First war patrol U-201

Markus Witt · 05-22-21, 03:26 AM

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.

05-22-21, 03:26 AM	#1
Markus Witt Navy Dude Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: AN8563 Posts: 171 Downloads: 309 Uploads: 0	First war patrol U-201 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. Last edited by Markus Witt; 05-22-21 at 05:26 AM.