A few new ideas

[Fidd]

I would suspect that it was only used when under fire, or when the "warnings of the numbers of u-boats in your area" warranted it. Once per half hour would provide little or no protection via ruining torpedo solutions, and would only serve to increase the track miles of the convoy.

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Fidd

I would suspect that it was only used when under fire, or when the "warnings of the numbers of u-boats in your area" warranted it. Once per half hour would provide little or no protection via ruining torpedo solutions, and would only serve to increase the track miles of the convoy.

The idea wasn’t to foil solutions, it was to make tracking the convoy by a shadowing U-boat difficult. If you recall, a U-boat (typically the first to sight it) was designated the “contact holder” and could not attack until BdU knew he had sufficient boats in contact. That took many many hours. It needed to provide contact reports at intervals and often they lost contact because they could not follow the convoy’s movements effectively or were driven off by roving escorts. The zigzag patterns would typically be very complex, making it difficult to predict the base course and assemble boats effectively. That was the whole idea. Again, you can’t expect a glorified gaggle of civilian ships to execute the precision needed at 8-minute intervals without collisions happening (they happened as it was even with infrequent zigs). Nor did it happen for that reason in danger areas of U-boats. A recipe for loss of coordination and scattering. And unlike in Wolfpack, in real life the scatter meant absolute failure of the convoy commander and easy pickings for U-boats.

[Fidd]

I don't doubt the veracity of what you're saying, but from what I've seen - an image of a merchantman clock with the periphery marked for when zigs should be made; it makes we wonder if we're both right, namely that there were short-interval zigs to make solutions more difficult when under fire, and longer interval ones designed to frustrate establishing the convoy's base course, as you describe.

In other words, we may both be right.

[Fidd]

148. DF-ing using civilian radio-stations/DFing u-boats

This was a common technique, especially on long-wave, to establish the bearing to and from civilian transmitters known location, and therefore with a cross-cut bearing, to determine position deep into the Atlantic. If one assumes that the location of the u-boat was unknown to the crew initially, this might make for some interesting navigational use of DF's to fix their position. The more lines established, the more accurate the fix, and therefore the more accurate subsequent navigation to the convoy becomes. (assuming some form of time-compression to keep "time to target" roughly comparable to now)

With the multi-national player-base, it ought to be possible to create plausible sounding radio transmissions of stations in the UK, Germany, France and the low-countries, to which a radio-officer can tune the DF equipment to start DFing.

The allied counter to this is the use of DFing locations - spread from Iceland to the Azores, to fix the area of u-boats whenever they transmit. On a strategic level this has little bearing (if you'll excuse the pun) on the game, however, it could be used the more radio-traffic is sent between boats in game, to send detached escorts down a bearing to search for a surfaced or thence submerged u-boat. By counting the characters, or duration of morse signals sent, from a particular u-boat during the course of a game, a tipping-point might be reached causing such a detachment of an escort. Or aircraft.

DFing therefore could be engineered in game to both assist u-boat crews in locating a convoy and establishing their own position - or the position of other u-boats, but ALSO via the brevity, or otherwise, of radio transmissions from it, to cause AI or PVP escorts to be able to detach from their usual positions.....

[Fidd]

149. Refinement of AI escorts in determining likely position of an attacking u-boat from torpedo wakes.

If the attacked merchantman is sunk within a short period of being hit, all the escorts should be aware of is the 180 degree arc "side" that the torpedo has come from, and therefore those escorts on that side should turn outwards from that side, and commence asdic and hydrophone searches. However, as the distance from which the torpedo is fired is unknown, the distance outwards they travel is fairly short.

If the merchantman is hit but does not sink quickly, it is assumed that the approximate track of a steam inbound torpedo is known to the crew, and this information is given to the escorts via short-wave radio or other signal, and the AI escort then proceeds along the reciprocal of that track, for a reasonable distance, likewise at asdic and hydrophone speed.

Similarly, if the track of a steam torpedo is seen passing an un-hit merchantman, the same reasonable distance is covered by the outbound pinging/listening escort, however, with a less certain bearing, so there should be a random error in bearing to course travelled.

If the u-boat is physically spotted, the AI escorts would travel directly at best speed to the area, for perhaps 90% of the distance, and only then conduct asdic and hydrophone searches, firing guns at the u-boat so long as it or the periscope is in view, possibly with star-shells.

So, firing electrics, will result in poor ability by the escorts to locate a u-boat, provided it remains quiet and achieves sinking hits. On the other hand, if it fires and misses with steams, or hits but does not outright sink, a merchantment, then the ability of the escorts to determine the location of the u-boat improves. Finally, if the u-boat is visually seen, then it's in for a world of hurt, possibly with several escorts coming for it at up to 36 knots....

[Fidd]

150. Fixing damage - personal expertise

Any damage that is fixable, should take x time to do so. This could be modified by the players expertise in the associated systems. So players total time in game - as known from Steam could be one variable, their role on the boat when fixing an associated system another. So, a long-standing player, who is a Dive-Officer, would fix a class 2 damage (see link below) of a depth gauge, faster than a new player who is a radio operator... The captain would have no ability to fix anything. His job being to put the right people attending to the right problem, and prioritising it.

The more players put on a single problem to fix, the quicker that problem is fixed. All fixable problems (classes 2 and 4) would automatically fix themselves, but very slowly, representing the efforts of the remainder of the crew. A crewman attempting to fix a class 1 or 3 problem, would be told (via a mechanism that informs him alone) after 150(?) seconds that the fault or damage is irreparable. He would then communicate that to the captain.

Whilst a player is fixing a problem, he is unable to move or operate any other control, nor is he able to interrupt the process. If he does, then whatever fixing he has achieved is zeroed unless another player is helping, where-after it continues at a slower rate. The point of this is to increase the need for players to run additional stations to their own when damage-control parties are at work.

Each time a player fixes a fault, their general expertise rises - and with it the diminishment of the time taken for future repairs.

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/sho...&postcount=116

[Fidd]

151. Beards.

Each mission you survive, your avatar very gradually goes from clean-shaven, to fully bearded over 40 games or so. Every time you're killed during a game, back to being clean-shaven you go!

Amusingly, since posting this and mentioning this particular "silly" idea, this one really seems to have caught player's imagination, and I've had universally positive feedback on it!