No Balao class submarine?

[CaptainNemo]

"DD: Silent Hunter IV aims to give an accurate representation of the US submarine campaign against Japan. Taking both this, and our own development schedule, into consideration, we chose the most representative US fleet boat classes: P-class, Tambor, Salmon, and Gato. Of course, each of them will come with several development variations."

Does this mean there will be no Balao class submarine and or Tench class ? Or is the Balao a "development variation" of the Gato?:hmm:

Save the Balao!! ^^

[SmithN23]

My guess it that is will be a variant of the Gato, according to wikipedia they are pretty much the same accept for the different pressure hull allowing it to go deeper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gato_class_submarine (Gato class characteristics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balao_class (Balao class characteristics)
http://www.battleshipcove.com/ss298-history.htm (some good information about the USS Lionfish a Balao class sub that is at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts)

[PeriscopeDepth]

There are quite a lot of posts about this. I bet it'll be in there.

PD

[Neal Stevens]

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

".....we chose the most representative US fleet boat classes: P-class, Tambor, Salmon, and Gato. Of course, each of them will come with several development variations."

Does this mean there will be no Balao class submarine and or Tench class ? Or is the Balao a "development variation" of the Gato?:hmm:

The Balao is a variation of the Gato, I'm betting the Balao will be in SH4.

[Zero Niner]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Balao look similar to a Gato, externally?
If so then it shouldn't be too difficult to include it in, right?

[Hartmann]

I have sh1 installed and running with dos box and in the reference it say that the only differences are the maximum depth ,300 in gato and 400 ft in balao class.


the speed, torpedoes are the same, with a very little difference in displacement, :hmm:

[SmithN23]

Originally Posted by Zero Niner

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Balao look similar to a Gato, externally?
If so then it shouldn't be too difficult to include it in, right?

yeah, if you check out the wikipedia links that I posted above the characteristics are exactly the same except for the test depth of the Balao class which was 100 feet deeper than the Gato class

[CaptainNemo]

Of course are the gato and balao very simmiliar but there is one optical difference even the conning tower. Have a look:

Gato (Modell)



Balao (real photo)


And this is one of the reasons why I do like the balao more than the gato

[Steeltrap]

Quite a few Gatos were fitted with the same bridge structure as the Balao class after major re-fits. This was done to the 'Wahoo', for example.

[MGR1]

CaptainNemo wrote: "DD: Silent Hunter IV aims to give an accurate representation of the US submarine campaign against Japan. Taking both this, and our own development schedule, into consideration, we chose the most representative US fleet boat classes: P-class, Tambor, Salmon, and Gato. Of course, each of them will come with several development variations."

Does this mean there will be no Balao class submarine and or Tench class ? Or is the Balao a "development variation" of the Gato?:hmm:

Perhaps this can be viewed in the same way as the Type-VIIC vs Type VIIC/41 "issue".

Assuming that there will be an "SHIVCommander", the difference in test depth could be sorted out that way, as well as expanding the roster entries to include the Balao's, if the Gato roster doesn't already include them.

I would say it's pretty evident that the devs view the Balao's as a variant of the Gato's, rather than a completely different class.

My 2p,

Mike.

[Kruger]

Why is this difference in crush depth between the german and american subs ? It's not a small one.

Rated test depths are advisories, not true crush depths. U-boats and American subs both reported surviving depths of 600 feet and more. There really wasn't that much of a difference.

In Das Boot (both book and movie) the rated test depth of 'UA'/U-96 is only 90 meters.

[Safe-Keeper]

Even if the Balao's not added, I suppose it'd be quite easy for a modder to just add a new conning tower to a Gato duplicate and re-name it Balao-class.

Rated test depths are advisories, not true crush depths.

What if the shipyard had a change of routines and decided that "rated test depths" would be equal to crush depths?

"The shipyard guarantees 250 metres, and a bit more if your aft dive planes are jammed and there's still 30 minutes left of the movie, but of course we can go deeper."
[Goes to 300 metres]
[Ambient Crunching sound]
"Er, let's get back up. Our correspondent is sweating quite badly, and Bernard's pissed his pants".
[Crunching sound, leaks appear everywhere]
"Oh shi--"

Mission Ended

Sub destroyed by pressure and n00b arrogance.

Start: 0 minutes into movie.
End: 19 minutes into movie.
Crew:
4 Officers [4 Dead]
10 Petty Officers [10 Dead]
30 Sailors [30 Dead]
1 Annoying Nazi Correspondent [1 Dead]

[WilhelmSchulz.]

Actuly the Balao and Trench had deeper crush depths than the thin-skined Gato.

[ssbn627g]

The balao is a variant of the gato. The gato's had a thin pressure hull (5/8"). Test depth to 350 ft. The balao's pressure hull was 7/8" thick and test depth was 450 feet. Dick O'Kane, in his Tang had an offical (although accidental) deep depth of 647 ft.