military binoculars in silent hunter
 

military binoculars in silent hunter

well there hasnt been one in any sh version, sh1 to sh4, i went no further than 4,
never had binoculars that in any way resemble those used by the military.

thats a real shame because military bino's are a precision instrument for measuring distances.
its way more precise than periscopes and TBT's.

it uses an angular measure called the mil, and 17.77 mils are in one degree.

a complete circle has 360 degrees, and in mils; 6400, so you can see how precise a mil is,
compared to the degree. this is the instrument used by an observer to call for and adjust indirect fire from the guns,
tankfire, cas, and naval gunfire.

but what do we have in sh? we have bino's that have a capability on the par of bird-watching.

below im posting a pic of a page from tech manual TM9-1611, dated 7/2/1942, it seems back then the navy used
a pair of bino's called the type EE, and its specs below the pic.

http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...psum9opthp.jpg




http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...psw5ip9wp3.jpg



the difference between military and civilian bino's is that in military bino's, there a reticule in the eye piece,
that is used in calculating horizontal and vertical distances. the verticle scale measures vertical distance,
such as adjusting height of burst, and also to increase or decrease range, the horizontal scale measures a lateral shift in range,
and measures lateral distance, like the length of something, and then translating that length to a range, by whats called the
OT factor. (OT means observer to target)

ot of 1 == 1000 yds
ot of 2 == 2000 yds
ot of 3 == 3000 yds
etc....

an angle of one mil equates to one yard of lateral distance for every 1000 yards of range. Thus if R equals range in yards,
L equals lateral distance in yards, and M equals angular deviation in mils, then the following is true:
L = (R/1000) (M).

http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...psy19cfjtr.jpg



the reticule is set in the eyepiece so that its measure is 100 mils at 1000 yards.

the tick marks numbered from the point where the vertical and horizontal scales meet is zero mils, going out to left 5 and right to 5.
each tick mark is 10 mils, for a total of 100 mils at 1000 yds.

below i post a pic of the reticule of the M-19 binoculars, having something like this in our bino's would be a plus to the game,
adding to the realism, and a very fast way to determine lengths, ranges, and speed to, i dont see why not about speed.


http://i1380.photobucket.com/albums/...ps4ixq6spg.jpg

As one who has no experience with modding this game (though quite a bit in others) my question would be how hard it would be to make this an optional mod.

Greyrider's correct - I don't know what WWII US Navy binos were like first-hand, but the Canadian Army binos circa late 80's early 90's were precisely as he describes them - which should tell you something about Canadian Army equipment pre-war. ;) (Heck; when I joined in '86 we still used bloody Sten guns!)

Is making this change simply a matter of changing the optical image and adjusting the magnification? If so this is an optional mod I'd personally love to see. :)

EDIT: You know what? I love making adjustments and this one looks like one I can try. I'm starting to get used to the file structure of SH4 and this might be a decent project to attempt if Greyrider doesn't mind; as a learning project if nothing else.

The problem as i understand it is that everyone runs their game at a different resolution, not even including the one it was originally meant for before everyone had better monitors and graphic cards.

You'd have to make a mod that would account for everyone's screen resolutions, because everyone would be off thousands of yards from what each other sees.

Hmmm.... good point. Anyone trying this would have to be able to provide reticles for different resolutions - an optional mod pack would need a few sizes to choose from.
Well; no problem - I use max resolution so I'll try that (when I get to it, I have another project on the go) and if it works, I'll try adjusting it for other screen resolutions.

captain, there is a file in the download section of subsim,
it deals with and explains a bit about the menu_1024_768.ini file,
by Scudder.

i'm not sure but i think the menu_1024_768.ini file controls all of
or most parameters of the game, and if you havent seen that file yet, it may help in understanding the file itself, its not
complete, as its author stated, but it does apply insight into how the file works,
and may help you to learn the structure of the game a bit faster.

its called the menu_1024_768.ini, i looked for it in downloads, and was going to post the link for you to download, but could'nt find it,
but its in the sh4 download section if u wish to look, but below this post i will copy and paste it for you.

it would be the nuts if you could make the binocular mod, i wished i could b/c i have wanted this mod for years, among other things like getting the
univeral plotting sheet for celestrial navigation into the game, traveller and hitman proved that you can add items to the game that were not there before they modded them
into the game..

all i can say now to you captain is thank you for taking this on, and the best of luck to you!

That's
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=3988

There's other posts on the site that are helpful in trying to "bind" together all the knowledge (or what there is of it) for the menu_1024_768.ini file, but I don't think the modders have gotten but maybe about 1/10th of what might be available. Now -IF- Ubisoft would loosen their lips a bit... if they even have any left who could answer a question or 2 dozen, we might get somewhere... Do a web Search on the term "menu_1024_768.ini", and lose yourself for a few weeks in it. When you get done, you'll either be like me, twiddling my lips and making noises, getting chased by guys in white jackets, or you'll be a wonder-wiz at it, comparable to CapnScurvy... here's hoping for the latter! :salute:

I can’t speak to WWII German (Kriegsmarine) binoculars and/or periscope optics, but I do know a little bit about USN optics, having used them for 30 years on active duty and currently owning and still using a couple of pairs of surplus “standard issue” binoculars.

To begin with the OP does not seem to reflect a clear understanding of what binoculars are used for in the maritime environment. Once you’re out of sight of land, they are generally worthless for determining accurate distances, or for obtaining range to a target vessel, or for spotting the fall of shot. No, the Navy didn’t generally use the Type EE 6X30 field glasses. The Naval Gun Factory optical shop made Type EE, but they were mostly for the Marine Corps and the Army (the TM 9 is an Army Field Manual).

“Field glasses” are exactly that, optics that are used in the field…that’s where armies operate; navies operate at sea. With respect to the WWII era settings for the SH franchise games; the distances involved in visually detecting an enemy vessel are much much greater than the typical distances experienced in land warfare. On land, they would frequently get visual contact with the enemy a few hundred yards away and they might get lucky enough to be able to spot them a couple of miles away. At sea, you mostly have to deal with the horizon and are searching for ships that are beyond the horizon; hopefully you can see smoke or the upperworks (masts and funnels) of a distant vessel while the ship is still “hull down” beyond the horizon, ten, twelve, even 15 miles away. At that distance binocular reticles are nothing but an annoyance, a distraction.

The standard issue USN 7X50 binocular has no reticles; reticles are mostly worthless at sea. Sure, once you are close enough (2-4 nautical miles/4000-8000 yards) you can use them, but in wartime, that’s usually way too late to be of practical value. Except for encountering a lone, unarmed merchant vessel or making a night-time surface attack, if you're still on the surface only 4nm from another ship, you're either a damned fool or a very brave and soon to be posthumously rewarded damned fool. Of course, there were/are several types of “special issue” binoculars with reticles (including the Type EE), but a good source of information on the topic in general is at www’dot’company7’dot’com/library. I suspect the WWII KM was equally capable of using the “right” type of optical devises in each situation and no doubt there is a good online source of information about that too.

Except for visual searching or attacks on the surface, binoculars, with or without reticles, aren’t of much use in a submarine. The notion that binoculars with reticle are more accurate than a periscope stadimeter is absurd. Periscope optics are generally of much better quality and certainly much more useful as well.

Creating a MOD to add accurate “field glass” reticles to the game binoculars might be an interesting academic exercise…but a rather pointless one IMHO. The works that have been done to improve periscope and TBT/UZO optics are much more useful and bring a more practical level of improvement to the games.

i dont know captain bones....i agree on some of your points, and disagree on others.
lets just say that the japanese did a pretty good job against the us and australian ships at salvo island
they had no radar, but they did have excellent optics, and they got those ships at night..in low visibility with those optics.

"Once you’re out of sight of land, they are generally worthless for determining accurate distances"

i agree with you on that, in the wide open sea there are no references, but theres a calculation for;

"distance to horizon" , so thats one reference, another one would be when the target shows up itself.

"or for obtaining range to a target vessel"

naw man, not true, if you know target length, you get target range, lengths can be recorded in the rec manual.

"spotting the fall of shot"

again wrong, if you know or estimate the ot factor, you can adjust rounds on target, land or sea.

what do you think were in the gun directors of navy ships before radar?

answer = optics and scales

"No, the Navy didn’t generally use the Type EE 6X30 field glasses"

i wasnt in ww2, so i wouldnt know, except with what i could research

"At that distance binocular reticles are nothing but an annoyance, a distraction"

corrected to say useless at that range, but so is the periscope at that range.

" Except for encountering a lone, unarmed merchant vessel or making a night-time surface attack, if you're still on the surface only 4nm from another ship, you're either a damned fool or a very brave and soon to be
posthumously rewarded damned fool".


this is from clear the bridge, by richard o'kane

“Outer doors open. Ten degrees to go. Range seven fifty, speed nine, TDC angle seventy-three.” Fraz was making doubly sure; it checked with what I observed. “Constant bearing—mark!” She was coming on fast. “Set!” Her stack was already in the field, coming on the luminous wire. “Fire!”

O'Kane, Richard. Clear the Bridge!: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang (Kindle Locations 4182-4185). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Range seven fifty, that was how far away the target was to tang in this attack, thats 750 yards and closing, nothing more needs to be said about that,
except that that attack was on the surface.

a rock is not an m-16, but a rock thrown like a roger clements fastball will disable an enemy just as good.

adaptation captain bones is the key.

thank you propbeanie, now i can edit my previous post to omit the menu ini part of it, again thanks

Ouch! Yellow text on a white background is just brutal!

Hi folks - as a training and intellectual exercise this sounds like a good one to try; plus if Greyrider wants a field reticle and if I can make one (that's a big 'if') I'll be happy to make him one. :)

I chuckled when I read Capt.Bones's post, it was informative and excellent; he is describing exactly what is happening here: an Army guy trying to build a pair of field glasses :D

I'll give it a shot; for learning and for fun but no promises at all until I understand the file structure a little bit more. :)

Cheers!

Here's the kicker. When you edit the menu_1024_768.ini file you automatically kick out any mods the player is using which modify that one size fits all universal configuration file from hell. So if someone is playing TMO and you publish a reticle binocular mod and they load it up, they're not playing TMO any more. If they are playing FOTRSU, ditto.

Basically you would be requiring the player to play the stock game with only your reticle binocular mod installed unless you published a TMO_with_Reticle_Binocular, RFB_with_Reticle_Binocular, FOTRS_with_Reticle_Binocular, FOTRSU_with_Reticle_Binocular.......ad nauseum. And then you would require that the player never update their supermod again. You would have to handle supermod updates, FOREVER. Sounds like a fine new hobby to me. If they update their own supermod without your "help" your binoculars would vanish, which is historically accurate, but not what you want.

Messing with the menu_1024_768.ini file is just a pathway to insanity and not to be done lightly. In a supermod, yes. Standalone mod, no.

Hiya' RR…on my monitor the SubSim forum background is dark grey…can’t say that I know what to do to solve that problem; I'll try this...

But, on to business…

“i dont know captain bones....i agree on some of your points, and disagree on others. lets just say that the japanese did a pretty good job against the us and australian ships at salvo island they had no radar, but they did have excellent optics, and they got those ships at night..in low visibility with those optics.”

Well, I’m not sure what that has to do with military style reticles in hand-held binoculars. I wasn’t there, but will say without much fear of being wrong, that they weren’t using binoculars for gun fire control or launching of torpedoes in that engagement. The devices involved were essentially the same in both the IJN and USN; stabilized optical range finders. The big difference was that the Japanese believed in, trained for and practiced night surface engagements, the USN did not.

"or for obtaining range to a target vessel"…“naw man, not true, if you know target length, you get target range, lengths can be recorded in the rec manual.”

You’re missing the point. At the distances involved when initially sighting a ship, the target length is too small to accurately measure using the mil graduations on a pair of hand-held binoculars. Besides that, even when the range has been reduced, unless the target is broadside-on (AoB 90), you can’t accurately ‘guestimate’ the apparent length of the vessel as measured by the reticle marks, regardless of what’s in the Rec Manual. That’s why ranges are best determined by a stadimeter, using the masthead height above the water. A vertical reticle on hand-held binoculars can be used for that. But again, the distances involved in war at sea are generally too great and the movement of the ship (you’re not on a stationary platform) precludes using hand-held binoculars for that purpose. It just doesn’t work…been there, done that.

"spotting the fall of shot"…“again wrong, if you know or estimate the ot factor, you can adjust rounds on target, land or sea.”

Have you ever tried to do that? I have…it is impossible with hand-held binoculars aboard a ship. It’s back to that “distance” thing. In ship-to-ship gun combat, you may be firing at ranges of 8, 10, 12 miles or so (16000-24000 yards) and you may get down to 4-6 miles (8000-12000 yards) before the engagement ends…not one or two thousand yards. Same-same for a direct fire shore bombardment mission; 6000-8000 yards or more. You can’t use a hand-held pair of binoculars for that…you frequently can’t even clearly see where the fall of shot is relative to the target at maximum range. You use the ship’s gun director(s) with installed optical range finders.

“what do you think were in the gun directors of navy ships before radar? answer = optics and scales”

Better answer = large optical range finders (baseline length between left and right objective lenses of ten – twenty feet. Definitely not a pair of hand-held binoculars. I’ve been in the gun director, directing fire, on Destroyers, Destroyer Escorts and Frigates. Also had the pleasure of observing a “firepower demonstration” during a RIMPAC surface gun exercise from the #2 turret of USS New Jersey (BB 62).

"At that distance binocular reticles are nothing but an annoyance, a distraction"…“corrected to say useless at that range, but so is the periscope at that range.”

Yes, but you’re missing the point. Lookouts on a surfaced submarine don’t need reticles in their binoculars. Even when making a surface attack, hand-held binoculars are not the best means for determining range…they used SJ radar and the TDC.

“this is from clear the bridge, by richard o'kane”

“Outer doors open. Ten degrees to go. Range seven fifty, speed nine, TDC angle seventy-three.” Fraz was making doubly sure; it checked with what I observed. “Constant bearing—mark!” She was coming on fast. “Set!” Her stack was already in the field, coming on the luminous wire. “Fire!” O'Kane, Richard. Clear the Bridge!: The War Patrols of the U.S.S. Tang (Kindle Locations 4182-4185). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.”…“Range seven fifty, that was how far away the target was to tang in this attack, thats 750 yards and closing, nothing more needs to be said about that, except that that attack was on the surface.”

Yes…but again what does that have to do with reticles in hand held binoculars? He was getting his target range data from the SJ radar and the TDC, checked against each other and the plot on the DRT. The “luminous wire” was a vertical reticle in his 7X50 binoculars held in the TBT. He wasn’t using it to determine range, he was firing on the fixed relative bearing indicated by the wire and being transmitted to the TDC by the TBT. He discusses that in Chapters 1 and 7 (pages 26 and 92 in my 1st edition, 1st printing copy; he autographed it while we were talking about Submarine School tactical training "deficiencies").

My point is still this: field glasses are good for use in the field; having/putting military-style reticles in nautical binoculars to be used aboard submarines is pointless (either in real life or in the SH games).

Well, here's the US Navy Lookout Manual. No reference to any reticles in Navy binoculars. If there were any their use would have been covered in the Lookout Manual.

At any rate, the 6x30mm binoculars greyrider trots out above are not suitable for naval use at all. A glance at the photo told me the claims were bogus. Hint: don't make a claim and then post proof you're wrong, especially in the same post. The 7x50 binoculars actually used in the Navy had more than twice the light gathering power as the 6x30s greyrider apparently thinks are naval binoculars.

@CaptBones greyrider is famous for posting "evidence" which does not back his claims. In this case his "evidence" is entirely irrelevant, as you establish. Interestingly, the very text he quoted and you explained was proof that my Dick O'Kane manual targeting method isn't merely plausible, as we thought when we developed it, it was actually used by Dick O'Kane and the Tang during the war. It was a pure surprise when I read that for the first time and realized that Dick O'Kane liked to use constant bearing attacks in the war.

Hello again RR...

You're absolutely right about the Manual and the 7X50s. I have two excellent pairs of "Off Shore" binoculars with good reticles and they worked wonderfully for a day or a weekend of cruising Chesapeake Bay and the DELMARVA coast. But out of sight of land the reticles had no purpose; I would switch over to my old Navy 7X50s as soon as we were more than a couple of miles from the shoreline.

Yeah, I really wasn't trying to throw cold water on anyone's ideas and/or disparage the thoroughness of their research into the topic. I just thought a little "real world" explanation of why the concept put forth in the OP wasn't either useful or truly realistic. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

From my own POV, the best "fix" for binoculars in the SH games is to get the screen view to look like the real world view through a properly adjusted pair of binoculars, including the UZO and TBT views. That is, one circular "sight picture", not a "figure 8" composite view (with or without your avatar hands in the view). IIRC, someone did do a MOD for that in one of the SH games...3...4...maybe 5? Wish I could remember where I found that and what I did with it.

Even then, I admit I would continue to cheat a little; I want the relative bearing compass to be displayed. Why? Well, in the real world on the bridge of my ship, I know where I am, which way I'm facing/turning and the approximate relative bearing of my field of view. Sitting in a chair at my computer desk, I have no relevant frame of reference and will rapidly get "lost" when I make even the slightest turn in any of the binocular views. It's a PITA to have to constantly switch views back and forth to "keep the picture" in my head.

BTW RR, RADM O'Kane liked to use "constant bearing attacks" in many many other situations besides submarining during the war! You could tell you were almost "on the wire" by the look in his eyes.:arrgh!:

captain bones,
i was thinking about your post , as to why you didnt use bino's with a reticule,
i came to the conclusion that the navy you knew was alittle different in the forties
than the 80's, the reason being that most combat ships, or all combat ships
of the 80's were of the missle type, and guns being long gone by that time, and
with all the different radars on them, nobody would get even close enough to
to adust HE rounds on the ship without getting a missle shoved you know where,
it would be suicide, and missiles cant be adjusted unless you have a radio signal
with it to get inside its cpu and change the coordinates that it was shot out with.

but i want to approach this in another way, u were navy personnel in rl, and i was army personnel
in rl, and so you know as well as i do that every piece of equipment the goverment has is catalogged.
and any goverment agency can requisition anything from that catalog, as long as its within reason,
its all GI stuff, goverment issue. it has to be reasonable requests, i mean , no army infantry company
is going to get away with requesting a B2 bomber, or get anything it cant possibly use, so a company ordering
that would be denied.
but binoculars? thats well within reason, and so pretty likely the request would be granted, so if saying,
that i was in the navy back in 42, and my bro was in the army or usmc, and he showed me
a bino with reticules, and i would say...hey i want that!
if the navy unit i was with didnt have it in inventory, i could put in a request with supply, to get one.

so it isnt to much of a stretch to think that some in the navy, had binos with reticules if it could help them do thier job alittle better.

it like the baleo class subs, coming off the line, they all looked the same, but when given to the commanders and crews,
its been said that no two baleo class subs looked the same.

in tangs case, okane wanted a crows nest on the periscope shears and got together with some members of the crew
and the maintainence shops on shore, and he got one build for tang, and i guess lockwood and nimitze
saw it and , never said anything close to "take it down",

what im really trying to say i guesss is that every unit will modify something to fit thier needs.



peace brother, and thank you for serving the country, your an outstanding american!