Battle Report: U-Boat Captain (October, 1940)

BATTLE REPORT CARD

Date: September, 2025

Game: U-Boat Captain

Size: 760 Tons

Mission: Year Campaign - October, 1940

 
🟥Red Player: Alex

🟥Faction: ...

🟥List: U-701 (Type-VIIC)

Prologue

Over 2023 and 2024 I tried my hand at a couple solo board games. My first attempt was a dedicated solo game called Spire's End: Hildegard and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I tested a couple other solo modes for board game I liked such as Wingspan, Heat: Pedal to the Metal, and Viticulture. I gave The One Ring RPG's (my favorite TTRPG) Strider Mode a try and thought it was just fine. Since then, I've wanted to try my hand at a solo miniature's war game. I gave Five Parsecs from Home a try, and thought it was just OK. I was missing something, and after two missions, I drifted away from it. These solo RPGs and war games were missing some about of goal setting that I desired.

 

My war gaming buddy Sammy recommend a solo war game he ran across. It was U-Boat Captain by a little publisher Minden Games. I was wary of the game at first, due to my previous experiences with TOR's Strider Mode and Five Parsecs. But what caught my eye was the advertisement for one of their other games, Der Tag, 1916. Der Tag was a game I had heard over before and had generally high praise. With that in my mind, I opted to give U-Boat Captain a go (although it took me a few months to actually give it the go).

 

I decided to start with an early war U-Boat, the Type-VIIC and run through a one year campaign starting at the beginner's mission of October 1940 and going to 1941. I played the first October patrol over my lunch break, using an online dice roller and card drawer to handle the RNG the game required. Below, is a quick excerpt of how my first patrol over October of 1940 went.

 

Patrol 1 - October, 1940

October 1, 1940: New orders received. Patrol the waters of Norway.

October 2-3: Journey to the waters of Norway. No encounters or sightings.

October 4: Patrol of the Norwegian Sea begins. Happy hunting U-701.

 

 

October 5-13: No sightings.

October 14: Night Sighting! Merchant vessels (small and large) without escort. We move to engage at close range and launch two torpedoes at the large vessel. One torpedo hits, but fails to sink the ship. We extend our attack, undetected, launching two more torpedoes. Both torpedoes hit and sink the vessel. We extend our attack to engage the small vessel. We are detected and take 2 damage. We fire the deck gun, sinking the last small vessel. We have now sunk 11,000 tons of shipping.

October 15: Night Sighting! There must be some shipping that was strung out across the Atlantic. Four merchant vessels with an escort (small, small, small, large). We close to medium range to try to remain undetected. We train our sights on the large vessel and send out two torpedoes to no effect. We extend our attack, remaining undetected, launching another two torpedoes. One hits, but fails to sink the vessel. We extend our attack again, still remaining undetected and launch one more torpedo attempting to sink the crippled vessel but miss. We extend, hoping to close and make a final shot with the deck gun but are detected! We run silent, escaping the escorts.

October 16: Night Sighting! Or at least we thought. We pursue some lights off in the distance, finding only a few fishing vessels. We call off the attack.

October 17-20: No sightings.

October 21: Day Sighting! We spot a group of two vessels with an escort (small and large). Running out of days in October, we close to close range and launch three torpedoes at the large vessel. One torpedo hits it's mark and the large vessel sinks! We extend our attack, remaining undetected, to launch our last two torpedoes at the small vessel. Both torpedoes find their mark and the vessel sinks. However, we are detected as we attempt to withdraw, taking 3 damage before we are able to withdraw to safety. At the end of the day, we are out of torpedoes and have a very damaged boat, though we have raised our monthly total of shipping sunk to 22,000 tons.

October 22: Night Sighting! We decided to press on one more day before heading home. Our persistence has paid off, fate delivering a lone large merchant vessel to sink. We run deep up to short range before surfacing. Our deck guns stretch their legs, easily sinking the vessel. Our monthly total of shipping sunk is now 29,500 tons, a very healthy number. 

October 23-24: Running low on fuel and out of torpedoes, it was time for us to make for home. We run into no resistance on the way back to port.

October 25: We arrive in port!

October 26, 1940 through March 30, 1941. The U-701 has seen better days, and will spend 4 months in port for repairs and refit. During this time, my duties in the Norwegian Sea have earned me a commendation. At the end of March, I learned U-701's next destination, the North Atlantic.

To be continued...