hydrophone and thermal layers

[KptLtHansDampf]

First - Salute! to all of you. I am KptLt Hans Dampf, running SH3 1.4 with GWX 3.0, and I'm currently celebrating christmas eve of 1941 during my 22th patrol (appearantly I'm not using SH3 Commander yet, I learned about that program strolling through this great forum and I'm downloading it right now :) ).

While sitting north of Tanger west of the Strait of Gibraltar in my VII-C, at a depth of 80 metres, listening for the allied christmas gifts to come, a couple of questions come to my mind ...

1) Is there an "ideal" depth for listening with the hydrophone ? I imagine at stormy weather while at periscope depth you should not have the clearest audible range, but does that matter in SH3 with GWX ? If yes, what's your experiences with that circumstance ?

2) I'm used to SH4 where the crew announce the passing of a thermal layer, but obviously the german U-Boote in SH3 doesn't have the equipment to measure the water temperature while submerged. Is that similar to the real life UBoats during the war ? Will there any equipment available to check thermal layers during the SH3/GWX-campaign ?

3) Oh, and about SH3 Commander - will there be any problems if I use it during a running campaign ?


"Gute Jagd", comrades. :salute:

[papa_smurf]

Welcome aboard:salute:

1) Is there an "ideal" depth for listening with the hydrophone ? I imagine at stormy weather while at periscope depth you should not have the clearest audible range, but does that matter in SH3 with GWX ? If yes, what's your experiences with that circumstance ?

Not sure i there's an "ideal" depth, but I personally sit at around 25-30 meters.

2) I'm used to SH4 where the crew announce the passing of a thermal layer, but obviously the german U-Boote in SH3 doesn't have the equipment to measure the water temperature while submerged. Is that similar to the real life UBoats during the war ? Will there any equipment available to check thermal layers during the SH3/GWX-campaign ?

As far as I know, thermal layers are not implemented in GWX

3) Oh, and about SH3 Commander - will there be any problems if I use it during a running campaign ?


Nope, SH3 commander is built for running during campaigns, and many here can't live without it (although they wont admit to that).

Heres to a good hunt, and heres a small piece of advice:

BE MORE AGRESSIVE!:D

[Jimbuna]

Thermal layers are not to be found in GWX but when used in conjunction with SH3Commander the boats sensor qualities/effects are randomly altered by Commander to give that impression.

[Pisces]

First - Salute! to all of you. I am KptLt Hans Dampf, running SH3 1.4 with GWX 3.0, and I'm currently celebrating christmas eve of 1941 during my 22th patrol (appearantly I'm not using SH3 Commander yet, I learned about that program strolling through this great forum and I'm downloading it right now :) ).

While sitting north of Tanger west of the Strait of Gibraltar in my VII-C, at a depth of 80 metres, listening for the allied christmas gifts to come, a couple of questions come to my mind ...

1) Is there an "ideal" depth for listening with the hydrophone ? I imagine at stormy weather while at periscope depth you should not have the clearest audible range, but does that matter in SH3 with GWX ? If yes, what's your experiences with that circumstance ?

2) I'm used to SH4 where the crew announce the passing of a thermal layer, but obviously the german U-Boote in SH3 doesn't have the equipment to measure the water temperature while submerged. Is that similar to the real life UBoats during the war ? Will there any equipment available to check thermal layers during the SH3/GWX-campaign ?

3) Oh, and about SH3 Commander - will there be any problems if I use it during a running campaign ?


"Gute Jagd", comrades. :salute:1) Periscope depth is good enough. Make sure you up the volume button on the machine (lower right).

3) While still on Patrol I think so. But after you are back in port (homebase), so in between patrols, I think you're ok.

[flag4]

...i go down to 20-25 meters. this is only because i *sense* its right for me. i will guess that the closer you are to the surface the more disruption to sound there will be because of the movement of water. saying that i was picking up sound at 70 meters yesterday - and again the same contact at P.depth.

[desirableroasted]

It seems to me there is no advantage to depth when using the hydrophone. Even in stormy conditions, the sound guy finds all he is going to find at just periscope depth, and finds nothing more if we go deeper.

In fact, if I have a crack sound guy, he will find stuff while I am on the surface in stormy weather, just from the occasional immersion.

I also note there is no audible surface noise when I am wearing the headphones.... 15 m is as good as 50m.

[frau kaleun]

This certainly seems to be true in the game, anyway.

I still usually order a depth of at least 30m for a hydrophone check. Seems more realistic, if we ended up staying submerged any length of time I wouldn't hang around at p-depth if I wasn't actually using the scope.

[HW3]

I usually cruise at 50M. It makes it that much quicker to get deep if enemy destroyers show up and enemy planes can't see me that deep (probably not modded into the game anyway but, did happen on occasion in R/L).

[K-61]

U-boats did not have the indicator technology during WW2 to detect their transition through the thermal layer. As Jimbuna said, SH3 Cmdr models this to some extent, but you will never know for sure. In the game, any depth will do for listening on the hydrophones, but in real life they dove deeper than periscope depth in order to eliminate the surface clutter noise. I feel that running at about 25 metres is a good concession to real world factors. I would advise that you wait until you are back in port before adding new mods, including SH3 Cmdr. It may work alright, but why take a chance? Once you do have it installed, use it to launch your game and exit the game at the end of each career patrol so that it can make the necessary changes in your career files.

[frau kaleun]

Now that the war is progressing (I just made it to January 1941! Yay me! :DL) I'm trying to get in the habit of submerging every day for a couple hours around both sunrise and sunset, even in areas where I'm not expecting to be surprised by too much of anything. When I do that, or submerge for an extended period of time due to weather/visibility, I'll go deeper. Usually 40-50 meters down, for cruising submerged. If it's just a quick dip to check the 'phones, I figure 30m is plenty realistic... altho I'm pretty sure that in the game the sonar kicks in any time you register a depth of 10m or more. I've gotten contact reports from my sonar dude while running on the surface in very heavy seas... any time we dip downward enough and have a sufficiently big wave wash over, just for an instant we'll be pushed deep enough to count as submerged and suddenly Funkmeister Helmut is telling me he hears something.

I try not to listen but, golly, that "feature" sure does come in handy sometimes. :D

[frau kaleun]

Once you do have it installed, use it to launch your game and exit the game at the end of each career patrol so that it can make the necessary changes in your career files.

Plus if you don't do this you won't be able to compile and submit all your post-patrol paperwork. Bad Kaleun! BdU spank! :D

[HW3]

Bad Kaleun! BdU spank! :D

:har::har::har:

[KptLtHansDampf]

Thanks for your responses.
Considering your answers I will continue creeping around a depth of 30m to 50m, just for immersion and upholding a reasonably realistic style of "playing" SH3.

SH3 Commander and the GWX Config Files working great so far.
I decided to retire KptLt Hans Dampf after the next patrol, I think over 500 days on highs seas is more than enough in two years :doh: , he pushed his luck more than once, sometimes I don't know how I managed to emerge (almost) unscathed from some "situations".
Thanks to SH3Commander I will continue the campaign as Oberleutnant Adolf Kessler, he's my WO and I think he's ready to lead his "own" Uboat :03: :salute:

[Jimbuna]

Thanks for your responses.
Considering your answers I will continue creeping around a depth of 30m to 50m, just for immersion and upholding a reasonably realistic style of "playing" SH3.

SH3 Commander and the GWX Config Files working great so far.
I decided to retire KptLt Hans Dampf after the next patrol, I think over 500 days on highs seas is more than enough in two years :doh: , he pushed his luck more than once, sometimes I don't know how I managed to emerge (almost) unscathed from some "situations".
Thanks to SH3Commander I will continue the campaign as Oberleutnant Adolf Kessler, he's my WO and I think he's ready to lead his "own" Uboat :03: :salute:

SINK EM ALL!! http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/pirate.gif

[K-61]

Is there a way to promote a crewman to command a U-boat and then continue with him as your Kaleun in a new career?

[frau kaleun]

I've wondered the same thing... I suspect the only way it could be done is to end your current career, and start a new one in Commander and use your old 1WO's name as the name of your new kaleun. You could choose the same flotilla, the same boat number, and a start date that would make it look like you transferred out and he took over the boat. But I think you would start out with a whole new crew for the new kaleun, I don't think there's any way to rollover the crew you had.

Altho I wonder if it's possible to manually edit your existing career files to change the kaleun's name for that career to the 1WO's name? Oh but then he wouldn't be starting out a new command with patrol 1, he'd just "inherit" the previous kaleun's history. So that wouldn't work. :hmmm:

Edit: just popped into my head that even with example #1 above, your old 1WO would lose his rank when you started a career with him as a commander (assuming he was an Obtlt - he'd be "demoted" back to the default starting rank of Lt). He'd also lose all the awards he'd earned serving under you (or that he had when he joined your crew). Those you could give back to him by manually editing his career files after the first patrol but his personnel file would show that he earned them all at the same time, i.e. after completing his first patrol as a commander of your old boat. Which would kind of kill the realism angle for me even more than the entire existing crew being replaced.

[Draka]

Actually, it is really easy to transfer the old crew into the new boat. Especially with SH3Cmdr ... And it is also fairly easy to edit the career files so as to show a true progression from Seekadet to his current rank - including those he "earned" under ya'll. Ditto for awards - many threads on here on customizing said files.

[desirableroasted]

Actually, it is really easy to transfer the old crew into the new boat. Especially with SH3Cmdr ... And it is also fairly easy to edit the career files so as to show a true progression from Seekadet to his current rank - including those he "earned" under ya'll. Ditto for awards - many threads on here on customizing said files.

All true, but I understood the question to be completely different:

I have a career under a skipper named Adelbert Ames. SH3C retires him,

His 1WO is Bob Bumpkis.

How can I promote Bob and give Bob the same boat and crew?

[KptLtHansDampf]

I've wondered the same thing... I suspect the only way it could be done is to end your current career, and start a new one in Commander and use your old 1WO's name as the name of your new kaleun. You could choose the same flotilla, the same boat number, and a start date that would make it look like you transferred out and he took over the boat. But I think you would start out with a whole new crew for the new kaleun, I don't think there's any way to rollover the crew you had.

That's exactly the way I did it :) Apart from the boat number, my Ex-WO Kessler is now in command of a brand new VII-C.

[edit]A "promote an existing officer"-feature would be great, but SH3 Commander doesn't offer that so it's all imagination :)

[frau kaleun]

I'm wondering now, though, how often it was that an 1WO would be given immediate command of the boat he's already on when the existing commander retires or is transferred ashore... didn't an officer getting ready to take his first command have to go ashore for additional "commander training" first? If so, it seems unlikely that a boat and its already experienced crew would be held in base just to wait on a new commander to do that and come back to take over.

Or was the necessary commander-specific training already completed at some earlier point in a line officer's career? I don't know why I've got it in my head that an officer who was ready for a command had to go ashore for additional training before being assigned his own boat.

[Schwieger]

I'm wondering now, though, how often it was that an 1WO would be given immediate command of the boat he's already on when the existing commander retires or is transferred ashore... didn't an officer getting ready to take his first command have to go ashore for additional "commander training" first? If so, it seems unlikely that a boat and its already experienced crew would be held in base just to wait on a new commander to do that and come back to take over.

Or was the necessary commander-specific training already completed at some earlier point in a line officer's career? I don't know why I've got it in my head that an officer who was ready for a command had to go ashore for additional training before being assigned his own boat.

I'd go with your second option. Also the 1WO would have had some experience observing the previous command so probably would know how to do a lot of the stuff he did.

[KptLtHansDampf]

A "Baubelehrung" (Final stage of construction accompanied by future crew members to introduce them to technical details, equipment etc.) of a new UBoat took 4-8 weeks, usually 3-6 months before the boat moves out for the first patrol.
Since my ex-WO is pretty familiar with a Type VII-C I guess he doesn't have to attend the whole "Baubelehrung" ;)

But how this was handled in real life back then - I 'm not quite sure about that.
Maybe I should browse through the profiles/biographies of some UBoat-Commanders to check this.

[edit] In the case of "Engelbert Endrass" - he was 2WO on U-29 from October 1937 to January 1938, after that 1WO on U-47 from December 1938 until January 1940, then taking command of U-46 (VII-B) from May 1940 until September 1941. Finally he take command on U-567 (VII-C) from October 1941 until U-567 was lost NE of the Azores in December 1941.
[edit2] "Hansjürgen Hellriegel" was 2WO on U-46 from December 1939 to March 1941 before he took command over U-140 in April 1941.
I guess an immediate detachment as a Cdr of an UBoat was pretty usual for experienced 1WOs oder 2WOs.

[frau kaleun]

From u-boat.net's article on u-boat commander training:


4. The usual way during the war
Here is shown the most common way during the war. However, here were a lot of deviations depending on different facts, like the up-to-now-career of the officers and the phase of war.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4148/5058259641_2d8125f538_b.jpg


This shows a SOP of having a prospective commander spend several weeks with a training flotilla specifically preparing for his command, after doing his time as a frontboot WO but before being given his own boat.

In Neither Sharks Nor Wolves, author Mulligan refers to this "Commanders' Course" as being the final stop on a line officer's career trajectory from receiving his commission to taking his first command, after completion of which

the graduate advanced to command of his own submarine, relieving a front-line commander (especially true for an experienced watch officer), taking over a training u-boat, or - most commonly - receiving a new submarine.

As noted at u-boat.net the step-by-step process of going from cadet to commander might vary depending on the circumstances, but these sources at least do seem to indicate that accepted SOP was for even an experienced WO to return to a training flotilla for specialized commander training prior to getting his own boat... which makes it seem unlikely that it was common procedure for a boat to just be turned over to its existing 1WO when the current commander was taken off the front line (cases of death or incapacity in combat notwithstanding).