977 U-boat

[Sensekhmet]

Originally Posted by bobchase

For them, their ship really is moving hard in those seas but let a DD or DE come alongside for refueling. If they pay attention, what constitutes rock & roll gets seriously re-written when you watch the smaller ship half-buried in seas that cause a carrier's deck to only pitch or roll +/- 5 degrees.

A little DE does move about in almost any sea so one would presume that a surfaced U-Boat would behave much like that. However, there is a sea-state where the swells (waves) are very sharp, almost vertical, and far enough apart where a DE's hull won't rise to meet the swell. The water just simply breaks onto the foredeck and rolls off at the forward the breakwater. Down below you'd think that you were in much calmer seas if it wasn't for the big 'shudder' that goes though the ship every time a wave breaks. On a U-Boat, in that sea state, one would imagine that the sea would simply roll over the whole sub and never even break.

Bob

Speaking of destroyers in bad weather, I've read an account of a Polish destroyer in WW2 in the midst of a monstrous storm. The whole DD group proceeded at top speed with wind from the stern and they all suffered from a peculiar phenomenon. The ships would loose their course, and start to turn by themselves. They would also list badly and it continued until they were at 90 degrees to the wind. At that point the ship would slowly straighten itself and be ready for another uncontrolled turn... the situation was absurd and it made it impossible for the group to stay in any kind of formation.