Congratulations! And just in time too. You've only got another 6 months or so before the war starts to seriously turn against you. I presume you're using a Type IX if you're operating from Lorient? The Type IX is the 100K Club's Boat of Choice. ;)

Two quick questions-

1- What's 103% realism? Turning the volume knob on the gramaphone to 11?
2- Why did the large tankers have a lower tonnage then the medium tankers?

Yup, out of L'Orient (2 Flottilla).
Dunno on the 103%, kept turning stuff off I didn't want to detract from the fun, I think you get 3% losing the weapon cam. I get funky tonnage numbers, some medium cargo's heavier than large cargo's, etc. Heh, maybe they're empty? :D

Well, perhaps my most disappointing patrol ever. 47K tons, June-July 1944. I am tasked to patrol AM 29, and spend most of my time patrolling AM 52 in the hopes of catching a convoy. I have specifically used a ton of renown to load my boat with 4 Type IVs and 3 Type Vs in order to take on, and take out, the convoy escorts. So, WEEKS go by without any small-medium convoys passing through. I do bag a large/medium merchant pair that wanders by, but every convoy is a large one, with 8 escorts+. FINALLY, a medium convoy comes by. It has 16 merchants and TEN escorts!!! :o Not gonna happen!

So I head up the Heb straight, in disgust, hoping to pick off lone merchants. Along the way, while silently creeping past a corvette, it suddenly changes course and comes straight at me. No noise, out of its range, so I'm thinking it's just bad luck. Worse luck is that it's with a destroyer. Two Type Vs finish them off as I dash away from a 3rd destroyer coming to investigate.

Then, of course, after expending two of my homing torps, I get the word that there's a medium convoy ahead of me in the Heb, sailing away. Dodging the streams of lone destroyers in my way, I catch up to it. It has six, maybe seven escorts, and a pair of what appear to be destroyers that have accidentally chosen the same heading. They have, as they turn off at Scapa Flow.

I now attack the convoy! There's two liberty, one large merchant, one victory, and two of those single-masted 6.5K ships (can't think of the name), plus granvilles and smallers. So it's a good target. Each liberty, the victory, and the large merchant get a torp. Then I deal with 4 escorts. Two homing torps go awry, with one shooting blankly past a destroyer at 550 yards and continuing obliviously beyond (no "tail-wagging" as they usually do). The other passes by a destroyer, locks onto the large merchant, and burries itself harmlessly into its side (I set them for impact 1M). It's gone. Fortunately, my use of decoys halts three destroyers around the decoys, and I blow up two of them with normal torps. So four down, two to go.

I have one Type V left, and a few normal torps (IIIs mostly). I put another torp into the large merchant and victory, as they refuse to sink. That does the trick. I put the last Type V into the remaining destroyer (V&W class), and simply raise my snorkel to outurn the last corvette as I attack a leaning liberty with my last torp. I misjudge its speed and just miss its stern by inches! It, and the other liberty, never sinks. Fortunately, some decoys distract the corvette and I escape with my life. It's a victory, but bitter-sweet. Had I not run into that corvette and destroyer pair earlier, I would've been able to do MUCH more damage to the convoy. Both liberties for sure, and probably one or two of those Empire freighters (I remember the name). So an extra 20K tons or so in all likelihood.

Oh well. Perhaps the highlight of the mission was the very start- another 3 plane B-17 raid on Bergen just as I'm leaving, with me, my escort boat, a Type XXIII and its escort boat, all opening up on the bombers. The tough suckers don't go down, but they do miss their targets.

From now on, I think I'm going to try and limit my anti-convoy missions to every other mission, so that I can stock up with EIGHT homing torps. I'll hunt lone merchants on the odd missions.

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/1908/steiner1fs3.jpg


100K in one patrol! Jeezum. I am slugging it out to get the above. I thought 273K was a best in historical career total.
Seems like the most patrols before capture or death was 16. Most were under 10. I am at 9 on the above.

http://www.uboat.net/men/aces/top.htm

I'm hoping to break the 2,000,000 ton mark by the end of my career, but I don't pretend it's realistic.

1- I have died a few times (3 or 4).
2- I don't use realistic tactics (e.g., I don't stay on the surface to fight it out).
3- There is too much traffic in GWX, or at least, it seems that way. Perhaps it's because in real life, the Allies would respond to, say, me repeatedly visiting the Caribbean and savaging the tanker traffic there. Send a task force my way or at least, ping the hell out of my favourite hunting grounds once I show up.

I posted this thread because I think it's important to go for as much tonnage as you can get. But so long as you're getting a feel for what it was like (in a very limited way) to captain a u-Boat AND you're having fun, then it's all good. I'm sure there's a LOT of better virtual kalheuns out there than me!:o Hopefully we can just share what knowledge we do have to make the game more fun for all.

That is great. Enjoy. One buys a sim to play with it as they see fit. Besides, how else can you learn initially. Some day you will test your experience and training on a dead is dead campaign. You can run several boats at different settings. I have Steiner competing against Stryker, Gussman, and Wolfgang. I am a fair to good player myself who prefers white knuckle experiences which I have to survive for my crew and my dear sweet Helga!

S'PC

Well, the game goes on. First, another attack from a trio of B-17s to start my mission. Same result as before, no hits from them, they leave flaming but flying. Again there's a XXIII sailing out with me- it seems that Allies have a spy at our base!:stare:

So another UK patrol, this one centered around BF 24. I nailed three solo liberties, then came up against a small convoy. Fortunately, I had taken on the extra homing torps for just such an occassion, with four to use against 5 escorts. Long story short, 4 frigates took the torps, and I managed to get a flower-class corvette stop to ping one of my decoys. It was fed a 2M fast impact. Then the convoy was all mine! Unfortunately, I missed some shots which cost me some torpedoes. But I did bag a large merchant, modern tanker, another Liberty, and badly wounded a Victory merchant. It's stern was underwater, but it wouldn't sink!

I followed it for 12 hours, nothing. So I lost patience, surfaced, and engaged it with my twin 20's!!:arrgh!: Two minutes later, some minor damage to me, and I sank the Victory cargo. Victory indeed...for me!!! So I sailed straight back to port, and of course, came across an unescorted pair of small and large merchant. Figures now that I'm all out of torps! Oh well. Another 68K added to my total figure of 1,840,000 tons. Next trip out, I'm going medium convoy hunting! :rock:

Well, I haven't updated with each mission like before, because I seem to keep sticking to 65K or so each patrol. But in three patrols I've ravaged two convoys and destroyed some nice warships (see here for details). My total tonnage is now 2,140,039. I'm on my last mission, in late Spring of 1945. I'm hoping to take out one more big convoy before the end of the war. The XXI has been outstanding, but unfortunately, I am getting a TON of CTD during the game. It isn't the save game bug, and it's been happening in different missions. I think it's a sign that when I finish this patrol, this career, I finish the game. So wish me luck on my final cruise! I'm just at the Hebs, and am going to run down this channel and the Irish channel in pursuit of a big, juicy convoy. I've got a belly full of homing torps, and am ready for the allies best shot! :arrgh!:

CONGO-RATS! Nice shooting predavolk! :arrgh!:

BUT...

You do realize... it's threads like this that are going to lead to the next GWX release including the newly discovered 67 ton merchant.

Think of the endless convoys of merchants weighing in at less than 1k tons total.

Joy.... :roll:

LMAO :rotfl:

Unless there's something more than "The War is Over" when you return to base and are ready to start a new mission, I'm done my campaign! (no cutscenes or anything like that?)

My last mission was a doozie. I almost broke 100K again, in April 1945! I was tasked with BF12, right below Ireland. I sailed the long way around, nailing a victory and liberty cargo pair (first of second). I then sailed up the Irish channel after spending my 24 hours, and ran into a large convoy. Just what I was looking for! With 9 homing torps, I was feeling pretty confident! :arrgh!:

Then I get in the thick of the bloody thing and find out it has FOURTEEN ESCORTS!!!!:o :o

Well, it's also FULL of ships. And I'm in a XXI. And after 33 missions, I'm a skilled Kalheun. And it's probably my last mission of the war. So what the hell- BE MORE AGGRESSIVE!!! I sneak between the lead two escorts, with one miraculously passing within 500m (at 135 AoB) and not detecting me!:up: The plan is to make one fast pass through the convoy so I can hopefully not fight ALL of the escorts.:yep:

In front of me is an impressive-looking small passenger ship. Full of troops for the Western front no doubt. Can't have that, so two torps send it to the bottom! FLANK AHEAD! Lined up behind it is a modern tanker- FIRE ONE! BOOM! Magnetic to the bow. FIRE TWO! Impact to mid-ships. Dive under her, scrape her hull, but no damage. Pinging starts from behind. Pop up to 14m (dogfighting periscope depth in the XXI). Lightning flashes in the sky as the my XXI hits like a thunderbolt against yet another victim- a large merchant. BOOM! Torpedo to the bow. A huge destroyer is right on my tail, but a decoy stops it in its tracks. I continue my mad rush out of the convoy, leaving smoke, lighting, and thunder to cover the carnage I've left behind me. Two kilometers out of the convoy, and it looks like I'm home free!

But what's this!? A destroyer is charging up my tail!!!:dead: A decoy is released, but nothing happens! The booming of thunder in the storm overhead is drowned out by the thumping hearts of the crew as this tenacious foe keeps on our tail. Finally, I drop a decoy then turn right in front of it. It works! The destroyer stops to check it out, so I drive a fast impact into its guts! A frigate is bearing down on us too, but a snap shot of a magnetic Type V breaks its hapless back. The first destroyer is just starting to move, so I send another Type V its way. Davey Jones' locker gets a little more crowded as it goes to the bottom.

I get the heck out of there on 1/3 ahead, then back to slow. Good thing too, as a half-dozen or more escorts converge on the scene of their comrades doom. My escape is complete! I then sail up the Irish Channel, nailing two more liberty/victory pairs, as well as a tramp steamer. It's a real challenge though, as my battery is down to spit and sparks, as the heavy surface and air ASW teams keep me from recharging. Still, my job is to fight on, so fight on I do. I make it out into the open ocean with one homing torpedo left. I get the contact call of a merchant, but I let it go. I have learned the lesson of expecting the unexpected, and at this point in the war, bringing my crew and (more importantly) this magnificent fighting machine home is more important than another British merchant. The trip home is fortunately uneventful, with the few clueless surface ASW ships being easily avoided.

My total tonnage for the voyage? 88.8K!! My career total? 2,205,880 tons!!! WOOHOO!!! 33 missions, 3 deaths. True, I didn't play Iron Man, but I didn't have the time to restart a career. Other than a big of poker and solitair, this game has monopolized my computer time since March! So, some final thoughts before I uninstall the game and move on to another challenge:

1- GREAT game, but the bugs SUCKED!! Several times the Save Game bug almost made me quit, the load times were awful, and the CTD were getting bad at the end.

2- THANK YOU to the GWX team, and other modders, for making this much more realistic and enjoyable. And I guess to the publishers too, for fixing bugs that I never came across. And for having the guts to release a Submarine Sim, which can't be the road to riches that a Half-Life clone would be.

3- I got a better appreciation for the task that German u-Boat commanders faced, even if I think this game wasn't particularly realistic (too easy, too good impact torps, and too many targets). It was much more realistic than SH2, which was the last sub sim that I played. I definitely enjoyed the extra reading I put into the game, which is a big part of the benefit of simulators for me. They encourage me to read about the subject matter, and so I know now more than I did before. Some of the book recommendations came from here, so great stuff guys!

4- My favourite sub was easily the XXI, but it wasn't realistic. Of the II, VII and XI, I much prefered the bigger boat in less-pressured waters. I didn't do a whole lot of convoy chasing in the North Atlantic, and I never raided Canada (my country) like I wanted to. But I did get to see much of the rest of the Atlantic in my IXB, and its huge weapons load racked up an incredible total for me. Plus it had two rear tubes, which were very helpful in convoy or antidestroyer attacks.

5- Overall, I'd have to say the u-Boat war was a dramatic, but entirely futile effort. At no point was the US-Britain link seriously threatened. Had the number of subs been there in 1939-1940, perhaps. But by 1942, despite the highest numbers sunk, the war was over for the essentially WW1-vintage German subs. Even my extreme success would have made little overall impact. Again, I feel myself admiring the willpower, tenacity, and bravery of the Germans at the same time as I feel myself hating their blind obedience, and most importantly, their willingness to embrace war against the world. I don't want this thread to turn into a political thread, so please just take these thoughts for what they're worth without comment (or PM me). I think that the often-repeated notion that (US) citizens with guns are a good way to stop a tyrannical government is a farce. Germany showed that evil armies are made up of evil citizens. They didn't need guns to stop their government. Their government gave them the guns (or subs) that they used them willingly in a mad attempt to dominate much of the world. In their defence, psychology has shown that most people are easily swayed, so their evil is part of most of us. And after the war, the vast majority of Germans had the decency to be completely apologetic and ashamed of their conduct. The War in the Atlantic held both sides of this paradox brilliantly clear. Brave, brilliant men fighting for an evil, hopeless cause. Definitely a lesson worth studying.

So thanks very much, again, to everyone who helped me out here at the subsim forums! You made the game much more enjoyable to me, and I loved reading your tactics, stories, and histortical analyses. This is an excellent forum, and I wish it the best. To those of you still patrolling the cold, harsh waters of the Atlantic in your steel sharks, I wish you Good Luck and Good Hunting! Sincerely,

Retired Kalheun Volk

Wow... just wow. While there were certainly true Nazi's in the Kreigsmarine, and some might very well have been called evil, for the most part they were just honorable and decent sailors and soldiers. They fought because that was their job to do, not to try to dominate the world. That was a political end that the front line sailors and submariners were not concerned with.

Towards the end of the war it was indeed obvious that the u-boats weren't going to win the war at sea (enough though they did, in fact, come quite close early on) and the flotilla commanders were given the choice of stopping operations or continuing the obviously futile war at sea. Since the U-boats were tying up a great amount of sea power, merchant power and air power that the Allies could have used against the German citizens or the German Army, the Navy decided to keep fighting against all odds to save lives in their country at the price of their own. That's not the actions of evil and mad men.

I'm glad you've enjoyed Silent Hunter III and I did enjoy the reading of your exploits.

You believe that volunteer solidiers are not morally responsible for participating in the biggest, most heinous, unnecessary war in human history. I do. I don't disagree about their courage, self-sacrifice, and other admirable traits, but I don't sugar-coat their collective deeds by blaming politicians. Politicians, alone, can do nothing. It takes the will of an army to serve and ironically, the Kreigsmarine in WW1 shows this nicely. But as I asked above, please let's take this to PM if you'd like to discuss it more.

I'm glad you enjoyed my write-ups, and I'm glad we can enjoy a game that gets us to think about a very important part of history. Even if we differ in our conclusions, the effort of thinking about it is more than worth the while.:up:

Congratulations!
In 1944, my tonnage dropped from average 100K I was making in '42-43, to 20-30K. I'm still commanding Type IX, and you can't realy go against the convoys with that boat late in the war...

No, you can't. And you can't hunt the very lucrative waters off the British coasts because you don't have the underwater speed to silently avoid the plethora of destroyers cruising about. As I mentioned above, I'd try hunting unescorted ships in far-off territories. Otherwise, you may well end up coming back with few ships and lots of torpedoes. And that HAS to be frustrating! Or, perhaps you could use the 20K renown you save in not buying the XXI to spend on homing torpedoes. I wouldn't take on a large convoy with them and a IX, but maybe a medium and certainly a small convoy with 5-6 escorts. They do a lot of the work for you! :rock: