First Patrol, after action report

[frau kaleun]

I suspect that early in the war the RN's depth charges in-game reflect the historical record to some degree, in that one doesn't have to go as deep to stay under them. 100m seems to have been plenty deep enough on my first few patrols and even as late as summer 1940 I've avoided damage just by dropping to 70m and going silent.

Apparently British pre-war intelligence had underestimated how deep German u-boats could safely go, and their ASW weapons reflected this. Consequently the depth charges they had simply weren't designed to detonate as deep as they needed to in order to be effective against a u-boat running at its own maximum safe depth (or anywhere close to it).

I don't think the Brits fully realized how off their intelligence was until they actually captured a u-boat and found out what it was capable of.

Lol so this explains them dissapearing??

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith

Lol so this explains them dissapearing??

I've never had them just disappear - although I don't watch them descend through the water on the external cam. But if they're dropped, I always hear them explode even if they're not close enough to be a real threat. And if I watch the surface I can see the commotion up top when they detonate.

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

I don't think the Brits fully realized how off their intelligence was until they actually captured a u-boat and found out what it was capable of.

As far as I remember they didn't "find it out" (at least not any time soon after capturing it) - they just had a glance at the depth dial, and then they stood there with their jaws dropped and stared, and stared... and then they called some more engineers too, so that they join the staring fest. And then they did some calculations out of disbelief, to find out that the dial is not exaggerated.

[frau kaleun]

IIRC I've seen reference to ~90 meters being the maximum dive depth of the British T-class, and I'm assuming that's the real maximum depth and not the "shipyard warranty" version. Slightly more for some of the later S-class boats.

I think the depth charges in use by the RN at the very start of the war had a max depth of 100 meters or so? Plenty deep enough to take out one of their own subs, but not a u-boat if it could escape to anywhere near its max depth.

Wikipedia says that after capture of the U-570 (aka HMS Graph) in Aug 1941,

Her safe diving depth was discovered to be 230 metres (750 ft)... At the time, Royal Navy depth charges had a maximum depth setting of 170 metres (560 ft)

So yeah I can see why the depth dial would've been a rather unpleasant shock.

Its German engineering, V-dub haha

[JokerOfFate]

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith

Its German engineering, V-dub haha

Well, you got to give the Americans some credit they made a sub that could go down to 504m (Yep, it's was a game bug)

But other than that German engineering would be nothing with out the motto
"Germany, Building a better mouse trap"