Weather limits for u-boat operations

[hewsu]

It's as if there were nothing in between, for example, dense fog or some rain but without wind. Only rarely have I seen even strong wind without the omnipresent storm clouds. And the fact that it seems to happen on every single patrol just makes it annoying.

For my 3 month patrol the weather went like the following:

1.) Leaving harbour with a calm sunny weather

2.) On my way to patrol area trough north of Britain the weather was calm enough to do accurate manual gunnery during night sinking one merchant ship.

3.) I arrive to my patrol quadrant in the Atlantic and struggle in a 15m/s storm for the next 3 months. I did manage to intercept a convoy of two british auxiliary cruisers and a destroyer but was only able to observe and report them, the waves made getting a (manual) torpedo solution very hard.

4.) As I start heading back to base the weather is almost perfectly calm at one point, then changing to moderate swells.

All in all the weather was quite dynamic. Even the 3 month storm had skies from clear to overcast with occational rain. Only the 15m/s wind and waves stayed the same.

I'm using the GWX Gold mod.

Here's a sad story I refound on uboat.net:

"U-106, 23 Oct 1941
An incredibly sad event befell U-106 on this date. When the replacement watch opened the tower hatch in rough seas they found out that the entire previous tower watch of 4 men had been washed overboard. [Oberleutnant zur See Werner Grüneberg, Fähnrich zur See Herbert von Bruchhausen, Oberbootsmannmaat Karl Heemann, Matrose Ewald Brühl]"