History Main / DamageControl

* Seen, too, in ''Film/{{Das Boot}}'', when the U-96 is in the depths of the Gibraltar Strait.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'' has two variants of this: the Damage Control Party consumable, which is used for putting out fires, fixing floodings, and repairing incapacitated modules such as engines or turrets. The second one, Repair Party, is used for restoring hull integrity, which translates to HP being partially restored.
* ''VideoGame/BattlestationsPacific'' has this as a mechanic on ships as well. In this case, damage control is divided into addressing flooding, putting out fires, repairing damaged guns, etc.

* ''VideoGame/TreasurePlanetBattleAtProcyon'' uses this as a gameplay mechanic, with crew assigned as riggers handling damage control. Riggers can repair the ship, albeit slowly and put out fires. Using more skilled riggers can speed these processes up.

* Another first episode, this time for ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'', had the titular sub taking a direct from a torpedo. Afterwards, the first officer is talking about the repairs being made. Later a more extensive effort is shown tryign to root out a virus that's been screwing up their computer systems.

The first order of the day, aside possibly from dealing with the ''cause'' of the damage, is putting out the fires, tending to the wounded, and repairing the damage so everything can go back to normal. Expect all this to be going on even as the driving crisis that caused everything is still ongoing. The main characters will often be split apart and unable to communicate with each other or rely upon each other directly. Expect at least one character to reach down inside himself and [[TookALevelInBadass find the resolve and resourcefulness]] he needs to solve a major problem without the teammates he normally relies on. TheEngineer and the OldSoldier will be at their best here, leading their men in the dangerous and critical work of getting everything operational again.

The trope draws its name from an expression used on naval and merchant vessels, for urgent repair work that is done while the ship is at sea. If unsuccessful, our characters will often be forced to segue directly into AbandonShip.

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** Shown a ''lot'' in ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'', most notably after "Azati Prime" after the titular ship [[CurbStompBattle gets the crap beaten out of her by the Xindi]]. Throughout the rest of Season 3, we see lots of repairs going on in the background.

** Notable in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' where they had to do many repairs themselves.

* ''Series/Daredevil2015'': All in a day's work for Wilson Fisk, who regularly will have people killed as necessary when any criminal activity that could link to him gets exposed. In fact, his attempts to do damage control are often the very things that end up doing him in. In season 1, his efforts to get rid of Detective Christian Blake for divulging information to Matt Murdock ultimately culminate in Blake's partner Carl Hoffman becoming a witness that Nelson & Murdock use to directly implicate Fisk in ordering Hoffman to kill Blake. In season 3, he orders Dex to attack the ''Bulletin'' to get rid of Jasper Evans so Jasper can't testify to the media about being paid to shank Fisk as part of Fisk's gambit to trick the FBI into letting him out of prison. His efforts to do damage control when Ray Nadeem catches on to him ultimately do him in again after Vanessa decides to have Nadeem killed, consequently validating a posthumous confession video Ray created implicating Fisk in all of his crimes.

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'' episode "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_in_Space Fire in Space]]". Cylon raiders ram the Galactica in suicide attacks, causing fires to break out throughout the ship. Several of the crew are trapped and Commander Adama is injured.

** The loss of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IJN_Taiho&redirect=no Taiho]]'' illustrates the problems of this system. She was built with a heavy belt armor ''and'' an armored flight deck, and was clearly intended to be able to take several hits and remain functional. Instead, she was sunk by a single sub launched torpedo because of a mistake her damage control team made. The torpedo hit had ruptured a fuel line, causing the enclosed hanger to fill up with fumes. Now, an experianced DC team would have known to cover the fuel with foam from the fire systems to stop the spread of fumes. The ''Taiho's'' teams were not experienced; instead of taking teams from other lost ships the Japanese had filled the ship with fresh recruits, as per doctrine. So while they did know that they had to get the fumes out of the hanger, they didn't know that to stop the spread of fumes you to cover the spill with foam from the fire suppression system. So what happened is the chief damage control officer ordered all of the ships bulkheads opened and the ventilation turned up, spreading the fumes throughout the ship and turning it into a giant fuel air bomb. Eventually those fumes found a spark a caused a massive explosion,[[note]] A senior staff officer on the bridge saw the flight deck heave up, and the sides of the ship blew out[[/note]] dooming the ship. A second explosion a few hours later dealt the coup de grâce, and the ship sunk stern first, taking 1,650 of the 2,150 man crew down with her.

** A [[ContinuityNod subtle example]]: Part of the station (one of the fork-like protrutions on the top of the station for handling cargo) is blown off during a battle with an attacking ship in the season 2 finale. In the season 3 intro, the damaged section can be seen re-attached and surrounded by scaffolding.
** The season 4 episode ''Endgame'' has a fleet of ships get crippled [[spoiler: due to the heroes' sabotage]] just before the final battle of the season. The repairwork isn't shown, but is discussed soon after, and later referenced in passing when one of these ships arrives during the final battle [[spoiler: just in time to save the ''Aggamemnon'']].

** The loss of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Taih%C5%8D Taiho]]'' illustrates the problems of this system. She was built with a heavy belt armor ''and'' an armored flight deck, and was clearly intended to be able to take several hits and remain functional. Instead, she was sunk by a single sub launched torpedo because of a mistake her damage control team made. The torpedo hit had ruptured a fuel line, causing the enclosed hanger to fill up with fumes. Now, an experianced DC team would have known to cover the fuel with foam from the fire systems to stop the spread of fumes. The ''Taiho's'' teams were not experienced; instead of taking teams from other lost ships the Japanese had filled the ship with fresh recruits, as per doctrine. So while they did know that they had to get the fumes out of the hanger, they didn't know that to stop the spread of fumes you to cover the spill with foam from the fire suppression system. So what happened is the chief damage control officer ordered all of the ships bulkheads opened and the ventilation turned up, spreading the fumes throughout the ship and turning it into a giant fuel air bomb. Eventually those fumes found a spark a caused a massive explosion,[[note]] A senior staff officer on the bridge saw the flight deck heave up, and the sides of the ship blew out[[/note]] dooming the ship. A second explosion a few hours later dealt the coup de grâce, and the ship sunk stern first, taking 1,650 of the 2,150 man crew down with her.

** Just to clear up a few myths here. The United States did have very good Damage Control, but they didn't start out that way, and lost a number of ships during the war (such as the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lexington_(CV-2) USS Lexington (CV-2)]]''. Likewise, The Japanese DC teams were not incompetent, and were very well trained. In fact, at the start of hostilities the two Navies were relatively comparable when it came to Damage Control. Both systems had their strengths and weakness. However, the US was ''much'' faster at addressing these problems. Because the USN put more emphasis on standardization, new ideas and techniques spread quickly, offered more cross-training so more of the crew could pitch in, and incorporated more redundancies. The Japanese in turn took a lot longer to adapt and innovate. Part of this was due to the notoriously hierarchical culture present in the Japanese Navy[[note: Crew beatings were not uncommon, sometimes to the point where the poor sap had to be hospitalized[[/note]], and part due to Japanese doctrine put more emphasis on specialization; Crews were trained for ''one'' specific ship and one role on that ship. As the IJN lost more ships, the crews were either lost with the ships, or taken off duty altogether, meaning the knowladge they COULD gained from those losses was never utilized.
** The loss of the ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Taih%C5%8D Taiho]]'' illustrates the problems of this system. She was built with a heavy belt armor ''and'' an armored flight deck, and was clearly intended to be able to take several hits and remain functional. Instead, she was sunk by a single sub launched torpedo because of a mistake her damage control team made. The torpedo hit had ruptured a fuel line, causing the enclosed hanger to fill up with fumes. Now, an experianced DC team would have known to cover the fuel with foam from the fire systems to stop the spread of fumes. The ''Taiho's'' teams were not experienced; instead of taking teams from other lost ships the Japanese had filled the ship with fresh recruits, as per doctrine. So while they did know that they had to get the fumes out of the hanger, they didn't know that to stop the spread of fumes you to cover the spill with foam from the fire suppression system. So what happened is the chief damage control officer ordered all of the ships bulkheads opened and the ventilation turned up, spreading the fumes throughout the ship and turning it into a giant fuel air bomb. Eventually those fumes found a spark a caused a massive explosion,[[note: A senior staff officer on the bridge saw the flight deck heave up, and the sides of the ship blew out[[/note]] dooming the ship. A second explosion a few hours later dealt the coup de grâce, and the ship sunk stern first, taking 1,650 of the 2,150 man crew down with her.

* In ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorPacificAssault'', TheProtagonist, [[SemperFi US Marine Private]] Tommy Conlin, is tasked during the Pearl Harbor attack with helping sailors and other Marines aboard the USS ''West Virginia''. One of these is helping the beleaguered crew control fire and flooding damage in the bowels of the ship, saving it from [[SinkingShipScenario certain doom]] like the ''Arizona'' and ''Oklahoma'' just minutes prior.

* In UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, that was one of the US Navy's major advantages compared to the Imperial Japanese Navy. In fact, the superior damage control measures of US Navy ships was so good at making them so durable that the Japanese sometimes mistook enemy ships they previously hit as other ships because they could not conceive of them being able to survive.

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[[quoteright:350: [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bunkerhilldamagecontrol.jpg]] ]]
[[caption-width-right:350: Image Source: [[https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/CV/CV-17_BunkerHill.html]] ]]

The first order of the day, aside possibly from dealing with the ''cause'' of the damage, is putting out the fires, tending to the wounded, and repairing the damage so everything can go back to normal. Expect all this to be going on even as the driving crisis that caused everything is still ongoing. The main characters will often be split apart and unable to communicate with each other or rely upon each other directly. Expect at least one character to reach down inside himself and [[TookALevelInBadass find the resolve and resourcefulness]] he needs to solve a major problem without the team mates he normally relies on. TheEngineer and the OldSoldier will be at their best here, leading their men in the dangerous and critical work of getting everything operational again.

[[caption-width-right:350: Image Source: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/CV/CV-17_BunkerHill.html]]

-> ''"Problem solved, sir!" ''
-->-- '''Random crewman, ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships'' '''

! Examples:

* ''Series/BattleStarGalactica2003'' had this on more than one occasion, as the ''[[BattleStar Galactica]]'' often came under attack by the Cylons. The [[PilotMovie miniseries]] had many of the damage control personnel get ThrownOutTheAirlock when the Galactica officers were forced to vent the atmosphere from part of the ship in order to put the fires out before it was too late.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** A [[ContinuityNod subtle example]]: Part of the station (one of the fork-like protrutions on the top of the station for handling cargo) is blown off during a battle with an attacking ship in the season 2 finale. In the season 3 intro, the damaged section can be seen re-attached and surrounded by scaffolding.
** The season 4 episode ''Endgame'' has a fleet of ships get crippled [[spoiler: due to the heroes' sabotage]] just before the final battle of the season. The repairwork isn't shown, but is discussed soon after, and later referenced in passing when one of these ships arrives during the final battle [[spoiler: just in time to save the ''Aggamemnon'']].
--->"[[TheEngineer Engineering]], this is [[FourStarBadass General Lefcourt]]. In case you didn't notice, [[GuileHero the enemy]] just pulled our shorts up over our head and tied them into a knot. You will get the ship under control ASAP, or I will come down there and skin the hide off every last one of you."
* In the first episode of ''Series/LastResort'' the crew of the ''USS Colorado'' are shown repairing the sub after a missile attack.
* Another first episode, this time for ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'', had the titular sub taking a direct from a torpedo. Afterwards, the first officer is talking about the repairs being made. Later a more extensive effort is shown tryign to root out a virus that's been screwing up their computer systems.
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'': In "Out of Gas", ''Serenity'' is crippled by an explosion which disabled their life support. In this case, the required repairs are implied to be simple enough, but they don't [[ForWantOfANail have the required part]]. Mal sends them off while he waits on the ship for someone to answer their distress call.