SHIII Realistic Crew Management

[Gustav Schiebert]

Hi all! Long-time reader, first-time poster - so first let me say hi to everyone on a great forum that's been giving me loads of great info for ages now. Hopefully I can put a bit back now for you guys ...

Anyway, I'll start by doubling up on my introductory post by saying that I got into SHIII by my interest in the Battle of the Atlantic. First drawn to SHV, then discovered III+GWX and was far more impressed - that's now my staple game.

As you might expect from a history buff I like playing on full realism. Now, of course that means the game is set to 100%, but why stop there? How would you like to add an extra dimension to the game - having to cope with realistic levels of crew management? I'm not talking about SHIII quirks like personally putting men to bed when they fall asleep on watch (hard to imagine Jurgen Prochnow cradling the 2WO in his arms and taking him to his quarters once he'd been on watch for eight solid days ... ) I mean proper career management - arguably the most important (non-combat) duty of a real commander.

What's wrong with SHIII as it is?

Good question. Well, recently I stopped a fairly successful campaign because it had just got silly. Apart from only being 90% realism, after 19 patrols (mid-1941) my crew were utter U-boat gods - each one crammed with experience and renown, getting on for an EK.II. each and a few Knight's Crosses for the officers. It was getting easy, essentially. I had the luxury of an utterly legendary crew - far too veteran, and besides in Das Boot the LI has been on 12 patrols and is on the verge of a breakdown. After 19, in real life, these men would be utter husks.

So what needs to change?

The thing that would have stopped this happening in real life was simple: turnover. In reality, veteran crews were taken out of boats and sent to form elite cadres to crew new ones. So the captain often lost the best and most experienced of his crew. Captains themselves (ie you) were sometimes regularly switched between boats for similar reasons, or even promoted into staff jobs. Basically, crew never stopped with the same boat for long.

Is this for me?

I'll stress here and now that this is only recommended for realism buffs ONLY. It involves a lot of voluntary and self-enforced actions which will make your boat worse off, but more realistic. It is a little extra work, you might need a notepad and pen to make some crew notes and it probably takes 5 mins at the end of each patrol to make it work.

Okay. So how do I do this in the game?

This is where I confess this isn't a mod. I have huge respect for you guys who mod because it's beyond me. This is just a list of self-enforced instructions for getting a realistic number of crew.

Officers

In reality, the officers on a boat are nothing like that in SHIII. Commander, two watch officers, and a chief engineer. The 'navigator' as represented on the game was usually an Obersteurmann - a senior professional sailor - and the 'weapons officer' an Obermechanikersmaat - ditto a sailor not an officer. So how do you arrange your starting crew?

- Captain - that's you. No problem here.

- Chief Engineer - again, no real problems here, the game represents him well. Obviously he needs and has the Helmsman qualification. Later on you can give him the Machinist and possibly the Repair ones as well, as these were his real jobs.

- Weapons Officer - no such post on a real U-boat. But as long as you don't mind not having his help (won't need him on 100%), just dismiss him when you start a campaign and leave the post empty.

- Navigator - as mentioned above, no such post on a real boat. However, you can't leave the slot open as above. But, each boat usually had a midshipman (Oberfahnrich zur See) who would hang back and try to learn as much as he could for when he got his own boat. He might also help the navigator (who also ran the Third Watch) - so if you leave your starting OfzS in this slot and never promote him, you can imagine him as being your midshipman and helping out the proper navigator. Don't give him any further qualifications apart from the starting one.

- 1WO - easier. The starting watchman will do well here. However, in real life the 1WO was in the Seaman's Division, which meant no technical skills. So, you have to try and not give him any qualifications apart from watchman and later on, helmsman. These are his only jobs!

- 2WO - use one of your spare officers as the 2WO. Again, no technical skills - although one of the 2WO's duties was being in charge of the deck gun and the flak, so giving him the Gunner and Flak qualifications would be a good idea.

If both your watch officers have the Helmsman qualification, then you can send the Chief Engineer to use his Machinist qualification to go faster in the diesel room, or Repair by leading the damage control team. You can then temporarily stick your 1WO in the Engineer spot while he goes off to the engine room etc.

This reflects real life: the 'seaman' officers (ie non-techicals, the 1WO and 2WO) had little to do once the boat was dived and under attack. If damaged, the chief engineer would often run off to supervise repairs/engines, while the captain could have the 1/2WO take over the control room in the meantime.

POs and Men

This is a bit easier. Realistic manning levels would have included:

- 1-3 'Watchman' qualified POs. This is the Bosun and his Bosun's Mates.
- 3 'Torpedo' qualified POs. The torpedo mechanics.
- 6 'Machinist' qualified POs. 3 diesel mechanics and 3 electro mechanics.

The rest (up to 16) would all have been 'non-qualified' in terms of the game. This is where you have to be tough and not give them any qualifications!

For the men, you probably want about 26-28 rather than the full 30.

Turnover

Every two patrols, 15% of the crew were rotated out to make the nucleus for a new crew. To represent this, after every two patrols, dismiss:

3 POs
9 Sailors

And replace with fresh, raw sailors. This will give you a realistic level of crew veterancy. As for who to pick, well, that's up to you. You're the captain, and in real life when asked to give up 15% of his men the captain would probably have the last word. But after about 10 patrols a crewman would normally be rotated out anyway, because of the mental strain of the job.

As for officers - the midshipman and Chief Engineer will probably stay with you for about 10 patrols before moving on to a new job. At this point, dismiss them and replace them. As for the others, the 1WO was the last job you did before moving on to command your own boat. So after about 3-5 patrols, dismiss your 1WO, then your 2WO becomes the 1WO, and get a fresh lieutenant in to be the new 2WO.

That's a lot of stuff!

It is. I know I said this before, but obviously this is only for real realism nuts like myself. It involves rigorous self-discipline and a bit of pretending, but in exchange for that you get to face the challenges of 1942 and onwards with a mixed crew - a few old sweats to hold the men together, but mostly fresh-faced, terrified kids. Just like real commanders did. In case anyone's interested in where all this comes from, the primary source is TP Mulligan, 'Neither Sharks nor Wolves' (Naval Institute Press), backed up by a few relevant Osprey Books on U-Boats and various commanders' biographies. All are available on Amazon fairly cheaply (the main book is about £10).

Anyway, hope you enjoy this and I'd love to know if anyone decides to give it a try, what they think!

[Red Heat]

Welcome to the wolfpack, Gustav Schiebert...
Carry on...

[Sailor Steve]

WELCOME ABOARD!

I like what you're suggesting, but as a former American sailor it looks odd to me. In the US Navy officers have to do at least some studying before they are assigned to head a division, and here there is no such thing as an unqualified petty officer. Earning the qualification is what gets them that promotion. I wasn't even a PO, just a lowly seaman, but the radio section was my permanent position and if I had stayed in I would have become a radioman, which is a petty officer position.

Are you using SH3 Commander? It helps you control your career, including the option for a Realistic Career Length, which retires you after a certain combination of time and patrols. It does a lot of other things as well, but none of them are related to what you addressed here.

[Raptor]

Like you said, SH3 is not reality. Two examples:

You can not reload torpedoes without a Weapons Officer, so you can't just leave that slot empty.

Surprisingly, you can maneuver just fine without a Navigator and/or a Bridge Watch Officer. However, you can not change course without a Chief Engineer - you just get the "No Officer at Helms Station" error message.

These are just a few of the things about real u-boats that the SH3 programmers got wrong. Lack of random crew rotations is another, although SH3 Commander reportedly incorporates that critical function.

[Gustav Schiebert]

Cheers all for the welcomes.

I like what you're suggesting, but as a former American sailor it looks odd to me. In the US Navy officers have to do at least some studying before they are assigned to head a division, and here there is no such thing as an unqualified petty officer. Earning the qualification is what gets them that promotion. I wasn't even a PO, just a lowly seaman, but the radio section was my permanent position and if I had stayed in I would have become a radioman, which is a petty officer position.

That's always been hard for me (also a navy man) to get my head around the German system. At least in the war, rather than the UK/US system of having enlisted men and officers, where you start at the bottom and work up, the Navy (and Army) had three career paths. You could be a sailor, and basically be unskilled labour (although in practice you'd build up considerable experience in your field). Promotion here is entirely dependent upon time served. Petty Officers would all have a trade - I should probably clarify that Kriegsmarine NCOs would all have a trade, but for my crew management system only the mechanics have the Silent Hunter 'qualification' to set them apart from the seamen's division. Officers would, like with the US Navy, train in one discipline. Unlike in many armies, transferring between the grades was quite rare.

On U-boats, the crew was split between seemänner (seamen) and techniker (technicals). 'Seamen' offcers took responsibility for commanding watches, navigating, general leadership etc under the Watch Officers and Commander, while all mechanical stuff was dealt with by the Chief Engineer and his machinists. The idea of the system is to prevent just dropping the 1WO in the torpedo room to speed up reloading, where in reality he'd just get in the way.

You can not reload torpedoes without a Weapons Officer, so you can't just leave that slot empty.

Surprisingly, you can maneuver just fine without a Navigator and/or a Bridge Watch Officer. However, you can not change course without a Chief Engineer - you just get the "No Officer at Helms Station" error message.

Hmmm. My torpedoes reload on their own, and didn't realise it was the engineer who did the steering. You're right there, SH3 commander seems the way forward (not running at the moment). I tried running it and got a CTD every time I loaded a game - am I missing something on this?

[Sailor Steve]

GWX has a separate cfg file that must be loaded for it to work with Commander. You can get that through the link above Jimbuna's sig.

As far as realism goes, we've had threads from time to time enquiring about how we play for realism. I usuall comment on things like obeying the five-knot speed limit in harbors and a bunch of other things. One of the biggest ones for me is Auto-Reloading the torpedoes. Torpedoes weigh around a ton each, and it's all too easy for one to break loose and cause all kinds of havock. Typically a submarine would fire the torpedoes on hand and then go deep, waiting to be sure there would be no need for violent maneuvering before even thinking about reloading. Of course reloading externals was only done at a standstill in a dead calm, and even reloading internal torpedoes wasn't done on or near the surface if the weather was bad.

[u crank]

Welcome to SUBSIM Gustav Schiebert.

[HW3]

Welcome aboard Gustav!

[LemonA]

Originally Posted by Gustav Schiebert

Hi all! ...!

Nice read.

[Gustav Schiebert]

Cheers fellas. Quick update - got SHIII Commander working and that adds a lot more as well, particularly the ability to tweak the officers' qualifications (like giving a new watch officer the 'Watchman' qualification - so he can do his job), so that's definately a win. Thanks again for welcomes and responses!

[Sailor Steve]

Wait until you see your first Commander Patrol Report.

[HW3]

Now that you have SH3 Commander running, you need to add Sailor Steve's ship names.cfg file to it. It adds a bunch of names for the different classes of ships plus the cargo and number of sailors aboard/survivors. It really fills out the patrol report.

[ninja turtle]

Hi there Gustav Schiebert

Welcome aboard.

I know this thread is a year old but I came across it whilst googling ideas and thoughts as far as SH3 realism is concerned. Just thought I'd say that your crew management ideas are very appealing.

However I don't think I'll be using it just yet as my experience as a Kaulein is rather low. Maybe after quite a few patrols when I can sink ships using no assistance at all and I'm very confident.

Happy hunting!

[Gustav Schiebert]

Originally Posted by ninja turtle

Hi there Gustav ... Happy hunting!

Thanks, glad you like it. I've refined this a bit actually, when you start using it if you need any more help just PM.

[Karl Heinrich]

Originally Posted by Gustav Schiebert

Thanks, glad you like it. I've refined this a bit actually, when you start using it if you need any more help just PM.

Are there any specific refinements you've made? SH3 Commander certainly makes it easier to represent the qualifications/training of the crew,.