Transfer of External Torpedoes at night
 

This has been discussed before and I thought it not possible. But, I came across the first written documentation that external torpedoes might have been transferred at night.

The history and career of U-175, Type IX, is covered in the book: Shadows on the Horizon: The Battle of Convoy HX-233 (ISBN: 1840675241) by W A Haskell. U-175 was sunk during an attack on HX-233 and therefore was written about in this book.

On page 59, in Chapter 5: U-175's First Patrol: The Caribbean Theatre, the author states "U-175 had now expanded her torpedo supply inside the boat and had to surface to trasnfer the eight torpedoes from the deck storage containers. This had to be done at night, without lights, and involved six to seven hours of heavy, arduous and dangerous labour."

Any comments?

Desparate times... call for desparate measures! :huh:

does anyone has a picture that show where the storage compartment were and how the transfer was done?

I would like to see it modded where you couldn't load externals in rough weather just like not being able to use the deck gun.

I'm trying to use that rule myself, although it would be nice if it was modded in the game as an option.:up:

Unfortunately, that bit appears to be hard-coded.

However, you can adopt a rule-of-thumb. If you cannot man the flak guns... don't try to bring your external torps down.

I'd like to mod SH3 so that going above 5 knots when using the snorchel, causes damage to it... Unfortunately, we are stuck with that too, so I simply choose to not go more than 5 kts.

Not the largest of pictures....but pictures nonetheless :arrgh!:

http://www.uboataces.com/weapon-torpedo.shtml

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...%3Den%26sa%3DN

Transferring torpedoes at night in the dark would be fine. It probably isn't pitch black anyway.

Darkness is a totally different issue than rough seas.

In rough seas, I take it one step further, and submerge to reload my internal torpedo tubes also.

Anatomy of the Ship Type V11, by Westwood
 

Hi all Kaleuns,

I have a hi-resolution .pdf copy of the excellent book 'Anatomy of the ship, Type V11', by Westwood, which has some good drawings of the mechanism used to load deck storage eels into the hull - as well as much MUCH more more nice info and superb pix and diagrams. It's an absolute treasure! (about 100 pages long)

The problem is that it's 21 MB, so cannot put it up here for anyone to downlaod.

If one or two of you want a copy then i could send by email, or someone can host on their site for everyone to get it ... or maybe every kaleun already has it ? !!

Happy Hunting,

Mike C

Im sure it could have been done at tnight... however at the risk of being spotted ther could be no flash lights or lanterns or not even cigarette lighters to illuminate the activity. The crew's eyes would have to be naturally accustomed to the darkness of night.

this is probably why it took them several hours to do get the fish on board.

im sure it was several hours of frustration and difficult labor. it is very difficult to perform a task in the darkness of night without any visual aides - especially when noise and light are your enemy.

I would say go ahead and load at night in SH3.

BUT

to simulate a more realistic night reloading you should try to load them with the minimum number of sailors in the torpedo room, so that the event takes quite a bit longer than if the torpedo room was operating at max effeciency :up:

That's simple to simulate : just don't do it...:D

i hold myself to strict minimums in this regard.

If the weather is rough enough so that the watch crew must wear rain gear i wont load.

It must be daylight.

The sub must be stopped and adrift.

Cannot submerge until the fish are loaded.

there must not be a great potential for air or surface attack on the U-boat.

basically all of the factors that could result in a man being washed overboard or the work taking a long time are considered. if all of the above conditions can be met, i load the externals.

That's a kind gesture :yep: Might I suggest you u/l it to somewhere like FileFront then post a link for people to access it :up: I already own a copy, but obviously not in pdf format.

Anatomy of V11....
 

Hi Jimbuna,

I don't have a filefront or myspace account (already too many to remember), but I do have a reasonably fast Internet access at home (at least for Thailand where I live/work) of 1 MB - so I could email it to a couple of people if interested.

Actualy I got it from a German colleague at my work here .... who is seriously into IL2, but I am slowly converting him to SH3 !

Capn Mike
U-69

The problem is 21MB is a sizeable attachment in email terms and may be beyond other peoples ISP capacities (my own is a 10MB connection).
A file storage site is really your best solution :yep: