showing my ignorance

CCIP · 01-29-12, 11:41 PM

Yep, large and well-equipped towers. It's a different design philosophy - one that was popular with submarine designs before the war, but was quickly realized not to be effective, which is why you'll see that later in the war, these structures will literally get cut down pretty dramatically. The US fleet subs were not really designed around the same role and tactics as the U-boats, and the Germans were a little ahead of the time in realizing that for attacking at night and on the surface a low profile was the most important thing. Diving quickly was also a high priority. The US boats, on the other hand, started off on identifying search radius as a priority (and obviously the higher the tower, the further lookouts will be able to see), along with amenities for fast surface cruising.

So, as the war went on, they lost that little covered bridge, along with most of the bulk. Gained a very nice gun placement instead though

01-29-12, 11:41 PM	#7
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Yep, large and well-equipped towers. It's a different design philosophy - one that was popular with submarine designs before the war, but was quickly realized not to be effective, which is why you'll see that later in the war, these structures will literally get cut down pretty dramatically. The US fleet subs were not really designed around the same role and tactics as the U-boats, and the Germans were a little ahead of the time in realizing that for attacking at night and on the surface a low profile was the most important thing. Diving quickly was also a high priority. The US boats, on the other hand, started off on identifying search radius as a priority (and obviously the higher the tower, the further lookouts will be able to see), along with amenities for fast surface cruising. So, as the war went on, they lost that little covered bridge, along with most of the bulk. Gained a very nice gun placement instead though __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)