Depth-charge turbulence

[Floater]

Originally Posted by U-104

I think it is in SH3. Once on a patrol I was under depth charge attack by a DD. As it entered its charge, I hit flank. It came over head and dropped its depth charges. They exploded behind my sub. I went at flank speed for 5 minutes then went ahead slow and it never found me again.

With a lone DD, or with a group of DDs that are not communicating your position, that's understandable. An attacking DD is blind from the moment he speeds up for the depth-charge run - anything over about eight knots and his sonar gear is useless. Then, after he's passed over you, it takes time to (a) slow down again and (b) turn around to get you out of his baffles. A good DD captain could reacquire a target about two minutes after dropping the DCs, but it often took much longer, particularly with the larger DDs.

It's in areas like that that the corvette really came into its own. Being small, they had a tight turn radius, and were also able to accelerate and decelerate much more quickly than a destroyer.