Help at sea

[Bulkhead]

Hi.

Is there any way to call for help out in the open sea?

The reason is the "diesel and batteries" post i posted 5 mins ago

[AVGWarhawk]

No help at sea. You are on your own. Use your resources wisely

[GoldenRivet]

the last time this happened to me i determiend that even with the batteries pretty much completely dead the ship would at least make one knot.

problem is that i was about 800nm from the nearest friendly port and that it would have taken me a life time to "drift" back to base.

another similar problem i encountered once was the loss of my rudder! i was pointed at Japan with no way to steer!

this post shows how there are two additional arguments for simulating the ability to turn using one engine... as well as run on the electric motors while surfaced!

also one question... surely there was a generator like mechanism that would recharge the batteries when the engines were not able to run.

[Sailor Steve]

How? A generator is a fuel-powered engine. Where would you have room to carry it? The batteries on a submarine are huge, and take a lot of charging. Battleships have auxiliary generators, but they're bigger than a sub is wide.

Basically, any auxiliary engine powerful enough to charge the batteries would be powerful enough to drive the sub. You'd be better off trying to rig a sail.

[GoldenRivet]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

How? A generator is a fuel-powered engine. Where would you have room to carry it? The batteries on a submarine are huge, and take a lot of charging. Battleships have auxiliary generators, but they're bigger than a sub is wide.

Basically, any auxiliary engine powerful enough to charge the batteries would be powerful enough to drive the sub. You'd be better off trying to rig a sail.

your right... i didnt considerthe mass assoiciated with such a machine.

but i still think we should be able to use the engines differentially and that we should be able to use the Electric motors on the surface.

[Sailor Steve]

Oh, absolutely, I agree with both. Not being able to turn the boat around and head for home is ridiculous, and running 'decks awash' should always be done on electrics, not to mention pulling away from and into the pier at home.

[SteminDemon13]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

How? A generator is a fuel-powered engine.

No. There are generators that are coupled to an electric motor.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by SteminDemon13

No. There are generators that are coupled to an electric motor.

So the electric motor uses power from the dead batteries to run the generator to recharge the dead batteries?

Sorry, I don't believe in perpetual motion.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by SteminDemon13

No. There are generators that are coupled to an electric motor.

Sure but what drove the generator ?

The batteries in these subs are indeed massive. Just one battery was in the order of 4 to 8 times the size of the one in your car and there were 'banks' of these batteries. I dont know the exact number but probably in the order of 12 to 20 batteries in each of two banks (fore and aft). Depending on how they were wired (series or parallel) established the voltage available. The quantity and size of the batteries determined there capacity (ampere hours).

The amount of potential energy in the bank of batteries is really quite amazing. If it could all be released in an instant the explosion would be astonishing most likely destroying the submarine. Fortunatly its pretty hard to accomplish that and a slow release of this energy is what is desired. Once that energy is depleted there is no way to get it back without a rather substantial generator.

A little put put generator would not be able to produce the voltage/current required to charge the batterys in any sort of reasonable time. At the very least the generator has to be able to provide the voltage (actually a few volts above the batteires voltage) which I believe to be 300V DC. At least that voltage is common amongst diesel/electric systems of that era. Not a common output of your typical utility generator.

The 'return to base' button was removed by the developers as a nod towards realisim. Unfortunatly it often leads to a carrier in limbo.

I too have been crying for independant motor control since SH2 also the ability to choose which energy source to drive the sub from on the surface should be available as well. After all they did this in real life. How about nodding towards that realisim ?