watch crew underwater
 

Sorry if this has been answered. During stormy weather when my sub (VIIB) is surfaced the entire bridge will sometimes go underwater. Did this happen IRL and the watch crew held on for dear life?!

SG

Please keep in mind that the seakeeping characteristics of the uboats is not depicted 100% realistically. Waves may break over the bridge, but if the waves kept the uboat submerged for 15 seconds, the captain should have submerged before this time, to spare his crew.

In very heavy seas, a uboat would have to stay submerged as much as possible, and probably try to move out of the area.

Firing of torpedos would be impossible. Staying at PD would have been impossible.

Watch crew would have to be lashed to the boat by lifelines.

Ok, thanks. :cool:

SG

http://users4.ev1.net/~taragem/awards.jpg

Generally from what movies I have seen and such... the hatch was always open for the watch crew to get back inside in case of an emergency .. like a destoyer bearing down on them.... being under water, as in the game for too long a period, would certainly let the boat take on alot of water all at once.. probably drowning everyone in the command room ...............

I remember reading that one of the deficiencies in the Italian submarines was that the hatch had to be kept open - as they didn't have the diesel air intake the U-boats had. This led to them taking a lot of water in heavy seas. It was either in Donitz's Memoirs or the Clay Blair books, and was given as part of the reason Donitz didn't rate the Italian subs very highly. This suggests that in heavy seas the U-Boats would close the hatch. I don't know for sure though.

I don't think that's neccessarily true, considering the case of the one U-boat that had the watch relief go topside, only to find the entire on-duty watch crew had been washed overboard and lost.

Oh dear, that's gotta ruin your'e day :(

Sadly there was such a case and there were quite many cases when a single watchman has been washed away and lost.

They kept hatch closed when it was really stormy. That's a fact Heinz Schaeffer tells in his book U977. (He was the CO of the boat)
Once, H.S. was a younger officer at that time, they ended down to 32 meters or so. It took quite a time before the boat was on the surface next time. S tells how the hatch opend and someone from the conn looked if they (watch crew) were still on the bridge and alive.

-RC-