[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

Leutnant Heinrich Leffler's U-540 is once again sent to prowl the Atlantic convoy routes for her second war patrol. Trouble is we may never make it to our patrol grid, and it won't be the enemy's fault. Whys that you say? Because evidently U-540 has one or possibly two relatives of Bernard aboard, thats why!! :doh:

Not 5 minutes out of port, I was standing on the bridge admiring Rubini's excellent Harbor Traffic mod, and as Bobby Darin put it "watching the ships that go sailin!" and I pressed U to have a snoot at the smooth lines of a large Type 36 Destroyer through our UZO, accidentally hit J along with it, and bad-a-bing, "Decoy Launched , Herr Kaleun" came the voice of my Chief Engineer.



As if that wasn't bad enough, I forgot to order the RADAR switched off and within a few hours of clearing Lorient we spotted smoke on the horizon, possibly a British DD alerted by our signals. I dropped to 25 meters and sure enough there were high speed screws on the hydrophone, so we had to stay under for the remainder of the day just in case it wasn't one of ours.



Two accidents only a few hours apart on a ship of war does not bode well. However I resisted the urge to hit escape and re-start the patrol and instead made a note in the war diary that one of the seamen accidentally hit the decoy release lever, and that this caused such a commotion onboard that the Radio operator forgot to turn the RADAR off when I gave the order. The crewman who launched the decoy is to be punished by denying him a half bottle of beer next time we sink an enemy steamer, but the Radio operator is to remain onboard during our next refit and resupply to assist the dock workers and guard against saboteurs while the rest of us enjoy our shore leave. Doing this actually made the whole experience a lot more immersive and realistic for me. Accidents do happen and a boat is only as good as her crew afterall. So next time something silly like that happens and you're tempted to reload, take a moment to reconsider. It provides a whole other dimension to the game, and makes it seem that more real.

[Firebird]

Oh, I'm completely immersed. I'm gonna have my watch crew executed on return to port because they failed to spot a tramp steamer until he was at 1 meter distance...

[Salvadoreno]

same goes for me when my crew spots an airplane already in attack dive when im going 7 knots in a straight direction. If i take heavy damage or die, i dont restart, i just say to myself, well the crew was either tired, goofing around, or the plane came outta the clouds to fast to see in time.. But i get really upset when, lets say hypothectically if U-506 was comming back from the most exiciting and excellent patrol in the mediteranean on record with 5 ships sunk, an encounter with a freindly convoy following a surface ship to air battle, a heavy fog that almost ends up in ramming, previous aircraft attacks that came to a hair of killing me *cough* i mean u-506, and about 1 hour from freindly waters when an aircraft spotted comes up and by the time i get to the conning tower i see the 8 bombs already falling blowing my boat to smitherins i GET PRETTY UPSET WITH MY WATCH CREW....

[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

[docholliday]

Quite an imagination you have their Hienz