Hang in there, bud! Hopefully everything will work out for ya.

I know this is quite embarrassing, but I don't have the Excel program, so is it necessary for me to, ahem, "acquire" it, or is there some free way to open the document and modify it?

Yes, this is what mine was doing. I got it though, from the original post. In excel, gute.
Now, I'm just going to keep up with everyone and digest this stuff. I wish I could be of more assistance right now but I'm playing catch up. This all looks great. :up:
The game is going into another life entirely and "great" is an understatement.
D40

Could you please update the first post of this thread with links to the spreadsheet and the generator?

Do you have a mac? I have a mac laptop and was able to open the spreadsheet in Numbers, but I don't think the formulas transferred into Numbers properly. I haven't looked into it beyond that :hmmm:



Not a problem, take your time and make sure you are comfortable with everything. At this stage, go slowly and go for accuracy. Once you have the procedure down, it'll be a breeze.


Yep, just about to do that. Before I do, does anybody know how to imbed a link in text so I don't have to paste the long URL? I'm sure it's right in front of my face...


@gap, could you please have a look at the patrols 2 and 3 for U-33 in the Completed Patrols folder? In patrol 2, we are missing coordinates for 22 Nov. Interpolating them would create a path through land, so I left it blank. Is this okay? Also, on 24 Nov., U-33 successfully attacked a British prize ship while she was on her way back to Wilhelmshaven. Do you want me to set current activity as "Attacking contact" or "Bound to base"? If I set it to "Attacking contact," it looks like there will be two "Ending patrol" messages.

For patrol 3, in which U-33 was sunk, we are missing all the positions except for the date of departure and date sunk. Should I leave it the way it is, with all other days blank?

How can we tell if the submarine carried any mines? I can't find that info for my U-34 on uboat.net.

you can try doing it in OpenOffice, which is a completely free software.

Also, how do we find the long and lat for patrol days on uboat.net?

EDIT: Sorry, got it myself.

EDIT2: Should we remove the comma from the lat/long found on uboat.net? Example: 48.45N, 12.15W

The easiest way is to click on the patrol, scroll to the bottom of the page, and see whether there is anything listed under the title "Minelaying operations during this patrol." If there is, uboat.net will give you the number and type of mines and the date they were laid. If there is nothing about minelaying, you can put a 0 in the "mines carried" cell in the generator. For reference check out these two patrols:

U-34, 3rd patrol
http://www.uboat.net/boats/patrols/patrol_242.html
You can see U-34 carried 8 TMC mines and laid them on 19 January.

U-34, 2nd Patrol
http://www.uboat.net/boats/patrols/patrol_241.html
In contrast, there's nothing about minelaying here. However, it's very important to take note of anything under the "General events during this patrol" heading, as this will detemine what you set for the "current activity" tabs. For example, on 30 Oct., U-34 had a serious engine problem and had to abandon the patrol. You would use the "Bound to base for repairs" option here, so the game knows that U-34 is in no shape to join a wolfpack.

The first post has been updated with links for the spreadsheet, step-by-step instructions, and relevant examples. Don't be intimidated by the length: I want to explicitly lay out every step to make it as easy as possible for everyone. With a few minutes of work, you could probably figure out about 90% of what is written there.

Please let me know how I can improve the instructions with additional explanations/examples or by simplifying the language.

Thanks for the reply. Could you also look into my previous question: Should we remove the comma from the lat/long found on uboat.net? Example: 48.45N, 12.15W

Yes, it's critical to remove the comma. Thanks for reminding me about this; I will add it to the first post :salute:

A good way to check to see if you've forgotten to remove any commas is to quickly glance over the output (yellow) cells. If any of them are blank, there is a good chance you forgot to take out the comma for that day's lat/long.

Thanks for the answer. I have one more question: I'm not sure which long/lat to put in for the Wilhelmshaven port on the first and last day.

Another great question. I have been using 53.31N 08.09E for Wilhelmshaven. I had one patrol end in Lorient, and I just googled "Lorient latitude longitude" and google displayed it immediately. I think this should be precise enough for our purposes.

When you are posting - left click and drag your mouse over the text and it will highlight. You can then use the insert link button to add your link to the highlighted text.

Post One

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