Officers -> Radioman
 

I'm in the middle of a long patrol, and already considering the next skill to give one of my officers. Upon my return to Lorient, I would like to give an officer the Radioman qualification. So my question would be, "Is there any benefit to giving your officer the radioman skill?" I have two petty officers with the skill and it's great, but will an officer placed in the command room with this qualification produce any benefit to the men in the radio/sonar room?

Sorry if this has been stated elsewhere, but my search didn't come up with an answer. :salute:

Somewhere in the mods section I've heard people mention an improved qualification mod that improves them, I'd look around there to start with. Not sure how/what it does, its on my list of things to look for today, I too have wondered about such things - like the helmsman qualification. Way things stand any officer can navigate the boat (something that wasn't true, besides the captain most officers wouldn't know how to navigate unless they were learning for themselves so they could get their own boat) and having the qualification doesn't seem to have any positive effects.

I don't know, as I've never tried it, but I think the two are tied together. The question I have is why would you want to? I give Torpedo and Machinist skills, so they can be of some benefit where I think it counts. I'd rather have at least two POs with Radio skills.

I do not think so since the compartments are separate. I would give them the repair skill instead. You can never have too many guys with the repair skill.

I agree with HW3,
 

Some rooms available are not officers of the radio service,but the repair is very important. :yep:

I always give radioman skill to both sonar/radio operator, not sure it makes a difference, but I like to think it does.

I think it does so I do the same papa_smurf.:yep:

I already have two officers with both Torpedo and Machinist, plus plenty of petty officers with those skills. I don't really need more. They are handy skills indeed.

Thanks all. I'll test it out just to be sure, but I'll consider an alternative skill for the my final choice. (All other officers have three skills now.)

I give at least two petty officers the radioman qualification, and rotate them in the radioroom (as they tire), filling the other position with an 'unqualified' crewman. I then give repair, machinist and/or topedo quals since I also feel they will do more good.

The green bar in the RA/SO room does not lengthen if you put a radio-qualified officer in the command room, so I suspect there's no effect.

In fact, since the helmsman qualification is just eye-candy, the qualifications of any of your officers in the control room seem to have no bearing on the boat's operations (i.e., a midshipman medic is just as effective a navigator or weapons officer as a senior lieutenant).

As a result, I give officers qualifications only in Watch, Gunnery, Torp, Machine and Repair (every officer's second qualification is repair; I give my experienced lieutenants a third rating, too).

By the way, its worth remembering that while officers can carry up to three qualifications, petty officers can only have one. If you give them more through SH3 Commander, only the top one "counts."

Agreed.

Likewise.

Does it make a difference? I've never really noticed anything different from full efficiency with 2 trained petty officers to barely quarter trained with 2 seamen. Other than that the radioman picks better songs for the gramophone...

Hi desirableroasted, do you know that for a fact? It's true I couldn't tell a difference so far, but I guessed i.e. better emergency dive times, or rudder operation...so the helmsman qualification is completely useless?

On the other hand, I think I read many times in this forum that a qualified sonar operator has a much better chance to find and report contacts...
But like the helmsman, it's difficult to tell for me, since unreported contacts will be simply not noticed by the player...

What I can and will tell you definitively is that there will be absolutely no improvement on your emergency dive times, or rudder operation.

I don't bother having an officer with machinist skills, as I can fully operate the engines by having just one machinst PO and the rest seamen. Helmsman seems a completely useless qualification; who knows if it originally had a purpose but didn't make it into the final release version of the game? I also don't notice much difference from having the gunnery qualification, since I only use the gun to finish off cripples and even then I move in close enough that even a blind crewman could hit the target. The qualifications that I find useful are repair, torpedo and watch. I have two officers qualified with watch, as well as one PO for each watch; seamen fill the remaining slots. I also assign four PO's the radio qualification, simply because that has the most effect on the green bar above their compartment. I use "no fatigue" only on the first patrol, simply because I find that easiest for crew management. After the first patrol I use GWX 8 hour fatigue and assign all of my seamen qualifications for the compartments where I work them. I know seaman qualifications do not take in the game, but I use them as handy markers to make crew swapouts easy. I have two seamen for each vital slot: engines, watch and planesmen, the rest are assigned as torpedomen to help out the torpedo qualified PO's.

Early in the war I use the deckgun whenever possible. Rather expend shells than torpedos to sink the small fry (and sometimes even the medium sized ships). What the qualification does do is help with the reload times. If the officer has the qualification or a PO manning the deck gun it will increase the efficiency bar, eventually when it maxes out the reload times can become very fast.

Agreed. The deckgun is excellent for small-medium targets until they're defended with guns. Heck, even then all you have to do is calculate the range, and fire from 3-4k out until you take out their deck gun. (Assuming just one on the back.) The faster reload time is worth it, as it only takes one petty officer to improve it greatly, and he can do labour the rest of the time.

I should clarify my post. I actually do use the deck gun on small fry, but try to play more historically by using it on bigger targets after I have hit them with at least one torpedo. However, I did encounter two unescorted merchantmen during my trip back to Willy after having expended all of my torpedoes. I still had about 65 deck gun rounds [88 mm] and proceeded to fire at the water line of the smaller target first, then the larger target, my rationale being that if I attacked the big target first, I may run out of ammo and both would get away. In any event, both sank. It was too good an opportunity to pass by, even though I would have preferred to have made a torpedo attack first. You have to make the most of any opportunities you encounter.

On small stuff I go for the deck gun; sometimes I employ only the flak gun if the target is small enough. If the target is armed, I do not risk it. One lucky hit can leave me unable to dive and no target is valuable enough for me to risk that!

Helmsman is completely without effect. I've read that several places here on the forum, but have also tested it several times. Dive times, time to full speed, time to full reverse speed, navigation, weapons officer efficiency, etc are not affected a whit.

In fact, you can run a perfectly good patrol with officers with NO qualifications whatsoever.

Learning something new every day...thanks!