Dealing with damage/flooding

[Tynan]

Hello all. I recently attempted to attack Scapa Flow in the middle of the night (May of '40). I was spotted by search light almost immediately after my Watch reported a ship sighting. Crash dived, was fired upon, incurred severe damage. I think the Navigator was kind enough to let me know I was in shallow waters, so I quickly clicked the depth to 10 meters as opposed to 70...
I assigned a damage control team but it didn't seem to do any good. 2 compartments were flooding and there was a little grey "X" with a timer counting down to zero in both of them. The manual does not give any specifics about how long it takes to repair damage.
I was wondering if there is any real point to try to repair flooding? I ended up losing the ship with all hands as soon as the first compartment completely flooded (and my repair team assigned to it drowned as well...)

[Red October1984]

You might try securing from Silent Running. While in silent running, torpedos cant be loaded and repairs cant be made.

If you dont fix flooding, you die, so yes there is a point to pumping out water.

[sublynx]

Flooding is a bit of a panic situation. One does not usually end up in a situation where there is flooding, so there is little practice. And when you are flooding it's likely that there is something on the surface still trying to sink you and you have to deal with that threat while trying to get the boat stable.:timeout: Anyways flooding is priority number one in repair situations.

[Mowgli]

I experienced flooding as a result of being attacked by two destroyers, other damage throughout the vessel was minor and could wait as could the torpedo loading as I was in run silent mode and keeping my revs below 100 trying out the 5 degrees to port suggestion read else where.

But the flooding was a worry. Did I get my repair team to resolve the flooding and lose my stealth and reveal my position or stay silent.

Luckily I managed to lose my pursuers before I had to make that choice but am wondering now how much noise the damage repair team and not operating in silent mode gives away your position.

You could always stop your crew loading the torpedoes by emptying the compartment so there should be no noise there.

[CherryHarbey]

the timer tells you time before that compartment floods completely, if that happens your sub is lost. so if that is going down at any sort of rate you need to stop the flooding - take off silent running if you have it going and set your repair crew on that compartment. This is higher priority than evasion at this point. Providing you have some sort of depth to play with, you can crash around, sorting your flooding and avoiding depth charges, you aren't going to escape at this point making all that noise but you have good chances of avoiding further damage. once you have the flooding fixed you can look at other damage, for me I'm only fixing things that affect my able to move slowly, like prop damage, I don't want to be having to turn the working prop twice as fast (making twice the noise) in order to move at just 1.5 knots. Once you have flooding and critcal damage fixed you can go back to silent running and concentrate on evasion.

[jimmyjam25]

Noobs!

[Sailor Steve]

Noobs!
:06:

Anything to say?

[Tynan]

as I was in run silent mode and keeping my revs below 100

How do you directly take control of the engine's RPM? AFAIK, the 2 dial settings are either the "named" speed settings (Ahead 1/3, etc) and then the numerical speed settings (2 kts, 5 kts, etc).
Thanks for all the constructive replies.

[derrinurban]

Totally agree. Flooding is a panic situation and at that point nothing else matters. It is not just getting the flooding under control but also pumping it out. Once i got hammered pretty hard and had a lot of flooding in the bow. I was sinking fast. I secured from silent running and managed to get the flooding under control. However, I was still sinking like a rock. No amount of dive plane or blowing ballast could stop it. I went to exterior view to have one last look at my sub before it died. That was my aha moment. The partially flooded bow had made the front of the sub heavier. The sub was sitting at about a 45 degree angle pointing towards the bottom. I quickly ordered full reverse and it slowly stopped sinking and started to rise. I had been driving it to the bottom and didn't even realize. After about 40 min of full reverse and slow ahead while dodging DCs, I managed to pump out the bow section and the sub was controllable again.

I never forgot that lesson. Flooding will affect the subs ability to maintain depth and aspect.

[Mowgli]

Interesting story about the flooding. Those moments make up for all the time spent just listening to music and admiring the sky. Must have been great in the game. The panic of losing your sub is not very pleasant.

With regards to RPM - their dials are in the control room and by selecting 1 or 2 knots on your speed dial you stay below the 100 RPM.

An extra knot can make all the difference.

I wonder if you could squeeze 3.

[jimmyjam25]

Was just joking. I'm a noob lol.

[Zedwardson]

Another bad thing about flooding is that it will cause your boat to start to sink, and go into your pressure threats. Nothing is more numbing then slowly sinking, Hearing the valves pop, and then suddenly your Boat caves in.

[Sailor Steve]

Was just joking. I'm a noob lol.
I understand. It's just that when I call people "noobs" I usually have a reason (a joking one, of course), and I elaborate.

But that's just me. :sunny:

[CherryHarbey]

How do you directly take control of the engine's RPM? AFAIK, the 2 dial settings are either the "named" speed settings (Ahead 1/3, etc) and then the numerical speed settings (2 kts, 5 kts, etc).
Thanks for all the constructive replies.

Sorry, I should have been more specific, you can't control the RPM directly, you have keep to tweaking your speed, from the numerical speed settings until you see the desired RPM on the gauges in the control room.
It is just that in terms of evasion it's the RPM not the speed that matters so one sort of gets used to thinking in those terms and I forgot that isn't obivious to someone new to the game.
I hope you didn't spend too long trying to do the impossible.

[sublynx]

That was my aha moment. The partially flooded bow had made the front of the sub heavier. The sub was sitting at about a 45 degree angle pointing towards the bottom. I quickly ordered full reverse and it slowly stopped sinking and started to rise.

Brilliant :yeah: I have played this game now and then for years and still someone finds out something like this, which I have had absolutely no clue about. :/\\!!

Anyways I'm glad I know now and I'm sure I'll end up in a situation where I might be able to save my career, boat, crew and dignity with this bit of knowledge :up: Your post would go to my top 10 list for most valuable clues on playing SH3 if I had kept such a list . Maybe I should from this day on... :arrgh!:

[derrinurban]

Glad to hear I could help share some knowledge sublynx.

I now don't check my exterior view anymore. You can make certain assumptions from where the flooding is or check the helms station (if I remember correctly). At the helms station there is an indicator that you can see in certain spots that indicates the aspect of the sub. Usually this indicates whether you are diving or surfacing. It will show you the aspect or general angle of your sub.

[sublynx]

Yeah the helms station or Zentrale shows which way the boat is going. GWX even tilts the view unlike the original version so there is no need to look at gauges if in a hurry - like one always is when there is flooding in the boat :)