There are occasions when you are going to change the date of your next patrol (=date of departure) so that date matches the date in your orders:
- in campaigns such as Paukenschlag
- when commencing a new career
- when you receive new orders after returning to port
It is actually very easy to do, so do not be scared. You are member of an ELITE group, not a child-care-center, so act like it.
Here is how you do it, either
(A) manually or
(B) by means of S3CA. Procedures for manually adjusting your date of departure after using SH3 Commander, herinafter referred to as S3C, for a new career:- For example the orders you have received say you leave port on or after 19411201.
- Run S3C, you will need to select 12 as the start month, and 1941 as the start year.
- You will then need to start SH3 through S3C, ensure you have ample crew, and then start your patrol.
- As soon as you are in the command room of your U-Boot, save and exit SH3.
- Go to your \Documents\GWX (or other 3 letter identification you assigned for your particular SH3+SuperMod)
- Proceed further to the career folder. Example: C:\Documents\GWX\data\cfg\Careers\Olaf Steiner\ and locate Patrols_0.cfg.
- Copy and paste a backup of this file to a safe location, for safe measure. ALWAYS MAKE BACKUPS!
- Now, open Patrols_0.cfg with Notepad (or other text editor, like ConTEXT or notepad++). It should now look like this:
[PATROL 000]
PatrolNumber=0
StartYear=1941
StartMonth=12
StartDay=11 <--------- It will look like this
StartHour=9
StartMin=23
- Find the line "StartDay=11" which will be near the top, and change it to 1. Same with year and month, if necessary
- Next, save and exit your text editor.
- At this point you are ready to start your patrol. When you start SH3 via S3C, select Load Saved Career, but select the very first saved game (very top one) which will be "In Port Before Patrol". This will place you in the Flotilla Office ready to start.
- Verify your start date on the calendar on the right of the screen matches the date in your orders. Once confirmed, you are now ready to proceed on patrol. Good hunting!
B. Procedures for adjusting your date of departure by means of S3C, herinafter referred to as S3C, when back in port:It is fairly realistic that U-Boote were required to go through a dry dock inspection after every patrol; and this takes time to perform – 40 to 60 days was not uncommon for a "U-Boot-turnaround". Determining when you leave requires a simple calculation.
For example, you started your first Mittelmeer-patrol in 12/1941 and you return, say, on January 18, 1942 – the date you return will be located on line 5 of your S3C-Soldbuch. Now let us assume your orders say that your second patrol is going to begin on March 1, 1942 – that is 42 days after you arrive in base. So we calculate the difference between those two dates: 13 days to the end of January + 28 days for February {non-leap year} + 1 more day for March 1st = 42 days. There are date-duration calculators in the web everywhere, pick one. The one I use is
https://www.timeanddate.com/date/durationresult.html/duration.htmlSo to make sure that you depart on March 1, 1942, look at this screenshot, it is really easy
- Run S3C
- Go to SH3 Options by clicking on the wrench
- Select and highlight “Career Options” on the left
- Check the box titled “Set number of days spent in base to:”
- Enter “42” days, the number computed above (or how ever many of days you compute from the end of your last patrol to March 1, 1942).
- Be sure to select "Apply", then "OK", then exit out. When you restart SH3 Commander and begin your patrol, the calendar in the Flotilla office should read March 1, 1942.
Provided your S3C Soldbuch STATUS is “At home base …”, you will leave port on March 1, 1942 in this example provided you start SH3 from SH3 Commander.
