well, move at 2 knots at about 15 to 20 meters (so, well below PD). I try not to be stationary for more then a few minutes - even though sinking is not modeled in the sim

For a start I tend to patrol my ordered grid sqaure for at least ten days instead of for 24 hours. This is a bit more realistic as the boats were not on any kind of 'go and hunt where you please' spree.

From my starting grid I will open out to one box away from it in each direction and then 2. This takes about a three weeks to a month. If after this time I still have not had a kill I will ask BdU for orders (roll a dice, odd number, comtinue patrol where I am. evens, i can go else where.) When I reach a new patrol zone i do the same thing again. If I have to roll the dice again I figure in how much fuel I have left and I maybe go home instead. My patrols tend to last from 6 to 10 weeks.

Should I recieve a radio report about a convoy I will try and engage it only if it is close enough. If not I will continue where I was.

Re: lack of enemy contacts with rub 1.42
 

No problem at all. Hang out near convoy routes and you'll find some. RUB 1.42 at 100%.

--U-Bootwaffe Command History-----------------------------------------
03APR41 U-561, TYPE VIIC (1 WAR PATROLS)

--U-Bootwaffe Patrol History------------------------------------------
01. 03APR41 - 10MAY41 (37 DAYS)
Ships sunk: 6 (6 Merchant, 0 Warship)
Tonnage: 39367 (39367 Merchant, 0 Warship)

By no means is this representative of my usual experience with RUB, but the ships are out there. 5 of 6 were convoy sinkings - 2 different convoys. I took out 2 T2s from each and a coastal on an errant shot.

I go to my patrol area and either zig zag or something along the lines of go north 100 km, east 20, south 100, east 20, north 100...etc. After 5 to 7 days, I move to various convoy lanes and repeat the patrol procedure until fuel runs low. I usually average about a 5 week patrol.

My last patrol netted me a grand total tonnage of 0.00, with RUB 1.42.

1) I did come across a fair amount of targets, but the vast majority were DD's, which I avoid.

2) The weather was continuously maximum wind, fog, and precip, making visibility terrible. I did find a convoy and shoot at it, but with the awful storm going on for days, I gave up.

3) As much as possible, I plot my own solutions, although doing that in bad weather can be a real chore, and my accuracy suffers.

The patrol took an extremely long time, and I ended up returning home with fumes for fuel.

I am not disappointed with the RUB mod, or the SHIII program -- I accept that it was entirely possible for a sub commander to come back to port empty-handed. Now I know something of what that might have felt like.

Can something be done about the Drumbeat period? I was "fishing" 100km out of New York in January 42 and all I got was destroyer hydrophone contacts in one week. In reality there were more targets than torpedoes in this particular area/time period untill US ASW/convoys improved later in 42.

Historically it was rather the rule than the exception! If the actual tonnages scored by subs were anywhere near the numbers we use to see in Sh3, the war would have been over in October '39!

Re: lack of enemy contacts with rub 1.42
 

Do what I did.. - look in the readme to find the file that the 20/20 mod uses, and then delete that file out of rub before you install it.. - Hey presto, you got your ships back again :)

Using RUB 1.42 Spring 1942 Left St Nazaire cross Bay of Biscay
heading west and plan to head north to my patrol zone saw 3 warships
on surface one was a DD I think the other two were swan something?
Made the stupid mistake to attack the warships they were all over me
but escaped south then found a two more destroyers coming on surface
I did not know they were leading a Convoy but it was to late they detect
Me made there attack runs before I could fire my bow tubes there were on top of me and that was all she wrote :D I found warships and a convoy but KIA with RUB 1.42 but no lone merchants.
Lane :D

Great system, wanted to use it ma last patrol but the second convoy I ran across at night (using improved convoys) led to my gettting some damage on the surface and edning my patrol. But I did sneak pretty darn close to the enemy. :up:

Regarding contacts in RuB I can't really moan yet - in the only patrol I did with it so far (Dec.39-Jan '40) I attacked two big convoys with another one that I missed and found a lone C3 and a trawler instead. All in AM52/53. I consider myself lucky ;)

If RUb was too harsh, players would be getting lots less tonnage than actual commanders. RUb still gives more tonnage (on average) than actual commanders, and it's relatively easy to equal or outdo the best aces. The standard game is a joke in this regard, since if a player can't outdo the aces by a significant margin, he must be doing something seriously wrong.

This sounds very good, and it might work well as the basis of some RUb 'house rules'. But is 6 to 10 weeks usual for a patrol in the Atlantic? I wonder if we could find average patrol durations for Type VII and IX U-boats?

In RUb 1.42 Drumbeat patrols are increased by a lot (basically the standard game ignored Operation Drumbeat), so if you have a Type IX you will get a lot of patrols along the US coast and the Caribbean. Shipping is unchanged from the standard game, but I've looked at the RND and SCR layers, and there are ships there, so there should be some stuff to shoot at.

Currently, I'm doing a test mission to see if Type VIIs can reach the US coast. If they can, I'm going to add some Type VII-based Drumbeat missions to RUb 1.43.

I believe that six weeks, early to mid war, was about average. Late war the patrol lengths (and turnaround times in port,) got a lot shorter.

I tend to think of 4-6 as about average, or at least it comes out to that; I heard that BdU generally advised strongly against patrols of over 56 days (that's 8 weeks) since they wear out the crew.
As per Uboat.net, a Type IXC carried food supplies for 90 days.

But of course that's to say that in practical circumstances, things got stretched beyond all reason...

My SHIII patrols are often much shorter. Sometimes I'm out of torpedoes before I even reach my sector - and that's WITH the single traffic reduction AND no map contacts at all :shifty: