Repairing Flooding while submerged.

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Once again I show my complete ignorance of life on an actual u boat, by my astonishment that flooding can be 'repaired' while submerged. Is this true or is it just for the sake of the game? I mean how would you get water out of a submarine while your surrounded by water. I have a hunch that your only option without surfacing is to seal the compartment. Yet I read that losing 1 compartment to flooding might be enough to lose the u boat. So just what could actually be done in real life.

I know I probably annoy some with my zeal for attaining 'realism' in a game. After all I am a hipocrite because I don't want to go so far as actually losing my hearing from DC charges. But by gum, I suspect flooding should be a little more severe than just turning a valve off. If a sub were to have flooding in 3 compartments, I don't see it being combat ready to take out 4 destroyers 2 hours later.

I know there is the LRT mod and I use the LLRT mod, the one where you tweak the files yourself. That mod makes repairs take 20 minutes which I think is a good compromise. The flooding aspect bothers me though. I would think that once a compartment starts to flood the only way to get water pumped out is to surface. But the game allows you to 'repair' flooding while submerged.

I want to know how much could be dealt with and still have a submarine combat worthy. How much would be too much to still be combat worthy but allow the sub to leave the battle and surface to pump water out and lastly at what point is it a lost cause.

[mookiemookie]

Bilge pumps!

[U-84]

ur stuck in quite a pickle...repair the flooding and head home

[Faamecanic]

You can repair flooding while submerged. One you patch the areas you can that are leaking, tighten seals and packings that have worked loose (via depth charges ...etc), and you have bilge pumps. Problem is when you CANT fix the leaks quick enough and the leaking exceedes your bilge pumps ability to pump out water.

Water pressure also plays into this. The deeper you are the more the water will rush in and also widen any holes in your pressure hull.

[Mr.Fleck]

In case your hull breached you are lost you won't be able to stop the flooding. If the flooding comes from broken pipes, exhaust valves ("Abgasklappen" in German, don't know the correct English word), gaskets, sealings etc. then you will stand a chance, if your main pump (Hauptlenzpumpe) has enough capacity.

The only compartment which could be flooded completely was the conning tower (Turm). All other compartments led to the sinking of the boat.

Regards
Mr. Fleck

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Ok, I think I see. So in some cases, the seals have worked loose and that is repairable. But I don't understand how a bilge pump works while submerged. I take it you have to be at a shallow enough depth. This will probably sound stupid but do they attach a hose to the pump? This is giving my brain a cramp you see :-? I'm trying to picture how you could pump out water without taking in more water if you need to use a hose that goes outside to the sea.

[Otto Heinzmeir]

Something on found doing a search-

1939 U.S.A. Submarine Squalus

24th May 1939 : The submarine Squalus sunk in the Atlantic with the loss of many lives and the worst part of this tragedy was how the 5 that were saved only did so by sacrificing their 26 crew mates by closing the Bulk Head door to the battery compartment to stop the rest of the submarine flooding. This must have been one the most difficult decisions for any sub mariner and these men who were lucky enough to survive .

And found this link but some of the videos don't appear to work.

http://caseykingsbury.com/images/2.5_015.swf

[Jimbuna]

If the outward pressure generated by the pump is greater than that of the water pressure outside the hull then water can/will be expelled from the boat.

Often they would only stop the water coming in and wait until their hunters left the scene before starting the pumps because of the noise they generated.

Of course, if the flooding was too severe they would pump all they could because the weight of the water would make the sub sink beyond its safe diving depth with the obvious resulting consequences.

[Otto Heinzmeir]

If the outward pressure generated by the pump is greater than that of the water pressure outside the hull then water can/will be expelled from the boat.

Often they would only stop the water coming in and wait until their hunters left the scene before starting the pumps because of the noise they generated.

Of course, if the flooding was too severe they would pump all they could because the weight of the water would make the sub sink beyond its safe diving depth with the obvious resulting consequences.

Ok now the light bulb just went on. Thanks for that explanation.

[Mr.Fleck]

Often they would only stop the water coming in and wait until their hunters left the scene before starting the pumps because of the noise they generated.


Thats absolutely correct just an addition:
In case the boat was depth charged, they could start the pumps for some minutes. The turbulences caused by the explosions would make it nearly impossible to hear pumps or high screw noises. At least for a (very) short time. I guess this could have saved a boat if depth charged for a long period of time.

Sadly this is not modeled in SH3.