Peacetime - Oh The Boredom

[frau kaleun]

The only time I've ever been bombed by the Luftwaffe was when a bunch of pilots was drinking at the next table and one of them tossed an empty beer bottle over his shoulder. He's in Stalingrad now, which is really something considering we won't be at war with the Soviets for almost two years. My connections, let me show you them!

I started yet another new career after trying to sort out some mod issues and doing a bit of additional tweaking to my basic.cfg... 5 day shakedown cruise out of Königsberg went fine, as did the transfer to the 2nd Flotilla in Wilhelmshaven, but I forgot to set the # of days in port in Commander and found myself starting a second patrol on Aug 11 1939.

Made it to my patrol grid in good time and then did donuts in the Western Approaches for a couple of weeks waiting for orders. It's now Sept 10 and since hostilities started we've had only 3 contacts; one was too far off and moving too fast to catch and the other two turned out to be small coastal tankers. We sank them both with one shot each in the midst of a raging storm that will NOT subside.

The last time I was in these waters on Sept 10, I wasn't in these waters any more because I was already on the way home after sinking 9 ships and running out of eels for the foreward tubes. I couldn't turn around out here without practically running over yet another ship full of Tommies. Now I probably couldn't find one if I went straight up the channel with Deutschland über alles blaring out the tower hatch and a crewman dressed as Queen Victoria standing on the foredeck and mooning the oncoming traffic.

[krashkart]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Now I probably couldn't find one if I went straight up the channel with Deutschland über alles blaring out the tower hatch and a crewman dressed as Queen Victoria standing on the foredeck and mooning the oncoming traffic.

That would be a sight!

I reloaded the savegame after deciding against another twelve-day wait, which put the boat near Dover. Sailed over into Portsmouth to see what I could find. Well, I found the inlet to be a tricky passage. I had to put the boat into flank to get back off the beach while a good measure of 20mm peppered our exposed conning tower. Not long after making it back into deeper water we nearly ran into a sub net.

Sat there for ten minutes trying to decide what to do about it when the sonar guy says, "Ummmm... there's a warship closing fast behind us". Pop the scope up to have a look and what do I see? An ASW trawler had run aground half a klick behind us. Fired the aft tube hoping to sink it, but even at 1-meter running depth the water was too shallow for it. Pretty sure some clams were unhappy about that situation. Decided the trawler was stuck enough to not cause us any harm and took my chances against the net. The screeching sound that ensued reminded me to put damage control on task.

We made it into the harbor, sunk one destroyer and two tankers. The destroyer was a piece of cake. The torpedo impacted near the ship's forward magazine. The tankers went down after a total of three more eels. Spotted an Auxiliary Cruiser but decided to reserve the rest of my stores and snuck back out. I did find something else of interest in Portsmouth: four S Class submarines.

On the way back out we ran aground two more times before finally finding the deepest part of the inlet, which might have been very entertaining to the trawler crew had they not been busy trying to shoot holes in the Uboat. Turned out to be a very exciting raid... except that the radio operator is dead. Honestly thought it would be the sonar guy, with all the screeching and loud *CLONG!* noises we made on the way in and out.

If you're ever near Dover, there was a Southampton class docked close to open water the last time I was there.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by krashkart

If you're ever near Dover, there was a Southampton class docked close to open water the last time I was there.

Hey, have you ever heard my Jimbuna impression? It goes something like this:

STAY OUT OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL!

I have on occasion made the voyage out to my patrol grid through there in late Aug 1939, and once I even made it home through there about a month later, altho not without having to play footsie with a couple destroyers who found my persona distinctly non grata.

But generally, after hostilities have opened, I avoid it like the plague. And what's interesting is that I've noticed I seem to have better luck on that first combat patrol if I take the long way around and arrive in the Western Approaches by coming down past the Hebrides and around the west of Ireland. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but it's almost like my u-boat coming south through the channel the last week of August dries up the traffic in the lower Approaches the first week of September.

So from now on, I'm staying out of there if at all possible.

Anyway - I'm afraid I bailed on the last career and started another one late yesterday evening. I'd finally gotten Flakmonkey's New Interiors mod to work with Integrated Orders and everything else, or so I thought, but when I got out into the Atlantic on my second patrol I found that the enhanced sound from the diesel room went crazy if I was inside the boat and tried to set the TC above 2.

So I knew I had to disable the mod and re-enable it without the sound modifications, only problem was, since I've used my feminine wiles to trick the game into thinking I'm playing at 100% realism when I'm not, I can no longer hit Esc and teleport back to base from wherever I happen to be. The only way I could get above 2 TC without problems was to be on the bridge or in some external view, where my limit is 32 TC.

I couldn't face continuing the patrol at a max of 32 TC just to get back to base so I could exit and alter the mod. So, knowing I was just gonna tank this career anyway and start over (again), I decided to see how deep my VIIB would go.

Took her out into deep water and ordered a dive at flank speed. Believe it or not, I didn't even get a damage report until around 320m, and we were already passing 390m when the black screen of death popped up. That just doesn't seem right!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Hey, have you ever heard my Jimbuna impression? It goes something like this:

STAY OUT OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL!

[sergei]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Hey, have you ever heard my Jimbuna impression? It goes something like this:

STAY OUT OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL!

Just spotted this.

[pickinthebanjo]

Thats not bad advice The first time I played the game I had an uneventful patrol then decided to rush the english channel.
I took out like 5 torpedo boats and had a deck gun battle with 3 destroyers it's a wonder I made it out after sinking them

Now after I got GWX I don't think thats even possible anymore, made it quite realistic

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by pickinthebanjo

made it quite realistic

Good. No submarine is going to survive a gun battle with even one destroyer.