although I usually raid harbors when im board you sir are daring, ive never successfully made it into portsmouth with out a CTD or being stopped on the way in and having to out run them underwater (XII)or be depth charged.

U-45 IXB New Career
 

I ditched my VIIB career. I can not adopt to this type.
I missed my IX B/C.
Anyway new career

Patrol 1 shakedown

Patrol 2 results

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/859/patrol2results.jpg


Patrol log page 1 of 2

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/5...l2page1of2.jpg


Patrol log page 2 of 2

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/8...l2page2of2.jpg

Well its October 1941 and I have been stationed at St Nazaire since the start of the war. I was on my way up to the North Atlantic and I get a message from BDU... "Make your way to La Spezia for transfer to blablabla flottila.".... Not impressed... Feels like Das Boot lol. :DL Oh well... So, who thinks im gonna make it through Gibraltar Straight? Or will I be depth charged to Davey Jones locker?

Well I made it to La Spezia but now it says return to St Nazaire on my objectives... What did I do wrong? Why haven't I been transferred to this flotilla? Wish I had just ignored Bdu and continued back to St Nazaire... Does this mean I will have to try to get back to St Nazaire again?

It is early November 1941, U 48 is at KM grid CF 98.
17,000grt off a large merchant and a Liberty ship-both sailing solo.
Weather has turned awful! Seven days so far of rain and rough seas. One small convoy heard, but I was unable to find it-more worried about a radar equiped escort coming out of the gloom at 500 meters or less with no chance to evade.

Day 8: I DID IT!! Sank 3 Tribal class destroyers and two merchants in Portsmouth! And hugged the coast all the way back to St Nazaire! After a re-fit and refuel I was awarded a medal! Hooray!
Day 11 *end of refit*
Just got new orders. To patrol the grid square next to the infamous Scapa flow.
My plan is to patrol the square and then pay Scapa a visit!
Day 14: Started patrolling the grid square. Encountered an unarmed large cargo ship. Sank it with the deck gun. No activity after that.
Day 15: Scapa Flow: Before I even reached Scapa had a VERY close call with 3 destroyers. After slowly making my way up to Scapa at 2knts I went through the netting and sank a juicy aircraft carrier and 3 destroyers. Now making my way back to base!

As my ship yard is running low on IX boats and full to the rim with VII Boats I have decided on using them for a change. April 1940 4 passenger ships and one Battleship sent to the bottom, with less ells I have to be more picky at what I target and boy did I target the big stuff. :DL

February 8th, 1941

U-108:
Aft tubes inoperable. Attempts to unjam doors failed. Requesting permission to return to Lorient.

BdU:
Report back to base. Attack the enemy if opportunity presents itself.

- - - - - -

February 13th, 1941

U-108:
Convoy. CG9473. Eastbound, 5 knots. Count about 30 ships, at least 3 escorts. Visibility 5000 meters and diminishing.

BdU:
No boats are in the immediate vicinity. Attack while weather permits.

U-108:
Fired two torpedoes at Town class cruiser, two at large steamship, estimated 6000 tons. Two explosions, sinkings not witnessed. Out of internal torpedoes. Rain, high winds.

Lost sound
 

I havent been doing anything because I lost all my audio on the game on Windows 7 its bullcrap.

Patrol 7, sank HMS Nelson off the coast of Norway, was escorted by 9 destroyers, depth charged at 142 meters for 1 1/2 hours got away without a scratch.
Patrol 9, found large convoy near rockall, sank HMS Nelson (again! is this supposed not to happen) which was in the middle of the convoy. When I returned to Kiel changed name in log to HMS Rodney.
Patrol 10, sank HMS Rodney! travelling in the middle of another convoy, oh well they all count. I'd love to find the Ark Royal, never seen any mention of it , is it missing from the game?

My current Captain, Oberleutnant z.s. Karl Drost, in U107 (an IXB) has just returned off his fourth patrol (August 1941). We spent 51 days at sea.

We set off from Lorient on July 6th, and encountered a tiny convoy coming back from Gibralter. Avoided the escort and fired three eels - two hit a large merchant and the other missed a tramp steamer. The large merchant sank in a little under 7 minutes and U107 was depth charged for around 40 minutes, before we lost the escort and slunk away.

That was the last enemy ship we saw for a long time. U107 came across two Japanese ships and several American ships, but no targets.

Then on the August 21st (!) we finally picked up a sound contact, chased it and managed to get into a firing position and sent 4 eels at a Modern Tanker in very rough weather. Three premature detonations later, my T1 struck her in the engine room and she sank in about 10 minutes.

Then, moving East U107 ran into a convoy. 6 eels fired at 0142 with two hits, 3 premature detonations and 1 miss. Two Empire Freighters sunk.

U107 continued to follow the convoy, darting ahead and at 0818 we were spotted by a Black Swan Class - as she charged us, U107 turned, fled and fired both stern tubes at her. One eel hit and HMS Flamingo sank in 4 minutes. We reloaded in time to be chased by another Black Swan 20 minutes later. Used the same tactic and an eel struck her in the side - HMS Lark sank in less than two minutes.

Thank goodness for a rough sea - few near misses but we survived. At this point U107 slipped away and decided to regain contact later.

Two hours later, we fired a full load (bow and stern tubes) at the convoy and sank a large Tanker and a Large Merchant. Escaped completely unharmed.

As we fled back towards Lorient (one torpedo left) we ran into a lone Medium Cargo and managed to get in close and struck her with our last eel. She stayed afloat for well over an hour but finally sank.

Karl Drost and U107 sank 60774 tons.:yeah: I'll take another 51 day cruise for that amount!!

Well, my last patrol ended in near disaster.

Here I was being too eager to sink a ship in bad weather that I lost all my aft torpedo's. I continued to my designated area when all of a sudden I was under attack.

In terrible weather, visibility around 250-300m I ended up in a convoy and a flower class destroyer decided to do some target practice on me.

I did manage to hit him with 1 eel but it couldnt arm itself before hitting target.

With my ship being beaten up I went to 100m and snuck out and limped back home.

http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/w...n/report09.png

this was a carefully planed invasion of Scapa Flow, showing that even with their "new" defense systems England's ports are still vulnerable!

November 1940, out of St. Nazaire. 1st patrol after coming back to GWX and enjoying it immensely. No sightings in my assigned area near Spain, so moved south towards Freetown. Sighted by a trawler and PT boat. Dived and annoyed by some very accurate DC's from it. Continued into the shipping lanes and just bagged a big solo freighter.

You still can't beat this classic for straightforward gameplay, attention to detail and atmosphere.

First 5 patrols...
 

All right, my first time reporting in this thread and I'm going to summarize my first 5 patrols of Kaleun Jürgen Schrader, 7th Flotilla, in command of U-48, a Type VIIB.


First patrol, December 1939. I was sent to BF48. The trip around the British Isles in order to get there was rather eventful, as I could rack up close to 40,000 tons in two convoy encounters + a few lone merchants. Reached patrol grid with just 4 eels to spare, patrolled for a few days, then went home.
Ships sunk: 12; Patrol tonnage: 61001 tons (my best ever single patrol since playing at 100% realism :rock:)


2nd patrol, January 1940. Assigned to grid BF18. A usually juicy grid, except I never made it there, due to two convoy encounters in which I expended all my eels.
The second convoy attack turned out great: I positioned myself ahead and starboard of the convoy, let the lead escort pass me by, then started singling out targets. Oh, by the way, it was mid-day... a little reckless I suppose, but made it far easier to spot and shoot from afar.
I notice that a warship sound contact is making an unfamiliar noise. Zero in the attack scope on that bearing, zoom in... a Revenge class. Yay!!! Forget that medium tanker I had painted a big red X upon earlier, my 4 eels are going to Mr. Revenge. 3 T1, 1 T2. 2 set on impact, 4m deep, 2 set on magnetic, just 1 meter below draft. Launched all four 8 seconds apart, targeting different parts of the ship. 3 hits! The fourth one was set too deep and didn't detonate. Time to dive deep. Played cat and mouse for 2 hours with the lead escort who had circled back onto me. In the meantime, the Revenge sank around 30 minutes after being hit.

The sad part? I only realized after the whole episode that the lead escort was that convoy's only escort !! I could have had a go at it while it passed in front of me and had the whole convoy to myself ! :damn: I guess that means better scouting and intelligence next time around...

Anyway, triumphant return home (my first battleship kill, allow me to celebrate :woot: Sorry, HMS Royal Sovereign), 52880 tons. Only a little disappointed that I don't get more renown than in my 1st patrol. But hey, I got medals :D!


3rd patrol, March 1940. Assigned to grid AM97. That's again a long way around.

North of Scotland I encounter and sink a lone coastal freighter. Then it's aircraft alert upon aircraft alert. At one point, I decide not to crash-dive but have a closer look at what aircraft is coming my way. Looks like a biplane. A Swordfish. OK, I'm going to let my flak gunner have a go at this. The guy just got transferred and he has to justify that flak gunner qualification somehow. To my surprise, he shoots down all 3 Swordfish that were coming at us! They didn't even get close.

An hour later, another aircraft sighting. Have a look... Swordfish again. Let's do this, shall we? 3 more Swordfish downed :arrgh!:

Another hour passed by, another aircraft sighting. That was the time too many... This time my flak gunner did shoot them all down again, except the last one made it all the way and dropped 3 bombs onto our deck (I swear I gulped down hard in RL when I saw those bombs leave the plane). Flak gunner and 1WO dead, both periscopes, hydrophone, aft batteries destroyed, hull damaged and bad flooding.
We barely fixed the boat up on time. After assessment of the damage, I decided it was pointless to continue with this patrol and crawled back home with all remaining 44 crew members keeping all fingers and toes crossed for no more aircraft attacks. That's a lot of fingers crossed, by the way.
We made it. 59% hull integrity, 2 good crew lost. That will teach me a lesson in humility in dealing with the RAF...

4th patrol, May1940. Assigned to grid AN55. Mmm, that's a little close to the British shore to my liking, plus there is not a whole lot of water to play in there. We make it to the patrol grid. Weather is terrible, zero visibility, so I decide the best way to pick up any target is to submerge and listen. Bad idea. 6 hours after submerging, we struck a mine while cruising at 2 knots. The boat is all orange and red, minor to extensive damage in almost every compartment. What saved us is the shallowness of the sea here: we bottomed down at 77m. Took 20 minutes to fix up everything, after which we timidly attempted to go up, using compressed air only (too scared to move in any direction and hit another mine). Damage was even more extensive than in the last patrol, couldn't even radio back to BdU. We crept back home under cover of the bad weather and spent 5 weeks in port fixing U-48 up.

5th patrol, July 1940. Assigned to AN59. Mmm, what is it with the British Eastern seaboard? Anyways... that's orders, right?
We make it there, only to find 15m/s winds and zero visibility. We get a convoy report, attempt to intercept, but in the meantime it changes course and goes into Hull. We retreat back to AN59, dive to PD and listen. Sound contact. At last! 4-bearing method, we get into position 500m from the projected course. Can't see anything, so will have to shoot based on bearing callouts from my sonarman. Torpedo los! I use the event camera in this patrol, which gives me the joy to see my torpedo go under the target :down: - whatever it was (couldn't make it out on the event camera). It must have been a small boat, as the torp was set at 4m deep. Perhaps a tugboat or something.
Anyway, with this weather, impossible to use the deck gun, and I'm not going to waste another torpedo for a target this size, so back to listening.
Next day, contact! Freighter, moving slow. OK, hopefully this is when my luck turns for the better. 4-bearing method, we get into position. Something is amiss, though. My sonarman keeps calling out bearings, but I can't hear anything myself on the hydrophones. And impossible to get a visual in this pea soup. I guess I'll just trust my SO. Again, we shoot based on hydrophone bearing, this time with 2.5m depth setting.
10 seconds to impact, 5 seconds... the event camera shows the torpedo going under .... a sailboat :damn: Who would be sailing here, 150km from shore in 300m visibility fog and 15m/s wind???? Arrgh, anyway, I resisted the urge to surface and ram the thing, and went back into position, hoping for something better.

Will report soon on the outcome of patrol 5....

This career had started so well with over 110K tons in the first 2 patrols, but bad decisions and bad luck have taken a toll on the crew's morale. Hopefully something good will happen soon...