Do you dive in crappy weather?
 

Just wanted to know what fellow kaleuns do. Usually, when the weather sucks, I dive so that I pick up hydrophone contacts. I've been surprised quite a number of times by destroyers and the like that just pot up through rain and fog. Any tips? This is a continous learning experience for me. :D

Once in a while I will dive to keep from getting sea sick...... :lol: It also saves some fuel since rough weater will cause you to burn more.

Everytime. Strong winds alone eat a lot of fuel. If visibility is getting bad, windy or not, I dive 20m and go ahead slow on TC128 to kill the weather. You can't see your targets anyway and chance of colliding with something or getting jumped by warships is not my idea of fun.

How 'bout storm being your best friend..... :hmm:

No, depth is your best friend :) What do you mean by that? Except that bad weather helps when returning to port late at war and such.

25m depth and 'ahead slow' for me!

Hawkers :up:

P.S. I also put the gramophone on.

Another aspect to rough weather is that it increases crew fatigue dramatically.

When fog is heavy I just stay on surface....kill the motors...and go to 1024 TC until it clears to at least moderate fog....of course I keep waiting to get rammed doing this ...but so far it hasn't happened. I have been rammed trying to get within less than 400 yards of a target in heavy fog. :shifty:

For me it is a waste of time and fuel to continue ops in heavy fog..... results not worth the effort. An exception would be when assigned to a fuel critical long range patrol grid. Then I keep going despite heavy fog and ignore all reported contacts en route.

Heavy precipitation and high winds are of no major concern.

I dive to 25m, and go slow ahead.

I like to brutalise the bridge watch by making them stand to in all the worst weather -serves them right for failing to alert to collision course merchant in my 2nd or 3rd patrol in moderate fogg whilst I was busy at the UZO. The Uboat version of squarebashing- neverending bridge watch :arrgh!:
Ive also filled the crapper with food stores so the chaps up forward have to use a bucket, which is, I might add, prone to tipping up all over the deck plates in anything but millpond sea conditions :rotfl: try releiving yerself over the rail in a storm seamen stains! muhuhuahahahahahahahaaaah

In many ways I'm glad this is just a sim.

storm and nights.... 25 mt. ahead slow
storm and days... surfaced ahead slow (diving only for an hour to relax the crew, just like in Das Boot :|\ )

Usually I dive to 20m and order ahead slow.

Pre-1943: 25 meters ahead slow.

Current campaign, Sept. 1944 in a XXI: I mostly stay surfaced and let the radar detector do its work for warning me of enemies, and the radar for spotting lone merchants/patrols with no radar.

Sometimes the waves are so big that the XXI is having problems staying surfaced without constantly switching back and forth from diesel/electric engines, and then I dive. This even when visibility is good. The battery bug of the XXI makes it tedious to keep ordering 'standard propulsion' constantly.

I stay on the surface. I don't like to run submerged unless I have to. I'd hate to have a juicy target get away because I ran down my batteries. I have never, ever been rammed in fog, or even surprised. I don't know how you guys manage to do that. I've spent more hours playing this game then I care to admit. :oops: Not once has it happened. If it is foggy, though, I will usually let a target go. I hate trying to chase a target in fog. Radar is a huge help, though. It is a real pain having to dive to check the hydrophone bearings.

Storm or bad weather is your best friend like in that as a counter measure to hydrophones you are actually more "visible" underwater then on the surface in bad weather.... :ping: And stalking a convoy at the surface can be done best with bad weather as you have a low signature and people (read the allied lookouts) do tend to dislike bad weather which is why the original writer posed his statement/question.... :lurk: