There is no change in shipping frequency from 2.1
As posted above dive and do regular sound checks

I would say over 70% of my targets are picked up as sound contacts

My old rig was P4 3.0
XFX 7600gt 512mb AGP
2gb ram

Played 2.1 and Sh4 1.5 all at max no probs.

Hydrophones are key to Gold...

The main thing is to keep your TC lower than 256x when in your hunting mode. i normally bump TC up when more than a couple of hundred NM from land but when near Britain or the coast always cruise at 128x. I normally dive for a sound check twice daily when cruising and on the end of every long leg of a search pattern this gives me a 90deg turn which gives my hydrophones 360deg coverage.

You can even do this at 128x TC which I've found works effectively to pick up contacts. I almost never go sprinting after radio map contacts unless they are within a 180km radius of my boat.

So where do you usualy patrol? some areas arnt merchant rich like others. (try around the lower portion of the eastern side of britian, Ive seen Large amounts of Tommy tonnage.:up: (Most comeing out of the channel.):yep:

Between Ireland and Britain is supposed to be full up, or so I hear. I've also run into several convoys southwest of Britain. (Grid BF27 or so)

Early war there are easy pickings if you run east/west across the top end of Scotland and slip between the mainland and the Shetland Is.

The Western Approaches are always good in particular close to the the northern and Southern approaches to the Irish Sea. All shipping coming to Britain from across the Atlantic needs to come through these channels so hanging in deep water near the approaches works well.

You can also find plenty of smaller targets closer to the East coast of Britain running North South.

Mostly you should find single merchants and I've seen sizes ranging from small coastal craft (trawlers and yachts) up to 7k or 8k tonners.

Oct 39. Ran out of torps going halfway thru the Channel. 15,000 tons :D

This is at 100% realism No deck gun.

The channel... :o Shallow waters and no room to manuever, enough to give the bravest Kaleun nightmares.

The Channel is pretty tame in '39. I've even sailed up the Thames to Southend, docked at the pier, had a pint in the Borough and played the slots before heading back to the North Sea for some targets.:lol:

I've spent entire patrols infiltrating every port in the Channel, most of them are shakedowns. :D

As for the wartime, I've done it without sinking 5 times in '39, 2 times in '40 none in '41, '42, '43, and somehow, 1 in '44. Southampton is hell, just let me tell you that.

LOL! :D

Running into visual range with a ship is very much dependant on the weather/fog at that moment. It could be they simply went past unnoticed. If the weather was bad visibility could be as bad as 1km or if moderate 8km. That significantly reduces your chances.

Hydrophone is not hampered by that (maybe your crew's effectiveness in detecting is). If you listen yourself you can pick up anything within 34km radius (18.4 nm). That means you get 17 times more surface area of maritime real-estate over the 8km stock unlimmited visual range circle (=(34^2-8^2)/8^2). But only 3.5 more for 16km vis, still not bad. The trouble is you need to dive each time, and kick that lazy watchofficer back up in the end.

The interval depends on the size of the area (talked about later) and the relative speed with which the target crosses your hydrophone coverage, so your own cruising speed and the probable target speed and approach to you. If both you and the target are head-to-head add his (possible) speed to yours. If moving in the same direction take the difference. If perpendicular the Pythagoras equation should be used. The head-to-head situation is the quickest to cross the coverage area so also the determining factor.

Assuming your crew reports everything that comes into visual range immediately, the closest distance of the target-track to your visual range edge determines the interval to listen. The 'maximum' interval to choose depends on how lucky you (think you) are to get a target that crosses your path just outside maximum visual range. Have a look at the below sketch:
http://ricojansen.nl/image/hydro_track.gif
The drawn target-track is the most lucky one, just ouside visual range. (direct visual is ofcourse even better: automatic detection by crew) If you are unlucky the target just crosses the outer area of your hydrophone range and so the traverse time could potentially be very short, requiring constant listening. The question comes down to how certain you are of being on a hot traffic-lane. If you think you are on top of the traffic-lane you can use the track-lengths in the image. If not, make a conservative reduction of the time interval we will calculate below.

If you want to catch a target atleast once during his passage through your hydrophone coverage the interval is simply the tracklength (in nm), divided by the relative speed (in knots).

Taking the most extreme case of merchant (medium) speed: 12kts
and uboot cruise speed (i.e. type 7) 8kts
head-2-head relative speed: 20 knots

track outside of 16km visibility: 32.4nm; transit_time=32.4/20= 1.62 hours= 97min

track outside of 8km visibility: 35.7nm; transit_time=35.7/20= 1.785 hours= 107min

track outside of 1km/no visibility: 36.6nm; transit_time=36.6/20= 1.83 hours= 109min

So at the very most do your hydrophone drill every 1.5 hours or 90 mins to make sure a nearby medium speed target has the least chance of escaping your attention.

If you are only interested in head-2-head with slow targets (<8kts) you can do with maximum interval being just under 2 hours. (8+8=16kts , 32.4nm/16kts= 121min)

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Aside from that knowledge, I have increased the radius in which map-contactreports can be displayed, from 200-ish to 600km. This means more (distant) contact but not neccesarilly more often (since that is probability driven). So I have more chance to decide for myself if I want to chase them, instead of BdU making it for me. If I cannot be on their central course before they have moved 175km along it (at upper limit of their speed range), I forgo the intercept. At that distance the possible positions due to course uncertainty starts to extend beyond your hydrophone coverage. This way I OWN THEM. :arrgh!:

good post, Pisces. :up:

Speaking of the empty seas, since I instaled GWX 3, I can hardly reach my patrol area before spending all eels. Usualy spend them all in the BF grid. Patrols last up to a week, average tonnage 50000+ tons. :D

Chicken!




:lol:

A few points, most of them already covered to varying degrees:

TC: I never hunt at more than 128x. If I'm in transit through an area with a reasonable chance of contact, or aircraft, I do so at no more than 256x.

Unless the visibility is unrestricted, I spend a lot of time submerged if hunting. If you set your speed manually to 1knt you can stay under until you reach 50% on the O2 guage without depleting your battery to any extent. Throw in some course changes of 60 degrees here and there to avoid a fixed blindspot arc in your hunt area. With half decent crew member on hydrophone, nothing much will get past you. It also removes the issue of aircraft for much of your hunting.

The other benefit to this is you use very little in the way of fuel - people posting that they struggle with fuel on a 'normal' patrol simply must be burning it up running around with to no real purpose. My rule is this: if I've nowhere to go, I run at low speed if on the surface. You can easily spend 12-18hrs submerged at 1knt and then recharge the battery in a matter of hours. Even if you don't recharge, you'll still have 90%+ of capacity after such a period submerged. The only thing that drives me to the surface is O2.

IF the system allowed you to spot smoke on horizon, etc, then there would be more reaon for being on the surface (fact is the smoke from a convoy could be seen well over the horizon vs. the ships themselves).

Cheers