Peter,

Yes, being retired is due to SH3 Commander's career length option. I like the uncertainty of it, though sometimes I am disappointed, espcially if I get stopped just sort of the only thing that cures an itchy throat, the Ritter Kreuz. When you are retired, you don't take anything with you, it all stays behind for the man who takes over after you. What I do then is start a new career via Commander in the month following the one I just completed. Whether each captain is retired or killed in action, I start a new career in the same way. By this means I go through from 1939 until 1945 and get to enjoy all periods of the war. Which does not mean I enjoy being the hunted later in the war, but it is a challenge then just staying alive.

I got St. Nazaire by choosing 7th Flotilla. For some reason I can't choose anything other than Erpro when I run Commander, unless it is 1941 or later, but even then I can't get to choose the month. Once the game is launched, I then choose a flotilla that will give me the boat of my choice, which is usually a 7. I like the IX's, too, but I find for my type of aggressive infiltration tactics the 7 is a quicker, more agile boat. But yeah, the gun and torpedo capacity of the IX is very sweet. I completely understand how you can fall in love with a given boat. There are even players who actually prefer the duck boats, the lowly Type II. Whatever floats your boat, as the saying goes.

Sadly, I just lost all the results of the first patrol in my new career. I had a good first patrol west of Gibraltar after leaving the fruitless CF85 behind. I find that if I pursue all of the red contact reports of singles I rack up unrealist tonnage scores, so I have gone back to my old habit of years ago of ignoring individual reports and take on only what I actually spot, or convoys reported by B-dienst. Even then, in spite of these restrictions I still get good scores, for now. When I got back to base, the game did not recognize any of my kills, showing me with a score of 0 tons, but a pile of renown. I think it may be due to the fact that I might have messed up my game with a first patrol tinkering with the boat, which is a defect of the game itself. I added crew members, which I guess was enough to break the system. So, from now on, "Don't touch anything with a first patrol" means just that. Take my boat to sea on its first patrol "as is" and/or do a quick putt about the area for one day and redock and then tinker with crew and boat equipment.

I am also giving consideration to going back to GWX, in spite of the praise I have for LSH2015. I miss certain aspects of that mod, but before I reinstall it, I have do my research and select from the pile of new mods that have come out in years that I was missing from this game. I have some serious research time to put in. I am a big fan of gramophone music mods; I don't load any modern music, such as Led Zeppelin or AC/DC, as cool as that might be to listen to on patrol, just historical stuff. I could not stand the irony of being in a sub that was in an unrecoverable dive, like in Das Boot, while AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" was playing and hearing the line, "... and I'm going down..."

I do now and then get a lemon of a patrol zone, but I follow orders. I will use Commander to assign a patrol zone after docking at a U-tanker or resupply ship, in order to avoid that null message. In such a case, I pull out a favourite hunting zone relevant to my vicinity.

Regarding crew efficiency, I don't mean have the compartments "full" as in as many men in there as the game allows, but to effiency, as indicated by the green bar above each compartment. As you move in and out men qualified for that compartment, the green "meter" above the compartment will drop to the left [lower efficiency] or move to the right [improved efficiency.] If you have enough qualified men in a compartment, the green bar will move further to the right until it is maximized. At that point, moving any more crew members in will not increase compartment efficiency. A smaller number of qualified men will max out efficiency as indicated by the green bar than will a physically full compartment of less qualifed men. This is easier to see in the stern tube compartment, where you can max out the green bar with less than six men.

Damage management is harder to maximize. You can by putting more men there, but yes, it does seem silly to have lots of men assigned to fixing a flak gun. Two or three seems more realistic. In such cases I move the extra bodies elsewhere. I only keep my medic and spare personnel in the rest compartments, unless there is damage there, in which case I assign a prudent number of men. I don't use a fatigue model, since the orginal model is simply silly, with grown men dropping from fatigue faster than toddlers, and all the others, though valiant in attempt, I find inadequate. Nobody's fault but the game designers. "No fatigue" is not good either, but it is for now the least worst choice. On the other hand, I "simulate" crew fatigue after some time by heading back for base, even if I still have torpedoes. It's the most realistic compensation I can think of for now, unless we deliberately underassign personnel in order to artificially raise work times. Still, even then I can't imagine a compartment full of torpedo loaders being so tired and lacking motivation that they couldn't manage reloading a couple of torpedoes in anything better than anemic time.

Repairmen seem to have a lot of spare time on my boats, but not always nor will it always be that way. The dedicated repair team you assemble can only be assigned to one job at a time. All other damaged compartments will however still have repair work being done, by any crew members in that compartment. It will just not proceed as efficiently. If you wish to have important repairs done concurrently, I would suggest putting at least one repair qualified man in those compartments, instead of putting every repair qualifed man in the specialist team.

Don't forget officers! They can have repair qualifications and work in their respective compartments. I try to have one officer with repair in my command room. That way, he can man a station vital to navigation or whatever and still wield a wrench.

As to my personal issues, yes, I am recovering well from the surgery. It was quite a challenge at first, as I had difficulty with memory and attention span. This is the one and only time I have had brain surgery, so I had no idea what to expect. I've had several knee operations, so I know what normal surgery is like, but this one was different. I also had issues with the anti-seizure medications they had me on, but I haven't had to take them since August and those issues are resolved. I don't need any more hospital work, other than a once yearly MRI scan to see if anything tries to regrow. Even if it does, it can be zapped with radiation. I am very optimistic.

I am returning to work tomorrow, in a different role, though. My old job in the parts department has been taken over in the meantime. The boss offered me the job of the janitor, who has left the country to be with family in the U.S. It's not my ideal job, but it is a job and will have me earning again; I was wondering how I was going to manage Christmas gifts this year. It is not full time work, just five hours a day, but it is a start. The owner has offered me driving work once I regain my driver's license. I see the neurologist at the end of November, who has already told me he will get my license back as long as no changes occur between now and then. So, things are looking up, finally, and I am simply grateful. I've enjoyed the support of a good wife and family, but it is time for me to get going again.

Good luck with your patrols. Let me know if you try any new tactics and how they work out.

Randy

Randy

I think I would be devastated if I was suddenly retired after putting in all that hard work.

You may have forgotten that any new career or u-boat upgrade has to take place in the Eprobungstelle Flotilla for testing purposes and no changes should be made at this point.
When you dock you then transfer after awarding any medals and qualification etc, and then exit the game.
This creates the new mission save that you load when you start the game again.

GWX again that is interesting, I also used that with SH3Commander when I was having problems at the time with SH5 before TWOS became available.

My Gramophone music is mostly German 1930’s marches with a bit of light music thrown in.
I have also added a bit of French as well although it would not be correct but I like Piaff.

I am quite happy to have a No PQ and have a bit of a roam about.
No PQ only adds 1 day refitting whereas the bunker refits add 3 weeks.
Having to patrol the grid for 24 hours goes quickly compared to SH5 where the patrol grids are 48 and 72 hours without a save being allowed until completed.

From what you are saying it seems that you place your crew in the compartments accordingly and those you feel are not required you place them in the rest quarters?
Thank you for explaining the crew efficiency regarding the green bar.
I think I might need to re-valuate some of my crew positions.
If I remember correctly with the VIIB if you were to max out the compartments apart from damage control you would have 1 crew member over where as I have 4.

The problem with the officers apart from 1 is that they are all maxed out with 3 qualifications and have loads of experience points and medals after 13 patrols.
Did you say previously that you can give out additional qualifications through SH3Commander?

Patrol 13 has finished with me currently in Las Palmas.
I was attacked 3 times by aircraft without sustaining any damage.
The sea was really rough and I usually travel at Ahead 1/3rd 10/11 knots and at times I was down to 4 knots and was beginning to worry about the amount of fuel I was using so had to cut my patrol short and head for the “Gelting” in Las Palmas.
Only 6 ships sunk for just over 22,000 tons.
I think I will head back towards Gibraltar for Patrol 14 as I really would like to have a go at a task force and try some of your convoy tactics.

That is good news about the job and possibly not a bad thing that it is not a lot of hours as at least you should be able to ease yourself back into the working routine gently.

Best wishes
Peter

Peter,

Thanks for your comments and well wishes. I worked hard today, first day back; I'm going to have to learn to pace myself. That is one thing about me, any job I do I want to do it well and to high standards. I've been on a health induced layoff for ten months and my health and surgery have taken a lot more out of me than I realized. My wife says one of my flaws is not recognizing my limits. It is part of my stubborn nature not to be a quitter, which has served me well in most endeavors in life, but sometimes it leads me to undertake that which I should really not. I'm 54 and I am really fighting the aging process. I am not trying to be a perpetual teenager, but I do not intend to be a frail old man; I wish to be vigorous in my old age. My father is 85 years old and still tends to his own affairs; he drives, lives in his own house and has all his mental faculties, sharp as ever. That's how I wish to be if I live to that age. I believe I have a good underlying basis of health, in spite of what happened to me last year. I have never smoked, I don't drink alcohol, I am not overweight, I have no issues with health that are common to men my age, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. Other than my knees have degrees of osteoarthritis; they will need to be replaced one day, but the orthosurgeon told me when I was 48 to get 20 more years out of my natural knees. I think I can do it and I am taking as good care of my joints as I can.

Thank you for your advice concerning new career starts. Let me see if I understand this clearly. I MUST begin every new career in the Erpro unit? After my first patrol, I know I must apply for a transfer. I am guessing from this that if I start a career this way, I can then hop up to a bigger boat [if available] right after my shakedown cruise? When I restart my new career [I hope it will start in April '41 as my last career ended in March '41] it will begin in the month/year I selected via Commander? I think it has finally sunk in and I will give it a try. And not fart about with anything on the boat, including crew.

I find I prefer to go back to my home port after I run out of torpedoes, unless I have had such luck as to have done so early in a patrol. For example, if I have a big convoy battle only a week or so out of base, then the crew are still fresh and the boat should have no technical issues such as would be manifested after a long patrol [engines feeling tired, food running low, crew fatigue, etc.] Under such circumstances I don't mind slipping into a friendly port or liase with a ship/U-tanker. Then of course I set my time in base at the resupply point to 1 or 2 days. If I need a whole new set of torpedoes, I will simulate what I think may be the greater amount of time required to load so many torpedoes by setting it to two days. This also lets me simulate that I bottomed out the sub or left port so as not to be visible during the day to Allied spies. I don't enter these resupply points on neutral territory until after sunset, to simulate operational security procedures. These are examples of the "house rules" that I referred to in other posts. The one thing I don't like about such visits away from home base is that it interferes with the game's post-patrol routines. Still, it is only a minor inconvenience.

It is nice to see you have a highly experienced crew. As Jurgen Prochnow said in Das Boot, "You've got to have good men!" Sometimes I don't enable the crew transfer option in Commander, usually right at the beginning of a career. I feel that BdU is not likely to steal crew from me right after patrol 1. Another reason I don't enable it always is that I have a practice of dismissing crew that reach their maximum experience. I don't wish to hog the best trained men in the U-waffe, so when an officer reaches his maximum, I dismiss him and wish him luck in his next posting, whether he takes over a new sub as commander or acts as the cadre for a fresh boat's new crew. I also don't think it right that all of my seamen and P.O.'s are top ranked. They will be dismissed, too, from time to time. If I do enable Commander's crew transfer option, then I will let that handle most crew changes.

In spite of having such an elite crew, Peter, you can still add more qualifications to some of them. Of course, seamen and lower level P.O.'s can only have one qualification, but higher ranked men can have more than one. Commander allows you to assign qualifications at a quicker rate than the "one per patrol" that the standard game does. I think that aspect is a bit odd. So, you can bump up the assignment of qualifications faster than the game allows, but you cannot assign any more beyond game limits. You can't give four to an officer or three to a P.O. Seamen can always only have one, but remember the seamen qualifications are not recognized for compartment efficiency bonus, but I find that the game does tend to assign them to duty a lot of the time by their qualifications. For example, when I click to man the deck gun, the game sends my gunnery qualified P.O. and the two seamen who have gunnery qualification. I think this is either coincidence or due to the fact that I "group" men of the same qualification adjacent to each other when they are not in their specialist stations.

On my last patrol I got jumped by a bomb-equipped Hurricane with Royal Navy markings. I had sunk a British vessel the evening before. This plane came after me some time between morning and mid-day, I can't remember the exact time. This was in the area to the west of Gibraltar. I really have to try that command hack that I read of recently. You add certain words into one of the config files, which automatically mans your flak and issues orders to attack any closing aircraft. This would work faster than trying to fart around dragging men to their guns and issuing orders by clicking. In real life it would be very quick for the Kaleum to shout out his orders.

I also see no reason why the game does not allow you to have your flak gunners up top at the same time as the bridge watch. They are not in the same area thus would not be crowding each other. Looking at the boat in external view you can easily see how you should be able to do both at the same time. There is plenty of room for both, thus I guess it must be a game coding thing that forbids this. It would be great to have a mod that would allow us to man both guns and watch at the same time. If you have only your flak guns manned and the one guy in the bridge, search effiency is very degraded. You may miss spotting vessels or even planes this way.

In transit I set my dial to the most fuel-efficient setting for that boat. I determine this by trying various speeds and asking the navigator for maximum range at that setting. I know it seems glacial to get to your patrol zone this way, but if you run at higher speed you deplete your fuel sooner. I try to be at sea as long as possble fuel-wise. I also like how LSH2015 or the integrated fixes, make it risky to run at flank speed due to engine breakdown. This is more realistic. Just about every mechanical device I can think of has its limits. Push physical things too much and they are going to break. I have a nice car that has a powerful engine that can push it along quite quickly. If I ran her around at top RPM all the time it would soon start to show fatigue issues. U-boats were the same and I think it is great the game now reflects this.

Right, I need to get my itch scratched. TIme to head out on new career first patrol, using your advice. Erpro, here I come...

Good hunting, kamerad!

Randy

Randy
Do you take any fish oil capsules for your joints?
I take Omega 3 capsules.
I also take a product called Pom-T which is a supplement product to help protect against prostate cancer which is a big issue in older men.
I totally agree that you need to pace yourself and don’t go mad at it as you get back into your new routine.

Quote:

I MUST begin every new career in the Erpro unit? After my first patrol, I know I must apply for a transfer. I am guessing from this that if I start a career this way, I can then hop up to a bigger boat [if available] right after my shakedown cruise?

Yes, that is correct.
Transferring is the only way to upgrade your boat.
You can stay with VIIB or may be able to upgrade to a VIIC if you do not like the IXB.
Radio messages keep you informed of what boats are available.
Your Flotilla 7 will move to Bergen in late 44 if you do not transfer from it.

I found a bit of a game cheat by accident.
When you do a test patrol, and you are in the dock or bunker if you then exit the patrol you will find that you have the option to complete it.
Each crew member then receives just 1 experience point, no medals, but there is 1 qualification available, and then you transfer using the desk telephone and exit the game.

The home port re-supply is ok if you are within reach.
Does the game take into account the boat you are using and the grid patrol area you are assigned?
My last patrol grid DR82 I would not be able to patrol there and have enough fuel to get back to Lorient without a re-supply somewhere.
Your fuel capacity and range will be less than mine.

Quote:

The one thing I don't like about such visits away from home base is that it interferes with the game's post-patrol routines.

My only real gripe is that you have to accept the default torpedo loadout which I would say probably did not happen?

At the moment I feel I need the best crew I can get.
I am certainly going to need them in the months to come.
I still do not have enough game experience with SH3 with just 13 patrols which includes test patrols as well.
I like your discipline to your game, especially taking on less experienced crew is giving you a bigger challenge.
I noticed that moving my crew around I did not notice any difference even when I exchanged a sailor for a PO.
But when you moved a qualified PO such as I have with 3 qualified PO repairmen, these 3 really shoot the Damage Control green bar to over ¾ of its length.
I have my Stern Tubes crew maxed out and I am still well short of maxing out the bar.
I need to get a qualified torpedo PO in there.
It’s interesting that there is no qualification for the Sonar man, but there is for the Radio man.
I am not sure how you add the qualifications through SH3Commander.
Do you have to be in port before starting the next patrol?

I agree with you regarding the flak gunner and bridge crew.
I can remove 2 of the bridge crew and the green bar does not move.

According to the fuel efficiency chart yours is 8-9 knots and mine is 9 knots.
The weather is going to have a big say in what is feasible.
If your navigator is giving you a true picture when the sea is rough and the bridge is going under water and with a wind speed of 15 then he is worth consulting.
I think my bridge crew could do with snorkels and face masks.
They remain doggedly hanging on to those binoculars like there is no tomorrow.

Flank Speed, there has to be a limit on how long you can run on that.
Again imagine the strain if you were trying to fight against 15 wind speeds.
I reckon the C.E must have dreaded that command.
The noise must have been deafening.
I am pleased with my engine upgrade and can definitely notice the difference.

One thing I would like to see different is my position to the W.O. on the bridge being changed over as my view is restricted by the rotating DF antenna.

Have you noticed some black contacts appearing on the map?
There is a mod that you can enable that increases the difficulty level and shows all contacts black so you cannot tell what you are looking at until you investigate.

So, patrol 14 has started and already most of my journey towards Gibraltar is heavy fog, heavy palpitations, and 15 wind speed.
Happy days.

Good hunting
Peter

Randy

This might be of interest to you.
Go to the W.O icon
Select the gun icon you want to man.
Select the Crew On Deck icon.
Select the gun icon you want to man.
Gun is now manned.

Go to W.O icon
Select the Crew On Deck Icon.
Select the Watch Crew On deck icon.
Watch Crew now on the bridge.

These are the shortcut keys the icons are showing.
Man the Deck Gun Shift + D
Man the Flak Gun CTRL + D
Watch Crew On Deck CTRL + G

I have had 57 hours of continuous heavy fog.
I am fed up with it so have decided to head for BE96.
I have managed to get a couple of kills in since the fog lifted.
I picked up a warship contact on the map moving fast heading due south.
I am 8km away heading due north, no fog.
I crash dived to 25 metres and picked up a second warship on hydrophone.
Turn to 90ᴼ ahead full and close the range.
Go to periscope depth and I see 2 large warships.
Need to fire G7e’s to have any chance of a hit.
I really need the torp speed but I have to go for stealth.
Where’s the fog when you need it?
The warships are travelling at 18 knots.
The first warship is (BC) HMS Repulse 37,400 tons
I can lock on to her but I cannot get a good angle now as she is sailing away and so not worth wasting torps.
I now lock on to 2nd warship (HC) HMS Suffolk 13,300 tons
I fire 2 G7e’s asap at around 4,000 metres AOB + 30ᴼ now.
Both torps hit, the warship is reduced to 9 knots and peeling away to the left.
Fun while it lasted but no result.

How do you go about sending a contact report?
I know you send the radio report but is there anything else you need to do?

We discussed running at Flank Speed previously for long periods which does not seem right.
Well there is a diesel damages fix in the HSIE patch.
This causes randomized engine if you run for too long at Flank Speed.

All the best

Peter