Flooding equals death

[Nangleator]

Died just now, my 12th patrol in my fat pig of a IX boat. The very first detection of my boat in all those patrols results in my death.

I've probably completed over fifty patrols now, and never once survived once I get damage to anything but the guns and the conning tower.

This time, a single destroyer separated from the convoy I was hitting. I had no trouble seeing me, or knowing my depth. The first cans passed within a few meters of my hull before blowing up under me.

When it got bad, I headed for periscope depth and readied my eels. Before I got to PD, the flooding caused me to start sinking again. So I blew ballast. Once I got a visual on him, my eels were away. (I don't do manual calculations.) I bobbed to the surface and took a few more hits from his guns before I blew him out of the water.

All this time, my damage crew (three damage-rated PO's, a damage-rated officer and about six sailors) was working on the most damaged compartment. Well, I had about fifteen seconds of peace while I waited for the damage crew to make some progress.

*Blink*

Mission ended. 44 dead.

So tell me. Is there any point in qualifying anyone for damage control?

[GoldenRivet]

those pigs are too big... the DDs might as well be pinging a submerged mountain.

[A Very Super Market]

There is, it just means they'll work faster. And is a real bonus. You're real problem here is evasion. You can go deeper in a IX, but cannot turn as sharply. Remember, the goal of the escorts is to get you away from the convoy, so you must do that. I believe in-game, once the convoy gets a certain distance away from the escorts, they all just turn around and head back.

[Nangleator]

So don't bother trying to hide, just power away and zig when the cans come down?

[Synthfg]

Mehh Sink the Escort before he gets you

[Lt.Fillipidis]

There is, it just means they'll work faster. And is a real bonus. You're real problem here is evasion. You can go deeper in a IX, but cannot turn as sharply. Remember, the goal of the escorts is to get you away from the convoy, so you must do that. I believe in-game, once the convoy gets a certain distance away from the escorts, they all just turn around and head back.

Strange... In my last patrol i got about 100km away from the place i sank three ships of the convoy (so my distance from the convoy itself would be 200km +) but 2 of their escorts were still hunting me...
EDIT: And that was in June '42, in a VIIB...

[Shantyman]

I have found that flooding does not always mean death. Many times I have fought it out with aircraft and took a few stray hits which caused flooding.

However in all cases the crew got the boat back into service pretty quickly.

Depth charge induced flooding is a different matter :shifty:

[Sharkley]

I have had many a strange thing happen to me while flooding or trying to repair the flooding. I dislike the sudden death screen as I never seem to know what really caused it.:06:

I use LRT v2.02 so my repair times can be hours, one of the stranger things I see is that even when the repairs are complete the flood remains and yet I cannot repair the area again.

Mind you I have never lost a patrol do to flooding only, I think damage plays at least 80+% in my patrol deaths.:hmmm:

[Sensekhmet]

I'm so scared of flooding and sinking below crush depth that I'm scared of going deep in the first place and that means I get damaged and get flooding... the circle closes :damn:

[Synthfg]

TBH I rarely go below periscope depth On a side note has anyone else noted that hitting the bottom of a Clemson class with your conning tower will more often than not cause it to sink, I know there old and rusty but

[Nangleator]

Well, the deeper you are, the longer you have before the cans sink to your depth. My first death in SHIII involved thinking that when the contact lines got shorter, that meant they were getting fainter. Then I popped up my scope and saw a Flower 30 meters away...

[RoaldLarsen]

I always try to have at least one officer qualified in Repair if not two. I have saved several damaged boats with only a few seconds to spare by having a fully green crew efficiency bar in the Damage Control team

[subvers4]

After serving my time patrolling the North Sea in a type II, and the North Atlantic in a VIIB, I transferred to the 2nd flotilla out of Lorient sailing a type IXC. Yes these boats are very big, slow and cumbersome, and not the most agile, but after 3 patrols I have grown used to the handling of them.
I have found it better to change my tactics to suit the boat rather than the other way round. While normally a cautious Kaleun anyway, I have become almost paranoid in a IX, especially when there are escorts around.
Once they get a fix on you, they are very hard to shake off, a IX's sonar signature is big, and the underwater speed and manouverability are not the best.
You have to avoid detection at all costs, stealth is the key here, you have to plan, replan, check and recheck every step of the way. A cavalier approach or gung-ho attitude will get you killed very quickly.
But things can and do go wrong with even the most carefully devised plan, and when they do, a fully qualified and efficient damage control team will be the only way you'll get to see the surface and breath in fresh air again :yep:

[Synthfg]

The extra punch of a IX more than makes up for the detectability and handling.

Having a significant number of reloads means that you can attack 2 large targets in a single patrol rather than the 1 that is possible in a VII

Still the damage control crew is important, Use the estimates of how long it will take a compartment to flood to decide where best to employ them, Remember you don't need to completly fix one compartment before moving onto the next. It is often necessary to juggle them between 2 or 3 compartments, always dealing with the most critical issue

[Nangleator]

I did notice little numbers or something changing in the damaged compartments, but it was like hieroglyphics to me. I simply couldn't understand what I was looking for. Are they numbers that represent how soon the compartment would be flooded? That's useful. Just repair the lowest number?

My tactics for using a IX from now on will be: Go to a busy traffic lane, pick off singletons and mini-convoys, avoid real convoys unless seas are heavy, and take your time. Use that big gun whenever you can. Aim for +50k tons every patrol.

To get the bad taste of death out of my mouth, I started a new career with a VIIC in '43. Straight out of the Bay of Biscay A convoy walked right over me. My front eels went to two T3's and my back eel went for a C2 (ambitious, I know!) Both tankers broke in two and the C2 came to a stop.

Three escorts found me and started circling. I picked up some damage and repaired it. I was sure I was dead, but they kept hammering the same place while I slipped away. I came back for the C2 after they got bored.

(Now, I'm just trying to get back home with Catalinas finding me every time I come up for a breath!)

[Synthfg]

From my understanding, the LH number is how long to stop the compartment flooding, the RH is how long until the compartment totally floods,
At a suggestion download and apply the Grey Wolves Mod, and start in 39/40,

[Sensekhmet]

There is also a countdown that shows how long till the water gets pumped out.

[Nangleator]

I would love to get GW. I had it once before and my old PC would take at least 20 minutes to go from desktop to patrol, and it was a slideshow if I ever put my eyes on a burning ship.

[gordonmull]

One of the symbols means time until flooding fills the compartment the other means the time it will take to fix that compartment. I can't remember off the top of my head which is which and i won't be reinstalling to check. (It's spring now and if I keep SHIII installed chances are I'll waste another summer. Wintertime for games!).

BUT if you check the timer countdowns you'll notice that when you assign damage control to that compartment one of the timers will get a lot closer to zero. That's the time until flooding is stopped. If time till flooding is stopped is greater than time until the compartment is completely flooded, then get you damge control team in there!

If there is more than one compartment flooding badly then once you've slowed one down enough get them onto the next one until you've got every compartment repairing faster than the flooding is happening.

Also, get your crew out of bed and into the flooding compaartments. They will also conduct repairs but not as fast as the damage control team. Another thing to watch out for is that the crew don't automatically repair the rest areas. Often you will need to assign the damage control team to the rest areas while spreading the crew about the boat to fight leaks in other sections.

[RawJoh1]

Flooding tends not to be what kills me. Well, it IS the flooding that kills me, but not the initial flooding. I'll explain:

If I get depth charged, the odds are it hasn't done enough damage to completely scupper me - I'll have flooding, but nothing a well trained damage team can't fix. The problem is that once you've sank to the bottom, the DD will get another 2 or 3 runs on you before you can move again (takes time to pump out all that water) and given you can't be on silent running whilst pumping, the DD will be pretty accurate. It's these secondary runs that always kill me.

[Paul_IronCoffin]

Flooding doesn't equate to death, and repair guys are worth their weight in gold. Many a time I've been saved with a hull integrity in single figures. I always have a minimum 4 repair seaman standing by in the damage control team, two stabsbootsmann with repair qualifications, and one officer (usually the chief engineer) to lead the team with a secondary skill of repair.

cheers
Paul

[More&faster]

Flooding tends not to be what kills me. Well, it IS the flooding that kills me, but not the initial flooding. I'll explain:

If I get depth charged, the odds are it hasn't done enough damage to completely scupper me - I'll have flooding, but nothing a well trained damage team can't fix. The problem is that once you've sank to the bottom, the DD will get another 2 or 3 runs on you before you can move again (takes time to pump out all that water) and given you can't be on silent running whilst pumping, the DD will be pretty accurate. It's these secondary runs that always kill me.

once i've been damaged and i'm forced to stop silent running, i figure they can hear me anyways so i go to flank speed and zig zag. if you're at depth you'll be able to continue that without getting hit again until the flooding is stopped. (if you're busy pushing crew members around the boat, a good idea is to go to flank and just kick the rudder all the way to 40 degrees to keep the boat turning)

[coreykill]

dont forget if your sinking hard and fast and you blow ballast if you wait till your about 40 meters from the surface you can call out periscope depth and your crew will level off insted of breaking the surface.....twice now ive had a boat hovering between life and death i had all the leaks stopped but had to be silent so i couldnt pump out the water....i was there for probly about 2 hours blowing ballast sinking blowing ballast sinking and blowing ballast while being quiet before the escorts left

[Sensekhmet]

You had a lot of compressed air it seems.

[Threesixtyci]

Strange... In my last patrol i got about 100km away from the place i sank three ships of the convoy (so my distance from the convoy itself would be 200km +) but 2 of their escorts were still hunting me...
EDIT: And that was in June '42, in a VIIB...


From what I understand, the game has a hidden timer. And I think it's set to 30 minutes.

When a unit makes a postive contact with you, all the units in the game make a bee line to your last known position. Then when the timer runs out, they go back to normal operations. The thing is that the timer resets with every positive contact with your sub, so that 30 minutes can turn into hours. And it's even possible to put escorts in limbo, if they are further than 30 minutes away from your position.

[downunder]

Put any engineers you have also in the damage control room, as this will also help reduce flooding quicker.