Getting through the English Channel
 

Through many efforts going between England and France heading for the Atlantic, I have discovered quite to my and my crew's dismay that the area is FULL of mines and we usually end up strapping on our water wings very fast (The ones with little duckies on them. The duckies help us float better). Is there a mostly safe way to cross through that area where the chance of hitting a mine is less ? I hate having to constantly go all the way around north of Great Britain and then into the Atlantic. It takes forever to get to some mission areas that way and the trip eats up fuel like mad.

We have a little saying around here:

STAY AWAY FROM THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

If you're going to try it, the only way I could see you making it would be to hug the coast of France and pray that no trawlers spot you. You're in shallow waters there and most likely wouldn't have any room to dive. Attempting to go through the middle of the Channel is suicide with the mines and the DDs and the Elcos and the airplanes.

Geez and I went through there once without a scratch, now I just feel lucky

so i guess you're not using GW ? right ?

Went through there once with RuB 1.45 and that was all it took for me to learn.

Yeah I'll chime in:

STAY AWAY FROM THE ENGLISH CHANNEL!!!

I tried it three times before giving up forever. To save time, from now on we could refer to SAFTEC. (It's a bit like 'safety' but has a big C for Caution. Which reminds me of "The name's Morgan - big M, little organ").

If you start a career in 1939, there is a moment when you receive a radio message telling you that the Channel is considered closed for german U boats and that Kapt'ns assigned to missions in the Atlantic are to sail across the North Sea. As other above clearly stated, it is strongly advised to follow this order from BdU.
The North Sea being a shallow place and the surroundings of Scapa Flow and the Orkneys being heavily patrolled by DDs and airplanes, I usually hug the Norwegian coast from south of Stavanger to above Bergen and follow the deeper straight north of the Shetlands, staying underwater during daytime and surfaced at night when I hit 200km from the Shetlands where there is an airbase.
There is some traffic there so you might well bag some lone merchants from North of Scotland going down the West Coast and have a good chance of finding convoys even in early war in the western approaches to the north Irish sea entrance (around grid AM 52)
Even with a VIIB, running at ahead standard you have enough fuel to get down to the Bay of Biscay and back. On my present patrol, I am patrolling grid BF47 (with only my 2 external torps left, waiting for nice weather to reload and 35.000 tons in the log on the way down)

This is what I do, start career at Wilhelmshaven and just go north of England. I do not use the channel at all. I wait until Breast is in Axis hands or any of the others along the French coast. I then switch to one of these. The channel, man, is like a bad moon rising. Although you might get through unscathed once, there is no guarantee you will do it again thus ending what could have been an awesome career. Stay away.:know:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I sense a thread Hi-Jacking soon.

Darn it! Someone caught my breast joke LOL. Good Show!

hmm ive sailed through the english channel on patrols in 1940
3 or 4 times i think
only 2 plane attacks in all. nothing really happend to the boat only a near miss with a bomb from a plane

guess U-107 is just one lucky boat

Thats not just funny, its priceless. I seldom laugh out loud (although the smileys dictate otherwise), but this time I did.

Very sly, very good. :rotfl:

Me and my dirty mind....... :oops: :nope:

yeah, men are pretty basic...beer and boobs. We sometimes think of sleep. Thats about it:shifty:

Then we dream about beer and boobs........:rotfl: