Quote:
Originally Posted by maillemaker
I'm pretty sure I could have puttered along on battery for a bit, though the aft battery was listed as "destroyed" and consequently the battery meter was down to like 30 percent. We had nearly a full charge before that.
I don't know how hard it was to maintain depth without moving, but we had a full tank of compressed air so we could have gone to periscope depth and hovered, motionless, while waiting for rescue.
Steve
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Ahhhh.. but it would never have arrived. Your rescuers would have been another U-boat most likely (Unless you were in the North Sea, but they wouldn't have a carrier there would they?). Hovering motionless, they would have to literally run into you to find you. I don't know historical detection ranges for a motionless periscope breaking the surface, but I know I can get within 1km of merchants at times without them ever seeing my scope, and that's moving. I'm pretty sure you'd have to be almost point blank to see another boats scope through a scope. The other U-boat would be hard pressed to search for you on the surface given the known amount of SAR and ASUW resources the RN would have deployed to that area.
Even if they sent Aircraft out after you, you'll be hard pressed to ID them through the scope, and I'm pretty damn sure you won't pop up to check.
A surface vessel would be your only hope of rescue if you were hovering. You could ID them, pop up and get a tow. But unless you were within spitting distance of any of the Reich's bases, I doubt you'll find any help there. Because, again, the RN assets enroute would negate any surface vessels the KM sent.
As we've said before, play the game as you want, it's your game. But you've asked for opinions, and this is a good thought exercise. It's a good place to play devil's advocate.
Let's assume it would take up to 3 days to be rescued. Take a die, roll it, divide by 2, round up. Limp away as far as you can, surface, send out a status report. Now stay surfaced under decent TC until that many days as you rolled have passed and you haven't been sunk. With your compressed air intact, you should be able to hover/dive/surface for that period to avoid RN assets. After that time period is passed, assume you have been rescued or repaired, and then warp back home.
I wish the game modeled long term repairs like Tessa mentioned. That would add a realism element to the game in this regard that would make it all that more enjoyable.