dont let the late war get you down too badly.
Your tactics will just have to be slightly modified. Try to intercept a convoy by getting way out ahead of it while remaining outside of radar range. about the time you start receiving radar warnings they are just barely getting into radar range of you so you might be able to stay on the edges of their radar range limits.
You going to have to hunt in areas where you know that shipping will bottle neck and run across ships on blind luck.
1939-1942 you had a wonderful time going about unchallenged sinking hundreds of merchants... but this pissed a few allied leaders off and sent them looking for innovative new ways to serve your head on a plate.
1943-1945 they discovered a lot of neat new ways to kill U-boats with frigthening accuracy... more potent depth charges, hedge hogs, search lights, hunter killer groups... i dont think there are many more appropriate discriptions of how the hunters became the hunted in any war ever. More advancements in anti-submarine warfare were made in 1942 - 1945 than probably any time period since then.
after 1943 your objective should be cut and dry simple... do whatever it takes to SURVIVE. Of course your orders are still to seek out and engage the enemy, but that big juicy convoy might have to just roll by you. Try hunting almost exclusively by hydrophones, you will still rack up tonnage by running across single merchants in high traffic areas. By now you have to cool off your aggression a bit, penetrating a convoy though possible is very very difficult. The war by 1944 has been lost for Germany... most officers and crew knew that, but valiantly they continued their struggle to serve their country. After 1943 and especially 1944 and 45 you need to think like a captain who knows its over - be conservative and bring your boys home. thats you objective now. You will hear a lot of banter about "serving the fatherland" and "doing your duty"... you can still do those things while keeping your crew out of harms way, you just wont pile up hundreds of thousnads of tons in the process.
Good luck out there!
remember your two objectives
1. Bring home the fathers, brothers and sons of Germany to their families
2. Be as large a thorn in the allies sides as you can without getting yourself killed
~GR
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