Easy sailin' in '39?
 

I usually start my careers in the mid 40's to 41. Havent started in 39 in a while and not since I started using GWX 2.*

I noticed that the Brits dont do alot during this time. I have sunk several freighters in the channel, very close to the coast and in the Irish Sea. Any other time I would wait just a little bit to spot an aircraft followed by the hydrophone picking up a closing contact. BUt in good ol 39 not a single aircraft or DD has come to see whats sinking their merchant traffic.

Hehe I almost miss being DC'ed :o

39' and 40' are prime for harbor raids and sinking all those pretty capital ships :arrgh!:

I decided to begin at the beginning of the war with my current career. I can confirm that in '39 the RN and RAF are not as omnipresent as they are in the later years of the war. In my current patrol it is November '39 and I am patrolling in AN59, which is right off the British coast. I haven't seen any destroyers or aircraft yet, but that has also to do with the weather conditions. The wind has been awful enough to keep the RAF grounded, I suppose.
Overall, in my current career, I have had to dive only twice for an aircraft and the second time I wasn't even spotted. I have seen one taskforce of destroyers which I think was out to hunt me, but I could evade them easily, also thanks to bad weather.

So far I can hunt with impunity! :arrgh!:

Make the most of the quiet period.....it soon changes http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/9708/piratebf4.gif

Amen to that.

After '43 the clunky old deck gun gets to be about useless, even tramps are armed. Although I did cripple a large lone merchant the other day with one last fish in the stern tube. So being out of fish I curved behind her and for the first time in a while got to use the 88 to finish her off. Wasn't long before 3 Mosquitos were on the way.

There was a reason why in real life they called it "The Happy Times.":sunny:

Definitely! Later in the war, when surfaced, the crews always needed to have one eye on the sky to check for planes. And even later, it was virtually impossible for a U-Boat to be on the surface, especially after the Allies improved their radar and closed the air gap.
We can be grateful that Germany lost the tech war in the Atlantic. That, coupled with the ability to decode German radio traffic, was the end of the U-Boat. :dead:

I think SHIII, with GWX, models this very well.

Atleast AA-skills come in handy.

But are brit's stuffing up the DD's with gas after 42'? Cuz' I've managed to out-run task force of destroyers on surface. One time after another. Only because the destroyers seemed to be so ligh that their propellers lost their contact with the surface pretty often.

The second happy times, yippee...............:D

Burning Tankers, what a sexy smell. :lol:

I prefer to start all my careers in '39, and go up the east coast of Britain and sink lone merchants on my way to a patrol grid.

It certainly gives the old nostrils a clear out :lol:

GWX does do a great job on that, as painful as it is while trying to play during the later years of the war. Even though its been debated endlessly about "what if" the German's had been able to produce their new technologies faster, short of getting the XXI operational in like 42' despite all the brilliant scientist's in the navy, luftwaffe and the rocket program we still managed to overrun them. Though its not historically accurate by any means, waiting till late 43 for any new boats to become available is an eternity. Makes you want to set your days in port to 48 to make time go by faster and still be alive when the good boats become available (and then again you still don't get to play em for long).

A good skilled AA crew can still be effective even with the improved menace of planes in GWX compared to vanilla SHIII. Mid 42' and have shot down almost 50 planes with only 1 casualty to the AA crew (albeit lots of wound badges). AA comes in handy to knock out the first scout so you can change course to avoid the squadron's they'll send after they find your location; but no way would I ever get into a prolonged engagement with aircraft unless they were already heavily damaged and just needed one more hit to take em down before diving and moving away.

Unless its a task force of all DD's once you get far enough away seems that they'll tend to regroup to protect the biggest/most important ships in the group. With the supercharger you can hit 18-19 knots, albeit not the 30+ a DD can do but still enough to close enough distance such that they return to the task force rather than chase you down (hopefully).

it was smooth sailin!! no DD's, no aircraft. Then on my 7th patrol I managed to somehow hit a mine as i passed Helgoland (?). :-? RIP U-19.

I think I will take Steed's advice and go sink some tankers in a nice IX.:arrgh!:

There's actually been a few posts on sudden mishaps in the Helgoland area recently http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

yeah it was very odd. I was just thinking how good this career was coming along how I was excited to take U-19 up to Norway in April for the invasion festivities. Next thing I know my boat has heavy flooding just easy of Helgoland. Then the instant death screen :down:

Once I get the first message telling me Helgoland has been mined I avoid it like the plague
Never sail that close to it anyway

1939 a piece of cake
 

Using GWX 2.1, I had U45 on station south of the Irish Sea by 28th August 1939. That was quiet. Nice to wave to all the shipping going by. September 1st a large British convoy went by (now why would they do that? We're not at war...). I got the watch crew to practice showing the convoy (just in case there is a war, you understand...). ;)
1100 hours 1st September, bam! bam!! and bam!!! three hits and we go for the bottom much worse for wear.
The lead DD was Polish! :o
Lucky for us, the Brits weren't interested in helping them, and the convoy zig-zagged away.
Repairs, recriminations and serious sailing followed.:oops:
First kill for the war 0100 hrs 2nd September - one Polish DD. Revenge is sweet!:arrgh!:
Yeah, 1939 will be easy.:88)
Of course historically U45 was sunk in September 1939. Perhaps a poor choice.:rotfl:

Well that'l teach ya for attacking the Poles in the first place :lol: