question regarding radar (I've never used it!) :hmmm:

[gazpode_l]

OK I am using radar for the first time in any of my campaigns. I have become aware of a warship, dead ahead of me, at a range of around 6000m. I want to try and look to see if it appears on Radar. Getting the AI crew to scan for it, I find nothing. When I do a focus scan, I can't tell (at the moment) what direction my scanning heads are looking.

I notice the scanning wheel at the bottom of the screen but the graphics appear low quality. I dont think my lappie is capable of running the higher end graphics at reasonable speed, especially as I cannot use bridge view much due to the horizon slow-down problem.

Any help welcome/appreciated.

[maillemaker]

I've never figured out how to use the radar manually.

My crewman will, however, on occasion detect things via radar.

But really, I find the radar pretty useless. By the time of the war when you get it, you will also have radar warning, and that is far more useful because it basically gives you direction and range to your target much farther away than your own radar works, and it does not give away your position.

The other problem with radar is every time a wave hits the conning tower the radar shuts off. Which means with time compression the radar is turning itself off every half a second.

[vanjast]

AFAIR the radar only scans -+10 degrees in front of the sub, so you have to steer your sub to maintain contact.

[maillemaker]

AFAIR the radar only scans -+10 degrees in front of the sub, so you have to steer your sub to maintain contact.

This is true for the array mounted on the front of the conning tower. But the later "flyswatter" type array that rotates through 360 degrees does not have that problem.

Steve

[PapaKilo]

In my experience radar is always useles against aircrafts. It simply doesn't detect them.

[flag4]

...never got that far...:o

[PapaKilo]

...never got that far...:o

You mean like Sailor Steve who never passes past 1940 ? :haha:

[Sailor Steve]

You mean like Sailor Steve who never passes past 1940 ? :haha:
Is that a problem?

[PapaKilo]

Is that a problem?

No, I think it's a funny joke =]

[Sailor Steve]

Sorry. I just failed to see why you felt compelled to bring my name into it. Maybe it's infatuation.

[PapaKilo]

:haha: Sorry. That chicken avatar guy made me remember your funny weirdnessis again :rotfl2:

[Sailor Steve]

You know about my funny weirdneses because I'm willing to talk about them.

I've found that it's far better to make fun of one's self than of others.

[PapaKilo]

You know about my funny weirdneses because I'm willing to talk about them.

I've found that it's far better to make fun of one's self than of others.

I feel ugly to continue this useless nonsences with you, but you know how it is in RL. When you have nothing to laugh at, you start to make fun of yourself :haha: Thank you Steve for your existence :up:

[Sailor Steve]

I feel ugly to continue this useless nonsences with you, but you know how it is in RL. When you have nothing to laugh at, you start to make fun of yourself :haha: Thank you Steve for your existence :up:
Conversely, when you have nothing that makes your life worthwhile, you are driven by the need to demean others.

Or, as I've observed before, if you can't laugh at yourself you have no business laughing at anyone else. :sunny:

[PapaKilo]

Since I'm no longer in condition to tell which statement is wrong or right ATM. I can only hug my old "enemy" Steve and wish everyone a light tomorrow morning of which I will be missing I guess :haha:

[Sailor Steve]

Thank you for that. I'm not sure why you ever regarded me as an enemy in the first place. I hope my recent responses to some of your posts show that when I agree with you on something I say so. I do have my foibles, but I don't hate anybody. :sunny:

[Obltn Strand]

I've found that it's far better to make fun of one's self than of others.
Best kind of comedy IMO. Politicians and celebrities with nothing to contribute are exception.

[PapaKilo]

Thank you for that. I'm not sure why you ever regarded me as an enemy in the first place.

the word <enemy> is in quotation-marks. :haha: This means this do not count for taking serious :)

[Sailor Steve]

Fair enough.

[PapaKilo]

Fair enough.

You sound cold. show some ingenious understanding pls. :shucks:

I know your looks are suspicious towards me, but ATM they are too

complexed believe me =]

[Sailor Steve]

You sound cold.
No, not cold. Sometimes I'm not sure what to say that won't be taken the wrong way. At times like those I tend to clam up and not say anything. Another of my funny weirdnesses, I suppose. :cool:

[PapaKilo]

No, not cold. Sometimes I'm not sure what to say that won't be taken the wrong way. At times like those I tend to clam up and not say anything. Another of my funny weirdnesses, I suppose. :cool:

Well I can assure you, you're always good with silence! :) However we're acting here like we are from different planets on some topics =] Today I might sound nice because I had 8 bottles of beer and I think I'm about to meet the bottom. I just wanted to tell you this Steve. The brig times I'm getting for the conflicts with you has no impact to my attitude in this forum. I am what I am, I can share my knowledge, experience, the fun and dissapointment all together. I'm not the better or worse along the other members. I just know what I say or how the questions I raise :)

[Kip Chiakopf]

Any chance we could get back on topic and talk about using radar?

[Osmium Steele]

Any chance we could get back on topic and talk about using radar?


Sure.

DON'T!

[trolleyguy]

Yes, back to the topic of the use of radar in Sh3. Any new input?

I will admit that once, just once, I did see a blip or short line on the radar screen and I think it was for aircraft.

I am using the later radar models.

Thanks in advance for any positive responses.


trolleyguy
Steel Sharks League

[brett25]

how long does papakilo have to stay in the brig? whats a typical brig sentance anyway?

[Captain Nemo]

Only had radar once (the one stuck on the front of the conning tower) and had to use it manually to detect anything. My crewmen didn't call out contacts.

Nemo

[David I]

I find radar very useful at night and in the rain. I play GWX and get sightings reported by the radio man. The really nice thing about it is that it will give you a ship icon on your map so that you can see it's exact path of travel, even though you do not have a visual. You can then plot an intercept course, get in close to the path of travel and wait. Pretty soon out of the murk comes your next victim.

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/963/medtankerspottedbyradar.jpg

[zygoma]

I've had some luck with the steerable bedspring array on the front of the sail (can't remember its nomenclature, it's like the third radar available). There's usually too much other stuff going on in the boat (like micromanaging Bernard and Helmut when they want to take naps thirty minutes after showing up for their watch......
However, once the RO does call out a surface contact, I like to go to his display, and even with the low res graphics (I've got a very nice graphics card and monitor) stuff is still blurry on the bearing indicator of the radar azimuth wheel, only slightly worse than the hydrophone's dial. But ... once he's called out the bearing, what I do, because the scan rate is so slow in normal time, is to slow the boat to either slow or stopped, look at the display, and turn up the time compression to max (32 at other than the map display). The blip will show up often enough with the wheel spinning that fast that you can get used to seeing what it looks like...a strong return is wider..... and you can turn off the automatic scan and go to manual, it's the switch second from the bottom on the lower right of the console. I return the TC to "1" now so I have better control of the turn rate of the wheel. Put the cursor on the wheel, either left or right of center, far enough that the cursor turns red, and hold left-click until you see the blip appear. It'll go off right away as you pass its bearing, so you un-click, move to the other direction, and left-click again and look for the blip to appear. A nice thing is that there's an early electro-mechanical range indicator in the lower left corner of the console, and while the blip is illuminated, the range will show up in the little numbered wheels. It's easy to miss, and of course if either the boat or the target is turning at all, it can take a light touch and lots of patience to get the display to calm down enough to persist on the screen long enough to read the range display.
Even if the Radio Officer has given you a bearing to the target, the combination of your motion, the target's motion, and the lack of a fine tuning/very slow turn option can make it monstrously difficult to get a reading. What *is* nice is that you can tell the relative size (or aspect) of a target by its width from the center "zero" line. Height above the bottom is range, with two scales; the lowest switch on the right selects which scale to read off of, and it's easier than trying to freeze the display and move your eyes to the number wheel indicator. And the numbers on the wheel are so blurry, I'm usually lucky to tell when the bearing numbers change from the 200s to the 300s, or more easily when it goes back to low numbers. Width of the blip is relative to the signal strength of your reflected radar signal off the target. So a tug boat that you've got an AOB of 90 degrees may be presenting the same effective surface area as a cruiser approaching you with an AOB of 5 degrees.
I haven't had any luck identifying aircraft with the radar. Part of the way the systems have as much efficiency is by focusing the signal as narrowly as possible to make the best use of whatever energy is coming back in, and to deliver the maximum outbound signal strength. There are two planes of signal to worry about: vertical and horizontal. The narrower the horizontal beam is, the more precise the bearing can be. And focusing the vertical component towards the horizon, rather than having a lot of it going up into the sky, further concentrates the signal. So an aircraft sufficiently far away may be close enough to the horizon to be "noticed" by the boat's radar, but disappear once they're close enough so their angle above the horizon is out of the beam pattern. And of course, unless they're going to drop a torpedo towards you, they'll probably be pretty high overhead when it's bomb/strafe time.
As has previously been noted, the Radar Warning Indicator is probably going to give you the best notice that you're within radar distance of *somebody*. VHF and UHF radar is very nearly line-of-sight, so the higher you are, the farther your horizon is. Our boats' antennas are pretty close to the water; the ones on surface warships (and aircraft in flight) are obviously higher, and our Radar Detector can hear (ideally) signals that are only strong enough to reach us, but not strong enough to reflect off of us and back to the units that sent them.
Unless I'm bored and have a nice sea state and want to risk that it's only one or two PBYs or Sunderlands to try and shoot down, I usually slip under the surface as soon as I get told of a received radar signal, then use the hydrophone to see if it was possibly coming from a surface vessel, then choose whether to attack or hide. If I *don't* hear anything on the hydrophone, I assume it was aircraft, and I go sit at depth for awhile and get on about my route. After a few minutes I may pop up far enough to use my observation periscope to look for the birds whose wings don't seem to flap (I've about mussed my britches a few times by what turned out to be seagulls). If sky seems clear, I raise die Schnorkel and see if my threat indicator darkens, and plan from there.
Hope that helps some with the radar stuff. In one of my careers from which I'm partly retired, I maintain two-way radio equipment and shipboard radar, as well as police radar, etc. For a long time......and I insist that "real radios glow in the dark" :)
diddly dahdidah
Zygoma
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