I'm going to chime in here , as I don't necessarily disagree with anything that has been said, I am only giving my experience. I have never paid renown for any special crew abilities however, on my last patrol before I had to start a new career, I looked in my crew roster one day and found two of my engine crew had been upgraded to clovers (experts). I made sure the two were on separate shifts and also noticed an overall boost in the performance of the boat at all times, and since I didn't pay for it I certainly enjoyed the change. As far as being unrealistic?! There were a lot of crew members that brought along their special talents and some boats benefited from just these personnel. As you know, these boats were in a constant state of repair while on patrol and some mechanics had much more talent than others, electricians, even crew members with a knack for guessing the enemys whereabouts. So, I think the system for special abilities has some merits here, I just enjoy it as another small perk to give my boat an edge over the enemy like any Skipper would do in a desperate time.
Good Hunting Mates :salute:
D40

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong. Some abilities make all the sense in the world. I particularly like medics that boost morale, expert loaders that speed up loading time and such. Indeed an expert makes the difference. What I don't get is how an engineer would give the ship a speed boast, being that a mechanical limitation.

I don't think your crewmen develop those abilities. You must 'purchase' new special crewmen with your renown, when docked.

I just had a CPO upgrade to torp expert before my current patrol......it can happen.

eric said it. It's possible. I'm playing 1.3 stuckke... :yawn:

Every once in awhile one of those freakazoids will appear on my boat. They meet with unfortunate accidents.....:D

The only special ability I use is the officer can allow extra surface speed bc it is realistic(well the ability not having one man who can allow it) I have read several books where the skippers allowed operation of engines beyond safety limits for period of time when extra boost was needed.Barb did this under Fluckey, believe Tang did it as well as Seahorse at one point.Barb was making 23 knots for a time.

This ability is quite helpful when leaving scene of a night surface attack with fast escorts of your tail, esp in shallow waters where diving is not always best option.In an emergency situation in RL, subs could do this if needed.The time you can do this is limited as in RL so its the one special ability worth it.

Really? I stand corrected. Must have happened that I never saw it - or noticed it.

I've seen the word "activated" used in reference to special ability crew several times lately. Are they activated if they are in the required compartment? If not, how are they activated?

Yup, I remember reading about Tang picking up downed Navy pilots around Truk (2nd patrol) and getting "something over 23 kts" at the risk of damaging an engine. I also read one (well, I read 'em all) of Wahoo's patrol reports where Morton stated that he found his motor-macs could give him an extra knot or two when they (the engineer's) knew that Wahoo was being chased by a destroyer. It would take some real stones to do that 2000+ miles from home base, but I have no doubts that it happened.

Please post links or give full references. The diesel engines did not drive the propellors directly, but ran the generators that drove the electric motors that drove the propellors. Also, the law of diminishing returns applies. In other words, the South Dakota class battleships made 27 knots on 130,000 horsepower, and the Iowas used almost twice that to gain an extra five knots. To make an American fleet boat go 23 knots would require adding at least 20% more horsepower, and I don't see where anybody short of Gandalf the White would get that from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ed_States_Navy
http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships...ype=Battleship

I'm not saying it couldn't happen, I'm just saying that any skipper's claims have to be suspect in the light of engineering limitations.

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-003.htm
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-029.htm
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-028.htm
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-095.htm
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-104.htm

The above tables are all for battleships and aircraft carriers, but the principle is the same for any vehicle. If you have a car that goes 100 mph on 100 hp, doubling the horsepower to 200 will only get you up to about 150 mph. Doubling it again to 400 hp will only give half as much again, or 175 mph. doubling it again to 800 hp will get you to 187 mph. Of course changing the gearing can gain you a little speed in exchange for reduced acceleration, but even in the days of 1000 horspower twin turbocharging grand prix cars barely made 200 mph. If a sub is going 21 knots on 5400 horsepower dredging up another 20 or 50 hp won't make any difference, and I don't know where they'd find another thousand.

[edit] As for the anecdotal claims, the only thing they had to go on was the tachometer. The only way to measure a ship's real speed is in a timed trial between two points measured from land, and that is done under controlled conditions. Did any timed trials ever get a Gato past the claimed 20.25 knots?

Maybe you should fill in the blanks for me. The tachometer is no more accurate for measuring ship speed than the pitot tube is for measuring aircraft speed. There were P-47 pilots who claimed they broke the sound barrier in a dive. That's how 'accurate' they are. A shipboard tachometer doesn't have direct contact to the surface medium like a car's does. It can't account for propellor slippage or cavitation.

I'm not saying it didn't happen. What I'm saying is that I have 35 years experience playing tabletop wargames with 'gamers' who want every advantage, and their justification is always the same: "I read it in a book somewhere".

I've read the same thing that Eric did. I believe it was in O'Kane's CLEAR THE BRIDGE. His claims would be based on the speed incicated by the Bendix log. I don't know what you refer to when you use the term tachometer. While the Bendix log would not be as accurate as a timed trial, great care was taken to calibrate it for accurate results. If it had not been accurate, the firing solutions genarated by the TDC, would not have been sound.

Perhaps not, but there are more variables here in a Gato or any sub, than with a battleship. Current displacement, and charge on the battery would affect this. Do timed trials usually involve pushing engines beyond their design limits?

Of course you are free to accept whatever sources you choose, but I am inclined to take O'Kane's word for it, as he has spent more time in fleetboats than I. :)