irish coast would be a benefit. I was kinda surprised on the second patrol of my last career when I got new orders mid-patrol to spend 24 hours in a grid that put me very close to Londonderry and the northern Irish coast.

[Dissaray]

Ireland is neutral but as you may recall North Ireland sovrin British teritory, contested by the Irish though it may be, and they are most dicidedly not neutral. I have found the Northern aproaches to the Irish sea to be rich in costal shiping and I think that there is always a convoy rout runing just off the north coast there.

[frau kaleun]

Ireland is neutral but as you may recall North Ireland sovrin British teritory, contested by the Irish though it may be, and they are most dicidedly not neutral. I have found the Northern aproaches to the Irish sea to be rich in costal shiping and I think that there is always a convoy rout runing just off the north coast there.

:doh:

Of course you're right and I should've realized that when I was typing out "northern Irish coast" - DUH.

Blame it on the diesel fumes.

[arkham1010]

me? I'm having to either restart in 1939, or start up in 1940 due to their stupid save game management system. *grr*

[KL-alfman]

me? I'm having to either restart in 1939, or start up in 1940 due to their stupid save game management system. *grr*


why not use SH3Commander?

[arkham1010]

why not use SH3Commander?

Will that allow me to restore my lost games?

[KL-alfman]

Will that allow me to restore my lost games?

no, sorry about that.
but you can start your career at any time in any boat you like.

[arkham1010]

Oh sweet, so i can effectively start on April 3rd or whatever date it was in flotilla 2 and pick up as if i never lost my save games? I can cope with that :)

Tho i will miss some training and medals, but so what, i can cope.

Thanks!

[KL-alfman]

Oh sweet, so i can effectively start on April 3rd or whatever date it was in flotilla 2 and pick up as if i never lost my save games? I can cope with that :)

Tho i will miss some training and medals, but so what, i can cope.

Thanks!


you are welcome!
just remember: it's like starting a new career, so your renown is down at 1,500 .....

[arkham1010]

Eh, Im not too concerned about renown. I used most of mine to get good officers, so i can pretend they were assigned to another boat during refit or something. ;)

[utops]

Sunk by river class in the fog :nope: victim of the radar
It was good career ~250k t from september 1940 to may 1941 100% GWX
I took this like a opportunity to test LSH v5.

[Leandros]

@ Frau Kaleun: you'll be fine in early 1939. I have had success going through into 1941, but you have to pick your moment (same with the English Channel later in the war).
Passing through the English Channel shouldn't be a problem after June '40. After all, millions of tons of German surface ships passed it up till Summer '44. The shipping routes were constantly sweeped for mines and escorted convoys went almost every day.

There were no standing RN patrols on the Continental side and during the day RN were under orders not to venture beyond RAF fighter coverage. As a matter of fact their orders - also for the destroyers - were not to be farther from the UK coast than 25 nautical miles.

With other words, in reality, clinging to the French coast during daytime shouldn't give you any problems. But, that is not how the game plays it....:hmmm:...

[BillCar]

S E C R E T

H.M.S. "HARROWGATE"
6th July, 1944.

Sir: I have the honour to submit the following report of the sinking of a "U" Boat, believed to be "U-53," on 6th December, 1940, in the Irish Sea:

2. On Saturday, 6th December, 1940, H.M.S. "HARROWGATE" (Senior Officer), and H.M.S. "CORWOOD," forming Force 4, were patrolling in support of the 5th Convoy SC, in accordance with the Commander-In-Chief's 6 0848B.

3. On receipt of Escort Group 2's 6 1316B, at about 1345B, it was decided to shift the patrol 30 miles to the south. This was reported in my 6 1347B and the new patrol line was reached at 1508B. Ships were in line abreast, 5 cables apart, patrolling at 25 knots, zig-zagging on a mean course of 090.

4. At 1545 an Elco motor boat was observed 5 miles astern (bearing 250 degrees) engaging a surfaced U-boat. Course was immediately altered towards by Blue pendant and at 1558, on approaching the scene of the attack, which was marked by a smoke float, speed was reduced to 7 knots and an A/S search commenced with "CORWOOD" about 1 mile north of "HARROWGATE."

5. First contact was gained by CORWOOD at 1625 and by HARROWGATE at 1634 and during the next two hours nine deliberate attacks were carried out, seven by CORWOOD.

6. At 1917, nearly an hour after the last pattern had been dropped, HARROWGATE was stopped 850 yards from the target, bows on, watching for movement when the plot reported target moving. CORWOOD had lost contact at about 1900 and was searching at slow speed. It was decided to attack without waiting for CORWOOD to regain contact and pattern "G" had been ordered when at 1921 the submarine surfaced about 800 yards ahead at an inclination of about 100 left. Fire was opened from "B" gun and a hit obtained on the conning tower, with the second salvo. High Explosive was used and penetrated the conning tower, starting a fire, the flames being clearly visible through the hole made. No further hits were obtained with main armament and fire was checked as soon as it was apparent that the enemy did not intend to fight. Close range weapons were used during the same period.

7. The crew commenced abandoning ship almost immediately, the submarine surfaced and HARROWGATE and CORWOOD both closed with ideas of boarding. HARROWGATE lowered a whaler and motor boat and CORWOOD a whaler, but the U boat went down before either could reach her. All boats then proceeded to recover prisoners, disembarking them in CORWOOD, while HARROWGATE circled the area. The last six recovered by HARROWGATE's motor boat were embarked in HARROWGATE to save time. A total of 52 prisoners were recovered, including the Captain (Jochen Luebke) and five other officers. Six were injured, three seriously. They were landed at Plymouth, at 0300 on 7th December, 1940, in accordance with the Commander-in Chief's 6 2330B.

8. A/S conditions were generally good. In the initial stages HARROWGATE experienced doubtful and non-sub echoes but later the target was classified "Submarine" and held consistently. Blowing of tanks was heard after the second attack and it is considered that the submarine went to the bottom at that time and remained stopped.

9. Team work on the whole was excellent. Signals were made both by V/S and VHFR/T and the firing ship, which was generally CORWOOD, almost invariably fired when on by bearing from the directing ship. At 1655 both ships commenced an attack simultaneously and CORWOOD was told to go ahead. At 1806 HARROWGATE carried out an attack but was too close to CORWOOD and fire was held.

10. The team work and operating of the A/S crew in HARROWGATE were excellent once contact had been established.

11. The Elco motor boat who carried out the original attack was signaled by light but attempts to exchange information were unsuccessful. He could not be contacted by VHFR/T or on 2410 kc/s.

12. It was anticipated that HARROWGATE and CORWOOD would be relieved by the 4th Escort Group during the hunt. H.M.S. "MOORSON" was sighted and my 6 1742 passed by V/S at 1755 and an other escort vessel was sighted at about 1900 but failed to answer V/S signals made by 20" S.P.

13. The submarine commander, Luebke, informed us that he had sunk in excess of 314,000 tons of shipping, which is an outlandish claim, but would be most impressive if verified.

I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient servant,
[Signature]
John Henry Cole,
Captain, R.N.

Enclosures:-
1. Training of plot.
2. Recorder tracing - original only.
3. Form S1203.
4. Signals.
5. Particulars of prisoners.

Distribution:-
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, PLYMOUTH
(Copies to:-
Captain (D) Plymouth,
Commander (D), 4th Destroyer Flotilla,
The Director of Naval Intelligence,
Director of A/S Warfare)

[KL-alfman]

U-110 (IXB)
Kaleu Artur Stein reports back to base in Lorient
his 8th war-patrol (assigned grid: CA76) appears to be his most successful one.

on the way to the grid two lone merchs could be sunk, after arriving it turned out that there were a lot of smaller ASW-ships and quite many coastal freighters and small tankers. 2bigger freighters were hit in the near of the grid and after staying for a week in this surroundings it was decided to go for convoy-hunt south-east of Halifax.

and indeed a large outbound US-convoy could be spotted. it must have been already under attack by an other boat, because 3smaller ships were already burning lightly. not waiting for the evening U-110 attacked immediately and it proved wrong.
after releasing the first salvo of two (which took out a large freighter) our periscope was sighted and the nearest ship opened machine-gun fire. so we broke our run and decided to go deep.
after one and a half hours we came up and shaded the convoy. the burning ships could be made out from a comfortable distance:

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/1663/shadowj.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/i/shadowj.jpg/)

at night-fall the second run was accomplished. the main target was a Brooklyn-class cruiser right in the middle of the convoy. as there were only 2escorts (Swan and Flower, front and rear) the goal was relatively easy to achieve. the USS Nashville never stood a chance:

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/9146/brooklyny.jpg (http://img691.imageshack.us/i/brooklyny.jpg/)

the wheather grew worse and so we were able to attack at day-time for the third time. as the sea got rougher by the minute, we tried now to fire just one eel per target and go for the bow. it was the right decision!:

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/7482/freighter.jpg (http://img683.imageshack.us/i/freighter.jpg/)

after having released all our fish we went deep and the fast approaching escorts were too late to ping us down, they didn't even release their DCs.
for the next run we had to circle the convoy to get nearer to the bigger vessels. we attacked again in the dark and took out 2 liberty-freighters.

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/4766/libertym.jpg (http://img195.imageshack.us/i/libertym.jpg/)

5 torpedoes still left we went for the final attack. this time we aimed for a C2 and an ore-freighter in the first row. after hitting the C2 (which exploded soon after) suddenly the whole convoy turned crazy! all the ships seemed to have lost their navigation-controls and nearly rammed each other! even the front escort suddenly hurried away at high speed:

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/4791/convoy.jpg (http://img52.imageshack.us/i/convoy.jpg/)

sadly only two aale remained and we guessed we could use them on our trip home what we successfully did.
a lot of medals and promotions rained over our boat after arriving Lorient. Kaleu Stein got the knights cross with all the stuff on it.
now a 30day-holiday awaits! :D

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/6249/log1x.jpg (http://img718.imageshack.us/i/log1x.jpg/)

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/4859/log2f.jpg (http://img229.imageshack.us/i/log2f.jpg/)

[krashkart]

^ Great screens! Wish my computer were up to par for the external views like that.

[KL-alfman]

^ Great screens! Wish my computer were up to par for the external views like that.

hmm, don't know but I thought my system is ancient compared to all of yours (single core athlon 2,6ghz, 2gb ram, 6600gt with 256ram). this was "modern" six or seven years ago .....

btw:
of 24ships of this convoy I could take out 8.
and I came back with all the 110shells of my 10,5deck-gun.

[Snestorm]

D. 23.okt.39.
03.22. Underway from Wilhelmshaven, bound for Patrol Grid AM23.
(Hmmm. Another VII grid for my IX(A). No complaints.)

D. 3.nov.39. AM23.
02.00. Arrive on station. Passage was uneventful.

D. 4.nov.39. AM23.
02.00. Enrout to Rockall.

D. 6.nov.39. AM19.
19.43. Ship Spotted. VCS (Variouse Courses & Speeds).

21.15. Radio Report Recieved. Convoy. AL03. East. 6 Knots.

21.52. Little Merchant (2.389 GRT) Sunk.
Course 084. Speed 7 Knots. Night Surface Attack. T1 Torpedo x 1, and Deck Gun.
(Off to hunt BDU's convoy).

D. 7.nov.39. AM19.
02.18. Radio Report Recieved. Convoy. AM19. East. 6 Knots.

Convoy Attacks. U37 vs The Lone Flower Class Corvette.
Convoy remained on Course 089, at 6 Knots.

03.29. Little Tanker (4.316 GRT) Sunk. Night Surface Attack. Stern Tubes.
06.38. T2 Tanker (10.871 GRT) Sunk. Night Surface Attack.
11.20. Little Merchant (2.335 GRT) Sunk. Daylight Submerged.
11.20. Little Tanker (4.276 GRT) Sunk. Daylight Submerged.
17.00. Last 2 torpedoes. 1 never reached target. 1 hit. No sinkings. Daylight Submerged.
18.00. All torpedoes expended (12). Returning to base.

D. 11.nov.39. AE92.
18.10. ALARM! Aircraft. 40 Miles north of Færøerne.

D. 21.nov.39. Docked at Wilhelmshaven.

Patrol Results: 5 Ships. 24.187 GRT.
U37's History: 2 Patrols. 32.676 GRT.

[krashkart]

hmm, don't know but I thought my system is ancient compared to all of yours (single core athlon 2,6ghz, 2gb ram, 6600gt with 256ram). this was "modern" six or seven years ago .....

btw:
of 24ships of this convoy I could take out 8.
and I came back with all the 110shells of my 10,5deck-gun.


If I still had the functioning desktop unit I'd probably get results similar to your experience. Right now I run SH3 on this little itty-bitty EeePC 1005HA.

~1.6GHz Intel Atom (hyperthreaded)
Mobile Intel 945 Express w/ 256Meg <-- not a gamers video adapter
1GB phys. memory (saving for a 2 gig module)

The sim runs fine, as it should. But this poor little graphics adapter they chose is terribly overworked by some of the external views.


Looks like you ran into a storm there. I always get bummed when there's a nice juicy convoy, and no clear weather to be found. :DL

Cheers

[BillCar]

Looks like you ran into a storm there. I always get bummed when there's a nice juicy convoy, and no clear weather to be found. :DL


I love attacking convoys in rough weather. I can get in among the merchants without being noticed and hit multiple targets at my leisure before diving! Heavy fog, rain, and rough seas are fine by me. I just set my eels to run at 3 or 4 metres depth on impact pistols!

[Dissaray]

Storms always test the ability of the skipper. You get the added advantage of being damn hard to see with all the waves and the rain but you have to take into account the way the waves may expose your boat to breaching when in the troughs. Simultaniously the best time to hunt and has the makings for the hardest hunts you can come acrros.

My best advice for hunting when ruff seas force you below parascope depth to save stealth is to get very familiar with shooting off of hydraphone readings. Nothing is more devious than unleashing hell on the sea while 20m below the surface when you enemy has no idea you are even there I say. Even though they are only computer generated targets I can't help but feel slightly sorry for not giving them a fighting chance. Though those emotions of sorow are quickly over ridien by how awsome I was in that last convoy attack where I out classed the escorts.:O:

[BillCar]

Storms always test the ability of the skipper. You get the added advantage of being damn hard to see with all the waves and the rain but you have to take into account the way the waves may expose your boat to breaching when in the troughs. Simultaniously the best time to hunt and has the makings for the hardest hunts you can come acrros.

My best advice for hunting when ruff seas force you below parascope depth to save stealth is to get very familiar with shooting off of hydraphone readings. Nothing is more devious than unleashing hell on the sea while 20m below the surface when you enemy has no idea you are even there I say. Even though they are only computer generated targets I can't help but feel slightly sorry for not giving them a fighting chance. Though those emotions of sorow are quickly over ridien by how awsome I was in that last convoy attack where I out classed the escorts.:O:

I generally make my attacks surfaced, and use different length shots + different speed torpedoes to make a few shots hit simultaneously. Then I crash dive and run silent.

[frau kaleun]

Patrol 2
U-35, U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Oblt. Peter Schmidt, Commander
August 24, 1939, 03:24
Departed: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid BF19

September 7, 1939, 02:18
Grid BF 24
Ship sunk: SS Winona (Coastal Freighter), 1870 tons
Cargo: Phosphates
Crew: 32
Crew lost: 14

September 8, 1939, 07:13
Grid BF 24
Ship sunk: MV River Tay (Deep Sea Trawler), 547 tons
Crew: 14
Crew lost: 13

September 8, 1939, 09:21
Grid BF 24
Ship sunk: MV Lillian E. Kerr (Motor Vessel), 112 tons
Cargo: General Cargo
Crew: 22
Crew lost: 3

September 9, 1939, 06:22
Grid BF 21
Ship sunk: SS Alwaki (Granville-type Freighter), 4707 tons
Cargo: General Cargo
Crew: 68
Crew lost: 67

September 9, 1939, 23:41
Grid BF 24
Ship sunk: Q Ship USS Atik (Small Freighter), 1593 tons
Crew: 74
Crew lost: 25

September 10, 1939, 04:19
Grid BF 24
Ship sunk: SS Burwah (Passenger/Cargo), 2426 tons
Cargo: Passengers
Crew: 211
Crew lost: 204

September 10, 1939, 14:32
Grid BF 25
Ship sunk: MV Tamesis (Ore Carrier), 6013 tons
Cargo: Sulfur
Crew: 96
Crew lost: 11

September 13, 1939, 18:03
Grid AN 79
Ship sunk: SS Robin Sherwood (Medium Cargo), 5271 tons
Cargo: Timber
Crew: 65
Crew lost: 46

September 15, 1939, 11:47
Returned: Wilhelmshaven
Crew losses: 0
Hull integrity: 85.84
Merchants sunk: 8
Merchant tonnage: 22539
Warships sunk: 0
Warship tonnage: 0 tons
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Patrol tonnage: 22539

****************************

My last eel went into the ore carrier - I'd decided to make the run home through the English Channel, because why not? Was south of Plymouth, about halfway between the English and French coasts, when I spotted her making way through heavy seas. She didn't seem to be getting jostled about too much so I figured I'd take a chance on a magnetic fuse, and whaddya know? But it still took her almost two hours to sink, and given the weather and the armed trawler that came sniffing around after the attack (and with no more torpedoes to play with) there wasn't much I could do but wait it out.

Had some fun making passage through the Channel - got spotted by a Tribal class destroyer while cruising through a sqall just north of the Dover/Calais line which resulted in a couple hours of running silent at 35 m while they circled around dropping depth charges. They got near us only twice and we took no damage to add to what we'd got courtesy of an armed trawler in a much worse storm just a couple of hours after we sank the Winona on Sept. 7; we'd taken some damage to the deck casing before we could dive, but fortunately the gun was not knocked out of action and served us well when we came across the Robin Sherwood on the 13th.

Was a bit surprised, given the nearness of that attack to the English coast, that no one came looking for us afterward; she certainly had plenty of time to radio her location and situation.

All in all, I'm just happy to have made it home safe and sound. :sunny:

[KL-alfman]

All in all, I'm just happy to have made it home safe and sound. :sunny:


and you sank an awful lot of ships, too! :up:

[frau kaleun]

and you sank an awful lot of ships, too! :up:

:D*




*Playing at 18% realism helps.

[KL-alfman]

:D*


*Playing at 18% realism helps.


there isn't much of a difference to my playing at 76% :03:

[frau kaleun]

there isn't much of a difference to my playing at 76% :03:

Right now it's all I can do to remember to check how much fuel I have left and how much farther I can go with it. That and having someone yelling at me that the batteries are down to 25% when we're being depth charged. Oh, and we're gonna run out of oxygen eventually as well. So far we haven't come too close to the edge on any of those, so I guess I'm doing okay.

[Dissaray]

I don't know if it experiance in other games but I found the resource management side of things easy. The hardest things for me to learn were how to pace the attack and how to gather all the requisit data for manual aiming of the torpidos. In the case of the former I was always rushing into things and geting found out and geting frustrated about being found out. The later kind of fed into my first problem as I over used the parascope; I probly still use it too much now but I am geting better at puting it down when not useing it. But being as stubern as I am I wouldn't let the game get one over on me and figured it all out, more or less.

[frau kaleun]

I don't know if it experiance in other games but I found the resource management side of things easy. The hardest things for me to learn were how to pace the attack and how to gather all the requisit data for manual aiming of the torpidos. In the case of the former I was always rushing into things and geting found out and geting frustrated about being found out. The later kind of fed into my first problem as I over used the parascope; I probly still use it too much now but I am geting better at puting it down when not useing it. But being as stubern as I am I wouldn't let the game get one over on me and figured it all out, more or less.

I will not be trying out manual targeting any time soon, lol. But I am learning how to draw marks and lines on the map to set up attack angles, even if I'm mostly eyeballing it when making the necessary course alterations... of course I know I'll have the game's assist in determining when the optimum moment has come to fire, but getting the best approach angle certainly seems to make a difference. And pacing, yeah, learning to take my time to get into the best possible position instead of just charging right in, because if the other ship is only doing half the speed that I can manage, there's no need to rush things.

The thing with resources is that I started out with unlimited fuel, oxygen, compressed air, batteries - so I was free to roam around at whatever speed for however long, whether surfaced or submerged, and never had to worry about any of those things. Now I know I have to be aware of how each is going to figure into whatever I want or need to do, which already involves so much multi-tasking... yeah, just remembering to put the periscope down instead of cruising along with it fully extended when I wasn't sitting there looking out of it... I had to learn that the hard way, lol.

[krashkart]

:D*




*Playing at 18% realism helps.

I'm at 29% and rack up about the same tonnage per patrol. :DL

Right now it's all I can do to remember to check how much fuel I have left and how much farther I can go with it. That and having someone yelling at me that the batteries are down to 25% when we're being depth charged. Oh, and we're gonna run out of oxygen eventually as well. So far we haven't come too close to the edge on any of those, so I guess I'm doing okay.

I somehow don't run into too many situations where I risk being depth-charged. Once I learned that destroyers are only dangerous when they know you're somewhere nearby, I just torpedo the suckers on sight. Should probably add that I haven't made it past 1940 yet, so guess I'll see how long that luck holds out. :)


What I'm up to in my current campaign:
I'm trying the mod that allows XXI in 1939, and I'm really missing having any artillery on the forward casing. Nice to have radar and all, but it's a real hassle to sit there and wait and wait and wait for a big freighter to sink, and finally waste another torpedo just to finish the job. :shifty:

[BillCar]

I figured I would try something new: a career that begins, like that of Kretschmer, in a Type II.

U-8, Type IIA, 1st Flotilla
Leutnant zur See Hugo Stiglitz (:|\\)

Patrol 1
Departed Kiel, 1st September, 1939. Just so happens a war broke out.

Assigned grid AF87. Patrolled it for 24 hours. By the time all that was done, we were at war with the UK and France, so I figured it was time to see how well my tiny boat would handle in coastal waters.

Currently on my way down the east coast of England, and loving every second in my tiny little boat!

[LiveGoat]

Currently on my 11th patrol in AN59. Have tried getting close to convoys out of Hartlepool and the like but can't get close. Too many escorts and too shallow. But I'm in desperate need of renown as its late '40 and France has fallen. Slowly it's dawning on me that when my transfer to Biscay comes and I go chugging into St. Nazzaire in my lowly duck, I will be a laughing stock.

I have only sunk 2 ships since the war began.
Shameful. :oops: Ignominious. :nope:

Obviously I've got realistic career lengths disabled or else I'd be working at Der McDonald's by now.

[KL-alfman]

or else I'd be working at Der McDonald's by now.


:haha:

hope you can shade it long enough to find the proper approach! :D

[Flopper]

Davy Jones' locker.

I never thought it would happen, but I guess I've gotten pretty decent at manual targeting. For a while I thought I must be the worst in the world, but after hours and hours at the practice area, now most of my eels hit. Boom, boom, boom!

So this patrol, I got cocky and decided to cut right through the English Channel on my way to the patrol area. I had dodged a couple of warships that I had spotted in between Dover and Calais, ignoring the merchants around there as well.

Then, on Feb. 12, 1940, close to the English coast between Brighton and Folkstone:

In the course of just over 2 hours as dawn approached, in 3 seperate attacks, I send a British tramp steamer, a French small merchant, and a British small freighter to the bottom, and I'm feeling good. As I'm high tailing it to the southwest at full speed, just minutes after sinking my last target, my crew spots yet another ship. This time it's a single large merchant, heading west. I stay on the surface, charging my batteries and plot an intercept course and get his course and speed.

Around 9:30 a.m., the sun is up, and I'm running parallel on the surface and just ahead of his track at 2000 meters, I turn in for a 90 degree bow shot. Right about then, my crew spots a warship approaching fast from behind me. I dive, and it takes me about 3 minutes to get in firing position. I fire my last 3 bow eels, and turn and head southwest again. All 3 hit the target, but by now the destroyer is close.

Long story short, it's now 12:30, and after 3 hours I can't get this guy off my back. I've taken two wild (blind) stern shots at him, and missed. The only eels left on the boat are external, and all my scopes are damaged. I've taken damage in almost every compartment, and I can't seem to shake this guy. I have power, and I can still manuver the boat. I don't dare go below 40 meters, as I'm quite close to the bottom already.

Is there any hope? Is it possible that he'll run out of dc's? I've went fast, slow, straight, in circles, in every direction, but this guy is on me like glue. I tried laying on the bottom, but started taking damage.

I'm out of ideas. Maybe that shortcut wasn't such a good idea. :oops: Any suggestions?

EDIT: Now it's 1:35 p.m., and there's another warship approaching. I assume it's not the Bismark.

[Matador.es]

He will run out of DC for sure, but it just does not solve the problem. He will stay on your tale, and ones you will have to surface. He will finisch you with his guns.

be sure not to save your game while submerged. I have experianced many problems loading "submerged saves" with CTD's as a result.

Good luck on it though...


Can anybody advise me when is the right time to move to the Middlemer? I am in June '40 now.

Edit// You could try to sneak into the dark with "deck Awash" and AK

[Flopper]

Edit// You could try to sneak into the dark with "deck Awash" and AK

Thanks, but for an update... I believe the first guy DID run out of dc's, but his buddy had a fresh supply. I took too much damage, started taking on water, finally blew the ballast. Amazingly, I surfaced directly in front of one of the destroyers, and he ran over me... AND BLEW UP AND PROMPLY SANK. LOL !! I took a screen shot of that, showing my badly damged boat, the destroyer's bow sticking out of the water, with his buddy right behind him shooting at me. It was pretty hilarious.

Of course his buddy didn't think it was that funny, and about 15 seconds later I was looking at an "abandon career" screen. :dead:

EDIT: They did NOT give me credit for sinking that destroyer.

[frau kaleun]

October 11, 1939
Third patrol
U-35, U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Oblt. Peter Schmidt, commander

We're almost two weeks into our patrol, and have already sent nearly 25000 tons of enemy shipping plus 2 aircraft into the briny deep for all eternity. And that was before we reached our patrol grid.

The first two victims were a coal tender and small freighter that we picked off just north of the Orkneys; the two aircraft came after us just northwest of the Hebrides. Picked off a couple more lone ships on our way southwest towards the patrol area, then got a radio report of a large convoy inbound to Great Britain, just to the northeast of us. So I turned around to see if I could do any damage there. Managed to hit a Granville type freighter which got left behind by the rest of bunch; fired off a couple more eels but didn't think I'd hit anything before a destroyer came looking for the source of all the fuss and forced me under. The freighter I knew I'd hit was pretty much dead in the water, and it quickly became apparent that the destroyer had no clue where we were. After that it was just a matter of waiting it out until she took off to catch up with the rest of the convoy, at which point I came back up and finished off the freighter, which was showing no signs of going down.

She did have time, I guess, to radio in our second attack, as a Southampton class appeared just after she sank and started sweeping the area with searchlights. I went to periscope depth and hung around trying to get in position for a stern shot - had no other torps loaded and was running silent. Finally got off one shot at her but I was too far off for it to hit before she zigzagged away from the path of it. I don't think she saw it coming, though, because I snuck away and she never came after me.

Took out another lone Granville type freighter in heavy seas in the middle of the night... I don't think she ever saw us coming. Then submerged for relief from the weather and got a contact report of another ship nearby. Took off on an intercept course and surfaced to find a 11000 ton merchant in my path. She got my last two torpedos and down she went.

Now I'm out of eels and, having finished a cursory 24 hr patrol of grid BE31 with no contacts to report, I'm cruising home hoping the weather stays decent and I can find some poor lone merchant for my deck gunner to practice on.

Also not getting killed on the way home would be nice. :D

[krashkart]

Also not getting killed on the way home would be nice. :D

I'm not gonna try telling an old broad that soaks up tenderizer like a dry sponge in the Sahara how to outwit destroyers. Especially since I'm not in GWX yet, and still at 40% realism. :rotfl2:

************

My current campaign progress:

We had to give our XXI back to the BdU so they could send it through the temporal portal for further evaluation. '45 can keep their damn newfangled Uboat, as far as I'm concerned. :O:

Command decided we'd had enough fun in our three patrols aboard the future ship, and bestowed upon us the honor of driving a VIIB. The crew is all at once elated with the news of having some artillery to play with, and saddened with the loss of such advanced equipment as the schnorkel and various other devices. Embarking on Patrol 4; will have an actual formatted patrol report to post next time around.

[Snestorm]

Patrol 2
U-35, U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Patrol tonnage: 22539

****************************

All in all, I'm just happy to have made it home safe and sound. :sunny:

Not only Outstanding results, but in a tough area too!
Great job!

[Snestorm]

I figured I would try something new: a career that begins, like that of Kretschmer, in a Type II.

U-8, Type IIA, 1st Flotilla

Currently on my way down the east coast of England, and loving every second in my tiny little boat!

Cool!
Be careful. If you like the IIA, you just might love the IID, which is REALY a neat little boat.
(And that's from the mouth of a confessed IXaholic).

Summer can be rough as the daylight lasts longer than your oxigen.
Keeping trim for a submerged attack can be a real "thrill".

Enjoy!

[Snestorm]

Then, on Feb. 12, 1940, close to the English coast between Brighton and Folkstone:

Around 9:30 a.m., the sun is up, and I'm running parallel on the surface and just ahead of his track at 2000 meters, I turn in for a 90 degree bow shot. Right about then, my crew spots a warship approaching fast from behind me. I dive, and it takes me about 3 minutes to get in firing position. I fire my last 3 bow eels, and turn and head southwest again. All 3 hit the target, but by now the destroyer is close.

On the surface?
During daylight hours?
In The English Channel?
AND targeted a ship, with a DD coming after you?!?
WHOA!

All you can do is to keep heading for deeper water, at silent running, and HOPE to loose them before your nightly surfacing requirements come due.
They have the ball. Let's just hope they drop it.

Oh shoot!
Just got to your next entry. So much for that.
Sorry to read of your sinking.

[frau kaleun]

Amazingly, I surfaced directly in front of one of the destroyers, and he ran over me... AND BLEW UP AND PROMPLY SANK. LOL !! I took a screen shot of that, showing my badly damged boat, the destroyer's bow sticking out of the water, with his buddy right behind him shooting at me. It was pretty hilarious.

Of course his buddy didn't think it was that funny, and about 15 seconds later I was looking at an "abandon career" screen. :dead:

EDIT: They did NOT give me credit for sinking that destroyer.

Same sort of thing happened to me when I got clever in my first career and decided to cruise by the entrance to Scapa Flow on my way home. Oh, hey, look, there's a destroyer, let's torpedo it.

BAD IDEA.

Instantly had three others on my butt and took so much damage that we had to surface. The lead destroyer ran right across my stern and promptly went kaboom. The best part was that a second destroyer was right behind the first one and rammed right into it almost immediately, and also went kaboom. They both sank on the spot.

Oh, and I didn't get credit for those kills either... all I got was dead. :O:

[frau kaleun]

I'm not gonna try telling an old broad that soaks up tenderizer like a dry sponge in the Sahara how to outwit destroyers. Especially since I'm not in GWX yet, and still at 40% realism. :rotfl2:

So far I haven't outwitted any of them, altho I have taken a couple out in previous careers. Usually by getting inpatient with trying to get away from them, so I say WTH and come to p-depth and find one of them 500 m behind me coming in at ramming speed. Stern shot for FTW!

From what I've read, once they know you're there somewhere, about the only way to get them is to make them chase you, let them get close, and fire the stern tube. I really thought this one was chasing me, but it turned out otherwise. And I lost my nerve when it came to letting her get close enough.

[HundertzehnGustav]

March 40

entered a port last night, and "drew" a frigate from inside the port to the shore by running noisily.
when the bugger was almost beached, i stuck my pericope out of the water, right next to it, looking at the crew.

oh!

there were two subs shooting our way, hitting the frigate hard... it sank within a minute, almost on top of my brandspanking new VII/b...
reverse gear, full power got me out of trouble.

Torpedoed both british subs, surfaced, and got me two cargoes and 5 fisherboats with torps, cannonshells and ack-ack

:haha:

The whole event lasted no more than 5 minutes... i probably killed 50 sailors and at least a dozen fishermen, plus the two submarine crews.

got the iron cross second class for getting out again. But a good spanking for entering that damn port oin the first place!

[frau kaleun]

Sept 9 1939, 03:58
U-35, U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Oblt. Peter Schmidt, Commander
Patrol 3
Departed: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: patrol grid BE31

Oct 3 1939, 11:23
Grid AN14: ship sunk, MV Boy Peter, small coal tender, 314 tons

Oct 3 1939, 18:52
Grid AN11: ship sunk, Q ship HMS Chatsgrove, small freighter, 1974 tons

Oct 4 1939, 12:36
Grid AM34: aircraft destroyed, Anson

Oct 4 1939, 15:34
Grid AM33: aircraft destroyed, Anson

Oct 6 1939, 13:32
Frid AM52: ship sunk, Q ship HMS Brutus, small freighter, 2364 tons

Oct 7 1939, 03:52
Grid AM52: ship sunk, SS Elmbay, coastal freighter, 1869 tons

Oct 7 1939, 09:49
Grid AM52: ship sunk, SS Tresillian, Granville-type freighter, 4708 tons

Oct 8 1939, 01:58
Grid AM54: ship sunk, SS Wray Castle, Granville-type freighter, 4710 tons

Oct 8 1939, 12:18
Grid AM54: ship sunk, SS Clan Ferguson, large merchant, 11484 tons

Oct 16 1939, 14:40
Grid AM51: ship sunk, SS City of Brisbane, large merchant, 11485 tons

Oct 22 1939, 09:07
Returned: Wilhelmshaven
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk: 8
Aircraft destroyed: 2
Patrol tonnage: 38908 tons

Everybody but the three n00bs on board got the U-Boat War Badge as this marked the completion of our second combat patrol.

Career tonnage to date: 61447 tons

[Snestorm]

D. 19.dec.39. 01.05.
Underway from Wilhelmshaven for Patrol Grid AM41.

D. 21.dec.39. AN34.
03.02. Ship spotted. VCS (Variouse Courses and Speeds).
07.10. Coastal Merchant (2.003 GRT) Sunk. Course 280. 8 Knots.
Night Surface Attack. 1 x G7A Torpedo.

D. 27.dec.39. AE95.
17.27. ALARM! Crash Dive for Aircraft.

D. 29.dec.39. AE89.
18.23. Sound Contact. Merchant. VCS.
19.17. Coastal Vessel Sighted. Wind 14 M/S. No attack made.

D. 31.dec.39. AM16.
06.18. Radio Report. Convoy. AM17. East. 6 Knots.

D. 1.jan.40. AM01.
05.35. Convoy Unfounded.

D. 2.jan.40. AM41.
04.00. Arrive On Station.

D. 4.jan.40. AM41.
11.24. Radio Report. Convoy. AL39. East. 6 Knots.

D. 6.jan.40. AM29.
19.14. Convoy Unfounded. Heavy Fog. Remaining in area.

D. 18.jan.40. AM29.
22.43. Radio Report. Convoy. AM01. East. 6 Knots.

D. 19.jan.40. AM43.
05.31. Coastal Merchant (2.045 GRT) Sunk. Deck Gun. (Unrelated to Convoy).

Convoy Unfounded AGAIN! (3 times now!)
Enrout to AM53 and The North Channel.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
He has to go there, and we WILL be waiting.

D. 21.jan.40. AM53 (Southeast Corner - AM539)
08.00. Predawn dive. Total Depth 51 Meters.

12.22. Single Torpedo shot at Coastal Merchant. Miss.

15.00. Entering AM61. Total Depth 43 Meters.

23.20. Entering AM64 surfaced. Weather is Calm & Clear.

D. 22.jan.40. AM64.
07.50. Predawn Dive. HEAVY FOG. SW of Firth Of Clyde Naval Base.

07.56. Sound Contacts. Multiple Merchants. Moving Away.

08.10. U-turn.

08.50. Both Stern Tubes fired on inbound merchant. Both miss in the fog.

D. 23.jan.40. AM64. (still)
14.00. Sound Contact. Convoy. (Still HEAVY FOG).

15.18. Little Merchant (2.342 GRT) Sunk. Course 270. 6 Knots. HEAVY FOG.
4 Bow Tubes were emptied in attack. Three at the sunk ship. One independently.

D. 25.jan.40. AM53.
21.51. Status Report Sent. 3 Ships. 6.390 GRT.

D. 29.jan.40. AM01.
13.01. Radio Report. Convoy. AM19. East. 7 Knots.

13.45. Convoy Sighted. (Last 4 Torpedoes. I better make it good this time.)

16.42. C2 Cargo (6.452 GRT) Sunk. T2 Tanker (10.871 GRT) Sunk. Course 100. 7 Knots.

18.11. Status Report Sent. 5 Ships. 23.713 GRT. (Wow. Much better.) Homeward bound.

D. 6.feb.40. AF74.
05.22. Diesel Reserves at 50%.

D. 7.feb.40. AF78.
19.15. ALARM! Crash Dive for Aircraft. No DCs dropped.

D. 13.feb.40. Docked at Wilhelmshaven, after almost 2 months at sea.

Patrol Results: 5 Ships sunk for 23.713 GRT. 100% Hull Integrity. No crew losses.

U37's Totals: 3 patrols. 12 ships sunk. 56.389 GRT.

100% Realism. Manual Targeting. No contacts on chart.

[Kptlt. Neuerburg]

I went and re-installed SH3 and started using GWX 3.0 + WSM 3.0 and started a campaign with a Scharnhorst Class Battlecruisers and just finished my third patrol and I attacked British warships and merchants.
Heres my patrol log from that patrol.

CAPTAIN'S LOG
Date and Time
Location
Occurrences
4.10.39. 1203 Patrol 3
U-45, U-Flotilla Weddigen
Left at: October 4, 1939, 12:03
From: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid AN666.10.39. 1813Grid AN 21Ship sunk! HMS Mohawk (Tribal class), 1850 tons. Crew: 260. Crew lost: 1358.10.39. 0037Grid AM 53Ship sunk! HMS Alacrity (Black Swan class), 1250 tons. Crew: 212. Crew lost: 1610039Grid AM 53Ship sunk! HMS Magpie (Black Swan class), 1250 tons. Crew: 182. Crew lost: 250039Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Ocean Telegraph (Medium Cargo), 3988 tons. Cargo: Grain. Crew: 50. Crew lost: 240040Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS American Banker (Medium Cargo), 3986 tons. Cargo: Paper Products. Crew: 43. Crew lost: 70040Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Garesfield (Small Freighter), 1971 tons. Cargo: Wine/Spirits. Crew: 23. Crew lost: 40041Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Velma Lykes (Tramp Steamer), 1623 tons. Cargo: Machinery. Crew: 31. Crew lost: 200041Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Kilissi (Small Merchant), 2258 tons. Cargo: Tobacco. Crew: 37. Crew lost: 110042Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Asperity (Coastal Freighter), 1874 tons. Cargo: Grain. Crew: 33. Crew lost: 20043Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Burwah (Passenger/Cargo), 2259 tons. Cargo: Mail/Packages. Crew: 175. Crew lost: 190043Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Santa Barbara (Medium Cargo), 3987 tons. Cargo: Coffee. Crew: 48. Crew lost: 70044Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Adherity (Coastal Freighter), 1873 tons. Cargo: Coal. Crew: 32. Crew lost: 250044Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Capo Olmo (Granville-type Freighter), 4707 tons. Cargo: Bauxite. Crew: 105. Crew lost: 20045Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Santa Sofia (Medium Cargo), 3985 tons. Cargo: Textiles. Crew: 54. Crew lost: 350046Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Merida (Passenger/Cargo), 2267 tons. Cargo: Passengers. Crew: 66. Crew lost: 570050Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS A. M. Simpson (Coastal Freighter), 1872 tons. Cargo: Phosphates. Crew: 30. Crew lost: 30052Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SS Marie-Louise le Borgne (Coastal Freighter), 1875 tons. Cargo: Military Vehicles. Crew: 35. Crew lost: 210057Grid AM 53Ship sunk! SClass, 767 tons0509Grid AM 61Ship sunk! SS Port Brisbane (Ore Carrier), 8480 tons. Cargo: Phosphates. Crew: 74. Crew lost: 280538Grid AM 61Ship sunk! SS Prominent (Tramp Steamer), 1624 tons. Cargo: Grain. Crew: 34. Crew lost: 80908Grid AM 53Ship sunk! HMCS St. Laurent (C&D classes), 1375 tons. Crew: 162. Crew lost: 1181119Grid AM 52Ship sunk! SS Winona (Coastal Freighter), 1867 tons. Cargo: Scrap Metal. Crew: 22. Crew lost: 1911.10.39. 1433 Patrol results
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk: 22
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Patrol tonnage: 56988 tons

[krashkart]

So far I haven't outwitted any of them, altho I have taken a couple out in previous careers. Usually by getting inpatient with trying to get away from them, so I say WTH and come to p-depth and find one of them 500 m behind me coming in at ramming speed. Stern shot for FTW!

From what I've read, once they know you're there somewhere, about the only way to get them is to make them chase you, let them get close, and fire the stern tube. I really thought this one was chasing me, but it turned out otherwise. And I lost my nerve when it came to letting her get close enough.

I took me a long time, probably a good pocket load o' patrols, before I engaged a destroyer. It only took one eel to knock it out. Before that I had been in the habit of ducking to PD, going silent and waiting till they were BVR before continuing.

They are still tricky, though. When you get them chasing you like all hell's demons, there are those smart DD's that will weave in toward you. Just take your time and when the feeling is right, let that stern eel out. I try to anticipate where the two paths will meet. If it doesn't work, get under as far as you can and evade as the monster begins to roar over top of you.

The dumb destroyers will make a straight run at you. Let the distance close to about 500 and fire your torpedo out under the bow of your pursuer. They won't have time to react. If you miss, however, they will evade and turn back to pursue again. That should give you a little bit of an edge in your evasion efforts.

I still get a rush and a million thoughts of "What if...", which is good. Helps one survive. Just try to keep a level head and plan your next few steps while that ship gets closer and closer.

As far as evasion goes, I spent nearly three hours realtime one night sneaking away from a desron that had pinned me down near Scapa Flow. We took a fair bucket of damage that night, but believe me when I say: Patience Pays Off. :DL

[Flopper]

Oh, I get it. When you get news of a convoy in the area, that's a warning to steam full steam away from its track, since there is a 100% chance that you will be detected before you can fire a shot?

That's how it works for me, every time. :nope::wah:

[krashkart]

Oh, I get it. When you get news of a convoy in the area, that's a warning to steam full steam away from its track, since there is a 100% chance that you will be detected before you can fire a shot?

That's how it works for me, every time. :nope::wah:

Take it nice and easy to begin with. Get familiar with the convoys, especially keeping an eye on the escorts. Observe how the escorts move around the convoy.

In one of my experiences, I came across a merchant fleet escorted by three destroyers and one Flower corvette. As I tracked the convoy I noticed that the lead and rear destroyers kept course and speed with the main body. The destroyer nearest me (on the right flank of the fleet), however, would be steaming along slowly with the rest of the other ships when, suddenly, it would lurch forward and begin weaving around in different directions, sometimes tracking within two klicks of our boat.

As I watched this happening it dawned on me that the destroyer was performing a protective sweep, and as long as I kept my distance my boat would likely go unnoticed. That turned out to be true. Although we didn't score a major victory, we did manage to inflict some damage.

I used to rush right into a fight, but anymore I tend to relax and get comfortable when I encounter a convoy. Take it slow and get a clear idea of what your enemy is doing, and when the moment is right, strike!

I hope that helps. ;)

[Flopper]

@krashkart:

Thanks for the in-depth reply. That actually makes some sense... I'm probably concentrating too much on getting set up for the big kill, rather than keeping my distance from those gosh darned (dag jimmed? snap daggedy?) DDs.

This last time was so frustrating, because I basically waited for the convoy to surround me, periscope down the whole time listening with hydrophones. I was about ready to finally have a look through the scope when, "The enemy is pinging us, sir." WHAT DID YOU SAY?! Maybe I was too close.

Ahh, well. Tomorrow's another day, thanks again for the tips.

[krashkart]

@krashkart:

Thanks for the in-depth reply. That actually makes some sense... I'm probably concentrating too much on getting set up for the big kill, rather than keeping my distance from those gosh darned (dag jimmed? snap daggedy?) DDs.

This last time was so frustrating, because I basically waited for the convoy to surround me, periscope down the whole time listening with hydrophones. I was about ready to finally have a look through the scope when, "The enemy is pinging us, sir." WHAT DID YOU SAY?! Maybe I was too close.

Ahh, well. Tomorrow's another day, thanks again for the tips.

Just out of curiosity, Flopper; are you playing stock or GWX? I'm playing stock, and I've heard that GWX is more challenging. Your experience might differ from mine. :06:

NP btw.:salute:

[SubHunter88]

Just out of curiosity, Flopper; are you playing stock or GWX? I'm playing stock, and I've heard that GWX is more challenging. Your experience might differ from mine. :06:

NP btw.:salute:

I havent advanced to the level where i can add in the smarter destroyers of GWX.

Im currently working on my first full realizm with Manual TDC career (bar external cam because i just love those epic screen shot opportunities)

[Dissaray]

@krashkart:

Thanks for the in-depth reply. That actually makes some sense... I'm probably concentrating too much on getting set up for the big kill, rather than keeping my distance from those gosh darned (dag jimmed? snap daggedy?) DDs.

This last time was so frustrating, because I basically waited for the convoy to surround me, periscope down the whole time listening with hydrophones. I was about ready to finally have a look through the scope when, "The enemy is pinging us, sir." WHAT DID YOU SAY?! Maybe I was too close.

Ahh, well. Tomorrow's another day, thanks again for the tips.

Geting into a convoy like that can be a bit of a trick. If you want to pull it off what you realy need to know is two things. First you need to stay as close to the surface as possible without breaching. Secondly you need to keep as thin a profile twards the nearest escort ship until you are in their blind spot. Only after you are behind that escort can you manuver your self into firing position. It can be a devistatingly effective attack method if you time things just so, but then again you can end up in a world of hurt if things don't go just as planed. With practice you can slip in on a convoy and fire without much truble. I have found sucsess using that tactic and also striking a convoy from the corners.

Shooting from outside the distroyer screen can be quite effective early in the war but I find that it loses effectiveness as the war drags on and the ASW tech catches up to the ability of the u-boat.

[Flopper]

Just out of curiosity, Flopper; are you playing stock or GWX? I'm playing stock, and I've heard that GWX is more challenging. Your experience might differ from mine. :06:

NP btw.:salute:

GWX & OLC Gold... no map contacts, no solutions, etc. I can't imagine going back to vanilla! It's definitely challenging (the olc mod actually forced me to learn manual targeting, and I'm grateful for that.) :DL

Secondly you need to keep as thin a profile twards the nearest escort ship until you are in their blind spot.

I most likely had presented a large profile to the front escort, as I had already positioned the boat at 90 degrees to the convoy's track, directly in their path. I will definitely be aware of this next time.

Thanks a lot, y'all for the info... when I get off work I'm going to go track down that same convoy and try again. :salute:

[BillCar]

Just did my second patrol in my Type IIA as Leutnant (now Oberleutnant) z. See Hugo Stiglitz.

Departed Kiel on the 25th of September and made my way to my assigned grid (AN47). In AN66, I was attacked by a Swordfish, which I was amazed to see out there. Took only minor damage, though, and kept on my heading.

Towards the end of my 24 hours in AN47, picked up a sound contact. Got a rough course and speed through constant bearing, so surfaced and ran until spotting her. She was a coastal freighter, and one magnetic pistol Type I sent her to the bottom in short order.

Heading towards the coast, we spotted another coastal freighter. We shadowed this one at the extreme edge of visual range, getting her course from the Angriffscheibe and her speed from the constant bearing method. She was making 5 knots. As night fell, we overhauled her and turned in. She spotted us at about 2 kilometres (bright night, and we were not decks awash - I hate trying to run decks awash in a Type IIA). We closed to 500 and sent a medium-speed magnetic pistol under her keel, breaking her back.

A small merchant came next. Shadowed her throughout the day, but as it was early and we would have reached the coast by nightfall, I made a submerged attack on her after overhauling. One magnetic pistol and she's at the bottom.

Finally, we lucked out in spotting a large merchant at around midnight on the 3rd of October. The last two torpedoes blew up under her keel and broke her up on the surface.

We docked with roughly 2000 renown, as well as an Iron Cross and a promotion for Hugo Stiglitz.

[SubHunter88]

Just had my first unexpected run-in with a enemy sub :O

11, November 1941

East of ireland, about 04:25 I picked her up on the hydrophone while making a routine dive to about 20m to scan for sound contacts... When i hear the un mistakeable sound of a surfaced submarine...

carefully tracking her for about 40 minutes i had a confident understanding of her course and moved in to aquire a visual.

After about an hour I aquired her at less then 1,500M rocking in rough seas. Carefully checking my TDC I set the torpedo run depth to zero and fired away...
First shot cleared her bow
made a quick dirty adjustment to target speed and fired again from about 900m...
She went down fast.

this is the first time i have EVER seen a lone sub in the waters of SH3.. ever, just kinda wandering about on it's own.

with this endevor completed im headed back to base with only 1 eel in the stern tube

[Snestorm]

D. 12.mar.40. 06.19.
Underway from Wilhelmshaven.
Destination Patrol Grid EJ66 (East of Cape Verde Islands).

D. 13.apr.40. EJ66.
20.00. On Station. No contacts encountered.

D. 4.maj.40. AL69. (Return Trip).
12.04. Ship Sighted! 4.700 Meters. Periscope Depth!
C3 Cargo.
Guesstimated Course 270.
Speed 8,75 Knots.

12.40. Surface. VCS.

12.47. Target Resighted.

15.02. C3 Cargo (7.909 GRT) Sunk.
Course 262. Speed 8,75 Knots.
Daylight Submerged Attack.
Bow on to targets 270.
Range 1.000 Meters.
T2 (G7E) x 3. (All torpedoes preset to 3 Meters, Impact).

All 3 torpedoes struck towards the stern, which suggests he was running a full 9 Knots.
Good thing we got close.

This was our only contact for the entire 2 month patrol.

10.maj.40. AE95 (Færøerne)
23.15. Alarm! Crash dive for aircraft.

19.maj.40. Dock at Wilhelmshaven.

Patrol Results: 1 Ship Sunk. 7.909 GRT.

U37's Totals: 4 Patrols. 13 Ships Sunk. 64.298 GRT.

[Vipper]

I'm on my 4th patrol and im currently at 25 meters under water staying idle (British east coast) and reading old (digitized) newspaper from that year and a day (7. december 1939.)

[Damo]

U-53, VIIB, 7th Flot. Kiel. Nov 25 1939. 4th patrol (3 wartime).

Currently on patrol in grid AM79, 1 Bulk Freighter (Community Units) sunk for 2850GRT in grid AN12. No contacts for the entire journey from there to here, crew a little demoralized. Nearing end of patrol period and considering diversion up the Irish Sea passing off the Bristol Channel up past Holyhead, Stranraer, and out to AM52 to pick up some targets of opportunity. Currently at 80% fuel with only 2 torpedo's spent. Will remain in AM52 for as long as fuel and weapon load permits.

[Damo]

Update from U-53, 21.00, 27th Nov 1939.

Came across a large enemy convoy in grid AM97, managed to sink 2 Large Tankers for 10333GRT each, a Large Old Cargo for 8228 and a Large Freighter for 8605. One large steamer burning and making west at 1 knot, bow very low in water, will come back for her if she does not sink within the next couple of hours. Convoy escorted by 3 destroyers, only 2 began attack on U-53, with 1 rejoining the convoy after about an hour. Taken light damage and flooding to forward sections but repairs are underway and all is in hand. Am making for the front of the convoy to continue attack, 3 torpedo's left, experienced 1 dud G7a torpedo during initial attack, all others fine.

Crew has perked up somewhat....

[Snestorm]

Update from U-53, 21.00, 27th Nov 1939.

Crew has perked up somewhat....

I guess they would.
Good show!

[KL-alfman]

my fellow Kaleuns, who are still fighting against DDs and the rough Atlantic, pls show your emphasis and rest for a minute.
Kaleu Artur Stein, commander of a type IXB (U-110), hasn't responded to all calls made by BdU.
he is supposed to get DCed after sending his convoy-contacts and a message which he stated to have sunk a large merch in.
we think, ASW-vessels got his location and were able to put this glorious sailor out of this world.
always remember! :cry:

current date: 1942-08-26
tonnage sunk: 726,025
patrol-nr: 9th
medals: all the glitter and fancies .....

[frau kaleun]

my fellow Kaleuns, who are still fighting against DDs and the rough Atlantic, pls show your emphasis and rest for a minute.
Kaleu Artur Stein, commander of a type IXB (U-110), hasn't responded to all calls made by BdU.
he is supposed to get DCed after sending his convoy-contacts and a message which he stated to have sunk a large merch in.
we think, ASW-vessels got his location and were able to put this glorious sailor out of this world.
always remember! :cry:

current date: 1942-08-26
tonnage sunk: 726,025
patrol-nr: 9th
medals: all the glitter and fancies .....

RIP, Kptlt Stein. :salute:





P.S. My 1WO is preparing to go on leave and asked me to find out if there's a Frau Stein back home who may need consoling. Should I smack him for you?

[KL-alfman]

RIP, Kptlt Stein. :salute:





P.S. My 1WO is preparing to go on leave and asked me to find out if there's a Frau Stein back home who may need consoling. Should I smack him for you?


hmm, I really don't know ....
what do wives prefer at that specific moment?
a sensitive listener?
a letter only stating formalities?
a shoulder to lean on?

in "my" entire career I wasn't able to guess .... :hmmm:

[frau kaleun]

hmm, I really don't know ....
what do wives prefer at that specific moment?


Well, she's gonna need a new dress for the memorial service, so maybe someone to hold her purse while she shops. :O:

[KL-alfman]

Well, she's gonna need a new dress for the memorial service, so maybe someone to hold her purse while she shops. :O:


you are such a bad grrrlll! :D

[frau kaleun]

I know, I felt so awful I wrote you a song:

Auf einem Seemannsgrab,
Da blühen keine Rosen,
Auf einem Seemannsgrab,
Da blüht kein Blümelein,
Der einz'ge Gruß, das sind die weißen Möwen
Und eine Träne die ein kleines Mädel weint.

In German even!

Okay, so I copy/pasted it. Whatever. :O:

[KL-alfman]

I know, I felt so awful I wrote you a song:

Auf einem Seemannsgrab,
Da blühen keine Rosen,
Auf einem Seemannsgrab,
Da blüht kein Blümelein,
Der einz'ge Gruß, das sind die weißen Möwen
Und eine Träne die ein kleines Mädel weint.

In German even!

Okay, so I copy/pasted it. Whatever. :O:


on a sailor's grave
no roses blossom
on a sailor's grave
no flowers blossom
white seagulls bid the only farewell,
and a tear shed by a girl.

in english even!
ok, I tried (with my constricted means of commanding a foreign language).
thx for this words.
Artur Stein would appreciate them ..... :cry:

[frau kaleun]

ok, I tried (with my constricted means of commanding a foreign language).
thx for this words.
Artur Stein would appreciate them ..... :cry:

you did good!

[KL-alfman]

you did good!


küss die hand, Frau Kaleun!

[frau kaleun]

:sunny:

[KL-alfman]

:sunny:


http://www.my-smileys.de/smileys3/kavalier_2.gif

[Damo]

After not hearing from U-53 since her contact with a convoy south of Ireland it was presumed that she had been lost. Fortunately, we have just had confirmation that she has arrived back in port a little battered but all crew accounted for and healthy. Initial damage reports show that her radio equipment was damaged beyond repair during a depth charge attack resulting from a second attack on the convoy group. U-53 will require extensive repairs before she is able to set to sea again and the crew have been given extended shore leave until complete.

2 torpedo's reported as failing to detonate, total tonnage 51121GRT sunk with 8562GRT damaged. Unable to finish off damaged vessel due to lack of torpedo's, detonation malfunctions and sustained damage during evasion of escorts.

[Paul Riley]

Currently setting up a new campaign using GWX3,commander,92% realism and DID.Will begin my new campaign on Sept 1st 1939 as I dont like doing the 'shake down' patrol back in August.I will also be doing my first couple of patrols in a small type II in order to hone my skills again,its been about 6 months since I last played SH3.Our first patrol is just off the NE coast of Scotland,and will post our patrol as soon as we complete it.
Its going to take me ages to even get near August 1942,this is where my last campaign ended,as it was too long since my last playing session,and I would be 'rusty',probably forgetting about the air attacks crossing the bay of Biscay :dead:

:salute:

[Leandros]

Patrol 6 U-99 - Obleut z.S. Fischer - kvadrant CC61 - Nov 18th 1942 08:55

Just left U-461 for the Canadian east coast.



http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol6/9c049993.jpg


Patrol 5 almost ended in disaster. Picked up a few stragglers on the crossing. When almost in the assigned patrol area received position of westbound convoy, one day east of New Foundland. Was able to intercept it with the help of RWR signals from the escorts. It turned out we were just in the path of the lead escort so had to sink it before it detected us. Then it all started. According to the radar signals there were 8-10 escorts. Evarts class it turned out. In-between hitting a couple of large tankers we had to fend these off. In the end there were 3 left. One blew its tail off, the other turned tail but the third one was able to give us a lot of damage, scopes, batteries, deck gun and a few other things. No easy way to escape, though - only 30-50 meters under the keel.

After a few hours we were able to escape the circle and it gave up after having given us around 60-70 D/C's. We still had 1/3 torpedo complement but had to head for U-461 for repairs. It was only about a day's sailing south of us. Took several weeks to finish repairs, though. Had some good time onboard U-461 in the meantime.

The log below show a short, but hectic period.




http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol6/7e81bf34.jpg


So, why did we have a good time at U-461......bottles and cases float....:03:...



http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol6/7440c56a.jpg

[frau kaleun]

http://www.my-smileys.de/smileys3/kavalier_2.gif

What, no chocolates? :stare:

:O:

[frau kaleun]

So, why did we have a good time at U-461......bottles and cases float....:03:...

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol6/7440c56a.jpg


Happy times! :()1:

[Leandros]

Happy times! :()1:

Guten abend, lieber Frau Kaleun!

Ich verstehe dein standort is Wilhelmshafen. Ist es wahr es gibt in Wilhelmshafen ein XXI boot ...?... Ich glaube Ich habe bildern gesehen.

Schüss

Leandros

[Kapitän]

Hello Everyone,

You can always find the latest KTBs and corresponding screen shots on the links in my signature below.

The only thing is, that you might need a German-English Dictionary ...

Fette Beute !!!

Kapitän

[frau kaleun]

Guten abend, lieber Frau Kaleun!

Ich verstehe dein standort is Wilhelmshafen. Ist es wahr es gibt in Wilhelmshafen ein XXI boot ...?... Ich glaube Ich habe bildern gesehen.

Schüss

Leandros

Hi Leandros,

I believe the (former) U-2540, now on display at Bremerhaven (http://www.uboat.net/gallery/index.html?gallery=U2540A), is a Type XXI.

Wilhelmshaven is only my "in-game" location, but I can tell you for sure that I haven't seen any Type XXIs around - it's still 1939! :O:

[Leandros]

Hi Leandros,

I believe the (former) U-2540, now on display at Bremerhaven (http://www.uboat.net/gallery/index.html?gallery=U2540A), is a Type XXI.

Wilhelmshaven is only my "in-game" location, but I can tell you for sure that I haven't seen any Type XXIs around - it's still 1939! :O:
Thank you - I thought so. So, it was Bremerhaven....

[Leandros]

Patrol 6 U-99 - Obleut z.S. Fischer - kvadrant BB87 - Nov 22nd 1942 14:52

After having left U-461 4 days ago we headed south along the Canadian coast. Again a convoy was detected by the radar signals from the escorts. We have now positioned us ahead of this westbound convoy - south-east of Halifax. Judging by the sonar signals this is a fat one!

It's dark, clear sky but quite a heavy sea. Ideal! Below us more than 1000 meters of water......Only drawback is the uniform torpedo uplift given by the milkcows.


http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol6/e373b400.jpg

[Jimbuna]

Very nice...looks like a 20/24 ship convoy.

SINK EM ALL!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[Paul Riley]

U16 / Type IIA
Capt Franz Weber
Patrol Sector AN26
3rd Sept 1939

We are almost ready to break out into the North Sea for our first combat patrol (since using GWX3).Previous day caught sight of a 3 ship convoy consisting of 2 med cargo & 1 steamer heading west through the Skagerrak,turns out they were Danish after a closer inspection.Deck gun was being prepared nonetheless in the off chance they were Polish.
Performed standard dive test in the Skagerrak,rated for 150m,slight damage took at 158m
Weather fine,morale...optimistic.

[Dissaray]

BDU has finaly seen fit to give me another boat, I broke the last two. Hopefuly this time I will be able to go more than two patrols without having to scrap any thing. They keep telling me that these things are expencive but the way I see it if they cost so much they should make them more capable of taking a few Tommie depth charges befor all the important bits break off.

As the war drags on they are sending me further out to find safe waters to hunt in. Well at least AK5 has a convoy rout in it so I might see some action.

[Paul Riley]

Finally broke out into the North sea after a very dull voyage through the Skagerrak.Seems we also have a problem with the compressor after our test dive,blew once on the air and it leaked all the way down to 100 litres.
As we entered AN15 we spotted a lone vessel heading west towards Britain,upon closer inspection it was confirmed as a Norwegian medium cargo and allowed to pass safely.
Later that evening we got an SOS call from a stricken ship going by the name of the SS Athenia,however we carried on towards our assigned grid.
Day 3
12:43 - Spotted a Granville in AN43 heading on a mean course of 288 inbound to Britain.After about 45 mins overhauling we drew level and confirmed the ship as doing 8kts.I quickly set up a submerged attack for 2 hrs time at a range of approx 1000m.Target showed up practically on time however it appeared to have changed course for a more southerly direction,putting us out of range.Regardless I decided to go through with the attack and set up our new attack for just under 3km.I aimed at the foremast with an impact pistol set to 2m.What followed was a textbook shot slamming into the ship's bow causing a fire on deck.She was a tough one and took about 30 mins to sink for a total of 4707 tonnes.
I decided it was right to issue a moment of thought for the poor British sailers who never saw it coming.I may be in the German UBoat fleet,but me and my men have a special admiration for our English cousins.Lets all hope the chimney stacks back in Berlin find a way to avert a protracted war of atrition with Britain resulting in even more needless carnage,our real foe lies to the east!
I and my crew are very satisfied with our first attack at quite a testing range.Every man was awarded with a bottle of Becks and a 30 min break,yet every man knows in his heart these breaks won't be a common practice before too long...the British will have stopped making mistakes.

[Leandros]

Patrol 7 - U-99 - Kaleun z.S. Fischer - kvadrant BC35 - Dec 2nd 1942 04:38


http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol7/4a72ff3d.jpg


Left U-461 on Nov. 28th. Patrol 6 ended well, approx. 70.000 tons total. Returned to U-461 after Patrol 6 for replenishment with one TIII left in a fwd tube. On our way back BdU reported a task force overhauling us from behind. Soon its radar signals were detected. We waited submerged to see if it had a worthwhile target for our single torp.

Yes, a Bogue class carrier with 4 escorts. We fired the single torp, impact setting, from 2500 meters. It hit, but it was a dud. Nobody noticed so we just waited and later set new course for U-461.

After leaving U-461, bound for the North-Western Approaches, a new message from BdU - a task force approaching from the North now. We turned around, and again picked up radar signals. Just sighted it - a Bogue class carrier! No escorts have been observed so far. Probably the same we missed a few days ago. We are waiting now....

[Leandros]

Patrol 7 - U-99 - Kaleun z.S. Fischer - kvadrant BC35 - Dec 2nd 1942 04:38


http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol7/4a72ff3d.jpg


Left U-461 on Nov. 28th. Patrol 6 ended well, approx. 70.000 tons total. Returned to U-461 after Patrol 6 for replenishment with one TIII left in a fwd tube. On our way back BdU reported a task force overhauling us from behind. Soon its radar signals were detected. We waited submerged to see if it had a worthwhile target for our single torp.

Yes, a Bogue class carrier with 4 escorts. We fired the single torp, impact setting, from 2500 meters. It hit, but it was a dud. Nobody noticed so we just waited and later set new course for U-461.

After leaving U-461, bound for the North-Western Approaches, a new message from BdU - a task force approaching from the North now. We turned around, and again picked up radar signals. Just sighted it - a Bogue class carrier! No escorts have been observed so far. Probably the same we missed a few days ago. We are waiting now....

Strike one........Strike force......:arrgh!:...


http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o129/Leandros10/U99/Patrol7/29752941.jpg

[Snestorm]

D. 16.jun.40. Underway from Wilhelmshaven for Patrol Grid DH54.

D. 24.jun.40. AF74.
00.50. Alarm! Crash Dive for Aircraft.

D. 25.jun.40. AE95. (Færøerne)
02.42. Ship Spotted.
05.27. Little Merchant (2.343 GRT) Sunk. Course 274. Speed 7 Knots. T2 x 1.
06.25. Alarm! Crash Dive for Aircraft.

D. 30.jun.40. AM18.
01.26. Radio Report. Convoy. AM01. East. 7 Knots.
D. 30.jun.40. AM29.
11.03. Radio Report. Convoy. AM29. East. 7 Knots.
13.39. Convoy Sighted. Corvette Sighted. (Round we go).
15.47. T2 (10.871 GRT) Sunk. Convoy Course 100. 7 Knots. T2 x 3. C2 Struck T1.
17.50. Surface. C2 Cargo spotted D.I.W.
18.27. C2 Cargo (6.448 GRT) Sunk. Previouse G7A Hit. Deck Gun Finale.
19.47. Contact regained with convoy.
21.20. Escort is 1 DD, and 2 Corvettes per Hydrophone and Visual.
22.02. T3 (11.673 GRT) Sunk. Course 100. Speed 7 Knots. T2 x 3.
23.40. Surface.

D. 1.jul.40. AM29.
01.10. Contact regained with convoy. Detected. Wait out DC. No Damage.
02.20. Surface.
D. 1.jul.40. AM02.
03.39. Contact regained with convoy. Corvette at 3.500 Meters.
05.00. Torpedo Impact. No sinkings. T1 x 2.
D. 1.jul.40. AM52.
09.21. Alarm! Crash Dive for Aircraft.
21.07. Status Report Sent. 4 Ships Sunk. 31.335 GRT.

D. 13.jul.40. DH54.
09.00. On Station.

D. 13.aug.40. Docked at Wilhelmshaven.

Patrol Results: 4 Ships Sunk. 31.335 GRT (U37's best patrol to date).

U37's Record: 5 Patrols. 17 Ships Sunk. 95.663 GRT.

[kabex]

Hi all,

I've started my first patrol after being AWOL for 4 years.

I am doing 100% realism using GWX3 + OLC gold, the thing is tho I'm really really bad at aiming the torpedoes, I'm just now getting the hang of it.

I got a patrol area just west of Ireland, and as I was getting there I got a message about a transport convoy just a few hundred kilometers from my location north-west of Scotland. I had to intercept.

Seeing how I haven't played in so much time and I am doing 100% realism, I had a really hard time catching up to it and figuring out its course etc. After I got near it I tried to set myself up for a salvo shot at the least, but I had to follow for 6 hours and wait for night to fall.

It was night time and I sprinted to position, following the convoy at around 10km distance, surfaced decks-a-wash (low visibility, so I risked it) when I noticed a destroyer heading right towards me; I was concerned but then it turned around and headed in another direction, probably patrolling I said.

I continued my positioning until ~15 mins later the destroyer was suddenly on my tail, I barely even noticed and crash dived immediately. I went for 150 meters and after 40 minutes or so managed to survive, there were 2 destroyers pinging me and dropping charges... I escaped unharmed and forgot about the convoy for now. I am too amateur to try and take on a convoy, how silly of me.

Really intense! btw, I was using a IXB boat(u-111), december 1939 (first available) using SH3 Commander on 2nd Flotilla.

[Paul Riley]

Finally broke out into the North sea after a very dull voyage through the Skagerrak.Seems we also have a problem with the compressor after our test dive,blew once on the air and it leaked all the way down to 100 litres.
As we entered AN15 we spotted a lone vessel heading west towards Britain,upon closer inspection it was confirmed as a Norwegian medium cargo and allowed to pass safely.
Later that evening we got an SOS call from a stricken ship going by the name of the SS Athenia,however we carried on towards our assigned grid.
Day 3
12:43 - Spotted a Granville in AN43 heading on a mean course of 288 inbound to Britain.After about 45 mins overhauling we drew level and confirmed the ship as doing 8kts.I quickly set up a submerged attack for 2 hrs time at a range of approx 1000m.Target showed up practically on time however it appeared to have changed course for a more southerly direction,putting us out of range.Regardless I decided to go through with the attack and set up our new attack for just under 3km.I aimed at the foremast with an impact pistol set to 2m.What followed was a textbook shot slamming into the ship's bow causing a fire on deck.She was a tough one and took about 30 mins to sink for a total of 4707 tonnes.
I decided it was right to issue a moment of thought for the poor British sailers who never saw it coming.I may be in the German UBoat fleet,but me and my men have a special admiration for our English cousins.Lets all hope the chimney stacks back in Berlin find a way to avert a protracted war of atrition with Britain resulting in even more needless carnage,our real foe lies to the east!
I and my crew are very satisfied with our first attack at quite a testing range.Every man was awarded with a bottle of Becks and a 30 min break,yet every man knows in his heart these breaks won't be a common practice before too long...the British will have stopped making mistakes.

Tonight's events so far

4th Sept '39
19:19
Ran into a filthy storm moving through AN46-AN42,waves coming right over the top,visibility poor
20:00
Forced to dive for the duration of the night,will surface when light to recharge

Day 5
08:31
Recieved an SOS from SS Bosnia,45 deg 29' North / 09 deg 45' West.Continued on to PZ
13:01
SOS signal,SS Pluvoise stopped by German UBoat operating from 39 deg 42' North / 09 deg 10' West
14:01
SOS Royal Sceptre,no further information
15:10
Picked up a sound contact bearing 36 deg heading roughly NNE,broke out at max speed to investigate.Sound checks every 15 mins until target aqquisition.If hostile I plan to shadow target until nightfall then commence attack surfaced from a range of approx 1000-1500m,depending on immediate visibility.Attack will be made facing away from the strong SE winds.No mag tips to be used.If attack fails due to poor conditions will break off and report contact in to base.Torps must be conserved as much as possible,we have only 4 left.

[unterseemann]

11 aug 1941
U-125 a type IXB just arrived this afternoon after its maiden patrol in north atlantic.9 ships were sunk for 56486 tons including a US (neutral) unescorted whale factory ship, unlight, heavily armed and heading to england.
In the battle against the US ship ( S.S Thorshovdi) U125 was lightly damaged by gunfire and lost 3 crewmen (Petty officers Johannes Schneider, Paul Sommers and Gustav Möllers buried at sea 06 aug 1941 at 20.35)

Kptlt Konrad Tietz, after 7 patrols in U46 and 1 patrol in U125, sank 48 ships for 289938 tons.

[BillCar]

Oberleutnant z. See Hugo Stiglitz

After 5 patrols netting 52,000 tons of shipping in a Type IIA (U-8), Oblt. Stiglitz and crew transferred to the second flotilla in February of 1940. On April 18th, Stiglitz and his old crew commissioned U-65, a Type IXB.

This is my first time sailing a Type IX, really. I suspect I will grow to dislike the overly long and uneventful travel periods that go hand in hand with the sorts of distances this boat is supposed to operate at, but we will see.

[Paul Riley]

Oberleutnant z. See Hugo Stiglitz

After 5 patrols netting 52,000 tons of shipping in a Type IIA (U-8), Oblt. Stiglitz and crew transferred to the second flotilla in February of 1940. On April 18th, Stiglitz and his old crew commissioned U-65, a Type IXB.

This is my first time sailing a Type IX, really. I suspect I will grow to dislike the overly long and uneventful travel periods that go hand in hand with the sorts of distances this boat is supposed to operate at, but we will see.

Just pray you dont get posted near Cape Town in that thing,I guarantee you will have torn most of your hair out by the time you get there :nope:
The only real benefit for me being in a type IX was obviously the extra fuel and the increased armament,yet dive times were painfully slow,hence more flak mounts.It once took me around 30 secs I think to complete an emergency dive under quite a severe air attack once.
At times it felt like trying to steer a B-15 bomber rather than a sleek submersible.

[Grim Nigel]

U-969 (VIIC) 4th March 1941 Patrol 6. (87% realism with manual targeting)

So far U-969 has been very lucky patrolling the North Western areas of Grid BF. It seems to be a choke point for all kinds of incoming and outgoing ships and convoys. We have kept as close to deep water as possible, it seems that RN patrols in the area are gradually increasing over the months.
Correct identification is also vital due to many neutrals passing through the area too.

After reaching our assigned patrol grid we picked up radar signals almost right away! Initially I had thought it might just be another DD patrol, but this time I decided to dive and check out what was going on in more detail. What luck! We picked up well over 6 merchants with DD escorts, heading right toward our position from approx 20nm eastward. After spending some time listening and and gradually plotting their movements and discovering more and more merchants, we worked out their general course and speed.

Even more luck! we only needed to move another 2nm South to place our boat right in their path! After taking some time to decide on an attack strategy while the boat moved toward position I decided I would once again try and get inside of the convoy and attack from the middle ( hopefully picking off the biggest targets before the escorts zero'd in on our position )

Turning the boat toward the oncoming convoy, we counted about 20 merchants and 4 escorts. Putting the boat into silent running we slowly made our way toward them along a path that would put us in the centre of the convoy and went to about 30m depth. Then came a slow and painful wait as they drew closer and we kept close attention on the escort positions. Ready to call out a crash dive as soon as we suspected our cover was blown.

Luck was still with us! We passed right into the centre of the convoy, we went to PD and raised the scope just above the water. I then saw something I had not seen before! Half of the ships and at least one DD was on fire and showing blackened impacts from shells. A couple of merchants we listing badly from torpedo strikes but they all seemed to have the damage under control and was making steady speed along thier course.

Panning the scope around I picked out 2 potential targets, Lucky again! 2 Ore Carriers! Setting up the TDC for a 90 degree shot and setting the bearing to 30 degree starboard. We still hadnt been noticed! It was a clear day and calm seas...
Waiting until the first Ore Carrier reached the scopes 30 degree mark, then fired... no time to waste, I reset the TDC for another shot at the second Ore Carrier, swung the scope, waited a few seconds... and thats when I head the HUGE explosion. The first target had been hit, and then the pings started. We fired at the second Ore Carrier and crash dived...

As we made our way to about 120m at flank there followed a lot of depth charges but again our luck held out, the first few detonated near the stern, the boat was badly shaken but took no damaged. By the time we had levelled out the depth charges were being set too shallow and they all detonated above us.

I wasnt about to relax or get cocky, I had my crew to think about and their lives were my responsibility, I was going to get each and every one of them home. So we remained at depth and silent running. We had scored hits on 2 of the largest ships in the convoy (which sunk within half an hour), I was satisfied and decided we should wait for the DD's to give up the search for us and let the convoy pass. I knew for certain that other boats in the area would pick up the convoy and they too could get a share of this prize.

A few hours later the convoy had passed Westward into the distance and all the remained in the area was a single DD that was still trying desperately to located us. It was all just a matter of time and within the next hour that too had given up and took off to catch up with the convoy.

So now we have surfaced to recharge batteries and continuing our patrol until we have no torpedo's left. Lets hope our lucky streak stays with us for the next encounter!

[Leandros]

Oberleutnant z. See Hugo Stiglitz

This is my first time sailing a Type IX, really. I suspect I will grow to dislike the overly long and uneventful travel periods that go hand in hand with the sorts of distances this boat is supposed to operate at, but we will see.
You shouldn't worry too much about that. I rarely get to the far-out patrol areas as there are always some large convoys popping up on the way which the torpedoes can be spent on. Then it's back home.....:cool:

[Henry Wood]

So, I thought I would give LSH_V5 a try and it loaded without problem into a spare vanilla SH3 I had. After a quick spin around the naval academy (I had only loaded the main LSH mod) I thought this looks fine so I think I'll volunteer for some sea time. Before doing so I installed some more of the mods that come ready to use with the JSGME mod enabler which is also built in to LSH_V5.

Then I tried to start out. But, but, ... where is the engine room telegraph and the compass and everything else? Well, I eventually found them just before reaching the Kiel Canal locks. After getting through the locks I was admiring the huge dry dock and really appreciating the view. So much so that I did something wrong with the sliding out controls and ran aground, not only causing quite a bit of damage but also killing my Radio Op and seriously injuring the hydrophone op. I then aborted the patrol just a few hundred metres inside the Kiel Canal.

(That answers another question which popped up elsewhere: your crew can be killed or injured even when "no fatigue" is switched on.)

If I survive the court martial I will RTFM! :damn:

[Pappy55]

About to leave for my 4th Patrol on 23rd NOV 1939 at AM-34

KAPITÄNLEUTNANT William Adama
U-52 Type VIIb
U-Flotilla Saltzwedel (3 patrols)
17.8K Tons so far

Hit a nutral ship and survived the court marshall,
How was i surpost to know the ship was from Belgium?
the flags look the same in the dark and it was in french waters. pluss it was blacked out and not lighting its flag up..
Luckily she dident sink the explosion from the initial hit light the flag and made my aware. I let her be and ran away fast. :oops:

"there are some days I really hate this job"

Lets hope I get a nice fat un escorted convoy for number 4:arrgh!:

[frau kaleun]

Patrol 4
U-35, U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
ObltzS Peter Schmidt, Commander

November 22, 1939, 04:34
Departed: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid BF17

November 27, 1939, 06:08
Grid AN 12
Ship sunk: MV Draco (Coastal Freighter), 1869 tons
Cargo: Scrap Metal
Crew: 32
Crew lost: 20

November 30, 1939, 12:56
Grid AM 53
Ship sunk: SS Bedenham (Coastal Freighter), 1870 tons
Cargo: Steel
Crew: 30
Crew lost: 22

November 30, 1939, 20:42
Grid AM 52
Ship sunk: SS Cavallo (Tramp Steamer), 2239 tons
Cargo: Grain
Crew: 31
Crew lost: 15

November 30, 1939, 21:41
Grid AM 52
Ship sunk: SS Lifland (Passenger/Cargo), 2240 tons
Cargo: Passengers
Crew: 127
Crew lost: 80

December 3, 1939, 08:52
Grid AM 87
Ship sunk: SS Varangberg (Coastal Freighter), 1871 tons
Cargo: Steel
Crew: 25
Crew lost: 17

December 4, 1939, 10:43
Grid BF 17
Ship sunk: Q Ship HMS Looe (Small Freighter), 1749 tons
Crew: 60
Crew lost: 33

December 5, 1939, 10:12
Grid BF 17
Ship sunk: SS Erik Boye (Coastal Freighter), 1872 tons
Cargo: Grain
Crew: 33
Crew lost: 26

December 6, 1939, 02:47
Grid BF 11
Ship sunk: SS The Marquis (Coastal Freighter), 1873 tons
Cargo: Tobacco
Crew: 23
Crew lost: 1

December 14, 1939, 05:22
Grid AM 52
Ship sunk: Q Ship USS Irene Forsyte (Small Freighter), 1750 tons
Crew: 65
Crew lost: 14

December 16, 1939, 20:07
Grid AN 14
Ship sunk: SS Sheaf Mead (Granville-type Freighter), 4707 tons
Cargo: Military Stores
Crew: 46
Crew lost: 23

December 18, 1939, 21:25
Returned: Wilhelmshaven
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk: 10
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Patrol tonnage: 22040 tons

Career stats
Merchant tonnage: 83487
Warship tonnage: 0
Aircraft: 2

Upon return to base I was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class*, as was my gunner Otto Nelke. Bootsmann Nelke finished off four of our last five targets with the AA gun after we ran out of ammo for the deck gun. He was also promoted to Stabsbootsmann.

Other promotions:
Matrosenobergefreiter Emil Iffinger, to Matrosenhauptgefreiter.
Matrosengefreiter Siegfried Bornhoff and Matrosengefreiter Wilhelm Herbig, to Matrosenobergefreiter.


*The game also opted to award me the U-boat Front Clasp, quite an achievement since it does not exist yet. A quick visit was made to my career cfg files to rectify this most undeserved, and indeed quite impossible, accomplishment. :O:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/picture.php?albumid=163&pictureid=1404

Plus we made it home in time for Christmas! And as you can see, Bernard remains my trusty "go-to" man for keeping an eye on all those sneaky friendlies lying in wait at home base.

[kabex]

Plus we made it home in time for Christmas! And as you can see, Bernard remains my trusty "go-to" man for keeping an eye on all those sneaky friendlies lying in wait at home base.[/SIZE]

How do you get those wonderful patrol logs specifying type of cargo? Also, what mods do you use(and realism setting).

Thanks.

[frau kaleun]

I use SH3 Commander which generates the patrol logs. It randomizes the tonnage somewhat. I can look at the logs (or even edit them) in Commander, but what I've started doing is opening the patrol log file in my career folder in My Documents and just copying the info, then I paste it at the end of a Wordpad file I made to keep a running record of my patrols. I have to edit out a bit of "programming text" and move some bits of info around to get the format I like, but since all the info is there I don't really have to type anything out.

The ship names and info also come from Commander, via a Ship names.cfg" file that Sailor Steve updates with additional info about once a month. It's awesome!

I play with GWX3 Gold, and right now I have these other mods as well:

GWX 3 St Naz and Schluese and other units V4
WB's GWX campaign with VonDos' ships v2.7
WB- add Q ship
GWX - 16km Atmosphere
GWX - Alternate Loadscreen - Full Circle
GWX - Captain America's Officer Icons
GSX - Contact Color
GWX3.0 Additional Ammo
GWX3.0 All Weather Guns
Foam
Sober's 3D Waves
SH3 Moon Mod
WBNN Mission Orders Lite
Waterstream+Exhaust Combi V2.3 for GWX3
Waterstream+Exhaust Combi - Single Exhaust for TypeII
Das Boot Clothes
Dertien No Rank On Crew
Scirè-Tikigod- repeated order
skin_VIIB_Isitol
GWX - Integrated Orders
DD_OH_V3.09_20091209162038.7z*
DD_OH_V3.09_ConningDeckCam_Fix_20091210230737
GWX - Enhanced Damage Effects
Pascal_Port_People
FK's Das Boot Music**

*I play with a slightly modified version of this since I wanted to make it compatible with GWX Integrated Orders, which I just can't do without.

**This is my own personal mod that subs in music from Das Boot for the Menu screens and a just little bit of it in the game, since I don't like a lot of background music unless it's coming from the gramophone.


I am still playing at 18% realism while I get the hang of how to sink as many ships as possible and still get home alive. Which probably explains how I manage to sink so many damn ships, lol. Thank you Mr. Triangle! :/\\k: :O:

Oh but you know I tried that thing of locking on the target but then moving the crosshairs of the 'scope right over the bow of a ship and THEN firing, and it worked! THREE TIMES! Boy they sure do go down fast when they get their keel all blowed up right up there in the front like that.

[Snestorm]

I am still playing at 18% realism while I get the hang of how to sink as many ships as possible and still get home alive. Which probably explains how I manage to sink so many damn ships, lol. Thank you Mr. Triangle! :/\\k: :O:

18%?! Look at all that tonnage!

How about bringing it up a few notches?
Your tonnage figures say that you are MORE than ready.

Besides, the higher the "Realism", the more Renown.
Isn't it time for SH3 to give you a pay raise?

Oh! Your new avatar is cool.

[Snestorm]

D. 10.sep.40. Underway from Wilhelmshaven for Patrol Grid DH12.

Base changed to Lorient.

D. 16.sep.40. 08.24. AF71. Alarm! Crash Dive for Aircraft.
D. 19.sep.40. 15.15. AE91. Alarm! Crash Dive for Aircraft.
D. 9.okt.40. 12.00. DH12. On Station.
D. 8.nov.40. Docked at Lorient

No ships sunk this patrol.

U37's History:
6 Patrols.
17 Ships Sunk.
95.663 GRT.

[Paul Riley]

U-969 (VIIC) 4th March 1941 Patrol 6. (87% realism with manual targeting)

So far U-969 has been very lucky patrolling the North Western areas of Grid BF. It seems to be a choke point for all kinds of incoming and outgoing ships and convoys. We have kept as close to deep water as possible, it seems that RN patrols in the area are gradually increasing over the months.
Correct identification is also vital due to many neutrals passing through the area too.

After reaching our assigned patrol grid we picked up radar signals almost right away! Initially I had thought it might just be another DD patrol, but this time I decided to dive and check out what was going on in more detail. What luck! We picked up well over 6 merchants with DD escorts, heading right toward our position from approx 20nm eastward. After spending some time listening and and gradually plotting their movements and discovering more and more merchants, we worked out their general course and speed.

Even more luck! we only needed to move another 2nm South to place our boat right in their path! After taking some time to decide on an attack strategy while the boat moved toward position I decided I would once again try and get inside of the convoy and attack from the middle ( hopefully picking off the biggest targets before the escorts zero'd in on our position )

Turning the boat toward the oncoming convoy, we counted about 20 merchants and 4 escorts. Putting the boat into silent running we slowly made our way toward them along a path that would put us in the centre of the convoy and went to about 30m depth. Then came a slow and painful wait as they drew closer and we kept close attention on the escort positions. Ready to call out a crash dive as soon as we suspected our cover was blown.

Luck was still with us! We passed right into the centre of the convoy, we went to PD and raised the scope just above the water. I then saw something I had not seen before! Half of the ships and at least one DD was on fire and showing blackened impacts from shells. A couple of merchants we listing badly from torpedo strikes but they all seemed to have the damage under control and was making steady speed along thier course.

Panning the scope around I picked out 2 potential targets, Lucky again! 2 Ore Carriers! Setting up the TDC for a 90 degree shot and setting the bearing to 30 degree starboard. We still hadnt been noticed! It was a clear day and calm seas...
Waiting until the first Ore Carrier reached the scopes 30 degree mark, then fired... no time to waste, I reset the TDC for another shot at the second Ore Carrier, swung the scope, waited a few seconds... and thats when I head the HUGE explosion. The first target had been hit, and then the pings started. We fired at the second Ore Carrier and crash dived...

As we made our way to about 120m at flank there followed a lot of depth charges but again our luck held out, the first few detonated near the stern, the boat was badly shaken but took no damaged. By the time we had levelled out the depth charges were being set too shallow and they all detonated above us.

I wasnt about to relax or get cocky, I had my crew to think about and their lives were my responsibility, I was going to get each and every one of them home. So we remained at depth and silent running. We had scored hits on 2 of the largest ships in the convoy (which sunk within half an hour), I was satisfied and decided we should wait for the DD's to give up the search for us and let the convoy pass. I knew for certain that other boats in the area would pick up the convoy and they too could get a share of this prize.

A few hours later the convoy had passed Westward into the distance and all the remained in the area was a single DD that was still trying desperately to located us. It was all just a matter of time and within the next hour that too had given up and took off to catch up with the convoy.

So now we have surfaced to recharge batteries and continuing our patrol until we have no torpedo's left. Lets hope our lucky streak stays with us for the next encounter!

Nice attack :up:
Thats the way I like to attack convoys if possible,from within,like a true wolf!

[Henry Wood]

I use SH3 Commander which generates the patrol logs. It randomizes the tonnage somewhat. I can look at the logs (or even edit them) in Commander, but what I've started doing is opening the patrol log file in my career folder in My Documents and just copying the info, then I paste it at the end of a Wordpad file I made to keep a running record of my patrols. I have to edit out a bit of "programming text" and move some bits of info around to get the format I like, but since all the info is there I don't really have to type anything out.

The ship names and info also come from Commander, via a Ship names.cfg" file that Sailor Steve updates with additional info about once a month. It's awesome!

I play with GWX3 Gold, and right now I have these other mods as well:

I am still playing at 18% realism while I get the hang of how to sink as many ships as possible and still get home alive. Which probably explains how I manage to sink so many damn ships, lol. Thank you Mr. Triangle! :/\\k: :O:

Oh but you know I tried that thing of locking on the target but then moving the crosshairs of the 'scope right over the bow of a ship and THEN firing, and it worked! THREE TIMES! Boy they sure do go down fast when they get their keel all blowed up right up there in the front like that.

Oh boy! You sound like a Kaleun after my own heart. I am hopeless with the torpedo calculations so I also love Mr. Triangle! I have been reading your posts with great interest and I would like to thank you for listing all the mods you use. This is a great help to people like me who kind of know how to play the game but are not sure which mods to use. You reminded me that I also have a list somewhere of mods "Avon Lady" used to use and I must load them next into another SH3 vanilla. My project this weekend is to make two more SH3 installations and the desktop shortcuts will read "SH3 FK" and "SH3 AL".

Thank you for all of your interesting posts.

[frau kaleun]

18%?! Look at all that tonnage!

How about bringing it up a few notches?
Your tonnage figures say that you are MORE than ready.

Besides, the higher the "Realism", the more Renown.
Isn't it time for SH3 to give you a pay raise?

Oh! Your new avatar is cool.

I may check off a few more realism options when I finish this next patrol, just to see what happens. There are some in there I could probably manage to survive at this point, lol. I just wish I could find some warships to sink! I get contact reports and occasionally one shows up on the hydrophones, but always too far away and going too fast in the wrong direction for me to catch up to. Either that or I'm on the way home and already out of eels. And only one convoy so far, didn't do very well with it so I'd love another shot at that.

Re: avatar - thanks! I really like it.

Oh boy! You sound like a Kaleun after my own heart. I am hopeless with the torpedo calculations so I also love Mr. Triangle! I have been reading your posts with great interest and I would like to thank you for listing all the mods you use. This is a great help to people like me who kind of know how to play the game but are not sure which mods to use.

I am still getting used to using all the tools for following contacts on the map and trying to estimate their courses and plot intercepts. Using Color Contacts means they're identified as enemy/friendly/neutral so I'm not spending any time trying to sneak up on ships only to find out I can't sink them, lol. It helps a lot. Eventually I want to get more realism and maybe even try manual targeting. Mostly it's about learning patience! I lost two potentially huge kills last patrol by rushing in. A large merchant and big tanker sailing one right behind the other, no escorts. Got impatient and was spotted long before I got close enough to have a decent shot. Also since I'm mostly getting lone merchants, I'm trying to discipline myself to stick to "one ship, one torpedo," knowing I can take even the bigger ones out with the guns once I've slowed them down, even the flak gun if necessary.

Thank you for all of your interesting posts.

*blushes demurely*

:O:

[Dissaray]

I'm a bit cross with the game just now. I was in the middle of a WAW patrol, December of '43, and the pesky distroyer wouldn't leave me alone. I was dodging and evaiding for about an hour, real time, not sure how long it was in the game's time. I would lose him and he would find me again and depth charge me a few times and I would escape and we started the whole thing over agin. I was under doing hydrophone intercept practices so my bateries weren't fresh and I was still a long way out from my asignd PZ and wanted to get a move on. I made one last bid to escape and when that failed I decided that sone one had to die and I didn't think it was going to be me this time.

I ordered parascope depth and saw he was coming around behind me so I set up for a stern shot, a quick and dirty shot from the hip realy. I held my breth as the torpido moved across the just about 500m and to my dismay it missed wide and behind, I guessed wrong on the speed. I had a acustic tracker but it was in the foreard reserve so I had to make room so I made ready for a forward shot. Again I missed the target, not as wide and behind this time but still not a hit, miss judged teh speed again. This gave me a wonderful opertunity to load in my acustic seeker, a type of torpido I haven't had opertunity to use until now. I adjusted the speed again and had what I thought was a good line on the target and let fly, or swim I guess but that dosen't sound as cool. I was a bit woried beacouse the target was close to the 400m mark, the distance the torpido has to travle befor the acustic tracker starts working. This time my estamate was too high on the speed and it missed just forward of the bow.

I was shocked, I thought these things didn't miss! I was sure the target was doing at least ten knots, the minimum engagment speed for the torpido and it was far enuf out, about 450 when I fired it. I was trying to figure it all out when I rememberd that I have to dive or risk geting killed by my own torpido so that is what I did, along with cuting engens befor I fired. Just as I orderd the dive I saw my little torpido marker on the f6 map start to turn, it had found some thing. I was just hoping that it wasn't me by some fluke, the target ship was being much louder than me after all. I made it down to about 35m when I heard a BANG! and I listend for tell tail signs of me dieing and to my delight I did hear any of them. Then I got the report: "She's going down!" I orderd blow balast and roketed up to the tops, I was in a type 7c so it wasn't that fast but still no slouch when coming up. by the time I was up there all I could see of the target was the stern pointing strait up, only the rudder realy left sticking out. I guess the torpido must have struck near the bow and done terrible damage there.

So I wright my sitrep leting the bdu what hapend and that I wasn't dead, I had told them about the contact befor this whole mess, and to rgister my cause for killing the DD, thry froun on wasting torpidos on light ships, and to get my tonage registerd. So the report was all finished and posted and I get back to the game and the damn thing crashes! Now I have to start the patrol over. :cry:

[martin1004]

Just finished a patrol near Rockall Banks. On my return journey I recieved a report of a large enemy convoy. Since it was so close to me I had to take a look. Pretty nice convoy with lots of large tankers. Unfortunatley with 5 escort destroyers too, which I all sunk eventually. The last one I had to destroy with my deck gun since I was out of torpedoes. At first I tried to evade it but after I took a severe hit which blew away my stb propeller I decided to surface exactly when it drove over me so I could rape it from the back, mounting my deck gun ASAP and broke it's guns so they were powerless against me. I couldn't go at silent speed anyway so I decided to take the risk - I would have sipmly sunk because my speed was too low to maintain depth thanks to the broken propeller.
It was a great and enjoyable hunt, lucky too I guess. End result:
Merchant tonnage : 45 371 (6 ships)
Warship tonnage: 5490 of which 1 destroyer and 4 corvettes.
Hull integrity 60,94. Suprisingly good because I really took a beating.
Renown per patrol 1705, promotion to Oberleutnant z.S, Iron cross 2nd class, 2 of them for my crewmembers too.

[Grim Nigel]

Nice attack :up:
Thats the way I like to attack convoys if possible,from within,like a true wolf!

Thanks :salute: although this must of been only the 3rd time I've attempted this style of attack... I suspect It'll become near impossible as the war progresses. Been a highly successful strategy so far though. Being in the middle of all those merchants buys the boat extra time before the DD's can find a path through and start dropping the charges.

Almost all of my strategic desisions are based on what I have learned from the wise advice of the good people of subsim :DL

[Paul Riley]

Tonight's events so far

4th Sept '39
19:19
Ran into a filthy storm moving through AN46-AN42,waves coming right over the top,visibility poor
20:00
Forced to dive for the duration of the night,will surface when light to recharge

Day 5
08:31
Recieved an SOS from SS Bosnia,45 deg 29' North / 09 deg 45' West.Continued on to PZ
13:01
SOS signal,SS Pluvoise stopped by German UBoat operating from 39 deg 42' North / 09 deg 10' West
14:01
SOS Royal Sceptre,no further information
15:10
Picked up a sound contact bearing 36 deg heading roughly NNE,broke out at max speed to investigate.Sound checks every 15 mins until target aqquisition.If hostile I plan to shadow target until nightfall then commence attack surfaced from a range of approx 1000-1500m,depending on immediate visibility.Attack will be made facing away from the strong SE winds.No mag tips to be used.If attack fails due to poor conditions will break off and report contact in to base.Torps must be conserved as much as possible,we have only 4 left.

Tonight's report

After getting some of my patrol details on paper mixed up,mainly with the dates and other details I will just say that we managed to sink a total of 3 ships on our first patrol,1 Granville,1 Med Cargo,1 Small Merch for a total of 11.961 tonnes.
Tonight's attack on the small merchant just off the Orkneys was conducted on a very dark night with 11mps winds.She was doing 9 kts and we battled to keep up with her for the good part of 2 hrs.I managed to eventually draw up from behind her on the surface and move up alongside for a 80 deg bearing shot ( slightly behind and not bang level to minimize detection at such short range on the surface) from a range of exactly 1000m.We remained undetected the whole time and after confirming all settings were true aimed at the foremast.Our torp slammed into her at the exact spot I aimed for and she struggled to stay afloat in the choppy sea,finally sinking heavily to port after 28 mins.
Heading back to base now after a gruelling 1st patrol of my new career,in some very testing conditions,mainly the bloody weather and slow speed of the IIA.I am very pleased with my performance as every torpedo fired has hit its mark,and we have been promised a free round of beer when we get back (really,we actually got a radio report saying 'first rounds are on high command' ) :woot:

End of report.

Kapt Franz Weber of U-16

[frau kaleun]

Well Patrol 5 is turning out to be interesting. After bagging 4 very small fry coming around the Orkneys and Hebrides, we spotted a lone Tribal class NW of the latter and were able to sneak up on it at periscope depth. Close enough to have the 'scope spotted the last time I popped it up for a looksee - turned around and headed off veeeeeery slowly as it was still over 4000m away when it started to give chase, and much to my surprise kept my nerves intact while preparing the stern tube until it caught up with us. Fired from about 500m out and then cranked it to flank speed and dropped to 60m down.

Scored a hit after which I heard a few seconds of frantic pinging and thought "oh great" but then she went down before I had to worry about it.

Coming down off the west coast of the Hebrides and making for my patrol grid, spotted two more destroyers also cruising S in between us and the isles and was able to turn into an intercept course at periscope depth. Realized I was soon gonna lose any chance at them running on the e-machines, even at flank speed - so I took a shot at one from about 4000m out, and followed with a shot at the second in line from about 35000m distance. The second shot was a hit, a V&W class which went down without further ado. The other ship started looking for me and I hung around for a bit to see if I could line up another closer shot whilst keeping my periscope in plain view. I don't think she spotted me as she seemed to be coming in our direction but then started zigzagging around and eventually turned off to search another area. Decided to leave well enough alone and headed back on course towards our patrol grid.

Am now finishing up a Beck's in celebration of my first career warship kills!

:D:D:D:rock:

[Paul Riley]

Upon returning to base it was later discovered that our 3 sinkings were neutral ships :nope:
I could have swore they bore the British flag,in fact I KNOW I saw the British flag,and the 3rd ship sailed with no lights,adding to our suspicion they may have been hostile.I think we got hit pretty hard with our renown bonus,we were awarded a measly 347.80 points,does this sound about right for what we achieved on that patrol?
BDU was a bit unhappy,but told us not to think too much about it as the weather conditions were tough and ships sailing with no lights would seem viable targets in hostile waters.This international incident has successfully been covered up,blaming the rough seas on the capsizing and sinking of these ships.

[Grim Nigel]

U-969 (VIIC) 5th March 1941 Patrol 6. (87% realism with manual targeting)

After our previous success morale on the boat was high, we had only been at sea for six days and had expended all but 3 forward and 1 rear torpedo's. We had just sunk a lone coastal freighter when to our suprise a contact report came through.
According to the report a large convoy was making its way NNE about 120nm to our SW doing 7 knots. I rushed to the plotting table and began to make calculations, hoping we could make it before the convoy changed course or left us too far behind.

Lady luck was once again with us. We had a good chance of making it to an intercept point about 20nm ahead of the convoy in only 4 hours.
Ordering ahead full we turned and headed along the intercept course.
When we arrived at the determined point, we submerged to check the convoy was still heading along its expected course. We should only have been roughly 20nm ahead and easily within hydrophone range. The calculations paid off, we picked up the escorts first and over the next few minutes bagan to acquire many merchant contacts.

Again I decided to test the boats chances and try another attack from the inside of the convoy. As the convoy drew closer we went to silent and dropped to 30m depth (I heard stories of boats loosing their towers to the keel of merchants passing overhead, so tend to be cautious in close proximities)
All was going well, the convoy drew closer, the escorts seemed to be oblivious to our presence, untill only 6 or 7 hundred metres from the convoy... the pings started.
I cursed to myself, somone must of dropped a spanner in the engine room again, one of the escorts must of been a little closer than we expected and heard our boat. Ordering a crash drive we headed for 120m depth, dropped a Bold and changed course slightly as we made our way down into the dark murkeyness.

I was praying that our luck hadnt run out, maybe we had tempted fate too many times and was trying to work out what I did wrong on this approach, perhaps 2 knots was too fast considering how close the escorts were to us. Depth charges rained down, but it seems the Bold saved our necks and confused the DD's allowing us to slip away.

The zig-zagging convoy began to pass above us. We were running deep and silent, we had at least 2 DD's frantically searching for us. There wasnt much time to decide. At this speed we couldnt make it to PD in time to target any ships before they passed our position. I had 2 choices, let the convoy go and sneak away, or say to hell with it, order flank speed and fire everything we had at whatever we could find and worry about the escorts later.

I carefully noticed the positions and distances of nearby escorts and made some mental calculations. Could we make it up to PD before the DD's were on top of us? The chances were slim.. but even a slim chance is better than no chance.
Yelling like a madman to boat was put into action, blowing ballast and going to flank... damage crews manned their stations and I set the TDC for the first probable shot using what data I had available.

Our soundman tracked the nearest DD as we made our way to PD at a good 7-8 knots. I was nervous and knew this would be risky, the boat was screaming out its position to all listening hostiles and we were along for the ride. By the time we had reached PD, I raised the scope and turned it sternward... sure enough the nearest DD was hot on out tail and closing fast. Every second counted, I estimated we had only 1 minute at the most before that damned escort would send us to Hades.

Panning the scope I saw that the convoy had almost passed us completely, only the rear-most merchant were still ahead of us but closing fast toward our 90 degree limits. I wasnt going to loose any speed to slow down to buy more time, we would need that speed in the next few seconds. Panning the scope starboard I picked out a good target, a nice fat ore carrier ( 3rd one this patrol! ) and fired 2 torpedo's the moment it reached our firing mark.

I turned and checked on the position of the DD chasing us... we still had a good 30 seconds. Panning the scope to port, the only target available, a tramp steamer and I only had 1 forward torpedo left. In the race against the DD on our tail I set the TDC up for another shot and fired.
Checking again the position of the DD, all I could see was bow spray and a large pointy chunk of metal heading right toward us.

Ok, it was time to quit laughing in the face of doom and crash dived. Heading down to the usual 120m depth, dropping a Bold on the way and going silent when levelled. There follwed a few depth charges, but it seemed like the escorts were captained by rookies, they circled near where I deployed the bold, not once did they even re-aquire our position and allowed us to slip away. All of our torpedo's had found their mark and sent both the ore carrier and steamer to davy jones.

So once the convoy and its escorts had passed into the distance less than 2 hours later, we surfaced and decided to head back home after only 6 days at sea!
Although I had one torpedo left in the rear tube, I always keep one just incase we run into something on the way home.

End of patrol 6 :
Patrol results|Crew losses: 0|Ships sunk: 6|Aircraft destroyed: 0|Patrol tonnage: 29985 tons

Total ships : 28 for 156437 tons

[Paul Riley]

U-969 (VIIC) 5th March 1941 Patrol 6. (87% realism with manual targeting)

After our previous success morale on the boat was high, we had only been at sea for six days and had expended all but 3 forward and 1 rear torpedo's. We had just sunk a lone coastal freighter when to our suprise a contact report came through.
According to the report a large convoy was making its way NNE about 120nm to our SW doing 7 knots. I rushed to the plotting table and began to make calculations, hoping we could make it before the convoy changed course or left us too far behind.

Lady luck was once again with us. We had a good chance of making it to an intercept point about 20nm ahead of the convoy in only 4 hours.
Ordering ahead full we turned and headed along the intercept course.
When we arrived at the determined point, we submerged to check the convoy was still heading along its expected course. We should only have been roughly 20nm ahead and easily within hydrophone range. The calculations paid off, we picked up the escorts first and over the next few minutes bagan to acquire many merchant contacts.

Again I decided to test the boats chances and try another attack from the inside of the convoy. As the convoy drew closer we went to silent and dropped to 30m depth (I heard stories of boats loosing their towers to the keel of merchants passing overhead, so tend to be cautious in close proximities)
All was going well, the convoy drew closer, the escorts seemed to be oblivious to our presence, untill only 6 or 7 hundred metres from the convoy... the pings started.
I cursed to myself, somone must of dropped a spanner in the engine room again, one of the escorts must of been a little closer than we expected and heard our boat. Ordering a crash drive we headed for 120m depth, dropped a Bold and changed course slightly as we made our way down into the dark murkeyness.

I was praying that our luck hadnt run out, maybe we had tempted fate too many times and was trying to work out what I did wrong on this approach, perhaps 2 knots was too fast considering how close the escorts were to us. Depth charges rained down, but it seems the Bold saved our necks and confused the DD's allowing us to slip away.

The zig-zagging convoy began to pass above us. We were running deep and silent, we had at least 2 DD's frantically searching for us. There wasnt much time to decide. At this speed we couldnt make it to PD in time to target any ships before they passed our position. I had 2 choices, let the convoy go and sneak away, or say to hell with it, order flank speed and fire everything we had at whatever we could find and worry about the escorts later.

I carefully noticed the positions and distances of nearby escorts and made some mental calculations. Could we make it up to PD before the DD's were on top of us? The chances were slim.. but even a slim chance is better than no chance.
Yelling like a madman to boat was put into action, blowing ballast and going to flank... damage crews manned their stations and I set the TDC for the first probable shot using what data I had available.

Our soundman tracked the nearest DD as we made our way to PD at a good 7-8 knots. I was nervous and knew this would be risky, the boat was screaming out its position to all listening hostiles and we were along for the ride. By the time we had reached PD, I raised the scope and turned it sternward... sure enough the nearest DD was hot on out tail and closing fast. Every second counted, I estimated we had only 1 minute at the most before that damned escort would send us to Hades.

Panning the scope I saw that the convoy had almost passed us completely, only the rear-most merchant were still ahead of us but closing fast toward our 90 degree limits. I wasnt going to loose any speed to slow down to buy more time, we would need that speed in the next few seconds. Panning the scope starboard I picked out a good target, a nice fat ore carrier ( 3rd one this patrol! ) and fired 2 torpedo's the moment it reached our firing mark.

I turned and checked on the position of the DD chasing us... we still had a good 30 seconds. Panning the scope to port, the only target available, a tramp steamer and I only had 1 forward torpedo left. In the race against the DD on our tail I set the TDC up for another shot and fired.
Checking again the position of the DD, all I could see was bow spray and a large pointy chunk of metal heading right toward us.

Ok, it was time to quit laughing in the face of doom and crash dived. Heading down to the usual 120m depth, dropping a Bold on the way and going silent when levelled. There follwed a few depth charges, but it seemed like the escorts were captained by rookies, they circled near where I deployed the bold, not once did they even re-aquire our position and allowed us to slip away. All of our torpedo's had found their mark and sent both the ore carrier and steamer to davy jones.

So once the convoy and its escorts had passed into the distance less than 2 hours later, we surfaced and decided to head back home after only 6 days at sea!
Although I had one torpedo left in the rear tube, I always keep one just incase we run into something on the way home.

End of patrol 6 :
Patrol results|Crew losses: 0|Ships sunk: 6|Aircraft destroyed: 0|Patrol tonnage: 29985 tons

Total ships : 28 for 156437 tons

Nice little read that ,good work.

[YukonJack_AK]

I just wish I could find some warships to sink! I get contact reports and occasionally one shows up on the hydrophones, but always too far away and going too fast in the wrong direction for me to catch up to.

Had the same problem... Found by sheer chance a wonderful place to hunt the "Big Boys". The deep water just west of the Straits of Gibraltar is the place to go as it's a major choke point for all traffic coming and going from the Med. I simply murder them there!:D I will spend several days just patroling in a circle there and LOTS of convoys come through for starters, but every so often a TF comes through with a truely juicy target or two! :arrgh!:

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/8039/scratchoneflattop.jpg (http://img651.imageshack.us/i/scratchoneflattop.jpg/)

Thats the HMS Arc Royal going "bottoms up" after taking 4 to the front quarter! Unfortunately couldn't reload fast enough for the BB there and the 6 tin can escorts sent me deep to hide... but man that was awesome! :rock: I love getting Patrol Orders that send me South - I never miss an opportunity to stop by the Straits!

[Paul Riley]

Look forward to heading down there sometime in my career ,good screenshot :yeah:
I used to enjoy that spot in the stock game,but using GWX3 I expect the area to be even more interesting.
Its always a shame to see one of Britain's finest battleships in such peril though :nope:;)

[YukonJack_AK]

Just watch out once you've had a few go down... I swear the AI comes looking for the pest at the back door. :arrgh!: I've noticed pairs of ASW Tugs, DD's and heavier air cover intently looking for me after a few good sinkings... GWX IS GREAT!!! :rock:

[Paul Riley]

... GWX IS GREAT!!! :rock:

Amen to that.

[Grim Nigel]

Retiring my current carreer after 6 patrols.

Just discovered I shouldnt even have the radar detector or decoys yet! Not entirely sure how I managed to get them. I suspect a previous mod I was test driving had changed equipment availability dates.

Kinda feels like cheating so I'm going to start a new career :DL

[Paul Riley]

I wouldnt retire just because of that mate,if it bothers you that much why not remove the radio man from his post?,it may disable the equipment for a time? :hmmm:
I certainly wouldnt retire,I would consider it a gift from the gods.
Still,I can see what you mean though from YOUR perspective,it would give you an advantage where in real life you wouldnt have that luxury?,at least not yet.

[Grim Nigel]

I'd already deleted the career when I suddenly realisted I could of edited the equipment out in the config file lol.
Doesnt matter though, I'd already earned promotions and iron crosses second and first class so I think my captain would of been "requested" to volunteer for training instructor duty, he was one hell of a lucky chap. Lets hope U-707 shares some of that luck as well :yeah:

[Paul Riley]

Well,good luck with U-707 :)

[Gilbou]

Playing with all realism options set except map contacts (I like to draw interception things and etc. but I have to have to keep drawing where the ship is once spotted.) and I also have manual targetting off (tried once, ended in 1944 still with my type-II and almost 95 % of patrols without ever sinking anything).

type IIA
March 1940
Done 7 patrols, 8th underway
Started with 500 renown, actually got 1000
Trying to reach 2500 for a type VIIB

Writing my patrols logs in the blog in my signature.

[Pappy55]

Just watch out once you've had a few go down... I swear the AI comes looking for the pest at the back door. :arrgh!: I've noticed pairs of ASW Tugs, DD's and heavier air cover intently looking for me after a few good sinkings... GWX IS GREAT!!! :rock:

I might take my sub down there after my 24 hours are up in this area.. I have not found much so far..

To be honest I have never spotted a capitol ship in a campaign ever in sh3. I spotted a cruise liner in the stock game once and sunk her but thats about it.

So here's hopeing.. Will make a great christmas present (currently late nov 39) to the crew

[Paul Riley]

Strait of Gibraltar (more so inside and on towards the Med) was/still is a hive of activity,it was once a major trade hub for the British Empire and I reckon some very juicy targets could be found there,if one is brave and skillful enough to cope with the increased patrol craft in that area.
I wonder how GWX3 simulated this area?,only time will tell :arrgh!: *NO SPOILERS PLEASE*

[frau kaleun]

Patrol 5

U-35, 2 U-Boat Flotilla Saltzwedel
ObltzS Peter Schmidt, Commander

January 14, 1940, 02:42
Departed: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid BE59

January 17, 1940, 15:08
Grid AN 14
Ship sunk: MV Agate (Small Trawler), 98 tons
Crew: 23
Crew lost: 18

January 18, 1940, 09:38
Grid AN 13
Ship sunk: SS Bradfyne (Granville-type Freighter), 4707 tons
Cargo: Paper Products
Crew: 84
Crew lost: 62

January 18, 1940, 11:32
Grid AN 13
Ship sunk: MV Chestnut (Small Trawler), 99 tons
Crew: 13
Crew lost: 2

January 18, 1940, 18:14
Grid AN 13
Ship sunk: MV Crista (Small Merchant), 2229 tons
Cargo: Mail/Packages
Crew: 27
Crew lost: 11

January 20, 1940, 11:40
Grid AM 35
Ship sunk: HMS Ashanti (Tribal class), 1850 tons
Crew: 191
Crew lost: 1

January 22, 1940, 09:57
Grid AM 39
Ship sunk: HMS Woolston (V&W class), 1188 tons
Crew: 104
Crew lost: 4

January 24, 1940, 03:55
Grid AM 51
Ship sunk: SS Sea Tarpon (Large Cargo), 6897 tons
Cargo: Phosphates
Crew: 51
Crew lost: 15

January 24, 1940, 04:01
Grid AM 51
Ship sunk: SS Grafton (Large Cargo), 6898 tons
Cargo: Tobacco
Crew: 55
Crew lost: 26

January 24, 1940, 18:15
Grid AM 46
Ship sunk: SS Adrian (Coastal Freighter), 1873 tons
Cargo: General Cargo
Crew: 21
Crew lost: 12

January 25, 1940, 00:37
Grid AM 49
Ship sunk: SS Port Adelaide (Ore Carrier), 6449 tons
Cargo: Coal
Crew: 67
Crew lost: 32

January 26, 1940, 19:06
Grid BE 35
Ship sunk: SS Thistleglen (Granville-type Freighter), 4709 tons
Cargo: Military Vehicles
Crew: 105
Crew lost: 23

February 8, 1840, 11:48
Returned: Wilhelmshaven
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk: 11
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Merchant tonnage: 33959 tons
Warship tonnage: 3038 tons
Patrol tonnage: 36997 tons
Career Tonnage: 120484

On return to base I was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class as was my veteran Mechanikerhauptgefreiter, Johann-Walter Lind. The Iron Cross, Second Class was awarded to my 1WO, LtzS Kurt Myke, and to Mechanikermaat Willibald Mühlhaber. Funkmaat Gunter Domke and Sanitätsmaat Wilhelm Honsberg were both promoted from Bootsmann to Stabsbootsmann.

I think I'm officially addicted now, as the thrill of bagging my first warships led to an all-nighter. Fortunately I can afford the loss of sleep today as I'd taken the whole week off work! (Actually it's probably a good thing, I've been sleeping in all week and have to be up early tomorrow for a very long day - so I need to be dead tired tonight in order to get to sleep early.)

Anyway, the determination to stay up and continue the patrol paid off as I hadn't proceeded too far south and west after sinking the second destroyer when I got a report of a large convoy heading ENE towards the upper Western Approaches. Turned north for grid AM51 and was able to intercept at the front starboard corner of the four-column procession; a combination of darkness, rough seas and silent running at periscope depth allowed me to sneak in behind the Swan class patrolling ahead of the merchants and slip into position between the two nearest columns. At least two other escorts were patrolling at the rear of the formation, leaving the flanks largely unprotected.

I had my eye on the third ships in the two middle columns, the two biggest ships in the convoy. I set up a fast two eel spread for each; fired on the first one from about 1800m out, and the second from maybe 2300m; honestly I'm not sure because my nerves were so on edge! Trying to keep track of the two ships I was after; trying to keep track of all the other unsuspecting merchants as they sailed ever closer to pass fore and aft of us; trying to follow the movements of the head escort from the whispers being passed up from the hydrophone station; nerve-wracking, I tell you, absolutely nerve-wracking! But OMG the adrenalin!

But I got off all four torpedoes and all four hit, two per ship, as I ordered an immediate dive, then hard to port, and quickly lowered the 'scope. It seemed like only seconds later that we heard the distinct sounds of both merchants sinking into the abyss. Set course WSW, and off we went, dropping deeper and deeper as we slid through the water beneath the rest of the oncoming convoy. By the time they'd all passed over and around us, we were at 150m; the lead escort had given up looking for us, and the ones who stayed behind to patrol the area never even came close to guessing our location. Eventually they had to return to the flock and we were clear to resurface with almost 14000 tons of unlucky English shipping added to our tally.

We returned to base with one lonely torpedo sitting patiently in the stern tube, having saved that and one in the fore tubes for our journey home, during which we'd been ordered to patrol just east of Scapa Flow for 24 hours if our fuel reserves were sufficient. They were, but the weather refused to cooperate. A fierce winter storm lashed at our little boat all the way through the Nordsee, and visibility was almost nonexistent; so much so that we couldn't make out the ships of a large convoy moving through the area despite the hydrophone reports that indicated they were almost right on top of us. At the time we still had the one eel waiting in a fore tube, but with only that and the stern tube available, going up against an escorted convoy with barely 100m beneath our keel and less than 2000m visibility seemed like a very foolhardy undertaking, so we reported the contact, dropped to 80m and ran silent out of there.

We did come across a lone coastal freighter several hours later, and fired off a shot from a fore tube that just missed her bow as she turned away from its trajectory. Whether she somehow managed to spot our 'scope in the waves, or was simply getting bounced around too much in the storm to keep a steady course and depth, I'm not sure. Heaven knows it was all we could do to stay on course on the surface.

By the time we returned to base the wind had died down somewhat, but the cold rain persisted with a vengeance. Nevertheless, a highly successful patrol from which all hands returned happy and healthy.

And, yeah, I think I better turn up the realism a notch, since I'd like to be promoted to Kptl before my luck runs out. :O:

[Gilbou]

Just sailed out.
Came back on 8th patrol with type IIA U-22
on April, 9th 1940

Ordered in December, 15h 1937, the U-99
was laid down March, 31th 1939. After
tests, she was commissioned April, 18th 1940

Took command of the U-99 type VIIB on
April, 10th 1940, moved with crew to
Willemshaven on 11th and took control of
U-99 on 22th 1940 at 06:00

Sailed with U-99 to Kiel, got her fitted with
type II torpedoes.

Departed for 9th patrol and U-99 first patrol,
brand new ship, April 23th 1940 at 06:45

U-22 was transfered to another command
and left for her patrol a week ago. Bdu
sent us a message on April, 25th 1940 at
08:02 to inform us U-22 failed to report
and came back from patrol. I left U-22
for U-99, U-22 went to sea for her first
patrol without me and she will never come
back...

[frau kaleun]

:wah: Ouch man that's gotta hurt.

RIP, U-22.

[Gilbou]

The radio message was a slap in the face.

Spent two years with the U-22, from 1st august 1939 (one month before the war even started !) to April, 9th 1940

Done 8 patrols with her, sending to the bottom of sea 30283 tons.

I took the U-99, sailed outside of the Kiel kanal and the message announcing the loss of U-22 reached me.

:wah:

[Gilbou]

Almost got killed on my 9th patrol, first time with my U-99, brand new type VIIB

May, 19th 1940

03:00 En route to Kiel. Spotted warship medium
range in grid AM64. Started shooting at us,
ordered crash dive. Depth charged. Dived to 80,
then 100, then 120 meters. Warship circles and
depth charges us.

03:44 : Warship has given up and his heading south.
Setting depth to 80 meters, running silent running
for one hour. Then periscope check and surface if
possible.

06:06 : Spotted ship while on surface. Ordered
crash dive. Will remain below water until night.

23:00 : Spotted warship. This place is crawling
with patrol boats and destroyers. They know we
are travelling the passage and want us sinked.

23:30 : Took a depth charge directly on side of
Bow Torpedo. All four torpedo tubes are destroyed,
and pressure doors destroyed. Could not block
flooding from tubes : ordered evacuation of Bow
torpedo quarters, and pressure door is now closed.
Bow torpedo quarters are fully flooded, but ballast
tanks are still working, helping level the ship.
We have no wounded.

23:42 : We have bottomed the ocean floor. Engines
are stopped. Destroyers are circling around and
throwing depth charges. Ordered full stop and
silence.

--

May, 20th 1940

00:10 : Another depth charge close to us.
Flooding in bow quarters. Bow torpedo flooding
is increasing. We hear their sirens on top of us.

00:14 : Flooding in bow torpedo tubes under control.
Damage team working on bow quarters. Raising depth
to 30 meters and moving away.

00:17 : Stern is moving up but bow remains on
ocean floor. Depth remains at 39 meters. Trying
to move the sub up.

00:22 : Warship still running around. No ping,
no depth charges. We are waiting. Will have to
blow ballast to surface.

01:07 : Blowing ballasts.

01:11 : We are on surface. Ordering full ahead
speed. We have three dead : Bootsman Gert Eppen,
Matrosengefreiter Henning Hansen and Harald
Clausen. Two heavily wounded : Eberhard Hauber
and Wilhelm Schulz.

01:39 : Water has been pumped out of Bow Quarters.
But we cannot dive again or we will bottom the ship.
The Bow torpedo is full of water reducing our speed.
Chief engineer is taking care of wounded and then
will try to path the Bow Torpedo if possible to
increase level of bow.

--

May, 21th 1940

08:50 : Chief engineer has finished working on
the bow compartement. We have a huge hole on the
right, the depth charge must have exploded very
close. We have welded metal plates to try to avoid
too much water pouring in and slowing us down,
but the compartement is flooded. We have moded all
recipients we could find, filled with air, to
that compartement to level it higher than sea
line. Boat is almost level and we are running at
12 knots to Kiel. If any aircraft catches us on
surface, we might not make it.

--

May, 22th 1940

19:34 : Aircraft attacking us from stern. Ordered
flak gun to fire. Speed to flank ahead.

--

May, 23th 1940

06:00 We buried at sea our three dead.

11:01 - BdU orders to stop any use of the
magnetic pistols henceforth.

--

May, 26th 1940

00:52 : We are below 10 % fuel
We are 50 Km from Kiel.

03:24 : We have reached Kiel. End of patrol.

Sunk 1 tanker
4 cargo ships
1 warship
Total tonnage : 26165 tons
3 dead

Been awarded Iron Cross, First Class

Damage to Uboat has been very high. Hull integrity
loss is estimated to 85 %

[Snestorm]

Playing with all realism options set except map contacts (I like to draw interception things and etc. but I have to have to keep drawing where the ship is once spotted.) and I also have manual targetting off (tried once, ended in 1944 still with my type-II and almost 95 % of patrols without ever sinking anything).

type IIA
March 1940
Done 7 patrols, 8th underway
Started with 500 renown, actually got 1000
Trying to reach 2500 for a type VIIB

Writing my patrols logs in the blog in my signature.

If you can't afford the VIIB before the base change to France, I would strongly suggest you shell out 500 Renown for a IID. You'll need the range.

IIDs can, and realy have, done North Atlantic patrols.
(And it's a nice boat).

[Snestorm]

Strait of Gibraltar (more so inside and on towards the Med) was/still is a hive of activity,it was once a major trade hub for the British Empire and I reckon some very juicy targets could be found there,if one is brave and skillful enough to cope with the increased patrol craft in that area.
I wonder how GWX3 simulated this area?,only time will tell :arrgh!: *NO SPOILERS PLEASE*

It's a great place to take a IXB or IXC after finishing a patrol along the african coast, and coming up empty handed.

[Snestorm]

Patrol 5

U-35, 2 U-Boat Flotilla Saltzwedel
ObltzS Peter Schmidt, Commander

February 8, 1840, 11:48
Returned: Wilhelmshaven
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk: 11
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Merchant tonnage: 33959 tons
Warship tonnage: 3038 tons
Patrol tonnage: 36997 tons
Career Tonnage: 120484

And, yeah, I think I better turn up the realism a notch, since I'd like to be promoted to Kptl before my luck runs out. :O:

Cool!
Just look at that tonnage!
You sink more ships than I even get to see.

(You can get your realism up into the 80s, without making anything harder on yourself).

[Gilbou]

If you can't afford the VIIB before the base change to France, I would strongly suggest you shell out 500 Renown for a IID. You'll need the range.

IIDs can, and realy have, done North Atlantic patrols.
(And it's a nice boat).

I have added the missing renown for returning to port.
I was at 8 patrols, so I added 200 x 8 to my renown
(since this should have been in the game if there wasn't a bug)

I took the VIIB. I removed the deck gun.
I like its underswater speed and sleak look. It's a huge and
luxurious boat. I have spent 8 patrols in the type IIA. The biggest
problem was not the fuel, I always made sure I could come back
to port. The problem was only 5 torpedoes. I very often came
back to port after two weeks full of fuel because I had fired all
my torpedoes...

I really like the VIIB. Probably will keep it until the war's end.

type IIA -> type VIIB

I will then start a carreer with a type VIIB or C and move to a
type IX for long-range patrols.

Does the change to France port occurs automatically ?
I'm in September 1940 and my port is still Kiel.

[kabex]

Quick question, I am reviewing my patrol logs and I do not get cargo information or crew men lost on the ship like frau kaulen, any ideas?

Also, when is the IID available? I am using the IIA on the 2nd flotilla in oct39, the only one available is the VIIB.

[Snestorm]

This is cool. My IX(A) managed to get assigned a VII grid.
Thought briefly about "doing my 24" and slipping off to my favorite grid, BC43 (Canada), but reconsidered. U37 must be the the southern most boat of a patrol line (Wolf Pack) covering the western side of Rockall. Can't leave a hole.

D. 6.dec.40.
02.37. Depart Lorient enrout to Patrol Grid AM43.
08.47. BF61. Alarm! Crash Dive for Aircraft.

Wasn't that nice of the RAF to see us off, and drop off some "presents". Just 35 miles out of port. No damage luckily, but a real wake up call.

D. 11.dec.40. BF14.
04.45. Ship Spotted.
T3 Tanker, making 12 Knots, and flying The Stars And Stripes.

D. 12.dec.40. AM87.
03.01. Ship Spotted.
Destroyer at 4500 Meters, and heading our way.
Full moon, calm & clear.
Turn bow on while diving to 100 meters. Undetected.

D. 12.dec.40. AM76.
08.56. Sound Contact. Merchant. Closing. Moving Slow.
09.08. Surface. Full Ahead. Variouse Courses and Speeds.
09.21. Target spotted by me on a reciprical course. Periscope Depth.
09.44. Coastal Merchant (2.047 GRT) Sunk.
Course 177. Speed 7 Knots. G7E Torpedo x 1.

D. 14.dec.40. AM43.
01.00. On Station.

D. 15.dec.43. AM43.
14.06. Radio Report. Convoy. AM19. East. 7 Knots. (Full Ahead for AM01).

D. 15.dec.40. AM01.
21.00. Ship Spotted. Destroyer! And Convoy!
Coming straight at us. Periscope Depth.
Don't like inside attacks. Turning 90 degrees for the stern tubes.

21.30. T2 Tanker (10.872 GRT) Sunk.
Convoy's Course 098. 7 Knots. (Thanks for the speed, BDU).
G7A Torpedo x 2. Full Moon. Calm & Clear.

22.58. Surface. Full Ahead.
The chase is on.

D. 16.dec.40. AM01.
00.01. Regained contact with Convoy.
00.03. Corvette Spotted!
This guy was good. It was a long way around him. Hard to see little thing!

01.47. Coastal Merchant (2.050 GRT) Sunk. G7A Torpedo x 1.
01.47. C2 Cargo (6.250 GRT) Sunk. G7E Torpedo x 3.
Night Submerged Attack. Full Moon. Calm & Clear.
Convoy's Course 098. Speed 7 Knots.
3 known escorts. Destroyer Front. Corvette Port. Destroyer Rear.
Second Corvette suspected on Starboard.

04.10. Surface. Full Ahead.
06.03. Regained contact with convoy.

08.05. T3 Tanker (11.654 GRT) Sunk. G7A Torpedo x 1.
08.06. Little Merchant (2.343 GRT) Sunk. G7E Torpedo x 1.
08.08. Little Tanker (4.276 GRT) Sunk. G7E Torpedo x 1.
No result on C2 Cargo fired on. G7E Torpedo x 1.
Presunrise Submerged Attack. Light. Clear & Calm.

My last Torpedo, a G7A is loaded into Tube 3.
The next 10+ hours are devoted to this single torpedo.

09.40. Surface. Full Ahead.
10.41. Contact regained with convoy. (Visibility Limit 7.000 Meters).
11.05. "We've been spotted!". Corvette is at 6.900 Meters. Escaping on surface.
11.13. "Ship Spotted!". DESTROYER! Dive! 100 Meters.
11.17. Report nearest warship. "No Warship Contact.".
11.28. Sound Contact. Warship. 156R. Moving Away. Moving Fast. Long Range.
11.29. Sound Contact. Warship. 158R. Moving Away. Medium Speed. Long Range.

12.20. Surface. Full Ahead.
13.43. Regained contact with convoy.
13.47. "We've been spotted! We've been spotted!". Dive! 100 Meters.
13.48. Sound. 2 Warships. Medium & Very Fast (35+ Knots!)

D. 16.dec.40. AM29.
16.00. Surface. Full Ahead.
17.05. Regained contact with convoy.

D. 16.dec.40. AM51.
18.40. Torpedo Impact. C2 Cargo hit. No Sinkings. No stragglers.

All Torpedoes (12) Expended. Status Report Sent. Returning to Lorient.

D. 17.dec.40. AM46.
08.00. Sound Contact. Convoy. Surface. Full Ahead. Standard Propulsion.
08.34. Destroyer & Convoy Sighted. Dive, Follow & Shadow.
09.40. Contact Report Sent.
Convoy's Course 051. Speed 11 Knots. Transports, Cargoes, and a Tanker.

D. 20.dec.40. BF12. (Shortcut across England's front lawn).
04.39. Corvette Spotted. 000R. Dive. 100 (of 134) Meters. Undetected.

D. 24.dec.40. Docked at Lorient.

Patrol Results: 7 Ships Sunk for 39.692 GRT.

U37's History To Date:
7 Patrols.
24 Ships Sunk. (Frau Kaleun does that in one patrol).
135.325 GRT.

[Snestorm]

Quick question, I am reviewing my patrol logs and I do not get cargo information or crew men lost on the ship like frau kaulen, any ideas?

Also, when is the IID available? I am using the IIA on the 2nd flotilla in oct39, the only one available is the VIIB.

I believe Frau Kaleun uses SH3 commander to get all that ekstra log information.
I don't get that either.

How'd you get a IIA in the 2. Flotilla?
The 2. Flotilla usualy (if unaltered) starts you in a VIIB, and later progresses to IXs.
Neither the IIA nor IID have enough range to do 2. Flotilla Grids (African Coast and the like)

1. Flotilla starts with a IIA, and offers the IID in oktober 1939 for 500 Renown.
I don't think you can get either of these boats outside the 1. Flotilla.

[kabex]

I believe Frau Kaleun uses SH3 commander to get all that ekstra log information.
I don't get that either.

How'd you get a IIA in the 2. Flotilla?
The 2. Flotilla usualy (if unaltered) starts you in a VIIB, and later progresses to IXs.
Neither the IIA nor IID have enough range to do 2. Flotilla Grids (African Coast and the like)

1. Flotilla starts with a IIA, and offers the IID in oktober 1939 for 500 Renown.
I don't think you can get either of these boats outside the 1. Flotilla.

I am also using SH3 Commander and I don't see that information, forgot to include it.

Also, I am in 1st Flotilla, pardon me... another omission.

Thanks for the data, do I spend my 500 on the IID or save up for IXB & transfer to 2nd Flotilla?

I really want to get my hands on that 105mm deck gun.

[Gilbou]

Quick question, I am reviewing my patrol logs and I do not get cargo information or crew men lost on the ship like frau kaulen, any ideas?

Also, when is the IID available? I am using the IIA on the 2nd flotilla in oct39, the only one available is the VIIB.

You need to use SH3 Commander. It is very good.
You can use it with stock game or with GWX 3 Gold
Not only it adds names ships, but it also keeps a log of ships
you sunk so you cannot sink the same ship twice in your logs.

[Snestorm]

I have added the missing renown for returning to port.
I was at 8 patrols, so I added 200 x 8 to my renown
(since this should have been in the game if there wasn't a bug)

I took the VIIB. I removed the deck gun.
I like its underswater speed and sleak look. It's a huge and
luxurious boat. I have spent 8 patrols in the type IIA. The biggest
problem was not the fuel, I always made sure I could come back
to port. The problem was only 5 torpedoes. I very often came
back to port after two weeks full of fuel because I had fired all
my torpedoes...

I really like the VIIB. Probably will keep it until the war's end.

type IIA -> type VIIB

I will then start a carreer with a type VIIB or C and move to a
type IX for long-range patrols.

Does the change to France port occurs automatically ?
I'm in September 1940 and my port is still Kiel.

The change to France should either have happened already, or will happen on your next patrol. One generaly gets a radio message saying "The base was changed to Brest/St. Nazaire". If it doesn't happen on your next patrol consult The All Knowing Jimbuna.
If your Radioman tells you that you have a message, press "M", then click on "Message".

The missing renown for returning to port should actualy be 100 per patrol, but that's OK.
I've done worse things than that.

Not sure why you would want to remove the deck gun. It can come in handy for Trawlers, Fishing Boats, Tugs, and finishing off ships you've managed to cripple with torpedoes.

The IIA & Fuel. No problem . . . until the move to France.
From that point on, the patrols get much longer. Just getting to France in a IIA can be exceptionaly challenging.

Enjoy your VIIB. It's a nice step up from either of the IIs, for sure.

[Snestorm]

I am also using SH3 Commander and I don't see that information, forgot to include it.

Also, I am in 1st Flotilla, pardon me... another omission.

Thanks for the data, do I spend my 500 on the IID or save up for IXB & transfer to 2nd Flotilla?

I really want to get my hands on that 105mm deck gun.

Looks like you got the logs thing straight, which is good, cause I don't have that mod.

IIA til IID til IXB:
I've gone that route. It's not easy, but it is rewarding.
WARNING: Should you decide to do it this way, you may have to do at least one patrol out of France in the IID.

If you use a VIIB as a stepping stone to the IXB, there's an ekstra 2.000 Renown to make up.

Personal Recommendations.
From the 1. Flotilla: IIA, IID, IXB. (The hard way).
From the 7. Flotilla: VIIB, IXB. (Easy). (You get the VIIB, FREE.)

[kabex]

Personal Recommendations.
From the 1. Flotilla: IIA, IID, IXB. (The hard way).
From the 7. Flotilla: VIIB, IXB. (Easy). (You get the VIIB, FREE.)
I don't see the IXB on the 1st Flotilla, when does it become available?

I'll probably go for IID then save up for the IXB, I see it available in december 39 on the 2nd Flotilla.

[Snestorm]

I don't see the IXB on the 1st Flotilla, when does it become available?

I'll probably go for IID then save up for the IXB, I see it available in december 39 on the 2nd Flotilla.

You have to wait until the 2. Flotilla opens to get your IXB.
It'll happen shortly after the move to France.

[Gilbou]

The change to France should either have happened already, or will happen on your next patrol. One generaly gets a radio message saying "The base was changed to Brest/St. Nazaire". If it doesn't happen on your next patrol consult The All Knowing Jimbuna.
If your Radioman tells you that you have a message, press "M", then click on "Message".

The missing renown for returning to port should actualy be 100 per patrol, but that's OK.
I've done worse things than that.

Not sure why you would want to remove the deck gun. It can come in handy for Trawlers, Fishing Boats, Tugs, and finishing off ships you've managed to cripple with torpedoes.

The IIA & Fuel. No problem . . . until the move to France.
From that point on, the patrols get much longer. Just getting to France in a IIA can be exceptionaly challenging.

Enjoy your VIIB. It's a nice step up from either of the IIs, for sure.

Right now I am doing my 11th patrol, second patrol with the VIIB.
Love that ship :)

It's November, 12th 1940. My base is still kiel and I received no message
until now about it.

I was told renown for returning was 200 per patrol :/
I need to remove renown now then. 8 x 200 - 8 x 100 that's
800 to remove. I was at 500 so I should have missed about 1200
renown to get the VIIB :damn:

[Pappy55]

I decided to start again with a German name and not a picture and name from Battlestar Galactica :yeah:

I'm going to try and give updates as diary entries

.......................................

26th August 1939

I was given command of U-52 looks like all that brown noseing at the academy paid off. After a shakedown cruise and some leave for my men, last night we were put to sea. We have been sent to a classified location somwhere near France and Britain. The men are anxious. I have a feeling too.. we have our reserve bays loaded with torpedos too.. Bdu have never done that before.. I have a feeling war is imminant..


27th August 1939

We have passed Dutch and British in grids AN95 and AN83. Weather is good and no word from Bdu. We are setting course to the English Channel.
I can smell food. I think the galley is cooking up somthice nice..

(more to come as it happens)

[Paul Riley]

Kpt Franz Weber
U-16 , Type IIA
2nd war patrol , assigned to grid AM87
Left Wilhemshaven on 26th Sept 1939 at 0654

19:32
Passed along the Frisian/Dutch coast and recieved radio report of large enemy task force in AN41 heading ESE at 25kts
Decided against any sort of action against it due to our relative position and they could change course at any given point making interception unlikely,and due to their speed of 25kts would easily catch us if spotted.Proceeded back to original course

26 Sept
Day 1 at sea
04:52
Patrol Craft spotted in AN83 heading 266 at 5kts.Went to periscope depth until vessel disappeared
15:28
Second Patrol Craft spotted in AN85 possibly heading to the nearest Dutch port at 9-10 kts.Again dived to periscope depth until craft had gone
15:43
Passing through AN85 along the Dutch coast about 7km from land,a day and a half away until we enter the Dover Strait.May luck be on our side passing through this perilous area,and then onward as we break out into the Irish Sea.Our priority is to intercept any inbound traffic heading for the Bristol Channel.Recieved reports from fellow captain's that this is a lively spot...lets hope so.This time we can afford no more errors in identifying ship nationalities,we must be certain,even if it means us making prior interceptions in daylight just to verify their ID

End of log.

[Snestorm]

Right now I am doing my 11th patrol, second patrol with the VIIB.
Love that ship :)

It's November, 12th 1940. My base is still kiel and I received no message
until now about it.

I was told renown for returning was 200 per patrol :/
I need to remove renown now then. 8 x 200 - 8 x 100 that's
800 to remove. I was at 500 so I should have missed about 1200
renown to get the VIIB :damn:

RENOWN
Reach Patrol Grid: 500 Renown.
Remain in Patrol Grid for 24 Hours: 200 Renown.
Return to within 25 KM of Homeport: 100 Renown.
(Jimbuna was being nice to you. It's his nature.)

I don't understand why you are still based in Kiel.
Either something is wrong, or you're running some modification that is unknown to me.
Hopefuly Jimbuna, or someone more knowledgable than I on Mods & Files can help.

They will need to know what Mods you are running, and what files you have modified yourself.

[Snestorm]

Kpt Franz Weber
U-16 , Type IIA
2nd war patrol , assigned to grid AM87
Left Wilhemshaven on 26th Sept 1939 at 0654

Didn't quote the whole thing, for the sake of brevety.

Outstanding Reports, you give.
Always enjoy all the details given.
Great reading.

[Pappy55]

August 29th 1939

Rough sea again.. its tossing our Type VII about like a toy..
Hope it passes soon..

August 31st 1939

Still no letup in these storms.. our 24 hours here are over.
We had a report of a British merchant close to us so i ploted an intercept course and have decided to stalk her. We got to within 300 meters of her at periscope depth with a fully plotted fireing soloution. not that we can fire on her being a nutural ship. Thankfully the sea is still rough makeing it very hard to spot our periscope.

I just wish somthing would happen.. Were just sitting on our asses waiting for orders.

I hope the weather clears up soon.

[frau kaleun]

Cool!
Just look at that tonnage!
You sink more ships than I even get to see.

(You can get your realism up into the 80s, without making anything harder on yourself).

The two large merchants in the convoy plus the ore carrier really made the patrol. Oh, and the destroyers, that was awesome. And infiltrating the convoy and getting away with it. Must put a thanks in here for everyone who's posted about their preferred tactics for convoy attacks, whatever I absorbed from it sure helped a lot! I wish I'd had the nerve to stay around longer and take out some more ships, but just getting in and sinking the two biggies and getting out with no real problems was really something.

I've been playing with adding some more mods and testing outside of career mode to make sure I don't overload things or have conflicts and end up with a CTD or other problem when I go out with U-35 again. Was able to add the lifeboat & debris mod with no problems so far, now getting ready to check out some other additions. But I'm definitely going to jack up the realism before I go out again as Oblt Schmidt.

[frau kaleun]

You need to use SH3 Commander. It is very good.
You can use it with stock game or with GWX 3 Gold
Not only it adds names ships, but it also keeps a log of ships
you sunk so you cannot sink the same ship twice in your logs.


Correct, use SH3 Commander AND enable the "use real ship names in patrol logs" option. That's where the additional info comes from.

[Exakt]

Olt z S Ernst Wagner's log:

November 5, 1939,

We are departing Wilhelmshaven, on-board my boat, U-47 (VIIB), Fur Deutchland, for our fifth patrol since the start of the war. So far, war has been easy on us, always came back with all of our crew intact, including the ship. This is the first time that we will go towards the Atlantic, the last four patrols were on the eastern British coast and were some good "training" days for the coming ones. Just hope that our luck won't run out that easily either.

November 8, 1939,

I have decided to go through the Channel to get to our patrol grid and what a pay off it was. Abeam Dieppe, we came across a passenger ship, blacked out. We were already submerged when the sonar operator signaled the contact. We just had passed a few torpedo boats and a ASW trawler. Periscope up, target was approximately 9 km away. Chose to send two eels at a slow speed. Approximately 9 minutes after launch, 2 booms. Both had impacted, so i shadowed it for about 2 hours and the boat still wouldn't sink. After checking the sonar, I've decide to surface and finish it off with the deck gun. Finally sank after about 17 rounds. Went back on course and came across a French small freighter at the early hours of the morning. Again, sent 2 eels, both hit and after half an hour, it went down. Continued our way towards the Atlantic, avoiding some random patrol boats. Around dinner time, came across our first British ship of the day, a Pelagic trawler. I didn't want to waste torpedoes on it, so we went ahead, flank speed with the deck gun ready and it went down after about 10 shots. The seas were still calm. Just after the second watch crew took over, we have come across another British ship, a large trawler and again, sunk it with the deck gun.

November 10, 1939

Guess my second watch crew are the ones that will have the most fun, for they spotted a British large merchant in grid BF25. Seas were still calm, it has been some very smooth sailing since we have departed. Sent two torpedoes its way and went to the bottom. About midway through the 3rd watch shift, we came across a small trawler. A small fry boat in my opinion, but the crew needs the practice, so we went towards it and sank it with the deck gun. So far this sortie has been good for the gun crew.

November 11, 1939,

Out of the Channel and making our way towards BE23, our patrol grid. Now it was time for my first watch crew to get some happy time with a British ship, a small merchant, maybe a stray from a convoy, it is along one of the known convoy lanes heading towards Africa. We had 5 torpedoes left in the bow. Seas were yet again very calm... flat is more appropriate. but since it was in the early afternoon, we approached submerged and sent 2 eels its way. One hit and the second missed. Since it was damaged, I ordered to man the gun as soon as we surface. The crew fired 5 shots before the vessel broke in two. Was an amazing firework in broad daylight.

November 16, 1939,

I have to say that sometimes, I wonder why BdU send us all the way to the Atlantic. Spend more than 24 hours in our designated patrol grid and nothing. was more a pleasure cruise than anything else. There forecasted storm wasn't out this far out yet. We are on our way back, 3 bow torpedoes and 3 aft ones left. I think I will tease those Brits again, for we are going back through the Channel,

November 19, 1939,

Storm is in full swing here, guess the men got used to the good weather, for some of them had trouble sleeping. We haven't come across a single ship until a surprise, about 20 minutes before I intended to dive for a sound check, the watch officer screamed "Alarm". So we dived and when I looked through the scope, the British coastal freight was under 1 km away. The visibility was really crappy, but the bad weather helped us, the waves were so rough that the vessel could accelerate, it took us about 2 minutes to turn our boat for a problem firing solution. I decided to make a short work of it and fired my three remaining bow torpedoes. They all hit with a delay of 5 seconds between each and literally tore the ship apart. It went down in less than five minutes. After that, I have evaded the rest of the ships that I would encounter and will proceed that way until we get back home.


Ships sunk:
SS Lifland (Passenger/Cargo), 2584 tons. Cargo: Passengers. Crew: 173. Crew lost: 164
SS Sonora (Small Freighter), 1584 tons. Cargo: Wine/Spirits. Crew: 26. Crew lost: 1
SS Sonora (Small Freighter), 1584 tons. Cargo: Wine/Spirits. Crew: 26. Crew lost: 1
MV Admiral Mountbatten (Large Trawler), 547 tons. Crew: 10. Crew lost: 7
SS Nagara (Large Merchant), 8095 tons. Cargo: Sugar. Crew: 80. Crew lost: 0
MV Lalita (Small Trawler), 98 tons. Crew: 8. Crew lost: 7
SS Katingo Hajipatera (Small Merchant), 1736 tons. Cargo: Phosphates. Crew: 43. Crew lost: 13
SS Trentonia (Coastal Freighter), 1875 tons. Cargo: Machinery. Crew: 27. Crew lost: 13

Patrol tonnage: 17407 tons

[Grim Nigel]

U-707 (under command of Lt. Z. S. Werner Faust) is currently on its 2nd Patrol and has had a lot of success within the first 2 days of patrolling the assigned grid. No convoys yet but I'm extending the patrol further north into a known convoy route.

I enjoyed writing patrol reports so much I has started a detailed patrol Blog :DL that I update as the patrol progresses. Link on my sig.

[Snestorm]

I enjoyed writing patrol reports so much I has started a detailed patrol Blog :DL that I update as the patrol progresses. Link on my sig.

Checked out your blog. Interesting read.

Check out the area around where BF13 meets BF15.
It gets shallow, but it's a good spot for picking up convoys.
If you feel brave, you can go farther north into the bottle neck of St. George's Channel.

[Grim Nigel]

Check out the area around where BF13 meets BF15.
It gets shallow, but it's a good spot for picking up convoys.
If you feel brave, you can go farther north into the bottle neck of St. George's Channel.

Added to intelligence report notes, Thanks for the tip :salute: Going to take a hefty set of brass to tackle a convoy there but I think its worth a look and see what turns up :D

[Paul Riley]

Didn't quote the whole thing, for the sake of brevety.

Outstanding Reports, you give.
Always enjoy all the details given.
Great reading.

Hey thanks for that.I didnt think they were much better than some reports I have read in here.Really nice you enjoyed it.I will be doing a better report as I come to the end of my current mission.I will see some serious action on this one :up:

[Paul Riley]

RENOWN
Reach Patrol Grid: 500 Renown.
Remain in Patrol Grid for 24 Hours: 200 Renown.
Return to within 25 KM of Homeport: 100 Renown.
(Jimbuna was being nice to you. It's his nature.)

I don't understand why you are still based in Kiel.
Either something is wrong, or you're running some modification that is unknown to me.
Hopefuly Jimbuna, or someone more knowledgable than I on Mods & Files can help.

They will need to know what Mods you are running, and what files you have modified yourself.

Are these the renown figures the game SHOULD have calculated by?,or does the game actually calculate renown using these figures already?
I have always been in doubt when it comes to renown given just for reaching and returning from your patrol,but renown based on how prolific and effective you were?,most definitely! so if you seriously damaged or even destroyed a task force or convoy you should expect heavy renown bonuses,on the other hand if you used all torpedoes and only sank 1 or 2,or none at all,then you should be awarded minimal renown,naturally.For outstanding performance a bonus in the thousands would even seem appropriate.

[Flopper]

October 15, 1939, on the Atlantic side of Gibraltar and Tunis, mid-morning, clear sky and sea so calm it's like glass. 3 small cargo/freighter types in a line and steaming west right for me, I order periscope depth. French vessels, no escort.

A half hour or so later, I'm just about ready to launch and realize I'm extremely close, so I make a last second decision to reset the torp speed to slow. By the time I get that done, I'm already a degree or two late by the torp bearing table, but I fire two eels at the lead ship anyway. The first one barely catches the stern, second one misses behind.

No warship contacts in sight, so I decide to surface in broad daylight and see if I can put my deck gun to work while I set up a surface attack. I order the deck gun to fire on the #2 in line, and begin to work a solution for the #3 in line.

About 30 seconds later I'm informed that "we're taking damage" and I'm wondering, "Who is shooting at us?" and then I hear a buzzing noise and there's a couple of huge explosions. I look up to see two what appear to be bi-planes. Crash dive. I go below and the lights are off, and we've sustained a hell of a lot of damge, and flooding in 3 compartments.

I had JUST previously awarded the "repair" qual to one of my officers when I arrived at the supply ship Corrientes. We stay submerged at 6 knots and manage to stop the flooding and repair the damage while heading west and following the closest contact. At this point, neither periscope is operational so I decide to surface again.

We are very close to the target, and I can see one vessel through the binoculars is sinking... no sign of the other one, and no sign of any aircraft. I order repairs on the deck and flak guns, do a fast maneuver and set up a quick torpedo solution and fire two more eels. They both hit. I order ahead full and we steam away from there while completing the repairs and moving the external torp to the reserves.

We limp back to port without further incident, and sink a Granville type freighter west of Portugal on the way . I got credit for all three of those French targets. I have always been able to dive out of harm's way when encountering aircraft before, and I still don't know why NOBODY spotted them. :hmmm:

[frau kaleun]

U-35 has set out on her sixth patrol, and for the first time we have not been assigned a patrol grid in the North Atlantic / Western Approaches. Instead we've been ordered to stay in the North Sea and patrol an area roughly east of the Firth of Forth. And just when I'd figured out where all the good hunting was to the west of the British Isles. :stare:

Oh well, it's only for 24 hours. I have up the realism to 60% or so now. We'll see how it goes. There was actually quite a bit of traffic in that area when we passed through on our way home last time out, but the weather was too abominable to do much. Couldn't seem to get close enough to see another ship without running the risk of slamming right into her. Maybe it'll be better this time.

Maybe we can find us a lone merchant carrying crates and crates of fine old single malt Scotch. :O:

[KL-alfman]

Maybe we can find us a lone merchant carrying crates and crates of fine old single malt Scotch. :O:


you know how the prize regulations work, do you, Frau Kaleun? :D

(you have to share with all the members here at SH3-boards)

[Flopper]

Maybe we can find us a lone merchant carrying crates and crates of fine old single malt Scotch. :O:

I read this and my mouth started watering. Literally. Wow, that's bad. :o

[frau kaleun]

you know how the prize regulations work, do you, Frau Kaleun? :D

(you have to share with all the members here at SH3-boards)

Oh, we're getting that 24-hour patrol over with first thing. Which means by the time we actually get low enough on fuel to have to head home, any Scotch we come across will all be gone back into the watery depths from which we rescued it... one way or another. :O:

I read this and my mouth started watering. Literally. Wow, that's bad.

"Scotch whiskey's the finest on earth,"
Claimed a clansman of highlander birth.
He came down from the north
To the mouth of the Forth
Just to belt back a fifth on the Firth.

Close enough to St. Paddy's day for limericks. :D

[Exakt]

CAPTAIN'S LOG


3.12.39. 0150 Patrol 6
U-47, U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Left at: December 3, 1939, 01:50
From: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid AM34
8.12.39. 0740 Grid AM 32 Ship sunk! HMS Voltaire (Auxiliary Cruiser), 13850 tons. Crew: 156. Crew lost: 127
0743 Grid AM 34 Ship sunk! HMS Valorous (V&W classes), 1188 tons. Crew: 118. Crew lost: 88
0756 Grid AM 34 Ship sunk! HMS Carnavon Castle (Auxiliary Cruiser), 13850 tons. Crew: 244. Crew lost: 241
17.12.39. 1457 Grid BE 39 Ship sunk! SS Stalingrad (Small Merchant), 1728 tons. Cargo: Military Vehicles. Crew: 61. Crew lost: 28 19.12.39.0652 Grid BF 27 Ship sunk! SS City of Lincoln (Large Merchant), 8906 tons. Cargo: Aircraft. Crew: 62. Crew lost: 27

Patrol results
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk: 5
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Patrol tonnage: 39522 tons

Also I came across the HMS Hood, who had just left Scapa Flow, but sadly, due to weather, I wasn't able to attack its battle group.

[vergol]

January 5th, 1940.
15:00 hours

Grid BF17. Three torpedoes left. Fuel reserves are half of capacity. Visibility moderate.

Spotted merchants heading WNW. An outbound convoy. Intend to shadow.

18:00 hours

Make out three rows, five columns, heading 281, eight knots. Two tankers, one leading destroyer escort. Intend to overtake and attack from the south.

18:30 hours

Can make out one battleship in the center - HMS Nelson or a sister ship. Intend to sneak in behind the first row and use the two remaining forward torpedoes against the battleship.

20:00 hours

Altered attack due to escort proximity. Went to flank speed and surface-fired at the battleship from 2600 meters. Dived immediately after. Heard one torpedo impact.

20:55 hours

Evaded the escort for half hour. Depth-charged three times. Escort rejoined the convoy. Intend to remain submerged for another hour.

Unsure of torpedo success. Adjacent merchants were nearly lined up with the battleship at the time of attack.

22:00 hours

Surfaced. Spotted a lone tanker, likely hit by our torpedo. Calculated its speed at 0.5 knots, limping, possibly due to propeller damage. Funnel still producing smoke.

Convoy no longer in sight.

23:30 hours

Used the remaining stern torpedo to finish the tanker.

Commencing the return trip to Wilhelmshaven.

[Grim Nigel]

The latest situation report from the logs of Werner Faust, U-707.

Patrol # : 2
Days at sea : 11
Torpedo's remaining : 8
Tonnage sunk : 40,397 (Unconfirmed)

12:39am 9th December 1940 - It had been 5 days since our last contact and almost a week patrolling grid BF11 without much success at locating a convoy. I was still somewhat annoyed about losing track of the last convoy contact report and had not received a report update. I had just told the radio man to send a message home requesting a patrol area reassignment when a single merchant contact report was received. At last, some action, this should serve to boost morale on the boat or relieve the boredom at the very least.

The report came through at 9:50pm on the 9th, a single merchant travelling SSW at slow speed and it was only 36km NW of our position. So we began the chase without delay. It was a very dark night, the merchant was travelling dark which made it difficult to identify the ship and nationality. After some discussion and bringing the boat as close as possible without alerting the merchant we determined it to be a British Large Merchant.
Again I wanted to save our remaining 8 torpedo's for a convoy attack so decided to sink the target using the deck gun. It wasn't until the deck gun opened fire that we were surprised to discover the merchant was in fact, well armed. During the exchange of fire, U-707 took several hits, causing extensive but repairable damage throughout all compartments. I was also injured by shrapnel while manning the AA gun. The Merchant was sent to the bottom after sustaining 77 Shell hits. Leaving us with 46HE 8.8 Shells remaining aboard.

9th December 1940 @ 12:08am
Large Merchant sinking awaiting confirmation from BDU...


Damage control teams and crew all across the boat performed their duties with speed and efficiency, I am very proud to serve on a boat with these men. However, U-707 sustained several punctures to the pressure hull and I am not sure if the welded patches will hold if we have to go deep to evade being depth charged. We will only know the full extent of the damage once we have returned home and U-707 is put in dry dock. I will wait until daylight to see what kind of shape the hull is in before deciding whether to continue the patrol or return to St. Nazaire for repairs.

Damage Report for 9th December 1940, U-707.
Aft and Fore Batteries.
Port and Starboard Diesel Engines.
Bow Torpedo Tube (2).
Fuel Tank.
Main Pump.
Observation Periscope.
Radio Antenna.
Port Propeller
Pressure Hull puncture of all compartments.

All damaged internal equipment and systems have been repaired at sea.

9:00am 9th December 1940 - Damage control teams have completed their assessment of the external damage U-707 sustained during the previous firefight. Although much of the deck, tower and structure above and below the waterline was a mass of twisted and dented metal, the report was optimistic that we could temporarily repair much of the damage above the waterline. My main concern was that the damage may act like a brake and reduce our submerged speed.
Repairs are now underway and will take approximately 4 hours to complete, during that time the boat will need to remain stationary. The sea washing over the deck is making the task much more difficult and time consuming.

I am officially recommending that Stabsbootsman Heinrich Stracke be awarded a commendation for his volunteering to inspect the port propeller damage. The sea is quite rough today and such an inspection could prove dangerous, or even fatal if anything goes wrong.
When we have repaired all we can, we will take U-707 down on a test dive to test the integrity of the pressure hull. We will need to be able to reach at least 80 metres depth if we are to continue our patrol effectively. Continuing the patrol or returning to base depends entirely on this factor.

[Paul Riley]

U-35 has set out on her sixth patrol, and for the first time we have not been assigned a patrol grid in the North Atlantic / Western Approaches. Instead we've been ordered to stay in the North Sea and patrol an area roughly east of the Firth of Forth. And just when I'd figured out where all the good hunting was to the west of the British Isles. :stare:

Oh well, it's only for 24 hours. I have up the realism to 60% or so now. We'll see how it goes. There was actually quite a bit of traffic in that area when we passed through on our way home last time out, but the weather was too abominable to do much. Couldn't seem to get close enough to see another ship without running the risk of slamming right into her. Maybe it'll be better this time.

Maybe we can find us a lone merchant carrying crates and crates of fine old single malt Scotch. :O:

No drinking and driving please :shucks:

[frau kaleun]

No drinking and driving please :shucks:

If you come across a uboat doing donuts at flank speed in grid AN52, that'll be us.

[kabex]

I got tired of my type II

I was on my 2nd patrol as a my new IID and hit a small merchant head on with a torpedo and after hours in VERY rough waters it didn't sink.

I was waiting there for it to go under but many hours passed and eventually a warship came over and started firing, I left and survived pretty much unscathed then somehow while diving to persicope depth I must have pressed a different key and it went 20m,30m,50m,70m poof I died.

I decided to "retire" it instead of loading a save game and put my career as "surrendered at sea".

I seriously can't play without a deck gun. I won't stand for this crap.

I'll probably go with a IXB in 1940 now.

[Paul Riley]

I hate it when ships won't seem to sink when they should,ie: you can clearly SEE the gaping hole in its hull and there may even be fires on deck,yet somehow,it manages to stay afloat?and at the same speed? Type II's are crap for their lack of a deck gun and atrocious speeds,their only real use is good dive times,ideal for tight coastal areas where a military presence may be high,like in the Med.
As soon as I have the renown I will probably sink my IIA in the north sea somewhere then return home in rubber dingies,I will just say we ran into a mine somewhere and was unable to radio our position in time before it sank :nope:;)

[Paul Riley]

Kpt Franz Weber
U-16 , Type IIA
2nd war patrol , assigned to grid AM87
Left Wilhemshaven on 26th Sept 1939 at 0654

19:32
Passed along the Frisian/Dutch coast and recieved radio report of large enemy task force in AN41 heading ESE at 25kts
Decided against any sort of action against it due to our relative position and they could change course at any given point making interception unlikely,and due to their speed of 25kts would easily catch us if spotted.Proceeded back to original course

26 Sept
Day 1 at sea
04:52
Patrol Craft spotted in AN83 heading 266 at 5kts.Went to periscope depth until vessel disappeared
15:28
Second Patrol Craft spotted in AN85 possibly heading to the nearest Dutch port at 9-10 kts.Again dived to periscope depth until craft had gone
15:43
Passing through AN85 along the Dutch coast about 7km from land,a day and a half away until we enter the Dover Strait.May luck be on our side passing through this perilous area,and then onward as we break out into the Irish Sea.Our priority is to intercept any inbound traffic heading for the Bristol Channel.Recieved reports from fellow captain's that this is a lively spot...lets hope so.This time we can afford no more errors in identifying ship nationalities,we must be certain,even if it means us making prior interceptions in daylight just to verify their ID

End of log.

Tonights report

Finally entered the Dover Strait
1528
AN85 patrol craft (PC) spotted bearing 98,dived to PD to evade,will surface when PC has gone
1615
surfaced,47 mins submerged (smd)
1710
AN85,passed 2 Dutch fishing vessels,flashed morse light indicating UBoat friendly passage and not to cause undue alarm
1947
second radio report on previous task force now in AN47,heading NW,25kts.As predicted the TF has changed course and is heading back through the Orkney/Shetland passage

27th Sept
day 2 at sea
0158
ship spotted AN87,moved in to 300m to inspect,vessel confirmed as Romanian large merchant,a good 7000 tonner too
0635
AN87,PC spotted heading out of Dunkirk,evaded to PD
1130
small PC task force spotted,2 vessels heading into Dover Strait ahead of us,dived to PD behind them,moved ahead slow until threat has gone
1200
surfaced (sfd) ,submerged 30mins
1250
PC spotted,AN79,dived to evade,appears to be small ASW trawler at 10kts
1308
all clear,sfd
1343
Calais finally in sight,8.5km from land,vis moderate,officially now entered the Channel
1410
another PC spotted heading out of Boulogne,dived to evade
1518
BF33
PC spotted heading our way,may have been spotted,dived to 10m silent
1700
undetected,all clear,sfd ,2hrs 50mins smd
1929
merchant spotted,course 47 ,9kts ,moved in fast to approx 5000m ,vessel ID French,allowed to pass...for now
2101
Warsaw officially surrenders,German forces now in control of Poland
2214
PC spotted heading east through channel,swung boat round north and evaded at high speed,return to course when threat has gone

28th Sept
day 3 at sea
0700
sunrise,will keep accurate notes of both sunrise and sunset,mainly when dealing with air attacks which have not occured so far
1250
BF36,granville spotted heading 110 at 6kts.Appears we were spotted at 7000m in med vis,vessel zig zagging wildly.moved in hard to about 5000m to ID vessel,ship ID French,proceeded back to course
1707
small fishing vessel sighted,they spotted us and panicked heading north to nearest port along English coast.we have a strict code on my UBoat not to attack fishing vessels,they are civilians and pose no military threat.
1750
PC spotted out of Cherbourg,evaded to PD
1845
sfd,55mins smd
2155
PC spotted ,headed NNW to evade at high speed,return to course when threat has gone
2157
radio report,AN68,UBoat attack on S class submarine,fired 3 no hits
2236
BF55,shadow spotted on far horizon heading east,ID'd as a Granville type,most likely French,no need to waste fuel so proceeded back to course

29th Sept
day 4 at sea
BF31,passing Portland,weather still clear,wind 4
1200
BF26,passing Plymouth,10hrs until we break out of the channel

end of report

Kpt.Franz Weber
U-16
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry about all the technical details,gives me something to do ;)
As you can see,the channel has been lively so far,I expect we may see some good action in or around the Celtic Sea :up:
How far will my 5 torpedoes go though.

[frau kaleun]

U-35, 2 Flotilla Saltzwedel
ObltzS Peter Schmidt, Commander

Departed Wilhelmshaven on Feb 17 1939 10:51 with orders to patrol grid AN52. Reached assigned grid near midday on Feb 19 and began 24 hour patrol.

Received hydrophone report late that evening of ship heading roughly SSE through patrol area; plotted intercept course and came within range of target at approximately 02:00; target confirmed as large enemy merchant. First torpedo was fired at periscope depth from 1100m out and appeared to stay on target but failed to detonate. Second shot successful from 900m distance. Took up parallel course to slowing merchant and surfaced boat. Opened fire with deck gun; ship sank at 02:42. Estimated tonnage: 4700 GRT.

Proceeded west in hopes of tracking British task force that was reported heading SSW just off the Scottish coast. One enemy aircraft sighted just after dawn; opened fire with flak gun. Was unable to down aircraft but after two attack runs the plane left the area and did not return. Minimal damage to flak gun, repaired in good time. Some damage to hull also reported, but have since made test dives to 50m without incident. Unable to test boat's performance beyond 50-55m until we reach deeper waters. No contact made with task force, however made visual contact with small Polish freighter, late morning of Feb 21. Sank target with one torpedo. Estimated tonnage: 2200 GRT.

Sent patrol report to BdU and have received orders to proceed to grid AN16, just east of Scapa Flow, and take up station there for 24 hours. Currently on route to new patrol area; fore tubes reloaded and external reserve transfered to fore reserve position.

[Paul Riley]

Frau,

Just curious,do you use manual targetting at all?,if not,I highly recommend trying to get accustomed to it,your game will become even more immersive and rewarding.
If I see you out there someday we will draw up alongside for a few drinks in the sun :sunny:
Good luck on your patrol in the meantime...

[frau kaleun]

Paul,

No, I have not tried manual targeting yet - still relying on Mr. Triangle. First I am working with plotting courses for contacts, plotting intercept courses, estimating time to intercept, getting myself in the best possible attack position, etc. I do watch the info the game provides with assisted targeting, things like target speed, AOB, gyroangle, etc., to try and get a better feel for them.

Eventually I would like to try going with less assistance and see how I do, but the main thing for me is to enjoy playing, so I'm not doing anything that makes it more rather than less frustrating. Baby steps, lol.

When I get to the point where it feels too easy and that makes it less enjoyable I'll start giving manual targeting a try - will probably go back to torpedo school for a while to see if I can get the hang of it.

[Paul Riley]

Good idea,observe how the assisted targetting works first before diving in.You will realise when you come round to trying it that its NOT as hard as people make it out to be.Whenever you are ready I could give you a basic rundown of manual attacking? :yeah:
Its also good that you are mastering the other important things like plotting,how to intercept and put yourself and the target at the right place at a predefined time,thats just as rewarding because you can prepare for an attack you have already set up for say,12 hrs time when its dark.I'll never forget the first time I nailed a ship manually and in the spot I chose on the ship too,fantastic achievement.And,its just as disappointing to realise your torp passed harmlessly by its bow or stern,usually the speed setting is to blame here,vital you get the speed right! :nope:

How long HAVE you been playing S3 anyway? ( just curious) :yep:

[frau kaleun]

I bought the game last fall but I didn't have the new rig until the end of November, so I guess I've been playing in earnest for about 4 months now.

[Paul Riley]

Nice :up:
Well,keep up the good work!
Also,don't take this the wrong way either,but its great to see women taking a keen interest in UBoat warfare too,in fact warfare full stop!.You have one advantage over us grizzled men covered in months of beard hair,you don't have to shave! :O:

[Grim Nigel]

Update from the log of Werner Faust, U-707

12:20pm 17th December 1940 - Another hydrophone contact at 9:32pm, a merchant travelling slow and heading west toward our position. Visual identification proved it to be an armed British Ore Carrier doing 5 knots. Diving into attack position we awaited its arrival at the firing point. 2 G7a's were fired on a 5 degree spread, one missed just in front of the bow, the other hit under the forward deck near the bow.
I was about to move the boat to take a rear tube shot when I noticed the merchant's bow was pitching quite heavily under the sea and scooping up tons of water onto the deck. I suddenly realised the ships captain, in his haste to get his ship as far from us as possible, was making the situation worse. As we followed parallel to its course, it was obvious this ship was going to go down eventually, so I held off firing again and simply watched and waited.
Large amounts of smoke began to pour from the deck at an area where I would guess the engine room to be and the bow was pitching more and more into the water as the merchant vessel ploughed onward. I couldn't understand why the crew weren't abandoning the ship yet, was i the only one to see it was a doomed vessel?
Finally, the lifeboats started to fill at 10:43pm as the crew decided to get to relative safety. at 10:45pm the ships screw stopped turning and the bow pitched under the water and this time didn't rise back above it. It wasn't long after that, that the bow finally started to pull the ship down, raising the stern a good 50 feet out of the water ( one the the crew snapped a photo while we stood watching this marvel ), at 10:48pm, the merchant had gone down, on its way into the murky deep.


17th December 1940 @ 10:45pm
Ore Carrier sinking awaiting confirmation from BDU...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_f-Ar3WjQlA8/S6FBB7SOGPI/AAAAAAAAABw/YhC7ViXal0E/s400/Sinking_Ship_GrayS.png



Status Report 12:40pm 17th December 1940

Grid : AM52
Fuel : 60%
Torpedo's : 4 (3 G7e and 1 G7a)
Ships Sunk : 10 (1 tanker)
Tonnage : 52,751 (unconfirmed)

[Paul Riley]

Nice job :cool:

[Snestorm]

Are these the renown figures the game SHOULD have calculated by?,or does the game actually calculate renown using these figures already?
I have always been in doubt when it comes to renown given just for reaching and returning from your patrol,but renown based on how prolific and effective you were?,most definitely! so if you seriously damaged or even destroyed a task force or convoy you should expect heavy renown bonuses,on the other hand if you used all torpedoes and only sank 1 or 2,or none at all,then you should be awarded minimal renown,naturally.For outstanding performance a bonus in the thousands would even seem appropriate.

Those are the figures SH3 is set up to award.
The 100 (Return to w/i 25 KM) is bugged.
I don't think GWX awards any of that.

[Snestorm]

Hey thanks for that.I didnt think they were much better than some reports I have read in here.Really nice you enjoyed it.I will be doing a better report as I come to the end of my current mission.I will see some serious action on this one :up:

Mine always come out so dry and dull (sorry), but this is my favorite reading thread.

[Paul Riley]

Thankfully we can edit the cfg file :D

[Paul Riley]

Mine always come out so dry and dull (sorry), but this is my favorite reading thread.

I am glad then I started this thread many moons ago,seems to be very popular :smug:

[Snestorm]

Paul,

No, I have not tried manual targeting yet - still relying on Mr. Triangle. First I am working with plotting courses for contacts, plotting intercept courses, estimating time to intercept, getting myself in the best possible attack position, etc. I do watch the info the game provides with assisted targeting, things like target speed, AOB, gyroangle, etc., to try and get a better feel for them.

Eventually I would like to try going with less assistance and see how I do, but the main thing for me is to enjoy playing, so I'm not doing anything that makes it more rather than less frustrating. Baby steps, lol.

When I get to the point where it feels too easy and that makes it less enjoyable I'll start giving manual targeting a try - will probably go back to torpedo school for a while to see if I can get the hang of it.

You got it right. Nice and easy.
Saw the realism jump. Good show!
I'd definately recommend (when you feel ready) the Weapons Officer before trying to jump straight into Full Manual. He realy does a good job.
Leaving him behind was the final, and biggest step for me.
(I wasn't quick about it either.)

[Snestorm]

I am glad then I started this thread many moons ago,seems to be very popular :smug:

Hey, that's right, this IS your thread!
Many thanks.

[Paul Riley]

Hey, that's right, this IS your thread!
Many thanks.

:smug:
Youre welcome pal.

[frau kaleun]

You got it right. Nice and easy.
Saw the realism jump. Good show!
I'd definately recommend (when you feel ready) the Weapons Officer before trying to jump straight into Full Manual. He realy does a good job.
Leaving him behind was the final, and biggest step for me.
(I wasn't quick about it either.)

So how do I make use of the Weapons Officer? Because I'm not sure if there's something I need to set up differently in the Realism options, or do differently in the game.

Before this career I tried a couple times to use him, I mean I clicked on things asking for identification of target, solution to target, etc., but couldn't really see how that affected what I was doing. I had better luck just getting into a good position and waiting for the triangle to go green. So I'm not sure if I was supposed to have done something different because I was asking for his assistance - maybe I was not doing what was necessary to make use of it.