Hull Integrity????

[1./JG3_Reich]

Do any of you virtual skippers out there know how to determine what your hull integrity is after you sustain damage?

I was on the surface and took some hits by an IJN plane. The only damage shown was my deck gun which my repair crew promptly repaired. I then went to a crash dive and my sub dove out of control and that was it. There was nothing that told me there was other damage. Am I missing something?


Thanks in advance.


Reich

[Linavitch]

From my experience, and reading that of other skippers on here, ANY damage sustained is more or less fatal at any thing deeper than PD.

You can repair the damaged stations on the DC screen but even one bullet hole on the hull seems to be the end for you.

[Bum]

From my experience, and reading that of other skippers on here, ANY damage sustained is more or less fatal at any thing deeper than PD.

You can repair the damaged stations on the DC screen but even one bullet hole on the hull seems to be the end for you.

Thats not true at all.:roll:

Hull intergrity is one of the items in the damage center. Have a close look, see the BULKHEAD items...? I think that is the hull percent. :)

[AVGWarhawk]

Yes, I think the bulkheads are you key to what is left of your sub. Good luck because my boys have a heck of a time repairing them. But the again, under attack who is going to break out the welding supplies?

[Joaoperru]

It is true: you repair the bulkheads but you just stop the filling of water.
The first time you gp PD you sink to the bottom :down:

[Linavitch]

I got caught with an airstrike, near miss, damaged AA and flak guns and one bulkhead.

Repaired the stuff on the DC panel and stopped the flooding. But when I dived to 20m I just kept going and going until I imploded. Nothing I could do to raise the vessel. I have read other similar accounts here too.

[1./JG3_Reich]

Thanks for the replys Gents!

But I gotta say :down: In this instance the only damage was the deck gun. Nothing about Bulkhead damage. I will have a look and see.

I sure hope this is something that will be fixed. It is nice in SH3 where you had a % and you knew where you stood.

Thanks again.

S! Reich

[Linavitch]

It is nice in SH3 where you had a % and you knew where you stood.

S! Reich

It was nice until them GWX buggers took it out. I had to re-enable it the amount of times I was dying (I still died a lot).

[Reinhard Hardegen]

Not too sure about all the damage (or lack of) to sink you, I am on my first mission, but have been attacked by two aircraft with hits made to my boat. I just dived to 230 feet and stayed there most of the day, til nightfall to surface.:hmm: So as of yet, I have not seen a bullet sink my boat.:huh: But I will have to try to stay out of their way from now on.

[fullmetaledges]

I've sunk like a brick as well but there is another part to this problem is that if you sink to the sea floor no matter how shallow you sub seems to crush itself to death. I took out a balao and rammed it into some hawaiian island to see if I could replicate the problem and sure enough my forward torpedo room flooded and as soon as I touched bottom everything else started to take a crap. you can sit on the bottom but if you sink to the bottom because of flooding it's all over.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/nailbomb/damage.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/nailbomb/damage2.jpg

[TheSatyr]

With the 5 flooded compartments you have there you don't have any possibility of surviving ANY kind of dive.

One flooded compartment should be enough to sink a sub.

[fullmetaledges]

the forward was flooded nothing else, but as soon as you touch bottom because of flooding, everything breaks (bug)

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

the forward was flooded nothing else, but as soon as you touch bottom because of flooding, everything breaks (bug)
To be fair with a single fully flooded compartment you're dead anyway, as the crew in there will have drowned. All 5 bulkheads gone means the sub has suffered a catastrophic failure along its entire length. Accurate enough if you ask me, even if the implementation isn't exactly intuitive.

[StandingCow]

During a multiplayer game I had a totally flooded fore torepedo room, the sea floor was only around 268 feet down, so I crashed into the bottom (engines were off cuz I didnt wanna drag). Took no extra damage from hitting the bottom, and was able to repair my torpedo tubes and bulkhead, and eventually surface (aft first since I was flooded).

[GakunGak]

Am I wrong or you do not have DC button activated [second from the right on your second screenshot]?:hmm:

[fullmetaledges]

the forward was flooded nothing else, but as soon as you touch bottom because of flooding, everything breaks (bug)
To be fair with a single fully flooded compartment you're dead anyway, as the crew in there will have drowned. All 5 bulkheads gone means the sub has suffered a catastrophic failure along its entire length. Accurate enough if you ask me, even if the implementation isn't exactly intuitive.
I meant to say flooding not flodded, and if a singly flodded compartment means your dead then why do they have watertight doors between them?

[fullmetaledges]

Am I wrong or you do not have DC button activated [second from the right on your second screenshot]?:hmm: no I don't, i was trying to reproduce what I think is a bug so I didn't want them fixing things

[AVGWarhawk]

the forward was flooded nothing else, but as soon as you touch bottom because of flooding, everything breaks (bug)
To be fair with a single fully flooded compartment you're dead anyway, as the crew in there will have drowned. All 5 bulkheads gone means the sub has suffered a catastrophic failure along its entire length. Accurate enough if you ask me, even if the implementation isn't exactly intuitive.



Thank you Fat Bhoy!!! The sub is not indestructable! One compartment flooded and your toast. The Hollywood patch it up and dive to 1000 feet is just that Hollywood.

I applaud your response Fat B!!!!:rock:Drive the sub like is it an egg, you need to be carefull with it or it will crack;)

[quadraspleen]

SO, lets say a compartment was half-flooded and then repaired. Does the flooding reduce over time as you pump it out, or is that it? It's flooded for good?

[AVGWarhawk]

SO, lets say a compartment was half-flooded and then repaired. Does the flooding reduce over time as you pump it out, or is that it? It's flooded for good?

It should be pumped dry depending on how bad the bulkhead was damaged. If you look at the damage control screen and you see a full blue block over the compartment. Your pretty much toast.

Also, repairs take much longer in SH4 than in SH3. By long shot.

[quadraspleen]

Jeez, this damage model will take some getting used to!

I think, if it worked, over time, it might be better than SH3; It seems to be trying to be a bit more "joined-up" and cleverer than SH3, yet failing due to more little, yet show-stopping bugs (crew deaths etc) It certainly encourages you to take more care when planes are around. I'm sure they weren't all engaged IRL anyway. It's so tempting once you've had a hit or two, but it seems all it takes is a few cannon rounds from a plane and that's it, unless you can limp home surfaced...
Grrrr. Just lost _another_ boat. Ho hum...

:damn:

[fullmetaledges]

the forward was flooded nothing else, but as soon as you touch bottom because of flooding, everything breaks (bug)
To be fair with a single fully flooded compartment you're dead anyway, as the crew in there will have drowned. All 5 bulkheads gone means the sub has suffered a catastrophic failure along its entire length. Accurate enough if you ask me, even if the implementation isn't exactly intuitive.



Thank you Fat Bhoy!!! The sub is not indestructable! One compartment flooded and your toast. The Hollywood patch it up and dive to 1000 feet is just that Hollywood.

I applaud your response Fat B!!!!:rock:Drive the sub like is it an egg, you need to be carefull with it or it will crack;)

I know that one hit from a plane or a gun from a ship could kill a submarine as they are fragile and I'm not looking for a indestructable sub what I'm trying to say is if I take flooding and thats the only damage I have and I sink to the bottom like in the first picture then why when I settle on the bottom of the sea floor at 65ft does everything else in my sub just die like in the second picture.

[AVGWarhawk]

@Full,

If I'm not mistaken, the subs damage is handled like the vessels damage...hit points. If this is the case, enough hit points are gone to make your sub implode. I'm guessing on the hit points but I believe this is how sub damage is handled.

[GakunGak]

@AVGWarhawk: Congrats on your 3000 post.

Still, I kinda miss ol' SH3 damage model interface, it was kinda easy to handle...:smug:

[TheSatyr]

You can pump out the water from a flooded compartment,but it seems to take a few days to finish...and until it does get pumped dry any attempt to dive is likely to kill you.

And even with a repaired bulkhead and a dry compartment I won't go deeper than periscope depth...I figure any deeper is just tempting fate.

[AVGWarhawk]

@AVGWarhawk: Congrats on your 3000 post.

Still, I kinda miss ol' SH3 damage model interface, it was kinda easy to handle...:smug:

Thanks!

Sh3 was much easier but fixed to quickly for my taste. This is a little more complex and challenging. I had to stay surfaced for repairs and fend off aircraft. It made the game play just that more immersive to me. I like the damage screen and the process to handle it.

[Drebbel]

Please be aware that when one is using white text people using the Lazyblue theme can not read a thing :cry: Easiest solution would to just use the default text colour and not change it at all.

[GakunGak]

Well, you like it 'cos you are a hardcored subsim skip, but for an ensign like me, I like it by the ol' style by kaspersky: install it and forget it...
And the flooding in sh3 was more easier as yo have the priorities of flooded compartments as the others can wait...:arrgh!:

[Cakewalk]

It appears that our quality German welders and repair tools were left floating back in the Atlantic.:stare:

[1./JG3_Reich]

Well, I would like to comment that on my particular situation, it showed no damage whatsoever to the bulkheads - none. No flooding etc...

One can only assume its a bug of sorts and that the devs are reading this thread and will address it.

S! Reich

[GakunGak]

Well, I would like to comment that on my particular situation, it showed no damage whatsoever to the bulkheads - none. No flooding etc...

One can only assume its a bug of sorts and that the devs are reading this thread and will address it.

S! Reich
Its not a bug... its a feature:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[Fat Bhoy Tim]

the forward was flooded nothing else, but as soon as you touch bottom because of flooding, everything breaks (bug)
To be fair with a single fully flooded compartment you're dead anyway, as the crew in there will have drowned. All 5 bulkheads gone means the sub has suffered a catastrophic failure along its entire length. Accurate enough if you ask me, even if the implementation isn't exactly intuitive. I meant to say flooding not flodded, and if a singly flodded compartment means your dead then why do they have watertight doors between them?

To contain the flooding as much as possible whilst repairs are made, but once the compartment is fully flooded you can't enter without allowing a huge amount of water to flow into the neighbouring compartment. Additionally as the water level rises, repairs become harder to make to the point of it being impossible.

[Seadogs]

I can see this going both ways. But both need some work.

1. "It's a feature"- OK so your on the surface and have fully repaired as far as any indications you have. You test dive to PD and head straight to the bottom at the speed of sound. SHIV has a hull integrety rating that does not let you dive after major repairs to the bulkhead to simulate damage control shoring/patching repairs that only prevent flooding and cannot withstand pressure. If this is the case we must have some kind of indicator letting us know that temporary damage control repairs are in place on the DC screen. Don't worry thats realistic enough, theres no way any CO would not have these reports, be it 1942 or 2015.

2."It's a bug" - The damage model in SHIV is bugged so that when you are on the surface and have completed all repairs then test dive to PD. The damage model for the flooded compartments never reset to the unflooded weight. You head straight to the bottom at the speed of sound.

[Torpex752]

There is allot more to WWII submarine damage control then the crew is lost after one compartment is flooded. I know from my exhaustive records research in Pearl harbor sub base (while I was in port there over a course of 3 years and checking out the new sub force museum in Groton CT) that Those boats were alot tougher then this game is making it out to be.

The following systems were installed on just about every submrine since 1920:

Compartment pressurization: The ability to pressurize the compartment you were in or the next compartment with low pressure air (regulated to about 700 psi). The system was used in shallow water in the event of flooding. this allowed crew members to keep water out at shallower depths, or dewater the compartment in the evnt it setteled on the bottom in shallow water.

Drain system with multiple suction points: This allowed you to dewater a compartment from the compartment that the drain pump was in.

The submarines hull was 1/2' thick and on the Balao class it was upped to 5/8". Not your regular mild steel. It was a clean grade steel with properties that allowed for expansion & contraction without becoming brittle or cracking.

I do not support any such nonsense that entertains the idea of 1000 feet, BUT their hulls and compartments were pretty tough and in fact comparing it to an egg is not accurate at all. The bulkheads had their own rated strength, alot less than the pressure hull, but not tissue either. I would comfortably say after examining the bulkhead flapper valves, and general construction (flat non-eliptical compartment bulkheads) that they were probably good down to about 150'. After that their failure would be emminent.

The S-Class had a rivited hull and the plates were seales with caulk. The other reason they they sealed up as they went deeper was the plates were compressed. One engineer guessed that the s-Class survived the punishment of the depth charges was that the pressure hull flexed, whereas the welded versions took the full shock wave (FYI the fastest a shock wave can travel through water is 5000 fps).

I suspected the DC station would need work when i read the reviews. Real or decent damage control cannot be simplified accurately...there are TOO Many variables.

Frank
:cool:

[AVGWarhawk]

@Torp,

Nice read. I'm still of the mind that a hole the size of your head is not a good situation. Yes, the hulls were tough but sometimes I get the impression that game players are expecting to be DC and cannoned all day without issue. It certainly can not be the case. Ask all 52 sunk subs during WW2. We have found a few things:

Damage control is buggy/apparent conning tower hit point issue
Damage control does work
Damaged control takes hours for repairs/not 3 minutes to fix a cannon round to the hull like SH3.

In my experience with the game thus far, sever damage taking hours to repair basically equates to a sub that is very vunerable to more attack and crush pressures even at PD. What I do not understand and maybe I'm off on this but it seem players see something as repaired and it is 100% perfect, but, the sub has hit points just like the vessels. Therefore, your screen looks all clear, no repairs needed, but, you have lost hit points and are more vunerable to the next attack. With exception of the bugs in the repair screen/conning tower, IMHO I think the damage model is not that bad.

[fullmetaledges]

I can see this going both ways. But both need some work.

1. "It's a feature"- OK so your on the surface and have fully repaired as far as any indications you have. You test dive to PD and head straight to the bottom at the speed of sound. SHIV has a hull integrety rating that does not let you dive after major repairs to the bulkhead to simulate damage control shoring/patching repairs that only prevent flooding and cannot withstand pressure. If this is the case we must have some kind of indicator letting us know that temporary damage control repairs are in place on the DC screen. Don't worry thats realistic enough, theres no way any CO would not have these reports, be it 1942 or 2015.

2."It's a bug" - The damage model in SHIV is bugged so that when you are on the surface and have completed all repairs then test dive to PD. The damage model for the flooded compartments never reset to the unflooded weight. You head straight to the bottom at the speed of sound.
I never thought of this but it sounds about right "The damage model for the flooded compartments never reset to the unflooded weight."

[Torpex752]

Once a submarine has repaired and stopped the flooding on the surface using the methods available to the crew to fix/patch/bandaide the damage whatever it is (within reason), the submarine (I say this because this is what occured) would then become limited in depth. lets talk a little about pressure, and these are facts. for every 100 ft of depth add 44psi, so at 100 feet the sea pressure is 100 psi and at a 1000=440 psi. Lets put our sub with a (I am really stretching it here because if the sub had this there would no doubt be allot more damage) 4" hole punched through it from a JP DD AP Shell. If the sub surfaced and the crew did a patch job with say 1/4" steel and (this is where crew quality played a major part in Damage control in real life and SH1 modeled it also) did a really good job, with the patch on the outside the sub could safely submerge to 100' with no trouble. I would bet my life on that. Now lets say that they are in a situation where surfacing isnt an option for a while. With the sub at PD the sea pressure is only about 22PSI (and thats at the keel) the crew could get a large wooden DC Plug in there and stop almost completely, or 98% of the incoming sea water. How long is this gonna take? Well if you were a submariner and your life depended on it just guess......:hmm: I've been in a wet trainer as a nub and with time under my belt and I can tell you that it doesnt take long to get smarter when your butt is on the line. There are also Damage control tools of the trade that every DC party has, and I assure you that we knew how to use them. That was true then as it is now. Submarining has changed, but the basics remain the same.

So I agree that the sub will not be back in 100% capability to go deep or take multiple Depth charges. But it should definately get you home.

Frank
:cool:

[TheSatyr]

Thought I'd throw in a little history here.

A US sub (who's name I can't for the life of me remember) was tracking a Japanese CA group at night on the surface late in the war when one of the CAs opened up on her with gunfire.(Apparently one of the CAs had an early Japanese version of radar controlled gunfire.). Anyway,she got two 8 inch shell hits on that sub and was thoroughly trashed.She couldn't dive and she suffered alot of internal damage. Fortunately,the Japanese assumed the sub sank and went on their way while the US sub limped out of the area. Once the sub was clear she radioed Pearl for assistance and another sub met her and delivered some parts to her so she could at least make it back to Pearl. She had to cruise all the way back to Pearl on the surface while leaking fuel and with damaged engines. Somehow she did it,but when she got back to Pearl,the repair crews there took one look at this sub and decided that she was too badly damaged to repair and they ended up striking her from the fleet and scrapping her.

The point of this story being that while US subs were rather tough,a decent sized hole in your hull is going to keep you from diving no matter how well you repair the boat. Subs are designed to sink,and it doesn't take much flooding for a sub to do what it was designed to do. After all,all a dive is nothing more than sinking while under control.

[-Pv-]

"...If this is the case we must have some kind of indicator letting us know that temporary damage control repairs are in place on the DC screen. Don't worry thats realistic enough, theres no way any CO would not have these reports, be it 1942 or 2015..."

In SH3 there was a hull intergrity percentage indicator next to the cutaway drawing of the sub in the crew managment screen. As the % went up, your ability to sustain lower depths of any length of time diminished. Bulkhead damage was yet another matter. You got that and you were cooked and relegated to the surface. That's the way the game was coded and it's unchanged in SH4. However, we are missing that percentage indicator in this game so there is more guesswork.

I really do think avoiding that kind of damage is the better part of valor. It is possible. I've had many patrols in a row where I was never effectively attacked (although there were many close calls) and I still brought home the bacon. I carefully manage the risk and attack when I have the upper hand and an exit strategy. I don't mind a shaking up and a part broken once in a while. Bulkhead damage though is the sign of poor risk management and unrefined evasion techniques. Nice thing about a game though is getting holed with no real-world consequences. I prefer having a crew with high moral as I build them up through the war.
-Pv-

[Torpex752]

"The point of this story being that while US subs were rather tough,a decent sized hole in your hull is going to keep you from diving no matter how well you repair the boat. Subs are designed to sink,and it doesn't take much flooding for a sub to do what it was designed to do. After all,all a dive is nothing more than sinking while under control."

Actually subs are designed to submerge and resurface, its only after ballasting that they can submerge. In other words when subs are built they have enough displacement that even with ballast tanks filled (a process that changes displacement not weight) with water they are not heavy enough to submerge. There is lead ballast that must be added to the submarine in order for it to achieve a state that has sufficient reserve bouyancy. This ensures that in the event of flooding, rapid removal of water in the trim tanks AND ballast tanks creates a large positive bouyancy condition. So understanding the systems on a sub is important to understand their recovery ability. So when a subwent to sea and didnt need any water in her trim tanks because of stores, parts or whatever, the only recovery bouyancy was in the ballast tanks. Understand that ballast tanks are either full or empty, they can never be adjusted.

As far as that sub not being able to submerge, I dont doubt that. Like I said there are allot of variables. In the research I did I read actual repair summaries written by the repair officer on one of the tenders (my notes are burried in my basement cant remember the name). I'll not forget when he wrote that "the submarine's hull showed excellent strength in withstanding depth charge attack, however many internal systems were not as durable and much improvemet was needed in supporting these sub systems." In any event it all depends where the hit was and how accessable it was to the crew to repair. For game purposes shell fire is pretty dang serious if you get hit, it would make a huge difference if they used HE or AP shells. The damage control system screen on SH4 needs some tweaking, and maybe a few more indicatons to give the virtual CO a better understanding of what is what. I do not believe that a sub should be able to go head to head with any surface ship and survive, theres just too much damage that a sub could take that would inhibit her ability to safely submerge.

Frank
:cool:

[CaptJodan]

With Frank on this one.

I don't doubt one bit that shellfire and/or a bomb hit from a passing plane should end a sub's career in diving pretty quickly. (It reminds me of the old Silent Hunter on NES. You could sustain shell hit after shell hit, yet 2 passes with depth charges and you were toast. Always seemed a little backwards to me)

But (and to be fair, I've done limited testing. I just don't get DCed that much. Don't play to die too often) with DC attacks particularly, it's an all or nothing proposition I've found. You either get hit with catastrophic flooding that your crew cannot repair before the compartment is fully flooded, or you don't take damage at all. In addition, the whole taking damage while you sit on the bottom in shallow water trying to repair is a little suspect.

DCs should hurt, and they should be capable of catostrophic damage. But by the same token, they should also be capable of providing minor or moderate leaks that you CAN recover from. I don't mind a weaking of hull integrity, but not all DC attacks that were close enough to really shake you up and cause leaks lead to the boat being totally unable to dive.

P.S. I think the "Pressure hull damaged" or "Pressure Hull Breached" messages are there for us to know that we're not to dive again. Still, it'd be nice to have something a little more perminate on the DC screen to tell us that diving would be suicide, incase I'm in the middle of battle and miss that all important message.

[SKurj]

Well, more weirdness...

Thought I would test the crush depth of the Porpoise.. got down to 400ft when I noticed a leak in the command room. There were no reports of taking damage from the crew or on the DC screen. So for fun I hit emergency surface... by the time I had risen 50ft most of the sub was red and I was taking damage everywhere, needless to say I never did surface it was over in seconds..

[-Pv-]

The times I've dipped low I remember getting below test depth messages from crew. Should be taken seriously.
-Pv-

[Torpex752]

I wish I could remember what boat it was, but I can’t. There was a "P" class boat that was in the Java Sea and it got DC'd really bad, I believe that the boat was eventually lost. However, in the crew’s description of the events they mentioned how the hull was being "dished" inward between the frames from the depth charge explosions. Never once did it crack or rupture. Pretty good read if I find it I’ll relay it here.

I agree about the hull integrity% indicator. I didn’t use to like it, but after allot of years playing these sub sims, compared to real life there is simply not many other means of knowing what is going on with our virtual sub. I always felt that it should be broken down better because the hull really is so dang strong, but the internal subsystems aren’t.

What I mean when I say sub-systems are every system that is bolted, or welded to the hull that can allow water in. Allot of hard learned lessons were learned during WWII and redundancy became the norm in submarine development during and after. Redundancy in the ability to isolate the inside from the outside. Back then there were alot of single isolations, IE single valve & single hatch, where as after WWII double valve protection became the norm. 2 Hatches isolating the crew from the outer hatch failing.

If I could have it my way, this is what I'd want for indicators:

1-An overall water tight integrity %. I'd want the % to mean that after taking all the leak & flooding points into consideration (say there are 50 of them) and 25 of them took damage and are either repaired or stable (not leaking) that we are now at 50% water tight integrity meaning that out of all the places we can lose the sub from, only half are at the ship yard standard. (how many of you would head for home with 50%? I'll bet the real boats would..I know I would!) If a system is bigger, give it a bigger number. If a 1/2" depth gage line gets a 1, then a hatch would get 50. After assigning every 'hole" a number, add them up. If you get a number like 345 that’s what equals 100%.

2-An overall reserve buoyancy indicator in %. The % would let you the CO know just how much water you can safely flood before having to blow ballast. Its sort of related to a flooding %, except you can actually lose reserve buoyancy from damage (a damaged main ballast vent that lets all the air escape when you blow or getting strafed by an airplane, or shell hits on the ballast tanks)

3-A meter that indicates leaks or flooding: A simple dial that has green, yellow and red. If the needle is in the green maybe you spring a leak and its small enough that you can pump some water out from the trim tanks, not good, but no sweat. Now let’s say your indicator is yellow, seems that 2-3 compartments have their own small leaks. Things aren’t too bad yet, but throw 1-2 more small leaks and it'll hit red! This way you know if what you've got is critical or survivable, or OMG! BLOW!!!!! lol

Just my wish! ;)

Frank:cool:

[Galanti]

I wish I could remember what boat it was, but I can’t. There was a "P" class boat that was in the Java Sea and it got DC'd really bad, I believe that the boat was eventually lost. However, in the crew’s description of the events they mentioned how the hull was being "dished" inward between the frames from the depth charge explosions. Never once did it crack or rupture. Pretty good read if I find it I’ll relay it here.

I think it was Puffer, and I remeber the account from 'Pig Boats', a fantastically good read.