Attack Map Question

[Hylander_1314]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Surely not OUR sound guy! We had an intelligence contest with our sonar guy and a rock. The rock won two out of three times...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

There is much that is simply wrong with Silent Hunter 4 and cannot be fixed. Just turning off flawed functions leaves us playing Pac Man on a Playstation 1. We're forced into playing the flawed game we bought and enjoying that for what it is.

Certainly putting the paper bag over our head does nothing to improve the realism. I've never seen a sub movie where all the crew members were blindfolded. In real life you had 70 guys, more or less, who each helped each other run the boat. Our boat is empty except for us. The inherent disadvantages of that unrealistic aspect must be balanced by other unrealistic aspects just for us to "break even."

I'll agree with you about there being a lot wrong with the game, and there being inherent advantages/disadvantages. In most ways, we have the advantage, like with the bumbling AI. In a few we are at a disadvantage. The jet-like acceleration of ships comes to mind. However not using the attack map, or map contacts is hardly playing with a bag over your head. I've managed to sink my share of ships this way, and others have as well.

They usually had three cross-checks: the plot, the TDC and some poor victim on an is-was. The last thing that happened was that the firing officer asked if all three were in agreement. We have the TDC. We have the attack map. If those two are in agreement we have done the same check as a real crew.

The problem here is that these are not independent cross-checks. The TDC operator, the plotter, and the Is-Was man (I'm guessing you mean the Mk 8 Angle Solver here) are all working from the same data set. If the periscope observer misidentifies the target and the stadimeter gives a range that is off by 50%, this will taint the calculations by all three. Cross-checking will, it is true, catch a mechanical error in the TDC, or a math/geometry error in the plot, but will not necessarily reveal data/observation errors.


This is an important aspect. Say, for example, I want to calculate the height of a mountain, knowing the angle of elevation to the summit, and the distance to the base. This can be done with simple trigonometry. Lets say I have three people helping me, and I want to be sure of getting the correct answer, so I have one do the math by hand with trig tables, another by making a scale drawing, and the last by using a pocket calculator. I have them work independently and they return the same answer. So I can be confident I have the correct answer. But is this really true? If I have furnished them with the wrong distance to the base, I can hardly expect any of these methods to provide a correct result. The only advantage of using the three methods here is in safeguarding against a math/drawing error. Likewise with obtaining firing solutions.


I don't mean to say that crews and captains did not strive mightily to nail down a firing solution to the greatest extent possible, but I think the key to doing this was more a matter of having an experienced eye looking over the plot, than simply relying on any mechanical computer magic. If initial obervations of range or AoB were in error, succesive observations would often reveal the inconsistancy and further efforts could improve things (time permitting). My objection to the map contacts business is that the game-map magic gives you all the goodies, without any real effort, 100% full strength, day in and day out. A green crew in '41 with just a couple observations, can have as good a solution as an experienced crew in '45 after hours of stalking. To me it is far too gamey to be enjoyable. Plotting and computing myself, without map contacts or the attack map stuff, gives me (in a limited sense) the same kind of information you would get with these things, but requires considerable time and effort, and is not a sure thing. It is by no means 100%.