Those Coastal Command lads

[joea]

Why bless 'em...all the way to Davy Jones in flaming balls of flame. Never seen the Bay of Biscay so crawling with aircraft...October 1943 and much too good weather. Really much too good. "Radar detected" , dive maybe crash dive...run a few hours submerged surface run a bit "oxygen 100%" "battery 100%" ..."radar detected" allaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrm!!!! run a few hours submerged "oxygen 100%" "battery 100%" ..."radar detected" allaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrm!!!!
run a few hours submerged surface "oxygen 100%" "battery 100%" ..."radar detected" dive....

run all night submerged surface "oxygen 75%" ..."radar detected" allaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrm!!!! run a few hours submerged surface "oxygen 100%" "battery 75%" ..."radar detected" dive. run a few hours submerged surface "oxygen 100%" "battery 100%" ...run a few hours submerged "oxygen 100%" "battery 100%" ..."radar detected" allaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrm!!!! allaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrm!!!!

Next night surface near midnight..."radar detected" dive (actually really close)...chance external view...Mosquito diving...Skipper's "instinct" says crash dive rudder hard a port "We're taking damage Kaleun" then an hour or so repairing flooding and damamge...waiting til morning to fix the damaged radar detector, both periscopes, and the radar...not to mention the flak guns. So I never got to DH42 but turned back with more of the same....verdammit RAF

Verdammit Dicke Meyer Goering!!!!!!

[TarJak]

Welcome to the Bay of Death. From 43 onwards what you experienced was typical of the Uboat commanders life. They had to hug the coast down to spain, run along the northern Spanish coast to keep as far away from the aircraft as possible.

You are lucky you have working radar detection gear. A lot of the skippers and crews lost their lives because they had almost no warning of A/C attacks both daylight and at night. (Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Light on how the night became nightmare for uboats once the Leigh lights were fitted to Allied A/C).

Gotta love the realism this sim brings.

[STEED]

I moved to Bergan and then Penang to avoid that pain in the ass.

[joea]

Originally Posted by STEED

I moved to Bergan and then Penang to avoid that pain in the ass.

*Looks up transfer numbers in the phone book*

Thanks for posting the info TarJak. It shocking is to read but that is how it was.

[GoldenRivet]

important to follow your escorts for as long as you can...

too bad hugging the coast wont work in GWX. i find myself hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles out to sea still getting raped by planes.

this level of air attacks makes the game virtually impossible to play after late 1943

Damned Goering. wasting away the entire luftwaffe on that ego driven crap shoot called "Battle of Britian" should have concentrated on holding the Luftwaffe in reserve to fend off air attacks against france that he should have known would eventually come.

not to hijack your thread but this makes me think...

Hitler should have done things differently...

Firstly Operation Barbarossa would have bever happened. i would have not only honored the initial peace with the russians but would have secretly promised them help in taking out the Japanese.

secondly put Goering's fat arse on a short leash - not a single Luftwaffe craft is to cross the channel unless it is for recon. Keep them in france to fend off pending allied air attacks. Air superiority over the Bay of Biscay and the whole of France must be maintained. The factories cant run without raw materials so whats the point in trying to bomb them - keep them in tact for later use when captured.

Third - dont be so quick to declare war on the U.S. on December 11th 1941. The Japanese ruffled those fethers - its their fight.... for now.

Fourth - ask Admiral Doenitz if he thought he could effectively blockade the entire British Isles by U-boats alone if given the full support required to do so... the answer would have been Yes. Immediately the Kriegsmarine would have been almost entirely based on U-Boats with all construction dedicated to the commissioning of U-boats in numbers far exceeding real WW2 levels eventually forcing the UK more or less out of the war.

Fifth - After months of German Air attacks and commando raids Operation Sea Lion, though a few years late would be kicked off perhaps in 1944 with the Luftwaffe in its full strength. Sea Lion would involve two fronts. One launched from Norway with Wermacht mountain regiments parachuting into and landing on the beaches in the northeast.... another launched from france moving across the channel. Fighting here would without a doubt be down to the last man. The forces in the northeast and the south would form a wedge to the western section of the Isles. leaving one way out of the country. U-boats would lie in waiting to spring the trap on any merchant ship or war ship evacuating from the western isles.

Then - a temporary peace forged with the United States through diplomacy - though they would have never gone with it or it would have been very short lived... perhaps until the mid early 1950s - in the mean time everyone continued work on the Atomic bomb development. Germany would have been at the forefront of weapons delivery though when they devised a method for submarine launched Atomic buzz bombs. Other nations still relied on Air dropped Atomic Bombs. When the first such attacks would be launched from sub pens in the British Isles against New York, and Norfolk forcing the United States to reconsider its position against Germany.

there is a mini movie about this.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Hitler should have done things differently...

Firstly Operation Barbarossa would have bever happened. i would have not only honored the initial peace with the russians but would have secretly promised them help in taking out the Japanese.

Yes it was this campaign that ultimately led to Germany's defeat, but you must remember that Hitler considered the Russians to be the true enemy of Germany and expected operation Barbarossa to last only a few months. In fact he would most probably left Britain alone had it not been the fact that Britain and France had agreed to secure Poland's borders. The Japanese were not considered a threat to Germany as their interests lay in the Far East. Hitler was interested in controlling an empire in the east of Europe and would have most probably been happy to leave Britain in control of the empire it had at the time.

Nemo

[3Jane]

I doubt very much that 'Sealion' would have been possible in '44, even with the luftwaffe etc at full strangth for the task. After switching to city bombing when fighter command was within ten days of near collapse, the initiative was lost forever. The main purpose of the Battle of Britain and any subsiquent invasion, was to prevent exactly what did happen. That is to say a war on two fronts which reached right into the heart of the German war effort. Invading Russia without neutralising Britain first simply left the back door open. At that stage of the war, Germany wasn't so much in a position of winning the war, but rather not loosing it. Even in '41, many Germans were extremely concerned about this position and aware of it's long term strategic implications.
All this being said of course, I am highly glad it all went the way it did. That is to say, they lost

[cardician]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Hitler should have done things differently...

Well as they say, hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?

And really, losing the war pretty much indicates that he should have done things differently eh?

I think you should also add the horrific acts of genocide he and his party committed. Perhaps having done that differently would have led to some different results as well...

[joea]

A problem?

The de Havilland “Mosquito-Tsetse” in GWX represents the 27 Mosquito Mk VI fighter-bombers modified to carry the 57mm anti-tank gun and designated the FB Mk XVIII. It becomes available in mid-1944.

From the GWX manual, I "saw" lot of these in 1943???? Is this a mistake or what? :hmm: