Hi Guys,

just a little detail in the scene: The captain orders "both engines slow ahead" just before opening the tubes. So he doesen´t go with the tubes open at flank speed.

From my point of view, it is not so unrealistic: The captain uses a moment where there are no escorts around and the moon is behind some clouds to reduce the distance to the target. So there is a good chance that nobody sees the speeding submarine. The attack itself is done at slow speed.

Greetings,
Stefan.

The U-Boats were little boats. Of course they were a bit more nimble than the larger American subs. The Type IX had comparable dive times and comparable size to the American submarines. When you're talking much less mass, you need less buoyancy to keep her up on the surface safely, which means less water to take on to get to neutral.

The crew is a much higher percentage of the weight of the submarine, so their positions within the boat influence the pitch angle much more than they would in a larger American boat. One thing you give up with larger size is nimbleness. But you gain the ability to take enough firepower to win a sub war. The Germans needed a lot more subs to have a chance. And they didn't have enough manpower to run the subs even if they had enough of them.

That was a major part of their problem getting the Type XXI to war. Nobody could run them on a war footing and they couldn't spare the crews from active duty to train them.

I tryied once in sh3, a convoy not reported, a manage to get parallel to them (1940 of course), at medium speed and lock on one of the outside targets to measure cousre and speed and plot it on the fly on the nav map. Use the compass for range, protactor for angle. I managed to get the speed and course right and at about at 3 or 4 filometres i turnded to about 20º off their perpendicular, once i had plotted the solution on the map and introduce it to the TDC. I launched a salvo and turned outside their path at my fastest speed. I was ready to be persuited for a while and then crash dive, but nobady seemed to care about me. I hit 2 targets, lucky shot. There was a gap in the escorts, not enough, you have to find the gaps and have luck.

Also, i was thinking as i am no expert, that tey did his is the one thing that breaks sh3, there is no wolfpack. I suppose that what they did was tryied this with 2 or 3 u boats in a night, and as most failed and were force to evade they dislocated the guard, and then it came the lucky one that got the convoy all mest up and with no escorts. I he was the one that sunk at pleasure, so maybe those heroes that got those big tonnages were just the ones that were at the right place at the right moment. And that just worked for a while, cause no yanki aint stupid...i suppossed. Also the u boats are the nown ones, but after learning about us sillent service, i think in overall they were far superior.

http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBNotes...iveEdition.htm


Section VII :

(b) When attacked at Night. Night attacks on U-boats are in the nature of things generally made in the vicinity of convoys. Whether the U-boat is attempting to attack on the surface or has been detected submerged the tactics may well be to surface as soon as possible and escape at high speed.

(c) Asdics. Some of the limitations of the asdic are known to the enemy. It is realised that contact must necessarily be lost when running in to attack and sometimes as soon as the attacking vessel is committed U-boats increase to full speed and work their pumps if required. Many commanding officers endeavour to keep their boat bow or stern on to the attacking vessel in order to give the narrowest extent of target. The ping of transmission can be heard by hydrophones in a U-boat at greater range than that at which it is first possible to get an echo. When the A/S vessel is at close range the transmission can sometimes be heard aurally.

(d) U-boats sometimes deliberately allow themselves to be sighted while other boats in the vicinity get away or attack without interference.

Thanks mate that's very useful!