Sub Range Question in TMO

[banjo]

It is mid 1942 and I am in a Narwhal. I noticed when I have 3/4 fuel its says my range at Standard setting is 23,300. Can this be right? Seems like a lot.

[Quillan]

I don't know what the true figures are. However, Ducimus did adjust things in TMO so that Ahead Standard gives you the most fuel efficient surface speed for your boat.

[banjo]

Yup, copied that. Just thought 23k seemed a like lot.

[Ducimus]

Sources seem to vary about the Narwhals range. However, keep in mind that the Narwhal is built on the "U-cruiser" concept. The real Narwhal is MUCH bigger then the pseudo Narwhal you see in game.

As ranges go, sources vary.

According to Navsource.org:

The Narwhal has 182,778 gallons of fuel.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08167a.htm

By way of comparision, a Gato class has 97,140 gallons of fuel
http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08212a.htm

So it has nearly twice the fuel.

And then fleetsubmarine.com lists its range at 25,000
http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/narwhal-class.html

While i am skeptical of these figures to some degree, i figured for gameplay reasons, id just go ahead and use a figure of 23,000 since the missions for that boat will send it all over the damn theater, and you could make better time by running at a faster speed then 10 kts if you wanted to. You'll burn more fuel, but you also have more fuel to burn.

[banjo]

Okay, thanks. Sounds good to me. Now if the thing just had 4 stern tubes. ;)

[tomoose]

I was playing the other day and set my course to Midway for the usual refuelling en route to my patrol station. I'd plotted in my course from Pearl to Midway to Okinawa. I put the TC on and subsequently got distracted so that when I got back to my screen I found the "refuel/rearm?" screen prompt but my sub, because of TC, was well past Midway and well on it's way to the Okinawa area. So when I clicked on "refuel/rearm" I got the filled tank well after Midway thereby saving a large dose of fuel if you see what I mean. I didn't intend it this way but I guess it's a wee bit of a cheat to save fuel. At least that was my perception, can anybody else verify this or did I misperceive what happened?

[Fincuan]

When talking about ranges it's important to remember that this (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134939&highlight=range) is also true in SH4, which means that the boats' max ranges should be much longer ingame than what they were historically. I'm not sure if the numbers are exactly the same in SH4, but the principle is.

edit: Further supporting notes from Pablo, posted at the Lair:

Regarding the question of U-boat ranges, here are some potentially useful comparisons between the real world and the world as it is modeled in Silent Hunter III:
The surface area of the earth
Real life: ~510 million square kilometers (km^2).

SH3: ~933 million km^2 (180° N-S x 360° E-W x 14400 km^2/deg^2)
Distance per degree of longitude at 5° N/S latitude (Penang/Jakarta)
Real world: ~111 km

SH3: 120 km
Distance per degree of longitude at 45° N/S latitude (La Spezia)
Real world: ~79 km

SH3 World: 120 km
Distance per degree of longitude at 63° N/S latitude (Trondheim)
Real world: ~50 km

SH3 World: 120 km
Distance per degree of longitude at 74° N/S latitude (Svalbard)
Real world: ~31 km

SH3 World: 120 km
Distance per degree of latitude (all latitudes)
Real world: ~111 km

SH3 World: 120 km
The complicating game factors are:
Almost all of the gameplay in SH3/GWX occurs between 74°N latitude (Svalbard) and about 40°S latitude (Cape Town, South Africa; Melbourne, Australia)
U-boat bases can be found from near the equator (Penang) to over 60 degrees N latitude (Trondheim).
Silent Hunter III entails a lot of east-west sailing as well as north-south, so I don't think we should base range changes solely on the effect of changing latitude.
I suggest basing the new range on the extent to which the SH3 world is larger than the real world at the point where the U-boats are operating, as follows:

SH3: the distance from Point "A" to Point "B" is always square root of (120^2 + 120^2), or about ~170km by the Pythagorean Theorem.

Real: distance obtained from "Latitude/Longitude Distance Calculator," http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gccalc.shtml

Case 1: 45°N latitude (La Spezia)
Real life: the distance from Point "A" to Point "B" is ~136 km

The "SH3:Real" ratio is 170:136, or about 1.25:1
Case 2: 54°N latitude (Kiel)
Real life: the distance from Point "A" to Point "B" is ~128 km

The "SH3:Real" ratio is 170:128, or about 1.33:1.
Case 3: 63°N latitude (Trondheim)
Real life: the distance from Point "A" to Point "B" is ~122 km

The "SH3:Real" ratio is 170:122, or about 1.39:1

[LukeFF]

Norman Friedman gives the max range of the Narwhal in his book as 18,000 miles at 10 knots.