Quote:
Originally Posted by Mittelwaechter
Do you remember the scene in Das Boot, when Kriechbaum mentiones in the heavy storm "we don't make any speed/progress over ground" and the Kaleun orders to dive? Running on batteries did save fuel under certain circumstances, because they where able to move at all. It happened in real life too.
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May I suggest you read Dick O'Kane and Ned Beach, two American submarine skippers of WW2. Both describe running submerged in storms. Not to mske more progress, but to reduce the wear and tear on the boat and, equally important, on the crew. IIRC, O'Kane nearly had a lookout killed by being battered by a huge wave. The notion that somehow a WW2 submarine could actually make better speed submerged than on the surface is not borne out by the historical record. Even a u-boat could make 4-5 knots in bad weather on the surface, and could not sustain that speed submerged for more than an hour or so. Storms at sea often last for days.