Returning to the game... Happy times!
 

Haven't played in a while but I saw the SH5 trailer and it made me want to play SH3 again. So new career, august 1939 start on near-full realism with a VIIB (I like the external camera...).

So far I've made it through two 21-days patrols. On the first one I sent 9 merchants to the bottom but only encountered a small convoy and wasted some torpedoes due poor targeting so most of the kills were actually deck gun attacks. Things got interesting on the second sortie when, after sinking a few lone merchants, I encountered a large convoy. In the middle of it there was a certain HMS Nelson, the weather was perfect and the convoy had two poor C&D's as protection. I got in close at night and waited for the leading escort to do it's 'pause to listen' routine to break it's back. Then I slipped into the convoy and fired a spread of four at the Nelson. Just as the last torpedo was leaving it's tube I get pinged and realize the second DD was coming straight at us so I crash dived and then hid under the BB for a while since I killed it's engines. That thing is tough though because it wouldn't sink.

Eventually the convoy and DD moved along, I went back up to PD and fired a stern shot at the Nelson to finish it. Then the DD came back for another round but he quickly became the hunted. I sprinted north for about 1000m and then followed the convoy (this was still I night, and I was on the surface). The DD predictably passed 1000m south of us without noticing U-46 passing by at flank speed and took the same trajectory back to the convoy after it realized I was nowhere near where the Nelson had sunk. On it's way back to the convoy I was waiting for it with a nice 90 AOB close range shot (guessed 25 knots for his speed and it was close enough to score a hit).

Then I was left with a full convoy of unarmed merchants. Target practice! Turned up 110k tons for a single patrol... Pretty sure that's better than I've ever done back in the day. Happy times indeed :arrgh!:

Cool story, bro! :)