You are proud of yourself because you were able to land your first hits with manual targeting on full realism, but you get frustrated as it seems almost impossible to get away afterwards? This guide focuses on what I think is the hardest thing to master as soon as you learned how to command your U-boat and successfully attack targets all by yourself: How do you escape the well-equipped enemy warships of 1943-45? How can you start a successful career mid war with an unexperienced crew in an outdated boat against the allied war machine running full speed?

All valuable targets are protected within well defended convoys which you will only find without constant air cover in very deep water. You cannot run away on the surface, you cannot dive under the reach of their depth charges, you most likely will not be able to dive deep enough to get into the shadow zone. They are plenty, they are supported by a lot of planes, they can read your radio messages.

So is everything futile now and your only goal remains to just stay alive and constantly be hunted for as long as there are at least some U-boats on suicide missions, the enemy has to employ tens of thousands of workers and soldiers to defend convoys instead of storming beaches?

Kopf hoch, Herr Kommandant! The enemy is not so mighty as it seems and we are going to exploit his weaknesses. I got 10 advices for you to earn your Ritterkreuz and survive the war to tell the history channel all about it 50 years from now.

If you slipped into a convoy, and almost all your targets will hide inside a convoy, don't attack the ships up front. Stay on silent running, wait for at least half, better 2/3 of the convoy to pass you and look for valuable targets awhile. This usually puts a few km between you and 75% of the hunters at the start of the hunt and thus gives you valuable time to run faster than speed 1 (+ silent running). The closer the escorts are, the better they hear you, the slower you can creep away, the sooner they will find you. If you attack from within the first third of the convoy, you will start the hunt completely surrounded with defenders rushing to your position from literally every direction, and they might be close enough to hear you reloading right away.

Don't stay at the spot you attacked from. It is tempting as other ships likely will end up right at your bow. But don't make it so easy to determine for them where to search for you. The time your torpedo is in the water and did not explode yet is valuable time at which you can reposition at half speed with electric dive planes and even pump the bilge and reload one last time. Use it to get into a spot for a valuable last shot or even the escape right away. Ring the alarm and prepare for "Escape battle stations": man the engines, dive planes, rudder, command, hydrophones and - if you have someone free - damage control. I hope you made sure that everyone is well rested before you attacked.

Do not dive away. Stay at periscope depth. Close to the surface, ASDIC needs to be very close to detect you because you are hidden by the waves and turbulences. At medium range it is by far easier to detect you at depth below 30 meters than at periscope depth. This is especially true for medium depths like 50-150 meters. This seems to be exactly in the max range ASDIC "searchlight" cone. Manually order the periscopes (both!) to stay down. You can man the one you are not using briefly and order it to stay down, it will stay down even if you remove the officer. Afterwards only raise and use the periscopes yourself and peek out every once in a while - not too high above the water. Remember the enemy will visually check the area where he presumed the attack was coming from. So right after any hit, retract the periscope for a few minutes. It is tempting to stare at the carnage - as with most temptations, it comes with some danger. Whenever you have time to peek: Check all directions in regular intervals! Even if you found another target you want to attack on your way out - don't forget to check for a sudden destroyer sneaking up on you.

If you are within the convoy with no defender close, stay on speed 3. If they get closer than 4000 meters, speed 2, closer than 2000 meters - speed 1 and turn everything off that is loud (including electric dive planes). Head for the end and out of the convoy and while you do that, try to maneuver your way out of the ASDIC of the escorts at the back coming your way. They have a rather narrow search cone right in front of their bow, at periscope depth it will only detect you closer than about 2km depending on your aob towards the ASDIC. Make your silhouette small, especially if their bow is pointed at you (while trying to avoid them running right at you). I cannot stress this enough: Their search cone is limited and they keep it pointed forward as they steam towards your estimated last position. Being 300 meters to the side when they pass you, might be the distance that puts you out of their search net and into safety. That is why 1. and 2. are so important.

If they come at you but you are not pinged, go to/stay on silent running. Try to get a bit more aob (turning a bit away from them) and see if their aob stays 0 (they keep their bow pointed directly at you, that means they most likely hear you). If they get you into ASDIC at long-medium range, increase speed somewhat (!) and turn. You might break contact. One ping is no clear contact, even 4 or 5 pings, especially at long range, still might just give them your approx. position. Only dive deeper if you absolutely have to: If they are on a direct attack run against you, keeping aob 0 while you are maneuvering. Then crash dive at speed 3 at very close range (400-500 meters distance), with hard rudder for 5 seconds. Listen for them running over you and if they don't drop charges, go to periscope depth again right away. Throttle back to speed 2 for a few seconds and then to silent running again. Turn against their turn (if they were running to port after they ran over you, turn to starboard and try to get your ass pointing at them when they come around). Only use flank if they are dropping charges. Flank might get you away from that one corvette's ASDIC but if this leads to 4-12 other DDs hearing you, that is way worse. Any ship that gets a direct contact report on you, usually heads into your general direction. If all ships get audio on you, they might close in from every direction again. It would most likely have been easier to deal with the 1-3 corvettes circling…

If they drop those barrels, you have been detected, and your position has been reported. Your pants are down. Flank speed! Hard rudder. If you are going down, keep going down. After a few seconds, rudder midship. Wait for the first explosions. For as long as the explosions happen (and not any longer, this is a bit guesswork): Flank speed, bilge pump on, electric dive planes on. Now you have time to change depth as well. Try to get back to periscope depth right away. Only go deep - as deep as you can - if it is completely crowded and you cannot keep track of the traffic without your pericope being spotted every other second. If there are only a few enemies around you, you should have time to dodge attacks and go up again. Thank God for the poor AI, they are not very coordinated in their runs (yet). You might still be able to slip through as they are laying multiple series of depth charges (often without sonar contact just by hearsay).

If more and more defenders come at you and you are getting multiple attack runs at the same time, go to max depth. "Jetzt wird’s psychologisch" - this is panic mode. Down there it is harder for them to aim, easier for you to dodge, but all of this comes at a prize - an increasing prize and diminishing returns. Dodge each attack the same way as in 6. - but your bilge will not be working down here. The pump can stay off. Your bulkheads will also not withstand the pressure, so don't bother with them. Keep changing your depth between the attacks. The deeper you are, the longer it takes for the charges to sink down to you, so you have more reaction time. Use (irl) headphones while switching to FPV of an officer in the control room. You can hear where the loudest screws are and where they go. Use that to avoid being run over from aft to bow or the other way around. In between you can use the hydrophone to improve your awareness and to find the "silent" direction in which no enemy ships can be heard. Generally, turn towards it. Defenders tend to "lump up" on a certain spot when they lose contact for a while. Keep your aft roughly pointed towards that noisy area.

It is crucial to seek opportunities to get out of the depth again. The longer you stay at depth, the more water will accumulate in the bilge, the more dangerous even minor hits will become. Deep down, every hit is way more devastating and if you have multiple attackers, it can be very hard to keep track of all the attacks due to your blind spots and the long timespans from dropping to exploding charges (someone may throw a long line of charges right as you are hearing explosions, you will never see that coming). This is especially true if you are in convoy and you are hearing screws from every direction. Don't try to be smartass and don't rely on the shadow zone. If you have half a dozen ships above you in moderate temperatures, you will be found with ASDIC. Staying at depth will not save you past 1942, especially not in a regular Typ VIIc. So, if you get multiple reports of depth charges being dropped one right after the other, this is the perfect time to go up again - you will have a long series of explosions masking you.

If you get hit or damaged at below 200meters- immediately flank speed, emergency blow ballast, bilge pump and electric dive planes on, engineers to repair hull breaches and go up right away. Don't wait to see how bad it is - every second may decide your fate. Watch your buoyancy. If it is negative, try to reach periscope depth. Make absolutely sure you get to less than 6-7m³ of water inside the boat or you cannot go deep again. The game does not allow you to pump bilge into the ballast tanks and blow it from there like in the perfect German kino movie you watched. If you have too much bilge at depth, you will sink and you will stay sunk. So, if there is more than 6m³ or any big active leak, try to go to 20 meters and zick zack for a while until you got the situation under control. Repairs are loud - so maneuver as best as you can. They will probably hear you anyway. As you are close to the surface again, your goal should be to get the periscope out. Try to repair the hull and get the water out, especially before you try to go silent and/or deep again. A damaged boat is likely to get breaches way easier so with a beat up boat, try not to go that deep again. It is still possible to escape with a "yellow" hull breach that is monitored by someone - it will not sink the boat if you stay shallow for quite a while even without the pumps running. Hopefully they will run out of depth charges before you run out of tricks and spare parts. If you have a red breach you cannot repair - may God be with you. If the seafloor is at less than 100 meters, seal the compartment and wait it out there. Luck might save you. You can open the compartment, repair the damage and activate the pumps after the surface dwellers lose interest in you. If the seafloor is at less than 240 meters, bulkheads will not save you, but your crew might get everything under control before you take in too much water. This is very unlikely though. If you can't get up with buoyancy, you might risk to plow over the seafloor until you gain some high ground at which the pumps are working. If you get so lucky, order your crew to carry the water from all sections into the control room from where it can be pumped out even at some depth. If not: Learn English, say your prayers and get your rebreathers.

If you managed to get out of the convoy but the defenders are still searching for you, keep in mind that it will be easier to hear you as soon as you are not surrounded by dozens of merchants anymore. Stay quiet, keep your periscope wet and get a good distance between you and the defenders until you even think about anything but speed 1. There will be someone stopped and listening just waiting for you to increase your speed. And don't even think about putting a torpedo on their way just because they are stopped. If you are not very close, they will evade it and come your direction. Remember: They stopped to listen, and I don't think your torpedoes got a "silent running" setting as well. If you see anything but smoke over the horizon, do not resurface. If you can resurface, flank speed and get some distance from the convoy quickly. Don't send radio messages about your victories until your batteries are recharged and you are quite a bit away. If you are quite a bit away: Congratulations Herr Kapitänleutnant! Your daring attack will be featured in the next Wochenschau and you will get a lot of lipstick stained letters!