:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
You got to Love this guy !

I have a few like that myself. One of them would be dead right now if he hadn't been wearing his brain bucket when his bike went down. Just another piece of data :lol:.

Is the destabilization of the deck gun in any way tied to the sea state or is it just going to flop around even on glassy days? I understand making it less uber, but I'm hoping it won't be useless. Numerous uboat crews used them to devastating effect off the U.S. coast during Operation Drumbeat according to Homer Hickham in Torpedo Junction.

It is tied to the sea state and moves accordingly. Though there is still a fair amount of movement in calm seas as one would expect when viewing a magnified image.

Hi!

Thank you for pointing that source out; we have assembled a fairly extensive research library during the course of developing GWX, and I recommend reading Teddy Suhren's book, Teddy Suhren: Ace of Aces in addition to Patterson's U-boat War Patrol book. You are correct in assuming there is a wide range of reported rates of fire; unfortunately, the U-boat war diaries aren't always clear as to why the guns fired at the rate they did: in the example from Patterson's book, you don't know whether the rate of fire was constrained by the speed at which ammunition was handed up through the conning tower and sent down to the deck gun; if the sea state only allowed the gun to aim properly twice per minute; if the gunners would fire a few rounds, gauge the effect, fire a few more rounds, gauge the effect, etc.; or a combination of all three.

Beery's "Real U-boat" (RUb) mod reduced the reload rate to try to emulate the effects of historically reported rates of fire; however, there are numerous citations in the literature, as well as archival footage of U-boat deck guns in action, that indicate the deck gun rate of fire was on the order of 12-15 rounds per minute in good conditions, with ammunition ready at-hand for loading, and if the gun was fired as soon as a new round was loaded. The 88mm and 105mm deck guns were, after all, a "quick firing" gun, so constraining the reload rate of the deck gun to that of the muzzle-loading cannon of a 19th century ship-of-the-line seemed unsatisfactory to us - especially to GWX team members who had served in the field artillery.

We have therefore tried to arrive at the same effect (closer to historically reported results) by destabilizing the gun, as we expect the effect of the destabilization will prompt players to lower the rate of fire themselves as they wait for the motion of the U-boat to bring the gun to bear. We also expect a large number of missed shots, even at close range, as Suhren reported in U-564. Furthermore, the sinking rates of ships in GWX is generally slower than in stock Silent Hunter III or RuB, so that firing a few rounds rapidly, gauging the effect, and then firing a few more rounds rapidly is a reasonable course of action.

It will clearly be in the U-boat commander's best interest to use gunnery only in good weather (to reduce destabilization effects), to use gunnery only against targets that cannot shoot back (since ships are better gunnery platforms than U-boats), and to be within a few hundred yards of a target (to reduce the effect of aiming errors): all of which are tactics recommended in the wartime U-boat Commander's Handbook.

All-in-all, we think this is a better solution in terms of U-boat simulation because it presents you with more of the same factors that affected real-life U-boat commanders (and gunners) and allows you the freedom to choose from among the same choices faced by historical commanders. If you pick the historical course of action, it should be because it is the best decision you can make in circumstances that are as close as we can make them to the historical event, rather than because we arbitrarily forced you do do something that way. We can't always give you a choice since we cannot change the game engine, but in this case I think it will work out well.

Pablo

That has eased my apprehension. Thank you KL.:up:

By all accounts I've read?
I guess GWX doesn't tamp the powder down before the DG fires?
That may account for the rapid rate of fire.

To add to Pablo's statement, the player can continue to have the AI crew do the shooting as always... which will likely produce better accuracy as opposed to direct usage by the player.

...because including an option for everything under the sun would be counterproductive to producing a historically minded package and would confuse users even moreso than they are already.

...because it would add to user support demands. BELIEVE ME! You don't have to think about such things... but we must. The volume of queries/questions and user-created problems that the GWX team has addressed over time and will continue to address is massive. No matter how well we write the instructions, no matter how user-friendly we make an installer, and no matter how many times we preach "RTFM!!!" people will still make installation mistakes.

...whether it is your dislike of this element (even though you've yet to try it:shifty: ) or someone else's dislike of some other element in GWX... there is no panacea or magic bullet that we can produce to make every user 100% happy.

That remains absolutely true for Subsim. Diversity is alive and well at Subsim. That diversity is what allowed GWX to come into existence and improve over time. We (the GWX Dev Team) have always decided how we would build GWX and the direction that it takes. It is a representation of what we felt was needed to further simulate the U-boat war. If you don't like what we do, you can either change it for yourself or you can use some other mod package! Mate, you can get angry all you like... but your statement implying that GWX somehow dictates what people do to their installations to suit their individual play styles, has nothing to do with the price of tea in China. It is entirely unreasonable for users to expect us (the GWX Dev team) to release an option for every conceivable wish.

Getting angry at us for the way we interpret matters concerning realism, modification methodology etc... changes nothing. At the end of the day...those who do the hard work of building GWX, make the final decisions concerning its implimentation and content. That is only fair.

Thank you for clearing that up,For the record I'm not getting angry,far from it, its your mod and and you can do what you like with it;) I'm just concerned that it seem to be increasingly aimed towards a more hardcore type of player while the more casual player is left behind,new players might find it alot harder to start with when they first download the latest GWX,but I'm sure you've taken this into consideration, so be it:up:

No worries.

We've been pushing casual players out of their comfort zones since the original Grey Wolves project began. What many don't realize is that all that cool eye and ear candy... really serves a dual role to be the "sugar that helps the medicine go down." (Those aircraft for example... look really cool... but they can lay a world of hurt on you.)

One thing we've noticed is a trend amongst new users since the release of 2.0 (and before for that matter) that come to Subsim straight away asking about available mods and tend to install GWX over SH3 without ever playing stock SH3 at all! Therefore they have no idea what was missing from the game... and no idea what has been added or changed. GWX modifications certainly don't harm those individuals. (Hence many of the "GWX Bug" threads that appear... that have absolutely nothing to do with GWX!) Infact, in some ways... they have the advantage of not learning "bad habits" and erroneous impressions that can be garnered by playing stock SH3.

I'm not downing new users here... they are simply/naturally unaware of about three years of modding evolution that has transpired here in these forums... and are sometimes the most demanding users as a result.

Secondarily, I'm sure that you've seen other modders/users working to remove elements of GWX that irritate them as fast as they are able to do so. (The contact tails for example.)

It is far easier to deconstruct than it is to make forward progress anyway. I have no doubt that within days (maybe even hours or minutes) after the release of 2.1... that somebody will post a mod that removes this GWX feature.

However you cut it though, no one is harmed by our modifications or a lack of choice.

Besides, the way we see it... a "shock to the system" is an awesome thing. For as long as we work on the GWX project... that will always be what we aim for.

You'd have to be pretty brain dead to think using a helmet on a motorbike was a bad idea. The problem with bikers is when they're being cocky and something goes wrong they don't usually learn from their mistakes. They're dead from decapitation or degloving.

Believe me... I've already read him the riot act. It boils down to the fact that Privateer has freedom of choice and does not wish to be 'legislated' into wearing his helmet. Privateer has also earned the right more than most... to have that freedom of choice.

<As an aside, degloving doesn't normally kill. Its messy, painful, and reconstruction/rehabilitation is long and difficult... but is generally surviveable.>

I know nothing of statistics, and am only qualified to speak regarding my own experiences with serious motorcycle accidents... but I will not.

Back to the topic at hand... SH3 users certainly have freedom of choice when it comes to which mods they prefer. This topic has wandered all over the place and has generated much controversy over an element that no one (outside the GWX team) has yet to even bother using before slagging it.

U-boats did not have inertially stabilized weapons. Anything we can do to disrupt "modern day" weapon behavior in SH3... is an improvement to the overall simulation.

Removing the stabilization of the deck gun viewport removes a gratuitous advantage, and a crutch that some have used to achieve outlandish tonnage hauls.

It sounds harsh to some I am sure... but in the end... it really is a good thing.

This is starting to move toward General Topics territory, but since it's here I'll address it.

I've been riding for 41 years now, and I agree: you have to be an idiot to ride without a helmet. That said, Privateer wasn't addressing helmets, he was addressing helmet laws. I neither know nor care how he rides. If we were friends I might drive him crazy telling him he should wear one (assuming that he doesn't). But I stand with him 100% against the arrogance of people who pass laws "for your own good". You preach about the "problem" with bikers being "cocky". Is it your place to tell us how to live? I say the same thing to seat belt laws: If you want to protect my children from my stupidity, go ahead. If you want to try to force me to protect myself, go to hell.

Oh, and I always wear a seatbelt, too.

Oops; I got so excited I didn't even notice Lehman had alread posted his feelings on this.

As he said, back to the topic. I always defended Beery's reload times, even while I didn't use them myself.:oops: I thought that his intentions were good, if off the mark, and I got tired of people attacking him out of hand, just as I disagree with some of GWX's decisions, but defend them as well. One of the things I always said was "Until you figure out a way to make the deck gun act historically as to firing problems, don't keep arguing for a realistic reload time that ignores changing sea conditions!"

Well, it looks like that's happening now, and I'm as excited as a cat that's found the whole mouse tribe in one place. I'm looking forward to this one.