I play D.I.D. and have only lasted into late 43 -- though that probably 30 times...

I have started "careers" in 44 and 45 just to try it... that is some pretty harrowing stuff!

It does make you speculate about how the game works out for you. If you constantly start new careers, which most of us do, we are hyper-experienced in 1939-41. When we issue forth in September 1939, we have dozens, hundreds of patrols behind us and have seen just about anything. It is no wonder we bring home 200K tons before Christmas 1939.

But when I start hitting that wall in 1943, I start wondering how the game seems to suddenly become many, many times smarter. As if the British and Americans were suddenly blessed with perfect intelligence and never-fail systems and my experience as a careful player over hundreds of patrols counts for very little.

I am not really complaining, because I love the game. But the Allies do go from zero to 100 in 1943.

Yeah, I've also realized it thus I start a new career in 1941-42 just like you. Then the skills you have already acquired early war (e.g. night surface attack) become almost useless and new quite new type of challenges need to be faced against the improved ASW of the Allies. What I like the most in SH3, there's not an assured method, with which you can sink dozens of ships during the entire course of the war. Instead, you have to accommodate to the newer types of difficulties.

Never made it past 1942 myself. IRL I believe the longest career, certainly in terms of time served as a frontboot commander, is Korvettenkapitän (later Kapitän zur See) Wolfgang Lüth.

15 war patrols in five boats, 640 days at sea, from Dec 39 to Oct 43. That's the longest career I can think of, any of you sea dogs care to correct me on that?

I've just had my first career in NYGM and another career going on and I feel that the Allies with their improved sensors and more numerous escorts are difficult from the beginning of the war. Definitely not zero. Maybe 50 or 60 percent. I haven't yet experienced 1943 in NYGM. In GWX I survived once into late 1943 and the last patrols before being sunk were horrible. Aircraft, hunter groups, better escorts :down: I fear that if I somehow manage to survive into 1943 now with NYGM and air torpedo mod, it's not going to be that nice either.

Furthest i have managed to get is mid 43. Always seem to get sunk in august, round about the same area. The aircraft and hunter killers are just starting to come into their own then so i dread to think what 44 and 45 must be like. I havent yet plucked up the courage to suicide my crew by starting a career in late war.