submarine survivability again

[herwin]

Actually el_cid is right in the last two posts. On the other hand, an experienced operator could make up for a lot of problems; however, an inexperienced operator was lost.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: herwin

Actually el_cid is right. On the other hand, an experienced operator could make up for a lot of problems; however, an inexperienced operator was lost.

In his reply to Chez what are you saying Cid is right about? Or are you in agreement with his entire statement?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: herwin

Actually el_cid is right in the last two posts. On the other hand, an experienced operator could make up for a lot of problems; however, an inexperienced operator was lost.

To which let me say Herwin is right - operator skill is the biggest factor - combined with a good understanding of ASW by the skipper. [Good data is wasted on a normal person unfamiliar with the esoteric ASW discipline]

[el cid again]

Some data - I did some Dutch research and got some RN from them - they operated the same classes in some cases;
these are design depths based on operating depth data and national conventions of the ratio of that to design depth (mostly)

KXIV 390 feet
O-16 390 feet
O-19 500 feet
O-21 500 feet
RN S Class 440 feet
RN T Class 500 feet
US S Class 230 feet
KIX Class 300 feet
Perch 290 feet
Balao 450 feet
Gato 350 feet
Soviet S class 490 feet
Soviet Malyuka Class 430 feet
Soviet L class 430 feet
Soviet Shch Class 430 feet
US Perch class 290 feet
US Salmon class 290 feet
US Cachalot class 290 feet
US Tambor class 350 feet
All German classes in RHS 750 feet (230 meters) de facto rating (it would be 500 feet theoretical design depth)
Japanese A1 (typical of later vessels) 500 feet
Japanese KD1/2/3 (typical of early boats) 300 feet
Japanese ST (guppy) 540 feet

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Tophat1812

ORIGINAL: herwin

Actually el_cid is right. On the other hand, an experienced operator could make up for a lot of problems; however, an inexperienced operator was lost.

In his reply to Chez what are you saying Cid is right about? Or are you in agreement with his entire statement?

Yes. [;)]

[el cid again]

.
BTW, Cid... what ships did you serve on in the Navy? I seem to remember you saying that you were an ET. Is that correct?

Chez
[/quote]

First ship: USS Francis Marion APA-249. This was the last APA ever built and had the largest and most luxorious flag quarters in the USN. It had three CICs - one for the ship - one for the admiral - and one for an air control group if embarked. It had an ECM suite - and would go on ferrit missions. My favorite mission was flagship of a "token opposition force" which would give us Beachjumpers (deception specialists), swift boats, a couple of companies of Marines (pretending to be an enemy army), and freedom to be creative (to cause unexpected battle problems) - typically with a submarine and a small escort attached. This ship had a captain with just enough education in electronics to be dangerous: he required the landing party/boarding party/prize crew (the same people - just different names according to mission) have an ET instead of a radioman - "so he can fix the radio if it breaks" (utter nonsense: with no parts, test gear or power you cannot fix anything). So the junior ET was always sent to landing party school. This ship also had the most experienced landing party in the Atlantic Fleet - they would wait for it to come - giving that one party even more experience - and often jeopardizing the mission because they would not send in the nearest one. [In those days landing parties did what is done by SEALs today; SEALs existed but were reserved for truly special missions - no mere rescues or boarding drug runners, pirates, slavers - and in those days we DID board slavers and pirates too - that changed in the 1970s] I only cared for the ECM gear - but I learned how it worked.

Second ship: USS Waddell DDG-24. New, green, I was sent to a radarman school for ECM operators - and so was another ET. They never saw anything like us before that - technicians given ECM training- and out of it came the EW rating. We got to work on anti missile stuff - I had said this was a problem in 1966 - but even Elat sinking in 1967 was not enough to prompt action - intel in 1968 that the SAME missiles were working up for Vietnam (in PRC) WAS enough - so we got to figure out how to stop them. This was an ASW armed ship - it had an SQS-26 sonar - ASROC with a rare reload magazine - and routinely carried several nuclear weapons (which could be used for targets other than submarines, but were not likely to get a submarine: IF you can find the sub, an ASROC is one shot one kill; if you cannot find it a nuclear warhead does not help much] It was the best class of AAW ships in the fleet - the missiles were reliable and we never missed in more than 100 launches - which was obvious because we (illegally) knocked targets out of the sky (we are supposed to miss - and a hit to kill is "impossible" anyway - and we were usually shooting with no warheads). But we spent a lot of time on the gun line - firing support - and once led a division of destroyers in a night naval battle with hundreds (300? 400? hard to tell) of junks - many of which had 122 mm and 152mm gun howitzers on deck. We believed in our radar gunfire - and we "knew" that ARMY artillery on a pitching ship deck "was useless" - we were wrong - and we lost the battle. I also witnessed HMAS Hobart entering Subic with both missile towers blown up - from a USAF attack - 3 hits by Sparrows - the XO wrote in 2007 he is still mad.


Perhaps my funniest Waddell story is about filming Tora Tora Tora. Sailing into PH the day before the attack - we were not told about the movie. Leaving the port side aft hatch about 0800 hours I saw a line of 26 propeller aircraft that appeared to be Kates - headed directly at me - and they dropped torpedoes! This is the quarterdeck - unused in this case on the seaward side. I grew up watching the Twilight Zone and I "knew" I had been in a "time warp" and it was 7 Dec 1941. So I sounded GO - and picked up the mike - and did it like a regular petty officer (only a bosun's mate uses pipes - other POs use words 'general quarters general quarters all hands man your battle stations this is no drill")
The ship - headed for Viet Nam to stop missiles from attacking (we estimated) USS New Jersey - went to quarters - missile run out on the rail - guns swinging out to port - people running and closing watertight doors everywhere. The other ships were horrified - and began frantically to send every sort of signal - flag- telephone - radio - shouting - ' don't shoot don't shoot - it is a movie ' kind of thing. I did NOT get in trouble - the captain (youngest commander in USN at the time) said "any time you see planes in enemy markings attacking the ship - you do exactly the same thing"

One member of the Forum posted - a few months ago - he was present and remembers this incident. Another person on strategypage posted the same thing about 2-3 years ago..

[el cid again]

Since I am sick of data entry (a "few small changes" can impact many slots - and these are in many RHS scenarios - and not always identical in each one) I will take a break and report more data: the more complicated data is Axis

These are estimated design depths derived from operating depths and they are conservative - assuming France, Siam and Japan use US and Japanes standards (150 per cent) instead of higher British or German standards. The operating depth is 2/3 of these values in all cases.

Vichy Le Reboubtable 390 feet
RTN Sansumador 300 feet
J1 and J2 390 feet
J3 390 feet
A1 and A2 500 feet
B1/2 500 feet
B3 500 feet
C1/2 500 feet
C3 and C4 500 feet (C4 was an SSN and will not have a cheap build form)
D1/2 290 feet (D2 was really 500 feet)
K5 370 feet
K6 390 feet
KD1/2/3 300 feet
KD4 300 feet
KD5 350 feet
KD6A/B 360 feet
KD7 390 feet
KRS (minelayer) 300 feet
KS 370 feet
L4 300 feet
ST (guppy) 540 feet
STo (carrier) 500 feet
STo (tanker) 500 feet
STS 500 feet
SH 450 feet (this was designed as a flying boat tender, modified for midget sub carrier duty, modified as a tanker/transport, and finally a kaiten carrier)

[el cid again]

German subs in PTO (and for that reason in RHS) include

Type VII F, Type IXC, Type IXC40 and Type XD

While the VIIF is a transport for torpedoes, she was also an attack craft (unlike other transports) and is - in effect - a sub with lots of reloads.

All are rated at 750 feet - but their normal operating depth is 1/3 of this - and their nominal design depth is only 500 feet. They proved to have real crush depths as great as 280 meters, so we are using 230 here to be conservative, but it is still higher than other nations.

[el cid again]

FYI - this is pretty esoteric -

Japan's first military exploration of atomic power was by JAAF - for aircraft. This - which was similar to German work - so inspired us that we spent over 5 billion dollars (in 1950 dollar terms) on at least three different versions of it - one for a plane - one for a cruise missile - and one for a rocket missile. The only practical spin off was a power plant for deep space vehicles. There was also one spectacular unsuddessful spin off - a nuclear space cruiser - only it used atomic BOMBS for PROPULSION - it IS practical and could be built - but no one thinks we should (except Gen Curtis LeMay wrote in the introduction to a book we should build it). There was similar Russian research on aircraft propulsion. I mention these in cast you think JAAF was totally nuts. It was too visionary and expensive and impractical - but not insane.

The IJN was SECOND off the line in atomic research. Like JAAF its original interest was in propulsion - but in this case for ships - and also as a way to "power large machinery" so less oil needed to be imported. The charter document survives - and it is cited in The Making of the Atomic Bomb - The Day Man Lost - and Mc George Bundy's Danger and Survival. None take it at face value - that the goal was power - but there is no reason to think a SECRET document would lie to its own bureaucracy. Japan wanted to have atomic propulsion big time and did a remarkable job of developing it under wartime conditions. The problem was not expertise - Japan was better off than Germany was in terms of physicists (Germany lost much of its talent - Japan didn't) - but fuel and time: it did something only the wartime USA and Canada jointly managed to do: developed a uranium mine in well under a decade. [That mine feeds North Korea's program today and is the only one in the area] EDIT: the fuel cladding material is called zircon, and is an alloy containg zirconium - and as far as I know no better cladding material has ever been devised - although I have not looked at this in the last decade]

The Japanese traded extensively with the Germans in atomic materials - and may have got the view that the most effective possible wartime use for atomic power would be for a submarine engine from Heisenberg - who is known to have said that. Japan imported not only fuel (Asia is very short of uranium) but things like beryllium and a fuel element cladding alloy invented in wartime Germany still used by everyone - including us - to this day (but we never admit the original material was a wartime German invention - lest it contradict our official story they didn't do anything of note). For a long time mostly we knew this from declassified MAGIC intercepts - the British declassified theirs first (unusual for them) - but now a number of books are being written on this stuff (not all in English). The first good English treatment is in Japan'S Secret War - since revised - and due for yet another revision because so much is not coming out. Anyway- the Axis in general went down the road of using heavy water for reactors - because it permits natural uranium (rather than enriched uranium) as fuel. It is expensive. You have heard of the Norwegian plant the Germans used: you probably don't know there was a much larger Japanese plant operated by Noguchi at Konan (Hungnam) in Korea. He started sooner - he was an industrialist who saw the potential of uranium early - and he solved the heavy water production problem first. To get it cheaply - he built a gigantic (larger than TVA) hydropower system - the most efficient ever - because it has thousands of feet of static head. The only country in the world to have heavy water in mass production, Japan was the only country that had the power to build natural uranium reactors using it. [We built them using graphite - and they were much larger propositions; a third way was proposed using dry ice - but this German idea was not realized until after the war] [EDIT Post war Canada elected to go down the natural uranium/heavy water road - CANDU reactors do that. In this case the uranium is cheap fuel - no separation required - but the heavy water is so expensive it might as well be enriched uranium - in dollar terms it is very expensive. But this road has low risk of contributing to weapon production - the uranium involved is not suitable for bomb use - so it is politically correct in many circles.]

In addition to buying uranium in China and Germany - Japan bought many atomic minerals containing it and thorium - thorium can be used to make a different kind of uranium fuel which is actually better than U-235 for power (not for bombs) - and mixing thorium and uranium fuels means you get a sort of breeder - or at least a reactor that replaces some of what it burns with new fuel. Japan inherited Asia's only existing uranium refinery (in Shanghai) - uranium is used in making pigments for ceramics - and it built another one in Korea. It considered going to Africa to get tailings from the richest mine of all time (Shinkolobwe) - but didn't - and WE did instead - in 1942 (three shiploads). Early IJN research kept pace with the US and it was something of a neck and neck race for a while - in the end Japan won the race to get mobile reactors and we won the race to get mobile bombs. [If you have limited fuel - it makes little sense to blow it up] The sub critical reactor experiment was completed by August 1942 sufficiently that actual prototype reactor design could be attempted - this was done also at Konan - and it was captured and operated by the Russians until 1948 (by which time presumably the fuel paid out). From this a production design was done, and series production began. Only two reactors were ever completed - one was captured in tact and taken to the USSR in 1945 - but it had no fuel. Only one was mounted in a ship - a ship with a confusing name in history - and it may be that ship made only one voyage. [EDIT A game area example is - according to a US official book - the only time Malaya exported mozanite was about 6000 tons sent to Japan. Mozanite of Malaya has 2 to 4 per cent thorium and about 2 per cent uranium content. See Minerals for Atomic Energy.]

But lets back up a step - there were no less than FOUR different submarines designed to use atomic power plants. The ORIGINAL design was a version of the I-400 - there were to be 18 ships - 6 of them nuclear - 12 conventional - and the program went forward with great energy until the death of Adm Yamamoto. Later all but 5 were cancelled - and a B-1 type was enlarged to provide 2 additional hulls. Those five were ENLARGED - the original I-400 was smaller and had only two bombers ready to fly (all I-400s carried an entire plane in spares). The I-400 we know of is the later, enlarged one - and it seems very marginal. But a smaller, more high powered version is a diffent story altogether - although it would have taken until 1950 to get six of them. In parallel with this plan - Yamamoto directed other plans be drawn up - as contingency options. Two of these were modifications of the C series of attack submarines - and another was based on the slightly smaller KD series (which, ironically, the C series was itself a modification of in the first place). All these designs were very different than normal for submarine design in Japan. The I-400 and the C-4 used steam turbines to drive electric generators. KD-8 used steam turbine drive through gearing. C-5 was to use a different reactor system for longer life. After the death of Yamamoto all this stuff got reviewed and priorities changed: NO I-400s with nuclear power were to be built - instead the C-4 design got the first reactor. [Edit: The ONLY one of these classes of nuclear subs in reference books is C-4 - which sometimes makes it - usually including either a blank under propulsion or the note "no details available" - she is remarkably similar to USS Nautilus - one reactor - everything else in duplicate - a diesel emergency backup - hull shaped by WWII era ideas (still optimized for surface use) rather than guppy - and - remarkably - both needed the same time to build measured in months. Both had excessive weight in the reactor - for different reasons - the US because of heavy shielding - the Japanese because a natural uranium reactor is very heavy - only France ever tried one for a sub - but it failed - and that sub - Gymnote - exists with diesel engines instead]

The C-4 chosen for a reactor was numbered I-500. This is not the same vessel (a captured German one) given this same number in 1945 - possibly to obuscate the existing ship using it. [There are at least ten cases of KD submarines built with the same number in different shipyards - leading to endless confusion in references - only Conways describes how this is the case in the actual builders records] This vessel appears to have been commissioned and to have sailed to Germany and back - passengers on that trip were interviewed by US Army intelligence (and neither passegers nor interrogators knew of the nature of the power - so their testimony and its documentation is more impressive for that reason: the vessel made passage from Japan to Germany without using the Panama Canal in about 4 weeks each way. The "recon type" Kaiten found by a US Army patrol in Panama in Aug 1945 probably was left by this vessel - no other Japanese submarine could have delivered it - nor is a surface ship delivery likely. The "recon Kaiten" - not found in any reference (why) is described by Burl Burlingame - in Advance Force Pearl Harbor. He had it in custody for years as curator of a museum there. It was sent to Japan for display there a few years ago. If I-500 was not surrendered (if it was it is a secret - and even we who studied its design documents were not told about it) it would not be the only such case - one German Type XXI was commissioned in the German Navy long after WWII - having been refloated from its hiding place in the Baltic (it was renamed something like Siegfried Bauer and was used for research). It appears there is official Japanese opposition to admitting any serious wartime research on atomic science - and only some efforts to understand the North Korean program by ONI have led to serious interest in releasing much of this material. [Korean atomic science is rooted in Imperial Japan - it got its scientists and technicians from that effort - its only pitchblende mine - its original reactor - a uranium refinery - and other infrastructures)][EDIT EDIT: Gen Groves had the view the most important post war military application for atomic energy was for submarine propulsion and he had a three man committee - with naval experts - assigned to do a report on this late in WWII - but permitted no development whatever. This in spite of the fact USN was the FIRST US agency to do atomic research, and its uranium research program had been absorbed into the project.]

[Historiker]

I used the "upgrade later" system in witw not only for subs. As long as there are empty slots for ship classes, this can be used in various ways:
1. Subs - as already explained
2. Allied production. Ships that are built in shipyards that might be attacked should be attackable while being built. There were several german ships which were destroyed incomplete in WW2, so why not in the Pacific, too? As it isn't possible to attack US shipyards to reduce the building speed (I invented this for Britain), one can let the ships appear when they are launched - but without guns, without speed etc. in the time they are completed, they can upgrade to their correct class.
3. Converting ships: When a AP or AK should convert into a CVE, this happens much too fast. To solve this problem, the AP/AK often doesn't even appear in the game, only the CVE appears. When you use my system, you may let them convert to a CVE with a capacity of 1 and 0 speed and let it upgrade to its correct data after the historical correct time.
4. Correct building costs for all ships. I have converted CVs in witw, which are converted from huge APs. As the building time and costs aren't accurate when I give them the intended durability, there's also a "building-class" for these ships.
5. Rearmed ships: In witw, I have ancient ships that may be put into service again. Rearming a ship would need both repairing and building shipyards. So I have the rearmed ships in the building lists with a huge durability - but without guns and only for a short time. This means that the shipyards repair the hull, build new engines or repair existing ones, etc. The final work of putting the new guns on the ships doesn't need slipways, this can be done by repair shipyards. Finally, the rearmed ships will upgrade after the correct time (which I consider to be correct for rearming a ship) to a ship with its intended guns...


To calculate the costs
I don't understand why my explanation wasn't understandable [;)], but the geneal idea is to look at a ship that is considered to have a totally correct durability by all means, so by survivability, by building costs and by building time.
Then the all aspects of the construction are compared. So building time, needed materials, needed slipways, needed workers, etc. are compared. With my formulas, I was able to calculate the correct building costs. These costs are reconverted to witp-durability to have the correct building time and costs.

I don't know whether you've already done this, but foreign ships like the German subs should be "built" with a durability of 1 as Japan hasn't payed for it.




Something more I have invented for witw:
I know which slipways existed, so I know which ships may have been built simultaniously. These data are used for the shipyards that will be on the map. So for a slipway that can build a H-class, there'll be as much naval shipyard points on the map, to produce the needed points for the H-class durability.
Now I thought about something: Why should I force a witw-player to wait producing a ship until I decide it should appear?
Every ship that isn't under construction when the game begins will "arrive" (by game terms, so it's delay) exactly after the time that will be needed for its construction. This will allow players to expand their shipyards massivly - but also benefit intensivly from the investment they did! The only limiting factor here is the Heavy Industry which isn't endless. So a massive naval building will force a reduced armement and plane production in return.
I'm still thinking about necessary house rules to prevent the stopping of all small ships for a forced production of big ships which is unrealistic. How could a naval shipyards with 4 points participate in the construction of a Carrier? - but atm, this is possible in every mod of witp by stopping all small ships and accelerate the Carriers...

For players who don't want such a system, there'll also be a regular version...

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Historiker


I don't know whether you've already done this, but foreign ships like the German subs should be "built" with a durability of 1 as Japan hasn't payed for it.

I did think of this. 1 point for 1 day isn't bad. French and Thai subs are not a problem - all start the game. But German subs are a problem: so are German raiders and the Altmark/Ukermark - a tanker and auxiliary raider not used in its design role (too risky).

The problem with a lot of this is time to do data entry - I manage many scenarios and there are literally thousands of ships. I didn't have trouble with dates - I don't let a ship upgrade until the right date - but so far (I will do brief testing) I am using proper cost for German subs. Except I am unsure what "proper cost" means?

I am using a system that estimates cost based on standard displacement (more or less the metal of the ship) divided by 100 times 0.44 -
so a Type VII is 5 points - a Type IX is 9 points - and a big Japanese sub is 11 points. These are for building costs only - vp values will be ONLY related to depth - which is wierd but that is the hard code. Thus all German subs will have 75 vp, most late Japanese subs 50 vp,
early subs of most nations 30 vp

[Historiker]

Well, the proper costs for a german ship (both surface and sub) is 0, so 1 is the best construction-displacement that they should have.

The displacement allone isn't correct. You also must consider how difficult it is to build this ship, how much workers, how much material, how long the slipway is...

[el cid again]

And I love to do that. I have a system so complex you can do anything with it - but not here. We don't have slipways - or even different things feeding shipyards. It is too crude. How one measures these things in game terms is not at all clear?

One problem is that game cost is done by a wierd algorithm that PREVENTS us being right. And it won't let us have a rational cost either. 1 point costs 10 HI points. 2 points costs 40. 3 points costs 90. And so on. No value in between is even an option.

I calculated the cost of a US fleet boat - the most common sub in theater - and then worked backwards to displacement. A sub is more or less equally complicated no matter who builds it. It is more expensive if it is bigger - bigger = more steel, more labor, more yard (they need not be be built in a drydock though - lots of ways to build a sub - and to launch it - most were used in WWII somewhere).

I guess the question is this - what do YOU rate the cost of a US fleet boat - a Type VII - a Type IX - a Japanese I boat? That should tell us if we have this right or not?

On reflection I find 44 per cent awfully close to 50 per cent - and that implies just divide by 200 would work - and be fine. If AKs are divide by 400 that is not too far off - subs being more complex per ton they are more expensive.

I do like the idea of reducing cost for subs built outside theater - and other ships too.

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

German subs in PTO (and for that reason in RHS) include

Type VII F, Type IXC, Type IXC40 and Type XD

While the VIIF is a transport for torpedoes, she was also an attack craft (unlike other transports) and is - in effect - a sub with lots of reloads.

All are rated at 750 feet - but their normal operating depth is 1/3 of this - and their nominal design depth is only 500 feet. They proved to have real crush depths as great as 280 meters, so we are using 230 here to be conservative, but it is still higher than other nations.

German subs avoided to dive deeper than 550 feet because their 2cm/65 C/38 AAMG's could not withstand the pressure at deeper diving depths. Deeper crush depths were only reached in tests, not when subs were in operational use (as far as I know).

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Historiker
.Every ship that isn't under construction when the game begins will "arrive" (by game terms, so it's delay) exactly after the time that will be needed for its construction. This will allow players to expand their shipyards massivly - but also benefit intensivly from the investment they did! The only limiting factor here is the Heavy Industry which isn't endless. So a massive naval building will force a reduced armement and plane production in return.
.

My problem with this approach is that we are working in a system. In that system cost of surface ships is more or less a function of ship displacement. While I don't mind modifying that in some senses, in the end it needs to remain faithful to that at the heart. WITP has no way to measure manpower or shipyard cost. Or rather it measures these differently than we might if we built our own system. Shipyards DO exist - and they DO produce ships - using HI points as the measure. In a size related rating system, more or less cost = steel (albiet some of that is fabricated into engines and weapons etc). Subs were an exception - they had durability defined by depth - and you have liberated us from that - so when we define cost as cost - it should be the same or similar to surface ship cost - so it works with the production system even better than stock did re submarines.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Kereguelen

ORIGINAL: el cid again

German subs in PTO (and for that reason in RHS) include

Type VII F, Type IXC, Type IXC40 and Type XD

While the VIIF is a transport for torpedoes, she was also an attack craft (unlike other transports) and is - in effect - a sub with lots of reloads.

All are rated at 750 feet - but their normal operating depth is 1/3 of this - and their nominal design depth is only 500 feet. They proved to have real crush depths as great as 280 meters, so we are using 230 here to be conservative, but it is still higher than other nations.

German subs avoided to dive deeper than 550 feet because their 2cm/65 C/38 AAMG's could not withstand the pressure at deeper diving depths. Deeper crush depths were only reached in tests, not when subs were in operational use (as far as I know).

Actually, we are NOT using crush depth here.

In the end I settled on design depth "which is slightly less than crush depth" - the latter is only estimated.

And, actually, submarines of ALL nations EXCEEDED design depth and came back to tell about it.

We used to use operating depth - and this turns out to be a problem because different nations use a different fraction of design depth for recommended operating depth. But operators knew they could exceed operating depth - and did at need - and it worked most of the time (the chance of killing a submarine deep was less than 1 per cent in fact - although in theory it might have been possible that is the actual statistics - attackers didn't really know the depth of the submarine when it was deep - and even if they guessed it was deep - what to set for was still a problem?)

The German case was treated differently - not because of some theory - but because of statistically valid operational analysis. It was shown by operational experience these submarines could go to 200 - 280 meters - in spite of a design depth of 500 feet. So they not only exceeded design depth in actual operations, they did so by a much greater fraction than anyone else ever dared try (or at least than anyone else ever dared try and survived to tell about it).

Note that in many instances these deep depths were not actually intended - but were a function of damage (you are flooding - overweight - sinking - and you take measures to blow ballast - and counter sinking with power - and eventually these succeed in stopping the dive - but you never intended to be that deep - it just is where you ended up before you got the ability to crawl back up where you wanted to be) OR of control issues (sometimes you don't dive as intended, either due to operator error or damage, and you overshoot - if the mark was operating depth and you overshoot - you are below it - and if you come back to tell - we know that indeed the sub could exceed it).

Anyway - I reviewed this matter for important nations and learned this was an OPERATIONAL thing - not a theory one - so I have proceeded accordingly. I was originally looking at this for theoretical reasons - but it turned out to be practice - and it turned out to be that design depth was a better (more consistent) standard than recommended operating depth is. Only the Germans were an exception - and I gave them a conservative rating even so (230 meters = 750 feet - but values up to 280 meters were reported IRL). It is conservative to assume that 280 meters may have been exceptional - and it may not have applied to all classes. But 50 meters less is so much less that it is probably applicable generally. It is also so much better than other submarines we have simulated "they were better" clearly - and we minimize the risk of other impacts (e.g. vp counts are very high at 75, why go to some higher number?). I can rationalize higher vp for German subs too - submarine warfare (and its related raider warfare) in the Far East was the ONLY form of Axis military cooperation in an operational sense. It was of significance in the Indian Ocean in particular - and the loss of even one of these vessels was probably more important than it would be if a similar size Japanese vessel were lost. To the extent players think about vp - it might make them less than suicidal with them - which I approve of as well. Of course - I really cannot deal with this - since it is hard code - but I DO get to pick depth rating - and I settled on a conservative but wholly true German value.

It is perfectly true that things would get damaged in an attack. It is perfectly true that damage was worse at greater depths. A submarine mainly survived by being stealthy - hard to see on the surface - harder still at periscope depth - harder still below that - and impossible to see at medium depth. For that reason it would not go deep by choice - ever. But if it was being engaged by an enemy that was inflicting too much damage - it either might elect to go deep to evade more damage from the attacks - or it might be forced to go deeper by that damage (mainly flooding or problems with control surfaces). Thus it is perfectly true a submarine would not go so deep as to damage its flak guns - or other things - down were the risk of a popped seal or pipe might cause loss of the ship itself - as a normal thing. That is not the same thing as it didn't do it when it was forced to do it - either by damage - or to evade getting more damage. The details of survivors reports are amazing - submarines turn out to be very robust - partially due to having a crew actively working damage control - partially due to having a lot of things to work with (compared to a surface ship other than a tanker, which is comparable in compartmentation and pumps). It also appears builders may have been more ethical than in other situations - and exceeded design specifications quite deliberately.

[herwin]

Engineers prefer to over-design when they lack real experience and the real experience would be a disaster.

[el cid again]

And apparently German engineers prefer this even more than others do.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

And apparently German engineers prefer this even more than others do.

That turned out to be a problem in WWII.