Since starting back up after a period of absense I've been just using VIIb's (ingame the VIIC doesn't really give you much more of edge. In real life the VIIC's were made for the same resign the VIIb's were - to fix some engineering issues with the boat design.) and going to try and do a whole career to 45 with it (might switch to a VIIC/41 when it becomes available. The VII's I like as their sonar signature is much smaller making it easier to escape from escorts, and are more nimble. At 8 knots you have a range of 20,0000 km so you could pretty much go anywhere you wanted; one major advantage of the type IX's is with their larger fuel supply their cruising speed is significan't higher (12 kts I think?) so you can go farther faster, or somewhere close at full or flank speed for a quicker trip.
While's it cliche` I normally use U-47 (or could start using U-38 as that capatain also shared my playing style of hunting capital ships) since I like to do harbor raids. Harbor raids may be cheesy to some, I think of it as the ultimate demoralizer for the enemy (though has no effect on the game), taking out their ships in their backyard. Just think of how enraged the public got after Pearl Harbor and that's typically how I like to see what harbor raiding is like.
Other reason is that I'm the owner of this beautiful piece of history:
With Third Reich militaria everyone sees it at yells fake fake! I was able to trace the ownership of the flag back to the original holder in 39' so there's no question about it, and have seen the only (that have found) picture that has it in the picture on the day of his return and you can see the pennant, albeit the backside . Inexperienced people frequently screw up and say something is fake when its the real thing, there's a
lotmore to figuring out an items authenticity than its markings or sewing; until you've seen them there can be dozens of variations for the same badge making them a pain to classify.
SO......this was the flag flown on U-47 on its return to port after the Scapa Flow patrol. I traded an insanely equally rare piece to get this flag so no money changed hands but several thousands in trade did. For Prien's sake I like to honor him and use his boat while playing. Also hav some pennants from U-99 (Kretchmer's boat) while he sank some very impressive merchant ships of 10,000+ tons nothing quite as cool as a batteship or carrier.