Dive speed limitations - a question of philosophy

[Angry_Kitten]

On 9/17/2020 at 10:18 AM, [DBS]Browning said:

The 'do not exceed' depth for German U-Boats was far shallower than their actual capability. I wonder if such conservative limits where the norm in German aircraft also.

 

Ive seen so many accounts of Uboats going 30% past the "dial marked you are now dead line". 

 

American WW2 subs are just as bad.   There is one book i have that was written from the actual government files of pacific theater war patrols, and the depths given as "maximum depth before crushing" by the government, were quite often 250 FEET... yet in the patrols  the subs were using 400 FEET as  a standard cruising depth.

[[DBS]Browning]

7 minutes ago, pocketshaver said:

 

Ive seen so many accounts of Uboats going 30% past the "dial marked you are now dead line". 

 

American WW2 subs are just as bad.   There is one book i have that was written from the actual government files of pacific theater war patrols, and the depths given as "maximum depth before crushing" by the government, were quite often 250 FEET... yet in the patrols  the subs were using 400 FEET as  a standard cruising depth.

 

As someone has pointed out, maybe 80% of undersea craft in the war that dived so deep died and 20% survived the same depth. 

If that's the case, we would only learn about the 20% and the 80%would never tell their story. 

It might give us a biased view of what depths where typically survivable if all of that 20% say "this depth was safe!" and all of the 80% who found otherwise are as silent as the grave. 

Edited January 30, 2021 by [DBS]Browning

[HR_Zunzun]

5 hours ago, [DBS]Browning said:

 

As someone has pointed out, maybe 80% of undersea craft in the war that dived so deep died and 20% survived the same depth. 

If that's the case, we would only learn about the 20% and the 80%would never tell their story. 

It might give us a biased view of what depths where typically survivable if all of that 20% say "this depth was safe!" and all of the 80% who found otherwise are as silent as the grave. 

 

Well, in the case he described he said that 400ft was "standard cruising depth". If that is true, losing 80% (or whatever high number you want to use) of your patrols would be very obvious without the need from anybody talking from the grave.