homepage Forums Miscellaneous Naval Simulations UBOAT

The buoyancy just seems to fluctuate... as noted I slipped lines and left port at 80%. Six and a half hours along the course I dove the sub to periscope depth, then took it deeper to 25m (depth to bottom is hard to ascertain, even after using the depth meter) and ran for three hours, surfacing at 1800 after resting crew. Course is westerly (280 degrees), sun low on horizon, clear weather and sea state 2-ish, wind at 22. Bilge pump and compressor turned on. The BP seems to empty all compartments, no buckets required. Buoyancy post submerged run now up to 90%. *shrug* I'll take it. My chief engineer must have been badly hung over when we left port, fuel consumption at gear 2 was pretty constant at (!!)10. After he rested during the submerged run, he was able to squeeze that down to 3.9 at gear 2 when I ordered him back to duty.

Having suffered the navigation failure in my first career attempt, I've been alternating between the XO and Capt. to run the nav plots- while one has the deck (conning tower watch), the other will spend enough time at the plot table to get the nav rating back to 100 before resting.

I've started to use the time accel in moderation, so currently U4 is on station patrolling AN4 as of 2351h 07 September 1939. I'm in a good spot to intercept any north or south bound ships (at least it was in SHIII). I think my radio is broken *cough*.

I'll start a Type II career and see if I have the same issues with buoyancy

Still alive, in August of 1940. Our next few patrols were mining missions, planting fields in the Channel, Loch Ewe and Cardiff. These can be challenging, with these areas well protected by enemy warships. Getting in and getting out will test your ability to remain hidden.

I lost Otto Popp. No idea what happened. Came back from a patrol, went on vacation, and when the crew returned (which they literally do, walking back on to the boat, neat touch) I tried to get our next assignment and it was greyed out, saying I need to promote someone to command. I already have a commander! Except I didn't, Otto Popp was gone. Bug? Did he die and I didn't even notice? So I promoted the XO, and now Kurt Hoffman is in command. War is hell.

Having reached June of 1940 I decided to transfer to a new boat and new base. Used a blueprint to upgrade to a VIIC, the good boat U-410. Sailed to la Rochelle, which will be our base of operations for a while, until, probably, a transfer in to the Med? We shall see about that.

U-48 was one of the most famous and successful boats in the war. Credited with sinking 51 ships for over 300k tons, she sat atop the tonnage list for all boats in World War 2 and was commanded by three different Ritterkreuz holders (Shultze, Rosing and Bleichrodt), she survived the war, decommissioned in 1943 to serve out her days as a school boat. U-410 was also a successful boat, credited with sinking 7 ships for almost 50k tons. U-410 was one of the most successful of the Mediterranean boats. She met her end dockside at Toulon in a bombing raid.

The newest hotfix must have bugged sight range. Hopefully a fix is out quickly. Another reason it's good to be able to do manual torpedo shots!

U-410 arrives at our new home of la Rochelle





A nice shot of our boat out on patrol in the Atlantic






The crew in the control room while laying mines at the entrance to the naval base at Loch Ewe

Since it's on full release now I started a new campaign in a Type II boat and ran out of fuel after completing my patrol and being told to spy on a port's AA defenses. Seemed like I had enough at the time. One thing I forgot to do was assign someone to navigation with some crew under him as that reduces fuel consumption a bit as well.

So I started a a Sept 1939 in a type VII. Did two successful patrols sinking several freighters, a tanker, and doing some side jobs I got radioed to me. These included checking in on a lost Uboat, taking a look at a ports AA defenses and sinking a particular freighter with important cargo. The missing Uboat had apparently hit a mine which mixed seawater with the batteries and poisoned the crew. We had to scuttle it. I did board some Norwegian ships and sank them after finding they were shipping military goods to Britain which made them fair game.

Started the 3rd patrol and Wilhelmshaven was undergoing a large air raid and I got sunk just as I was exiting the locks. Doesn't seem fair, but I suppose that was the life of a Uboat skipper.

Sorry to hear about Otto, DBond, maybe he got promoted to a desk job, and Worm, that air raid sounded nasty.

I'm finding the Type IIA challenging (but in a good way). I am hoping ship upgrades will impact this boat all for the positive so I'll see as I go. Currently at 12 September 1939, almost completed the 1100km required of this first patrol. Haven't had a sniff of shipping yet, although we've heard three radio messages relaying boxes where ships have been sighted- all too far away range-wise. I've quit jumping on every new general location sighting report. Will try to get close to the port of Hartlespool before turning for base and resupply.

Hydrophones are the key for ship detection in UBOAT, due the enormous range they have. I do routine sound sweeps and this puts me on targets. The route between Bergen and Edinburgh/Hartlepool is teeming with shipping. Cruise back and forth along that route, doing submerged sound sweeps every few hours.

I always look to do one a couple hours before dawn, as that gives me some cover to make a surface dash and then a dawn periscope attack, if all goes well. Doing these routine sweeps has resulted in shooting off all my fish in a week, give or take. It's too dense, but I'll deal with that later

Yeah too bad about Otto Popp. He had just won the Oak Leaves. Pretending he was promoted to command a flotilla is what I have done But now it will be hard to get the Swords with my new commander, who has yet to win his Knight's Cross. Those points for Royal Oak are gone, but at least he still gets the 'Ace' skill that Popp won at Scapa Flow.

Good hunting skippers

Beacon signals are a great way to find ships as well, usually a convoy (I have yet to see any task forces, but that might change now that I'm based on the Atlantic coast). I ignore the other messages coming from individual Uboats giving position and course.

I do like that dive command that just has the boat submerge, cut engines and listen on the hydrophones for a bit and then surface and resume previous course and speed. Helps for finding contacts without making it a micromanaging nightmare.

Yes for sure. Before switching to the beta I needed to do all of those steps manually to conduct a sound sweep. This one button is a fantastic addition. I use it a hundred times or more on a patrol. 90% of my sinkings were first found by hydrophone sweep.

In my first post in this thread noted that UBOAT is 'mission based' and I wasn't sure how I would like that. But having dropped nearly 70 hours in to this one already, I can say I really like it. Missions don't stop me from anti-shipping action, and plenty of the missions are free-hunt sort of patrols anyway. Mining, agent insertions, recon, clandestine work to pick up passengers, escort and this sort of thing are cool, and gives UBOAT more scope than in any Silent Hunter. Free-roam requires you to spend a single reputation point, but once done you are free to do as you wish. So far, that hasn't been needed, as I feel like I have plenty of leeway here, and the special missions are cool, and historically plausible. I have however ignored the Norwegian campaign, which I think has the player escorting ships and attempting to sink fleets attacking your charges.

I see a fix is out for the sight range bug.

It's essential to submerge for a couple of hours and allow the hydrophones to work- they have great range. There is a dive schedule setting which I've been thinking of using, but since I'm playing mostly 'real-time' with a smattering of time accel, I'm just doing it manually. Right now I've been diving at 0500, 1100, 1500, 2000h and 0100. Often stay submerged for 1.5-2hrs at minimal speed/or stopped.

On the 1500 dive to 30m my radioman picked up a small group of propellors due northeast of Hartlespool. Intercept course set, eventually surfaced to follow the track, spotted stack smoke on the horizon. Weather had begun to get foggy so we submerged to confirm and the hydrophone picked up six propellors headed towards us. Sure enough the six started to 'arrive'. Surfaced and the first ship detected visually was a corvette (Isles). It was unaware of us but close enough to be a problem. Radioed contacts in to HQ. Normally I like to use one torpedo at a time, not a spread, but after re-checking the plots (I mark bearings on the map from the sightings and hydrophone data) I made a decision to use a spread. If I missed the corvette, then the two vessels beyond might get hit.


1st torpedo missed the corvette and hit Loosestrife, sinking it, 2nd torpedo actually hit the corvette but went 'doink', sending the corvette into a frenzy. Third torpedo missed Corvette Isles completely but hit the bow of Coriander, sending it to the bottom. We had begun evasive moves right after No.3 had been launched, but because the depth was pretty shallow we couldn't dive deep so we pushed the engines into top speed, managing a little more than a whopping 9 knots of speed (that was with my chief engineer and two helpers). We realized, too late, that the other three screws all belonged to destroyers. We were holed well and truly, ended dead in the water at 2013h, radio dead, taking on water, with pumps out of action. I would have got my crew into life boats if that was an option, but the shelling was pretty intense anyway. Resting on bottom of AN449.

At least this character managed to get some results. New crew arriving soon.

On eternal patrol.

S!

Are you doing dead is dead? Only way to play a game like this, for me.

Good luck in your nice new VII

I tend to play military sims as Dead-is-Dead so I'm on to my third crew. I'm trying to stay with the Type IIA at least until November or December and I've enough 'points' (or whatever it takes lol) to switch to a VII. Iirc Raeder had 20 Type II's to use, alongside fewer VII's, so I figured I'd use them all up lol.

U4, Type IIA, commanded by Erwin Meyer, at sea 01 September 1939, ordered to patrol AN15 through AN46. All crew accounted for, slipped lines at 1217h and reached open sea at 1705h, weather clear, sunny, wind 15, sea state 1. Sim-wise, playing at difficulty 71. Dropped it a bit, will drop again next crew until I find the sweet spot.

Respect for sailing that old bucket. But I'll do the same, after this career comes to an end, one way or another. I'd pick a duck other than the A if it's available though. Ducks were vital in the first couple of years, and many of the top aces started on one. Kretschmer, Oesten, Schnee, Luth, Topp and more. It's a cool boat, but already obsolete. Surviving a few patrols in one and then upgrading would be a good plan, but I'm not sure how many ways yet we can get blueprints. I've gotten just the one so far and I just reached 1941. That one came from Tonnage War, which would take longer in a duck. Tier 2, which is 50,000 tons.

I found this info in a Steam forum post, listing the campaign objectives that unlock them

Tonnage War in stage 2
Black Pit in stage 2
Last Stand in stage 2
Battle of the Mediterranean in stage 2
Northern Waters
Mediterranean Operations
Atlantic operations Stage 3

If that's accurate, then Tonnage War is the only early game option, in the first two years. 50k tons could be as few as eight or ten ships on average, so not that bad I guess. Warships don't count.

Still alive, in January of 1941. the move to the Atlantic Coast has been a good one, our patrols now in properly deep water. The BE and BF grids are full of targets. Last patrol we set up approaches on three different C3 freighters flying the Star and Stripes. Soon enough, stinkin' Amerikaner

I've done a number of research projects, including the Metox giving me radar detection before the enemy has radar. It has yet to sparkle anyway. With enough rep points and a certain someone you can get from a certain mission, you can get way out in front technologically. T3 torps, hydrophones, detectors, sonar decoys and the like can all be unlocked ahead of their historical dates. For this first career I'm forging ahead, but maybe later on I'd establish some house rules to slow it down.

Had my first port attack, and manned the AA gun and shot down four. U-410 was hit a number of times, but the crew kept patching it up. Found out this way that rescued enemy airmen are worth the same as ship captains and chief engineers. I'm playing dead is dead, but during this attack I decided that I'd take a mulligan if sunk in a harbor raid. It was actually pretty cool. If it's rare I can dig it. If it happens every few patrols or more then it will get old. Gives me a reason to upgrade my AA weapons and platforms.

Kurt Hoffman has won his Ritterkreuz finally. The crew is rounding in to shape nicely. Have earned seven specialization points so far, and put five in to dive time and two in to less noise. My patrols have been so short in UBOAT that the effects of the vacation I take between each patrol last most of the time at sea and morale has been easy to keep maxed, or nearly so. I don't think I'll go crazy with mods in this game, but I will get a radio mod to extend the playlist. I had Ride of the Valkyries blasting when we went in to Scapa Flow on the surface. Radio on is good for the boys down in the tube. Of course I've also lost a number of crew, Popp to mysterious circumstances, some to tuberculosis, some to courts martial for spreading communist propaganda or laughing behind my back. I run my boat with an iron fist and there will be no mocking the skipper.


Sinking ships has been fun in every sub sim. UBOAT is no exception, and it looks great a night. U-410 pops up after a good two-fan. Our newly installed Cross is visible in the halo. It's been years since I played SH3. In SH4 however I played a lot of the Operation Monsun mod, to sail German boats in SH4. I considered the Cross the single most important installation on the boat. In SH4 though there were not different types of radar, but I think in UBOAT there are. We will have to keep ahead with new detectors as the Allies shorten the wavelength





I've posted a number of shots showing things from the outside, or section view. This game is also a full first person sim, you can become any of the officers to walk through the boat, close hatches, ascend ladders, operate the TDC and run the machinery

On Crew number 2 I tried another Type II campaign. Did a patrol where I sunk two small freighters and boarded two Norwegian ships. Tried to start a mine laying mission and got blown out of the water trying to get out of Wilhelmshaven again.
Turns out my first attempt I didn't actually run out of fuel, I had the setting to return to port, but I guess it does that at a high speed and with no crew giving bonuses to fuel consumption, so I could have manually went back. That's what I do anyway, so I should just turn it off in the future.

I'll start another Type II, but if I get blown up in port again, I'm starting in a Type VII in Kiel.

Third time is the charm...er...maybeeee?


I had to shut the game down last evening (made it to 02 September, way out in the North Sea, so all good) as a nasty set of T-storms ripped through (baseball sized hail). Will be back at it later today. Clean-up and groceries first.

Kiel's a nightmare to get in and out of, I'd suggest Wilhelmshaven. But the nightlife is better in Kiel, so either way works.

One of the radio options is to call for supplies. This could include fuel if anyone gets stranded. I have yet to try it. Just got back from my longest patrol yet, this one just short of a month at sea. U-410 has upgraded toilet, hydrophones, conning tower, accumulators, torpedo pistols, the Biscay Cross and Bold sonar decoys.

That patrol included a daylight convoy attack in the fog which was a trip. We came in from the starboard quarter and found the front of the formation stripped of protection as they had peeled away to hunt the other U-Boat which had broadcast beacon signals to bring us in. Beacon signals of course were the main method of gathering boats in the war, and it's a cool feature in in this game and works great. The other boats sink ships and divide the escorts' attention, which was never a thing in Silent Hunter. Having other boats at sea is one of my favorite things about this game. Their density and behavior may need to be tweaked, but just having them checks off one of my biggest wish-list items from Silent Hunter. This wasn't the first time I've gotten in on a convoy with the escorts well astern hunting our kameraden.

In the fog I just sailed right through the formation, firing all torpedoes and sank four good ships. Two were stinkin Amerikaner C3, which lose their neutrality sailing in convoy I guess. Both were nearly 8000 tons. Nice kills. Kept right on going at emergency ahead and got away. Something took some shots at us, maybe one of these C3s which have raised gun platforms. Took damage, most of which was patched up by our veteran crew. Some valves were damaged beyond repair however, and our dive time was severely compromised, so I aborted with a few fish still aboard. I sail all the way home and dock it, rather than use the return to base option. This extends the time at sea. I've gotten refits to about a month, and would like to stay at sea as long as I can so we aren't doing too many patrols. One every two or three months is good, but I'm still a little short of that. Each new series of campaign objectives is taking us farther from home, so this will continue to extend out, and fuel conservation will be a prime focus. On one engine the VIIC can do somewhere in the neighborhood of 25k kilometers, but you can't do the whole patrol on one engine.

I've done Tonnage War and The Happy Time, plus a number of special missions. Now the campaign objectives are North Atlantic, on the convoy routes, Gibraltar (mine it or sail through the strait), Africa (mining and patrols). These patrols will be a test in a Type VII, especially Africa and South Atlantic. I feel like I should stay out of the Mediterranean. During the war something like 62 boats entered. None left.

I havent tried the resupply option since late beta, when it simply crashed my game. I'm trying to pay a first person game along with the other views to slow things down.. I find it adds atmosphere it can start to feel like just a strategy game.

btw has anyone tried hiding near or below a wounded ship? It should work well but so far it does not seem to..

Working on a review -- do people still write reviews here at SimHQ or is this really more just forums now? I remember the heyday and meeting some SimHQ guys at E3 when I was writing for COMBATSIM.

Crew number 3. Again in a Type II out of Wilhelmshaven. Did one patrol in the Channel sinking two freighters and getting intel on Dunkirk. 2nd patrol was a minelaying mission since I haven't done one of them yet. Not a good idea with a Type II since you have so little room for ordinance. I had 4 mines and one torpedo, so that was just cruise to the objective, lay the mines and head home. They did attack Wilhelmshaven again at the start of the 2nd patrol, but this time I managed to get out of the lock before they attacked me so I had just enough wiggle room to dodge the worst of the attacks. Rattled the crew a bit but it did no damage. Well, no damage to my boat, can't say the same about the port and other ships docked there.

I do kinda like the Type II. It does have a small crew and very little ordinance, but it also a very small and stealthy and does really well in the shallow Channel waters. The small conning tower also means your visibility on the surface is abysmal. I've ran into stuff before noticing it. I tend to spend a ton of time under water so I can at least use the hydrophones. Luckily if it's a destroyer or corvette I can dive and sneak away and if it's a merchant at that stage of the war they usually don't notice me right away.

I don't care how much of a pain Kiel is to get to and from, if I get blown up trying to leave Wilhelmshaven again, that's where I'm starting the next one.

Type II outta Kiel, that's a proper sim

Is the IIA the only Type II option in 1939 start? I'll have to check out the choices. Ducks have their charms no doubt.

Saw a T2 tanker on my last patrol, sailing alone flying an American flag so I let it go. 15,000 tons she was. That is the largest non-warship I've seen yet. I see there is an achievement for sinking battleships protecting convoys, but yet to see one. Those should start appearing out in the Atlantic as I get closer to the end of 1941 I'd guess. IF I get closer to the end of 1941, which is no guarantee. I've taken damage from ships' guns and depth charges so far, and those planes in port. We have been attacked six times by aircraft out on patrol but managed to evade and dive each time so far. Mostly Sunderlands and Beauforts I think. More capable ASW aircraft are in the future. Hopefully the Cross helps us survive these encounters. The first ship-borne radars were mounted by the RN in March of 1941 I think, which just happens to be the departure date of our next patrol. I think airborne radar started appearing around the same time. Things should start to get harder from here on out. Maybe the South Atlantic isn't so bad after all

I don't think there's a Type II out of Kiel for a start option, that's one of the Type VIIs. So I'd have to abandon the little guy to start in Kiel.

The Type IIA is the only version in Sept 1939 start ... there may be a workshop mod that changes that but I'm unsure. The only mod I'm running is the Greywolves textures (flags etc) which I added last evening to my game.

I'm thinking there might be a bug related to ASDIC- historically ASDIC could only detect a submerged U-boot, which is why the surface attacks were so successful (Kretschmer, Prien et al). When Crew 2 were sunk there was a brief pop-up stating the destroyers had detected the sub with ASDIC which basically lead to an instant kill for them, yet the sub was still on the surface. Has anyone else noted that in the early war?