hydrophone

[me262]

playing shells of fury: When did uboats get hydraphone, did the boats that had parafin engines have any real disadvatage, Will you have minelayers, and ....hurry up:D

[Chock]

Major disadvantages were: The boats with paraffin engines couldn't run in reverse, they had high fuel consumption (which meant short range) and they put out a lot of smoke, which meant they could be seen from a long way off.

:D Chock

[Deamon]

playing shells of fury: When did uboats get hydraphone, They had them all the time. :)

But this is a longer story. It was much different though than in WWII. I will make an article about it one day on my site.

The british submarines got them since 1916 and the american subs got them only after the war, iirc. Only for trial purposes some american subs got them at the end of the war, and quickly fell in love with them and demanded that they need to have them on all subs.

The british ships had them also already early in the war but they were not so fancy, the ship had to be stopped and the hydrophone had to be put into the water with a line. In the second half of the war they got much more sophisticated systems that were installed in the hull. The systems got so sophisticated that the germans saw themself forced to apply quiting measures to their subs towards the end of the war.

did the boats that had parafin engines have any real disadvatage, A lot of disadvantages. First, the kerosene(Amer.)/paraffin wax(Brit.) engines produced a good visible white smoke trail. This got even worse with declining kerosene quality. During the war the u-boats raised the exhaust masts only barely above the deck so that the smoke at least didn't raised so high.

But it was not only the smoke. There was another serious problem with the kerosene engines which made their use for a real war in enemy waters very questionable. The many misfires in the cylinders blew out quite some unburned fuel into the exhaust pipe and when a critical ammount collected inside the pipe it was ignited from the sparks that were blew out with the exhaust gases and caused an explosion. This explosions were not so severe that they would have damaged the boat but you know, this explosions blew out a far visible fire ball and a loud bang and this is not something you want to happen during the night in the straight of dover

Think of it like the very old engines: brr..brr..brr..BANG..brr..brr..brr..bang..BANG..br r..brr. You know the drill ?

There was one funny incident in the baltic; U-9 was running on the surface in fairly thick fog and passed a british submarine close, that was lurking at that navigational point. In that moment there came a very big BANG fromt he exhaust and a big flash. The british submarine turn hard away and hit the pedal for the medal. They must have thought that U-9 was firing the deck gun :lol:

So during the night the u-boats would submerge, bottom the boat, anchor submerged or run on the surface on batteries or maybe even drift. So basically for the kerosene boats the night would be sleeping time, at least in areas that are dominated by the enemy to much.

Another disadvantage was that the engines were much more prone to break downs than the diesel engines. Already each start could lead to a break down. It happened half a dozen times on each patrol. Having enough spare parts was essential.

The next problem was the handling of the engines. You couldn't just start them after surfacing but the cylinders had to be brought to the critical temperature with electrically heated air or the fuel would not ignite. This took several minutes and ate precious current. So you always had to make sure that there is enough current left in the batteries or you would have to row home.

What made the handling of the kerosene engines so difficult in terms of maneuvering was the fact the the engines could run pretty much only full speed all the time. There was only very little room for engine speed adjustments. I guess this was because the temperature on lower speed settings would get to low to ignit the fuel in the cylinder anymore, but I don't know. Can someone confirm this ?

Running full all the time also means full noise all the time, annoing the crew. Machinists got deaf during their watch and after the watch it took quite some time before they could hear anything again.

This made the boat also well detectable at night on the surface in calm winds, full smoke emissions and of course maximum fuel consumption all the time. Whereas it would have been of course possible to run only one engine and in 4 engine configurations only 2 or as much as you want if you needed to apply some emission control or wanted to conserve fuel.

Regulating speed with fully running engines was a tricky affair and required combersome solutions. That is the reason why U 1 got screws with adjustable angles for the blades. But this idea was abandoned for its successors because the adjustable blades gave a bad efficiency of only 50%.

Diesel engines were a far cry from this provisional solution. Although the diesels too suffered from infant illnesses which got ruled out at the beginning of the war. Interestingly they also could spit out sparkles from the exhaust and it required a very exact air intake for a given speed setting. This was mentioned particularly about U-96 I don't know though how representative it is for other diesel engines.

But besides the engines, that were overall unmatured designes. There was little practical experience available for the first series of boats. This boats basically sucked in just any way. But this was counterballanced to some extent by their excellent crews. But yet the performance of this boats, at the beginning of the war was still underrated.

This old boats were much less maneuverable, the ergonomy sucked ass and made the operations even dangerous in some situations. The diving times were 5+ minutes. At least this problem was adressed early in the war. The diving time was pressed down to 2-2,5 minutes. The newer modern boats could dive under 1 minute and the all time record is held by the UB1 type with 20 seconds.

The periscopes were much shorter and were not tapered. Although later they were upgraded with some tapered ones. The gyro compass got sea sick in heavy seas.

By the beginning of the war the older kerosene boats were also already weared out more or less. The lack of prior practical experience to base the designs on basically prevented this first designs from exploiting the full potential of an u-boat.

I could go on and on but check out the other threads here. There is planty of additional info.

Will you have minelayers, Sooner or later yes. And even more than this.

and ....hurry up Lend me your hands :)

Seriously, I will take the necessary time to lay a proper and robust foundation for a full experience. A foundation where you can almost feel the fresh wind breeze in your face and the taste of salt water on your tounge. A foundation where you have a very alife, dynamic and extraordinary detailed environment that is fun just to sail around and watch it. A foundation that will keep you busy for quite a while just with mastering all the intricacies of u-boat operations.

I focus really only on that. Only when I got the basics right, I will start to develop a war simulation. But I plan to make a release already once I got this basics done. It will take a long time to develop a full game that also features a war simulation so I will release already the basic version once it's done, so that people don't have to wait forever. I believe this basic version alone will be very worth playing.

The strong points of IUF will be not necessarily best possible eye candy but a very high level of authenticity, complexity, dynamics and with this a lot of challenges. Right now the vehicles you can operate turn more and more into an micro cosmos of their own with a meticulous simulation of all the mashinery, subsystems and physics. In IUF you will have to manage not only the crew but also the ship as well. It's really cool. Adds an extra dimension. Maneuvering in IUF is a dimension for itself already too. It's very engaging and challenging despite the overal infancy of the prototype.

This are dimensions I have always missed in the games that I have encountered so far. All the many litle things that interrupts the linearity of a game, the many litle things that provides a high diversity in the outcomes and gives you always something to do in every stage of a travel.

[me262]

I would imagine that the early uboat crews were the astronauts of their day. It make me wonder how they managed to sink anything considering the tools they had to work with.

With 5 minutes diving time, I suppose getting caught on the surface by a destroyer was a total nightmare. How effective was the British surface fleet against this new threat.

The arilel (pardon my terrible spelling) was that all lowered with crew on the deck casing or from within the sub?

anyway I will have to get some books and start reading up:D

all the best, merry xmas

[Deamon]

I would imagine that the early uboat crews were the astronauts of their day. Yes :D

You also couldn't impress girls by being in the u-boat service. They first had to earn their fame. U-9 did it. Even on their off times you could recognize an u-boat sailor by the oil smell :)

It make me wonder how they managed to sink anything considering the tools they had to work with. Good skill!

It all comes down to know your boat.

With 5 minutes diving time, I suppose getting caught on the surface by a destroyer was a total nightmare.
Yeah, that was the major concern. Some boats got lost this way for sure.

How effective was the British surface fleet against this new threat. The british fleet ? It was scared and ren away after Otto did it.

The arilel (pardon my terrible spelling) was that all lowered with crew on the deck casing or from within the sub? What do you mean ?

anyway I will have to get some books and start reading up:D I would highly recommend "Raiders of the Deep"