Hi guys, long time no see.
I've been playing SH3 since day one of it's release. Awesome game. I'm on my 6th patrol of my first and career, and I've been able to move from U-1, a type IIA boat, to my current ride of U-51, a type VIIB.
I have full realism on except for auto updates, which I have enabled.
I was sent to grid AM54 on my 6th patrol and ran into my first convoy, a large one. It had only one escort(W&V destroyer), which saw me shortly after I first made vis on the convoy. The escort charged me and forced me to crash dive. It made a depth charge run but missed. I could tell by the sound from the hydrophones that it lost me, so I came back up to periscope depth and chanced a quick look. 500M away off my stern, there was the destroyer, looking for me, but luckily for me, running perpendicular to my path. I quickly set up and launced a steel fish of love out my single stern tube. As soon as they saw the steam from the torp, they saw my pericscope and I saw small arms hitting the water around my scope. Down went my scope, and a few seconds later, the detonation of my torpedo sounded throughout the boat, greeted by loud cheers from the crew.
Since I have all external views and cameras disabled, I had no idea how much damage the escort took, but as I was diving down again, I was relieved to hear the groans and crashes as the destroyer's bulkheads imploded as it sank. My sonar man then confirmed that the enemy vessel was destroyed.
Coming back up to persicope depth, I scanned the convoy and saw no more escorts. What followed next was a slaughter, as I expended all my torps( except for the ones in surface storage) and 88mm deck gun ammo, sending ten ships to the bottom. I almost sent a fish into a huge American C3 transport, but at the last moment I noticed old glory flapping in the breeze and the Sherman tanks(in 1940?!) parked on deck. So, I had to be careful of the neutral American ships as I picked my way through the convoy.
It was totally dweeby, but since it was my first convoy, I allowed myself just this one indulgence. I'm going to install the escort spawn bug mod and 20% single ship mod this weekend when I have more time.
I wish I would've snapped some pics, because I came >< close to getting rammed by one of the American ships that I was ignoring as I was focusing on destroying the British ships. I looked up just in time to see an American C2 bearing down on me. Shouting for flank speed, I engaged full left rudder, and my erstwhile killer plowed on by within 10 meters of my stern!
Whew! What a fabulous game.