Planes spot while under water? Using OM

[Schalburg]

Hey guys,

So I kept being spotted and attacked by planes, even though I've dived. It happens, even though that I've dived long before encountering any planes. Say I dive at break of dawn, then 4 hours later some plane appearently spot me and hit me with precision. Seems like it doesn't matter whether or not I dive? Anybody who can explain this?

[Aktungbby]

Schalburg!:Kaleun_Salute:

[Rockin Robbins]

When you dive during the daytime you accomplish two things.

First of all the plane can't see you unless he's at a pretty high angle. But water is clear. If he's pretty near straight above you he can see you clearly if you're at periscope depth or even below. If I want to ensure that most of the time I'm not seen I submerge to a depth of 100'.

Second thing it does is completely blind you. You know there's a plane up there when you try to breathe water. Which is a problem.

And that's the fallacy of diving in the morning and surfacing at night. The Germans did that with their fancy snorkels. They're underwater all fat and happy chortling about how invisible they are and how blind the enemy is. Meanwhile that snorkel is the finest radar reflector you ever did see. The Germans only succeeded in blinding themselves and putting a giant "kick me" sign on the surface. Boom! Another sub vanished and nobody survived to tell the story. They never fixed it and they died in droves.

With an American boat, you have a submarine which is designed to fight on the surface at every possible second, only to submerge if your fool life depends on it that moment. This means that you stay surfaced at nine knots, running radar. When a plane shows up on radar it is still at least three minutes from being able to see you. Dive to 100', stay there for five minutes and surface. He's gone. He never saw you.

But most importantly you are ready for combat. Your batteries are fully charged at all times. A quarter throttle diesel charging batteries burns as much fuel as a diesel with fully charged battery burns wide freakin' open. Playing ostrich cuts your range too. Drastically!

Captains don't let captains play ostrich. Fight your boat! Don't hide.

[Hellguard3]

I agree with robbins on this, if you are in an s-boat which takes a little over a minute to dive, running decks awash is the bomb because it can cut your dive time in half. Like robbins said it will cut your range, but not as much as being under all day. If you do this make sure you are decks awash DE (diesel engine) plus a couple feet. Theres a decks awash were you are too low for the diesel to run but you still can go top side, this is not what you want as its very wasteful.

Also if your at PD(periscope depth) dont keep your scope up while running as planes and ships can see the wake from it (and also it), one white cap on a calm sea is a dead giveaway.

I typically run on top and the sd radar gives me more than enough time to get under and deep.

Semi calm ocean water can be clear down to 200ft if the sun is high. A gray boat is hard to make out but its possible.