Was raiding Scapa Flow and the weather was absolutely perfect for it - Bad Gale with heavy winds, pretty much the worst weather you can get. Visibility through the UZO was about 300-400m at most; a ship 500m+ away (even one as large as the Hood) was completely obscured by the awful weather. With vizibility being non-existant was able to ride in without submerging, and even got into firing position and launched my spread against her using the UZO.
Being inside a harbor mades the hydrophone useless, on the open sea during a bad storm like that going to periscope depth occasionally to use the hydrophone to search for contacts is your best method of detection. My watch crew was only able to spot 1 merchant in the open sea at around 800m away during that patrol.
Exceptionally bad weather is great to use to slip by the more heavily patrolled areas (like the English chanel) but does increase you fuel usage massively and slow you down about 2 or 3 knots.
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