[Tessa]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

It is not possible to promote enlisted men to officer rank I'm afraid.

If you tweak/adjust the relevant files you can attain the rank of:

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Fregattenkapitan then Kapitan z. S.

Actually....with SH3 Commander it is possible to promote seaman to NCO, and NCO to Officers. What you have to do first is dismiss one of the higher ranking crewmen in order to make space.

So if you wanted to promote a seaman to a NCO, you either need to be short of the max # that the boat allows, get a bigger boat that will allow a larger crew, or give one of your crew their walking papers (i.e. a NCO in order to promote a seaman, an Officer in order to promote a NCO). Though dismissing an Officer (as I think it reads in the manual) is more of a gesture of acknowledging that they are ready for command and you are giving them their chance. I know you can do it via SH3c, not 100% if you're using vanilla.

Far as rank ingame goes, without modding the highest rank you can get is Korvettenkapitan. Awhile back I figured out how to mod the game to add additional ranks, and some other work that is (still) in progress dealing with the medals/badges and other awards. Rather than try and explain the necessary files to change for them to work, just use SH3 Commander. I worked with Jasun to include the mods into the program and made the graphics for the additional ranks. With the new ranks you can rise as high as the rank of Admiral.

At the peak of my game, I could never rise above the rank of Kommodore; after Korvettekapitan the reknown needed for promotion starts to get extremely steep; if I remember correctly I got Kommodore at around 65,000 (current, not accumulated) reknown. As you can see in my signature, that was taken from my best career on my way to raid Gibraltor. Rather than get sunk, I ended up retiring in early 1944 with 1,800,000 tons of ships sunk (1,000,000 worth of warships, rest were merchants) and lived out the rest of the war in a cozy place in Switzerland until it was safe to return to the fatherland and being sailing again ^^

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

'Non-Commissioned Offier' is in the books, but never used. Actually they are almost never called 'Petty Officers' either, at least in the US navy. They are always referred to by their rating, or just by their last name.

German Kriegsmarine ranks can be confusing as there are instances where it takes 2 promotions in order to achieve the equavalent one in the Allied forces. This page is a really good one, it shows the progression of the (officer) ranks and their insignia; the insignia worn on the shoulder is very different than the US military's method. One item of note is that Germany historically used lower ranked officers as u-boat commanders. Usually a major would be the CO of a submarine, whereas Germany would frequently use one who's rank was one or two lower than their American equivalent. Once one achieved the rank of Korvettenkapitän or Fregattenkapitän it would be rare to see them still on active service in a U-Boat; normally they'd be given (or encouraged) to take job landside as a Flotille commander or even base commander (something which required a much higher rank, usually captain or a 1 star admiral in the US Navy).