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Thanks for the tips DBond. I haven't played a WWII sub sim since Silent Hunter 4 so that was about 15 years ago so you better believe I'll be doing all of the training tutorials!

Same here! Lots of fuzz on those memories!!

One thing to add, the dev team have been quick to address most of the early issues that popped up on launch and I'm finding the sim quite stable now. Be aware there are a ton of permutations you can set, so as you get used to how things work it's easy to tailor the sim to your tastes. I'm away from my gaming PC atm, returning in October and will continue my crew who's made it from 1/9/39 to early 1942 by the skin of their teeth. Have fun!

Yeah, there are quite a few difficulty settings, more than SH anyway. For the tutorial at least, don't disable crew solutions or you cannot proceed through the torpedo training. Not many will be turning that off at the start, but worth knowing so you don't have to repeat it.

In Silent Hunter I have a certain way I liked to play, essentially all realism boxes checked aside from Map Contact Updates, which I leave on. I started off playing mostly this way in UBOAT but soon reverted to a more relaxed setup. First-person only is a little awkward in this game. You can do it, but the movement is janky, you spend a lot of time climbing ladders and opening hatches and waiting for the crewman to get out of the way. But more than that, first person locks you out of the section view, and I like that a lot so don't want to disable it. In Silent Hunter I do manual solutions only, but here I mix it with the automatic crew solutions, and it's cool. This is the hardest part of sub sims to get the feel I want. The skipper should be primarily responsible for firing torpedoes, but at the same time there's a tracking party, sound operators and so on that should be contributing to the effort. Both ends of this are too extreme -- either full automatic or skipper-only -- and finding a way to blend it so it feels right is difficult. UBOAT's approach I have to say is pretty good, if you land somewhere in the middle.

The game attempts to add a degree of error or inaccuracy, and gives it a time element with flooding tubes, warming fish and stabilizing the gyro. Certainly not point and shoot at the one end, and at the other I can enter solutions/data manually all I want. Works pretty well I think.

Two things would make the whole thing far more difficult. One I could change and one not yet. The first is having map contacts on. This makes the game much easier than if you turn them off. The second one that I cannot control is the ships in the game don't use zigging. Alerted ships constant helm for a short while, but I mean zig plans for transit. Course changes for convoys. In Silent Hunter versions like Trigger Maru for example, it's harder as you can spend a couple hours getting in position, only to have the convoy take a 60 degree turn away, leaving you way out in left field. I would guess there will be mods to introduce zigging, or maybe the devs will tune this up. Solo merchants sailing alone in a straight line are easy targets. Not all should be zigging, but it should be a thing. This really complicates interception and shooting torpedoes and the game could use a little of this in my view.

I recently began experiencing some hardware issues -- failing hard drive I believe -- and ordered new components to give my box a makeover. One of the things I ordered was a new UPC, and whilst on Amazon I had to add to my library. Picked up several naval-related books, including Japanese Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara, one of Japan's very best skippers during the war. Among his commands was Shigure, which some of you may know as Japan's 'unsinkable' destroyer since it survived so many battles, sometimes as the only survivor, like the Battle of Surigao Strait. I am always looking for material from the 'other' side.

Also picked up Eight Survived about the disaster that befell US boat Flier. Strike of the Sailfish about Squalus/Sailfish, another US boat, which is famous for having sunk off Connecticut in 1939 and salvaged, and renamed Sailfish, which went on to sink carrier Chuyo, the first Japanese carrier to go down to submarine attack, though many had been reported. Picked up a few more books too which I have not got around to yet. I'd imagine that many of you have libraries like mine, but if you want any reading recommendations (especially about WW2 naval) don't hesitate to ask.

For players of UBOAT there would be many suggestions, but if you were to only buy one book (actually two), I would recommend Clay Blair's exceptional work, Hitler's U-Boat War. It comes in two volumes, The Hunters and The Hunted. There are many good books about the German submarine war of course, but, like his Pacific book Silent Victory, it is the most comprehensive account I have seen.

I took U-998 out to the Pit yesterday and had a fantastic patrol. Shot singles at fourteen ships and they all went down eventually, though several had to be polished off with the gun. Four T2s among them, for 104k with no cow. That's my best result without rearming and refueling. One attack was an unescorted convoy of nine ships (why couldn't it be ten?!), which are rare but I've found a few. Still alive, May 1943

U-998 set sail in the first week of May, 1943, bound for the BE grid, and soon had beacon signals which drew us in. Upon making contact I could see star shells being fired in the distance, so the broadcasting boat has been detected, but this simplifies it for us. Headed straight in at night and found a Bogue class carrier in the convoy. Put it under with two torpedoes and that's carrier number three, and the achievement fired. The carrier somehow detected me in the final moments, and not sure how, but it had sonar gear. Maybe saw exposed periscopes, but I was surprised it did so. Didn't last long. Now we want a battleship. If anyone encounters one at sea, please report grid and date.

This patrol was the first one with my new box. UBOAT just didn't run well for me, and was the catalyst for the upgrade, which was due. Old box was built in 2020. And I am delighted to say that all of the performance issues I had been having are gone. I especially suffered from pauses when doing anything for the first time since the last reboot. Click on galley, long pause. Click on torpedo tubes, long pause. Go to attack scope, long pause. It got better once I had done anything the first time, but overall it was hurting the experience.

Old machine was Ryzen 2600, 1660Ti and 16 gigs o' RAM

Revamped machine is Ryzen 7 7800X3D, 4070 Ti Super and 32 gigs o' RAM. Changed all hard drives too (one of which was failing) and UBOAT sits on a SSD now too. Runs perfectly. Very happy.

I started playing the training missions in “Uboat” this weekend. This is definitely a game in progress but I like what I see so far. I'll do the remaining training missions this week.

Good luck during your work up skipper. Train them well, it's dangerous out there.

Europe was a great experience overall.. the long flights - not so great. I see I have missed 3 patches since September 10. Are you noticing much difference in game play or features?

My most recent patrol was a few days ago, and maybe there have been updates since then, but for me it is all working nicely. Built a new box and the game runs beautifully now

I received your package and thanks very much Viking, and welcome back.

You are welcome bro -- and I see they have modified the Hoppen Island mission so I'll have to give it another go!

Back from a brief vacation.

U-201, KK W.Schulz commanding
Patrol 36
LOG (excerpts)

Notation- after our foray into the icy bleakness of arctic waters with moderate success, U-201 is transferred back to France, this time based out of La Rochelle. We've lost some experienced crew a long the way, two to tuberculosis, and three to disciplinary breeches. Replacement crew are, obviously, inexperienced but seem to have taken to life aboard our boat. WS, cmd.

Summary 27 April 1942; U-201 successfully placed a vital weather station along the Labrador coastline. Lt. Hoffman lead the shore party, which consisted of Chief Weber, PO Buchbaum, and six ratings. They spent several hours ashore scouting the BDU suggested area and determined a decent locale for the weather station to be set out. While the engineers were busy bolting the equipment together, U-201's bridge watch spotted funnel smoke over the horizon. Given it was a few minutes past noon in bright sunshine (!) we went to periscope depth. Hydrophone picked up three sets of screws some 10-20km east of us. All were deemed to be approaching, one especially fast. I ordered the boat to 20 meters in order to rest on the bottom and we went silent. My crew is fairly well disciplined in silent running so we elected to run the red lighting instead of the nerve inducing blue. The one fast vessel was determined to be a motor torpedo boat and it was consistently halting, then racing ahead, halting and waiting. The two larger vessels did not enter the large bay but slowly traversed it across the mouth, sailing south to north as per our combat plots. The MTB came as close as five km but failed to locate us, or spot the shore party through the thick forest. We sat on the bottom until 2315h when determining that the evening darkness would provide enough cover we surfaced.

Instead of raising the shore party by radio, I used the signal lamp to contact Lt. Hoffman's group. They tested the radio transmitter signals and we received a brief weather report. All I could hope for was the enemy patrol vessels had no huff duff interceptor capability.

Shore party returned in their rubber boats and we stowed all the equipment away. Hoffman was glad to be back aboard, immediately heading for the galley and a plate of hot food. Ordered to return to La Rochelle, U-201 slipped away from the rugged coastline and sailed home to port, arriving 27 April at 1235h. WS cmd.

That's a good mission to do. Forgive me if you are already aware of this... Upon U-201s return to port, a new HQ project will be available. Improved Weather Forecasts or somesuch. Do this and gain a 15% passive fuel efficiency boost.

Did you do this with or without milk cow support?

Hi DB,

I managed the mission without access to a milk cow. That's something I haven't earned yet, and the primary reason I ignored any convoy action this patrol. Managed to get back to La Rochelle on fumes and with only a bit of food left in the storage lockers. Got the HQ mission to gain the Improved Weather Forecasts (I have the HQ stuff on Auto, taking it out of my hands) and I'm looking forward to the added fuel efficiency. For this long distance mission I reduced my two watch officer's need to be on the bridge/at the periscope setting the value to 4 on both fellows. Their Navigation duty was already set at 10 each. What this did was cause them to spend the majority of their time on watch at the navigation table. That effect on fuel efficiency, combined with the engineer (plus two helpers) gives me a decent fuel savings rating that stays active for the majority of the duty shift. Keeps my nav rating at 150% too.

With the Type IX dlc coming the range is a whole lot further. Apparently they were, however, slowwww as molasses on a cold day in January to dive below the surface.

Glad to see the Type IX is coming!

Nicely done Leaf, that's a long haul on one tank of gas.

I'm happy to see the IX coming too. But more so because it means things are going well, and the devs are thinking of adding to the sim. The boat itself doesn't excite me much. Matter of fact I think that with Milk Cow support, the VII is the better option, at least in dead is dead careers. Type IX is a death trap.

But I also suspect we will see new campaigns come with it, Indian Ocean and Penang, that sort of thing, and a Type IX (or U-cruiser) is going to be well suited to these operations. I wouldn't want to be doing convoy work in the North Atlantic in a IX for long I don't think.

Speaking of Type IX, I just finished reading the book Steel Boat, Iron hearts by a crewman aboard U-505 (which was captured and now is a museum attraction in Chicago). Good read this, and interesting especially for the second skipper Peter Zschech, who was a troubled man, and ended up shooting himself during a depth charge attack. A worthy addition to the library.

Yes, exactly. New DLC means ongoing development. Although I also like the idea of the IX for a different set of challenges and probably new missions. Steel Boat, Iron Hearts sounds good! I'm still experimenting with LUT and FAT, especially the LUT is an interesting animal. The info in UBOATPEDIA is a little limited but I'm learning by practice.

Having any success with the looping or pattern running? For me the pitfalls outweigh the advantages in a sense. I've had more miss by turning too early than I have hit after missing due to the loop or pattern. I only carry them because the torpedoes I really want are too few and I haven't the patience to wait for a full load.

I ran some scenarios during the week experimenting with LUT and FAT. FAT is fire and forget and you can use the same position setup as any standard torp. It basically just goes into a search pattern if you miss and I'm finding about 25% increased hit probability in a convoy scenario if I miss my shot. But remember that FAT comes in T1 and T3 variants (shorter range electric) and with either Pi2 or Pi3 pistols.
But LUT is a different animal. It requires more careful planning to use it right and you have to understand how all the angles work in order to set your shot correctly. Powerful program though. I ran a few tests and recorded them in case I got one I could use as a demo, but of course the best scenario, that really showed how powerful a weapon it is, I forgot to record! I'll keep trying though so I can put something on YOUTUBE. the demo up there now is pretty good but it could be simpler...

I have yet to hit anything on full realism(98% and zero map view) with torpedoes. I keep missing. Over and over. The closest I have come was three duds in a row. Three!