True, but I think "a LARGE majority of the time" includes transit time, which ate up a lot of fuel. And once they had effective radar I believe they did stay surfaced as much as that tool allowed.

Paraphrased from 'Silent Victory' by Clay Blair Jr.

The boats went out with orders to proceed with extreme caution, as no one knew what the Japanese technology was like and there were also likely to be subs on route. When within 500 miles of an air base, they were to remain submerged in daytime. Nights they were to run on only one enginer to conserve fuel. They were only meant to use one or two torpedoes per target, as there was a shortage of them.

After the first patrols were completed, there were various criticisms of the patrols. They took too long to get on station, as they were too cautious and dived too often. One skipper was criticised for following pre war doctrine of a sonar only attack and it was suggested that it should have been a night periscope attack, or even a surface night attack. I tihnk, but don't recall where I saw it, that the Gudgeon's first patrol lasted 51 days and only 12 were spent submerged.

These comments, called endorsements were added to patrol reports and were circulated to all sub skippers and this was the way that current policy was published - as criticism or encouragement of actions on patrol. It was clear to those who received the reports that the current policy had drastically changed in a very short period of time.

so when on station in patrol areas controled by the enemy they were covert and when in transit to another location i would imagine they traveled openly on the surface.

but what about the question about the rate of stock fuel consumption in game?

someone said they used RFB and it was ok but didnt RFB reduce fuel consumption for accuracy?

lol i just finished a thread about what i presume to know of surface operations on both sides of the world, my books tell me that RR is quite correct in that your boat is a surface torpedo attack boat with the option to dive if needed

on the other hand it seems that Dutch boats operating out of Gibraltar spent their days at periscope depth while ambushing Italian freighters off the coast, recharging on the surface at night. And the same Dutch boats operating between the archipelagos in the Pacific did the same thing. Makes sense of course: submerge during the day when near land, since any sunbather could easily see you. but to actually get there you'll just run on the surface and you dive whenever the planes are sighted. same for U-boots as far as I know.

Nisgeis shows clearly the evolution of sub strategy during the war. Upon his succession to command, Admiral Lockwood ended up replacing close to 50% of submarine commanders for being too timid. Right after that he had to take the additional step of lowering the maximum age for commanding a sub, as a pattern emerged of the more timid ones being older and less teachable.

Admiral Fluckey didn't develop his philosphophy in a vacuum. He was commander of the Barb, most decorated boat and crew of the war. He did not start his career until March of 1944 and most boats were returning to base empty handed, lifeguard duty being the big thing then. Fluckey developed new techniques that netted him huge victories.

The yo-yo strategy was the cornerstone if his technique. He was on the surface at all times. When a lookout sighted a plane he didn't immediately submerge. He observed the plane to determine whether it was likely to bother him or not. A large proportion of the time, he would merely slow down to reduce wake and continue. Fluckey was serious about the submarine being a surface boat that had the ability to submerge when absolutely necessary. When forced to submerge his question was, Why should I not surface NOW?" Finding targets was a mathermatical probability directly proportional to the number of square miles of ocean surface searched. Every square mile not covered meant fewer Japanese ships on the bottom.

When he succeeded Lockwood as Admiral, what do you think became the official fleetwide policy?:arrgh!:

When on station they remained surfaced to search only diving if absolutely necessary.

Remaining submerged for the duration of the day was unique to the German ATO because of allied absolute air superiority and ASW methods.

The Japanese never had absolute air superiority over the Pacific nor did they exercise a coordinated strategic ASW effort.

I don't know about fuel consumption accuracy, but I never run out!

It altered the default speed for 'ahead full' to around 10 knots so better fuel effeciency. I still find I get better milage by setting it at 9.5 knots but thats nit picking.

As to the "running submerged in daylight hours" I dont know about official doctrine but the 'vanilla' version of this game forces you into that posture due to the incessant air patrols.

Modded versions are much better in this aspect and now with rFB+RSRD in my install I probably spend 95% of my time on the surface. Only diving for those fast moving contacts and attack approaches.

I have not as yet ended up short on fuel to get back but Its been very very close a couple of times. :rock:

Does anyone know how much fuel they actually start with? Can you see how many gallons you have?

Quite a conversation going, with much experience and wisdom expressed. I believe, as one might expect, strategy changed as the war progressed and experience increased. I do recall that the attrition rate for commanders was high in the early years or even months because they had been 'trained' to be cautious and were overcautious during the early times, but that the real world of combat required more aggressive actions. So I guess Robbins position is the more probable. With commanders running surfaced in clearly 'safe' waters for speed and running combinations of surface and submerged in hazardous waters.

I have found that a surface speed of 9 to 9.5 knots is the most economical and that one can go a long way surfaced at that speed. I have yet to complete that entire patrol so cannot determine if the range will turn out to be adequate. There used to be a way to have displayed "Maximum distance at present speed." but I haven't determined how to do that here. Only get distance to next waypoint or something.

Orion2012 - Interesting. I can open the *.val and *.sim etc files but I cannot edit anything on the opened screen. Used to do so with GWX in SH3 without any problem, to adjust draft, wakes etc, but cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong here. Probably me, not the program. Maybe have to query the developer (name escapes me at present). Has anyone put together any tweak files for each sub so miniTweaker can be used? I think that question was asked a long time ago by someone, but I don't recall the answer.

Appreciate all the discussion.

how much fuel???
 

Dick O`kane states that he returned from a patrol with 2,000 gallons out of 110,000 he had to begin with.


PS: I left "Take her Down" at the office, will recheck the data tomorrow

well i may be in the minority opinion here but there is no way in hell your gonna make me believe patroling on the surface in the south china sea was Standard Operating Proceedure.

yes the stock game does have way too many planes but in real life there was a continued air presence over japanese held territory in the pacific. not to the extent the stock game does but they did have a big air force and they used it.

now after the coral sea "turkey shoot" then i can yeild to your scenario of subs that never submerge because then there was little japanese airforce left to do anything.

Read the patrol histories of some of these subs, and you'll see that was exactly the case.

No, it's simply the percentage of fuel remaining that the game tells the player.

For all subs we use the stated value that gave the best balance of fuel economy and speed, which was 11,000 miles at 10 knots for the fleet subs (except the Tench Class, which had a higher range). As such, Ahead Standard will give the player the best fuel economy, bottom line. A player can easily complete a 4+ week patrol in RFB by simply using Ahead Standard to transit to and from their assigned patrol areas and using the higher speed settings only when speed and time is of the essence.