WesWorld

Miscellaneous questions for y'all:

-Historically, did submarines in the ~400 to 500 t range carry any reloads for their torpedo tubes?

-If the submarine is being used in a coastal defence mission, is a deck gun necessary or a waste of space/weight? You'd only use them against any merchant shipping, and there won't be much of that around your coast.

-Forward and aft tubes, or forward only? I can see aft tubes being useful to shoot something you want to run from, but if there's a limited number of tubes, maybe you want a large salvo up front even more?

With the sub sim Silent Service, I'd always go full back and use the forward torpedoes to engage those pesky destroyers and Kaibokans which were coming at me. I seldom used the aft torpedo. So I might go for all TTs forward on a sub of that size.

Well I'm quickly looking at my new book "Wolf Pack, the story of the U-boat in WW2".

The type two's ("A" through "D") which weighed in at 279 tons surfaced (329 submerged) had three bow tubes with 6 torpedos carried.

As for Guns, I'm not sure. Its not likely you'll have to gun it out with the enemy along your own coasts, but in enemy territory it would be usefull attacking enemy shiping.

I guess I'll add a question, then: how does "surfaced" and "submerged" displacement compare with our standard, normal, and full-load?

The sub is simmed as being "just submerged". For a surfaced sub, it would be displacement minus the miscellaneous weight for the ballast (which is water). Remember that the CT states:

Quoted

VIII. STANDARD DISPLACEMENT OF A SUBMARINE

The standard displacement of a submarine is the surface
displacement of the vessel complete (exclusive of the water in
non-watertight structure) fully manned, engined, and equipped
ready for sea, including all armament and ammunition, equipment,
outfit, provisions for crew, miscellaneous stores, and implements
of every description that are intended to be carried in war, but
without fuel, lubricating oil, fresh water or ballast water of any
kind on board.

Note that the "water in non-watertight structure" would be the ballast tank.

I think Ian's way more qualified to answer that question, but I would speculate that the surfaced weight would be the closest to the SS file as it's not an ideal program for designing subs.

On a small sub space is at premium. Two torp rooms doesnt help. So all foward is better on my opinion.

4 tubes forwards with reloads. 1 tube aft without a reload. For a deck gun, 75mm or smaller would be enough.