Do ships sink in bad seas?

[soopaman2]

I was playing a patrol today, I saw something odd that really "took me out of it"

I am stalking a ship off the coast of Spain. The seas were just disgusting, some of the worse I seen in this game. I am lining up for a shot, and waiting to get within 1500 meters, and all of a sudden it turns into a sunken ship icon. I didn't get credit for the sinking (nor did I deserve it). But the red split ship icon did show.

The only mod I am using on this run is the merchant fleet mod. It was one of the added ships (an M106 or b or)...something) , it just keeled backwards and sunk aft first. I even checked my crew to see if somehow I had deck guns operational. Nothing.

Is this a mod function breaking, or a SH3 bug (like the unrecoverable dive), or do ships actually manage to sink in bad seas?

Thanks in advance Kaleuns.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Yes, or it could be AI U-boat/aircraft beaten you to it.

It's annoying when that happens, isn't it!

[HW3]

You should check the tramp steamers in convoys out in bad weather/high seas, they always sink by themselves.

[frau kaleun]

I was roaming around the North Sea once during the big Norway hullabaloo, terrible weather - I mean visibility on the surface was nil so we stayed submerged. We could hear many nearby ships on the hydrophone and "listened" as several of them sank around us. I've also seen contacts suddenly turn into sunk ship icons in other areas during really bad weather.

It's always possible as noted above that somebody else came along and got the kill, but I would say that, yes, in really bad weather you can see ships sink just from that alone.

[soopaman2]

And this forum works again, compiled experience helps a young inexperienced and humble Kaleun. I tip my hat to the old guard, thanks.

I had not come across this in game until now so was unsure. I suppose it is realistic. A sub is way safer in rough seas than a small cargo vessel. (Didn't the Old Man in Das Boot say as much at one point?)

[Jimbuna]

The SH3 game engine treats any damage, whatever it's source in the same way.

The unrealistic aspect being the vessel may well catch fire (even though it is floundering in heavy seas) before it sinks.

[andwii]

Well what I do is if I run out of tubes and I have a destroyer runnin at me, I will keep just a but above pariscope depth, parascope down, and let him ram me, making sure I have repair crews set up, lot of the time they will sink themselves. Wish I could get credit for it though.

[Missing Name]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

The unrealistic aspect being the vessel may well catch fire (even though it is floundering in heavy seas) before it sinks.

A bug which I find amusing nonetheless.

[PappyCain]

Often on the North Atlantic, the weather coupled with mind-numbing fatigue, could be as deadly a foe as the enemy. A ship could founder in heavy seas or ram another in fog. In winter, ice build-up from waves washing over the deck, could even cause a ship to become top heavy and turn over. Shifting cargo could cause issues especially ordnance. Boilers blew too. Most likely a straggler may have had a collision earlier with another vessel.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Just a quick Google search for 'ferry fire' lists many incidents over the last few years, and the top few were all closer to home than you may think including one out of a place we all know and love - Kiel - and thats in the 21st century with wonderful fire-retardants and the like. I imagine 70 years ago the regulations were slightly less strict than today and it wouldn't have taken much for an engineer (other jobs may also be culpable) to drop an oily rag against a pipe, a dropped cigarette or even cooking apparatus to start a fire in rough seas.

So the idea is conceivable, but SH3 may just make it happen once too often.

[soopaman2]

Here is some copypasta from wikipedia on liberty ships.

Early Liberty ships suffered hull and deck cracks, and a few were lost to such structural defects. During World War II, there were nearly 1,500 instances of significant brittle fractures. Twelve ships, including three of the 2,710 Liberties built, broke in half without warning, including the SS John P. Gaines,[5][6] which sank on 24 November 1943 with the loss of 10 lives. Suspicion fell on the shipyards which had often used inexperienced workers and new welding techniques to produce large numbers of ships in great haste.[7] The Ministry of War Transport lent the British-built Empire Duke for testing purposes.[8] Constance Tipper of Cambridge University demonstrated that the fractures were not initiated by welding, but instead by the grade of steel used which suffered from embrittlement.[7] She discovered that the ships in the North Atlantic were exposed to temperatures that could fall below a critical point when the mechanism of failure changed from ductile to brittle, and thus the hull could fracture rather easily. The predominantly welded (as opposed to riveted) hull construction then allowed cracks to run for large distances unimpeded. One common type of crack nucleated at the square corner of a hatch which coincided with a welded seam, both the corner and the weld acting as stress concentrators. Furthermore, the ships were frequently grossly overloaded and some of the problems occurred during or after severe storms at sea that would have placed any ship at risk. Various reinforcements were applied to the Liberty ships to arrest the crack problems, and the successor design, the Victory ship, was stronger and less stiff to better deal with fatigue.
Several designs of mass-produced petroleum tankers were also produced, the most numerous being the T2 tanker series, with about 490 built between 1942 and the end of 1945.

In high seas they would literally crack down the middle, and forget it if a torpedo lifted them up.
They were more "spammed" than designed.
I remember seeing something about the man (Kaiser) who built a good majority of them, and how he had to mount reinforcing straps across the length of both sides of the ship (I watch military channel alot)

[PappyCain]

Observing in cinema view I can confirm convoy ships colliding in heavy sea and suffering damage that could cause a vessel to lose the convoy and trail, be in severe distress, and I have found on occasion at least 2.

I have also seen and confirm the same damage scenario with a military vessel that had a collision and eventually foundered, exploded and sank.
Both on the high sea and in Scapa Flow.

So, from an immersion point of view, and damage modeling, I would say while not a usual event - it does indeed occur!

S'
PC

[Ravenfuhrer]

yes

[JuergenSchT]

I found this screenshot in my 'ole screenshots folder. It's from when I was playing Vanilla SH3 (I just finished my second patrol with GWX two days ago). The rectangles show the directions on which I had the sound contacts. And notice that next to the pointer is the 'Sunk Ship' icon, in colour grey. It was a fishing boat.
I've got also some screenshots of a small merchant that was rocking heavily (and headbanging LOL) in rough seas. It was in a convoy that I was following for about a day. It didn't sink! (even though it had a small fire onboard).

So I guess it's a pretty random thing.

[HW3]

What I find somewhat frustrating is to find a tramp steamer trailing behind its convoy, down by the head but, still plugging along. I work myself into position to line up a shot, more to put it out of its misery than anything else, and have it finally sink just before I can fire and get credit for it.