Damage control parties??

[hunter301]

How do I set up and monitor the damage control parties??
I was rammed by a fast moving destroyer/escort at periscope depth while stalking a large convoy of ships. I Immediately crash dived to 150 meters.
Leveled off at 1-5-0 meters and rigged for silent running. I placed myself in the middle of the convoy staying at 1-5-0 meters and set speed at 5 knots. Now I figured I could hide under the convoy and conduct repairs until night fall, only a couple of hours away and then with repairs made come up and reak havoc on the convoy in the dark from within the middle.
Now when I went to the crew and damage management I noticed that the damage control screen had no one assigned to it. Foward batteries damaged. Aft batteries not working. Compressor not working, etc... So I grabbed the men out of the aft and foward torpedo rooms to assist in repairs and assigned them to what I thought was repairing the forward batteries which was the only thing keeping me going at the time. However I do not see any progress being made and there is no time limit to show how long the repairs should take. Am I doing something wrong? Are any repairs even being done? What is the proper proceedure for conducting damage? The manual is a little vague.

[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

Theres two things I can think of that would give you trouble like you describe. First one is being at silent running, since then all torp reloading, bilge operation and repair work stops. Second most likely reason is not having enough crewmen working in Damage Control, try throwing some extra off duty crewmen in with the others. You will know that the crew are working on repairs by the little turning "wrench" symbol just below the Damage Control section. If you haven't done so already it's a good idea to give one of your officers a repair qualification, and then one or two petty officers. My damage control party consists of three crewmen, one officer and two petty officers and they are enough to almost entirely fill the green bar at the top of the damage control section.
Hope this helps!

[hunter301]

I was wondering about the "rig for silent running" affecting this but ended the game before it came to me. I had the crew complement filled up on the small damage control screen even though the green bar was only half filled. Are there seperate screens you can create for each area you need fixed?

[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

No, once you assign crew to Damage Control you have to click the damaged area you want to repair on the small sub diagram under the Damage Control area of the F7 screen. Perhaps you had been clicking the larger sub diagram instead. Only other thing I can think of is the silent running thing. It's bloody frustrating when things don't work the way the should in game isn't it?? I had big time problems reloading my aft external fish until I was told that I had to have both torpedo compartments manned before they would swap over my new fish!!! Hope you get sorted!!

[CB..]

Originally Posted by hunter301

I was wondering about the "rig for silent running" affecting this but ended the game before it came to me. I had the crew complement filled up on the small damage control screen even though the green bar was only half filled. Are there seperate screens you can create for each area you need fixed?

that's the thing--there's no repairs during silent running---

[todd293]

you cant work on two areas at the same time or at least I dont seem to be able to, but you can place crewman in a compartment and they can fix the minor stuff while damage control works somewhere else.silent running is a absolute no no they wont even stop the flooding.

[Sawdust]

You can confirm that the Damage Control Team is actively working by seeing if the wrench icon on the lower right corner of the Damage Control Crew Box is moving.

[Harry Buttle]

Crew members in the compartments will also work on damage - the exception is the 2 rest compartments - the only way to fix those is the damage control team.

So, if your crew has the right experience, you can set up a damage control team out of 'odds and sods' plus an officer who will concentrate on damage to the sleeping areas, and put various warrant officers with DC quals etc in the other compartments to work on damage there.

[Sawdust]

Originally Posted by Harry Buttle

Crew members in the compartments will also work on damage...

I thought that crew members in the compartments will only help reduce flooding (i.e., work on pumping) and not make other repairs? I was never quite sure about that detail of the repair system, though.

[Crym]

Crew in compartments other than the two resting compartments will repair any damage there but of course a lot slower than if you set the damage control team to do the job.

In my main campaign three of my officers have the repair specialisation (all of them have triple specialisation, three pure repairmen would be silly). In addition I got two repair specialist warrant officers, so I should be able to have a 100% effective damage control team while doing quite a bit of repairs in two to four additional compartments.

I have no idea if this will save me the day it really matters as I have -- knock on wood -- not been below 84% hull integrity so far.

Crym

[Harry Buttle]

Originally Posted by Crym

In my main campaign three of my officers have the repair specialisation (all of them have triple specialisation, three pure repairmen would be silly). In addition I got two repair specialist warrant officers, so I should be able to have a 100% effective damage control team while doing quite a bit of repairs in two to four additional compartments.

All of my officers get the repair specialisation, plus I go with 2 x repair WOs - I have found an ability to repair helps when the poo hits the proverbial - even if many of them are just slowing the flooding until the repair team can get to it.

The main thing is to be realistic about when your priority has to shift from offensive related ops (reloading etc) to staying afloat.

[Crym]

Originally Posted by Harry Buttle

All of my officers get the repair specialisation, plus I go with 2 x repair WOs - I have found an ability to repair helps when the poo hits the proverbial - even if many of them are just slowing the flooding until the repair team can get to it.

The main thing is to be realistic about when your priority has to shift from offensive related ops (reloading etc) to staying afloat.

That was my idea too, but I haven't gone as far as making repairmen out of all my officers (yet...) My officers have these specialisations:

Watchman
Flak
Helmsman

Watchman
Deck gun
Helmsman

Torpedoman
Helmsman
Repair

Machinist
Helmsman
Repair

Medic
Helmsman
Repair

The idea is that I have two, preferably three officers in the control room at all times. When in cruising or surface offensive mode one of the watchmen is on the bridge, the other works as chief engineer, the torpedoman is navigator, the medic weapons officer and I think you can guess where the machinist works The reason all my officers have the helmsman specialisation is that it makes the watchmen useful also when submerged (then the guy on the bridge sends the torpedoman to the bow/aft and takes over as navigator). I was thinking about making all of them repairmen instead of helmsmen, but then the watchmen will be idle (I hope!) most of the time submerged (or work somewhere they haven't got the skill to be 100% effective).

Any thoughts about my choice of specialisations, suggestions for improvement etc. are welcome. "Rules of thumb" for when to switch to from attack to survival mode, what times you just have to ignore going silent and pump like mad, etc. would also be interesting. I really haven't seen many tips about how to build the "perfect" crew or effective damage control, so I have been experimenting and had luck so far, but then it is still '41 and I haven't really *needed* a repair specialist yet. I fear that will change soon.

Crym

[Harry Buttle]

Originally Posted by Crym

Watchman
Flak
Helmsman

Watchman
Deck gun
Helmsman

Torpedoman
Helmsman
Repair

Machinist
Helmsman
Repair

Medic
Helmsman
Repair

Crym

I'd ditch the Deck Gun as an officer specialisation - as the war progresses virtually every merchant gets its own guns, so you tend to not shoot it out on the surface as much (early war specialise a WO in deck guns, it hurts a lot less to sack him than sack a 3 slot officer once you feel fighting it out on the surface is untenable).

I'd also ditch the officer Flak specialisation and use a WO for it.

Both those officers can pick up repair specialisations.

I'd also drop Medic as an officer specialisation and possibly replace it with Torpedoes.

Thats basically how I set up (but with less helmsmen) - if you went with less helmsmen you could give your watchmen a torpedoes specialisation (to employ them when dived).

I find there are a lot of trade offs, so try to make sure you don't have anyone who is useful when surfaced, but a dead weight when dived.

Naturally, my set up works for my style of play YMMV.

[hunter301]

Crym Wrote:

The idea is that I have two, preferably three officers in the control room at all times. When in cruising or surface offensive mode one of the watchmen is on the bridge, the other works as chief engineer, the torpedoman is navigator, the medic weapons officer and I think you can guess where the machinist works The reason all my officers have the helmsman specialisation is that it makes the watchmen useful also when submerged (then the guy on the bridge sends the torpedoman to the bow/aft and takes over as navigator). I was thinking about making all of them repairmen instead of helmsmen, but then the watchmen will be idle (I hope!) most of the time submerged (or work somewhere they haven't got the skill to be 100% effective).

So how do you actually go about setting up this kind of process? As I said before the manual is kind of vague.