Metric all the way. :smug:
Imperial system is obsolete, complicated and an aberrant anachronism. :shifty:

Feet should be used since that was the system used by the U.S Naval forces.

With the metric system in SHIII I didint have a problem since I just memroized waht depths are imporent(ex 14m for perscope, 200m for DC doging) Seth yould could do the same. Memorize that 64 feet is P depth and so on.

No thoes 14 areas where only used for "Empire areas" .

I believe that using the "high scope" lookout while surfaced in SHI was supposed to extend your visibilty - or so people on the forums used to think. Don't know why the Germans would not have used this technique, but you never seem to hear of it...

Regarding metric/imperial: Nautical miles are used for navigation regardless of which system you employ. That is because the length of a nautical mile is derived backwards from the size of the globe and the use of 180 degrees east/west of the meridian on charts. To change this to km (or any other unit of measure) would require throwing out all of the traditional charting and navigational systems. In other words, a "nautical mile" does not really belong to any traditional system of weights and measurements - it is a byproduct of the mathematical decision to assign 360 degrees to a circle. Remember that an Imperial "land mile" is NOT the same distance as a nautical mile (NM).

For instance, I am a Canadian who sails on the Great Lakes. A US chart of the lakes will show depths in feet, and a Canadian "metric" one shows depth in meters - but distances on both charts are calculated in nautical miles.

This is why aviators of all countries use knots to talk about airspeed - they need to use NM for navigational purposes, for the same reasons mariners do. (Just to clarify, "knot" = 1 NM/hour).

None of this matters in-game of course (unless SHIV models real-world navigation in some way), but that's the way it is in real life... I was always perplexed by the use of kilometres to measure distance on the chart in SHIII. I suspect it is not historically accurate - you would just be doing conversions to NM all the time. If the German navy really had some oddball "metric" system of navigation (which I highly doubt) they would measure a ship's speed in km/hour, not knots.

However, the Germans could easily have used metres when estimating distance to targets... That has nothing to do with navigation or marine charts. It is strictly speed and distance calculations for the purposes of navigation that require the use of knots and NM - for any other purpose any system of measurement can be used.

Another navigational detail...
 

Further to my last post... For anybody who is interested, if a navigator needs to measure a distance of less than one nautical mile it still does not matter whether you normally use metric or Imperial for other purposes. You just use decimals...

So for instance you would measure the distance on the chart to your next waypoint, and write down "1.2 NM." You would never use yards, feet or metres on the chart (except for water depth measurements, or elevation of features on land).

That's what I read it as, too. I was like, "Holy ****, to manage to climb up there and hold onto the thing!":rotfl:.

I noticed from the in-game movie that the navigation map sports co-ordinates now, though. That's good.

I didn not notice that. Now I have to go watch it again.

Darn.

Noticed it also just recently... Check between 02.42 and 03.00 into the video. This looks great! :up:

"High Scoping" was included in SH1

Yea a high scope search would give you the same sight distance as being surfaced.

It's just that simple no matter what the pros and cons of the metric vs. imperial systems are. Since the USN used yards in WWII that's what the scale should be in SH IV. So everything should be in yards for displays, feet for depth and nautical miles for distance.

As a matter of fact I'd be a little disappointed if there was a metric toggle in SH IV. One of the strengths of SH III is the immersion factor (SHIII uses German nomenclature, weights and measures, etc.) and that attention to how it really was for each service should remain for SH IV and beyond IMHO.

Isn't a high scope search using the periscope while surfaced?

PD

Yes it is.

I can imagine three reasons why German U-Boats didn´t use "High Scoping":

1. Unlike the Pacific, the Atlantic is quite rough and shaky, I guess you couldn´t make out anything when looking to a raised scope, the only effect would have been that you go dizzy in your head.

2. Keeping a LOW profile and being able to crash dive as quickly as possible was vital to survive, a raised scope might extent the sightline, but it could be detected by enemy ships as well (note that the shaft was shiny metal, which reflected in the sun)

3. The famous Zeiss company delivered the best (night)googles in the world - it is known that German watch crews who were using them could see farther than other Navys.

My two cents, AS

I dislike to admit it, but you've got a point. :cool: