I've just remembered that I have the realistic career length option enabled in SH3 Commander, which is a function of # or patrols and days at sea. So I'll settle for surviving somewhat less than the whole war, with U-33.

Patrol 6 is to an area off the NE coast of England again, so I use my influence (SH3 Commander) to swap that for AM44 in the Atlantic south of Rockall Banks. The patrol starts in darkness on the morning of 2nd April 1940.



As we leave Wilhelmshaven, aircraft are spotted ahead. fortunately it's not an air raid - a flight of Heinkel IIIs (in desert camouflage!) is coming in from the Jade estuary.



For this trip, two of my fourteen torpedoes are the electric-powered G7e type, which are better for daylight attacks as they don't leave prominent bubble trails; but aren't renowned for working properly, at this stage in the war. The ratings in the forward torpedo compartment will be keen on seeing action, since - as well as the four reserve eels under the deck and one spare under the external deck casing - we're carrying two extra reserve torpedoes forward, which were either slung overhead from the loading rails or underfoot on top of the compartment's floor, leaving little space in already cramped quarters.



We get good weather for the first part of our transit of the North Sea...



...but poor conditions later, with relatively calm seas but rain and mist limiting visibility.



North-east of the Shetlands, early on the night of 4th April in improving visibility, the bridge watch spots a ship to port.



We quickly increase speed and change course to cut her off.



Visibility is decent but the wind has picked up and U-33 pitches and rolls as she races to intercept the target.



It's a rather strange, tanker-like freighter. She's carrying a deck cargo of locomotives and rolling stock, which it's now our job to ensure never turns another wheel!



...to be continued!

We reach a good position off the steamer's port bows without being spotted.



Then we submerge for the attack. Two torpedoes are launched at a short interval, the first a trail-less G7e eto, set slightly shallow, which actually functions as advertised. I haven't worked out which setting to change to disable those pesky searchlights, as you can see.



The second eel, a G7a ato, also hits and explodes.



The searchlights go out almost immediately as the ship burns, loses way and begins to sink.



Auftauchen!



U-33 briefly circles her doomed prey...



...before reporting our success to Befehlshaber der U-Boote.



Then we resume our course to the patrol area out in the North Atlantic.



By this time, the steamer is clearly going down by the stern.



There are some survivors, although their prospects aren't great in these conditions. Their plight is illuminated by a red distress flare fired just as their ship went down.



U-33 exits the area at high speed, then submerges while the two empty tubes are reloaded, which cant be done in the current sea state. It's also a good opportunity for a hydrophone check, which is negative.



Up we come again. Daylight finds U-33 pushing westwards through heavy seas. At least the ratings in the bow torpedo room now have a bit more space!



...to be continued!

We reach AM44 on 12 April 1940, after ploughing through stormy seas



By the time we're on station, though, conditions have much improved.



The airwaves are alive with messages from BdU. First, there are orders for U-boar commanders to block access to ports in northern Norway, as part of the pre-emptive German invasion, Exercise Weser. As I'm not operating in that area, I decide to continue on my assigned tank in the absence of more specific instructions for my boat.



Later, BdU issues advice on the use of torpedoes, which are evidently giving us problems.



Then there are reports via the radio interception service (B-Dienst) of enemy forces preparing to land in Narvik. The war is hotting up!



I complete my minimum 24 hours on station without result. Then, early on 13 April, we divert in response to convoy that's reported coming up from the south.



This turns out to be a fruitless chase. We see or hear nothing of the convoy.



Anticipating that it has turned east off its southerly course to make for the North Channel between Scotland and Northern Ireland, I order U-33 to hunt for it to the west. At first, in darkness, all we run into is a singe contact, which turns out to be a small warship.



We turn away to the north tand avoid it. Our persistence is finally rewarded on the morning of 15th April, when we receive a report that the convoy - or one like it - is now to our north-east. Course is set to intercept, but en route, a lookout spots a single ship off our port bow.



Only a small alteration of course is necessary to cut off the new arrival, after which we can still go for the bigger prize. Our intended victim is at first just a dark smudge on the horizon, right of the rising sun.



As we get closer, we can see she's a decent-sized freighter with a substantial deck cargo, and seems unarmed.



Intention - it's too rough for the deck gums, so U-33 will make a surface attack with torpedoes.

...to be continued!

Naturally, the enemy sees us coming and turns away, zig-zagging. At high revolutions, U-33 soon overhauls the steamer, then we pull out onto her port bean before turning in and letting fly with a G7e ato from Tube 1.



Hit! Just aft of amidships.



I order a turn to port and revolutions reduced, while we wait to see if she'll sink without the need for further encouragement from us.



No she won't! So we turn away...



....to bring the stern tube to bear...



...then shoot off another G7a.



This produces no result, apart from a distant rumble when the torpedo explodes well beyond the target. Nothing else for it - the sea's still too rough for the deck gun, so we'll have to give her another eel!



...to be continued!

Having pulled out far enough, U-33 turns to starboard for the torpedo run.



Tube 2 is fired from about 600 metres...



...and seems to be running straight and true, from the trail left by the G7a.



Now that's more like it!



The bow wave drops away as the stricken freighter shudders to a halt.



She slowly settles on an even keel.



We don't hang around - we have that convoy to catch! And just a few minutes after resuming course, there it is - smoke on the horizon!



...to be continued!

By 09:30 I'm on the surface and still on a converging course with the convoy, while I assess what I'm up against. This includes at six merchant ships and two escorts currently in view...also an aircraft off to starboard.



I stay up long enough to send a contact report to BdU...



...then crash dive...



...as the aircraft - a Blenheim - is now headed our way.



The convoy steams on.



Its escort includes a Motor Torpedo Boat...or rather, a re-skinned USN PT Boat.



Meanwhile, disaster strikes U-33! I haven't checked the depth and the boat, headed for 60 metres, slams heavily into the shallow seabed at full speed!



The damage isn't as bad as it first sounds. I ease the boat up off the bottom and set a repair team to work on the electric motors first. We're still some way from the convoy so I'm not too worried about the noise they'll make.



The repairs are completed and the team moves forward, where the battery compartment under the floor there is the priority. The team quickly get the repairs there completed, too. It's quite a relief! This convoy is a dangerous enough target without a damaged boat to contend with.



By now, the convoy has begun to draw ahead of us so I come back to the surface and resume the chase.



I plot a course to hook around the convoy surfaced...



...keeping a careful eye on the nearest destroyer. The latter seems to be on a course calculated to intercept us. I wait to see if he will return to his station, but no, he keeps on coming! It looks like he's spotted us! I turn away at high speed...



...then submerge, before he gets into probable ASDIC range.



This gets us out of trouble, but I'm forced to widen my hook around the convoy, which is now invisible just over the horizon. If they make another drastic course change in the next few hours, we'll lose them again!



...to be continued!

Visibility deteriorates again as U-33 rolls and pitches at high revolutions towards the spot where I hope to pick up the convoy again.



Just after mid-day on 15th April, the look-outs spot warships to the north and south, seemingly on divergent courses. Could they be escorts leaving the convoy, and could it be up ahead? If so this isn't good - I needed to have hooked around ahead of the convoy, not get dragged into a stern chase down into the narrower, shallower and dangerous waters of the North Channel.



The contacts are both destroyers.





Right! I decide to make a high speed dash between them, then submerge for a hydrophone check in the hope of detecting the convoy close ahead in the murk.

I push our luck on the surface as long as I dare, then down we go. Tension is high in the control room, even though we are outside likely ASDIC range.



Sure enough, the hydrophones pick up the sounds of steamers up ahead.



I can see nothing of them in the periscope so we surface and race towards the convoy while I scan ahead through the UZO. There they are! It's not good - we're off their starboard quarter, a long way back, and they appear to be moving faster than we are!



I'm not going to go to emergency power in this poor position. I know I could squeeze another knot or two from the diesels by stopping recharging the batteries, which I'm liable to need every drop of power from if and when the party starts. Besides which, any hope there is of catching the convoy means staying on the surface with escorts on both sides, all the while ploughing on into the narrow stretch of water between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The faint chance of success aren't worth the risk, I decide. So U-33 gives up the chase and turns away to the north-west. On the way, I manoeuvre to take a long range shot with the single wakeless electric torpedo from Tube 4 at the northern destroyer, who seems to be holding a steady course.



The eel is heard to explode, but not on the target, we think. I dive deep to escape any retaliation, but it doesn't come.

Following a plotted course back out to the east of Rockall Bank...


...we first hear...



...and then see from periscope depth, a single ship. She looks like a small pleasure steamer escaped from a lakeside resort, struggling in the heavy seas! Not worth a torpedo - and as the sea's too rough for the deck gun, we let her go.



Later still that afternoon, we get a radio report on the convoy we were chasing. It's now between Rathlin Island and the Mull of Kintyre. I'm glad I didn't pursue it there, but feel the need for some success to compensate for this admitted failure.



...to be continued!

In the early morning of 17th April 1940, we make a fruitless attempt to intercept a single ship reported to the north. Visibility is hopeless and we can't see a thing.



The target is this freighter...



...and though we are able to track him on hydrophones at long range, we can't spot him, let alone catch him, once we come back to the surface. After searching for an hour, we give up and motor on.



Later that evening, visibility improves.



Early on 19th April, there's a report of a large convoy directly to our west, headed towards us.



In calm but hazy conditions, U-33 races to intercept.



There they are - off the starboard bow!



A few sweeps of the binoculars confirms the convoy is approaching on a broad front. After reporting the contact to BdU, down we go to periscope depth. Intention - slip off to the convoy's southern flank and attack submerged from outside the presumed ring of escorts.



There's one of them - a Flower class corvette.



The convoy is on such a broad front and the escorts so spread out that I change my plan. I decide to go deep, run silent and let it roll over me, then come up in the midst of it.



This time there is no shortage of pickings and we're in a good position to grab some of them.



What I don't know yet is that there's a battleship in the convoy - a Nelson class, no less!



This is going to be interesting!

...to be continued!

The convoy steams on serenely towards U-33 as we wait silently in the depths.





The plan begins to unravel a tad when we're detected. Fortunately, by this time, the fox is already in the chicken coop. Up we come!



We come to periscope depth between the foremost merchant ships. Hopefully they will get in the way of the nearest escort, a corvette which is depth-charging inaccurately.



He's only about 300 metres away and I can't resist turning to bring to bring the stern tube to bear and taking a shot at him.

Predictably, this misses, although I'm hopeful it might hit something else in this dense mass of shipping. My next shot is at a merchantman, then I let the battleship have my last three eels as she slides majestically past at under 1,000 metres.



Time to go! We crash dive and change course towards the rear of the convoy.



We hear a couple of explosions, so perhaps we've hit something?



In fact, we've hit the battleship...



...twice, as can be seen.



She's listing slightly to starboard, unsurprisingly.



As the convoy passes by over our heads, the corvette sticks with us, depth-charging all the way.



At 140 metres, I feel fairly safe.



We finally come out astern of the convoy, but still the corvette is after us.



More in the hope of shaking him off than from any sense that he could kill us, I order the boat down to 160 metres and throw in a few course changes, still moving slowly on silent running.



Finally, the depth-charging stops, but the corvette won't let go. He seems to know exactly where we are, and makes repeated passes overhead.



This of course will prevent us from chasing down the convoy and become a serious problem if we begin to run low on battery power or air before we can break contact and are forced to come to the surface. We're not out of the woods yet!

...to be continued!

Well, U-33's action against this particular convoy was re-started, rather than resumed. I needed a break from gameplay although I knew it's not recommended to save when in contact or too close to a coastline, for fear the saved game will not load. I took a chance and was duly rewarded by the save crashing SH3 just as it re-entered the 3d world. After trying and failing a second time, I reverted to the earlier save, made at the point we were running in to the convoy on the surface, but not yet in contact.

As before I had two choices. I could have made contact, shadowed the convoy till nightfall, than tried to penetrate the escort for a night surface attack at close range, relying on my boat's low silhouette, speed and manoeuvrability. The tactic pioneered by Otto Kretschmer, but apparently less easy to implement in SH3 - which I can well believe as the sim's escorts seem to me to have exceptionally good look-outs.

So instead, I decided to go for the classic submerged attack from longer range outside the escort screen. This time I decide to go wider, so as not to let the convoy pass overhead. The convoy is still there and we run into it much as before, in hazy but calm conditions.



Out in front is a single 'sweeper', which looks like a corvette



We pull out a bit further onto the oncoming convoy's southern flank then submerge to periscope depth, await its arrival.



There's no sign of a battleship this time, but as usual it's steaming in columns, four or five of them, wider across the front than from the flank, to present a smaller target to precisely the sort of attack I'm intending to make.



I order the sound man to track and report on the nearest warship - the sweeper in front, at this stage. At the same time, I pop up the periscope at intervals, to watch him myself. I can see that he's now zig-zagging and that his mean course appears to have altered somewhat towards us.



We are well out of range of active ASDIC and while warships could listen passively, such WW2 destroyer captain accounts as I've read never mention its passive use against submarines (the only mention was being able to hear the very noisy diesels of a bunch of suspected German motor torpedo boats in the Channel), given this would likely involve stopping so as to be able to hear quiet electric motors and any other sounds without drowning them out.

For a while, I remain hopeful that the escort will pass astern of us, but he seems to know we are there. Could eagle-eyed lookouts have spotted us before we submerged? In a final effort to avoid the now seemingly inevitable, I turn away to present him out stern and a small ASDIC target. But it's no use - he's now coming straight at us from our starboard quarter!

I resist the temptation to crash dive and turn to escape and instead, line him up for a shot, opening the doors of Tube 5 in the stern and reducing slightly the run depth of the torpedo. By this time, the hydrophone operator is reporting another warship off our port bow. This will probably be a distant escort from the convoy's southern flank, but I don't have time to look. I need to get this corvette before he gets me!



Got him!



The escort literally staggers under the impact...



...and quickly goes down. Well, that worked. Much to everyone's relief no doubt, as it often goes less happily. Now, where's that convoy?



...to be continued!

In point of fact, U-33's efforts to dodge and then sink the corvette have placed us with the convoy's southern flank nearly directly ahead, but with its escort on that side racing across to catch us.



I reckon I can win this race - by getting into a firing position before the escort is a real threat. We close with the convoy at full speed, and then start shooting. I give the nearest merchantman two torpedoes from a range close enough that it shouldn't matter that the ships are now weaving evasively.

Both eels strike home!



For my next trick, we get away from the onrushing escort by diving under our target...



Olé!



...then coming back up to periscope depth on the other side. This puts us in the middle of the convoy and I fire off my remaining torpedoes as quickly as I can. The last two are at a tanker that is close but at a rather acute angle off her starboard quarter. The watery view simulates periscope vibration at higher speeds, incidentally, and is a variable element of the HSie realism mod that comes with GWX OneAlex Edition.



Then down we go again without waiting to see the results, turning to port as we go, so as to escape by coming out under the rear of the convoy formation.



I miss the tanker, but nearby, my first target has lost way and is burning as she settles in the water.



There are two or three other corvettes I still need to worry about.



My victim sinks bow first as the convoy rumbles on.



However, two corvettes are now hunting me and they continue to do so as I exit the convoy astern.



We suffer regular depth charge attacks but are fairly safe at 140 metres. But I do need to shake them off rather than let them hunt me until my batteries are exhausted, so deeper we go, to just over 160 metres, beyond which lies the red zone on the depth gauges.



Then we try to creep away under silent running.



At times, one corvette stops to search, while the other attacks.



Things are getting a bit tense in the boat, as we work to extricate ourselves.



I can but hope that as we draw away from the convoy and/or their stock of depth charges is depleted, they will give up.

...to be continued!

The pounding from above continues...



...then comes to an abrupt end. The two corvettes continue to circle tightly above, but no more cans are thrown at us. Are they conserving their supply, or have they exhausted it?



As the hours drag by, I fear that they will hunt us to exhaustion and then sink us in an unequal gunnery duel, once drained batteries force U-33 to surface. In an effort to reduce the odds, I abandon silent running long enough to load my last internal spare torpedo. Then up we come in an effort to sink one of the corvettes. This leads to a few interesting encounters, even after I establish, the risky way, that they have no more depth charges.



But I'm unable to get in a torpedo shot at the closely-circling escorts. What now? What's left to try? Tiefer, LI, I order the Leitender Ingenieur to take us deeper, down to 220 metres, while using the fine-tuning engine telegraph to call for revolutions for 1 knot, down from the three knots we were doing at kleine fahrt voraus.

We've now tried everything I can think of to make us less detectable. But nerves are stretched as the creaks and groans from the pressure hull grow louder and more insistent.



Just as it's beginning to seem that the sound contacts for the escorts are finally starting to fade astern, damage is suddenly reported at about 210 metres. But we stop descending. Why, is not initially apparent to our increasingly-tired commander and crew.



We've hit bottom! On first diving, for the convoy attack, a depth sounding indicated 1000 metres of water under our keel. But our escape to the west has run us onto the seabed at the Rockall Banks, in deep but much shallower water. I order the e-motors stopped before we do ourselves any more damage. It's as well that we were moving so slowly, when we struck.



Fortunately, none of the damage is serious, but it includes the hydrophones. I can only hope the corvettes have indeed withdrawn. My plan now is to lie quietly on the seabed until darkness begins to fall.



When the time comes, my first attempt to get us off just pitches the bow down into the mud, causing more slight damage. I should perhaps have tried to reverse out.



Anblassen! I give the order to blow ballast. Compressed air begins to hiss into the tanks, driving out water. At first, this just levels the boat...



...causing more damage as the keel hits bottom. Then the stern drops as the bow comes up, fortunately without damaging propellers or rudders, but affecting the stern torpedo room and the e-motors.



After that, the boat rises rapidly and we are soon running west towards the sunset. We're saved!



I have already assembled a repair crew and as the horizons are clear of enemies, put them to work, starting with the more important components and working forward.



Meanwhile, the bridge watch maintains a nervous vigil.



...to be continued!

Conditions remain calm and the horizons clear...



...as we rumble westwards, towards the setting sun.



So with darkness rapidly approaching, I decide to start bringing into the pressure hull our two externally-stowed reload torpedoes, one forward and one aft.



I order our 2 cm. flak gun manned, as a precaution. Unrealistically, SH3 denudes the bridge watch of all but one man if any guns are manned, but I haven't seen a mod which fixes this.



In the meantime, in his wisdom, BdU - whom I've been keeping up-to-date on our progress by radio, despite the risk of being DF'ed - orders us to an alternative patrol area, off to the west.



We still have enough fuel so I decide to accept this order, despite having only three eels left - and anxious not to chance U-33's good fortune too far, after our recent close escape. My hope is that we'll run into another merchantman sailing independently, preferably unarmed and while the good weather holds.



To be quite honest, I am really hoping not to run into another convoy!

...to be continued!

Well, that's as far as this career goes! Even though well away from enemies or shores, I got repeated CTDs when trying to load the fresh save game, whether starting SH3 with or without SH3 Commander. No solution suggested online has worked and I'm wondering if it's something to do with that change of patrol grid. Anyway I'm not inclined to pick up an earlier save in the hope this won't strike yet again. I'm gutted at not being able to bring U-33 home after our trials and tribulations, but there it is. One player reports never having this problem is they saved while in the control room view (the same view into which the game loads) so in desperation I'll probably try that in future SH3 careers.

Darn! I thought you were going to win this war, Lima! Things were going so well!