Thats essentially the conclusion I have come to as well. I will never understand the way german tech gets put on a pedastool either. It seems to come mostly from people who read a little but never from those who read a lot.

Yeah, it must be fantastic to be really clever. :doh:

triangulate this:
http://uboat.net/allies/technical/hfdf.htm

or maybe this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-f...ection_finding

It must be fantastic to think that a complete inability to present your case would carry the day. Facts carry the day and they're on my side. Germany lost because Germany was inferior. And it was not inferior by a little, they were entirely outclassed. Logistics is one area where the Germans didn't have a clue and Americans developed that boring aspect, which wins or loses most conflicts, to a fine art.

Lets take one basic fact. Less than 10% of German army personnel had ever driven a car. They had to be trained from ground zero before they could even drive a truck, much less a tank. Well over 90% of the American military drove cars every day. It was second nature to them. Any American could jump in a truck and drive it away with great skill. In a pinch they could jump in a tank and drive it too. In war, there are casualties. When those left can operate the equipment, you win! Superior training was another factor ensuring Allied victory.

In Japan Yamamoto made a fatal mistake before the war even started. In charge of Japanese pilot training, he made it very difficult to gain admission and stay in the training program, taking pride in training "elite" pilots. They were some of the best in the world. But they were very few. For a very short time they outclassed the US air effort. But as they collected casualties and there was nobody on the bench qualified to get the job done, the Japanese air force became an empty shell--a non-factor in the war. That is why they sacrificed their carrier fleet to try to get to the American invasion fleet at the Philippines. And they failed, even with the sacrifice of losing just about every plane and pilot they could field. In fact, the carriers were already useless. Yamamoto had seen to that in the 1930s.

Blimey, the Axis were real idiots then, you wouldn't have thought it would take six years in Europe and Eight years in the Pacific to beat them, good job they they weren't very clever. :03:

When you are fighting against suicidal fanatics who refuse to even acknowledge the possibility of defeat, when the battles become gruelling block-by-block wars of attrition - yeah, wars drag out for MANY years.

Germany lost already back when it failed to defeat Britain in 1940. The failure of Operation Barbarossa should have further cemented this idea. D-Day was the final nail in the coffin. But because the Nazi leadership could not admit defeat, they had to drag it out until 1945, with untold millions more dying for no good reason other than vanity.

Same thing with Japan. That's why nuking them was the right call.

Advancing an idea by snide comment is admission that you know you are wrong. Since YOU say your are wrong I don't have to. You are so enlightened that you refuse to take your own side in the discussion.

See, I can do it too, but better.

:yep: It is.

:) @ RR, You should be a fish, I dangle a worm and you bite lol.

You're shootin' blanks my man. You have nothing to say and you say it anyway. This post of yours, for instance, is worth my hitting the report button. You're not on subject and you are taunting. Hope you're outta here, at least for awhile.

Again, those who know they have a losing position quit talking about the subject and start sniping at other people. I've dealt with three year olds and am quite good at handling them.

OK you best report me then, with reference to your post about most US soldiers could drive and jump in to a truck and even a tank, my dad was in the RAF (not a pilot) but worked on radio communication, I had uncles in the army, they all got medals etc but guess what, none of them could drive either.

Any way I can see you have thrown your dummy out of the pram so I'm out of here, not wasting any more time on you. :salute:

Nor I on you....stay on topic and argue in an adult fashion if that is your wish but don't resort to taunts.

I thank you for your understanding in advance.

I dont mind mentioning it but in doing so I will also consider the breaking of the allied naval codes. The information battle in the battle of the Atlantic improved the ability of both sides in the conduct of their operations in the short term and were about even in terms of length of time over the 6 years of the battle from what I can tell. But this is where RRs point about the Germans chatting openly over the radio becomes important.

One of the stupid things the germans did, was send daily weather reports which were coded but were intercepted and read by the british. But they knew the weather as well, and hfdf helped them find the location of the transmitting craft. This considerably cut down the number of possibilities for codebreaking efforts. The fact that the germans did this throughout the war tells us about how short sighted and overconfident the germans were.

But intelligence alone doesn't sink either ships or uboats, it only tells you roughly where they
will be. Technology is what gets the job done and uboats were greatly inferior because donitz put no effort on that side of things.

The capture of the enigma machines didn't lose the battle of the Atlantic for Germany. It just sped up the process. Nor did B-Dienst's breaking of the allied naval code win the war for the Germans, it only prolonged the conflict which for the Germans was unwinnable for all but a small window at the beginning of the war IF they had enough uboats to start with and a reliable torpedo.

I find it rather humorous that the people screaming the loudest to "stay on topic", are the very ones who have veered WAY off topic. The topic was "The "special abilities" that some crew have"? Mr. Robbins saw fit to veer off on a tirade about the abilities of German subs and equipment and completely left the original topic behind. He expounded his opinions without anyone asking them.

What I asked for in my original post was:

#1 What are the special abilities available? A list of them and what they do would be awesome.
#2 Where in the SH files is the data on who has them?
#3 Are there any mods that can change/alter/add them?

Thanks in advance. Sure wish there was something in the documentation that described this.
----------------
What I got was a bunch of opinions that have ZERO to do with my original questions. So I would be quite happy if folks WOULD stick to the original topic and keep their opinions to themselves.

Thank you,
Dep :)

The file is fairly easy to decipher as you look through it. The beginning of the file has some comments that help make sense of the 'special abilities' that are in the game.

The file you are looking for is in:

../Silent Hunters Wolves of the Pacific/Data/UPCData/UPCCrewData/
SpecialAbilities.upc


The U-boats have a separate file located at:

../Silent Hunters Wolves of the Pacific/Data/UPCDataGE/UPCCrewData/
SpecialAbilities.upc

The Commander's abilities are located after the crew abilities.

In both of the directories there is also a file named:

CrewMembers.upc

Look under each crewman to see the default special ability. Which should be null.
The entry you are looking for is:

"SpecialAbilities="

Also for your current "career" check out

/SH4/data/cfg/UserPlayerContext/

and

/SH4/data/cfg/UserPlayerContextGE/

Under these the file should be:

CrewMembers.upc

Also:
/SH4/data/cfg/UPCInitial/


As well as your current save game, pick which save game you want, example:

/SH4/data/cfg/SaveGames/00000001/UPCInitial/

And look for the file:

ActiveUserPlayerUnits.upc

If you want to tweak overall, for a new "career", use the file in one of the first two directories I mentioned, for a "career" in progress, use one of the others, depending on which "side" you're playing.

Remember to make backups, and or make it as a mod using JSGME. Avoids trouble later

Apologies for not replying sooner, I've been really busy lately.

Barracuda