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Originally Posted by ParrotPatrol
I was hit by a bomb from a zero on my way to the convoy area, but it was minimal damage, only deck damage. My deck crew was injured. I want to know why the hell it isn't announcing crush depth to me.
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I'm not sure how it announces crush depths, if it ever does, having never gone that deep. I know there is some problem with 'invisible', unrepairable damage. Because of that, I try to avoid going below 60 or 70 feet if I've taken any visible damage at all, just to be safe. The uncertainty is a bit annoying, but is probably realistic. It may be that the announcement of passing crush depths are set to the published crush depths, rather than the actual, reduced post-damage crush depth.
After all, if a sub is rated for 260 feet, the XO is going to announce (with a bit of a quaver in his voice, perhaps) when you pass 260 going down. But, if a bomb hit popped some rivets or warped a plate, that sub might actually crush at 150 now. BUT, the XO doesn't have perfect knowledge of what the new, reduced depth is going to be, or even if the depth was reduced at all, thus he cannot announce 'We are passing the ship's new crush depth which is only 61% of the prior depth due to hull stress'. I would say in such post-damage scenarios, it would be up to the CO to dive slowly, carefully, incrementally, and above all sparingly, to not press the limits of a bent boat too much.
My father worked for the Department of the Navy designing submarine hulls and bulkheads for almost 40 years. He got to design giant models, have them built, then stick them in huge pressure tanks and watch them go 'blooey!', or 'crunch', more accurately. Once, as a boy, I asked him if he was proud if he designed a hull or bulkhead that could go deeper than ever before, and he said 'No.' He said that far more important to the submarine fleet was not a hull that could dive deep, but a hull that crushed consistently at a specific depth in predicable ways, because then limits would be known, believed, and planned for. He mentioned Russian, titanium-hulled subs that COULD go twice as deep as US Subs, OR might crush at 80% of a US Subs' test depth, it really depended on the specific boat and circumstance, and such uncertainty bred either overcaution or unrealistic risk-taking. The U.S. boats, however, would always crush within a very narrow range of depths, which, while less-deep than the Russians; generally, gave the skippers a much more 'known' scenario and certainty that led to better operational procedures. One of his crowning moments was when his team designed a new type of bulkhead that would maintain similar crush integrity even when significantly compromised by stress.
Remembering that story reminded me of our situations in SH4, where it is not the damge per se that kills us, but that uncertainty of when and at what depth it might occur. Annoying, but apparently quite real.
LCdr Tally Ho
Picking Up Admiral's Dry Cleaning
Staff Attache
NB Surubaya, Java