First war patrol U-201

[Markus Witt]

I’ve just completed the first war patrol with U-201 in my new dead is dead career. U-201 set out from Kiel on 16 April 1941 for her maiden voyage into the Atlantic with a return to new home base St. Nazaire.

During the patrol I kept a war diary in the style of the real KTB outside of the game. I also kept a chart outside the game to plot my progress. I did this by recording all relevant data in the in-game journal and saving it after each playing session. I would normally play from noon-to-noon and save the game after 1 or 2 days. After saving I then copy-pasted the chart and saved it by alt-tabbing out of the game so that I could then update the progress in a copy of a KM gridmap. After that I also copy-pasted the relevant journal pages so that I could then update patrol log and chart outside the game.

The way I play is 100% “realism” (whatever that means, whatever works for you I guess) without any map updates. By that I mean a completely empty map, so own position is not shown on the map. That means I basically navigate by dead reckoning. I only occasionally use celestial navigation (done by the navigation officer), only during twilight and if the weather is good. (Since the map updates are disabled no position mark appears after requesting a fix, but there is still the small dark circle. I have set this circle to stay visible for 5 minutes so I have time to record my position.) I have set the max error for celestial fixes to 12000m, about 6.5 nM, which I think is reasonable.

If I haven’t had a position update for some time I role a dice. Good weather requires a 6 for a fix, perfect weather a 5 or a 6. This way you sometimes have no position update for a week and you depend on your own dead reckoning. This sounds more complicated than it is since dead reckoning in this game is highly simplified and easy to do. During this patrol that lasted 27 days I only took 5 celestial fixes and the maximum deviation from my DR position was 11.1 nM.
The dead reckoning by navigation officer I do not use. In the OptionsFileEditorViewer I set the max error% to 99999 to render it useless.

Personal rules:
1. Dead is dead
2. Small convoy reports are ignored (usually unescorted, not realistic)
3. Recognition manual is not used. Target data acquired by plotting, ausdampfen and estimation.
4. Use mostly G7e torpedoes (more difficult in game as you need to get closer)
5. No submerged atacks during (deep) darkness as periscopes were pretty useless IRL during dark nights

In the next few posts I will share the war diary of this patrol with relevant attack plots and maps. Can’t put them directly in the posts so I have to use attachments. Since maximum file size is quite low I hope that everything is properly readable. Perhaps some of you find it interesting to read through the log.

[Markus Witt]

On 16 April 1941 U-201 departs Kiel under command of Oberleutnant zur See Alexander Witt for her first war patrol. Mission orders are to head out into the Atlantic and patrol the area around grid AK59. After this patrol the new home base will be St. Nazaire.
U-201 transits the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal and heads into the North Sea. Proceeding along the Norwegian coast she enters the North Atlantic passing between the Faröer Islands and Iceland. The voyage into the Atlantic is uneventful. Two vessels are encountered off the Norwegian coast, which turn out to be friendly. No aeroplanes are sighted as a safe distance to the Shetlands is maintained.

[Markus Witt]

Once the North Atlantic is reached U-201 heads south towards the convoy routes with the intention to follow them towards grid AK 59. On her way there a contact report is received of a large enemy convoy south of Rockall bank.

[Markus Witt]

After the attack U-201 reloads torpedoes and heads back to re-establish contact with the convoy with the intention to carry out a second night surface attack.

[Markus Witt]

After the second attack on the convoy U-201 moves away. After unsuccessfully chasing after a fast convoy, another convoy is reported within reach.

[Markus Witt]

After last the convoy attack U-201 is low on torpedoes. She proceeds towards her patrol area to take up weather station duties (own imagination). After being released from weather reporting duties U-201 sets off for home. Besides some heavy weather the return voyage is mostly uneventful, no ships are encountered and reported convoys are not pursued because only the sterntube is available. U-201 arrives safely in St. Nazaire on the 12th of May.

[Markus Witt]

Some pictures of U-201 during heavy weather in the North Atlantic. Taken without external camera. If you don't know then try to figure out how I did this.

[Markus Witt]

Final summary of the war patrol by Kommandant and BdU plus the Wegekarte of the entire patrol and a detail plan showing were the convoy attacks took place.
The GIF showing the daily progress on the map is too big so can’t be included unfortunately.

[Markus Witt]

Final thoughts. Playing this way is quite slow and it involves a bit of work. But the slow pace and effort put into it means you really want to survive, which affects your decision making and I find this quite immersive. Now, if only we had a proper U-boat simulation that would allow for this type of play. We can only dream.

Played with TWoS 2.2.24. Made possible by Vecko and all other modders involved in making this game playable.



Edit: I think the KTB pages are just about clear enough to be readable. If not let me know.

[kapuhy]

Reading through your KTB now, and wow I'm impressed

It looks just like a real thing, complete with notes on various events not recreated in game like preparations before patrol, and the style of writing is also like in real KTB's I've seen. If you've tossed it into uboatarchive.net you could probably fool most readers

So, I'll be rooting for Alexander Witt and hope to read more patrol reports from him.

On images: image size for your KTB entries is just fine, if you wanted to post something larger - I've been using Imgur to post images in my Subsim posts and so far never had problems with it.

And if you want to take the roleplaying one step further for your next patrols, you might consider having some fellow Subsimmers act as Doenitz as far as patrol review page is considered

[Markus Witt]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

It looks just like a real thing, complete with notes on various events not recreated in game like preparations before patrol, and the style of writing is also like in real KTB's I've seen. If you've tossed it into uboatarchive.net you could probably fool most readers

Yeah, it is directly modelled after the KTB's from uboatarchive.net, both in appearance and style. The actual log is just an Excel file with the header a photo copy-pasted from an actual KTB found there. The two lines running down are seperate (very thin) photos to give the illusion that text is typed over them as was done sometimes IRL. Background colour in the file matches the page colour on uboatarchive.net so that various stamps can be copied so that they appear as real stamps. Pretty simplistic really, but that's the best I can do.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

So, I'll be rooting for Alexander Witt and hope to read more patrol reports from him.

Alexander Witt will go out on patrol again the near future. See how long he can last, dead is dead.

Originally Posted by kapuhy

And if you want to take the roleplaying one step further for your next patrols, you might consider having some fellow Subsimmers act as Doenitz as far as patrol review page is considered

Anybody is free to write there opinion on this patrol! Don't hold back! The review I wrote is partly copied from a actual review. In that review the commander was complimened for NOT being intimidated by the escorts and attacking agressively regardless. Since I fired a few G7e beyond maximum range, I gave a slightly different twist to it. Since this actual review mentions a succesful first trip and two convoys being atacked I thought it was fitting to use it.

[Rwearjr]

Oblt Witt:

Excellent work on your first patrol.
The Fatherland is proud of you and your fine crew.
Looking forward to many successes in your future endeavors.
May the enemies of Germany tremble at the mention of your name.
-B.D.U.

[derstosstrupp]

I’m surprised I didn’t come across this sooner. Really wish there was more of this style of play going around, great work and an absolute joy to read.

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by derstosstrupp

I’m surprised I didn’t come across this sooner. Really wish there was more of this style of play going around, great work and an absolute joy to read.

Check out second and third patrol of the same author in separate threads. And I agree, great read and I hope for long and succesfull career for U-201.

[TheNolan]

These are really cool. I've been waiting for a new one but I didn't think to check for old ones like this 👍