Realism- and gameplay-related hardcode fixes for SH3.EXE

[JeromeHeretic]

Originally Posted by h.sie

In the game we have up to 2 hours to wait until attack begins, after BDU has ordered to attack.

IMHO random time between 10 minutes and one hour can look realistic.

[Hitman]

The order to attack implies that BdU is satisfied with the amount of Uboats who have made contact with the convoy and are following it, not necessarily already in shooting position. They might be as much as 30 kms away, trailing the smoke plumes in daylight and doing the overhaul maneuver.

Moreover, it is important to understand that in naval warfare things are quite slower than in land warfare. This is not pretended to be some kind of infantry or chivalry attack, but instead a situation where a concentration of firepower is assembled against a concentration of defences by a distant command who can't see what is happening. From my point of view, considering both what I have readed and what is to be concluded from th UKH, BDU would simply ensure that enought uboats have established contact and were in situation to maneuver into attack (Which could take several hours) and then release them all for the action, specially the shadower. I think that it is fair to say that, except by pure coincidence, most uboats will not be ready to pull the trigger until some time has passed and instead they will need to do more or less long positioning maneuvers.

Hence, any modification of your work that either times exactly the 1st torpedo attack or implies a very short interval until all uboats attack after BDU releases them, would IMHO not be in the correct direction. No matter if the players like it or not, this can't be a sudden coordinated artillery attack, but instead a loose concentration of independently acting units in a certain area.

[h.sie]

Thanks, Hitman, sounds very plausible. Do you (or anybody else) know whether there was some communication between the UBoats in order to co-ordinate a collective attack? (I remember to have read something about a "wolfpack leader")?

But even if they had the possibility to communicate among Uboats: Would they do that in that specific situation? I ask, because radiowaves could warn the convoy.....

[Rubini]

After have playead the game and wolfpack a lot these days I should like to say that I like more and more what and how you made it. It´s very atmospheric as it is now. And looking at Hitmann and Papakilo info seems that it´s in the right realistic way. It is also very playable.

Perhaps you could add to the last message (or one more just for the shadowing uboat - the player) saying that he must stay very tunned from that moment until (waiting) the first torpedo hit and then starting also his (the player) attack. For playability side perhaps the amount of time could be minimum of 30min and the max 1h30min. I guess this will be very reasonable to not go to the unrealistic side too much and mantaining clear directions for the player. My 2 cents.

[reaper7]

I think the way it is now is the best That uncertainty of when things are going to kick of - do I have to to correct my position for a better one, or set up quickly to be ready to fire.

[Rubini]

Ops...i needed to exit the game just to say the below. Sorry for the bit OT on what you are needing at the moment, h.sie. No need to reply, we all knows that you have working so much on this project. But i can´t close my mouth, the advances that you achieve are incredible.

- With wolpack mod h.sie opened the pandora box again. See:

1. You managed to put an Ai unit into the game and in a specific location that is guided by the RND (it´s not scripted), which works correctly and can be saved.

2. you managed to put inteligence on BDU radio messages. This is one of the more important achievements until now. BDU now can reply you in a absolutelly coordenated, inteligent and controlable way!!

These two facts opens a new horizon for new "gameplay" enhancement mods. Some days ago i just suggested some ones like resupply on demand, confirmation prior to be allowed to ressuply, emergence repairs on mid somewhere, new coordenates to patrol after complete your mission, etc.

So, I just can hope that you take a rest and come here again with batteries full to work another day and so on! I will be honored to help you making some hard work if needed.

Salute, SH3 fellows!

Originally Posted by h.sie

But even if they had the possibility to communicate among Uboats: Would they do that in that specific situation? I ask, because radiowaves could warn the convoy.....

http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Tech-HFDF.htm

This was the main pre-radar threat to all u-boats that used radio transmitters for communication.

Another question is: Were the germans aware of this technology Allies used to track their radio signal bearings ?

Some interesting comments on how it worked:

Originally Posted by h.sie

... But even if they had the possibility to communicate among Uboats: Would they do that in that specific situation? I ask, because radiowaves could warn the convoy.....

First off, I really have to salute you and all involved in your modding effort. Some of the results are nothing short of brilliant so thanks for your efforts.

Even without Allied ship borne HFDF (which the German's greatly under-estimated), U-Boats generally only communicated with each other by radio rarely and only in very special situations. There were rare occasions where captains in visual range would try and coordinate operations using flags, lamps or loud-hailers but they were unusual.

During the wolfpacking era, the German submarines lacked VHF voice radio (RT for Radio Telephone) and relied solely on High Frequency WT (Wireless Telegraphy) This meant the radio operator had to encode the transmission on Enigma and transmit using Morse code and so since HF works best at long distances, it was essentially useless to communicate with other boats in a convoy battle. The delays involved made real time coordination between boats impractical. Wireless operators would take in and decode messages addressed to other boats and the Captain could build a plot based on the signals and his own observations and act accordingly but he would almost never communicate directly with another boat in the same pack using radio.

The Type IX was originally designed as a command boat for wolfpack type operations but the communications problems were never solved and early in the war, command was determined to be best exercised remotely from BdU. U-Boat captains in the North Atlantic were generally on a very short HF leash during the time of the wolfpack.

Your mod facilitates this very nicely. Thanks again.

[urfisch]

Originally Posted by h.sie

Thanks, Hitman, sounds very plausible. Do you (or anybody else) know whether there was some communication between the UBoats in order to co-ordinate a collective attack? (I remember to have read something about a "wolfpack leader")?

But even if they had the possibility to communicate among Uboats: Would they do that in that specific situation? I ask, because radiowaves could warn the convoy.....

as i said...the book "feindfahrten"...by wolfgang hirschfeld is a helpful source. there was a "wolfpack-leader". the boat, which spotted the convoy sent (if possible!) once a day a message with convoy navigation data (speed, direction) to the bdu and all other boats. after spotting a convoy and the notification via radio, the boat was the leader and had to send a homesignal. the bdu coordinated the attack and send a message to the other boats nearby to head to the convoy and follow the homesignal of the regarding u-boat commander.

this is all coordination which was possible. as to randomizer. all messages where encoded. so the messages where to be as short as possible. and later in war, the radio was used not more than needed.

[Rubini]

I just took a look at uboat.net about wolfpacks and surprisingly they were much more frequent than i thought. Even in 1944 they had a lot of them.
here: http://www.uboat.net/ops/wolfpacks/

So, seems that BDU and/or the uboats itself have found a way to mount the packs in reasonable amount despite the difficults involved.

[makman94]

Originally Posted by Rubini

.... the advances that you achieve are incredible....

more or less ...the whole meaning is exactly in these few words !
the new age at sh3 real modding has allready started when this thread was opened and thanks to H.Sie ,LGN1 ,Stiebler and all involved this game started getting challenging and interesting.
executables are the ...future for all those that 'dreaming' more a simulator than a kid's game and judging from the guys's progress here...we can't even think what is coming...

all the best to moders here,
congratulations

[Hitman]

Do you (or anybody else) know whether there was some communication between the UBoats in order to co-ordinate a collective attack? (I remember to have read something about a "wolfpack leader")?

I have readed about cases where, early in the war, some uboats met at sea near a convoy and discussed the attack (Kretschmer, Prien, etc), but then each boat departed and conducted it separately in the same night. The was no radio comms, however, but instead signals to meet and then talk personally with a megaphone.

As the war progressed, the convoy battles expanded to several days because the uboats were many and well scattered around. So it happened that a contact holder shadowed and sent beacon signals to some uboats ordered by BDU to get closer, then those uboats attack that night and at the next day a new set of boats arrived, and BdU relieved from the task of shadowing the original contact boat and allowed him to attack.

As I said, I have never ever seen an instance where the opening of fire was coordinated. The only thing that was done by Bdu is sometimes to hold the attack until more uboats had gathered, and then authorize them to attack on that night.

As Randomizer said, the IXs were originally designed as wolfpack command stations at sea, but then BdU preferred to mantain control due to possible operational problems.

[h.sie]

Thank you very much for these useful and plausible comments. I won't include a better attack synchronisation.

[slipper]

Hsie

Great mod mate, unfortunately I cannot get any messages to show. I am running the latest wolfpack mod and have tried reinstalling the mod a few times but with the same results.

For any of the new messages I get a get a blank message with no text. For example when bdu send me a message following a contact report I recieve the message but there is no descriptive text, the same for the chief engineer with the oxygen levels, does anyone please have any ideas?

Thanks for any help

Slipper

[Dani]

When you unzip the V16A3 patch kit there are 2 text files called "_Append_to_en_menu " and "_Append_to_de_menu".
You must copy the text from these files and paste them at the end of the last line in en_menu and de_menu in you're main SH3 installation.

Or, you can read the readme document that came with the patch kit. It's all explained better there.