Interesting effects of the snorkel
 

Perhaps it is just me, but it appears there are some interesting beneficial affects to running on the surface with the snorkel up.

A) In rough water (high winds) your diesels are constantly getting drowned out and shutting off, reducing your average speed significantly. With a snorkel extended this does not occur. Not sure how well the earlier (VII/IX) snorkels would hold up to operating on the surface in rough seas, probably a mild exploit.

B) Diving. It appears that if you dive with the snorkel extended, your diesels are allowed to 'push' your sub deeper underwater before switching over to electrics. I imagine this is pretty clearly an exploit, as I'm pretty sure most of the retro-fit snorkels would have snapped like a twig if subjected to a crashdive at 15 knots or so, though it seems the XXI snorkel is quite a bit more robust....

Still, without snorkel extended, the U-boat 'hangs' under the surface at 10m depth for a short period while the diesels are shifted over to the electrical motors. This is dangerous during an air attack. Very little downward 'momentum' at this point.

If a crash dive is attempted with the snort up, the diesels remain on for several critical seconds longer, with the resulting downward momentum pushing the boat to a depth of 30m or so, deep enough to escape bomb damage, or get you well on your way to the depths in case of a destroyer attack run.

Anyone else notice this?

My biggest criticism of the ingame snorkel is the fact you can travel at the submarines greatest submerged speed without any problems where in reality the submarine was confined to between 3 and five knots because anything faster would cause the snorkel to vibrate or even break.

That´s easy to handle: just install the h.sie patch and configurate the ***.ini in the right way. h.sie offers maximum speed with snorkel depending on weather. In bad weather you´re able to use the snorkel but you´re not able to start the propellers. Just charging batteries and refresh the air in the sub.

Much to my shame I've never looked at h.sie work but must do sooner rather than later.

No problem. Nobody knows everything.:har:
Just try it out. But i miss a different between types VII/IX and XXI. So if you change to type XXI you have to edit this file for higher realismus.