von Zelda

For your information, in one of my most recently read u-boat books it was stated that externals had to be loaded during daylight hours only.

I also have assumed that the boat would need to be pretty much stopped and the sea state (the wind speed per the SH3 game) needs to be fairly low to allow for the open hatches and the transfer. I do this voluntarily since it's not modded into the game.

I've also read that late in the war (approximately 1943 on) most u-boats sailing into the North Atlantic were not allowed to carry externals. This being due to the impossibility to transfer externals due to the increase in Coastal Command attacks and the inherent danger of depth charges and bombs setting off the externals while they were stored under the deck. However, with BdU consent, the larger long range boats were allowed to carry the externals if they were traveling to the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean and Far East. Therefore, having Type VII's with externals late in the war would not be truely realistic.

One more important point to ponder, the external torpedos were always the air driven G7a variety, never the electric G7e variety. I don't recall the exact reason for this at the moment but probably had something to do with the electric batteries having to be kept within the presure hull.