Arctic Laufbahn

Kapitanleutnant Uli Eckertfinally retired from active service after 14 patrols with 350 000 tons of allied ships sunk. Now he's training fresh crews, providing them with best tactical knowledge available, which brought him fame and allowed to come back home safely.

Oblerleutnant z.S. Paul Nehman is his finest student. After nearly year of hard training he got the command of U-354 assigned to Bergen. BdU thinks that carefully selected and trained crew for this mission and equipped in latest technology type VIIC/2 boat should be a great addition to 11 U-flotille and provide solid results in sinking arctic convoys to Russia.

...

11 Juni 1942
18:00

Dead calm sea and the sky full of stars... this can't mean anything good. "Maneuver stations, ahead small." Besides it was beautiful in this peaceful fjord with mountains growing out of the water and dimmed lights of the harbor behind our bow, it was freezing. It was just a beginning. Before we reached full sea, took our last landmark fix for the rest of the patrol, our hull was shining like a glass. Thin layer of ice was already covering our deck. "Yeah, we've got the hardest job as usual...".

We performed a test dive to 100m, wow that VIIC is so responsive underwater! On the next day morning we had an opportunity to test our flakzwillings. Some lost Swordfish jumped on us from the sun but never even managed to came closer. Gut gemacht menschen! Maybe this patrol is not going to be that bad? After all we are one of the best equipped boats with FuMo-28 radar, active sonar, decoys and much more reliable VIIC type boat. Bigger conn tower provides space for two MGs and better protection against the bad weather. Just still wondering why the hell are we carrying that 88. I can't imagine firing it in those seas... need to drop it with next visit in Bergen... if we make it.



...

Yeah, just took my new career. This time no chit-chat, just hardcore. Jumped to 1942 to try some new toys and VIIC and more challenging DDs. Most importantly I'm going to navigate manually, no cheating, try to behave as realistic as possible (like reload externals only at stop, calm sea, can't dive etc). I've edited my crew manually. It is 40 people, 95% without any experience, everyone has its trained qualifications. Sailors don't count, they are just marked for more realism, just not to put a guy after loading torps, on the bridge and order him to hold heavy binoculars for next 4h. There are 2 watches, 2 machinery and 2 zentralle groups, one torp group. Every Leutnant has only one skill. I want be adding new skills, also medals are gonna be awarded very conservatively - realistic. Crew is going to gain experience mainly with patrols. Also watch crew wars leather jackets when not in stormy conditions. I hope it's better than standing in plain shirts in -20°.

PS Forgot to change funker to medic.

[TarJak]

Nice skin! Nice story.

Fubar skin but I think I'll try tweaking it a little as the bridge looks to bright in full sun.

Hmmm 1,5 day at sea with 4x 2cm flak = 4 Swordfish and 2 Martlet down. U-boat not a scratch. I wonder how many planes do they have left? Radar is great, even with it's narrow angle detects planes coming from the rising sun early!

After 5 hours of constant planes invasions we went to 100m, my man were completely exhausted. No they were not freezing because all the way up and down the ladder with another plain incoming. Killed so far 4 Swordfish, 2 Martlet and 1 Avanger which hit his wingman and both fell into the water nearby...

To make things better I'm just installing real batteries mod, longer repair time which makes thing more vulnerable and longer wakes to follow.

[Schöneboom]

Nice pix, Hadrys! I dig that icy skin -- where did you get it? One of these days I'll be heading north, too.

And I like that crew organization. Enough bunks for everyone except the officers. One of them must sleep standing up!

Originally Posted by Schöneboom

Nice pix, Hadrys! I dig that icy skin -- where did you get it? One of these days I'll be heading north, too.

And I like that crew organization. Enough bunks for everyone except the officers. One of them must sleep standing up!

Thx! I downloaded it some time ago from fubars site probably but can't remember exactly. I can upload it from my mods but it will take a while - 40mb.

As to the crew I'm very curious how's that going to work with longer repairs mod. After 3 days of patrolling I can see that this system really works. Fewer crew gets tired quicker, really needs rest so the second change can take its place. Before that I really didn't need to mess a lot with the crew. Now it's very important! Also immersion of knowing nearly every sailor.

[Iron Budokan]

I like fighting in the north, too. Being a Southerner, I guess it's in my DNA.

I also like what you did re: awarding quals to your men. I'm going to try something along those lines, I think. Makes so much more sense than, like you say, having a crewman working in the bow only to have to do a stint on watch and then head to the diesel room. Hardly fair to the poor fellow, even though I do tend to run my boat akin to a charnel house.

Seriously, I like the idea of qualifying even the sailors...more immersion and I'm all about immersion....

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

Seriously, I like the idea of qualifying even the sailors...more immersion and I'm all about immersion....

Thanks for a good word. This is why I put this thread here. Hope it gives some new ideas, also to me.

Now I need to think out an arctic dress for my flak gunners as they normally sit in warm Zentralle. Also notice only one man in Funk compartment. You need to remember to put him on hydro after diving but don't bother about giving him funker quality. As I mentioned I need to change it to sanitater as in Das Boot It turned out that he is a much better hydroman than funker... Haven't tried Bernard thought...

[CapZap1970]

Hadrys:
One question, if you don't mind...
what super mod you use?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
CapZap

Originally Posted by CapZap1970

Hadrys:
One question, if you don't mind...
what super mod you use?
Thanks in advance for your reply.
CapZap

No prob, as I produce tons of posts here lol

GWX 1.3 (so I'm not sure how much compatible is longer repair for gwx1.02 but brief cfg lookup shows it's fine)
Custom fubar sub skins
Real navigation (wrote by myself, removes all traces from the map except funk contacts)
general addons (my compilation of few textures like bigger view from obs periscope, fubars leather jacket for crew, Recees scene.dat - awsome, stock hydro sound for ships, very slight adjustments for sonar contact range, and stock weather as in gwx it was storm all the time).
sliding tdc from the top

now gonna test longer ship wakes and realistic repair time mod

[Schöneboom]

Hi Hadrys,

Also, on your return to base you might want to add one more Bootsmann as the relief Funker; one of them can be the Sanni, too.

[CapZap1970]

Originally Posted by Hadrys

No prob, as I produce tons of posts here lol

GWX 1.3 (so I'm not sure how much compatible is longer repair for gwx1.02 but brief cfg lookup shows it's fine)
Custom fubar sub skins
Real navigation (wrote by myself, removes all traces from the map except funk contacts)
general addons (my compilation of few textures like bigger view from obs periscope, fubars leather jacket for crew, Recees scene.dat - awsome, stock hydro sound for ships, very slight adjustments for sonar contact range, and stock weather as in gwx it was storm all the time).
sliding tdc from the top

now gonna test longer ship wakes and realistic repair time mod

thanks a lot Hadrys.
That's what I call a very fast and complete answer.
CapZap

Ok, just made a decent test of longer repair times mod which ended at the bottom... This mod is awsome. Now that is a real struggle to pomp out the water quickly enough and with full repair team it wasn't quick enough... Blow ballast @ 200m brought us surface again, just to meet new Avangers with new bombs... bye bye

It requires more time to test but after this short presentation and readmy by the author it sure will be cool and extremely difficult. You need to do everything to avoid damages. Install only before patrol.

Also remember to always duck when enemy plain is not a rusted swordfish... I have no idea what to do now as above 70N there is no such thing as night. Where to hide, when recharge batteries? Verdamt!

[ichso]

The ice skin looks really good. But somewhat different at night/day. One thing that still misses in the game is a way to change the skin ingame . So it's still a matter of quitting the game, changing the skin and reloading everything if one wants a realistic change. For example if travelling to Greenland. The sub should not look already iced if just going out of port

[gord96]

Tell me more about the artic campagins! When during the war would someone find good hunting up there? Also what grids do you use for your patrol zones? Sounds like alot of fun!