VIIC/41

[Threadfin]

U-292 has entered 1943. Playing dead is dead so this is encouraging lol.


Finished the Black Pit series of objectives, rewarding us with a milk cow.


The milk cow is a headquarters project. By default it is in the northwest Atlantic, but you can send an officer to HQ to convince Control that it should be shifted to a new location. Our next patrol was another Southern Routes to the west coast of Africa. After choosing the mission, I went to HQ and requested it shift to DF9 grid south of the Azores. This takes 12 days. I could burn more fuel on the way to our patrol area, and the milk cow should be in place when we are ready to head home. Found very little aside from Spanish and Argentinian neutrals in our patrol area.

Upon mission complete we swung out to sea and looked for the supply boat. Found her and topped off the tanks. The milk cow works like the quartermaster in port. You can take on as many as four torpedoes, sell and buy food and other supplies, top off the tanks. He will take your prisoners as well. Type XIV boats were not torpedo resupply boats, that was the VIIF. So this milk cow in the game is sort of a hybrid since you can take on torpedoes, fair enough. We resupplied and headed home by way of the mid-Atlantic, getting in on a convoy west of the Azores. The Torch landings happened while we were in refit and the mid-Atlantic is now busier

It all worked so well that I decided to do the Labrador weather station mission next. Went back to HQ and requested the milk cow shift to BD1, putting her along our route so we could top off outbound and inbound. Reached the rendezvous in one week, so patrolled the area for another week waiting for the resupply boat to arrive. Bedeviled by the weather and fog, we managed to put under one American liberty ship sailing alone while waiting. When the milk cow arrived we met her, topped off the tanks and filled those two torpedo slots, and headed for the Canadian coast. Got there and went though the procedure. Had to put three officers and six ratings in the shore party, and it all took quite a bit longer than most of these sorts of events. While they were ashore a number of enemy patrol boats and destroyers appeared on the scene. Dropped to periscope depth and escaped their direct attention. When the weather station was complete, the party re-embarked and we got out of there at high speed. We are now enroute back to BD1 to top off for the trip home.

[Threadfin]

U-292 and her stout crew have lived to Christmas 1943.


In June the Battle of the Atlantic shifted to the Last Stand phase, at which point it seems the Allies got a big shot in the arm tech-wise. Rocket-firing ASW aircraft (I guess, saw one with stovepipes and didn't hang around to see if they work), modern destroyers like Sims and Tribal class. Probably VLR Liberators out there. Hedgehogs I'd reckon. Fido?


UBOAT features a number of campaigns within the campaign, and rather than spend this first career jumping around to sample it all, I decided that since I love this game so much I will do many careers, so we've ignored some theaters, saving them for subsequent careers so that each one will have its own mojo.


Those are things like Drumbeat, Norway/Arctic and the Mediterranean. Instead, our boats (U-49, U-410 and U-292) have been North Atlantic hunters. Moved to France in June of 1940 and have spent most of the career grinding tonnage in the mid-Atlantic (BE, BD, AL AK grids) for the Black Pit and Last Stand objectives. We have done a few peripheral missions, one to Canada to establish a weather station after getting a milk cow. A couple to west Africa and a couple of agent insertions. But the main business has been anti-shipping patrols on the convoy routes in the North Atlantic.


The VIIC/41 is exceptional. Sailors are famously superstitious, so I don't want to jinx anything, but this boat's diving capabilities have been key to our survival as the war enters 1944. Playing this career on 71% difficulty and I'll bump some stuff for career number two, whenever that arrives.