[Rhodes]

Hallo, to give you some help in a few of the questions.



1, u-boats had the CO and 3 WO, two were officers - the first and second watch officer and the third one was a NCO or a warrant officer (i think), that was also the navigator.

The watches were 4 hours each, starting at mid-night with the 1WO, possible one or two NCOs and crew man or just one NCO/petty-officer and 3 crew-man. I think the WO was always on duty, since he was the deck-officer.

When the boat was submerge, that could change, possible he could more free since the importance was on the navigator, the LI (chief-engineer) and the manage of the helm and depth control.

SH3 unfortunately does not have the helmsman figure, I think he had to be in station always also.



2, In the early years with night surface attack and even during the day, with unescorted and unarmed ships, sinks could be watch and recorded. If the target ship exploded completely because of the cargo that could be count has a serious sink. Latter, with the shift of submerge attacks, possible only if the CO had shoot 2 or 3 torpedo to a value target, all hits and if distance permitted, could watch the outcome before getting way. Or do the noise of the hit, explosions and sinking, could also, in their mind, count.

In reality, many reported sinks, were not. The torpedo exploded prematurely, the ship didn't sink so it was towed or manage to continue and was repaired.

And this happened with the English submarine service during the war also.



3, can not answer 100%, but in realife possible the wave lengths used by allies convoys and the u-boats were different. I think that a radio-operator of a ship if scanned all the bands could had pick up a code transition, but could it be done in time?



4, There is several reports of that, indicated the detonator failed when the torpedo hit, becuase of the sound made by hit. Same if the torpedo had hit ground, ended its course and sink exploding or not (here in shallow waters situations). Again, similar in both navies, since many times the English subs shoot salvoes and reported 2 explosions 2 duds, etc. And the explosions many times were not target hits.
With no explosion and certainty of a correct torpedo solution, a CO would probably think that was a indication of a torpedo malfunction and so, possible depth problem.


8, Failed save game loads are a bit of a russian roulette. To my experience, normally when I save a game and then have a ctd when loading, it is possibly do to some random factor. When saving i was near some unity that had not appeared in game or even cause the time-compression to stall a bit.

Or do to some mod that cause to much ram used and since my PC is old, still 32bit system, I point to that. Also, I have more problems hen playing with the VIIc, since more graphic and add-on mods are for it. When playing with VIIb or IX, I have always a stable game, saves and loads. And no CTD during the game.



9, I think it is for the angle of the bow.