As to the II type, after BdU decided to retire my VIIB Kaleun after 8 patrols I started another campaign in 2nd Flotilla on IIA type. And I was amazed how interesting it was to change to such a small boat. The main differences I see between the two types are:
— Very low fuel of IIA, slow speed and only 5 torpedoes let you do you patrols quick and short, just one per night. That sounds nice for a man ike me that can play only maybe like 3-4 hours a day at most because of job and so on and dislikes saving his game and starting again at saved point next day.
— You usually get your assignements close to base (like from Wilhelmshaven to SE British coast), so your trips are short and coming back to base is not so boring (with no fish nor ammo passing enemy vessels…).
— However these circumstances don't let you finish your patrols with a big tonnage score (you can only dream about 50k tonnes, not mentioning more), so it's not for those who wish to beat their life records.
— The above also makes your career more realistic as you cannot gain the safe first place in aces ranking after just two or three patrols, with all the available medals and honours. In fact, gaining any medal for you is a real problem, not mentioning decoratings half of your crew members with Knight's Crosses or Gold Crosses.
— Lack of deck gun makes you ”weather proof”. Many times in type VIIB I shadowed ships for a long time with hope that the weather becomes better and I could shot them with my gun instead of wasting torpedoes. In IIA you don't have such problem any more (It's default FLAK seems completely useless, I couldn't sink a single small coastal frachter with it).
— Your crew is much smaller than in VIIx type, so you can get familiar with every single member of your team.
And probability of getting Bernard aboard is much smaller. And the
— Very few torpedoes you have and only 3… those tubes, I don't know how you call'em in English, make you think about tactics very carefully. You can easily finish your patrol with 2 ships hurt but none sunk, what is, obviously, not what you want.
— I found it also very interesting change in tactics that you do not have any aft torpedo tubes nor external torpedo storage. That makes you to always position yourself from the front side, but on the other hand you are never made to surface to load the external torpedoes.
Maybe I'd have even more remarks on the IIA type, if I haven't been sunk yesterday by a British DD around the Thames throat (or wahetever it's called).
That sudden and unexpected death was the most impressive thing that happened to me as for now in SH3. Yay…