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Yeah, I have a problem with the names... well, not so much the names as the lack of variety. There needs to be a few more names out there. My boat is full of Hoffmanns, Gruebers and Muellers.

Congrats on the flattop. The only one I've seen in game was the Scapa Flow mission which sank with 1 torpedo. Must have had a sleeping skeleton crew and all compartments open. It's Scapa Flow, so they shouldn't have been expecting anything.

I've done some longer patrols. One had me land an agent on the East coast of Iceland and do some recon in the harbor of Reykjavik.
Then I planted mines down in Freetown.
Both were long patrols

I then accepted another mission to Mine Gibraltar since that will complete that objective and give me a Milk Cow. This one had me plant the mines in that straight. Got in and placed the mines easily. Had several contacts on the hydrophones and I just steered in between anything. The way out was harder, it's like they let me in and closed a net. Most of them were little squadrons of 2-5 ships. Except one was a lone DD so I blasted it and shot past the blockade through that gap. Found a convoy on the way home West of Portugal. Another Type VII showed up and I only managed to line up one ship and put it under before the escorts pounced on me. They only did minor damage to my AA guns and conning tower. I was trying everything everything I could, but couldn't quite shake them. Suddenly, they veered off. I surfaced recharged the batteries and found that several more uboats showed up and hit some of the merchant while the escorts were busy with me. Made a nice site in the early morning twilight to see a several flares and a few burning wrecks out there that the AI had done. So I chased the convoy down and sank a few of them before I realized there were no escorts left, they either chased down other subs or were sunk by them. Being low on torpedoes since I had so many mines meant I surfaced and sank several with the guns. I got 10 in that convoy and couldn't see anything else. All small ships so the tonnage wasn't great, but that's 10 less ships out there.

Another mistake I've been making is cleaning my map off completely. When I should leave some tracks for convoys since they seem reuse the same routes. I've now got a few 20-30km tracks in various parts of the Atlantic to go hang around in if I've spare fuel ant torpedoes.
It also seems that those routes coincide with the historical routes convoys took, so that's a nice touch.

I also didn't see anything to command a milk cow, so it's either only used for replenishment via radio, or it's not actually available until a later, more historical date. I'm currently at the end of February 1941.

There is light at the end of the tunnel! Do it, man!


LOG U-46 (Type VIIB)

Patrol No. 5 Sector BF1

14 Nov 39 1150h Slipped out of Wilhelmshaven. Weather is cold and damp. I gave the crew a 48 hour pass. FDU insistent we go right back out. However we needed repair work. WS cmd

20 Nov 39 0700h On course for patrol sector, south of us. Hydrophone located a set of screws within hunting distance. Intercepted Empire Portia, a lone freighter steaming towards North America. First torpedo was a miss, second a dud, and I fired a reluctant 3rd which hit. No survivors evident. Did find a case of bananas. WS cmd

21 Nov 39 1100h reached sector and headed SE as per KKSchulz. On routine hydro check, crew detected enemy screws steaming NE, likely towards Liverpool. We got closer confirming several ship screws. Radio message sent to BDU. KH 1stOff

21 Nov 39 1400h no messages from FDU or BDU. I decided to attack the convoy. Managed to fire a spread at a tight angle attempting to kill three freighters who were straggling at the back of the columns. Missed all three but managed to sink Tribal Class destroyer. Attacked by aircraft, forced down to 100 m. Surfaced after a short ten kilometer route away and north of convoy. No messages from the top brass. Decided to shadow the convoy. WS cmd

22 Nov 39 0430h Slipped in between the rear escorts and loosed four forward torpedoes, all single shots. Hit and damaged a tanker, hit and damaged a large freighter, hit and sank Empire Griffin. Radioed message to HQ, again no reply. Did not remain with convoy as we needed to evade several upset escorts. WS cmd

23 Nov 39 0900h 1x FF torp, 1x AFT torp, no spares. Decided to race ahead of the convoy and set up an ambush spot. Unfortunately we were spotted by enemy Hudsons and forced to crash dive. Luckily the aircrew were too busy playing at tiddlywinks to be accurate with their depth charges. Boot held together as we hit 130m. KH 1stOff

27 Nov 39 2200h Arrived back at base. Just in time for a dunkel and medals. Crew off to a Bavarian mountain retreat, 21 days. Well deserved. Final count 1x Tribal Class Destroyer, 2x freighters (11967 tons). KH 1stOff

I just ASSUMED everyone was drinking champagne at the end of every patrol.. NO?

Btw after Patch 9 many of my shots which were previous kills appear to go right thru the target.. no dud and no impact... 50% or better. Im watching this one...Im still in 1941 Type VIIC

Champagne, good wine, bad wine, beer, ale, lager, dunkels, weissbierre, if it's got alcohol, it's in my mouth. Schnell!

U-Boat lager from Badlands Brewery

https://www.badlandsbrewery.com.au/u-boat-german-style-lager-24-x-355ml-cans

Interesting you say that. At the start of this career I left some up until a pattern emerged and then cleaned them up while drawing lanes and boxes showing good spots and routes. After moving to France I decided to leave everything, all the attack plots, which over the next few years turned in to sort of a heat map for the North Atlantic. I'll attach it if anyone wants to see it. Pretty messy though.

With the war nearing the end, U-292 did one more Arctic Convoys patrol. This time we found action, and one of the Murmansk convoys was 15-20 ships, surrounded by ten destroyers. We attacked two on the patrol, one with the help of U-754. Got in and attacked, and part of the convoy appeared to romp. Two freighters and several LSTs (which have been common near the end of the war) took off on their own and headed in the opposite direction, unescorted, so we took advantage and ended up putting 73k under for the patrol.

Took a long refit because I had a special mission in mind. There's an achievement for ending the war by sinking your boat off the coast of Argentina. I rearranged the three milk cows along our intended route to South America, stuffed the boat to the overhead, and left Bergen on March 5, 1945, Just an hour out of port we were attacked from dead ahead by a fast, low flying aircraft who did significant damage and caused leaks and injuries. Not a good start. It did not use radar, and it is the first plane in the entire war that hit us when I immediately dived the boat. It was already low and heading in when we saw it and didn't get under in time. The crew is a veteran one and got everything patched up. We took a wide berth around Britain, out toward Iceland then cut south through the Pit. Caught on to a convoy and got in to sink a few ships, so that this mission would be an honorable one.

Took off to the south and made the first rendezvous with a milk cow south of the Azores in late March. By early April we were off the coast of Brazil and kept going south, all the while playing checkers with the cows, refueling and taking on food multiple times on the journey. As we reached the coast of Uruguay, we crossed a line where the radio was now out of range. I guess the cows can't relay it, but I thought this is interesting. Went south to meet a cow, before timing our return to the line in case we needed to be informed of the war's end by radio message, wasn't sure how it worked, but I thought maybe if I never got the message that I wouldn't be able to carry out the plan. On May 2, Donitz sent a message instructing all German warships to prevent capture by the enemy. Dutiful to the last, U-292 headed for the coast of Argentina. Morale was sagging, as expected due to the unfortunate end to the war, but also because we had been at sea for sixty-one days!

With the coast of Argentina in sight I opened the locker and broke out the champagne to celebrate our unexpected survival, which instantly sent discipline to 100 and U-292 was scuttled to prevent capture as the war came to and end, May 6, 1945. What a ride.

Was treated to a nice little summary screen at the end. I wondered how many 'trade ships' we had put under. Message attached.

Really well done, DB. Congrats, man. There is hope for the rest of us!

What was your worst moment? Best moment? And what was the most satisfying moment?

Nice work making it to the end. That's a good idea to leave up some of the attack data. I only started doing that in late 1940 and already I have lots of little tracks showing convoy routes.

Also, 29 patrols, I'm at 26 and only in March 1941. Some of those were pretty short and I only give the crew a break when the fatigue debuff starts getting troublesome, then I stress out the crew and weed out some of them, then give them a vacation. I think I got 9 seawolves on board at the moment.

At this stage I'm finding the escorts harder to get away from and they seem much more alert than earlier in the war. Got into a few scraps in the Irish sea hitting a couple convoys. Got hit by depth charges which caused a bunch of flooding, but luckily it wasn't quite enough to cause me to sink. It did wreck nearly everything and it's one of those times I wish I could prioritize some of those repairs and save some repair parts. Also ran into those C3 ships, nice tonnage if you can sink them and I've noticed they got guns on the deck so I should be more weary approaching on the surface or decks awash. They also don't sink as easy as others. I find they always survive a torpedo hit, but the crew bails and I just double back from the convoys route and clean them up with the deck gun or sending an engineer to scuttle it.

Currently en route to Jan Mayen to install a weather station.

Thanks gentlemen.

29 patrols is just patrols. We did 44 missions total according to the journal. So 29 patrols and 15 special missions is how I think it breaks down. Like I've said, I suggest always taking a vacation if you want to get through this thing.

Worst moment was ramming the tanker. The boat was a mess, we ran out of parts, and you cannot auto-return with a leak, so we had to sail her 2500km back manning the pump and doing the bucket brigade for days on end.

Best moment? I could pick a bunch I guess, but I think I will choose just surviving to the end of the war. I mentioned before that in SH3 I have done more than a hundred dead is dead careers and made it to the end of the war exactly once. Here we managed it with no reloads, no funny stuff, no save scumming. I just took it all as it came and still managed to reach the end, so for me that is the most satisfying thing about this career.

For our next act, the plan is to take command of U-96 in France in January of 1941, take the first available mission to transit Gibraltar strait and redeploy to La Spezia and become a Med boat. And then see how fast we can get a VIIC/41

Crew 2 loaded aboard the Type VIIC U-96 in January 1941 in La Rochelle. My plan was to take the first available mission to enter the Med and transfer to the 29th at La Spezia. Otto Popp appeared as if from the dead, after his disappearance in mysterious circumstances in the last career. I felt he didn't get a fair chance (having fallen overboard or something) so Popp gets command of U-96, which honestly I didn't want to command. It's the Das Boot boat, which is cool and all, but I wanted a different boat and tried to get Schnee's U-201, but the game won't let you switch to another boat of the same model. Put a wooden deck on her and new paint. Left the diving sawfish emblem in place.

Picked a Happy Time patrol for the first mission. It's strange to be starting over, with just three mission choices, green crew, no detector and lots of other reversions to an earlier time, and especially having no specialization points. Made some changes to difficulty settings, now at 80%.

Just three days out we found a convoy, and submerged in its path. Brought up the scope and saw a carrier on the far flank. We surfaced, ran ahead, crossed the convoy's path and submerged again to shoot from the side the carrier was sailing on. Knocked her down with two torpedoes, and a couple other ships, plus a destroyer. Two corvettes boxed us in during the deep evasion and held on for a very long time. A stark change from how stealthy I felt in U-292 with its additional depth and veteran crew. We were getting a +50% bonus to silent running, and that is now gone, and it showed. Somehow shook loose eventually and surfaced and then ran up the flank of the course the convoy took over the hill. As we were making our way, we came across three loosely-arrayed destroyers who were either returning to port or trying to catch up with the convoy. One passed conveniently astern so we took a shot surfaced from the stern tube and bolted at emergency speed in the low light. Like five minutes later the electric hit and the Black Swan blew up and sank. Black Swans were my nemesis in Silent Hunter, so this one felt good. Plus it was a good shot.

Decided to leave well enough alone and turned away to continue the patrol. Almost had forgotten what it is like to hunt solo ships and it was easy pickings, and U-96 ran for the barn after two weeks, having put under a carrier, 38k in trade ships, plus two destroyers. A good start. Having seen the summary at the end of the first career, I know that makes 19 destroyers, and now two carriers from convoys toward those achievements.

I was hoping I'd get a shot at the interned officer before redeploying to the Med and it came up next so we did this, again at Vigo. Again got the hunted event and soon after leaving the coast we were attack by an aircraft, and the boat dived painfully slow without any specialization. The 38k on the last patrol left us 2,000 short of phase one Happy Times. We had sank a small, 3,000-ton freighter at dockside as we left Vigo, but that's wrong grid for Happy Time. So despite the hunt, or maybe because of it to throw off our pursuers, we headed west in to BE grid to get a sinking or two hopefully. Managed to do so, for 13k, and ran for the barn at high speed, with no other drama. This nets the HQ officer which is key for research at this early stage. Starting in 1941 shifts the tech timeline significantly from a 1939 start. Diverting to make sure we got Happy Time 1 done was good as it gave us two more rep points. So we started researching accumulators, expanded to seven officers (three engineers until we get the Cross) and I spent one speculative point to re-roll our missions, which paid off with Gibraltar.

Left port in late February and reached the strait in four days. My method to get through in Silent Hunter was always to make the passage in daylight, so that if you have to do a long submerged run, when you surface on the other side you'll have the cover of darkness to charge the batteries. So we timed our arrival for dawn. It was a blue bird day, as calm and clear as it gets. Not ideal. Good range to pick up smoke, but bad for aircraft.The strait was heavily patrolled, and the bow of U-96 danced back and forth as we constantly sought the most advantageous angle to maintain maximum distance from all threats. Made it more than halfway through undetected on the surface at high speed. I wanted to wait until we were forced to dive to ensure we always had maximum charge.

Suddenly an aircraft attacked from the north side of the strait. So we failed to do this undetected (which is an optional goal) and just managed to get under in time. It was close. Need specialization points and quick! I was fearful the plane would call in the many warships buzzing around, but no sign this happened and we popped right back up, only to be immediately attacked again, which I think was a different plane, but not sure. Crash dived again and evaded. Waited a while, came up to periscope depth and looked clear so we surfaced again and could see smoke at all points along the eastern exit to the strait. On the far left (north) was a convoy, and destroyers and corvettes covered the rest. So we went deep to hopefully slip under this armada. Took her to 170 meters and made it out, finally coming up 40 km east of the exit. We made it. Fittingly, in the Das Boot boat.

Patrolled our way toward La Spezia, checking out the chokepoint south of Sardinia that was so profitable in Silent Hunter. Managed to sink three small, 4600-ton freighters of the same type (similar to Empire Bell), in thick fog by shooting manual shots at close range on the surface at ships that looked like ghosts, and then headed for our new home. Conned the boat in to port from the bridge like it was the first time, as I didn't have enough rudder and needed to back it down and swing around a couple times to make the turn. Quite clumsy, my entrance. The flotilla won't be impressed. Tied up after ten days at sea. We are a Med boat now.

SimHQ was suddenly not brutally slow, so taking advantage and attaching some shots. All three from the UZO which shows we aren't in 1945 any more


Indomitable as seen when U-96 dashes ahead to switch flanks




The Black Swan catches the torpedo and goes up in a flash. The range is quite a bit farther at this time than shown in the TDC





A burning ghost ship south of Sardinia, our first kill in the Mediterranean. First of many, we hope

Nice report DB, There must have been rudder damage...yeah that's the ticket...rudder damage (lol kinda reminded me of the exchange in 1969's movie Battle of Britain; "Undercarriage a bit sticky sir?" "Why...why yes it was as a matter of fact..." "Well, I wouldn't tell that to the C.O. if I were you...")


In my current crew (U-46 Type VIIB) I've got HQ set as automatic and so far I like it. Takes the decision making out of my hands. Added the accumulators prior to the start of last patrol. Oh, and had a derp! moment prior to starting patrol 6...lol...just realized I could fill the pantry and go back and buy more foodstuffs to shove in the storage room. Not bad only took me almost a month to figure that one out

Thanks man. At least we didn't bang the prow on anything as we fumbled our way to the dock. And our slip was way at the back of the oddly shaped harbor. Hopefully our sinkings will convince the flotilla commander of our worth.

I don't think auto-HQ will be a problem, no, except for one thing. Having the computer in control means you may not be able to shift your milk cows around. Not the end of the world, and a ways off at this point right? But I liked having the flexibility to reposition them according the the mission.

Speaking of milk cows



Once you have the milk cow it is controlled via HQ project. Open it up and the milk cow icon will probably be in the NW Atlantic near Canada. Click it and a dialog opens where you choose an officer to convince BdU of your reason for shifting location, and choose the grid. Takes a week to twelve days depending on whatever factors for the boat to reach the new spot. Sometimes it doesn't work right and when you click the map to set the grid, the dialog box just disappears and the move has not been set. When this happens, hold the mouse button when you click the grid, which leaves the dialog box open so you can slide you mouse over it and set the officer. It will make sense if it happens. As long as you have an officer ashore, which you should have plenty of by this stage, you can do these shifts at any time, even at sea, just be mindful of how long it takes. And of course as long as you aren't using auto-HQ I bet.

At sea, you can use the radio to call for resupply. If you are not in the right grid, the reply will tell you which grid the Type XIV is in. But since you set the location this call probably isn't needed and we need to be security conscious to avoid Huff Duff, don't we? If you are in the right grid, the resupply radio message will reply with exact coordinates and an icon on the map.

I believe the milks cows are vulnerable, so place them off the beaten track. I had three in the closing stages of the first career and I really like this feature in UBOAT.

Speaking of beaten paths, here's that heat map in 1943, so you can imagine how much more was there by the end of the war. It's kinda dark but I guess that the same for all of us. Need a mod. I've since turned off vignette which brightens it up a bit. This shot shows clearly the main convoy route we hunted on for Happy Times, Black Pit and Last Stand. These markings started in mid-1940 shortly after our arrival in France.

U-46 (Type VIIB, KK Werner Schulz)

LOG (excerpts)
Patrol No.6- AM87-BF16

20 Dec 39- 0830h Boat re-supplied, crew have returned from Bavaria. All present and accounted for. Got under way at 0730h, weather wintry with heavy snow, Course set. WS cmd

20 Dec 39- 2030h Report, reached North Sea at 1301h. Weather cleared, sunny skies, wind 13. Sea State 1. Course reset due to being slightly off original course. KH 1stOff

26 Dec 39- 0800h Report, message sent to FDU. Reached sector and began patrol. Weather remains clear but cold. Schimmelfennig got his tongue stuck on the UZO pedestal. Removed with hot coffee. No permanent brain damage. KH 1st Off.

26 Dec 39- 1936h At 1740 Hydrophone located a screw running high speed towards us. Maneuvered to a decent position and went to periscope depth. Screw picked up again, remained on course to pass us by. Elected to stay submerged. Polish freighter hove into view at 1850h. I had the attack scope, Hoffman the TDC. Flooded tube one and fired. Flooded tube 2 as first shot deemed a miss. Launched second eel. Unnecessary as first torpedo struck the freighter. Heavy seas and a miscalculation on the chronometer lead to a wasted torpedo. Vessel capsized. No survivors. WS cmd

26 Dec 39- 2315h had moved 10 km away from Polish wreck when hydrophone picked up another lone screw. Course set for ENE. Located enemy freighter and elected a surface attack. Hoffman had the watch so took the UZO, I entered the data into the TDC. 1st torpedo was a dud, second hit. Empire Tudor sunk in twenty minutes. Crew rescued, including the ships commander and chief engineer, along with seven ratings. FDU informed. WS cmd

30 Dec 39- 0622h almost dawn by the time we caught the Englander freighter Empire Tudor from behind. Surface attack mounted. 1st Torpedo smashed their engine room, and caused heavy listing. We sent semaphore indicating we were going to sink the vessel. Englanders abandoned ship within two minutes. Ordered Hoffman to crew the gun. We sank her with 15 rounds used. Gave over supplies to the lifeboats. Went deep when watch heard aircraft approaching. Avoided enemy air attack completely. Resurfaced at 0615. FDU has ordered us home. Course laid in. WS cmd.

03 January 1940- returned safely to Wilhelmshaven. Total tonnage 14154. Medals and coffee with Jägermeister. No schnapps...

Good patrol skipper. When you start in a IIA, are you required to go B and then D before you can upgrade to a Type VII?

I said before that I would probably start my next career in a Type II, but I didn't. If I could do a handful of patrols, get a blueprint and go straight to the VII it would look more attractive. What I don't want to do is step through all three Type IIs.

Having reached our new home at La Spezia, U-96 got down to business, intending to clear our name after our bumbling arrival.

Took three straight Battle of the Mediterranean patrols, all of which included the chokepoint between Sardinia and Tunisia. In Silent Hunter this was one of my most famous spots, sending scores of Allied ships to the bottom, and I used to call it a task force highway. We've seen no warships, yet, but the merchant hunting has been superb. First patrol out of La Spezia was 66k, followed by back to back 53k patrols. All singles, all British-flagged. Have seen no neutrals at all, which is nice. I was concerned that we would find only smaller ships in the Med, which was how it was in the war for the most part. But that's not the case at all, with C3 freighters, Dale, Ol and War-class tankers plus many Liberty ships. Good targets. Have not seen a single enemy warship or aircraft since getting through the strait. We did sniff out a southbound convoy, heading for Sfax, Gabes or Tripoli, but after hunting it down, submerging ahead and waiting for them to arrive, we saw it was a German convoy! How about that.

Only drama so far was when we were attempting to overtake a fat C3. I was keeping her just outside the clear sight circle as we tried to overtake, and suddenly the fog lifted, and visibility went from 4000m to 9000 in about a minute, leaving us naked. The freighter opened fire and the shots were close! One actually hit us and we pulled the plug and gave that up as a bad job while we fixed the damage. Not cool, weather, not cool at all.

After just two patrols, we had eclipsed 100k in the Battle of the Med and got a blueprint, and the June 1941 patrol was done in our new boat! Took command of the VIIC/41 U-327 (after rolling a new boat number a bunch of times). Have T3 torpedoes, the Cross, better batteries and hydrophones so far. Painted her with that blueish scheme which seems to fit the Med. In the first career, our first patrol in a VIIC/41 was January 1942, so here we've done it six months faster. Took just five patrols doing this, starting in U-96, transferring to the Med and completing phase two of The Battle of the Mediterranean.

I said before I'd expect to run wild for a year or two here in the Mediterranean, but once the Torch landings occur, November 1942, it will quickly close in and things will begin to look much more perilous. For now though, we rule the Med.

Is this thing on?

I hope everyone has survived their trials at sea.

As for U-327, we have lived to December 1941, but frankly it's not been a problem, in the lovely Mediterranean. Well, except for one time.

Completed the Battle of the Mediterranean, 250k tons, quite easily it must be said. The single-ship traffic has been heavy, and with the unique geography of this region, easy to find by sitting in the choke points and using the hydrophones to find targets. To mix things up we took an agent insertion to west of Alexandria, near Tobruk. Actually, it was a demolition team, put ashore to blow up a railroad. When we reached the spot, a single Tribal destroyer was slowly patrolling off shore. It was going so slow, maybe 3 knots, that I decided to shoot, and anyway, it was in the way of the mission. Ready to shoot, I remembered we had T5s now so I flooded one and took the shot. I had forgotten to close the other tube, so one electric ran out and missed astern, while the acoustic was a dud. The destroyer was now looping around in our direction and picking up speed. Shot a second T5 which also clanged off the hull. Brought the stern around and way too slowly, and shot a third T5 which blew off the screws, and then an electric, to put her under. Five torpedoes in all.

The demo team landed and unlike other agent insertions, you must wait for them to return. Sitting off shore peering through the UZO there was suddenly a massive explosion, and the boat was tossed around. Smoke rose in to the sky in the distance and after some time waiting, the team re-embarked and we departed the area.

In a later patrol near Crete, we had fulfilled the requirements and were heading back to the west, passing north of Malta. The hydrophones picked up a convoy just departing the island, and heading southeast toward Alexandria. Intercepted and let them overtake. Sank the lead destroyer and then a big freighter trailing. The other escorts closed quickly. In our VIIC/41 I was confident, fired off a stern acoustic and went deep, to 220 meters. A few minutes later, getting pinged, we slammed in to the bottom at 120 meters. Uh oh. The Med is really deep, and then other spots it is not at all, and when we started this chase we had plenty of water under the boat. But that had changed as we moved south, and the captain did not notice. Torpedo tubes, diesel engines and more took damage as we rose twenty meters to get off the floor. Soon after, more damage as we were again on the bottom, now at 88 meters. Double uh-oh.

Remarkably we evaded and this skipper will be paying closer attention to the depth in the immediate vicinity. We probably should have been sunk, and nearly did it ourselves. Somehow, despite playing UBOAT now for 180 hours, I never noticed the depth thing in the upper right in map view was under the cursor, and not under the boat. I see this now

You go from the Type IIA, to the Type IID to the VIIB, VIIC and finally VIIC/41
I switched to the /41 in April of 1941, but then I did start with the VIIB for this one.

Good luck in the Med.

Found the milk cow hiding in the Caribbean in the HQ menu, thanks DB. Their vacation is now over and with that underway replenishment and the C3 ships out everywhere it's kinda easy to get the tonnage up there. Got 15 ships for 105995 tons. Probably unrealistic since I only shoot a single torpedo per ship, if it's a miss or dud I'm already lining up the next one. And no, a single torp doesn't sink them. But I just leave a mark on the map about where they got hit and with a cone in the direction they were going and return later when they fall out of the convoy to scuttle with the engineer or finish with the deck gun. I'm sure as the war progresses there will be more long range spreads at convoys, but in May of '41 things aren't too bad yet.

One convoy had a cruiser, but as I was plotting that attack, a carrier and another cruiser popped up. As I was repositioning to hit the carrier, it already got hit by another Uboat. Which alerted the convoy and I took a hasty shot at a C3 and had to beat it out of there. I did hit that ship, but the AI boat finished it off and got the kill.

Also, I figured out the audio cue for the radar detector. Thought I had audio problems for a moment, until it suddenly got worse with an aircraft that appeared out of nowhere on an attack run on me. Caught me unprepared on the surface when I had a few minutes warning. Luckily he missed but I'll have to be more careful in the future.

What IS that sound?!

oh sh!t.....

Hey man, no worries, glad you found the info useful. Milk cows are great in this game. Having the ability to shift them around is cool.

Congrats on your superb patrol. Exceeding 100k is exceptional and tops my best by some margin.

Stopping ships in convoy by shooting at several is how I do it too, then come back after the formation has sailed over the hill to put the drifting ships under. I do tend to shoot doubles, and have never attacked a ship initially, or solely, with the deck gun. My 92k patrol was double-barreled, having taken on a full reload from the Type XIV. Did manage a couple 80K patrols before having the cows, but that's down to luck of the draw, and how big the ships are that you encounter.

The site's been down for me over the last couple of days. Glad it's up again.

When I started my campaign this is what I did-- I selected the Type VIIB 1939 Wilhelmshaven start. I went to the QM and selected 'Change U-boat', menu offered Type IIA, Type IID, Type VIIB, greyed out Type VIIC. I selected the Type IID to start and did my first two patrols (my reasoning was purely RP, selecting the D as my 'graduation' gift from UBootschule- where the Type IIA would have been a training boat), then switched to the VIIB after having success completing the first phase of Tonnage War and earning the IC 1stclss. My crew is now on Patrol 11, May 1940, and I handed in my blueprint earning a Type VIIC (and no longer greyed out). I was chuffed being given command of U-201. Note that when you start a campaign this way, the game says it costs you 2000 creds to switch boats the first time, however, you still start with a 4000 budget. By the time you're ready to take on a new vessel you should have enough creds to make the cost a nothing-burger.

Thank you gentlemen for the info on starting a career in Type II. I will probably do that next. I'd want to start as early as possible in the D. There are a couple D starts, in France, right? 1940? I'll look it over. Not keen on the A if I'm honest.

There is one that starts there yes.
I didn't think to do Leaf's plan and just swap backwards off the bat though. I may do that for the next one.The D wasn't terrible, just no deck gun and very few torpedoes. It's range was acceptable for those early war patrols. It's the A that was a real tough one. Almost needed guys on the engines and navigating to get anywhere.