1: I've always started in 1939 with the Type IIA out of Kiel. Just something about that canoe, along with being a good "trainer" boat so to speak before being thrown out into the Atlantic. I play DiD and the longest I have survived from GWX1 all the way to GWX2 was January 1941, which was actually in my first GWX2 patrol that I just got sunk in. Yea yea yea...I got sunk by an early war corvette...
2: I always use random time in base in SH3C
3: Nope, I'm still trying to make it through the war