Questions about torepedo doors.

[General Tso]

Dick O'Kane mentions several different places in his books that beginning in 1939 American submarines departed for patrol with their outer torpedo doors open. Does this mean that the American subs conducted their entire patrol with the doors open? Is it possible to duplicate this in the game? The doors don't seem to stay open for me.

[fred8615]

If your doors are left open and you dive under 100 feet they'll close automatically. So you really can't do that.

[General Tso]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I'll have to try and remember to open them ahead of time after I rise on my final approach.

[Alky]

Originally Posted by General Tso

Does this mean that the American subs conducted their entire patrol with the doors open?

In real life I know nothing about subs, but I would imagine that reloading a torpedo in the tube might be troublesome with the door open. So... entire patrol??

[General Tso]

Originally Posted by Alky

In real life I know nothing about subs, but I would imagine that reloading a torpedo in the tube might be troublesome with the door open. So... entire patrol??

LOL. Maybe if they did it really, really fast it would work.

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of - the captain orders the doors left open but the crew was allowed to close them while loading a torpedo.

I already have enough things to do when firing time comes. Opening each door just seems like micromanagement.

[Elektroniikka-Asentaja]

Wow.. Registering to forums and reading stuff here can really help.. I've played the game about 40 hours or something, mostly quick missions with arcade feeling, just having fun and creating big explosions and now someone tells me that there is torpedo tube "doors" which speed up your shooting like a heck when you open them xD

Yea.. Thanks guys, Q is my new friend and now I'm able to shoot without waiting an hour with über fatigued crew to open those damn tubes lol

Happy hunting everyone!

[Alky]

Originally Posted by Elektroniikka-Asentaja

Wow.. Registering to forums and reading stuff here can really help..

Welcome Captain Elektroniikka, yes these forums are full of very useful information!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Alky

In real life I know nothing about subs, but I would imagine that reloading a torpedo in the tube might be troublesome with the door open. So... entire patrol??

The reference given was to the outer doors. Only the inner doors need to be closed to load the torpedoes. On the other hand the purpose of the outer doors is to streamline the hull. Leaving them open creates a lot of drag, and slows the boat down.

[ShadowWolf Kell]

There might have been a reason for that, but I doubt they did their patrols with them open the whole time.

[DaveyJ576]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The reference given was to the outer doors. Only the inner doors need to be closed to load the torpedoes. On the other hand the purpose of the outer doors is to streamline the hull. Leaving them open creates a lot of drag, and slows the boat down.

Ummmm... lets take a minute here. I will absolutely guarantee that the outer doors of the torpedo tubes HAVE TO BE SHUT and the tube drained before you open the breech doors inside the boat to load torpedoes. Failure to do so would result in a 21 inch diameter stream of solid seawater entering your boat, the result of which would be nothing short of catastrophic. There is an interlock mechanism in place that prevents opening both the outer (muzzle) door and the inner (breech) door at the same time. Overriding this mechanism requires a deliberate act of disassembling the mechanism. It can not be done accidentally. Disabling the interlock was only done when the boat was high and dry in a drydock.

There are shutters attached to the muzzle doors that slide into place when the door is shut. These shutters do smooth the flow of water over this area, but the effect is negligible. Opening the muzzle doors does not create "a lot" of drag, only a small amount. Even if you had all six forward tube doors open at the same time, you would only see maybe a half to one knot speed loss.

I am not familiar with the reference attributed to O'Kane concerning leaving the outer doors open all the time. Quite frankly I will say that this did not happen. The reference may have been misinterpreted. As I stated before, you have to shut the outer doors in order to reload the tube. In addition, the Torpedomen liked to periodically "routine" the fish, i.e. run maintenence checks to ensure they will run properly. The weapon has to be removed from the tube and placed on a skid in the torpedo room in order to accomplish this. The afterbody of the Mk 14 torpedo (which contained the engine) had a nasty habit of flooding when subjected to sea pressure for long periods of time, rendering the engine useless.