Music and noise on a u-boat

[nihilcat]

Hello,

I wonder when music was allowed on u-boats? Also, were the crew allowed to make as much noise as they want outside of combat situations like they did in a few parts of Das Boot?

..or these things were allowed only on friendly waters, during specific hours to let people sleep etc.?

I would appreciate help on this one very much! :Kaleun_Salute: The boat gets pretty noisy at times in our game UBOOT and I wonder how realistic is that, considering that noise may be detected by the enemy.

[Oberon]

I think that outside of combat, and even perhaps in combat whilst running on the surface some level of noise would be permissible. When running to and from patrol station for example, like you see in Das Boot.
One thing that Buchheim did pick up on which is relevant to the topic, is the point where the crew celebrate a freighter sinking whilst running away underwater from the attack.

This part:
https://youtu.be/EEezkmcPjcI?t=4417

(excuse the whole sped up speech, it's a thing people on youtube do to avoid the automatic copyright machine getting them)

In reality they would have not made that noise because although chances are that the hydrophone operators on nearby destroyers would still be clearing their ears out after that torpedo explosion, the crew would not want to make any noise wherever possible in order to avoid detection.
Buchheim was quite critical of how loud the crew were outside of combat though, but honestly I'd say that this would be a thing that would vary from boat to boat and would also depend a lot on the Kaleun, a strict Kaleun might discourage any sort of unauthorised celebrations on the boat, a more relaxed Kaleun might take the trade off in discipline to boost morale and allow them.

[nihilcat]

Thank you very much! :Kaleun_Salute: This is very helpful.

I've suspected that this is the case. I've read at a few places, including the submarine commander's handbook, that uboats were detected extremely rarely on a surface. If you tell that even a moment of joy during a battle could be more or less fine, for at least some Kaleuns, I guess that we are going in a right direction.

In our game it gets noisy mainly during a patrol on a surface or periscope depth when literally nothing happens. There probably would be a minimal reasoning behind forcing the crew not to behave as they like in such situation.