Patroling submerged
 

Ok, I'm on station, daytime, at periscope depth. Can I assume some member of the crew is actually looking through the scope while I'm at the map table?

Only if you have your periscope up. The periscope does act as part of the watch crew, and your watch officer will call contacts out if its up. Range is limited to 6KM or less.

With surface contacts, odds are your sonarman will hear them first. Once its within visual range, the visual sensor of your periscope has higher priority then your hydrophone, so you will not have hydrophone contact with the same target you have visual contact with at the same time. (game limitation).

If your using a supermod like TMO (and i think RFB too), id advise you to leave your SD radar antenna extended while patrolling submerged at periscope depth, or your going to be in for a nasty surprise before too long.

Thank you sir...scope is up...radar is up with GFO...SK

Maybe I like playing with fire lol but since I patrol a lot when playing early war before surface patrol by subs was common , I leave scope up without the SD antenna and run it at 512 time compression, get enough warning to go deeper and avoid the planes.You have to stay on alert so keeps things interesting.

Thanks, I,ll give it a shot...SK

Insert standard advice that submerged and patrolling are two words that should not exist in the same sentence. You can search much more than 10 times the area per day on the surface at 9 knots. That means 10 times the contacts, 10 times the tonnage. That is a vastly conservative number, based on visual detection only.

Agree with RR
 

The Pacific is big enough without further restricting your patrolling by skulking underwater too much. You've got a lot of "ground" to cover so it's better to do as much as possible on the surface. Dive only when you have to.

I've been doing the yo-yo method, even in '42. Dive when airplanes are visually spotted and keep a close eye on them when picked up on the air-search radar and dive only when they reach 5 nm range. I surface in about half an hour to an hour after diving.
I have been caught a couple of times and suffered some damage when an airplane has made an accurate drop, but nothing severe enough to cause an early end to a patrol.
I might stay down in the late afternoon-early evening until sunset to give my crew a "rest" before surfacing for the night.

The only time I might stay down all day is if I'm patrolling near a harbor or air patrols have been a really big nuisance. I don't live rigidly by doctrine though, mine or the navy's. I try to adapt as the situation warrants.

:)

Running with scope up I get aircraft spotted sir, even if I am not looking.

Yes, patroling on surface is much more effective means of patrol BUT in early war or when using slow divers like Narwhal, submerged patrol is warranted.Early war I do this because its historically accurate and adds a whole different level of :damn: to the war patrol.Narwhals dive too slow to patrol on surface, only time I ever get bombed on surface is when when I have a narwhal.I prefer the yo-yo method myself but again in early war, I go with the tactics they used and can tell you that you will see a difference in your contacts and tonnage sunk once you switch.Conduct 3 patrols mostly submerged then 3 patrols yo-yo, you will see a huge difference.

Yeah! What? You want to live forever?:D

Just because early war doctrine and early war captains used faulty methods doesn't mean we are required to follow their mistakes. They didn't sink much in those early years either. I have been using the Donation Narwahl in my current career (7 patrols in) and have found it dives in more than enough time to evade detection with SD radar.

Keep in mind that every good skipper will develop their own style. If you have good results by using the 'periscope watch' technique, more power to ya'.

My own tactics differ markedly from RR's for example, but I still sink a whole lot of ships.:up:

Thats cause they had crap torps!

Only time I patrol underwater is to yo you in a S boat since sonar only works dived.