Realistically no kaleun would have done more than 15-16 missions tops so that is more true to life.

but, Wolf packs were also true to life and we do not have them.

With the possibilities of bad luck a minor mistake or a whole variety of difficulties playing 100% no redo from start to finish GWX3 is the ultimate challenge in SH3.
To me it is.
I do a fairly heavy mod of GWX3. To start with I have no AS vessels under crew rating of 3 and I increase the number of convoy escorts early 43 on my a large amount among other stuff.

I just wanted an entire war career because it is the most difficult thing I know of to accomplish in this venue..
Unfortunately when i tell the check out girl at the grocery store I did all that she still expects me to pay for my groceries.:rotfl2:

Ergo, it don't mean nothing.
Except for the great fun in Paucehschlag (Not only was it a major redo of mis files for 1942 it is when I added the very nice Iambecomelife merchant ships) I hardly remember any details.
I can't even remember sinking the battleship, don't remember what class it was. I will look that up
I started the career in May but had to do a major mod in a flight sim so took 4 weeks off then 2 more from sea duty. I was afraid being away would cause a major slip but while it did cause a few minor ones this time my luck held, this was the only time in 4 years my luck held.

Wulfmann

Congratulations! Never done it myself. :up:

Congratulations Wulfmann :yeah:

:salute: congratulations :yeah:

Congrats!
i'd just like to know your tonnage in 44-45 and your favorite hunting grounds. I did patrols in 44 with GWX 3.0 100% and was happy to return to port alive with 10.000 tons or less sunk. I think you should make some kind of summary about this carreer, i mean present your boat, captain, flotillas, highlights...

Well done Wulfmann. Congrats. :sunny:

1944 and 45 were survival years. I will check the logs as I have saved that career outside the game to be able to do exactly what you referenced.

From the beginning of 44 on i did not operate within a single convoy. Any attacks were made from outside and when the screen was half past me. I would fire 4 forward tubes at 30 second intervals then turn the boat to face about 240 and fire one stern tube (always saved the Homeboy in case). This way by the time any torpedo hit (luck really no more) I was already far enough away for the escorts to consider looking there.
I play on my game PC so I will later retrieve a screen of two ships I sank in a Arctic convoy which shows the closest I ever got.
I stayed at Lorient until ordered to Trondheim and making the run was the only time I was in the NA area after the fall of 1943.
Being a Type IXC I adhered to the design concept of the long range raider not a NA convoy attack boat.
Before 1942 I was a TypeVIIC and I was a hard charger always attacking inside the convoy but the 7C can dive deeper faster and is tougher against DC attacks.

In 1943 U-Boats became the hunted and I adapted the strategy of real wolves. Lurk in the shadows, strike at lone merchant ships, remain hidden, unseen.
Never force the issue, patience patience patience patience.
If caught by a AS ship dive only after having fired all tubes in an attempt to prevent DCing
A wolf can not beat a rifle in the woods unless he makes sure the rifleman can not see him at all and that was my method from 43 on.
I will post those tonnage figures later.

Thanks for all the congrats, almost surprised anyone noticed at all but knowing how hard this has been I guess I am not alone at the impossible dream of a complete end to end career

Wulfmann

That's some good advice there for late war survival.
I'll bear it in mind if I ever make it that far!
And congratulations :DL

:up: Congrats! :salute::know:

Very good advice indeed,and I intend to follow it as well,its good to be able to see which tactics you used and at which times it became more useful to employ your different methods:03:
If you get the chance to post some more information,such as hunting grounds,tactics,observations,'42 onwards and such like,I'm sure Ill not be the only one who would appreciate it,as unterseemann mentioned,any help from someone who's seen it through till the end is invaluable:salute::salute::salute:

Well done , that's quite an achievement :salute:

Here is the breakdown.
U51 TypeVIIC from August 1939 through December 1941
Sank HMS Nelson on second patrol (first with war declared) for 62K total on that patrol.
Followed all assigned grids and patrolled the convoy lanes off Ireland both north and south moving further out to sea as war progressed and air patrols intensified.
In 15 war patrols sank 386K and then transferred to U509 TypeIXC
At this point I added IAMBECOMELIFE's merchant ship mod and after reading "Operation Drumbeat" i edited the Rnd and SCR mission files to reflect my take on that book's account. IMO, GWX had more air and destroyer patrols than history suggested and not enough traffic. I really feel like the 8 months on 1942 in US waters was reliving that book with those extra mods.
It was indeed the second happy time as 1941 was less productive in my 7C than 39 and 40.
In my 9C and 4 Pauchenschlag patrols i sank 178K of shipping.
The rest of 42 netted 12K
1943 saw me operating in the south Atnatic and I sank a ship in the straits of Madagascar. I was attacked by an aircraft that seemed to have penguins as a pilots, unconfirmed!!:rotfl2:No more convoy attacks in 9C as i stated earlier and 43 netted 54K total
1944 I had 5 patrols for 44K (Odd number for that year). 11K of that was transferring to Trondheim, Norway where I did my best to be undetected and stayed away from convoys reported in my area.
1945 I operated strictly off Bear Island and just south of the convoy lanes where an occasional ship passed. I sank 2 ships in one of the convoys (screen below) I did not place myself in the lanes but stayed far enough south so I could move to a distant intercept where I could launch long range Hail Mary attacks.
I ignored all grid areas ordered (One was off Capetown all the way from Trondheim, yeah, right!!):down:

As you can see I had 565K of my 686K total by September 1942 so I played it safe as i could from that point on.
I had considered switching back to a TypeVIIC after Paucheschlag but I wanted to have renown for a type XXI for one reason the upgrade time eliminates about 2 1/2 months of combat in 45 but did not realize i could not buy that XXI in Trondheim.
next time i will know to transfer to Bergen at the end of 44.

Wulfmann

This is my 1945 convoy attack off Bear Island. This is as close as I ever got to any convoy when I moved to the Type IXC
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y15.../Arctic-45.jpg

You know it wouldn't have occurred to me to switch to a type IX later in the war. I figured as the war progressed they would just be a liability.
But I follow your logic.
The extra range allows you to probe for weak points where you can find targets that are not in convoy (as by this point all ships in the North Atlantic would be escorted)
And all those extra torpedoes allow you to do plenty on Hail Mary shots on convoys from nice and far away.
Something to think about.

I completed a full war career.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=132844

I did it once, but I don't think I would ever do it again. Late 44 and early 45 is simply not all that much fun.

Congratulations. Completing a full war career is like sky-diving, everyone should do it once! :salute:

Platapus, may I ask if that was GWX3 and at 100%.

I had 28K in renown and did not get a snorkel because I wanted to upgrade the XXI I was getting that because i was not in Bergen I could not get so I to went the distance without a snorkel.

In a past career I was sunk with a snorkel because I had no idea I was being bombed until it was too late so in SH3 the snorkel is not the benefit it was in real life, at least not in my experience. It seems aircraft can spot it as easy as your boat on the surface but you do not know it so are a sitting duck.

Any other thoughts on using the snorkel???

Wulfmann