[LukeFF]

I found this list somewhere a while ago on the Internet (sorry, I don't recall the source). Anyways, without futher ado:

Eighteen reasons why skippering a fleet boat, is better then skippering a Uboat:

1. Your control room doesn't double as a pantry.

2. Your crewman spend their free time playing pinocle and cribbage instead of picking their nose, flicking boogers, and complaining about sweaty feet and hair grease.

3. A battery recharge doesn't rob you of half your surface propulsion.

4. Your faster than a Uboat, both while on the surface, and while submerged.

5. Your admiral never held the title of "Führer", no matter how temporary the appointment was.

6. Your radar is actually useful, and you get it earlier then uboats.

7. You can use radar while submerged.

8. Your lookouts are higher up off the surface of the water, allowing them to see farther then they could from just the conning tower bridge.

9. Your AA gun arrangment doesn't leave a huge blind spot in the front of the boat.

10. You have greater or equal firepower to any uboat class, in just your bow alone.

11. You don't have to store torpedo's externally in order to carry a sufficient payload to your patrol area.

12. You never have to park your boat in a bomb shelter while in port.

13. For Rest and recreation you get sun tanned island girls in Hawaii instead of overused french prostitutes that have rouge plastered onto their faces like stucco.

14. Your crew jerry rigged an ice cream machine on board.

15. You don't share your cabin with members of the crew.

16. The flag under which your sailing isn't associated with things like racial bigotry, death camps, the SS, or the Gestapo.

17. You actually win the war instead of lose it.

18. Your boat is so well designed and built, it stays in service well into the cold war.

19. Your TDC is much more advanced than the U-Boat's

20. Three knots at silent running instead of one.

21. A complex and effective ballast system that means "all hands forward" is a commond not heard on a fleet boat.

22. Your crew is much better protected during heavy seas in the fleet boat conning tower.

23. Four diesels instead of two gives you more redundancy to get you home safely.

24. Welded, not riveted, construction makes the boat more resistant to depth charge attacks.

25. The crew is taken care of better because of decent food and air conditioning, making a significant difference in combat readiness.

26. Your boat has a name. It is special. You are NOT expendable. U-Boats had numbers. So you got sunk? NEXT!!! Number 567, you're up!

27. If you play your cards right you just might get a flying fish dinner after a night patrolling the surface.

28. The food is actually refrigerated so eating molding bread and other staples is not the norm as found on Uboats.

29. There is more then one head in case any of the crews boilers start acting up and in a state of emergency!

:p