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Originally Posted by Ducimus
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_awesome_ read. And yea, I like the idea of being dragged down by flooding rather than having a hull integrity fail at shallow depth.
About the plane issue, well, SD radar makes you safe from direct attack, but there are circumstances when they can still get in the way. Yesterday I was trolling at 400 ft during the day (forced down by SD radar contact - I'm in the habit of running at 400 all day because the planes show up like clockwork). Well, I get a hydrophone contact and come to radar depth and do a scan. I plot a rough course on the merchant, and set up an intercept vector. Problem is he's like close to 90 to me, so I need to do an overhaul maneuver. I surface, go flank, and use my special ability to juice the engine. I run for about 20 minutes, and then I get the SD radar contact. The planes are nearby. But I still need to get into a better firing position. Just as the ship comes in visual range, I get aircraft spotted, so I crash dive. Depth charges in my wake. I do the rest of the run to my attack point at 400 ft at flank speed, coming to PD to get off 2 torps and make a kill at just > 90 AoB. It felt good. But yea, the planes can still mess you up. Interestingly, despite the plane having detected me and dropped DCs, the merchant was not alarmed. Could be a range thing I guess (he was at about 6000 yards when I was attacked).
I've also been sunk at PD by planes who must have spotted me (though at high TC I couldn't confirm what it was). That's why I'm in the habit at trolling at 400 ft.
In the end, the night is the submarine's hunting time. By day, often it takes luck to get into a good firing position without being seen. Plus, I've found that escorts/merchants are quite able to spot periscopes at like 1000 to 1500 yards by day. By night you have a lot of flexibility.