How were torpedoes reloaded?
 

Heyo.

If it isn't obvious, I'm pretty new around the subsim genre. I've played SH3 for about a year now and have been loving it.

Quite often you end up having to reload your torpedoes after you expend them from the tubes, and the reloading process takes quite a while in-game. I've been wondering how this process might have looked like in real life. I've tried digging but all I've been able to find is articles explaining how the process is done on destroyers, which I imagine is quite different considering how much more room you have to work with compared to a cramped submarine.

Anyone have any insight as to the process?

Cheers. :Kaleun_Cheers:

Obviously there's a lot more to it than just "reloading the torpedo. The sudden loss of more that a ton of weight would severely the trim of the boat. This is pretty much done automatically by the weight of the water rushing in to fill the tube. Even though this works well enough most of the time, the boat's trim must still be checked to make sure everything is in order. Next the outer door must be closed and the tube drained. Once this is done the inner door can be opened.

The spare torpedoes are stored wherever they can fit them - beside the racks (bunks), under the racks, under the other spares, etc.

There are a couple of problems a lot of people don't consider, but the boil down to the fact that system for moving the torpedoes involves little more than hanging them from chains and rails. The movie Run Silent, Run Deep has a scene in which a sailor is pinned under a torpedo that has fallen off its chain guide. People remember the scene but don't pay much attention to its importance. While the spare can be taken from its slot and hung on the loading rail, this is a bad idea for exactly that reason - if the boat is attacked while reloads are waiting hanging from rails and chains there is a reasonable chance they can break loose and quickly ruin everybody's day.

At the other end there is the same problem. Even after all the tubes are fired there is a chance that some very good destroyer team might determine the boat's position right away. Again you don't want to be stuck with eels half-loaded and have some lucky escort come running in for the attack at the most inconvenient time. Standard procedure was to not even think about reloading until absolutely certain the boat was safe. Not only do you not want to have depth-charges going off nearby while torpedoes are hanging loose, you also don't want to be doing evasive maneuvers either. A submarine can take on a pretty steep angle when suddenly changing depth.

In the game players like to reload on the fly; reloading as soon as the tube is fired and the devil take the consequences. In real life the standard procedure was to fire all the tubes then dive to 70 metres, wait to make sure there was not going to be a counter-attack, then, and only then start reloading.

The actual process of reloading torpedoes should probably be quicker in the game, but then there should also be a good chance of having something serious go wrong if reloading while under attack.

Reloading the torpdo tubes inside the boat was one thing and then you also could reload the external reserves which rendered your boat unable to dive for quite some time.


1. Raise External reserve storage
https://abload.de/img/externo44dok9b.jpg


2. Remove torpedo from external torpedo storage
https://abload.de/img/carga-48t5k7t.jpg
2a. Lower external reserve storage again.



3. Bring it down into the boat via front torpdo loading hatch


https://abload.de/img/image035dvjp1.jpg


5. Now the torpedo is in the front compartment and can be reloaded into the tube via the usual method.

Here's an explanation straight from Uncle Sam http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub...chap11.htm#11A