Difference in hull design and priorities.
A tube is the best design for withstanding pressure.
Uboat: 4 forward tubes = round pressure hull = stronger design.
Others: 6 forward tubes = egg shape pressure hull = weakened design.

There are other factors such as steel quality and thickness, weld quality, etc.
Everything is a trade off and balancing act.

Wait... seriously the Gato could only do 90m ? :har: never knew that.
I mean I just took my uboat to 260m that's almost 3 times as much! Were the uboats really able to go that deep and US submarines so little? :hmmm:

The simple answer is that it's not true. Look at the 'Green' part of a German depth guage. The test depth is usually around 90-100 meters. That's all they were rated for. But they went much deeper.

Likewise 300 feet was what a Gato was rated for, 400 for a Balao and 450 for a Tench. It was commonly accepted wisdom that those boats were good for twice the listed depth, and there were occasions where fleet boats went to at least 750 feet, which is 230 meters.

So yes, the bigger fleet boats couldn't go as deep as a Type VII, but neither could a Type IX.

As for depth charges in the game, the stock kill distance is 25 meters, with the max radius for damage being 75 meters. The supermods, as far as I know, set the kill radius to a much more realistic 8 meters, and the damage radius at 25. This means that to get an instant kill they must be much closer, and more importantly that you can get a drubbing that lasts all day and still get away alive, which is what happened most of the time.

That seems a better assessment. 25 meters for the DC kill is a long distance, even for late war DC's although by late 43 and on, I believe a decent kill from a DC would be at roughly 15+ meters with a damage radius at somewhere's in the neighborhood of 30 meters +/-.

Excellent posts, Sailor Steve and Snestorm. Good, accurate info.

Well that cleared it up a bit. But still as far as I saw the VII test depth was pretty big ~230m if I'm correct and crush depth as deep as 270m which still is a lot compared to fleet boats. Well US did have a bigger and better fleet though... as were most of the countries Germany was fighting with. Kaleuns still need to be respected for fighting in such unfavorable odds.

Better?? I don't agree.. USA had many things that were in a league of their own :ping: < Being one, but Germany had excellent technology and much STRONGER machines. They just lacked in the production department.. Obviously thanks to our detroit :)

Also, why is it every where I read the test depth was MUCH MORE than 90-100 Meters?

for example, just a quick google search comes out with this

Test depth: 230 m (750 ft)[1]
Calculated crush depth: 250–295 m (820–968 ft)[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Type_VII_submarine

I do like the fact that the US subs carried an escape trunk. Much better than simply flooding the compartment in U-boats.

Well if I had to choose, It would be an American sub FOR SURE!! just for the A/C!! lol

They had A/C in WWII subs?! SOLD!

Not only AC, they also had ice cream makers! :rock:

Yep the Silent Service was known for the best chow in the US military. As for the AC it now makes sense since they operated in the blazing pacific heat, those subs would turn into a pressure cooker without it.

Same thing with tanks, only they don't have enough room for ice cream makers. Our guys [Canada] in Afghanistan were cooking inside their Leopards, so our gov't leased 20 Leos from Germany that have AC. Combat efficiency greatly degrades when your guys are in peril of heat stroke. Just look at Charlie Sheen in "Platoon."

Edit: Huh? Why do I have a Japanese avatar? This is one interesting forum. Here I was thinking some forum members were Japanese because of their avatars, now I am Japanese. It reminds me of that song from a few years back, "I Think I'm Turning Japanese."

LOL I have the same avatar!

BTW, I was reading something very interesting.. It seems the reason the US subs had A/C was because the electronics kept shorting out.. It was just a bonus that the crew was cool inside..

But the only reason was the for electronics.. Which had me thinking.. The Germans and I think all the other nations, submarines had NO A/C, I wonder how they fixed the shorts ( I guess condensation would form all over the electrics due to the humidity )

Plus, the Americans got to take a shower every 8 or so days ( Unless you were a Mechanic or Cook, then you got to shower every other day )

The main purpose of the AC was actually as a de humidifier, to try and prevent condensation from causing electrical shorts.

British and Japanese subs had no AC and suffered terribly from shorts in tropical waters.