Question on blue on blue
 

How many of the unexplained sinkings were blue on blue? How did surface craft discriminate our subs from jap or german subs?

Only confirmed ones I am aware of was the USS Seawolf SS-197 in Pacific and USS Dorado SS-248.

Seawolf was apparently sunk via depth charges from friendly destroyers, mistaken identity. Dorado was bombed off Panama by a patrol plane at night, mistaking Dorado for a German U boat.

Blinker lamps were used There were set of recognition signals or codes if will, that were exchanged to confirm identity of vessels. Flares could be used but a lot of skippers did not like to use them as could be mistaken as gunfire by eager patrol crews (happened a few times if I recall). They could also apparently use radar to exchange recognition signals.

Submerged I believe they could launch buoys or use radio and sonar (pings) but were not always reliable.

There were also areas were friendlies were not suppose to be, in Dorado's case the patrol plane had the zone mixed up and thought Dorado was in a free fire area. Later that night same plane found another surfaced submarine, attempting to communicate via blinker and the sub fired upon the plane, this was surely a German U boat.


The wiki gives an accurate description of what happened to Seawolf. Sad case of mistaken identity. They were in a "safety lane" but the CO of the DE disregarded this, having just lost a DE from the Task Group to a Japanese submarine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Seawolf_(SS-197)

they didn't until late in the war when ship-borne IFF was implemented. read Lockwood.
https://www.amazon.com/Sink-Em-All-C.../dp/0553267310

Read it, along with about 400 other books on kindle and another few thousands in actual book form :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

Blue on Blue
 

The Submarine Has no Friends by Chas. Hinman & Douglas Cambell; copywriter 2019; details all blue on blue incidents from official records, most notably USS S-26(USS-131) rammed and sunk by USS Sturdy PC-460 in careless port turn maneuver on 1/24/1942. Only the CO, executive officer and a lookout survived. USS Dorado(SS-248)operating in restricted Canal zone water was sunk by PBM 10/15/1943. Postwar records reflect a U-boat was also in the area creating confusion...all 77 crew were lost. USS Seawolf (SS-197) was possibly sunk 10/4 1944 by USS Richard M Rowell(DE-403)-83 crew & 17 Army passengers lost. The volume covers converse submarine damage incl. POWs knowingly sunk aboard Jap shipping et al, circular torpedo incidents, near misses and related fog-of-war mishap. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....4,203,200_.jpg

Thanks, that's one I don't have!

Thanks for the share, will definitely pick it up. Always though an element of danger missing in SH 4 is friendly fire incidents. I have toyed with idea by creating another nation titled "United States" or something along those lines, have a few units that will randomly appear, flying the US flag, but will open fire, including depth charging player sub etc.

Yeah another thing overlooked by UBIsoft, That would've been a great option in the options menu, where you could pick in the harder or more realistic.

Absolutely they overlooked it along with many other things. I am implementing it in my forthcoming upgrade for TMO. Created another nation called "United States". Will have US ships and planes, placed in certain areas, with random(and low) chance of being there. This will simulate friendly fire when player observed a PBY in US markings coming at them or US DD depth charging them. They will be placed to not conflict with "Regular" American units in the sim, but to be a worry for player. Thing is with being rare, may happen one time in a career, but its that one time player has to worry about. Will add a missing element of unpredictability to the sim.

It could be interesting in terms of realism, but from a gameplay perspective, those kinds of very rare and often seemingly unpredictable incidents have to be handled carefully.