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Originally Posted by Lzs von swe
Surviving late war is a question of staying on surface for as short periods as possible. In my experience it is better to "bob" up and down then to stay up for longer periods. I go at 1 knot submerged and surface often enough to not have to stay up for more then 20 minutes, max, each time. After that you can be assured some one is coming for you.
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You are not the first person to advocate this sort of approach. I don't undrstand why it would be better. Could you explain how and why this approach works?
AFAICT, for any given submerged speed the total time to recharge is directly proportional to the time spent running submerged at that speed (barring complications from nearly discharged batteries). So you will still spend the same amount of time surfaced over the length of a patrol. Why would 12 periods of 20 minutes surfaced make you less likely to be spotted than one period of 4 hours?
Also, while running at 1 knot while submerged will lessen the proportion of your time you need to spend recharging, it will nearly triple the time it takes to get from one point to another, compared to running submerged at 3 knots. So unless running at one knot reduces your recharge time by more than about 60%, you still will spend more time on the surface during the trip.
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Originally Posted by Lzs von swe
The snorkel brings you close to the surface, does not take much sea to have the conning tower breaching the waves. I use it only in calm seas.
And I prefer to surface and have my watch crew on deck, even with the snorkel mounted radar warner. Not all planes use radar..
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I have no experience with snorkels yet, but what you say seems reasonable to me.
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Originally Posted by Lzs von swe
And I feel safer when I surface in broad day light, with max visibility, then at night or in low visibility. Early war low visibility is the U-boats friend, but that changes.
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So you have concluded that the boost in detection of aircraft by your crew is greater than the boost in detection of your boat by enemy aircraft?