Yeah, did some further research. The Japanese threw the E27 radar detector, often paired with the model 3 on everything from subs to carriers. The E27 was definitely capable of determining direction.

Might want to look here from page 333 to 335:
https://books.google.com/books?id=dP...ceiver&f=false


Historical facts aside. Every sensor is directional in the game whether it should be or not. For example, the SD radar is not directional, but still gives bearing data. It's certainly just a game engine limitation.

Yeah, been reading some of that book preview. I *really* want a copy now. Sadly, it's price point puts it out of my range in the immediate sense. Maybe soon though.

So a whole squadron of DDs and the Shinano, very likely all equipped with the E27 presumably detected Archerfish (we know they did that), determined the bearing to the submarine and purposely turned to travel perfectly in front of the submarine?

Something is wrong here. Knowing the bearing to the sub wouldn't they have turned away, knowing that they can do 20 knots in bad times and over 30 if they have to and the sub would have no way of getting off a shot? The Japanese account of the encounter makes no mention of having directional capability and what squadron would be more modern but the one guarding a ship so secret that the Navy didn't believe Enright's claim of sinking a carrier?

This smells like the secret weapons of the Luftwaffe, most of which were little more than pipe dreams and maybe a model or a prototype somewhere.

I can see a few possible reasons for it.

First, bearing only plots are inaccurate and time consuming.

Secondly the archerfish failed the initial intercept. They deduced that shinano would return to original base course so archerfish changed course to intercept based on that. This would in effect ruin the shinanos estimation of archerfish's position. Leading to another inaccurate time consuming plot. It's not hard at all to imagine that shinano missestimated archerfish's position.

Third, shinano thought that archerfish was a diversion and the actual attack force was somewhere else. So which direction is actually safe?

Basically, the fog of war worked out in favor of the archerfish this time.

The really ****ty thing for shinano is that they spotted archerfish well before the sinking and a destroyer was closing to attack, and then ordered to break away to guard against a wolfpack that didn't exist. If the destroyer had just been allowed to attack, it's probable that archerfish would not have had a chance to engage.



As an interesting note though. If you look at the archerfish's patrol log (http://www.ussarcherfish.com/warptrl/patrol5.htm), you can see the archerfish was actually staying down during the day.

There's also a really unusual bit in that patrol log:

... and the E-27 did not even become operational until April of 1044. It was mainly installed on torpedo attack boats but some units were also installed on large combatant ships and submarines.

If you had planes in the skies then you could bombard the E-27 from multiple direction rendering it useless because it could not pinpoint individual emitters and would be completely blind.

If the Japanese had used triangulation methods to their advantage they could better pinpoint direct targets even getting bearing, range and heading with them ... but they failed in doing so.

The E-27 had a range of 180 miles but you also have to remember it was basically a funnel shaped device and while it could detect radar well before the radar detected the vessel the angle of the cone without triangulation left a huge field in which to guess where the enemy was.

Just as with the Germans it was mostly Arrogance that destroyed the Empire. The racial superiority at that time from both countries leaders failed to use equipment to their greatest extent.

The entire Shinano incident was error compounding error, canceling out error, dumb luck intruding and BOOM! The book Shinano! is very interesting. Certainly shows that neither the Japanese nor the Americans were a super race of ultimate humans. Fate drew the cards, played the hand and delivered the blows.

It strikes me the same way as Sam Dealey and the Harder gaining the moniker "Destroyer Killer" and how that led to the death of the entire crew at the hands of a captured American minesweeper.