Diving/Surfacing Proceedures
 

Hello all. I was wondering if there are any prediving or presurfacing proceedures that are done. I am guessing prior to surface one would raise periscope and do a quick scan but is there anything else? Same for diving. Guess the only thing there is be sure you have a good sounding. Just wondering on this matter. Thanks

There are more procedures to this in real life than in the game. Simply because if you do happen to ram something, you can restart the game. In the real world, your career would pretty much be over.

In DW your problem is more along the lines of how surfacing will affect your mission. What radars can see you if you surface, will MPAs come running, etc.

Likewise, in real life, when you dive you don't want seawater to come into the people-tank. That would ruin your whole day, fer sure! :|\

Sure, but I seem to remember an incident between a 688 and a japanese fishing boat.
I don't know what the captain of the submarine was thinking prior to surface but he surely didn't use his periscope nor sonar to detect the fishing boat that was directly over him.
Sometime real life is more creepy than whatever can happen in a simulation. :-j

well i think the point he was trying to make is exactly that.. the fishing boat was destroyed because the sub was practicing an emergency blow. and a fishing vessel sitting still makes almost no noise at all, it's pretty unlikely that it'd be detected passively just sitting there with its engines off.

sometimes accidents just can't be avoided. remember the russians getting stuck in fish nets, etc..

(USS Greeneville)
The "Ehime Maru" wasn't sitting still - in dw terms, it was in transit mode. It was heading somewhere, and had its radar on.


I read the report; here's roughly what happened.

The sub had been tracking the EM for some time, but had proceeded on a straight to-from course so that they didn't have a good solution - the range was inaccurate. They did sweep the periscope, but didn't see it. (Some crewmember speculated that it was a problem of the wrong set of optics being used, AFAIR)

Then, they went down, did some hefty maneuvering, and did an e-blow landing the EM between the sail and the rudder; the rudder tore through several compartments including diesel tanks.

They had a screwed up TMA on the Ehime Maru.

check out: http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2005/MAB0501.htm

VERY detailed description of what happened and how they messed up.

@Kirk
 

Definately an incident worth knowing about. After you read about all the people involved in this process you may ask yourself how could so many watchstanders miss the the fact that there was a ship on the surface within collision distance.

Any way this report should provide some excellent insights about the preparations in the surfacing routine.

As far as the submerging routine is concerned, there are so many checks that must be made that they are too numerous to mention. Basically, critical valves must be aligned properly to reduce probability of flooding.

Once the OOD gives the order to dive, the procedure is fairly quick. The COW opens the vent valves from the BCP, the OOD lowers the scope at about 70 feet, the COW shuts the valves and the ship settles at 150 feet. The DOOW has control over ship's speed until he can get a satisfactory trim. The COW may be pumping or flooding depending on the DOOW's instructions. I think this takes a couple of minutes, depending on sea state. Higher sea states take longer because of bernouli forces. Water temp plays a role once submerged.