Quote:
Originally Posted by mookiemookie
I've retired Gunter Nitschke, my type IX captain. I figured 9 patrols and 400,000 tons was enough to earn him a teaching job at Murwik or something.
So now Bruno Cleves is out there in January '44 with his brand spanking new VIIC. I now have a snorkel...something I've never had the luxury of, being an early war player up to this point.
So this brings me to my question. What do I do? Do I run surfaced? Since my patrol grid out of Bergen is in the middle of the North Sea, I'm thinking that the Brits will be covering the skies like a blanket. Do I patrol submerged with the snorkel raised at all times possible? Or do I dive when I need to? I have the latest radar warning gear (Naxos) but I don't want to get jumped by Hurricanes or anything.
What say ye, late war captains?
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I went through a couple of careers with the XXI from July '44 to the end of the war. What I found out very quickly was that it was extremely dangerous to cruise with schnorkel in daylight. You are obviously easily spotted. During night airborne radar can spot you, too - without you getting a warning. If weather is bad you are fairly safe both night and day. After a while I cruised surfaced for most of the time. Then RWR works and the aircrafts can be spotted visually in time.
I don't know about the VII but the XXI is actually faster (on diesels) submerged with extended schnorkel than when surfaced. Which can be handy when you want to pull out of a skirmish. Operating on schnorkel should give a higher noise level as well as less sensitive passive sonar.