And I thought the Mediterranean was emtpy...

[RAM]

Turns out... I found every ship in that sea. Or something .

[Threadfin]

Good work skipper. I am also in the Med, career number 2. Started in U-96 in France in Jan 1941, ran the strait in March, and upgraded to a VIIC/41 in June. So far its been a playground, seeing very few enemy warships and just one aircraft since entering the Med. Single-ship traffic is heavy, and with the unique geography of the med forming choke points, they are easy to find.

I was wondering if all the ships we would find here would be on the small side, as it was in the war. But the full roster sails these waters, I think the T2 is the only merchant type we have yet to see here. So big bags, like yours, are there for the taking. My best so far is 66k in my Med adventure. But I usually fire two fish just to avoid getting big scores and never attack a ship initially with a deck gun.

Average patrol is not even two weeks. Everything is so close here that we usually have fulfilled the primary objective less than two days out. On patrol for two weeks, then a month's refit is how we've been doing it to slow the operational pace just a touch.

The calendar has just ticked over in to 1942, and once the Torch landings occur in November, things will start to look more perilous indeed. We must enjoy it while it lasts.

Good hunting

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice

[Threadfin]

I grew, not bored exactly, but restless with the action in the Med and decided I wanted to be a Drumbeat boat, and transferred to La Rochelle. I'll be back, either this career, or maybe starting a new one later in the war, as I want to see what the Med becomes in the last two years of the war. Curious if task forces are a thing?


In the year we spent here I found one allied convoy, and several German ones. No major warships encountered. But gobs of solo traffic.


The path we took is a good one though if a player wants to get in to VIIC/41 early without too many patrols to get there.


I'm interested in any reports other skippers have about their time in the Med, and especially any major warship contacts (type, grid location).

[RAM]

Well in two patrols I did find a convoy, but just that one. It's true that other than that it's all been single ships.

Have been subjected to air attack several times, though.

At this rate I'd have completed the Mediterranean Campaign in just 3 patrols. I already have the BP reward for the 2nd stage of the campaign, so once the campaign is complete I plan to move to a VIIC/41 boat and rebase to France.

I want convoys . What am I gonna do .

[Threadfin]

What is the date in your Med career? I just finished Drumbeat, January 1, 1943 and was thinking of going back to the Med to see what it is like later in the war. Undecided on our next step.

[RAM]

Originally Posted by Threadfin

What is the date in your Med career? I just finished Drumbeat, January 1, 1943 and was thinking of going back to the Med to see what it is like later in the war. Undecided on our next step.

We made our entry into La Specia back from our 2nd patrol the 18th of January 1942.

[Threadfin]

Thanks, that's about when I left. If you hang around another year or two let me know what it is like (traffic, defenses, convoys, task forces, etc). But it sounds like you will leave, as I did.



I left to do Drumbeat, and barely got in under the line (Drumbeat ends February '43). I had to do a very long patrol (66 days at sea) to get the tonnage needed to finish phase three of Drumbeat, and did it with a month to spare!


What a shift, going from the Med, where everything is close by, so doing patrols in the Americas, which are not close by


But this makes for an interesting and varied career. Me likes.

[Threadfin]

Still interested in reports, but after Drumbeat, U-327 re-entered the Mediterranean so I could see for myself. Immediately got the gold retaking mission, which works very much like the enigma recovery, with a twist or two. Fouled up the first go, and reloaded during the search to try a different plan, and managed to complete it without drowning my diver this time. Sorry about that mate.


After that mission I got a itch to play a career with harder settings (I had been on 80%), and see if I could get Ace of the Depths. So I started a new career, the last one in the list, which puts the player in command of U-1172, a VIIC/41 out of Bergen in December of 1944. Ooof. I cranked up the settings to 90% and took an Arctic Convoys patrol.

It's like stepping out in to a hostile, alien world. Now I can't see a thing at night, not even the heading tape around the UZO, which is just different hues of dark, not that it would matter anyway since the thing is no longer stabilized. Down to five officers. No specialization. No acoustics, No Cross! The T5s aren't even researched and I have no rep points yet. Few upgrades are already installed, and there's little money. Set sail and was attacked several times by aircraft as we threaded our way out of port to the north, with no warning at all, since we have no radar detector, and the crew is green, and it's all up against it in this one. Managed to survive and head out toward our objective , and caught on to a formation making 'medium' speed and having 6-12 screws. Decided to shadow and see what it was, but the night was so dark there was no way to see what was out there, and no radar signals to use to judge relative position, just periodic hydrophone bearings. And I bungled it completely. They had probably already picked us up on radar, and it wasn't a convoy but all warships, about ten of them, out looking for just such an opportunity. No acoustics so not much I could do. Sank one destroyer dead astern with a stern shot, and then went deep, but got hit at 280m as we were already losing the battle and that was that, crushed by sea pressure. First time I've been sunk and it was quick. Just three days out.

But I thought, yep, that's the stuff

So I did it again. Same start, 90% and made it to the end of the war, where we scuttled U-1172 in the Bergen pen. Mixed barren anti-shipping patrols with a weather station and an agent insertion (Ireland). Sank nothing in all of them, except the agent insertion. As we were departing the drop, another U-boat started broadcasting beacon signals not too far away and we plotted an interception in AM grid. Got out ahead, but the escort all seemed to still be in position, the other boat had not drawn their attention yet. The lead destroyer got very close to our submerged position and I was scrambling for a solution, as it cut a big arc back around towards us and then right on past. Couldn't believe the luck, and it and the other escorts I could see all went off to hunt the other boat. When these happen I constantly mouse over the queued radio messages where it will say if the AI boat gets sunk, which lets you know when the escorts are probably returning to their positions, or free to hunt you.

This event left the convoy defenseless from our position on the port quarter and we knocked down four freighters for 26k and slipped away without counterattack. Only possible with the AI boat drawing them off. Those were the only ships we put under in the career. Ace of the Depths fired. Pretty cool experience. I managed to get acoustics and first an obsolete Metox and later a much more useful Naxos before the war ended. With so few rep points it was hard to decide what to spend them on, more officer slots, research, or other stuff. I only got three I think. You can understand what it was like for those green crews in 1945 who headed out in to the war zone. No doubt the settings played a part. Dark nights are very dark indeed. There are enough difficulty settings that a player can arrive at the 90% in variety of configurations, if keen to give it a go.

[RAM]

To be fair and honest, the november 1944 career is botched. You get a schnorkel (devs be praised), but a boat in that era should have the deck gun removed - which you can do yourself, so no biggie - but for sure some kind of radar detection device. At that stage of the war no Uboat would've sailed with none at all.

And proper torpedoes. T2s with PI1 pistols were a thing of the past already in 1944. It makes no sense to be given a submarine full of them (and T1s with the same darned pistol) just 6 months before the war is over.


I did play that career (offline, back in the unstable beta days), and it was truly hell. Planes everywhere (and I mean, EVERYWHERE), and you for sure didn't want them to rocket you. I did manage to stab convoys several times, but the aftermath was truly opressing. Hours upon hours of depth charging no matter what.

And of course the initial torpedo loadout is a joke.


That campaigns needs some rebalancing. Even with the radar detector (at least a Naxos is a MUST have), and proper torpedoes it'd be truly difficult. But as it stands it's harder than what it should be...and it should be hard as hell.

[Threadfin]

Yeah, fair points mate. It was hard. Second go I played it very cautiously indeed, but of course I had less situational awareness, especially at night, and no detector, so managing to survive the five or six patrols felt good. Those four sinkings, with these settings, in this career, felt better than putting down 100k with my previous settings.


I wanted Ace of the Depths so this looked like a decent way to go about it and it worked out. Playing dead is dead though you don't get a second chance, so I was happy with how this one went, after getting sunk the first time, of course.