[Sailor Steve]

As for speed and direction, I think most reports sent to u-boats were based on one of three factors:

1) Radio intercepts. If a ship sent a message and OKM managed to intercept it, it might contain the sending ship's speed and direction, or it might give nothing more than location, or it might give nothing at all and the order to the nearest u-boats would be based on rough triangulation.

2) Aircraft. If a FW-200 were to sight a ship, then speed and direction are going to be general at best.

3) U-boat. A u-boat wouldn't give a single-ship report until after it sank the ship, so contact reports are limited to convoys, in which case the information would almost certainly contain the precise information you want.

My original thinking was that you were wrong and contact reports should only be general, but after laying it out in print I'm wondering if contact reports we recieve should be more or less detailed depending upon the source - some precise and some quite vague, with the source listed.

I also think they either shouldn't appear on the map, but we should have the ability to write in that information ourselves, or they should only appear as a small mark, but with the information written by the mark with the details as they are known to us.

Of course I'm also a big fan of the 'Assisted Plotting Mod' for SH3, which leaves off even the ships you can see unless you specifically mark them, at which time the info does appear, but only for the ship you are looking at.