Weather limits for u-boat operations

[hewsu]

November 1939, ever since I arrived to my patrol grid AM18 550km north west of Ireland my boat has been rolling in a 15m/s storm. Its been one and half months now with no sight of the enemy and all this free time has got me wondering...

What exactly were the weather limits historically for an u-boat to

a) mount an attack with a fair chance of being succesful? In how big of a waves can a torpedo function properly?

and

b) to operate at all? My crew seems to literally dive few meters under the waves for a few seconds every now and then. Wouldn't that already cause a serious threath of the u-boat taking too much water trough the conning tower hatch?


Well air cleaned and batteries recharged again. Time to dive back under the waves.

[ediko]

Hate this as well, I always wanted them to just come down inside the sub but the game won't let me have an empty watch when surfaced. The poor fellows just have to hold on tighter. And don't worry about the sub, it can already go under water, the hatches are closed as well so water shouldn't be a problem, the men would be thrown into the sea though. I usually stay underwater until the storm passes.

[max-peck]

I've just spent the last 3 days (game time) crawling my way through AM26 enroute to my patrol area.

I have to come up every 6 to 7 hours to vent the boat, but other than that spend the whole time submerged when visibility is down to zero.

The last time I played this game a very promising career was cut short when I blundered right into the middle of 4 British destroyers in the middle of a storm.
The TC didn't drop to 1 until they had actually spotted me and opened fire.

Now when storms turn up I spend the whole time at 50 meters

[Kip336]

Historically, the hatch stayed open in case of alarms. Opening the hatch just took too much time. They had the bilge pumps running full time

The crew was also strapped to the conning tower with a safety belt, to make sure they wouldnt get washed away

Your crew staying underwater for seconds is......let's just say that most captains did dive. Besides - your hydrophone "sees" more then your watch crew can at the moment!


Ill look up the KTB of Werner Hartmann (U-37) - he mentions being in a bad storm and doing all this.


EDIT:

Found it;
http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTB37-2.htm

Page 5/6

19:19 Surfaced. It is a dark night and I continued the journey. In the meantime the weather became worse, waves sweeping over the conning tower and so much water is entering the boat through the air vents that the main pump has to run constantly. Radioed twice to BdU: "Lively warship traffic on ENE courses 80 nm northwest of the Orkney Islands.
04:00 No special events. Exceptionally bad weather, no use of weapons possible. Bridge watch is strapped down.
20:00 The conning tower hatch must be closed. The watch is strapped down.

[Jimbuna]

The weather patterns for SH3 are not to everyones liking and this I can understand....you'll never please all of the people all of the time.

Bad weather in the Atlantic often went on for days or even a week or two so for realism sake, if the weather is seriously bad I ensure I've a full battery charge and dive out of its turbulence...surfacing as I near 1/4 battery capacity.

As has already been pointed out, you can hear further than you can see during inclement weather.

[hewsu]

The weather patterns for SH3 are not to everyones liking and this I can understand....you'll never please all of the people all of the time.

Didn't say I disliked it. Actually having a blast being in a storm during the winter at Atlantic as it should be Was just wondering if the Atlantic was inaccessable for the u-boats for some months because of the weather making their operations rather fruitless. Can't wait for summer though

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

The weather patterns for SH3 are not to everyones liking and this I can understand....you'll never please all of the people all of the time.

Bad weather in the Atlantic often went on for days or even a week or two [snip]

At least for me the crux of the issue is not the bad weather or how long it lasts, but that it seems to be very predictable. When I leave on patrol, the weather is always perfect, no clouds, no wind, no nothing. Then always, all the sudden, it turns into a storm with the same parameters: 15 m/s wind, fog and rain that lasts for undefined time.

It's as if there were nothing in between, for example, dense fog or some rain but without wind. Only rarely have I seen even strong wind without the omnipresent storm clouds. And the fact that it seems to happen on every single patrol just makes it annoying.

I can't comment how realistic this is, since I haven't spent enough (read: any) time sailing around the Atlantic in different seasons, but what I can say for sure is that in my opinion it's not fun. The repetitive weather has often been a major reason for why I have quit a campaign. Because of it's nature, Silent Hunter 3 is already quite repetitive game (which is not necessarily a bad thing), and a weather would be great element to make it more varied and giving different challenges each time.

[hewsu]

It's as if there were nothing in between, for example, dense fog or some rain but without wind. Only rarely have I seen even strong wind without the omnipresent storm clouds. And the fact that it seems to happen on every single patrol just makes it annoying.

For my 3 month patrol the weather went like the following:

1.) Leaving harbour with a calm sunny weather

2.) On my way to patrol area trough north of Britain the weather was calm enough to do accurate manual gunnery during night sinking one merchant ship.

3.) I arrive to my patrol quadrant in the Atlantic and struggle in a 15m/s storm for the next 3 months. I did manage to intercept a convoy of two british auxiliary cruisers and a destroyer but was only able to observe and report them, the waves made getting a (manual) torpedo solution very hard.

4.) As I start heading back to base the weather is almost perfectly calm at one point, then changing to moderate swells.

All in all the weather was quite dynamic. Even the 3 month storm had skies from clear to overcast with occational rain. Only the 15m/s wind and waves stayed the same.

I'm using the GWX Gold mod.

Here's a sad story I refound on uboat.net:

"U-106, 23 Oct 1941
An incredibly sad event befell U-106 on this date. When the replacement watch opened the tower hatch in rough seas they found out that the entire previous tower watch of 4 men had been washed overboard. [Oberleutnant zur See Werner Grüneberg, Fähnrich zur See Herbert von Bruchhausen, Oberbootsmannmaat Karl Heemann, Matrose Ewald Brühl]"

[sublynx]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

Only rarely have I seen even strong wind without the omnipresent storm clouds. And the fact that it seems to happen on every single patrol just makes it annoying.

I have now played too patrols with hsie's realism fix mod (and SH3 commander and GWX) and now I've seen high winds with clear skies. Weather has been changing and interestiwng, not predictable at all. Maybe hsie changed the weather variables too. Worth a try.