To stop flooding Battleship Command, you must immediately access the first-person Damage Control station, isolate the breached compartments, and assign repair crews to patch the hull while activating the bilge pumps. In MicroProse’s rigorous WWII naval simulator, ignoring a torpedo strike or heavy shell penetration will quickly cause a fatal list, destroying your Scharnhorst-class vessel's maneuverability and main battery elevation. If you want to survive Operation Berlin and dominate the Atlantic, mastering the damage system is non-negotiable.
This comprehensive guide breaks down the exact steps, crew allocations, and pump management tactics required to keep your warship afloat. Whether you are navigating the icy Norwegian Sea or hunting convoys in the Mediterranean, your ability to manage water ingress will dictate your survival.
The Physics of Hull Breaches: Why You Must Stop Flooding Battleship Command Quickly
When an Allied destroyer lands a torpedo on your hull, the game's dynamic water simulation doesn't just subtract a generic health bar. Developed by Bracer, the simulator models realistic water ingress based on historical blueprints. If you fail to stop flooding Battleship Command immediately, the accumulated water weight creates a severe "list" (tilting to port or starboard) or alters your "trim" (pitching bow-up or bow-down).
The Scharnhorst relies on a complex turtleback armor scheme and a dedicated torpedo bulkhead (Torpedoschutz-Schott). When this inner bulkhead fails, water pours into the vital spaces. A list of just 5 to 8 degrees severely impacts your combat effectiveness. Your massive 28cm SK C/34 main guns have limited elevation and depression angles. If your ship lists heavily to port, your starboard guns aim uselessly at the sky, unable to depress enough to hit a close-range cruiser. Meanwhile, your port guns aim at the waves, rendering them useless for long-range fire.
Furthermore, taking on thousands of tons of water increases your draft, slowing your top speed from 31 knots down to a sluggish 20 knots. This makes you an easy target for follow-up attacks by torpedo bombers. The physics engine demands respect; buoyancy is a finite resource, and every second the ocean pours in brings you closer to an unrecoverable capsize.
Step-by-Step: How to Stop Flooding Battleship Command
The line between a victorious commerce raid and a watery grave comes down to your immediate reaction to a hull breach. You can physically walk the meticulously recreated decks to the damage control room, or pull up the tactical UI to issue orders. Here is the exact sequence to secure your vessel.
1. Identify the Breach Location The moment a hit registers, check the ship's blueprint interface. Breached zones will highlight in red, indicating the exact watertight compartments taking on the ocean. Damage control is further complicated by the game's full day-night cycle and dynamic weather. If a breach occurs during a midnight storm in the Arctic, coordinating your fleet while managing internal chaos requires extreme situational awareness.
2. Isolate the Compartments The Scharnhorst is divided into over 20 watertight major compartments. Your first action must be sealing the watertight doors surrounding the breach. If a torpedo hits Compartment 4, you must immediately seal the bulkheads to Compartments 3 and 5. This prevents progressive flooding from cascading through the ship.
3. Assign Repair Crews Allocate your damage control teams (DC parties) to the isolated zone. Assigning 15 to 20 men to a breached area provides the optimal manpower to apply shoring timbers and patch the hole. The emergency red lighting in the first-person interior corridors isn't just atmospheric; it signals a critical drop in main power as the ship diverts energy to emergency systems and repair teams scramble through the dark.
4. Activate Bilge Pumps Once the ingress rate is slowed by your repair crews, activate the electric bilge pumps. Your goal is to ensure your pump extraction rate (e.g., 800 tons per minute) exceeds the residual water ingress rate.
Advanced Tactics to Stop Flooding Battleship Command: Counter-Flooding
Sometimes, a massive torpedo strike creates a hole too large for your crews to patch quickly. The ingress rate might spike to 1,200 tons per minute, while your local pumps can only handle 800 tons. To stop flooding Battleship Command from capsizing your vessel in these extreme scenarios, you must utilize counter-flooding.
Counter-flooding involves intentionally opening valves on the opposite side of the ship to let water into empty void spaces. While this drastically increases the overall weight of the ship—driving your draft deeper and slowing you down further—it restores an even keel. Restoring the keel brings your main batteries back to a neutral elevation, allowing you to fight back against convoy escorts while your repair crews slowly gain ground on the primary breach.
You must also manage the electrical grid. Bilge pumps draw heavy power. If your dynamo rooms are damaged or flooded, you lose pump capacity. In these crisis moments, you must reroute power from non-essential systems, or even auxiliary fire-control radars, to keep the generators feeding the pumps. It becomes a brutal balancing act between keeping the ship afloat and keeping the guns firing.
Common Mistakes That Fail to Stop Flooding Battleship Command
Even veteran captains from other naval simulators make fatal errors when transitioning to this game's unforgiving physics engine. Avoid these operational blunders if you want to keep your ship above the waves:
- Over-allocating crews to a single breach: Putting 50 men in one flooded compartment won't speed up the patching linearly. Space constraints mean only a certain number of sailors can work on a bulkhead at once. Keep your DC parties distributed to handle secondary fires and minor leaks.
- Ignoring symmetrical flooding: Failing to counter-flood leads to a capsize long before the ship actually sinks from lost buoyancy. Progressive flooding over the tops of bulkheads accelerates exponentially once the list exceeds 15 degrees.
- Forgetting to secure the pumps: Once a compartment is dry, leaving the pumps grinding away draws unnecessary electrical power. Lost power kills your radar and fire-control systems, leaving you blind in the dynamic weather and fog of the Atlantic.
- Neglecting the escort screen: While you are hyper-focused on the damage control UI, the enemy destroyers are maneuvering for a second torpedo run. You must balance internal ship management with external situational awareness, using your secondary batteries to keep attackers at bay while your engineers work.
FAQ: Stop Flooding Battleship Command
How do I access the damage control station? You can physically walk to the damage control room using the first-person view, navigating the historically accurate interiors, or use the quick-command UI overlay to issue orders instantly during a chaotic fleet battle.
Why are my guns not aiming correctly after a torpedo hit? You have taken on water and developed a list. You must stop flooding Battleship Command and counter-flood the opposite side to level the ship and restore your main battery's elevation angles.
Can a single torpedo sink the Scharnhorst? In this simulator, a single torpedo will rarely sink a 30,000-ton battleship instantly. However, the resulting unmanaged flooding, loss of top speed, and crippled maneuverability will leave you vulnerable to a fatal follow-up strike if not handled immediately.
Does weather affect damage control? Yes. Heavy seas and storms can cause water to wash over the deck and down into open hatches, complicating your pumping efforts and making external repairs impossible.
Sources
- MicroProse Official Announcements (June 2026 Early Access Release)
- Developer Bracer's Gameplay Showcases and Damage Control Interviews
- Steam Early Access Community Guides for Battleship Command