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anggono!

Originally Posted by anggono

Upon the first depth charge exploding I'd normally go to "Full Ahead" and make evasive turn.

Unless I'm misreading your OP you don't wait for 'the first explosion'; when the soundman announces 'depth charge in the water!' (count each one ) U book it at top speed; diving with a 90 turn; this allows U the slim 'rate of sink' time ( 15-20 feet per second) to maneuver and the fact that only 7% overall of ship-borne depth-charge attacks were successful... thus the advent of Hedgehog and Squid's 30%+ later success rates.

There are several occasions when an escort will lose contact with a submerged U-boat. During the explosion of a depth charge, an intermittent blackout occurs, deafening the pursuer’s listening devices until they calibrate themselves. When the escort passes directly above a submerged U-boat, both sonar and hydrophone contacts are lost. Sonar is useless at short ranges and in addition, the U-boat’s position would be out of the sonar’s arc of detection when the ship passes directly above. Also, due to the interference of the ship’s own propeller noise, hydrophones cannot pick up any sound coming directly from astern of the ship. This provided several window of opportunities for a U-boat to change course or to run at high speeds without being detected.

U-boats could also launch BOLD canisters to confuse their attackers. Consisting of a chemical compound which emitted large quantities of gas, the resulting bubble cloud could resemble a submerged U-boat. Unless the sound operator was especially skilled, it was often difficult to distinguish it from a real U-boat. The allies called this a “Submarine Bubble Targer” (SBT).
It was not an easy task locating and attacking a submerged U-boat. Much skill and persistence was needed, and was especially so if the U-boat had already dived very deep beneath the sea. Sometimes escorts forced a U-boat to the surface by waiting it out. Since U-boats had very low underwater speed, escort captains knew that it could not travel very far. In addition, it could not remain submerged for very long periods. Appreciating the fact that carbon dioxide levels will start to rise, escorts will often wait in silence until the U-boat was forced to surface by itself due to the lack of breathing air. During the war, more than a handful of U-boats were defeated by sheer patience.

With multiple sonars on hunter- killer groups there is no recalibration time factor. Enjoy that last Johnny Walker... Red or Black, your choice, in your Kaleun's quarters! The Fatherland thanks U ...in advance and promotes U postmortem to KorvettenKapitän! Required reading: http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/D/e/Depth_Charge.htm vs the real 'Johnny' Walker-Walker was the most successful anti-submarine warfare commander during the Battle of the Atlantic and was known more popularly as Johnnie Walker (after the whisky). http://www.subsowespac.org/tactics/def_maneuvering.shtml