German U-boats and the "High Scope" Technique
 

I was browsing through Lothar-Gunther Buchheim's U-Boat War today, and a few of the photos caught my attention. In many of the shots of U-96 in the storm, or in rough weather, one of the periscopes is raised about a third of the way up. In most of the shots of the boat in calm weather, both are lowered. I also noticed this in many of the photographs in U-boat War Patrol, though the weather was calmer in most of the shots.

Now, the use of the "high scope" was sometimes used by Fleet boats in the Pacific, although the pros and cons of the technique were hotly debated. But this is the first time I've ever noticed it being used by the Germans. It seems that at least two of the "Aces" used this technique (Willenbrock and Suhren), but damned if I can find any references to it in literature. Anybody have any good leads?

Thanks!

What are the pro's and cons of using "High Scope" when used by the Americans in the Pacific?

I've never heard of this type of thing before :88)

pro's being that because your higher you can see farther over the horizon then you could at conning tower level.
cons? you're effectively sticking a silhouette on the horizon for other ships to see, if your using magnification and looking one way you could get jumped by a destroyer from behind.

tbh i've actually been doing this in game already, it does help a little to have a bit of hight to see those really far off smoke stacks

"Commanders riding his carousell again" - Das Boot.

this 'high scope' technique is so obvious that it's actually hard to believe that they didn't use it

in bad weather there's one more benefit from it

well the sea does not look like in the SH3 in bad weather, I think that water splashes would make it hardly impossible to see anything from the conning tower and 'high scope' brings some solution to this also

On the other hand in rough seas the motion of the boat is exaggerated when looking through a raised periscope. The very small field of view would be in constant motion.

<HURL> :dead:

One should also bear in mind the darker weather conditions (usually) in the Atlantic.

Just the thought makes me http://www.thescubasite.com/smile/sick/sick0021.gif

What's that? :hmmm:

This is puking http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/434...pukecc9oe0.gif

:smug: