Wolfpack SOPs - Who’s In?

[Captain_AJ]

Originally Posted by derstosstrupp

Wanted to start a thread to gauge interest in some ideas I’ve been kicking around regarding crewmember roles and streamlining. The games I have participated in have been very productive and of course fun, but one thing I have noticed is the lack of definite clarity at the start as to who will do what.

Also, as you all may have heard, Wolfpack League is getting stood up (hopefully soon!), which will be a platform allowing crews to schedule times to play and post results and have a little friendly competition. So that being said, I thought to myself:

1. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could form regular crews, rotating the positions each play time to keep it interesting and drilling together as a crew on diving, surfacing, attacks etc, just like a unit would in real life (trying to improve dive times, honing attack procedures etc)?

2. Wouldn’t it be great to have a system in place where each man knows his role and executes it like clockwork?

3. Wouldn’t it really be cool if this system were based on real-world doctrine (tailored of course to Wolfpack)?

I arrived on the idea based on Neal’s very helpful posts in the thread “Wolfpack Tactics & Tips” (which is how I learned the game!). So I scoured the U-boat Diving Regulations over at uboatarchive.net, and fleshed out a system building on Neal’s that I would love to try out with a dedicated crew.

Of course, something like this requires rehearsal in order to be viable, and so real interest and a dedicated crew are a must, but since many have expressed a desire for “mini-games” within Wolfpack for any downtime, this may scratch that itch and provide more richness to an already-rich game. Any and all input is welcome and is my intent with this thread. More to follow in coming posts.

I'll be joining this crew as your radioman ON FRIDAY Captian Lt , oR AS YOU MARINES SAY... L... T!!

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Captain_AJ

I'll be joining this crew as your radioman ON FRIDAY Captian Lt , oR AS YOU MARINES SAY... L... T!!

Sounds great, might have to have you get me up to speed on the ins and outs of the radio shack!

[Elphaba]

I'm WAYYYYY in... how can I help?

[Elphaba]

Has anyone ever found and translated the SOP's from real Type VII's?

I can't believe after all these years and all the WW2 sub sim games and enthusiasts this hasn't come up before, but, it's true this is the first co-op WW2 sub game so maybe not.

Considering too, that usually everyone would be up on the bridge except the diving officer, so I would have thought that for the dive SOP, they would set the engines to battery and set speed, then go back and man the dive planes until the Captain yells "Flood" - at which point the Radio and Nav are down in the command room with Helm on the way and Captain closing the hatch, the Radio turns right and goes to man the aft vents and the Nav turns left and mans the forward vents and the Helms officer goes to their station.

Then when dive is underway, the aft (lets say Radio) goes to man the negative tank (never crosses anyones path) and the navigator (who manned the forward vents) goes to the chart to start the plot.

At that point the Helms officer can man the forward vents when they need to be closed, and the radio moves to cover aft and no-one crosses anyones path.

What do you think?

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Has anyone ever found and translated the SOP's from real Type VII's?

I can't believe after all these years and all the WW2 sub sim games and enthusiasts this hasn't come up before, but, it's true this is the first co-op WW2 sub game so maybe not.

Considering too, that usually everyone would be up on the bridge except the diving officer, so I would have thought that for the dive SOP, they would set the engines to battery and set speed, then go back and man the dive planes until the Captain yells "Flood" - at which point the Radio and Nav are down in the command room with Helm on the way and Captain closing the hatch, the Radio turns right and goes to man the aft vents and the Nav turns left and mans the forward vents and the Helms officer goes to their station.

Then when dive is underway, the aft (lets say Radio) goes to man the negative tank (never crosses anyones path) and the navigator (who manned the forward vents) goes to the chart to start the plot.

At that point the Helms officer can man the forward vents when they need to be closed, and the radio moves to cover aft and no-one crosses anyones path.

What do you think?

I’m glad to see someone actively interested in this - you and I are of a mind I think with our approach to this game!

I based my SOPs on the KM diving regs for U-boats (at uboatarchive.net) but tailored to the “crew” in WP. We don’t have a Zentralemaat (control room petty officer) as in RL to do the control room work.

One thing to note is Radio would need to be at his post in the radio shack while on the surface. This puts him close to the fwd MBT vent and the planes to quickly open vents and set planes for dive then get back to hydro to get that prepared and get out of the way.

Diving officer mans aft MBT so he can report to Commander that both are open. I have Helm hanging back in the tower so as to keep out of the way in Control room until the dust settles.

Diving officer uses the gap starboard of the scope well going aft to stay out of Nav’s way and comes back port of the well to again avoid Nav who is by then at negative. He should already be aft by the time Nav gets to negative. After Nav blows negative Nav moves aft to MBT in the starboard gap as well.

All should be clear of one another but we really need a group to try and refine these ideas in practice.

So who else is in?

[Elphaba]

Hmmm, I'll think more about what you've just written, but re: Radio Officer.

Everyone hears the morse saying a message is coming in, and unless you're in a Wolfpack (at the moment of course) then waiting for a radio message to come in that may never come is boring for the poor guy - so better to have their eyes up top looking for contacts.

Maybe when the DF and aircraft come in, then there's more of a need for keeping them downstairs...

Mmmm lots to consider... I LOVE that!

[Elphaba]

I tried setting up a group this evening to practice drills and SOP's but I couldn't get more than 3.

Maybe we can try and plan and schedule an hour to so to try all this out?

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Hmmm, I'll think more about what you've just written, but re: Radio Officer.

Everyone here's the morse saying a message is coming in, and unless you're in a Wolfpack (at the moment of course) then waiting for a radio message to come in that may never come is boring for the poor guy - so better to have their eyes up top looking for contacts.

Maybe when the DF and aircraft come in, then there's more of a need for keeping them downstairs...

Mmmm lots to consider... I LOVE that!

Thanks for pointing that out about messages, didn’t realize that Radio didn’t need to be down there! That changes things so I need to revisit our ideas in that light later tonight. Some edits to OP to come.....

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Considering too, that usually everyone would be up on the bridge except the diving officer, so I would have thought that for the dive SOP, they would set the engines to battery and set speed, then go back and man the dive planes until the Captain yells "Flood" - at which point the Radio and Nav are down in the command room with Helm on the way and Captain closing the hatch, the Radio turns right and goes to man the aft vents and the Nav turns left and mans the forward vents and the Helms officer goes to their station.

My concern when I originally wrote it was that the bridge crew wouldn’t be down in time for the flood order, but now I’m wondering if that truly is the case. So I wanted two Crewmembers below to start with, but with the slide down the ladder feature to the control room, that might just work to just keep the diving officer below. In which case I’d have radio go to the forward vents since he has to go forward anyway and Nav to the aft vents then to negative (moving starboard of scope well). He would have to take his depth sounding after flooding though, but at this point shallow depth isn’t much of a concern.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Has anyone ever found and translated the SOP's from real Type VII's?

That's where the SOP I posted came from: uboatarchive.net

I just modified them for the game.

----------------------------------------

Been thinking about communicating with other U-boats in a game, via the wireless, and some way to send position info.


Proposed: Zoom in until the grid square your boat is in fills most of the map.

Then measure from the left side, and then from the bottom. Round up to the nearest hectometer, then combine with the grid square using an x to separate.

In this case, we're in grid AF 5149, 8321m from the left, 2295m from the bottom. Round up/down, this would be the message:

POSxAF5149x83x23

[Elphaba]

NICE!

Great idea.

I've joined a discord group that's also setting up SOP's and one set is the radio comms.

This is much better than I've seen anywhere else. Only problem is we can't send numbers.

The other group suggested just using the first two letters of each number i.e.
1 = on
2 = tw

etc

My only suggestion is that we should also add course and speed on too.

So in your example given course of 310 and speed 18

POSxAFxFIONFONIXEITHXTWTHXTHONZEXONEIZE

Unless of course, numbers are being added as recognised characters and then all is good.

[derstosstrupp]

That is a great idea Neal. This kind of brainstorming I feel really makes the game rich. I need to get more familiar with the radio. I’m hoping in upcoming sessions we get enough to man a couple boats again so we can refine this aspect too.

[xXLupusXx]

Yes, I am in provided you guys are in my time-zone.


Be aware, I only bought the game yesterday and getting to grips with it now.

[Onkel Neal]

Yeah, forgot to mention, the new patch will add numbers to the wireless.

[Pisces]

I like Neal's coordinate system. On the Wolfpack discord some suggested angles from the 2 bottom edge corners. And then use a digit-to-letter key tot translate the angles for enigma encryption and short message. But this should be a bit shorter. Especially since number-morse is (becoming) a thing.

One could just further subdivide the KM grids, but that doesn't converge fast enough to pin-point location.

@Stosstrupp: You have a point about time if crew was manning the deckgun. They need to 'secure' it first. Rotating it to bow and running back up the bridge takes a while.

I like to keep the radioman at the forward vent, instead of the aft. Going through the hatch takes a bit of time. While the navigator could go to the aft in the same time. And punch the Atlas-Echolot on the way (back).