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That is a fine point. I won't need to, for sure, if it all works OK. You never know until you press the button and power it up.

Last night I took U-998 out (France 1941) and did a couple more Southern Routes patrols. Not keen on this one if I'm honest. But I want to do everything once. The issue is this one requires boarding neutrals and confirming they are NOT carrying contraband. So I'm playing UBOAT and hoping that I won't be able to sink this ship, which feels odd. I found a couple that were carrying ammunition, and I'm all like, on your way captain, nothing suspicious found. I did one or two of these missions, misunderstanding what is required and made no progress before catching on to how it works.

To finish the entire objective you need to do at least fifteen of these! I'm on twelve at the moment, that counted. Hopefully that's final phase. Like Norway, I won't do much more of this one in subsequent careers, but good to check it out, see what it is about and get it done.

Hunting achievements can be fun. I'm thinking of just building a crew to do that. Meanwhile, managed to get the one for surviving 100+ depth charges...my crew almost broke. That was for the four hours under attack that we survived until managing to escape (patrol 18, December 1940).

Patrol 21 (Type VIIC, U-201 KK Werner Schulz)

LOG (excerpts)

26 Feb 41 1700h Sitting on surface, Bay of Biscay, having barely escaped being destroyed by the RAF. Repairs almost complete. Crew manning AA guns. WS cmd

26 Feb 41 2230h Enigma orders from BDU. Find the freighter Goncalo Vellso and sink her before she reaches Halifax. Convoy information given. Course set. KH 1stOff

01 Mar 41 1300h Encountered enemy convoy, westbound, got within visual range (weather poor, visibility schiesse at times) noting group is heavily defended. Will track and get ahead to a better ambush point. BDU alerted. WS cmd

01 Mar 41 1900h Attacked the convoy from setting sun side. Managed to locate target ship. Surface attack. Fired a spread at 1.5km range. One hit, damaged target, two misses. We were set upon by an enemy corvette which I sank with the aft torpedo. Damaged ship location notated to navigation map. It appeared stopped, so we may be lucky later. Watch spotted at least four destroyers and corvettes headed towards out position. Evaded defenders. WS cmd

02 Mar 41 1600h Re-acquired ON convoy, unable to spot target. Put two torpedoes into the belly of the SS David Gaillard (7827 grt), a straggler tanker. No survivors. Navigated back to area where target had been damaged. Nothing visible. Weather foul. WS cmd

05 Mar 41 1300h Constant rain, mixed with snow. Weather cleared just as we stumbled on a large Englander tanker, alone and probably a straggler from ON. Three torpedo hits on the Bishopdale (11742 grt). Would not go under. Deck gun used to finish her off. Took on survivors. Attacked by enemy Sunderland. KK Schulz ordered a crash dive and depth set at 90m. Hydrophone picked up several high speed screws. Enemy began depth charging us. Went to 160m, had several major leaks and used all spare materials to repair. Surfaced after 2.5 hours. Fo'wd tubes damaged again. KH 1st Off.

09 Mar 41 1800h Lines secured. Crew sent on vacation and PoW's handed over to KM. Again Gestapo present. Ing Buchbaum awarded IC2 for bravery in repairing several leaks during the two and a half hours of depth charging. WS cmd

A narrow escape Herr Kaleun. But that's all that is needed

Things in the sim are certainly starting to hot up, and the intensity is real. The air attacks are starting to get to my crew, the yellow head icon is popping up more and more. Worse is I'm finding myself hunching over at my PC. When I finished Patrol 22 last evening my shoulders were stiff and my neck sore lol. We barely survived that one. Swarmed by a hunter group and aircraft-- I'm going to say there must have been a pocket carrier as I was waaaaay out in the Atlantic attacking a primarily American ship convoy with Canadian and American escorts, and these were small single engine aircraft thatwould have been out of range from land bases in Iceland and Europe--- I want to say Avengers but more likely Swordfish since the Avengers didn't come into use until 1942-ish iirc-- and holy heck did we struggle to evade. Worse was a flying boat that kept circling us like it was directing the small planes. I spent a lot of time evading, and repairing. We limped back to Brest where, surprise! Air Raid! Honestly, if the devs got this right then 1943 will be an absolute nightmare with both Bomber Command and the 8th Airforce pounding the ports and U-boat facilities, and then all the surface naval ops against the U-Boats in Bay of Biscay and elsewhere. I'm too old for this sh*t lmao.

I was chatting about the sim with an old friend of mine and he reminded me his father had served aboard one of the Canadian destroyers involved in the operations to hammer the U-Boats in Biscay (his dad was an AA gunner on the HMCS Iroquois) and at some point did a lot of convoy defence along the Murmansk route.

yah its real enough that I start thinking.. this isn't fun! But I'm also moving through the missions too fast maybe, trying to get that upgrade to the VIIC/41

I love those neutrals going north in the Bay of Biscay claiming their going to Lisbon fully loaded with ammo and my merchant/navigator captain sees nothing suspicious with that. Should have named him Schultz.

I'm now in July 1941, those convoys are getting harder. They don't have all the fancy gadgets and technology yet, but they're way more alert and heavily guarded.

Late spring 1941 and I'm headed north through the Western Approaches. It's like wack-a-mole and U201 is the mole. We've been forced to crash dive over and over with a sudden overhead air patrol. I had to turn the auto-lights off as the blue light seemed to increase the tenseness of the crew. I think the air supply is still fubar, even with using the air cleaner. Finding the AI super aggressive and tenacious atm. I'm mainly travelling on the surface at night, recharging batteries and re-filling the compressed air, but at the crack of dawn more enemy air, so crash dive is the order of the day. I can't seem to get away with anymore than six hours underwater before needing to surface and open hatches. Batteries are fine. I don't think I'm making more than 45 minutes on the surface before another aircraft shows and forces us under. Luckily the depth charging that follows is pretty much errant. Might not be too bad if it was just one or two aircraft but it's like a squadron scramble every time lol. Bad luck for us. If we make it to the summer of '41 I'll be ecstatic.

yah the escorts are much tougher. I used to take a chance on daylight attacks from a distance but not anymore. WO BOLD I'm sure Id have been dead a few times. My tonnage is going to suffer..

It does get harder, for sure. And I have to say that late '41 is not bad compared to summer 1943 and later. The Cross is essential, but of course not every thing has radar mounted. I talked in one of my reports about how the most dangerous thing is aircraft without radar, who can get the jump on you, especially in low vis conditions.

I survived two careers to May 1945 (though one started in December '44) so I've seen it up close and personal lol. Your operating routines have to change a little, reactions have to be fast and decisive, diving on any contact. So far I've not put any specialization points in to discipline. Every point goes in to diving time and silent running, and I think this makes a big difference in survivability. You can only have twenty points on the boat at a time, so that's just enough to get both dive time and silent running to ten each. This was key I think to our survival.

It might also illustrate why I go with three radio men. You need that detector manned 24/7. Any down time due to rest, fatigue and sleep could cost you dearly. I believe November 1941 is when the enemy starts to mount radar, as that's the earliest in any career I have detected signals. Most will already have the Cross well before then, but make sure you do! On my boat we dive on the first tone. I can understand hanging about with the flak guns manned if you have not gotten the U-flak achievement lol, but once you've got it, then no compelling reason any longer to stay up top. If the Cross makes a peep the plug gets pulled and no mistake.

U-998 has completed the Southern Routes objective. Not very interesting I must say, but I'm happy to have finished it. Stopping, boarding and inspecting is not all that exciting, and the reward sucks (discounts on coffee and other imported goods lol), but I've got the achievement and it's now done and will be optional for all subsequent careers, but I doubt I'd do it again. Fifteen ship hold searches is a lot and it's a long way from home in a grid with little enemy shipping. Worth doing once anyway.

It is now March 1942 and looking over options for the next phase. Arctic Convoys is now the only major campaign objective I have yet to complete, so maybe we will head for Bergen. I'd like to nab at least one Milk Cow, so need to work that out. In U-327s career in the Med I brought a Milk Cow in, which is funny because there's hardly a good place to put it. I ended up putting it in CO4. It's not necessary in the close confines of the Mediterranean, but nice to have around.

boy this game is really begging for a strategy guide!

Your next project

But yeah, I have nothing but praise for the campaign system in this game. My initial reaction when I saw how heavily mission based it is was cautious, but I soon saw how cool it is. And with the ability to set how the mission list populates, and the ability to just go free-roam if you want, there is complete freedom to conduct the campaign in any way you want. I always loved the open world Silent Hunter campaigns, and UBOAT is that plus so much more. Some of it is Hollywood, like diving for gold in the Mediterranean, and even the enigma mission is something not attempted by any boat during the war. But it's all optional, and I found I wanted to try everything, and nearly have!

And then for later careers I can just cherry pick whichever parts I think make for the best run through the war. The narratives these campaigns are giving me are fantastic. Like U-327's journey, three times through Gibraltar strait, bombarding Aruba, striking out off Hatteras. Well you all know what I mean. And even if I could replicate some of this say, in SH4s Operation Monsun mod, it was all in my head. here the mechanics are tuned to what you're doing, the UI, tracking tonnage, radio messages, markers, etc. In OM when i went to Penang it was all just what I dreamed up, but feels barebones as you arrive there no differently than any other mission end. The whole concept of the campaign in UBOAT is really nicely thought out, and works well.

The tech progression for the enemy, anyway, is balanced right, with systems and platforms upgrading on historical schedule, aircraft only appear in places where they should given the current state of the war. Bases open and close as they should according to the front line. The various campaign phases are all historical and in the right time lines. Of course the player can get way out in front of the historical tech curve so that is the one spot that isn't balanced 'right', but I think is fine because a player can give himself whatever house rules he wants to slow it down or get more on a historical timeline. Which I keep intending to do but have not. T5s in April 1940 is rather early

Yah, exactly - the campaign gives it depth. But it really does beg for a strategy guide. We would need a team ideally to write it.. 3 guys would be best.

When do the FAT torps become available? Aha.. I see I have them already early in 1942.. that makes the snapshot into a good sized convoy all the more attractive!

I'm going to suddenly disappear while traveling for a while starting Thursday

Got to stage 2 out of 3 for the black pit and needed about 115k to finish it. Problem is all they were giving me were missions around Ireland. So I transferred to the Med on a lark. Made it through fine due to a timely thunderstorm at night. Kinda of uneventful actually.
Now I'm off to drop off a demolition team west of Alexandria. It's now October 1941. Perhaps I should transfer back to France when the US enters the war and harass the East Coast. Anyway the -15% crew noise perk for completing the transfer mission might come in handy later.

Good luck, Worm. Poseidon bless ye.

Have a good trip, Viking.

I have to admit being underwhelmed at the beginning- I had played a bit just after release, but ended up spending a bit more time in Wolf Pack and back into SHIII and IV (love me some Pacific ops). I'm with DB on the campaign system- I've come to love it (and dread it lol). Originally what I wanted was something similar to SHIII's campaign- basically go patrol this sector for X hours, then free roam. I discovered that the U-Boat campaign is similar- basically go patrol this sector for X nautical miles/km, then if you have enough food, fuel, torps and live crew, go hunt. I like the additional types of missions- spy landings, mine laying, recon, hunting, etc as I find them a neat way of adding a bit of extra interest rather than straight grinding out patrols. I think the submarine progression system is a bit 'gamey' but whatevs, I actually don't mind it, and I get why the devs put a commerce system in. I like the large number of options to tailor our gaming experiences the way each of us individually enjoys. This sim rates highly in my books, I really enjoy it.

Do you guys know how to save and report a bug? Black Pit send to patrol zone near Labrador, new campaign. Diverted to rendezvous with a Japanese sub. Made the rendezvous and cargo transferred. Goal fulfilled. Then on the way to Labrador the goal reappeared. Sunk a freighter in patrol zone -- saved the mission just before. Tried to do an inspection and was refused. Saved game again and when re-entered the patrol time compression would not work. ANd when I would run at full speed it showed me at 24 km compared to 12 for the freighter but there was NO WAY I could catch him. So.. weird timing bug in there. Is there a log file I should access and save for the DEV team?

F11 maybe? Check the key mapping. I think it's the final entry in the list, showing which key it is.

About the Japanese sub radio event... it's optional. I just ignore it now.


You probably know this, but in that case all you need do is touch the assigned square, then you can head off to the Black Pit squares and do both objectives, provided your primary near Ireland has an optional tonnage objective (4000 / 7000 / 10000 tons).

I am also doing Black Pit in U-998s career, June 1942, and now 35k short of the finish. I did the Aruba mission to get my first cow, and completing Black Pit will grant a second, and then I think we will transfer to Bergen for Arctic Convoys.

I don't know what sort of explosives those cats carry, but it is a big boom! Good luck in the Med. So far I have found it to be the best spot in the game, when factoring traffic (especially solo traffic) and enemy presence and counterattacks. The chokepoint between Sardinia and Tunisia is a graveyard. Tanker alley. I just finished Med Ops yesterday, with a bombardment mission near Haifa.

I have yet to see any neutrals at all in the Med. If you find it, you can shoot it.

Med sounds fun, maybe after Black Pit I'll give it a go! I'm curious have you had a lot of success with FAT and LUT torps in convoys? I'm about to use for the first time..

Successfully picked up the Kriegsmarine brass from Dublin, but wow! what a storm. Was running decks awash and suddenly lost my Radioman overboard. Also had taken on many tons of water and my sailors were getting ready to start swimming...

I'm in the Black Pit missions now. The wolfpack gather spots are an interesting feature. Also noticed a few hunter-killer groups, comprised of several warships, roaming about. I've tried Otto Kretschmer's surface attack tactic of a diagonal run through the convoy and it works pretty decent- easy to miss the flank escorts and if you angle well enough to go between the last flank escort and before the rear escorts you can come out the back end quite some distance from the enemy ships. If you still have torpedoes, you can then leapfrog by racing along the flank of the convoy, safely distant from the escorts, and then at the right moment you can swing back in and do another diagonal. I hit four freighters (three sunk, one damaged) doing this with no damage to us. I will say the pucker factor is high tho.

Still wondering on the FAT and LUT torpedos. A These things have a crazy long range and I see that you can adjust the range at which they begin their search pattern.

Ah, I found a good video --