I reread the the chapter of Steel Boat, Iron Hearts entitled "Sabotage" today to remind myself of the malfunctions U-505 encountered in the summer and fall of 1943. I had forgotten how demoralizing this extended period of mechanical breakdown/sabotage was to the crew.
U-505 put into Lorient on December 12, 1942 after suffering critical damage in a depth charge attack. She was finally ready for patrol on July 1, 1943. Things didn't go according to plan, and she had to abort her next five patrols due to a myriad of problems. Here are the pertinent failures for each attempted departure:
July 1: faulty propellor seal. FuMB Metox short-circuit, GHG hydrophones failure, radio direction finder antenna failure while in stowed position, fuel leak
August 1: pressure hull leak. Here's a revealing quote: "Shipyard engineers sheepishly reported that they had indeed found evidence of sabotage: hollow sweat seams in the newly repaired hull. Instead of solidly welded seams, they found strips of oakum...had been placed between the plate joints. The oakum was then covered with a thin cover of solder to hide the sabotage" (147).
August 14: pressure hull leak, crushed air intake duct
August 21: oil leak: "A closer inspection revealed that someone had drilled a small pencil-sized hole in one of the fuel bunkers" (155).
September 18: starboard diesel exhaust valve loose, direction finder failure, short-wave radio failure, main pump failure
October 10: piston #2 on port diesel frozen in cylinder. Repaired after eight hours and patrol finally continues.
Most of the above could be ascribed to simple mechanical failure, rather than sabotage, although the oakum seams and fuel tank hole are harder to explain. U-505 might be an exceptional case, but their extended experience with mechanical and electrical problems at least illustrates that this stuff happened all the time, as finchOU pointed out. Sabotage might be a little extreme, so perhaps it could be optional/moddable.
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