Type IX-D, 1943 - and my active sonar disappears?!?

[bsalyers]

S.O.S...
I'm in my big-@ssed Type IX-D, heading west in late 1943 to participate in Operation Drumbeat, and I get a message that there's a large convoy sailing due east just a short jog south of me. I run down to wait for the fun, and sure enough, my sonar man tells me he detects a lot of screws in the water. As they get closer, I go to hit the icon to ask for an approximate distance - and it's grayed-out.
:o
Then I notice the "sende" button is missing from the console! I've had active sonar in every boat for a few years now. Anyone know what gives?
I'm running the latest patch. I did load the game from SH3 Commander, though; could that have caused it?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, and TIA.

[CCIP]

The latest patch. In fact very few u-boats had sonar historically, so the patch removed the 'default' sonar from all boats (except the XXI, I guess).

If you want sonar, "buy" it in your upgrades, it's the S-Gerat device.

[bsalyers]

Thanks, CCIP. That's very enlightening.
You know, that's actually pretty annoying. That should be made very clear before you do the update.
I may go back and reload my in-base save, so I can use my extra renown to re-acquire my S-Gerat, rather than wasting it on those spiffy new torpedoes.
:damn:

[Floater]

Take comfort in the fact that, for very good reasons, U-boats and other nations' submarines very rarely made use of active sonar. Every ping was, in effect, a call to nearby warships, saying "I'm over here, come and get me".

[Torplexed]

So true. Active radar and sonar have been compared to wielding a flashlight in a dark room full of people with guns trying to kill you. You might see one of them. They'll certainly ALL see you. Wasn't too big a concern for the Allies during the war as they usually had the technological edge in radar and sonar sets, and the Japanese and Germans were slow to catch up in electronic detection devices. But that's why passive sensors become so popular in the postwar era.

[bsalyers]

Yeah, I knew that in the real world, active sonar was a calling card of sorts.

I thought in the world of SHIII, it went something like this:
there are two buttons you can access under your hydrophone station to get information on the range to a contact. It is reasonable to assume that these do different things, as not only are their icons different, but it also stands to reason that if they did exactly the same thing, there would only be one button. If you press the one on the left, you are given the approximate range to the contact; if you press the one on the right, you get the precise range. Since "pinging" a contact gives a pretty accurate picture of where that vessel is (it is how the DDs find us, after all), I assumed that the button that resulted in precise range must be the equivalent of ordering your sonar operator to "ping" the ship. I thought the most likely explanation for the other button, then, was that (since it only resulted in approximate range) it was like the captain saying, "Hey, Mr. highly-decorated hydrophone operator with years of combat experience, what's your best-guess on how far away that contact is?"
Couple this idea with the fact that I have asked for and received approximate range to contacts without giving away my position many times before, and you can see where my confusion is understandable.
No matter; I sank ships before I had active sonar - I'll sink them now that it's gone away.
Thanks for all your replies.