Let's Play: Das Thanasboot!

[PeZook]

There is space for one more officer, or alternatively a disturbingly mathematically talented unteroffizier from the command spaces.



The guys with the large pictures are officers ; The tiny brown guys are petty officers, and the guys in blue smocks are enlisted crewmen.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmmm. I think we'll go with the disturbingly mathematically talented petty officer.

Leicht verrückt proto-Physiker Unteroffizier Erich Huber, reporting for duty!

His personal effects are extremely limited, but include a rare prototype Sturmrechenscheiber! It is of extreme sentimental value.

One of his more distinctive habits is what he mutters in his sleep. Something about "huge bomb" and "must hide," in a fearful tone.

Don't ask why he joined the submarine force...

[LaCroix]

Leutnant Thomas Funkenschuster, electric engineer (best of class in my year at the Donaudampfschiffsfahrtgesellschaftselektrizitätenhaupt­betriebs­werkschulungszentrum), reporting for duty. I'll have the batteries serviced and rewired for maximum efficiency before we head out...

(And it amuses me without end that Cpt. Merkel Thanas is from Vienna )

[PeZook]

Herr kommandant Thanas will have to approve your candidature,since while the boat has enough space for an extra offizier, it might complicate crew rotations.

[MKSheppard]

Werhner von Shapp sank into his filthy bunk at the end of the day, splattered with grey paint. It had taken most of the day screaming at the filthy Sarkozies to get the boat painted with the grey camouflage that Kommandeur Thanas had screamed at him for.

Turning on the light in his cramped compartment, Shapp checked to be sure that nobody had opened the locked box that he carried with him everywhere. Good. That strange pistol that had appeared in his room in May 1940 was still secure in it's custom built box. Shapp had no idea what use he could possibly put a Schmeisser Radium Pistol to, but it was a nice safeguard against the Shroomstapo showing up one day and taking him away for insufficient devotion to the Great Leader Adenoid Hynkel.

[PeZook]

Pest, Stenchia
Sept 5, 1943

"Nein! Nein, herr leutnant!"

Skywalker turned around in confusion. He was barely conscious, having spent the last four days trying to relearn trigonometry and figure out how to use the various map tools he found under his station, so the boostman's shouts did not immediately register.

"If you use that toilet, der Arishkoch will become very angry!"

"Wha...who?"

The bootsman looked at him crossly. Everybody knew the Bavarian with a funny name wasn't the brightest tool in the shed, but he really should know by now about the slightly crazy cook residing in the boat's tiny galley.

"Der Arishkoch! He will come with his frying pan and let me tell you, you don't want want that, herr leutnant! See...", the bootsman opened the door to the front toilet, revealing a pile of boxes and tightly wound sausages hanging from the ceiling, "We store the Kommandant's wursts here. You should use the aft toillet, jawohl."

"Oh...thank you, err...bootsman?"

"Bootsman Erich Huber, herr leutnant! Valve specialist!"

"...oh. Thank you."

"By the way, your protractor...it's broken."

"Really?"

"Really."

Skywalker scurried off, through the bulkheads towards the aft parts of the boat. That was more difficult than it sounded: Crewmen were stuffing canned bread and other provisions into every possible space, while work gangs were lowering electric torpedoes through the forward hatches. Technically, leutnant Skywalker should've used a dockside toilet, but he was terrified of falling into the oily and filthy water again.

Was his protractor really broken? How could that weird bootsman tell?

He'd ask later. Maybe that man could help with his...problem.

[FaxModem1]

The cook, which was what everyone called him, as asking him what his name was seemed to elicit only odd gibberish that sounded like Swedish mixed with the occasional Thanasian word, was checking on his new restroom souffle.

He stirred the pot. "Gouleh ginnesy doo, bork bork bork. Sauce de finnenty doo toilet. Bork Bork Bork."

The odd mustachioed man took a sip with a ladle, and started adding in some sausages that were hung from the ceiling. That was when he noticed, someone had been in here. He grabbed the nearest cooking instrument he could find, which in this case, was an old rusty butcher knife.

Inscirbed on the blade were the words "Today Vee Goona Make Puree of Pally Puppet.", for some puppet had interfered with his cooking, and that meant revenge. Or as they said in his old country...

"Hunishue Gonna get you Bork bork bork."

[LaCroix]

"Hey, you! Leutnant!" A voice rang out behind Funkenschuster, who didn't flinch any more as he occasionally did, anyway.

"Aren't you one of the Funkenschusters?" the bootsman asked.

"Yes, I am," Thomas replied happily, not knowing why this man was aquainted with his family.

"Very well, we got this upgrade package for the hydrophones and I need someone to get it to work - you're volunteered!" the man commanded and stormed off, screaming at some stenchies who were hastily painting the hull.

[MKSheppard]

Not enough sexual entendres/innenduo involving loading long, hard and greased up objects through a tiny hatch.

[Scottish Ninja]

"So, Oberleutnant, you hear about what they've been doing with U-511? I mean, rockets on a submarine? How the hell are they supposed to hit anything? And I've heard a rumor that they want a submarine to carry some kind of really big rocket. I can't even begin to imagine what that would be for. I don't even know how a submarine could carry such a thing - you'd have to build a really big submarine to fit the damn thing in the hull, if my friend is right about the size of it..."

[Skywalker_T-65]

(OOC) Sorry, I haven't been on lately. Not having internet at home sucks. Moving on:

"You want T III torpedoes Kommandant?" Skywalker asked nervously.

"Ja, ja, now get to it!" Kommandant Thanas yelled while supervising the...less than stellar...crew.

Oh God, I don't even know what T III's are! Wait...think back to that submarine book...right! They were the electric ones with the new fuze! I can do this!! Skywalker thought, before someone knocked him back into the water.

(OOC: Taking Thanas' advice, we will load up all our internal torpedoes as T III's (which don't cost renown). As for the externals...fairly obvious that they have to be T I's. The externals are pending Kommandant Thanas' approval though.)

[Chardok]

September something, 1943

Dear Diary - I vas sinking today, as I leesened to zee songz of zee vales, zat in a very few days, I vill be using zees instruments vich are providing me such beautiful muziks to guide us tovard killing perhaps thousands of men. men who will never again see zere famiileez, zere children, zere vives. Unt I vunder...vhy? vaht is zee point? if vee sink 5 amerikkan zhips, vey will bild more. if vee sink 10, zey vill build more. and vee vill have akomplished nothing exzept to destroy zee lives of sousands. var is zuch a terrible sing. I secretly pray zat zis vill be zo terribble zat it vill be zee last wun. Yet, knowing human natchur, it vill almost zertainly not be. pointless vaste, zis ees.















15 years later, rummaging through the discarded belongings of a long-dead soldier at a yard sale in Massachusetts, a young jewish man would stumble upon the diary of a Nazi Unterseebootsman and it would forever change his outlook on society, war, and the human condition....

[The Yosemite Bear]

watches a cat with grey camo paint in it's fur, chase a rat through the compartment while the two of them run across the chart tables leaving grey paint paw prints on the table, noting that the rat is not really a grey wharf rat, but an Albino lab rat covered in camo grey paint, noting also that the cat lives in a cat carrier labled propert of Erwin S.

[LaCroix]

"Herr Bootsmann!" Funkenschuster saluted crisply to the man who currently was resting his voice and only glaring at the stenchian painters working for their lives. The glare lessened only somewhat when he looked at the engineer.

"Oh, the Funkenschuster..."

Leutnant Funkenschuster smiled back, happy that the man already knew him by name. He was certainly making an impression, here.

"I have finished upgrading the hydrophones. We weren't issued enough cable, though. Must me in short supply with all the war thing going on, he,he..." Leutnant Funkenschuster tried to lighten the mood, but recieved only a bland look of indifference in return.

"Anyway, we weren't that short on black isolation tape, so I cannibalized some out of the general electric light circuits, so that the system runs fine, and re-routed the lights through the handrails of one of the bed's handrails. I wrapped it in tape, but it wasn't enough to cover it fully. Forward section, bunk 3. Dunno who's in it, but it should be someone who's big into math, going by the books scattered on it. Keep your guys aware that they shouldn't touch the un-taped section of it, or they'll get a minor shock."

With that, he gave another salute and walked off, under the still bland gaze of the Bootsmann, who only understood enough to figure out that the phones were done.

"Damned Funkenschusters, all talk and nothing else. That ain't a honest trade, just pulling some wires and calling it work - no heavy lifting or anything," he murmured, before he got back to yelling at the stenchians.

OOC: "Funkenschuster" is a slight, for an electrician who creates more sparks and smoke than non-shoting circuits.

[Scottish Ninja]

Up on deck...

"Hey, Oberfähnrich, can you give me a hand with this case?"

Von Doofenberg looked over in time to see the man drop the case, which split open on the deck, cans of bread sliding everywhere. "Scheiße!" He caught a few cans with his feet and ran for one sliding towards the edge - got his fingertips on it, then the boat rolled back and he lost his tenuous grip on the can, which clattered down the side of the hull before falling into the bilges. "Damn it! That's one can of bread that we won't see for a long time..."

[Simon_Jester]

Hmm.

Could someone fill me in on our current PC roster and rank structure? I'm getting confused.

[PeZook]

Yes. I have no idea why a leutnant (lieutenant) salutes a bootsman (petty officer, second class), either

Current crew roster, will be updated as things change

The current PC roster is:

Offizieren

OberLeutnant z. S. Merkel Thanas - Thanas, Bootskommandant

Leutnant z. S. Wehrner von Shapp - Shep, 1 Watch Officer

Leutnant z. S. Gebieter Zwingen - Force Lord, Chief Engineer

Leutnant z. S. Ian Skywalker - Skywalker_T-65, Weapons Officer

Oberfähnrich (ensign) z. S. Hans von Doofenberg - Scottish Ninja, Navigator/2 WO

Unteroffizieren

Stabsbootsmann (Chief Petty Officer) Dargos Ritterbachen, Dargos, Chief Radioman

Stabsbootsmann Chard Von Dokken, Chardok, Chief Sonarman

Not currently on the list, but part of the crew roster:

Bootsman Erich Huber, Simon_Jester, valve specialist/chief diveman (command compartment post, basically turns valves for diving/surfacing)

Currently participating, but unapproved for crew roster:

Leutnant z.s. Thomas Funkenschuster - LaCrox, chief electrician/machinist

---

The rank structure is thus very simple. Kommandant Thanas has ultimate power. Officers (leutnants and oberfahnrichsen) hold ultimate power in their areas of responsibility. Bootsmen of various ranks command sailors in their respective compartments.

[PeZook]

Pest, Stenchia
Sept 9, 1943

Final matters remained. Somehow, the terrifying collection of misfits, unwilling conscripts, Bavarian Weisswurst-eating degenerates and suspected deserters have managed to get U-1313 painted, supplied and inspected for its patrol. Even the new type KDB hydrophone has been installed and even possessed a slight chance of operating properly, though at the cost of continually shocking two bootsmen who shared a bunk in the forward quarters/torpedo room*.

And thus, Bootskommandant Thanas gathered his offizieren and unteroffizieren for their final briefing, where matters of utmost importance would be decided. What route would the boot take to its destination? At what time would it leave port, what sort of marching regime would be held? What were the rules of engagement? Would the freshly transferred leutnant-electrician get to participate in U-1313's glourious patrol right at Murca's vile and degenerate shores?

All of these matters and more were crucially important for the officers to know and carry out. The petty officers had to know them, too, in order to carry out the Kommandants will and the officers' orders to its fullest.

For at sea, herr Oberleutnant zur see Merkel Thanas would be second only to Gott himself, and by Gott, his will was going to be carried out...

---

* Yes, the forward torpedo room on a Type VII uboat was the crew quarters. In fact, several crewmen slept literally on top of the torpedoes. And had to share them with two other crewmen.

[Simon_Jester]

Forward Torpedo Room
Sept. 8, 1943

"Gotta hide... Big One coming..." Bootsman Huber started to roll over in bed, but since there was only about half a centimeter of space, he didn't so much roll as twitch. He touched the bare wire in the forward torpedo room. One twitch led to another.

*BZZT*

"Nein nein nein!" Huber sprawled to the floor.

Okay, that is IT. The petty officer growled. Revenge would be his! Just as soon as he finished his calculations...

After several pages of complex numbers, phasor diagrams, sines, cosines, quasi-signs, Burma-shave-signs, and forty-seven judicious uses of the Sturmrechenscheiber, all was ready. He rummaged about for that wooden block, he carefully taped the needle, he placed it... there. Just there, not a millimeter to the left or to the right, but there.

The resonances, they built up, a standing arc of electrodynamical revengeance. Completely did they ignore the actual hydrophone outlets, although for a brief moment of confusion von Dokken's beloved whale songs appeared to have been transmuted into polka. Waves of electricity bounced, crackled, and surged, until, in one corner of the overstuffed war-sardine-tin that was U-1313, Leutnant Funkenschuster's chickens came home to roost, on his own homestead...

*BZZZT*



Huber chuckled. "RACHE IST MEIN!"

Now, off to find something to insulate those wires.

[Chardok]

As von Dokken purposefully strode through the narrow corridors, he seemed visibly shaken. He always was quick to unnerve, but slow to anger.

"Leutnant! Leutnant von Shapp!"

Leutnant von Shapp was clearly annoyed at being addressed at all by the nervous sonarman.

"von Dokken, yes, what is the problem?"

"vell, vile I vas leestening to zee vales, as I doo...ven..."

"Spit it out, von Dokken"

"Vell, mein Herr...there vas....polka museek."

"Polka?" inquired von Shapp

"Ja, polka."

"Well, let us have a listen, then, shall we?" It was clear to von Dokken that Shapp thought him a few barrels short of a Haufbrauhaus.



"Stabsbootsman?"

"Ja, Herr Shapp?"

"I hear the ocean" Shapp said, irritated.

"B-but...Mein Herr, I know I heard..." von Dokken's voice trailed off as he put his headphones on and heard nothing but the quiet ruch of water, the occasional crackle of some far-off stones or pebbles tossed about by the surf. "Mein Herr, I apologize I must've...perheps eet malfunkshunned?"

"Perhaps, Stabsbootsman, perhaps." the annoyed watch officer replied as he quickly walked out of the compartment.

"zees does not bode vell for zee rest ov our jurnee, I don' sink..." von Dokken said aloud, to no one in particular, "Not vell at ole."

[PeZook]

Once the glourious Bootskommandant and the crew decide on important matters of how the patrol is to be run, we shall commence!

For the lower cremembers, you still have to select an emblem for the boat - since it was given up for a vote, and the enlisted men are terrified of offending the unteroffizieren (and thus being sent to the Eastern Front), it's the petty officers who get to chose the emblem.

You can chose from any of the actual boats and/or flotillas, as all these emblems are in GWX

EDIT: Some emblems can be found here

[Simon_Jester]

Well, if we want a seal, there's U-60's emblem:



Seal with a tophat!

[Chardok]

I propose something like the following:

[Simon_Jester]

Cool- where'd you get that from?

[Chardok]

Here

Plus a fresh coat of MSP