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Xenoborg posted:The game looks really cool, but is the only way to play it to buy the $150 box set? The Vassal version seems to be (purposefully) missing key information to actually play the game. Pretty much. It's the same with Silent War, this game's predecessor by the same company. Also, good to see you back and LP'ing, Xenocides! Been looking forward to this one.
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Sep 10, 2014 00:34
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That's a shame. Wish they would sell a vassal edition with just the missing charts for something like $30. I can't justify spending over a hundred when all I care about are a few pieces of paper.
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Sep 10, 2014 03:04
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Xenoborg posted:The game looks really cool, but is the only way to play it to buy the $150 box set? The Vassal version seems to be (purposefully) missing key information to actually play the game. At this point pretty much yes. I got it for about $70 when it first came out. The game was designed for Vassal. The playtesters pretty much all used it. The charts were left out. Trying to play it physically would in my opinion be a nightmare. I tried it once with Silent War and gave up early and that only had six random draw cups. Steel Wolves has 11 where I am right now (Loner, Outer Convoy, Inner Convoy, Center Convoy, British TF Escort, British TF Center, French TF Escort, French TF Center, Liner cup, Sub cup, TDC Cup) and that is going to drop a bit when the French leave and then shoot back up when the Soviets, the US and the Western regions get their own cups for almost everything. I wouldn't even try this LP without dual screens. Serpentis posted:Pretty much. It's the same with Silent War, this game's predecessor by the same company. Sadly a lot of wargames you have to buy early or the price shoots up. They tend to be in relatively limited runs. I paid just over $70 for "Where There is Discord" and last I saw it was going for over $120. I have paid more then I wanted to for some of my games. Two weeks into the current turn. Am going to try to finish at least one more week tonight and maybe both. Xenocides fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 03:57
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October 1939 With the early victories of the U-boats at sea British Naval leaders went into a panic. Large naval funding bills ran through Parliament authorizing the construction of additional escorts and merchant marine ships. It remained to be seen whether the Germans could keep this up. BDU was dealing with its own problems. With little advance notice for the war many of the U-boats needed refitting and the size of the fleet shrinks as boats are pulled off the line. BDU is expected to continue to sink as it has been and the admirals look askance at the fleet and wonder if it can be done. The phony war continues on the Western front as French and German troops stare at each other over the Maginot line with the occasional anemic air battle. Objectives Ships Sunk: 17/25/33/41/50 Tonnage Sunk: 66k/97k/128k/159k/194k The ship requirement went up and the tonnage requirement went down. I tailor my attacks towards the end of the month based on what I need more. If I need tonnage I will take lower probability shots at bigger targets. If I need ships I start taking the easiest shots even if tonnage is low. Also found out I had been running the base procedure wrong. Turns out if you advance from Pierside to Ready for Sea you can also leave that turn. This means that five Type IIs could have sailed in the last week of last month. Not a huge deal as I hit my quotas and this may be to my advantage as they had no chance of having to head home and not being able to patrol this month. ________________________________________________________________________ Strategic Segment Political Action With the early promise shown by the U-boat arm BDU presses a case to acquire additional steel and other materials to speed construction of the U-boat fleet. The Wehrmacht insists they need the material to construct tanks and the Luftwaffe presses their case for more planes and ground equipment while the Navy insists they need more materials to finish their capital ships. BDU points out that both branches can spare what they need and still defeat the French and that Great Britain is the greater threat and while a larger navy may help only the sub fleet can starve Britain as the Kaiser almost did two decades ago. The Fuhrer steps in. We buy OKW to +2 and the OKL to +1.  We spend one prestige and need a 4 or less and roll is a "1". The Fuhrer authorizes the requested transfers to the chagrin of everyone else and the Fuhrer is annoyed at being drawn into the petty infighting. We now roll 2d10 and the total is how many more months it takes for the material to start getting us boats early. We could theoretically roll two zeroes and get the boats this month but it is doubtful. Rolls are 5 and 3 so in 8 months we start getting all U-boats two months early so June 1940. With the new material rolling in BDU expects the first sped up construction to arrive in a larger group in Summer of 1940 but BDU has shot a lot of political capital and needs to rebuild support.  War Event and War Progress Week 1: No Event. Week 2: No Event. Week 3: The Fuhrer is convinced the British are going to invade Norway. 14 U-boats (only 8 can be Type II) must be deployed to the N Sea and Norwegian Sea to oppose the nonexistent invasion. They are to ignore single merchants and hunt for convoys and task forces only. War Events are mostly bad in this game. I count only one good event in War Period 1 and that is a minor benefit. This is probably the worst event and can fortunately only happen once. Most of my kills are loners right now and this means a week of nothing but convoy hunting which will cost kills and tonnage. I can try to cancel it but success is a -1 to the navy and a -2 with the Chancellory. Defying the Fuhrer is always a Level 3 (the highest) difficulty request. We can only make one reaction request a turn so if I try it and there is an event next week I am stuck with it. Still, this is bad and will probably cost 2-3 victory points so I am going to make the attempt. Need to roll a 1 or less. Rolled an 8 and failed. Failures fortunately cost nothing on reaction requests. BDU protests the order knowing this will cost kill numbers and doubting the veracity of the reports in any case. The Fuhrer insists and though BDU probably cannot scrounge together the full 14 boats they will have to send everything they can. Everything at sea and not heading home except for U-25 off Morocco has to patrol and everything that passes readiness will have to join either the N Sea or Norwegian Sea defense. Week 4: No Event. Whew. Torpedo Improvement Week 1: Need 80 ships to roll, currently at 61. Week 2: Still have not met threshold. Week 3: Reached 86 kills and passed first two thresholds so need an 8+ to improve. Rolled a 4. Week 4: Thanks to the Fuhrer's idiocy we did not make the next threshold. Intelligence Week 1: Intel on the N Sea. Should help the boats about to head out. Week 2: Intel on the N Sea again but no Task Force information this week. Week 3: Intel on the N Sea again. Might help to find a convoy. Week 4: Intel on the N Sea again. Can't complain I guess. Weather Week 1: Bad weather in the Carribean and really bad weather in the Grand Banks, neither matter. Week 2: Bad weather in S Africa, the Carribean, and the Maritimes. Irrelevant. Week 3: Bad weather in Guiana Basin, the US East Coast, and Bermuda. Irrelevant. Week 4: Bad weather in S Africa, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Greenland Gap. Irrelevant. Aircraft Assignment Still don't have any. ________________________________________________________________________ Reinforcements and Withdrawals A new Type IA U-25 (the second and last of the class) and the Type IXA U-42 with an ace skipper arrive in Germany ready to sail. And we pull in a ton of boats for refit IIA: U-3, U-4 IIB: U-9, U-10, U-14, U-17 VIIA: U-30, U-32, U-36 VIIB: U-52 So we gain 2 boats and lose 10 (43 down to 35). Of course they did not take any damaged boats in for refit. That would make too much sense. They even took one of the two boats at at sea that would still be on patrol and two of the boats ready to head to sea. I'm convinced the refit list is drawn up by a Navy guy who thinks if we hadn't taken the war material he would be commanding the Graf Zeppelin or something. Some turns also add or remove enemy forces. This turn the two Polish subs Orzel and Wilk are removed as they were sent to Britain or sunk by U-boats. They come back in a few months.  The Orzel is a pretty nice sub with 12 torpedo tubes! I would love to add her to our navy. This is what really happened to the Orzel in the real war: The Orzel is unable to return to base due to the overruning of Poland's ports and the skipper becomes ill and sails for Estonia and is interned on September 14th and the skipper is hospitalized on the 15th. Under the Hague Convention belligerant ships can enter neutral ports but can only stay for 24 hours. At German insistence the Estonians boarded the ship after 24 hours, interned the crew, and confiscated all the navigation aids and maps. The Polish crew secretly sabotaged the sub and the Estonians were only able to unload 15 of the boats 20 torpedoes. On September 18 the crew staged a daring escape and overpowered their guards. They cut the mooring lines and ran with the sub half-submerged while being shot at by machine guns. The sub ran aground at a bar at the harbor mouth and was hit by artillery fire which damaged its communication equipment. They got the boat off the bar by blowing the tanks and escaped. Two Estonian guards were on board as hostages. The Estonian and German press declared them lost at sea. The crew set both of them ashore in Sweden and even gave them clothing, money, and food for their safe return to their homeland. They sardonically remarked that those returning for the underworld "deserve to travel first class only. The Germans and the Soviets both used this incident to challenge Estonian neutrality. The boat had no navigation equipment so it was decided to stop a German ship and seize their charts but they only found warships and were unable to carry out the plan. The boat found a list of lighthouses and used these as a reference to make it to Scotland surviving attacks from both German and British forces (the boat was unable to identify itself to the British). They submerged the boat and performed emergency repairs and got the wireless working and contacted the British who sent out a destroyer to escort them to port. They were shocked as they assumed the sub was lost. They sank nothing on their return but the Soviets fabricated the claim that they sank a Soviet tanker and used this as part of their pretext to invade the Baltic States. After a refit the Orzel was added to the Royal Navy's 2nd sub flotilla and sailed patrol missions. It sank a 5,000 ton German troop transport in April 1940 killing hundreds of troops used as part of the invasion of Norway. On May 23 she sailed her 7th patrol. On June 1 and 2 she received orders to alter her patrol area but the signal was never acknowledged. The fate of the ship is a mystery though the most likely theory is that she hit a mine and sank. The wreck has never been found despite several searches. We know what most likely happened   Quite a badass sub. ________________________________________________________________________ Operations ________________________________________________________________________ Type IA   U-25 Ghetto Prince Lieutenant JG Week 1: New boat ready to head out, its skipper receives special instructions and it uses its high speed to transit the English Channel by night and race down western Europe past France and Spain to reach Morocco with orders to raid Gibraltar. I picked the Type IA for several reasons. These raids are dangerous but can be profitable so I need a high attack value and Type IA boats are tied for the best right now with IXA boats but IA boats have an automatic withdraw date so I am risking a little less long-term with this boat. I wanted to wait for torpedo improvement before attacking but I need the tonnage from this attack now if I can get any. Week 2: Boat sneaks into the port of Gibraltar at night roughly a 50/50 shot. It is not able to get in close to the center of the task force and attacks on the center will be more difficult at long range. Looking for the juicy targets it spots a large converted liner troop transport, a cruiser, and the battleship Royal Oak. An attack on the cruiser misses but the torpedo detonates when it hits the dock. Alarms go off and searchlights start blazing through the area. The boat spots a carrier and the battlecruiser Renown but does not have a shot. The sub targets the troop transport and both stern torpedoes hit. The 23,000 ton troop transport Orion is sunk. The boat barely escapes and the patrol continues.  The Orion was on its way back to Britain to assist in ferrying the BEF. Most of them were probably ashore and not on the ship but they will have a hard time arriving now. The ship was originally built for the Australia run and was the first British ship with air conditioning. She survived the war historically. The sinking of the Orion does much to ameliorate the bad blood between the Wehrmacht and the sub service and the surface navy also offers kudos. The skipper is the first in the navy to receive the newly minted Knight's Cross for his bravery. Week 3: This is the one boat too far out to not have to worry about the Fuhrer's paranoia. Boat finds no targets. The patrol continues. Week 4: Still finds no targets (odds of this are low, dice hate this boat this month). Boat must RTB to refuel and will attempt to dock at Spain next week.   U-26 The Merry Marauder Lieutenant SG Week 1: Fails readiness. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness. ________________________________________________________________________ Type IIA   U-3 Zyrden Lieutenant SG Week 1: The Work Up is cancelled as the boat is pulled out for refit, due to return in March. The crew gets ready for a nice long R&R.   U-4 HiHoChiro Lieutenant SG Week 1: Boat is pulled out just before leaving port for a refit, returning in March. ________________________________________________________________________ Type IIB   U-7 TheMcD Lieutenant SG Week 1: Work Up completed, boat moves to port. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-9 sparkmaster Lieutenant SG Week 1: Pulled out of port for refit, returning in January but getting Ace Skipper when it returns.   U-10 UberJew Lieutenant SG Week 1: Was ready to sail but is pulled for refit, returning in February.   U-12 Triple A Lieutenant SG Week 1: Repairs progress; boat moves to Repair 1. Week 2: Repairs completed; boat moves to Work Up. Week 3: Work Up Completed, moves to Port. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-13 OperaMouse Lieutenant SG Week 1: Work Up completed; boat moves to port. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-14 Grizzwold Lieutenant SG Week 1: Pulled out of port for refit, returning in January.   U-15 Natty Ninefingers Lieutenant SG Week 1: Fails readiness. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Passes readiness and heads to patrol the N Sea. Finds 3 merchants but is unable to get an attack on any of them. The patrol continues.   U-16 HerpicleOmnicron5 Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and is Ready for Sea and leaves to patrol the Baltic. Finds four merchants but is only able to catch a single Dutch merchant and torpedoes and sinks it for 8,000 tons but the ship explodes and the boat is hit by debris and the hull is damaged. The boat must RTB for repairs. Week 2: Boat returns to base and damage is light. Boat goes to Repair 1 and skipper gets U-boat badge for completing 2 war patrols. Week 3: Repairs completed, boat moves to Work Up box. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port.   U-17 Robert E. Lee Lieutenant SG Week 1: Pulled out of port for refit, returning in Februrary.   U-18 The Sandman Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and is Ready for Sea and sails to the N Sea. Finds no contacts, the patrol continues. Week 2: Finds four merchants and manages to damage one but is unable to sink them. The boat then suffers mechanical problems as the torpedo doors jam but a repair crew is able to fix them and the patrol continues. Week 3: Patrol N Sea in support of defense of Norway idiocy, following current intel the boat manages to intercept a French (?) TF. Maybe the French are the ones invading Norway? The boat closes with the TF but the boats low speed keeps it from getting into the middle of it. It spots the battleship Provence and the cruiser named after Joan of Arc. The boat is unable to get a shot. With unimproved torpedoes it will take ideal circumstances for this boat to be able to attack any of these ships. The patrol continues. Week 4: Finds some merchants and sinks a 1,000 ton British merchant and a 2,000 ton Finnish sailboat. Then it is spotted by an ASW trawler and escapes with one near-miss depth charge that damages the boat. The boat starts to head home but fires its last torpedoes on a 3,000 ton British merchant and sinks it. It also spots an armed British merchant but is out of torpedoes. The boat must RTB for repairs and rearming.   U-19 Nikias Lieutenant SG Week 1: No progress on repairs. Week 2: Repairs progress, boat moves to Repair 1. Week 3: Repairs completed, boat moves to Work Up box. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port.   U-20 Conan the Librarian Lieutenant SG Week 1: Fails to complete Work Up. Week 2: Completes Work Up, moves to port. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-21 warhammer651 Lieutenant SG Week 1: Fails readiness. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Passes readiness and moves to Ready for Sea. Head to N Sea to hunt the Norway invasion. Finds a coastal convoy and in order to make an attack sends to BDU: "Found an invasion task force heading from the Thames to Forth, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more." The boat gets an accurate track on the convoy and is able to get into the center. The boat fires on a British oiler but is unable to score a hit and one torpedo spins around heading for the sub. The boat is not able to crash-dive fast enough but the torpedo fortunately is a dud and bounces off. The crew plans to buy drinks for BurOrd when they get home. A second attack hits and sinks an 8,000 ton British merchant. The boat must RTB to rearm. With that report the Fuhrer congratulates the boat on successfully mitigating the "planned invasion" of Norway and awards the skipper the Iron Cross, Second Class for sinking the dangerous troopship. Postwar it is learned it was shipping food for war orphans. Week 4: Returns to Germany. Receives U-boat badge.   U-22 Jaguars! Lieutenant SG Week 1: Work Up completed; boat moves to port. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.    U-23 vuk83 (Kretschmer +1) Lieutenant SG  Week 1: Fails readiness. Week 2: Passes readiness and is Ready for Sea. Heads to the N Sea and finds a British merchant and fires all five torpedoes in sequence and all bounce off. Boat must RTB to rearm. Week 3: Boat returns to Germany Work Up Box. Skipper gets U-boat badge. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port.   U-24 Posture Pal Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and is Ready for Sea. Heads to the N Sea but an Anson spots the sub surfaced and drops its bombs and strafes the boat. The combat periscope is knocked out. The boat then encounters a huge convoy returning from Norway. The boat is unable to attack submerged without a periscope and attacks at night surfaced. The boat targets and sinks a 5,000 ton British merchant. The skipper decides to RTB for repairs. It is dangerous to attack while damaged. I did it in this case to avoid wasting the whole patrol but did not stick around past the first attack round where the destroyers might have shredded the poor little boat. Week 2: Boat returns to base and the damage is heavy. Boat goes to Repair 3 and skipper gets U-boat badge for completing two patrols. Week 3: No progress made on repairs. Week 4: Progress on repairs; boat moves to Repair 2. ________________________________________________________________________ Type IIC   U-56 Veloxyll Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and is Ready for Sea and heads to the N Sea. Finds several lone merchants but is unable to set up a decent attack. The patrol continues. Week 2: Encounters an armed merchant and a light cruiser and attacks but misses. The boat also gets a shot on a British merchant and manages to sink the 5,000 ton ship. The boat must RTB to rearm. Week 3: Boat returns to Germany Work Up Box. Skipper gets U-boat badge. Week 4: Work up failed.   U-57 sureaboutthatthing Lieutenant SG Week 1: Leaves Germany to patrol the N Sea. Finds that pesky lone light cruiser but cannot get a shot. Then locates a British merchant and puts two torpedoes into it for 7,000 tons. The patrol continues. Week 2: Finds a succession of lone merchants and gets a shot off and sinks a 5,000 ton Danish merchant. Then it locates and sinks a 2,000 ton Swedish merchant and finally finds and sinks a 10,000 ton French merchant. For his daring in his tiny boat the skipper receives the Iron Cross, 2nd Class. It is currently tied for second highest tonnage. The boat must RTB to rearm. Week 3: Boat returns to Germany Work Up Box. Skipper gets U-boat badge. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port.   U-58 sullat Lieutenant SG Week 1: Leaves Germany to patrol N Sea. Finds a large coastal convoy and makes an attack on a medium-sized British merchant but misses. The boat spots the battleship Ramilles in the convoy and radios its position in the hopes the Luftwaffe or another boat can attack it. The patrol continues. Week 2: Finds a large troop transport but is unable to intercept. The boat then locates a huge convoy returning from Norway. The boat manages to pick off a 4,000 ton British merchant before the convoy outpaces it. The patrol continues. Week 3: Looking for the invasion fleet the boat passes up many loner targets but finds no task forces or invasion groups. Patrol continues. Week 4: Boat finds and sinks a 2,000 ton French merchant and then stalks a British merchant but a sharp-eyed lookout spots the boat in the water and fires their gun damaging the boat before it can dive deep. It then finds a small Finnish merchant and the ship spots the boat and in a fit of pique and remembering Great War tactics (grizzled Finnish seamen) rams the sub, further damaging the hull. With the crew desperately trying to stop the leaks the skipper pulls away and sets up another shot and torpedoes and sinks the 1,000 ton Finn. The boat has been damaged twice. In this small of a boat that gives you a 20% chance to survive. The boat made it. There is a possibility it may have to be scrapped when it gets home. The boat must RTB to find out if it lives. The skipper receives the Iron Cross for boldly defeating the attacking ship and for managing to keep the boat afloat. The Chief Engineer gets the Knight's Cross.   U-59 TheFlyingLlama Lieutenant SG Week 1: Leaves Germany to patrol N Sea. Finds two British merchants but is unable to attack. Then spots and sinks a 2,000 ton French merchant and then a 2,000 ton Norwegian merchant. The patrol continues. Week 2: Finds 8 lone merchants including some converted liners but is unable to score any hits. In frustration the skipper screams up to God as to why he has been cursed. As he does so a destroyer opens fire on the boat. One shell hits but the boat escapes and must RTB for repairs. Week 3: Returns to Germany and damage is easily fixed. Boat goes to Work Up Box. Skipper gets U-boat badge. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port. ________________________________________________________________________ Type VIIA   U-27 Cythereal Lieutenant SG Week 1: Work Up completed; boat moves to port. Week 2: Passes readiness, moves to pierside. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-28 Lord Tywin Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and moves to Pierside. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-29 the JJ Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and moves to Pierside. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-30 Nick Esasky Lieutenant SG Week 1: Pulled out of port for refit, returning in December.   U-31 mcclay Lieutenant SG Week 1: Failed to complete Work Up. Week 2: Failed to complete Work Up. The skipper pissed off the port crew I guess. Week 3: Work Up completed, boat moves to port. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-32 Durendal Lieutenant SG Week 1: Pulled out of port for refit, returning in January.   U-33 Preid Lieutenant SG Week 1: Work Up completed; boat moves to port. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-34 Milt Thompson Lieutenant SG Week 1: Fails readiness. Week 2: Passes readiness and moves to pierside. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-35 Tekopo Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and is Ready for Sea and sails to the W Approaches. Deck guns down a 2,000 ton British tanker. The patrol continues. Week 2: Finds and sinks a 2,000 ton Dutch merchant and attacks two British merchants but the torpedoes are duds. It then goes on to sink a French 2,000 ton merchant, a British 1,000 ton merchant, another British 4,000 ton merchant, and a Swedish 1,000 ton merchant. This skipper is getting an Iron Cross, 2nd Class for bumping up my ship totals which needed help. The boat must RTB to rearm. Week 3: Returns to Germany, receives U-boat War Badge. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port.   U-36 Gatac Lieutenant SG Week 1: Despite being one of only two boats out of dock and not already heading home the refit list cannot be denied and U-36 heads home for refit. Stupid pencil pushing morons. Boat will return in December. ________________________________________________________________________ Type VIIB   U-45 cxcxxxxx Lieutenant SG Week 1: Returns to Germany Work-Up box. Week 2: Fails to complete work up. Week 3: Fails to complete work up. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port.   U-46 MagicHateBall Lieutenant SG Week 1: Repairs progress; boat moves to Repair 1. Week 2: No progress on repairs. Week 3: Repairs completed, boat moves to Work Up box. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port.    U-47 Bacarruda (Prien +1) Lieutenant SG  Week 1: Returns to Germany Work Up box. Week 2: Completes Work-up, moves to port. Week 3: Passes readiness and moves to Pierside. Week 4: Passes readiness and moves to Ready for Sea. Heads to patrol the N Sea and finds a trio of merchants but is only able to hit one, a 22,000 ton merchant which is hit by four torpedoes and sinks. Ace skipper pays off, without him there would have been a miss. Also first time I got a tonnage doubled event. With torpedoes exhausted, the boat must RTB to rearm.    U-48 (Schultze +1) Lamadar Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness and is Ready for Sea. Sails to the W Approaches and finds a huge convoy outbound from Liverpool. Targets and sinks a 3,000 ton Greek merchant but then must dodge a diligent destroyer but manages to hit and sink a 1,000 ton Dutch merchant with the rear tube but on escaping takes a direct depth charge hit to the command room and loses two crewmen. The rest of the crew manages to patch up the leaks and the boat must RTB for repairs. Without Ace Skipper status the Dutch merchant would have lived and the boat would be sunk. That was close. Week 2: Returns to base and damage is easy to fix. Boat goes to Work Up box. Skipper gets U-boat badge for second completed patrol. Week 3: Work up completed, boat moves to port. Week 4: Passes readiness, moves to Pierside.  U-52 apseudonym Lieutenant SG Week 1: Boat is pulled out of port for refit, returning in March.   U-53 Bobatron Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passes readiness, moves to pierside. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness. ________________________________________________________________________ Type IXA   U-37 Pittsburgh Lambic Lieutenant SG Week 1: Work Up completed; boat moves to port. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Passes readiness and moves to pierside. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-38 Afrosquirrel Lieutenant SG Week 1: Passed readiness, moves to Pierside. Week 2: Fails readiness. Week 3: Passes readiness and moves to Ready for Sea. Heads to the N Sea to hunt the invasion. It finds no convoys or TFs. The patrol continues. Week 4: Receives orders to transit English Channel and patrol the SW Approaches. Mostly I want more boats in range of Spanish resupply boats to increase chances of keeping long-ranged boats at sea. Finds and sinks a 1,000 ton British sailboat. Then hunts down and torpedoes a 2,000 ton French merchant. The patrol continues.   U-39 Lord Windy Lieutenant SG Week 1: Finds a convoy outbound for Gibraltar. First attack misses but the boat overtakes the convoy and torpedoes a Greek merchant for 3,000 tons. The patrol continues. Week 2: Finds a lone British merchant and attacks but the torpedo is a dud. A second attack hits and sinks the 4,000 ton merchant. The boat goes on to find a 3,000 ton British tanker and a 5,000 ton British merchant. Not a bad haul and the patrol continues, the only patrol still going from war start. Week 3: Boat rushes through the English Channel at great risk to follow the orders of the Fuhrer. It darts all over the N Sea but cannot find a convoy or TF. The boat must RTB to refuel. drat you Hitler! Do you know how long it takes to turn around my precious few long-range boats? Week 4: Returns to Germany. Every war start boat has now returned to base at least once.   U-40 NormanRaptor Lieutenant SG Week 1: Returns to Germany Work-Up Box. Week 2: Completes Work Up, boat moves to port. Week 3: Passes readiness and moves to pierside. Week 4: Fails readiness.   U-41 Rogue Norwegian Lieutenant SG Week 1: Fails readiness. Week 2: Passes readiness and moves to pierside. Week 3: Fails readiness. Week 4: Fails readiness.    U-42 (Schutze +1) Pimpmust Lieutenant JG Week 1: New boat arrives in Germany ready to set out and sails to the W Approaches of Britain. Finds a Dutch tanker and sinks it for 2,000 tons and then deck guns a 3,000 ton British tanker. The boat spots a mid-sized British merchant but is unable to get a good attack. The patrol continues. Week 2: Boat attacks a British merchant twice and fails. It then locates a smaller British merchant and sinks it for 4,000 tons. The boat must RTB to rearm. Week 3: Returns to Germany. Week 4: Work Up completed; boat moves to Port. ________________________________________________________________________ WolfPack Reports None. ________________________________________________________________________ End of the Month Report Ships Sunk: 17/25/33/41/50 Tonnage Sunk: 66k/97k/128k/159k/194k Ships Sunk: 34 Tonnage Sunk: 153k Boats Lost: 0 Victory Points: 6 Historical VP: 6 Total Ships Sunk: 95 Total Tonnage Sunk: 388k Total Boats Lost: 0 Total VP: 16 Total Historical VP: 15 Boats in Service: 35 German Propaganda Broadcast: Our U-boats have again struck at the Allied powers, defeating a planned invasion by the foolish British planning to violate the neutrality of Norway. A daring raid at Gibraltar destroyed a British troop transport slated to carry troops to assist the French in invading the Fatherland. The last holdouts in Poland have surrendered. The French and British cower before our might. That was a rough turn. The Norway invasion knocked us down to one kill for the week. Readiness rolls this month were horrific. During weeks 3 and 4 only 2 boats sailed from our ports each week. This is the entirety of our force at sea:  Only one Type IXA and one Type II are ready to patrol next week (gray side) and the rest are heading home. Hopefully U-25 can resupply with the Spanish and stay out (60% chance). Here are our ports:  A Type I, 6 Type VIIs, and 3 Type IXs at pierside and 10 Type IIs in port can possibly sail next week if they pass readiness. Odds are we should get roughly 1 Type IX, 2-3 Type VIIs, and 5 Type IIs if the dice do not hate me plus any new boats we receive. We have 95 ships sunk which means a 40% chance (6+) of upgrading torpedoes next week. At 125 ships sunk it is automatic but we should hit it before then. I was hoping this would improve our boats odds of staying at sea but turns out the jump from -1 to 0 only helps Endurance class B boats which we do not have any of. In victory points we matched history and we were one ahead last month so still 1 VP up. 6 points gives us a +1 to the Navy and the Chancellory and one discretionary point. I will try to get a voting plan up in the next few days along with new boats. Edit: Oops, forgot the most important thing, the boat kill and tonnage list:  
Xenocides fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 06:33
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 Whoops, those were previous reinforcements, drat
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Sep 10, 2014 06:36
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Jesus Christ. Thanks for the time I get to spend with my thumb up my rear end, I guess.
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Sep 10, 2014 06:41
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Kriegsmarine tonnage leaders! Back to back 20,000 ton war patrols for U-47! Schnapps are on me, gentlemen.  e: Holy poo poo, that's a lot of failed readiness checks...
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Sep 10, 2014 07:13
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I love how random the after action reports are. (might raid Gibralter, might get rammed by a pissed off tramp freighter) Great writing on those. Bacarruda posted:e: Holy poo poo, that's a lot of failed readiness checks... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1bl8JLKG0Q
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Sep 10, 2014 07:42
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Having just finished my correspondence course in Submarining, I would be happy to take the first boat vacated by someone upgrading to a newer model. Unfortunately, I didn't get the diploma in the mail before all the subs were claimed. Great LP so far Xeno!
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Sep 10, 2014 07:48
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quote:Week 1: Fails readiness. This month in a nutshell. Also woo, on the kill board!
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Sep 10, 2014 08:39
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On the bright side, we are much less likely to lose anything while all our boats are in port. Sure, so are the Allies but you can't have everything. Like working torpedoes. Or air cover.Xenocides posted:I am actually trying to learn German right now as it would help me a lot at work but I am still in the early stages of comprehension. Best of luck with that. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to learn as a foreign language.
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Sep 10, 2014 12:52
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Christ my sub is cursed. I have 2 ships out of what, 15 possible ships?
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Sep 10, 2014 18:23
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Having just finished Iron Coffins, I'm in the mood for some U-Boat Action. Signing up for the next available slot!
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Sep 10, 2014 19:19
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There is no signing up. When U-boats come up for command, its first come, first serve.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:27
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sniper4625 posted:Having just finished Iron Coffins, I'm in the mood for some U-Boat Action. Signing up for the next available slot! Love that book. I found myself forgetting that the author survived and kept wondering if he would make it. I am not doing a sign-up list in this LP. I found in my last LP that the list bloated up too quickly. Instead in my between turn updates I post upcoming boats and let people sign up then.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:34
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Woohoo! Number 1 of the IIBs! Keep this up crew, and we may overlook any illegal records that you may bring, as long as they're played as victory music on our next daring attack. ...wait there's a IA higher than most of us? Dice must like them.
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Sep 10, 2014 20:43
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Well, at least I sank something this turn. Shame it wasn't a French battleship, though. Maybe one day I'll get a boat that isn't terrible? Maybe a Type XXI? Is it possible for us to speed up its development so that we get some before the game ends?
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Sep 10, 2014 20:45
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Xenocides posted:Love that book. I found myself forgetting that the author survived and kept wondering if he would make it. It'd certainly make for an interesting case of publication had he not. As for the other part...I blame Random Axis! No worries, will just have to keep a sharp eye on the thread.
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Sep 10, 2014 20:48
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Hmm, shouldn't I have 9000 tons in the sunk list? U-42: Week 1: New boat arrives in Germany ready to set out and sails to the W Approaches of Britain. Finds a Dutch tanker and sinks it for 2,000 tons and then deck guns a 3,000 ton British tanker. The boat spots a mid-sized British merchant but is unable to get a good attack. The patrol continues. Week 2: Boat attacks a British merchant twice and fails. It then locates a smaller British merchant and sinks it for 4,000 tons. The boat must RTB to rearm. Time to chill at the pub, mission done decently enough.
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Sep 10, 2014 20:59
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Can't stand failing all these readiness checks. I guess that's what I get for allowing the crew to have shore leave during Oktoberfest! Also while we're drinking, cheers to Bacarruda for number 1 on the kill board again!
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Sep 11, 2014 00:19
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Xenocides posted:U-21 Also, Cheers BuOrd!  Your lovely torpedoes actually managed to save the ship that single-handidly thwarted the invasion of Norway.
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Sep 11, 2014 01:27
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Refit  . I had such a good first patrol.
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Sep 11, 2014 01:44
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warhammer651 posted:Lies and slander! The only "War Orphans" those were going to feed would be the ones wearing British Uniforms! We'll never know. We're all dying before 1943 
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Sep 11, 2014 01:54
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My Sub couldn't even hold out two months!? I am disappointed in my crew, no shore leave for anyone until we hit the two month mark.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:26
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I won't mind my boat being in for refit for four months if my weapons officer learns how to shoot during his leave
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Sep 11, 2014 02:40
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Pimpmust posted:Hmm, shouldn't I have 9000 tons in the sunk list? U-42: Yes, I missed one of the kills when putting it in the spreadsheet. Fixed it on the master. It will be right next month with 3 kills and 9000.
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Sep 11, 2014 04:10
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Veloxyll posted:We'll never know. We're all dying before 1943 That sounds suspiciously like Defeatism. Am I going to have to report you?
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Sep 11, 2014 04:21
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Between Turns: Hunting, Sub Construction Planning, Political Vote, and New Boats British Propaganda Broadcast: "Our brave soldiers are even now ferrying to the continent to bolster the forces of France. Our Navy reins supreme and Germany is under blockade. The Germans face the combined might of the two greatest military powers in Europe. Victory will be ours." ________________________________________________________________________ Finding things to sink Generally a boat at sea can either travel their speed enroute to or returning from a patrol or patrol or (if they are already patrolling) move one area and then continue the patrol. If a boat leaves the base and patrols in the area adjacent to the base they can hunt in the same week. There are also a few areas near Britain where a boat can leave a base and move two spaces from a base and patrol immediately. So when on patrol what happens? First the boat rolls on the AAC:  You look at the WP and roll a d10. You modify the roll up or down based on levels of B-Dienst and Enigma representing German intel on ship movements and how secure German codes are. Right now both are at +2 but the bonus (or penalty) max out at plus or minus 3 so we get a +3. If the area is the intel area you get another +1. If we have planes on patrol we get another +1. There are other bonuses for the area being virgin (first time hunting there) and penalties for weather and overcrowding (more then 6 boats is -1, more then 12 is -2, 18 -3, etc.) So, looking at the N Sea with our current intel the worst we can get is a 3 green box. If the modified roll is a white box you find nothing unless you roll a natural 0 and it is a sub area and you roll another natural 0 in which case you find an enemy sub. In fact if you roll a natural 0 you automatically check for subs. If it is any other color you roll on another chart which lists each area on the map by War Period. Red and Blue give bonuses (+3 and +1 respectively) on rolling on that chart. Orange gives you a straight roll and Green gives you a -1. You also get the aircraft bonus. This chart tells you whether you found Loners or a convoy. Generally higher numbers yield convoys, middle numbers give you loners, and low numbers mean you find nothing. These charts vary by War Period and reflect changes in shipping. Right now the N Sea is the best hunting area. You only do not find anything on the 2nd chart if you get a 0. This will change in the next War Period. As the war goes on loners become more rare and convoys increase on the chart. Finally if you are in the intelligence area for the turn and you roll a convoy you may get to roll an unmodified die and reference the intel chart to see if you found a task force or a special convoy. No matter what you find the colored box you rolled determines the size of the convoy or number of loners. In most areas you can only search once but in a few close to Britain (N Sea, Western Approaches, Southwestern Approaches, the Norwegian Sea, and the Baltic) if the first search yields loners or no contacts you get to roll again. The Baltic and the Norwegian Sea lose this ability after the first War Period. The other 3 areas keep it but the N Sea as you can see on the chart above rapidly becomes a bad place to hunt even if you do get two tries. Now let's look at another AAC for the Baltic:  The Baltic is much harder to find targets in. The only reason I send any boats there is to keep congestion down in the North Sea so penalties do not limit targets. I tried to keep the N Sea at 12 boats or below early when everyone was out and down to 6 or below lately. Generally I reserve it for Type II boats and send any overflow to the Baltic and send other boats further afield. One thing to note is that the number of red boxes and/or red dots adds to the danger in transiting and hunting in the area. It is easy to see then why the North Sea becomes inhospitable. Ideally you want to go to the closest best hunting area. Our Type IXA boats can presently go as far out as the Brazil Basin in South America to patrol but there is no point wasting time going that far when the areas closer provide good hunting and are not overly congested. Eventually we will get boats able to sail as far as the Indian Ocean along with U-boat tankers to resupply boats further out. Hope this is interesting enough to be worth reading. Next month I will go over Loner combat which is what most of our boats are dealing with most of the time right now. ________________________________________________________________________ January 1939 Sub Conference Under the Treaty of Versailles Germany was stripped of most of its navy. It was not allowed subs, naval aviation squadrons, or battleships and was restricted to a dozen cruisers, half of those light, and a dozen small destroyers and a dozen torpedo boats. The British were sympathetic towards easing these restrictions. The French were not. When the Great Depression hit the British and the rest of the world engaged in arms reduction treaties to limit naval size. The British did this mostly because would find it difficult to afford to maintain naval supremacy and it was easier to fix naval sizes then to compete openly. The Anglo-German naval agreement of 1935 between Britain and Germany fixed a 35:100 tonnage ratio between the British and the Germans. This was highly controversial because it was open defiance of the Treaty of Versailles and was made without bringing in or consulting the other signatories (primarily France and Italy). Both sides had different goals. The British wanted to ease Versailles while keeping the Germans below them in naval size while the Germans were trying to form an Anglo-German alliance against the French and the Soviet Union. Germany was allowed 35% of tonnage in each ship class individually but subs formed an exception. Germany could not exceed the 35% in total but could match the British 1:1 in sub tonnage by losing tonnage in other classes. The British used this odd system because their Admirals were convinced that if the Germans had a fixed tonnage ratio then the Germans could build a cruiser fleet which they saw as more dangerous then a balanced fleet where the Germans built battleships and cruisers in a fixed ratio. They may have been right. In December 1938 Hitler informed the British he was pursuing his right to build subs up to British tonnage. The restrictions would prove meaningless later as in April 1938 the British withdrew from the treaty and refused to give any information about shipbuilding and German fleet tonnage. In January 1939 the German Admiralty met to discuss what form the new Germany navy would take. Donitz (who was not BDU yet) wanted a fleet of Type VII boats figuring that by the time war came (which was supposed to be much later) the Germans would be able to strangle British shipping and starve them into submission. Most of the Naval staff thought that sonar and naval aircraft had rendered the sub less relevant wanted to focus on U-cruisers and long-range boats to act as commerce raiders where the British would be hard-pressed to intercept them. Admiral Raedar compromised and ordered a mix of long, mid, and short-ranged boats (Type IX, VII, and II respectively) and put plans to build fleet boats and U-cruisers on hold, planning to revisit it later. tl;dr: We need to decide who prevailed at this meeting. Our options are: 1) Keep with the historical build. This has the advantage of getting the highest total tonnage and the most total boats to sea. 2) Go with Donitz. Trade 9 Type IXB and 9 Type II boats for 14 Type VIIB boats. 3) Go with the naval staff and focus on Type IX boats. Trade 11 Type VII and 9 Type II boats for 10 Type IX boats. 4) Go with the naval staff and focus on U-cruisers. Trade 9 Type II and 11 Type VII boats to get 4 Type XI U-cruisers and 4 Type XII Fleet boats. This hurts in the short-term and we have to hope the cruisers can make it up later. 5) Compromise is enacted as historically was done but the Admiral orders that U-cruisers and fleet boats be ordered as in 4 (8 total boats) as prototypes and general use boats to conduct trials and determine if more should be ordered in 1941 for the projected war in 1944. This would push back production on the sub fleet as planned two months for all other boats. In essence, we cancel the BDU request and accept the schedule as is and add 8 new boats This maximizes total number of boats but late war we will be getting 15-20 boats a month and all of them will be one month later then they would have been. I created this option but based on reading of reinforcement charts it would lead to roughly the same amount of tonnage being processed out. In fact I think this may hurt more then help late war (when we are getting 15-20 boats a month) but it would be fun to play with the cruisers out. If we do this we cannot do the same request again to regain the bonus. I was working on more wacky options now that I have the German Fleet Boats expansion. Who wouldn't want to play with Type III torpedo boat carriers and minelayers and the more advanced cruiser subs and fleet boats but I can't ad hoc them in without breaking the save game so I will just be sad. ________________________________________________________________________ Political Vote Okay, we scored 6 VP which means 5 Influence points. The first point has to go to the Navy (OKM) and the second to the Chancellory. This pushes both to +2:  We currently have 0 prestige. This leaves us with 1 points. This again makes us ideally situated to make a Chancellory or OKM request but there are no Chancellory requests that we need at the moment (those available involve opening new areas we don't really need right now). Later we will have some when we may want to deal with the French, the Spanish, and the Finnish). The only Naval request it makes sense to pursue is accelerating the U-tanker program to get our resupply subs out earlier. This is a low-risk situation as whether we succeed or fail OKM influence drops 1. Not a big deal as if we get at least 2 VPs next turn we have to put a point of Influence on OKM. Assuming we spend no prestige this has a 30% chance of passing. I wouldn't use prestige on this. If we do this I will put the spare point towards Prestige to get ready for a later try at something else. We can try to siphon men from the Army and use them to improve our ports. This would give us an increase of 1 to all Readiness ratings in 2d10 (0-18) months. We lose this in War Period 4 (US entering war) unless we pass a slightly easier request later to keep the facilities going. If we succeed the Army will despise us (-3) and the Luftwaffe will be peeved (-1) and the Navy will like us (+1). If we fail we lose a point with the Army and the Chancellory. We have no prestige to add and would only have a 30% chance of success after putting our spare point towards the Army. We can also wait and try this later once we bank some prestige first. Finally we can go back to low risk and a 30% chance of getting some planes which only risks ticking off the Luftwaffe and the Chancellor but we can get the Chancellor back if we do moderately well. We bank the spare point for So: A) U-Tanker Program: 30% Low risk, moderate reward, moderate odds. B) Improve Port Facilities: 20% high risk, high reward, low odds. C) Get Flying Boats reassigned to us: 20% No Risk, low reward, low odds. Civilian - 1 vote Lt. JG - 1 vote Lt. SG - 2 votes Lt. Cmdr - 3 votes Cmdr - 4 votes Capt JG - 5 votes Captain - 6 votes Admiral - 8 votes (if anyone gets there) Please bold your vote for both the January Sub Conference and the current political request and how many votes you have if it is more than one. If you do not say I may or may not look it up and may just count it as one vote. ________________________________________________________________________ New boats 4 new boats come out next month and we need volunteers to drive them. We will also be pulling 3 boats for refit. At least we get a net gain. We have four boats, two Type IIs and one each of our other two main boat types:         So two votes (one number for construction and one letter for political) and/or sign up. Xenocides fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 04:40
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Dibs U-49 I'd go for a Type-II, but I'm a IIB man, the IICs just aren't the same, and they aren't my darling U-21. 
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Sep 12, 2014 04:43
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I'll take U-43
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Sep 12, 2014 04:44
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Give me U-60
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Sep 12, 2014 04:45
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Arrion posted:I'll take U-43 Good luck, the last boat U-43 ever sank was German. 
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Sep 12, 2014 04:46
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Holy poo poo that is grim as gently caress. 
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Sep 12, 2014 04:50
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Owns; not seeing the problem with this
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Sep 12, 2014 04:54
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Well, it's going to be difficult to replicate my boat's historical record then!
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Sep 12, 2014 04:57
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U-61 for me sir Also, 1. B 2. A Long-range will win this war. They can not find us in the open ocean, while we can find them, for they shall never crack our Enigma codes!
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Sep 12, 2014 05:16
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4. U-cruisers sound cool. A. U-tankers sound U-seful!
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Sep 12, 2014 05:27
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Two votes for 2 and B. Also, should I remove my collection of rare sausages from the boat before it goes into refit? They kept my sanity during the last patrol. Even when the whole crew thought I was crazy, the rare sausages always had my back.
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Sep 12, 2014 05:35
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With my two votes, I say we 2, Go with Doenitz on sub construction. It'd be nice to have extra Type IXs for Operation Drumbeat, but there's no point in building more Type IIs. This option gets us more Type VIIs! On the political front, I put my two votes towards B, Improved Port Facilities. How many boats failed readiness last month? Too many.
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Sep 12, 2014 06:40
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 04:50 |
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4 U-cruisers. how can you pass that up? and C What does Goering need with them anyhow?
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Sep 12, 2014 06:58
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