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-   -   Tell us what you are upto in your current campaign (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=151090)

Flaxpants 09-16-10 01:01 AM

Currently alongside the Corientes myself, enjoying some R&R (can't see you Herr Berbunch, you must be in a different bar). Then its back into the Straits of Gibraltar for another suicide mission!:woot:

reignofdeath 09-16-10 03:32 AM

Currently in my first career :) with only SH3 Commander however, Im going to download GWX 3.0 tommorow and see if my computer can handle it.

It is however 1940 and I have come across my first merchant in british waters while on my way to AM41.

Yes Im a n00b and do have auto targeting on but Ive been reading guides (especially this very nice one that illustrated) about how to manually target so Im trying my hand.

But back to whats at hand. My first merchant ship is abot 2000M off in the distance.. soo wish me luck? :yeah:

EDIT::o

Wow I need work, so I get close to the merchant, around 400m while at periscope depth, I lock on, get a decent solution, fire 1 eel, nada. Take a second shot. Nada again. A third almost yields a hit.. So close to her back end I could almost taste the steel. Yet No hit. So I fire a fourth. and miss yet again -_-.. by this point im frustrated and have no clue why my torpedos arent loaded into their tubes yet. after about a minute of watching the ship go left right, left and right again, I realize I need to man the torpedo rooms with men :o Lord im gonna get my men killed at sea:damn: So after they finally load an electric eel into the tube. I set the depth just below her draft, and for magnetic and fire. this time. Boom. I hit her right in the prop and stopped her dead in the water. I figure why waste another torp so I pull alongside her and deck gun her to death.... now onto my patrol grid :arrgh!: (although most of my sailors probably are looking like this toward their Herr Kapt right now --->:shifty::nope: :stare:except for bernard of course whose like so :yeah:) sorry for the long post .. I got excited :)

Herr-Berbunch 09-16-10 04:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith (Post 1494513)
Currently in my first career :) with only SH3 Commander however, Im going to download GWX 3.0 tommorow and see if my computer can handle it.

It is however 1940 and I have come across my first merchant in british waters while on my way to AM41.

Yes Im a n00b and do have auto targeting on but Ive been reading guides (especially this very nice one that illustrated) about how to manually target so Im trying my hand.

But back to whats at hand. My first merchant ship is abot 2000M off in the distance.. soo wish me luck? :yeah:

EDIT::o

Wow I need work, so I get close to the merchant, around 400m while at periscope depth, I lock on, get a decent solution, fire 1 eel, nada. Take a second shot. Nada again. A third almost yields a hit.. So close to her back end I could almost taste the steel. Yet No hit. So I fire a fourth. and miss yet again -_-.. by this point im frustrated and have no clue why my torpedos arent loaded into their tubes yet. after about a minute of watching the ship go left right, left and right again, I realize I need to man the torpedo rooms with men :o Lord im gonna get my men killed at sea:damn: So after they finally load an electric eel into the tube. I set the depth just below her draft, and for magnetic and fire. this time. Boom. I hit her right in the prop and stopped her dead in the water. I figure why waste another torp so I pull alongside her and deck gun her to death.... now onto my patrol grid :arrgh!: (although most of my sailors probably are looking like this toward their Herr Kapt right now --->:shifty::nope: :stare:except for bernard of course whose like so :yeah:) sorry for the long post .. I got excited :)

You need about 500m for the torpedo to arm but apart from that you seem to be doing just fine. GWX thoroughly recommended alongside Commander :yeah:

To quote the mighty Jimbuna, 'be more aggressive', and 'sink 'em all'! :D

K-61 09-16-10 06:54 AM

300 M is the distance required to arm. That is, the torpedo must sail at least 300 metres to arm, not be fired from 300 metres. Many new players focus on the second part, not the first. If a target is closing on you and you fire at 300 metres, the torpedo will dud because by the time it hits, the target has moved and brought the running distance under 300 metres. This consideration is of utmost importance, especially if you are trying to kill an escort that is closing on you. Alternatively, you could fire on a target that is under 300 M away if it is moving away from you. If you don't want to calculate time and distance, leave a healthy margin.

In my current campaign I am on patrol 3 of my latest career. I use the realistic career length option in SH3 Cmdr so I have none of this 41 patrols from 39 to 45 and 1.3 millon tons sort of thing. We are in March of '43 and finding those pesky flugzeugen to be a real pain the stern, having to always crash dive. Good thing I have a Biscay Cross, but I don't know how long that will work. I now have the upgraded turm on my VIIC so I have three flak guns and three flak trained gunners. I've only had to engage one plane so far, but that was in a previous career. Our current position is south of the Azores; we torpedoed a passenger/cargo with 2 eels and she still didn't sink, so I left that Greek to live as I did not wish to waste a 3rd. The escorts are becoming real pros now and have a few times frustrated me as I have attempted to get into firing position on a convoy. It is more difficult to get near the convoys due to shipborne radar, but not impossible; it simply requires more skill, patience and time.

Jimbuna 09-16-10 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch (Post 1494530)
You need about 500m for the torpedo to arm but apart from that you seem to be doing just fine. GWX thoroughly recommended alongside Commander :yeah:

To quote the mighty Jimbuna, 'be more aggressive', and 'sink 'em all'! :D

LOL :DL

Quote:

Originally Posted by K-61 (Post 1494621)
300 M is the distance required to arm. time.

Unless it is a Falke...they require a distance of 400 M

Herr-Berbunch 09-16-10 07:24 AM

Just when I think I've answered something correctly... :wah:

reignofdeath 09-16-10 07:31 AM

well hopefully Ill get somethin on this next patrol :) at least better than the last.

ediko 09-16-10 07:45 AM

Just docked at a milk cow since my patrol was interrupted by 2 b25's dropping bombs on my coning tower destroying the radar, both periscopes and severely flooding all other compartment's. Just when I thought it's safe I surfaced ordered flank speed and a crash dive because a PBY catalina has nothing better to do than waste bombs one me. At least she missed and I slowly went to the closest milk cow.

Pretty much my first encounters with aircraft and now I know what you guys were talking about.

Hans Uberman 09-16-10 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ediko (Post 1494664)
Pretty much my first encounters with aircraft and now I know what you guys were talking about.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...evil_plane.jpg
Planes are the devil!!

Weiss Pinguin 09-16-10 10:31 AM

I've had so many planes buzz me the last few patrols it's not even funny :nope: Once I took a dive, then came up too quickly - I quickly went under again with minor flooding and damage all along the hull. Took several days to get everything fixed up again...

ediko 09-16-10 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hans Uberman (Post 1494750)

Damn straight. But mine was all out blue... like the devil.... in Antarctica... or something :rotfl2:

K-61 09-16-10 11:43 AM

April 27th, 1943 and I have just returned to Brest. I now have 91,752 in tonnage. My outward transit across Biscay was interrupted several times by aircraft but my return transit was uneventful, thankfully. I suppose I will be shipping out in May, the month of slaughter of the U-boats. I shall be very, very careful from herein. A couple of times over the last few months I have had to break off pursuit of a convoy because the escorts are too dangerous. I hope my current Kaleun can earn a Knight's Cross before he is killed or retired.

ediko 09-16-10 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by K-61 (Post 1494859)
April 27th, 1943 and I have just returned to Brest. I now have 91,752 in tonnage. My outward transit across Biscay was interrupted several times by aircraft but my return transit was uneventful, thankfully. I suppose I will be shipping out in May, the month of slaughter of the U-boats. I shall be very, very careful from herein. A couple of times over the last few months I have had to break off pursuit of a convoy because the escorts are too dangerous. I hope my current Kaleun can earn a Knight's Cross before he is killed or retired.

Ah yes it's always sad to say good bye to your old Kaleun when his retired... or worse. I still remember my first one... more than 300k and he had loads of medals but then he retired and went on leading his own flotilla. The next two ... weren't so lucky ... Let's see how long this Kaleun will last.

K-61 09-16-10 02:39 PM

Now heading out for patrol 4 in May 43. Just installed the new flak vierling in addition to my twin 20's. Still, I will dive on sight of any plane. This is the month when things get very hot for us. Also removed the deck gun for historical accuracy. I may not even reload externals from this point on if aircraft become very problematic. I run at max 256 TC in order not to fubar the aircraft settings. I don't like getting jumped by planes, but I'm not playing historically if I exploit the time comrpession settings to avoid them. It's a pain running so slowly over long distances, but I put a movie on and keep one eye on the TV, the other on my boat.

MILLANDSON 09-16-10 06:29 PM

Here's my current campaign:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=531380

All in all, not going too badly, but it's been a quite few days at the moment, with no merchants spotted in 2 days...

Snestorm 09-16-10 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MILLANDSON (Post 1495147)
Here's my current campaign:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=531380

All in all, not going too badly, but it's been a quite few days at the moment, with no merchants spotted in 2 days...

Pretty cool report, and the people at your other site seemed realy cool too.

Snestorm 09-16-10 11:17 PM

U64 IXB. Patrol 8.
 
Departed Lorient on 17.JAN.42 with orders to recon Grid DJ13, thence proceed southward along the Freetown-England commerce lanes, and finaly proceed westward to the Caribeane Sea.

Current Date: 19.FEB.42
Current Location: Grid EE85 (East of Port Of Spain).
Fuel: 78%
Torpedoes: 0 Expended. 14 Remaining.
No contacts of any kind thus far.

(Will continue to operate in early war mode, until we learn of aircraft borne radar the hard way. I hope we survive the lesson, but to suddenly begin traveling submerged at night prior to being attacked, would be a non-historic "competitive edge" I shan't employ.)

VONHARRIS 09-17-10 05:50 AM

U 126 IXC
 
Start date: 05 Dec 1939
Current date : 01 Aug 1941
Types used: U 124 IXB
U 126 IXC (current)
Situation : At port after mission Lorient 2nd flottila
Next mission : Grid CF86 SEARCH AND DESTROY (Doom)
Tonnage so far : 855.234 GRT
Patrols : 16 , 408 days at sea.
Objective: Survive the war.
GWX3.0 + SH3 Commander

frau kaleun 09-19-10 03:14 PM

Well, grid AM53 turned out to be just as much as fun as I'd hoped. :stare: :O:

Managed to sink one smallish freighter there, lol, but aside from that... the only other merchant we got a visual on may have seen us as well and reported our position because we soon found ourselves under attack by a lone destroyer while trying to take up a parallel course outside of visual range in order to overtake her.

Our only other sightings in our initial patrol grid were also destroyers, two of whom also graced us with enough of their loving attention to keep us running silent and as deep as possible for much of our time there. Thankfully "as deep as possible" turned out to be deep enough, even though 100m was about as deep as we could safely get during any of the attacks and that was pushing it.

If nothing else, ordering a crash dive and then leveling off at 70m with <5m of water left beneath the keel and a pesky Tribal class revving up for a depth charge run in one's immediate vicinity certainly gets the heart pumping!

But I must say, the ASW tactics we encountered seemed fairly lackluster; never more than one DD on us at a time, and after 2-3 attack runs they all seemed to lose interest and move on, or lose track of us entirely judging by all the ashcans exploding further and further astern of us as we made our escape. Not that I'm complaining! :D

Only once did they get near enough to cause any damage, and that was the one time when we were in water just deep enough to get the repairs done and still stay clear of additional punishment until going silent again. :yeah:

I took some shots at the DDs when I had decent position and range before getting detected and/or going deep, but if any of them hit at all they were duds or else the Tommies saw them coming and their evasive maneuvers proved more effective than their subsequent attempts at destroying us. Six months ago I could run at p-depth and lure a distant DD into giving chase and then blow it out of the water with a well-timed stern shot - but not this time. They are getting smarter in that respect.

No aircraft, though! Which was kinda surprising. But we had very little clear weather while in that close, so maybe that explains it. I did expect a little love from coastal command, especially when it seemed like our position had been reported.

Our one success in AM53 was with a hydrophone contact we picked up while patrolling the western edge of the grid; a second sound contact pulled us into AM52 where we had another sucessful attack. At that point we had two eels left in the bow plus our external reserves, and since the weather seemed to be in a cooperative mood we headed further out into the Atlantic in the hopes of getting the externals transferred without undue harrassment.

No sooner had this bit of housekeeping been accomplished than we got report of a convoy heading, no doubt, for the upper Western Approaches; their reported course had them running NNW, almost directly into our path. As we turned south to find them ourselves the weather turned foul; by the time night fell and we were nearing our projected intercept point, the darkness and driving rain had cut our visual range to 2km or less.

Submerging to 40m and checking the 'phones we found we had indeed come very near the starboard edge of the advancing convoy; the lead escort was already several km north of us, the starboard screen had been well and truly penetrated without our even having tried. We got a read on the ships in the nearest column, came to periscope depth, and turned slowly into attack position.

I could barely get a visual on the ships about to cross our path, but was finally able to make out three of them - two smallish freighters and, eventually, a much larger vessel coming into view behind them. I fired one eel at the second of the small freighters, and then waited for the larger prey; that one got a spread from the last two available fore tubes. All three eels hit and detonated as I turned hard to starboard, waiting for any indication of response by the escorts and preparing to point my stern tube at the column should a parting gift be required.

The smaller target didn't require it; we'd hit something vital judging by the series of explosions that soon followed the eel's detonation. The larger vessel slowed a bit as we continued to shadow the column, and small fires could be seen here and there on deck, but aside from slight list she was still making way although turning gradually to port. Unfortunately her slow alteration in course was also bringing her right into position for the parting gift I'd been contemplating. The third eel sealed her fate.

By then the escorts had begun a slow if sure convergence towards the scene of the crime, but by the time they got within anything resembling visual range, we were diving at flank speed on a course that would put us directly underneath the rest of the convoy. We never heard so much as a ping from their ASDIC. We leveled off at 120m and went silent, listening on the 'phones as the entire flock made the turn east towards Britain and home. A couple of escorts stayed behind for short while, circling the attack location in ever-widening orbits and, once the columns were clear of the area, forlornly dropping ashcans in a section of ocean now thoroughly devoid of u-boats. When they gave up and left to rejoin the convoy we slowly returned to the surface, fired off a report to BdU, and began our own long journey home.

frau kaleun 09-19-10 03:53 PM

The final report

U-51 2 U-Flotilla Saltzwedel
Kptlt Kurt Dennert, Commander

Patrol 8

July 16, 1940, 04:20
Departed: Wilhelmshaven
Mission Orders: Patrol grid AM53

July 21, 1940, 13:30
Grid AF75
Ship sunk: SS Uritski (Small Merchant), 2587 tons
Cargo: General Cargo
Crew/lost: 33/17

July 28, 1940, 22:03
Grid AM53
Ship sunk: SS GreenIsland (Great Lakes Freighter), 1841 tons
Cargo: Coal
Crew/lost: 26/2

July 29, 1940, 21:02
Grid AM52
Ship sunk: Q Ship HMS Edgehill (Small Freighter), 2082 tons
Crew/lost: 77/26

July 31, 1940, 22:19
Grid AM45
Ship sunk: Q Ship HMS Looe (Small Freighter), 2365 tons
Crew/lost: 76/37

July 31, 1940, 22:28
Grid AM45
Ship sunk: SS Fort Good Hope (Empire-type Freighter), 7750 tons
Cargo: General Cargo
Crew/lost: 71/33

August 9, 1940, 02:12
Arrived: Wilhelmshaven
Crew losses: 0
Ships sunk: 5
Aircraft destroyed: 0
Patrol tonnage: 16625 tons

Awards: Oberleutnant (Ing.), Hans Woiwode, Iron Cross First Class; Oberfähnrich z. See (Ing.) Ulrich Kaeding, Iron Cross Second Class.

Promotions: Leutnant z. See Hermann Schneider, to Oberleutnant z. See; Bootsmann Josef Girndt, to Stabsbootsmann; Bootsmann Fritz Hamann, to Stabsbootsmann; Matrosenobergefreiter Kurt Augat, to Matrosenhauptgefreiter; Matrosenobergefreiter Hans Ludwig, to Matrosenhauptgefreiter; Matrosengefreiter Johann Bollmann, to Matrosenobergefreiter.

Oberleutnant z. See Josef Weissenburger will be leaving U-51 in order to prepare for his own command; he has been a capable and reliable first officer and will no doubt prove equally worthy of the additional responsibility soon to be placed on his shoulders. Our newly promoted Oberleutnant z. See Hermann Schneider will now take over as 1WO, while Leutnant z. See Johannes Hutterer will begin serving as U-51's 2WO effective immediately.

Bootsmann Heinrich Kern and Matrosenhauptgefreiter Ernst Mai have also departed our ranks to receive additional technical training. Already posted to serve aboard U-51 are Oberfähnrich z. See Peter Hollbach and Bootsmann Gerhard Lehmann, who will begin their respective duties immediately and join us on our next patrol.


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