British Radar

[Kip336]

Small question

It's January 31, 1941 in my savegame. I just attacked a convoy, and got chased away after sinking 2 ships for 14,000GRT.

Now I lost contact, and im trying to re-establish contact. I keep seeing torpedo boats, with a lot of antennas.

The destroyers that chased me away had a matrass like (Sort of like the Uboat radar on the turm) in their masts.

Is that their radar, and should I be scared of the effectiveness?
Also, I got a contact report of a warship not far away from me, and there was a dotted circle around it, about 20km to either side. What's this mean?

[Olsin]

I'm not sure about the 1st part of your post but the second concerning the dotted circle you can see on the map when you've zoomed down to one of the close up resolutions represents the ships horizonal view....Under perfect conditions the ship - not just destroyers but most all ships have horizonal borders - will be able to see out to that distance.
You may notice that if you cross the dotted line your stealth meter will start to lose it's bright green look indicating that you are "potentially" coming in range and becoming visible.....although 20km you say...hmm....i presume then that would be it's radar coverage...not sure if the human eye can see detail at 20 k's even with bino's....

[Kip336]

I wouldn't know about the steal meter, it's turned off for me. I'll dig some more into what the dotted line means. I never see it around convoy contact reports from BDU, this was a ship specific report
"Warship, moving west, 8 knots."

On a normal day, the horizon is at about 20-25km away I once learned. Everything further away then that will appear "below" the horizon. With good binoculars you still should be able to estimate a ship's size pretty well

[Olsin]

My chart shows that you've got to be approx 45 meters above sea level to be able to see a horizon at 25 kms..and considering most destroyers had a short draft of only 2-4 meters, it seems unlikely to me that the remaining 40 odd meters would be above water....I'm sure the bridge height of ww2 destroyers was no where near 45 meters....
So i'll stick with my first guess that that dotted circle around single destroyers represents radar coverage......especially when it's out as far as you mentioned.

And yeh...your'e right....now i think about it i've never noticed that dotted circle around convoy contacts or even when i come across 2 merchants sailing in a line....Just single contacts..

Edit:...No, wait a minute....yeh...you do see dotted lines around convoy contacts .. but only the escorts....you'll see an outer ring and depending on escort type also inner rings representing i should imagine asdic coverage.....You'll also usually see an area marked with dotted lines aft of the boat representing the asdic "blind zone"..

[Kip336]

Aye, when you have map contacts on, you see their sonar, and their asdic coverage.

Again though, I have map contacts off. I plot everything by hand on a RL piece of paper. I saw the dotted circle when I got a radio contact report for a warship sailing close by.

Later, it turned out to be an torpedo boat.



EDIT;

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b128/ironeagle101/th_SH3Img16-6-2011_19732_424.jpg (http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b128/ironeagle101/?action=view&current=SH3Img16-6-2011_19732_424.jpg)

Image shows my problem. Happened again after a crash and a savegame

[Olsin]

Ahh...gotcha...well, sh3 isn't the most stable of platforms...i often experience bugs and quirks..mods that are unloaded sometimes still coming through and frozen weather patterns are the most common for me, although i'm sure you've read of other bugs and problems....Don't you think it could probably be something like that...changed anything lately?

Incidently...i've got to ask you.....is a real life piece of paper still a piece of paper if i forget to call it "real life"?..:up:

[Kip336]

Hm, I don't think its a bug.

And about the paper - it could also be a virtual piece of paper :P

[Tinman764]

I was under the impression the the outer set of dotted lines marked the range of the hydrophones of the ship.. could be wrong though not 100% sure.