The base was changed to...

[Stargazer]

Hi,

I'm currently running a VIIb out of Wilhelmshaven (transferred myself there from Kiel because slogging it out round Denmark was wearing me out) and they've sent me out on my longest run yet.

I'm currently cruising 400km west of spain towards North-Western Africa and I've had a radio message about 'The base was changed to Lorient'.

Now I interpret that as 'tell the wife and kids to learn French because you're being re-stationed'.

My question is this: My orders still say that I have to return to Wilhems'. Is this because I have a few loose ends to tie up there before my transfer or is this because orders can't change themselves mid-mission?

And my subquestion is: Which should I go back to... Wilhems' or Lorient?

Cheers,

Rob.


Ps. Running GWX3 and SH3C

[desirableroasted]

Lorient for you, my friend, but don't worry! BdU won't authorize family transfer. Ask for Lisette at the O-club.

If you don't teleport to base, remember to have a look at your harbor maps before heading in. The mines and barriers at Lorient are (for me, anyway) somewhat counter-intuitively placed.

[Stargazer]

Mi... Mmm... Mines?

Did you say mines?

They've sent me to a place that's been mined?!

What did I do to deserve this? I may not be an Ace but it isn't like I'm not pulling my weight. And they send me out to be mined!

Hmph!

[Missing Name]

Mi... Mmm... Mines?

Did you say mines?

They've sent me to a place that's been mined?!

What did I do to deserve this? I may not be an Ace but it isn't like I'm not pulling my weight. And they send me out to be mined!

Hmph!

It's actually standard procedure to mine a port, leaving channels that the enemy doesn't know about. In theory, you'll have a minesweeper or sperrbrecher clear a path ahead of you as you leave.

[Stargazer]

Oh! is that what that ship is always there for?

I've just gone belting past it each time thinking it was just regular traffic.

Can you tell I'm new to all of this?

[Missing Name]

The pull-down charts on the nav map also show approximate positions of friendly harbor defenses, another invaluable tool. One time, I left Wilhelmshaven and hit a mine. Looked at the chart as I limped back, and saw that I had indeed wandered right into a friendly mined area.

[4saken]

Its July '40,just got back to base (2nd flotilla) and i am wondering what's the fastest
way to get transferred to Lorient?Should i just wait for a radio message while on my
next petrol?

[Gargamel]

Wilmshaven is mined too FYI. You just never hit any then.

Almost all ports had mines and nets, as mentioned above. One of the pulldown maps on your Nav screen (little tabs to the top left are actually maps, just drag and drop), shows the mines and nets for your major friendly ports.

@DR: And wouldn't counter-intuitively placed mines be a good thing?

@4s: You just have to wait for the base to open up, and the flotilla to be transferred there. Takes time to move all that paperwork.

[Stargazer]

Wilmshaven is mined too FYI. You just never hit any then.

I'm so glad I've been asking these questions. I've discovered the pull down documents now and have been using them to guide me.

S'not bad though 7 sorties out of Kiel and 4 out of Wilhelms' and I managed to miss them each time.

This submarining thing is getting complicated and dangerous. I was floating through part of the North Sea a couple of days ago and knocked my mouse by accident which dumped the camera under the water just in time for me to see a big spikey mine floating about 3yards from the bottom of my boat.

No wonder only a fifth of these guys made it to '45.

[Gargamel]

Where the heck were you? You do know the ENTIRE east coast of the british isles were HEAVILY mined. As In I don't travel on their half of the North Sea, Ever.

[Stargazer]

In all honesty, my only real knowledge of '39-'45 is from an aviation perspective.

I've never , until a week ago, even bothered myself with ships, subs and sea.

So I'm kind of going in blind. And on some of my North Sea patrols, I would spend maybe five days in my grid and not find a single thing so I'd go looking for trouble.

Once, I floated right up into a British port, hoping for some nice juicy stationary targets. All I found was a big wall blocking my entry, the worlds biggest and most aggressive battleship, 60 depth charges and 3hrs of just sitting and waiting for it to bugger off!

I had hoped that there would be no sub countermeasures that early on but I was wrong. So I went home having not sunk anything.

T'is not the most illustrious career but for my first I don't think it's 'too' bad. Especially since I'm obviously still going through an almost vertical learning curve.

You have my permission to roll your eyes, sigh and then curse about 'more flaming noobs'.

Rob.

[Missing Name]

Mines = bad. They will make moving around the British Isles and enemy harbors hell. I've been fortunate enough to survive two mine impacts, but with extremely heavy damage. Nets are more forgiving but can still make your life miserable.

My advice? Don't try to navigate an enemy harbor until you have a good understanding of how your sub operates. And stay far away from the islands.

[frau kaleun]

Oh! is that what that ship is always there for?

I've just gone belting past it each time thinking it was just regular traffic.

Can you tell I'm new to all of this?

Ah, memories. Seems like just yesterday I was standing on the bridge and yelling "eat my diesel fumes you wankers!" at the startled faces of the minesweeper's crew as we barrelled past them at flank speed on the way out of Wilhelmshaven. Good times, good times. :yeah:

Now I gotta wait for the bloody locks to open. :stare: It's just not as much fun when you can't order ahead flank as soon as you've... you've... uh... er... whatever that nautical term is for untying your boat from the dock. :O:

[Gargamel]

In all honesty, my only real knowledge of '39-'45 is from an aviation perspective.

I've never , until a week ago, even bothered myself with ships, subs and sea.


Same here.

As you can tell from my join date, which is shortly after I found SH3, I'm still new too. I knew very little about the naval part of the war, aside from "SHIPS GO BOOM!" "SHIP GO GLUBGLUBGLUB". Everybody else's enthusiasm has led me to do lot's of research I normally wouldn't have done. Hell, I even TIVO'd some stuff last night.

[Gargamel]

Ah, memories. Seems like just yesterday I was standing on the bridge and yelling "eat my diesel fumes you wankers!" at the startled faces of the minesweeper's crew as we barrelled past them at flank speed on the way out of Wilhelmshaven. Good times, good times. :yeah:

Now I gotta wait for the bloody locks to open. :stare: It's just not as much fun when you can't order ahead flank as soon as you've... you've... uh... er... whatever that nautical term is for untying your boat from the dock. :O:

Cast off?

[frau kaleun]

Cast off?

Yes, but I'm still limping. :O:

[Gargamel]

Yes, but I'm still limping. :O:

:damn::rotfl2:


Heard the rimshot all the way over here......

[Stargazer]

BdU won't authorize family transfer. Ask for Lisette at the O-club.

I gave that a go. A few people looked hesitantly at each other and I was then told that she was 'busy clipping her toenails until February' at which point I was directed to her stand-in in the back bedroom.

Armpits like porcupines, legs like loo-brushes and teeth like a badly laid patio! I now sleep with a live torpedo under my pillow in case she finds me again.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[desirableroasted]

I gave that a go. A few people looked hesitantly at each other and I was then told that she was 'busy clipping her toenails until February' at which point I was directed to her stand-in in the back bedroom.

Armpits like porcupines, legs like loo-brushes and teeth like a badly laid patio! I now sleep with a live torpedo under my pillow in case she finds me again.

Thanks for the recommendation!

That's just because you haven't sunk anything, yet. After you do, the guys lighten up.

Tom Wolfe, in The Right Stuff, recounts Virgil Grissom's experience as a flyer in Korea. His first week, he was made to stand up on the bus to and from the airfield, even though empty seats were available. And he was told, finally, on a ride out, that he couldn't sit until he had shot down a Chinese plane.

When he rode back that afternoon, he was sitting.

So, you go kill 10K tons, and then ask for Lisette.

[desirableroasted]

@DR: And wouldn't counter-intuitively placed mines be a good thing?



Well, yes, usually. But on our boat, we splice the main brace about 100 km out. So when we get there, we are too busy tying our skivvies to the periscopes & spanking the junior sailor with the left-over sausage to navigate properly.

[krashkart]

Middle of the channel is usually a safe bet for navigating in and out of friendly harbors, but there are exceptions (IIRC one of the Indian Ocean ports has more of a barrier-type mine layout). Doesn't hurt to familiarize with the charts, though. Nothing quite as embarrassing as bumping into a KM sea mine in full view of the bevvies at Madam Brunhilda's Bier Haus. :D

[Stargazer]

Hi,

Another question but same subject as before...

I'm upto about middle of '43 in my rookie campaign and would like to ensure that I'm in the right place at the right time when the much coveted XXI is made available.

I've read here that that would be with the 11th. I transferred to them at the end of my last patrol and then my orders said I was transferred to .

That would be " " without the quotes.

When I said start the mission I was deposited on the line between FG27 and FG28 down near Africa.

This can't be right can it? Aren't missions meant to start and end at a port of somekind and not in the middle of the sea?

Is this a bug? Am I meant to be here? Am I going loopy or or something else?

[frau kaleun]

If you check your starting location on a "real" map of the area, I think you'll find the game deposited you at 0 deg long, 0 deg lat.

This sometimes happens when for some reason it does not know where to place you geographically at the start of a patrol. Transferring from one base/flotilla to another usually has something to do with it but I can't recall if one particular combination of factors has ever been pinpointed as the cause. :hmmm:

[Stargazer]

Mmmm-kay...

So it's a glitch in the program code somewhere.

Last time, I put in the transfer request, they despatched me from Kiel and toldme to return to Kiel. Then my next sortie, they told me to leave Kiel and go straight to Lorient.

I was expecting the same again here but... well... you know.

So do I just keep trying to transfer until it gets my start point right or shall I test it once after each patrol until I see some sensible orders?

I think I still have six months before the XXI rocks up so it's not a major issue, but still...

Cheers,

Rob.

[frau kaleun]

Other people have experienced this issue so they may be along to comment on why it happened and how it was resolved... if memory serves once you establish yourself in the new base by ending a patrol there the game should "catch up" with your location. Here's hoping someone else can confirm that.

I've never had a change of base and then left the old base and returned to it again despite having transferred... either the game "teleports" me from one base to another and adds days to my time in base before having me start the next patrol from the new one, or else the transfer occurs when the flotilla itself moves and I start from the old base and end my patrol in the new one.

I wonder if the issue is because you requested a transfer when you were based in Kiel, and then returned to Kiel anyway instead of to the new base? If I'm reading you right, that is.

Also I'm confused about where you transferred to, the 11th flotilla or Lorient? I don't have the game files handy but I thought the 11th Flotilla was based in Bergen and never operated out of France at all, I didn't know the game placed them in Lorient in 1943.

I know sometimes the 0 degree lat/long start seems to have something to do with trying to transfer to a base/flotilla that was not historically available, or maybe with mods that give you alternate flotillas that are not recognized by Commander (assuming you're using it) but I'm not sure.

[Stargazer]

Apologies... I think I've not been clear.

The Kiel example was my first transfer. I started from Kiel in 39 and after a while reached the end of my tether hauling-ass up and over Denmark each time so put in a request to move.

That was when I went out, started this thread and then returned back to Kiel. Then after that I went on a transfer. SO I wasn;t assigned a patrol grid, but that didn't stop me sitting in the narrow bit near Gibralter for 2 days before going back up to my destination.

This time around, it's not telling me to go somehwere. It's just doing the middle of the sea thing. I'll go for another swim out of Lorient, and try another transfer when next I return.

But I'd certainly like to hear from anyone else who's experienced this and how they overcame it.

[Tessa]

Other people have experienced this issue so they may be along to comment on why it happened and how it was resolved... if memory serves once you establish yourself in the new base by ending a patrol there the game should "catch up" with your location. Here's hoping someone else can confirm that.

I've never had a change of base and then left the old base and returned to it again despite having transferred... either the game "teleports" me from one base to another and adds days to my time in base before having me start the next patrol from the new one, or else the transfer occurs when the flotilla itself moves and I start from the old base and end my patrol in the new one.

When I started my current career it was in the "Wegener" flotilla, or the 7/13th flottille. The first base is Koinsburg and then after the first mission you are ordered to Kiel, and then told to transfer to a new flottilla. I felt like being stubborn as I despise Brest and Lorient, preferring St. Nazaire as my home port when the move takes place. Rather than transfer while I was still in Kiel I remained in the 7/13th Flottille until the French ports open and get transfered to my port of choice - St. Nazaire.

Odd thing is that I am still getting the popup window that says, "port was changed to Koinsburg" even though the game correctly records me as being stationed at St. Nazaire. I assume its a bug caused from not transferring to a different flottilla when koinsburg is abandoned; which if that is the case it'll keep popping up until the 23rd flottille becomes available and I'll finally put in for transfer and hopefully that pesky reminder will go away. Until then St. Nazaire is perfect for me and can get across the Bay of Biscay unharassed by planes.

I wonder if the issue is because you requested a transfer when you were based in Kiel, and then returned to Kiel anyway instead of to the new base? If I'm reading you right, that is.

Also I'm confused about where you transferred to, the 11th flotilla or Lorient? I don't have the game files handy but I thought the 11th Flotilla was based in Bergen and never operated out of France at all, I didn't know the game placed them in Lorient in 1943.

I know sometimes the 0 degree lat/long start seems to have something to do with trying to transfer to a base/flotilla that was not historically available, or maybe with mods that give you alternate flotillas that are not recognized by Commander (assuming you're using it) but I'm not sure.

If the base changes while you are at sea (i.e. when the French bases open) you are supposed to sail to your new home port at the end of your patrol. If you return to your old base it will still let you dock and do repairs and everything, but your next patrol will have a patrol grid of NULL and the destination will be your new base. Towards the end of the war and you start getting transfered back to Germany or Norway you will have to sail to those ports on your return trip with the base that you had previously been operating from is now in Allied hands and not a good idea to try and dock there ;) If you're critically low on fuel you can always go to Wilhelmshaven or Kiel if you don't have enough to make it some of the more remote bases that get pressed into service.

The 11th is the flottilla from which the type XXI's become available from (granted you can transfer if you want) which opens in 42. Once you get a XXI don't transfer to Brest or Lorient, the ship is too big to maneuver in and out of the docks! St. Nazaire or Bordeaux would be the ideal French ports to transfer to if you wanted to get back into the Atlantic without having to navigate through all those fjords to get in and out of home, and won't have quite the intense amount of air coverage since you won't be forced to go around England every patrol which by then the sky is blanketed with bombers waiting to pounce on you. The XXI has a much deeper draft so shallow water can sometimes be a deathtrap as there can be areas where you don't have enough depth under you to fully submerge.