My longest career started in 08/39 and IIRC ended in 11/41 when I died of stupidity during a convoy attack. It's what you get when you're too keen, and forget that silent running can be advantageous to your health :nope:

The shortest, however, lasted all of 5 glorious days. Sailed out of Kiel on 09/03/39, ended up sitting on the seafloor sometime during the night of 09/08/39. :lol:

I'm running a series of careers from '39 to '45 in each of the modelled flotillas. They are all DiD and all 100% realism. I started two careers at the start of the war in each active flotilla, and then one new career for each flotilla for each eight months that have elapsed. I don't start a new career in a flotilla until there are no remaining active careers in that flotilla.

I use a modified version of SH3 Commander's Realistic Career Length option, so most of my careers end in retrirement after fewer than 10 operational patrols. There have been some exceptions. My longest completed career went 16 patrols in a Type IXB, from May 1940 to January 1942 and resulted in 394,046 tons sunk (an average of 24,628 tons per patrol).

My longest-serving currently active Kaleun started in January 1941 and is now in the middle of his 18th patrol in his type VIIC in late December 1942. He has sunk about 285kT so far. He is finally rethinking his policy of shooting it out on the surface when attacked by aircraft, after having lost 6 deck crew over two engagements on this patrol. He did shoot down two Sunderlands in exchange. He had two more shot down for the loss of one crewman on a previous patrol.

This is the only career in which I have such an approach vs. aircraft. I try to model a different personality with each career. All my other currently active type VII Kaleuns dive on all aircraft contact. A couple of type IX Kaleuns will stay on the surface if the aircraft are too close to allow time for a crash dive to submerge before the bombs hit.

One Type VII Kaleun started the war in the Baltic and develped a taste for harbour raids (Gdansk in Sepember 1939). Over a series of raids he sank a carrier and an auxiliary cruiser (Scapa Flow in early 1940), five destroyers, two armed tugs and two torpedo boats before being sunk (of course) on his 10th patrol. He was credited with a total of just under 300,000 tons. Very few of my other Kaleuns have any warship kills.

Most of my boats have much more sane commanders, though there are a couple who have chosen to fight gunnery duels with single armed merchants, armed trawlers or corvettes. I haven't lost any boats to gunfire. I find I can often put the other ship's gun out of action if I am firing at a range of 2,000 to 2,500 metres.

My seven losses include four to depth charges (all destroyers, I think), two lost to aircraft (both times while diving), and one boat surrendered after both diesels were damaged beyond repair in an air attack. Three of these losses were on the boat's first patrol, one on the second and one on the third. My 29th Flotilla boats have to get through the Strait of Gibtralter before they can begin patrolling the Med. One of my first patrol losses was a boat that didn't suvive the attempt.

Generally, my experienced commanders survive to retirement. Only 2 of 23 have been killed after the third patrol. They do this by staying cautious about exposure to the enemy. I also use the sabotage and malfunctions option, so some of my patrols are cut short because of damage even without engaging the enemy. Despite the caution, I am satisfied with my level of aggression. I am averaging over 21.1kT sunk per patrol. Over a quarter of those patrols were in type IIs, and only 1/5 were in type IXs.

Until recently, my losses have been spread fairly evenly over time: 1 in 1939, 2 in 1940, 1 in 1941 and 3 in 1942. I am about to enter 1943 and I expect things to get tougher.

My average completed (by death or retirement) career length is 6.25 operational patrols. Only 3 of the 23 I've started have gone past 10 Patrols. I've described two of those above. The other did 15 patrols in a type IIA before being made an instructor. Statistics for my completed careers are in my sig.

If I wasn't using the retirement option but ran each career until death or the end of the war, I would expect that my average career length up to the beginning of 1943 would be about 10 to 12 patrols and that I could get at least one career to 25 patrols.

Part of the allure of this game is I "think" I'm playing close to what the average sub commander netted. So even though my totals are way below most people here, it "feels" realistic. Although..

Good lord, I must be close to being booted from service or shot out a tube.

I'm through 5 missions, and have 20,405 Tons total. First 2 patrols netted zero - so I've picked the pace up slightly.

Cheers,

My most recent career went up until Christmas 1940, 14 patrols with some 350,000 tons sunk. (including 2 Battleships and an ocean liner turned troop transport)
With the impending release of 3.0 I'll never get to finish that one.

I usualy do not survive longer than to the second half of 41, but thats usualy when i try to do a patrol when a bit drunk, which seems like a good idea at the time:lol:.
Once I was sunk in the fog by the guns of a battleship which was sort of awesome i guess.

First ended mid '41 with a final plunge in the middle of a convoy. The second had it's last moments when i returned into Lorient-Base during an air raid at late '43. The third DiD-adventure found me cursing in '40 when i hit a mine near Dover. The fourth ended at August the 1st 1939, when the navigator plotted the a heading out of Kiel and i forgot to hit the "Follow-plotted-heading"-Button :oops:.
The fifth is currently in progress.

We all get better with experience. I may have pushed my average up over 20kT per patrol now, but when I started out with this game I had much worse numbers. After my first 5 patrols (in a IIA) I had accumulated just 19,280 tons. My first, sixth and eighth patrols netted zero.

Besides player experience, another major factor affecting tonnage sunk is the type of boat, or perhaps, more accurately, the number of torpedos you are carrying. My first patrol in a IXD2 netted 60,296 tons. That's about 2.5 tons per torpedo. The same efficiency in a type II would net 12,500 tons, and 35,000 tons in a type VII.

Other important factors affecting your tonnage are the difficulty/realism level you play at, the mods you use, and the year of the war. It is probably much easier to achieve a 100,000 ton patrol in 1940 at low realism in the stock game than it is to get a 100,000 ton career in 1944 with 100% realism in GWX.

I am a conservative Kaleun in that I like full immersion and am attached to my crew and boat - managing both all the way through. First DID, I made it until Jan.43 I believe and lost only 2 crew on an air strike since '39. The I was sunk when my phone rang and did not hit pause!!

The one I am on now, I am in November '42, have same full crew since '39 and am headed to port for Christmas. Phone is off the hook now.

S'

Im in mid 41, U 45, and where still in business.:p over 700,000 Brit tones bagged.:yep:

U 45 might have met here match. GWX 3.0, my carrier might not work.

Still aiming for 2,000,000 tons in 1945.

I don't find racking up absurdly high tonnage totals all that satisfying (but that's NOT a criticism of those who do!).

One of the things I minimise is the use of the deck gun. I never use it without having hit a target with a torp unless the target is too small to warrant a torp (by which I mean around 1,000t or smaller). The fact is the DG remains far too powerful when compared with actual reports - even small vessels would regularly take 50+ hits to sink, but SHIII allows you to kill them with fewer than 20.

A few other things:

- I never attack escorts. Again, the fact is u-boats very rarely fired on escorts. They were tricky targets even from ideal ambush (they're small, and their shallow drafts make them hard to hit with unreliable torps), and sinking one didn't really make much difference to the campaign. Playing DiD but then allowing your u-boat to snipe escorts then wipe out a convoy with the DG is, to me, pretty pointless (find me examples of that happening in the Atlantic war and I might revise that view....).

- I always crash dive when aircraft are sighted, unless they are right on top of me when sighted (and that hasn't happened yet).

Another reason for the massive totals is that ships are too numerous AND too big. If you look at the displacements of most merchants sunk, they are considerably lower than the average you'll manage in SHIII. This, naturally enough, inflates tonnages. Multiply too many targets and too great a tonnage per target and you get results (patrol tonnages) far in excess of what is 'realistic'.

My own view is if you don't address those things, DiD is rather meaningless.

I agree with most of what you state above and play by quite similiar 'rules' myself. I would add that I do not conduct harbor raids and I limit myself to about 9-12 patrols if I live that long.

DiD has meaning for everyone to the extent that we all invest time and energy building experienced crews and updated boats. No matter how we play we all feel the pain when we lose a good crew and boat...:damn:

I have never played anything other than DiD in a career. I know it's only a game :roll: but kaleuns never had the option of reloading a save game after being sent to Davy Jones' locker! :cry:

My best tonnage in a career was from an old mod Improved U-boat 1.03 and that was 10 patrols (155 days) netting 217,048 GRT. Started Jun. '41/Ended Jul. '42. It was using a VIIC U-96 with Kptlt. Juergen Prochnow as the proud commander. :|\\

But GWX is a hell of a lot harder. My best and longest career is Oblt. Luger in a IXC U-158 with 103,620 GRT after 5 patrols (223 daya). I haven't finished that career yet.

I've had many failures. :ping:

I agree with all Steeltrap home rules and I had some more myself :

- if it s more than 2k tons, I m firing the first time at him with a spread salvo of 2.
- as soon as I am detected by a convoi, I stop attacking it for 48 hours. This is to reflect that convoy evasion manoeuvres are just plain stupid.
- I ignore all "ship sighted" information. Only "convoy sighted" are proceeded.
- Aft shot are only for the "coup de grace" on a heavily damaged ship.
- Every enemy civil ship of more than 1K is a valid target for torpedoes.

My final rule is a bit hard to play with and I WOULD LIKE a technical solution.
- I m trying to ignore "She's going down!" message. So sometime if it s not really visible that my pray is killed, I waste more torpedo on it.

I would really like a way to completly remove that message.


With all those rules added to steeltrap's ones a really successful patrol for me is anything over 10K.

Still, those rules have a great advantage. I do believe I m surviving longer than most kaleum :). I m not playing with the auto career end and I m always starting august or september 39 but playing with the transfert crew in/out. Usualy I m meeting my fate in late 42 or 43 after around 20-25 patrols.

I made it all the way playing DiD in a VIIC and VIIB. 30+ patrols.
After 1943 I did not sink many ships and did nothing to attract destroyers.

The last one:

Date: October 4th, 1943.
Locale: South of Cape Town
Boat: IXC U-504
Realism: 100% GWX2.1
Cause: Diving deep (220m) with previous battle damage, after a successful convoy attack that sunk 2 tankers. The end came rather quickly.

But not before I rack up 3.1 mil tons. :-) Mostly from convoys.

And yes, I use my deck guns quite liberally (only against unescorted ships). My deck gun shells are too precious for any thing less than a 1000 GRT , I have my flak gun for that! (and why not, I never fight air planes anyway)

But I completely agree that a good captain should avoid tangling with DDs. The reward, if any, just isn't worth the risk.