Running with "Decks Awash"....

[Charlie901]

Is it possbile to run "Decks Awash" in either Fleet Boats or U-Boats in this sim?

If so is there a trick to doing it and does it decrease your chances/distance of being spotted and cause a cooresponding increase in Diesel comsumption?

[piersyf]

About all I can say is that you can manually nudge the depth down (rather than hitting P for periscope depth, set your depth for 25ft or whatever). At some point the electics cut in, but I'm not sure of the depth. It isn't immediately though, so presumably we have some capacity to sit deeper in the water. It does have an impact on being spotted. In shallow water and heavy seas I regularly run at 40' to keep the scope clear and my keel clear of the bottom. That leaves my periscope housing clear of the water too, especially in the troughs between waves, but I can still get to within 1500yds without them noticing (that's merchants, not escorts).

[Zantham]

As piersyf said you have to manually select it on the depth gauge. Once you go below a certain depth your watch crew will automatically go inside the boat and your electrics will kick in too.

Your boat will also slow down from the increased drag, and you will increase your fuel consumption. Also as stated you will be a bit harder to spot, and if you are spotted, such as by planes, you can get underwater much faster.

[Rockin Robbins]

Is it possbile to run "Decks Awash" in either Fleet Boats or U-Boats in this sim?
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Silent%20Hunter%204/Floodeddownwaitingtargetinbkgrnd.jpg

On approach with Balao fleet boat, depth 28'. Up to about 30' diesels run, below that you can run decks awash with lookouts on deck on electrics to 32'. Mods may change this.

An early run with decks awash from July or August in my Tambor class:
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Silent%20Hunter%204/SH4Img24-6-2007_1628.35_195.jpg

If so is there a trick to doing it and does it decrease your chances/distance of being spotted and cause a cooresponding increase in Diesel comsumption?Start out at 30'. Diesels off will be within a foot of that. I try to leave diesels on to save batteries.

This will restrict top speed to 10 knots due to increased drag. You will burn the same number of gallons per hour at ahead emergency whether you are going 21 knots or 10. You do the math.:hmm:

It is a great way to approach much closer before your are detected. It also makes dive times almost instantaneous if you are spotted.

I use decks awash all the time on approach and have conducted night surface attacks with Trigger Maru successfully.

[M. Sarsfield]

I use decks awash all the time on approach and have conducted night surface attacks with Trigger Maru successfully.

I'll have to start employing this more in SHIV.

[Charlie901]

Hmmmmm.....

When I try to manually set depth to 25ft, in my Tambor, for instance, my crew always goes past that to 16ft, fully surfaced. I guess my crew refuses to run decks awash on stock 1.5....

Or is this something modded in?

[M. Sarsfield]

Clicking on the depth needle is a bit of an art in both the US and German boats. Where you click is different from where the gray needle points, which is different from what is displayed in the text box, and which is different from the voice acknowledgement given by the crew.

[Rockin Robbins]

These boats are sticky. You might have to submerge to say, 35' and then come up to decks awash. When submerging, the boat seems to bounce down to 25' and back up to the surface several times before it will settle down at decks awash. I believe it's a realistic behavior reflecting surface tension, but could be just a quirk of the game.

[Captain Dave]

I usually go to 25 or 30 ft. when I'm in a harbor picking off ships at the docks. It helps you hide better at night, and most harbors are too shallow for periscope depth. Love them harbors, like shooting fish in a barrel.

[-Pv-]

Deck awash is one of my favorite techniques. It also makes it harder for planes to spot you. I do many of my surfacing attack drills this way against armed merchants. It's much harder for them to hit you.

It's easier to set in stock game than with the mods that mess with the floatation model. Each boat is a little different, but generally use the depth control to set a depth between 25-28 ft which will result in an ACTUAL depth of 22-24 ft. As has been said, it's used for short periods where you want to keep the battery charged as long as possible, but you want to reduce getting sighted on the surface until the last moment before diving. As well as reducing your surface profile, your speed on diesel is also greatly reduced. I can't tell you how many times this saved my bacon in SH3 when there was no radar to spot those planes.
-Pv-

[MonTana_Prussian]

I used Decks Awashed in a night approach in Hiroshima Bay. It worked like a charm,and I put 6 fish in a Kongo and down she went:cool:

[Takao]

For me it has been 26 or 27 feet, I'm thinking it is 27 feet. I'd be on the surface and want to run "Decks Awash", call for a 25 foot depth, but the sub would never go down. ButHowever, I set a depth of 27 feet, out come the dive planes and I'm running "Decks Awash" at 27 feet.

[-Pv-]

As you've discovered, when you want to use DA, you have to set a depth lower than what you want. Anything less than @25ft (varies by boat) you will get no depth change. An ACTUAL depth of 22-25 ft (varies by boat) will give you DA in the stock game.
-Pv-

[secretgimp]

Running with decks awash is a great way to approach at 10 knots without draining your batteries, and still maintain a semblence of stealth.

The depth gauge thing is not a precise tool. Depending on boat handling characteristics, your crew might not be able to achieve your desired depth. They need to play with the ballast tanks to weigh the boat down, that in itself is not a precise thing. Then you might need a depth where the dive planes can "dig in" to give better depth control.

Every time I get issued a new boat, I would set the realism to allow me ecternal camera. I would take the boat out and observe its handling characteristics.

What depth range allows for proper depth handling? This is the depth where the dive planes dig in, so the boat is held at precise depth with proper control, not just ballasting, which tends to make the depth bob up and down like a water logged cork.

What precise depth is the limit for diesels to still run?

What precise depth causes batteries to cut in?

What precise depth can I still remain in the conning tower without automatically being thrown into the control room? This allows me to continue using the surface attack scope (the binoculars thingy), and that is important because that thing has the single biggest magnification of all the optics in the boat, so I see much further.

What precise depth will allow me to be barely submerged without surface wake?

These are always questions I seek to get solid answers to for every new boat I get. Once you have this information, you'll have a better arsenal of tactics to use in different situations.

[Charlie901]

It's just too bad that you can't have watchmen on the conning tower with "DA" enabled.

[LukeFF]

It's just too bad that you can't have watchmen on the conning tower with "DA" enabled.
You're going too deep if you're watchmen go below when running decks awash.

[-Pv-]

Depends on the sea state. In calm, my watch more often than not will stay on the bridge. As the sea gets rougher, they will blink off and on increasingly until they say off altogether. As has been suggested, there is a small variance of a few feet in which you can get various degrees of DW and retain the diesles. Of course, the maximum benefit to this technique is to get as low in the water as you can thus making your crew more susceptable to closing the hatch.
-Pv-

[FIREWALL]

What surprises me is no one has made a shortcut key for this.:-?

[Taeghan]

Not decks awash, per se, but last night I was running Tautog in the E China Sea with HUGE surf. I kept losing contact with a freighter that was less than 1,000 yards away -- both via periscope and with sonar. Hadn't had that happen before.

It ended up being the best shot I ever made, though - split the ship in two with two hits. Made me proud. :)

Earlier in the day I'd tried to torpedo this same ship but was too close -- about 100 yards away in that surf. It saw me and was firing its pop-gun at my conning tower (I'd come up a few feet to try and clear the waves), so I ended up outrunning it and closing again about four hours later. My guess is the surf was probably 15', at least -- when I surfaced to fire on it, I couldn't stay on the deck due to the waves.

[LukeFF]

What surprises me is no one has made a shortcut key for this.:-?

Because you can't.

[-Pv-]

"What surprises me is no one has made a shortcut key for this."

What surprises me is someone expects that everything can be made a key command.

For those who cannot paly without them, try this:
Condition: Fully Surfaced
Enter: P (pariscope depth)
Just at the moment depth passes 22ft,
Enter: A (maintain depth)
If the boat goes past DW,
Enter: S (surface)
As the boast passes through 30ft,
Enter: A
Rinse and Repeat until you get desired results.

In my present balao, I click 27ft on the depth gauge. Done.
On the Gato, I clicked 25ft. Done.
I think it's the same for the Porpoise as Gato.
-Pv-