There is another aspect to researching patrol reports that we need to take into consideration. There was a tendency to over estimate the tonnage of targets, just as fighter pilots tended to over estimate kills and no Luftwaffe pilot was ever shot down by a Hurricane.

I am not questioning the ability, veracity or bravery of any submarine skipper, but it is a fact that post war analysis of sinkings reduced the total tonnage sunk by US submarines by almost 50%. If a patrol report says the deck gun alone sank a 3,000 ton ship, the chances are it was somewhat smaller.

Plus, there's also the consideration of actually how many rounds hit a particular target during the course of the engagement. It's one thing to say X number of rounds were fired at the target, but exactly how many of those hit the target and caused fires and flooding?

Sometimes the combat report lists the number of hits that were observed. Right now RFB's deck gun shell effectiveness is based on a number of combat reports, but one in particular stated the rounds fired and the hits, so I gave that report special importance when making the changes to the shells.

Sank three fishing boats last night, two approx. 100 ton type and one 25 ton. All using RFB 1.26 and the 4".

Firing the gun myself it took an avg. of 10-12 shots at the hull and waterline to sink the 100 ton, about 6-8 for the smaller boat. All shots fired were HE.

I will say this...that 40mm and twin 20mm sure do help knock them stinkers out quick! :D

http://www.box.net/shared/static/4n2glf98s6.jpg

Ordered remaining survivors machine gunned so as to not give away our location. :(

http://www.box.net/shared/static/9j33usal8u.jpg

:o

I guess they look like IJN guys, so you do what you gotta do:arrgh!:

Nice pics, and those are about the results I get with the deck gun against smaller ships too.

Fourth patrol I got an 80% success rate, I suppose statistics have to work themselves out over time.

Because when a skipper takes over the deck gun, he wants the visceral thrill of blowing some **** up, regardless of how realistic it might be.

You know, there's nothing stopping a skipper from installing the Improved Ammo mod or even Super Guns over RFB. I used Improved Ammo with RFB 1.21 for exactly one patrol - an S-class should never be able to sink 23 vessels. :o

Given the number of mods and the fact that with the shells.zon tweak file you can do whatever you want to the deck guns, I just don't understand why Beery has to constantly justify his decision.

[/rant]

Then why are they installing RFB - a mod whose sole purpose is to give players the most hardcdore realism possible in a sub game? That's what I don't understand. I mean if they want to blow **** up they can do that in the unmodded game.

Actually, I think I know what the disconnect may be for some folks - they want a Hollywood-style game but they want to feel as if they can handle "hardcore realism". The thing they don't realise is that hardcore realism isn't some ultra-deadly mode - actually with the reduction in overall deadliness it's probably less challenging than the regular game.

I think the other problem is that a lot of people are barraged with Hollywood movies, poor quality TV documentaries that overstate risks (such as the old oft-repeated nonsense about the average life expectancy of WW1 pilots being two weeks or some other such ridiculously deadly figure), footage from 1940s propaganda films and computer games which claim to be simulations but which are in fact arcade games posing as sims. They get so much of this 'junk history' that they just cannot believe that the reality is not what they've been led to expect. So I'm stuck having to defend, over and over again, the research that's gone into RFB.

Another problem is that I don't usually save my research. I usually write it down on a pad until I feel I have enough info, then I make the mod and only keep the info for as long as I think I'll need it for further tweaking. After I was done with SH3 I threw away reams of notes - notes that would come in handy now when the deck gun ROF is coming under attack again.

You're probably right about the junk history and Hollywood nonsense. I went over to NavWeaps and grabbed a couple of photos to illustrate the various shell sizes:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...waukee_pic.jpg
The 3" gun fired a 24 lb complete round with a 13 lb shell. How many 13 lb shells do you think it would take to sink a 5000 ton ship?

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...n_over_pic.jpg
The 4" gun fired a 62.4-64.15 lb complete round with a 33 lb shell.

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...Mexico_pic.jpg
The 5" gun fired an 80 lb complete round with a 54 lb shell.


These are small guns firing small shells. You just aren't going to get a cataclysmic explosion with these things. For crying out loud, this biggest of the three was an air-defense weapon.

Can I ask if anything was touched with the spread dial in the PK? Reason I ask is that I tried to setup a spread and rotated the dial towards the 'right' to allow for some deviation on my observations and when fired the fish veered off to the left of the sub's nose and missed. Reloaded and this time tired again but using the 'left' side of the dial and this time the fish went off to the right of the sub's nose. It's not a big deal as I can now work out what's going wrong lol...just need to get better at AOB and speed obs.

As far as I know, no. But CCIP is the expert on the torpedo stuff.

Possibility this was not function of the dial, it was a malfunction of the torpedo. ccip introduced a lot more gyro malfunctions.

I believe we noticed while testing the Hardcore Torpedoes mod that the Mk14s had a pretty consistent gyro angle error of about 20 degrees to port.

And Beery, I personally think you've proven that the deck guns are now closer to real world performance, I hope you don't let the criticism get you down. Great job!

20 deg to port sounds about right, found it strange though that the first three fish all ran the same way, ah well back to trying to sink something lol. Thanks for the answers

I've taken a bit of a break from the hardcore realism effort and I've been messing around with the GUI a bit. I always wanted the toolbar to be a bit more intuitive and a bit more useful, so what I've done is completely re-organize it and add in some new buttons for stuff we used to have in SH3. Here are a few details:


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...oomToolbar.jpg

This is the new control room toolbar. It has 12 buttons, from left to right they are: go to command room, periscope depth, dive, maintain current depth, surface, depth under keel, crash dive, port evasive maneuver, starboard evasive maneuver, blow ballast, battle stations, silent running.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...oCourseEnd.jpg

As well as a number of buttons that are commonly used, the Navigation tab now has a button that gives range to course end.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ttackScope.jpg

Here's the new 'Attack Periscope' tab. Each periscope now has its own tab.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...opeToolbar.jpg

More of the attack scope - it has 12 buttons, from left to right they are: attack periscope, attack map, torpedoes station, periscope depth, raise/lower scope, match heading to view, recognition manual, open tube door, chronometer, crash dive, battle stations, silent running.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...dingtoView.jpg

Here's the 'heading to view' tooltip.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...enTubeDoor.jpg

The open tube door button.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...4-3Weather.jpg

When crew are on the bridge they can give a weather report. The old weather report has been disabled so that now the only time the player can get a proper weather report is when the boat is surfaced.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...-0ObsScope.jpg

The observation scope gets its own tab.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...omObsscope.jpg

Moving the 'Take Photo' button from the attack scope to the observation scope freed up some room for other items. It also encourages players to use the observation scope more, although it is still possible to take photos from either scope.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...ipContacts.jpg

On the sonar tab the player will find a couple of extra buttons: one for reporting warship contacts and...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...hipContact.jpg

...one for following a warship contact.


Basically, what I did was scour the commands.cfg file for useful commands and then I added them to the OrdersBar.cfg file. Then, after a bit of work on the HUD.dds file and a few additions to the menu.txt file it was all set. I think this will make the toolbars a bit more useful.

I also arranged the buttons in a more logical order. The buttons to the right are for switching between stations and giving routine commands while those towards the middle of the screen are for use in stressful periods. When you're under attack you're going to want to make quick decisions, so the buttons for crash dives, silent running, blowing ballast and battle stations are in the middle of the screen so that players won't need to move their mouse too far when these things are needed. Each station now has as many 'emergency' buttons as it was possible to fit in, so pretty much wherever they are, players will be able to order battle stations, crash dive, emergency blow ballast or silent running.