There is no safety in diving during the day and surfacing at night to recharge batteries. And you will develop only 1/4 of the targets you would have developed, had you remained on the surface.
It's like the Germans' grand plan to use a snorkel to remain submerged during the day. They were blind. And they were unaware that their snorkel was a homing beacon, a most excellent radar reflector. They were not safe at all! They just never knew what killed them.
Wearing a blindfold is not the same as not being able to be seen. Submariners should learn that simple fact.
Not only that, but when you deplete your batteries you are not ready for any combat at all! On the surface your fuel consumption doubles or triples as you recharge batteries, cutting your range by the same factor and making you a less successful sub skipper. And suppose you get pinned down by action with your batteries half charged?
Now you can run half as fast, only half as far before you are forced to surface and die because you are unprepared for action in the false belief that hiding below the surface makes you safe.
The truth is that it makes it many times more dangerous for all these reasons. A submarine is a surface raider which can submerge for the shortest possible amount of time when absolutely necessary to save your fool hide and those of your crew.
Stay on the surface and live! Stay on the surface and sink four times more targets per patrol. Airplanes? That is what lookouts are for. War ain't supposed to be safe. But it IS supposed to be fought, not hidden from.
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