hydrophone 'direction' confusion for sonarman making life 'interesting'

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

I can't say I've noticed this before I changed to GWX, and I'm certainly not pointing the finger that way. I'm only mentioning GWX because that's the current platform I'm running.

Because I've got to pay a lot more attention to escorts in order to (hopefully) evade them, I'm constantly querying my sonarman as to bearing, distance and direction of travel of the hunters. Ever since the first time this happened I've external-view-checked this on subsequent occassions. What's happening is this:

I'll query my sonarman (who is qualified) on the nearest warship location. I do this roughly every 15 seconds to 1 -2 minutes, in order to decide if I need to make a course adjustment to keep my profile as narrow as possible to active ASDIC searching.

I'll keep getting replies of slowly-changing bearings, with the 'moving away' indication. However, checking up on this (after the first occurance) my sonarman keeps replying 'moving away' even when the escort is bearing straight down on me and closing!

Needless to say this isn't making evading and escape very easy at all! Especially when I'm making course and speed adjustments assuming I'm in the escort's sound-blind baffles when, in actuality, I'm dead ahead of it and waving a red flag by nudging my speed upwards.

Has anyone else had this problem? It's more than bit frustrating for me because, as I said, I'm depending on determining the escort's location, bearing and direction of motion in order to evade, and right now I have no way of doing that.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yes, my sonarman is an idiot. I have to jump on the HP and find the noise and click the check mark, then he pipes up. Another thing is he will call out merchant blah blah blah and then SCREAM Warship!!!!! What happend to my merchant?????? Oh, sorry chief, it was a warship.....;)

Anyway, I'm working on a blue crewman with renown and he seems to be getting better. I doubt this is GWX related as the deaf dumb and mute sonarman has been around a while. Patch 1.4 was to help with him but he is pretty much like Bernard...stupid.

Anyway, I work the HP and direct the boat as needed. Pretty easy actually.

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

Yes, my sonarman is an idiot. I have to jump on the HP and find the noise and click the check mark, then he pipes up. Another thing is he will call out merchant blah blah blah and then SCREAM Warship!!!!! What happend to my merchant?????? Oh, sorry chief, it was a warship.....;)

Anyway, I'm working on a blue crewman with renown and he seems to be getting better. I doubt this is GWX related as the deaf dumb and mute sonarman has been around a while. Patch 1.4 was to help with him but he is pretty much like Bernard...stupid.

Anyway, I work the HP and direct the boat as needed. Pretty easy actually.

I never said that it was GWX-related. I merely mentioned that to inform what the current version/platform of the game I was running.

I, too, sit in the hydrophone room and manually listen in. Howver, my question wasn't about differentiating between merchants and warships, or about detecting correct headings and bearings; it's regarding correctly indicating whether a contact is moving away, constant distance or closing.

Currently my sonarman will indicate the nearest contact as moving away even when it's 600 meters away and directly bearing down on me. And although I can manually listen in on the hydrophone, and detect the bearing of the sound contacts, I've no way of determining if said contact is moving away, constant distance or closing on my own just by listening to the sound.

This has never been an issue before (needing to correctly identify the direction the contact is moving) for me until now. By that, I mean evidently it hasn't effected what I've chosen to do. However, now that the escorts are being demoniac and diabolic ;) I find it rather important and critical to be able to properly --and correctly-- identify the direction the sound contact is moving.

Needless to say, it rather sucks to be told the nearest warship is moving slow, moving away when, in fact, it's steaming directly towards you.

The occassional 'not-heard' contact, or 'lost-and-not-redected' contact doesn't bother me (well, not much, anyway :p ) but being misinformed as to the direction of travel of the contact is upsetting my digestion a wee bit.

[Letum]

And although I can manually listen in on the hydrophone, and detect the bearing of the sound contacts, I've no way of determining if said contact is moving away, constant distance or closing on my own just by listening to the sound.

You have answered your own question there.
Working out which way the contact is moving is difficult. It is appropriate that the AI get it wrong a lot.

The best thing to do is to practice on the hydrophones your self until you can tell for your self which way it is going. :know:

Don't exspect the AI do be able to do it better than you can!

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

Don't exspect the AI do be able to do it better than you can!

Why not? I'm doggone sure my torpedomen do a better job of loading and maintaining torpedoes than I would manage to do! :p ;)

[AVGWarhawk]

I see Hesse. Yes, once I was attacking at night and my sonar dude was working for a change. I asked for the nearest warship and he kept telling me at 39 degrees. I knew for a fact that there was a warship at 180 degrees from me and damn close. Sonar dude keep hollering out 39 degrees. I thought he was nuts. Come to find out, there was a corvette at 39 degrees from me and I could not see it in the dark:o.

[FIREWALL]

Now MY SO is dumb. Has alot of experience and medals and all and tells
me no sound contact when I'm looking thru peri seeing a destroyer bearing down on me at 20 knts at 1200 mtrs headon. fortunately I fire a salvo at 500 mtrs and crash dive and turn hard prt or stb. what am I doing wrong with this guy?:hmm:

[AVGWarhawk]

Probably nothing, he sucks like my guy. I usually use the HP myself. Oh well, he has been an ongoing problem since inception of the game:cry:

[FIREWALL]

Probably nothing, he sucks like my guy. I usually use the HP myself. Oh well, he has been an ongoing problem since inception of the game:cry:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[AVGWarhawk]

OK, I have a hefty little blue dude running the phones. I upgraded in port and put super blue dude on the phones. He is pretty good now with the upgraded phone and his renown is good. Thus far tracked down two contacts, sunk same. Homeboy is getting medal if we hit port:o

[MobyGrape]

Don't forget those 180 contacts maybe hard to hear ..prop noise from your ship will mask that . I like to have the small scope up a little {a quick pop up}and looking at my 6 when i ask for closest reading/.:hmm:

[Corsair]

I think GWX models as well a front "dead angle" which means you will loose the contact if you head directly at it.

[AVGWarhawk]

What I find interesting, the little T outside the boat will spin as little blue dude works the phones. Once he is locked on,:up: the little T just tracks the contact and moves with it.

[Jimbuna]

Now MY SO is dumb. Has alot of experience and medals and all and tells
me no sound contact when I'm looking thru peri seeing a destroyer bearing down on me at 20 knts at 1200 mtrs headon. fortunately I fire a salvo at 500 mtrs and crash dive and turn hard prt or stb. what am I doing wrong with this guy?:hmm:

Try putting him in the tube instead of an eel :up: