1943 isnt a very good year
 

I've survived to June of 1943. And i think it's now mostly luck.

The occasional search plane incident seen in 1942 has been replaced by B-24 Liberators harassing me on such a constant basis, I can never have a full charge on my batteries. I'm crash diving to avoid groups of bombers 3-4 times a day.

German high command sends me on suicide missions off the coast of England.

I feel much more like the hunted than the hunter.

My favorite day is when the weather report is heavy fog, heavy precipitation. Then I can actually surface for extended periods of time and go sink some ships.

Twice I've had to return to port less than 3 days from my mission start date because my bridge was totally wasted by surprise Hurricane attacks. One mission I completed on a single engine and no flak guns, radar detector, antenna, radar, or deck gun and 5 crew dead.

Oh Luftwaffe, where arte thou? At least I sunk a destroyer last night.

Congratulations on making it as far as '43 is all I can say.

If you get tired of always being the mouse, you could try transferring to the 2nd Flotilla, getting a type IX boat, and taking your patrols off to the South Atlantic. That's what I'll try if I ever survive past '41.

great report. sounds very exciting too. hope u survive - good luck:salute:

Surviving past 1942 is always a bit of a gamble. Get a schnorkel as soon as you can. Travel submerged @ 3 knots or so on batteries, and only schnorkel to recharge your batteries. Until then, keep a sharp lookout and dive immediately. And pray you don't get heard by a destroyer while snorting. And that you don't run into a mine. And that a B-24 won't get a radar reflection off of your schnorkel.

Even if you do everything "right", you still might not make to the end.

This is exactly what I do. My last patrol was at Grid CA54 , US east coast with U-126 IXC type.
It lasted 39 days and returned home with some 110.000 grt.
I found a juicy convoy of unarmed tankers escorted by a single DD and I sunk them all.
Of course , after mid 1943 things are tough. Sometimes I am not able to reach my assinged patol area due to damage my air attacks.

My Kaleun is in patrol 6 in Nov. 43. Transiting the Bay of Biscay results in having to dive several times, though for some strange reason I was not jumped once on my return voyage and I use max 256 TC for the trip. The most important upgrade you can make in my opinion is the radar detector and then the schnorkel, although it has not been offered to me yet. I generally stay under for at least half an hour before surfacing again, but usually an hour or more. To maximize my ability to remain under I always upgrade to the latest batteries and only proceed at slow ahead. It's air that limits my time underwarter most of the time. The escorts are now both more numerous and skilled. The last convoy I attacked had nine escorts, but I still managed to sink two large merchants from it. After that I broke off contact as the weather was filthy and I did not wish to risk another surfaced approach, knowing they had radar. And, oddly, I have not yet encountered a Hedgehog, but I'm sure my time will come.

Patience and discretion are the words of the day. Overaggression will get you killed in no time. Keep a fresh and competent bridge watch at all times and a qualified sonarman in hydrophone room.

"Argh Be Less Aggressive!!":arrgh!: :p

The RAF don't bother me, they know that I'm drunk enough to attack'em, but sober enough to hit'em. :DL

Believe it or not, there are some folk that have yet to survive as long as you have.

SINK EM ALL!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

I think it's june or july '43 in my game. I was just sent to AM14 or somesuch. It was a pleasure cruise! ;)

It seems like there's no way I could use TC this high. I've noticed that it doesnt warn you as quickly as it could. for example, when I am at 16X I can see the metox going off and can sometimes be underwater before the plane is laying waste to me. with 256X it seems like i am still in the process of diving down when I am dive bombed.

No snorkels for me either : /

This is also what I do. Air would also limit my bottom time, but I try to surface with ~50% of my battery as a reserve for whatever problems lie ahead of me while recharging. It's come in handy too.. Sometimes the bombers return with friends quickly.. or a sinkable boat arrives nearby and I need to make an attack

I always keep a full qualified watch, without that, I'd surely be dead already. Eventhough Ive had full watch crews (with a veteran 3 skill officer) die in aircraft attacks, I'll keep sending those hapless boys up there to scout for me.

The general consensus seems to be that the highest "safe" TC for use in any area where you might encounter the enemy is 128. Anything above that, and too much "game time" elapses before you can react to the potential threat. Keep in mind that when you are in high TC, it's really the game that's going at "high speed" - you aren't. Your reactions still happen in "real time" but the enemy AI's don't.

I did the math once and it was kinda eye-opening. Assuming that 2 TC means 1 second of "real time" = 2 seconds in the life of your crew and u-boat, then 1024 TC would mean that 1 second of "real time" spent playing the game would = 1024 seconds on your u-boat.

1024 seconds = a little over 17 minutes.

If you are running at 1024 TC when, say, an enemy destroyer or plane is sighted by your watch, and it takes even one second of real time for the game to drop to 1 TC and alert you, you have already lost 17 minutes of reaction time in the game. By which time you may already be under attack, because the enemy AI takes its "orders" from the game, and in TC they just get them faster and react faster. Meanwhile, your crew is still at the mercy of human reaction time which simply can't compete at that level of TC.

At 256 TC, 1 second = a little over 4 minutes. That's still a pretty good chunk of time.

At 128 TC, you're down to a little over 2 minutes. I haven't played past 1940 yet, but I'm guessing that even 2 minutes can be the difference between life and death later in the war when Allied ASW tactics and technology begin reaching their peak effectiveness.

At 16 TC you're back into the realm of losing only seconds instead of minutes. That's got to make a big difference later in the war, especially when it comes to attacks from the air.

:o
Now my head hurts!
:nope:

No where is safe, just temporarily non-hostile

So youre telling me that when its later in war if I want to survive, my WHOLE patrol is best to be at 16 TC?? oh man :O: Although I do notice that while on the high TC I still get the watch alerts that pause the game but usually my watch crew is always competent enough to spot them far enough out that even if I lose time I still have another few thousand meters before they even begin to see me.

EDIT: This is under good conditions with unlimited visibility however.

The problem with 16 TC is that the crew fatigue (unless you have the 'no fatigue' mod). I use 64 TC when in enemy territory. That still gives you a lot of time because you only lose a minute, but actually much less because I have the game drop down to 1 TC when they spot a plane or a ship.