Wolfpack SOPs (5-Player) - Who’s In?
 

Wanted to start a thread to gauge interest in some ideas I’ve been kicking around regarding crewmember roles and streamlining. The games I have participated in have been very productive and of course fun, but one thing I have noticed is the lack of definite clarity at the start as to who will do what.

Also, as you all may have heard, Wolfpack League is getting stood up (hopefully soon!), which will be a platform allowing crews to schedule times to play and post results and have a little friendly competition. So that being said, I thought to myself:

1. Wouldn’t it be cool if we could form regular crews, rotating the positions each play time to keep it interesting and drilling together as a crew on diving, surfacing, attacks etc, just like a unit would in real life (trying to improve dive times, honing attack procedures etc)?

2. Wouldn’t it be great to have a system in place where each man knows his role and executes it like clockwork?

3. Wouldn’t it really be cool if this system were based on real-world doctrine (tailored of course to Wolfpack)?

I arrived on the idea based on Neal’s very helpful posts in the thread “Wolfpack Tactics & Tips” (which is how I learned the game!). So I scoured the U-boat Diving Regulations over at uboatarchive.net, and fleshed out a system building on Neal’s that I would love to try out with a dedicated crew.

Of course, something like this requires rehearsal in order to be viable, and so real interest and a dedicated crew are a must, but since many have expressed a desire for “mini-games” within Wolfpack for any downtime, this may scratch that itch and provide more richness to an already-rich game. Any and all input is welcome and is my intent with this thread. More to follow in coming posts.

Time Served WPL old salt SH3 Battle M/P reporter nice to see the WPL Live again.
Ive just bought the game today id be happy on any station but still learning
how to control and operate all the different stations.
would be good for me to touch base with seasoned Wolfpack veteran to show me the ropes so to speak its a team game this Wolfpack.

regards blackswan40

Abbreviations for posts to come
 

Abbreviations used in coming posts:

C – Commander
N - Navigator
D – Dive Officer
R – Radioman
H – Helmsman

At any one time, there is always one man in the tower on the surface (either the Navigator or the Helmsman). This man will always be the one to man the aft vents on the dive order. The dive procedures that follow assume the Navigator is in the tower, but it could just as well be the Helmsman in the case of a night attack. In that case, Navigator and Helmsman roles are temporarily reversed for the dive, as then Helmsman would go to Echolot and aft vents instead. I have included them in parentheses for the procedures where this would be reversed. Only real thing to remember is – the man in the tower will jump down on the aft vents!

Test (Routine) Dive
C – “Prepare to dive” – Navigator(/Helmsman) immediately slides down ladder from tower, goes to Echolot for quick sounding then to aft ballast vents. Bridgewatch goes below in following order: Radioman (to negative controls), Helmsman(/Navigator) (to rudder station in control room), Commander last and closes hatch.

D – Switches to electrics, then Great Ahead, mans fwd ballast vents, reports “Forward vents ready”.

N(/H) – Reports depth under keel, then at aft vents: “aft vents ready, all vents ready”. Marks current position on map.

C – Shuts tower hatch, orders “Flood!”

D – Opens fwd ballast vents, reports “Forward open”. Sets fwd planes hard down, aft down 5.

N(/H) – After about 5 seconds, opens aft ballast vents, reports “Aft open, vents are open”.

Note: At this point, if Helmsman manned aft vents and Navigator the helm, they switch out to their usual roles.

At 8-15 meters depth:
D – Orders “Blow negative”.

R – Blows negative, reports when done “Negative blown”. Mans hydrophone.

C – Orders “Go to x meters”.

D – Reports depth in 10-meter increments, having established a down angle of 5-8 deg. Levels off 2-5 meters below ordered depth, sets planes fwd up 10, aft up 15 and approaches ordered depth from below.

At desired depth:
D - Reports “Boat is balanced”.

C – Orders “Close vents”.

H – Closes fwd vents, reports “Forward closed”.

N – Closes aft vents, reports “Aft closed, all vents closed”, inspects for leaks, reports “No leaks in the boat”, reports compressed air level.

C – Orders course and speed (usually slow ahead, half ahead for any depth changes)

H – Reports battery level.

R – Reports sound contacts.

Crash Dive
C – “Alarm!”
D – Sounds alarm bell.

Remaining procedures same as test dive except as follows:
1. Diving officer sets Full Ahead instead of Great Ahead at outset.
2. Diving officer establishes initial down angle of 8-15 deg, and once past 20 meters, increases
down angle to 15-30 deg to “drive” the boat to depth at Full Ahead.
3. Commander may want a 90-deg course change once below 20 m, in which case the helmsman will initiate this on his command (or automatically if desired by commander).

Depth Changes
1. Normally done at Half Ahead (Great Ahead if emergency). Diving officer reports “Boat rising/falling/steady” according to situation.
2. If coming up from depth, perform a sound check at 20 meters, then a scope check at periscope depth prior to surfacing.

Surfacing (from Periscope Depth)

C – Orders “Prepare to surface” (Helmsman to tower rudder station, Commander makes ready to climb ladder followed by Navigator, Radioman to negative tank controls, Diving Officer at diving station)

N – Reports “Bridge watch ready”.

C – Orders “Both Great Ahead” and “Surface!”

D – Sets fwd planes hard up, aft up 5 deg. When boat rises, reports “Boat rising” and orders “Flood negative”. Reports depth change: “14….13….12….”

R – Floods negative tank, makes ready to blow ballast.

C – Orders “Blow” and climbs ladder to hatch.

N – Follows commander up ladder, notes current position on chart.

R – Blows ballast, awaits order from commander to stop blowing, verifies negative flood valve shut.

D – Reports “Hatch coming free” when at 7.5 meters.

C – Climbs topside, orders “Switch to diesels”. (Just commander goes topside in case need to dive again quickly)

H – In tower, switches to diesels and back to Great Ahead.

D – Reports “boat is out” when fully surfaced.

C – Orders “stop blowing” and quickly scans horizon to ensure all clear.

R – Stops blowing ballast, stands by. (This ensures that if not all clear, boat can get back down in a hurry)

C – If all clear, orders “Blow with diesel”. (This is a historical procedure not replicated in the game, but in WP it can serve as a signal to the radioman to finish blowing as well as a reminder to start the diesel if not yet started)

N and H – Navigator remains in tower, Helmsman climbs topside, mans rudder on bridge.

R – Finishes blowing ballast, reports “All have blown” when done.

D – Asks Commander if bilge may be pumped. Starts compressor and, if ordered, bilge pump.

C – “Secure from diving stations” (All are already in correct positions except Radioman who returns to post on bridge), orders course and speed as desired.

D – Unless told by commander otherwise, sets telegraph to charge batteries.

D – Monitors compressed air level and stops compressor when done.

Stations

Stations While Surfaced (In Sight of Enemy):
C – Bridge (Watch) – full situational awareness up here. His station is at the front starboard corner of the bridge (by the RDF), covering the horizon from 0 deg to 90 deg. He also uses UZO to relay bearings to the navigator.
N – Tower (Plot) – Since his function is plotting at this stage, and he can read off exact bearing from the TDC, it makes sense for him to be down here collecting bearings for his plot (and getting rough ranges and AOB estimates from the commander on the bridge).
D – Control Room – Ready at the dive station.
R – Bridge (Stern Watch) – The receipt of radio messages is audible throughout the boat, and so he does not need to be in the radio shack on the surface (unless so desired if operating in a wolfpack where frequent important communication is expected). His station is near the tower hatch covering the stern horizon from 90 deg to 270 deg.
H – Bridge (Watch, Rudder) – Since there is a rudder station with compass on the bridge, he can steer from here and be a set of eyes too when no rudder orders are given, but he needs to keep an eye on the compass now and again to maintain course. His post is at the helm station and he covers the horizon from 270 deg to 0 deg.

Surface Battle Stations (When Carrying Out the Attack):
C – Bridge – full situational awareness to direct the attack.
N – Bridge/Deck Gun – At commander’s option, he could serve historical role of 1WO and conduct the attack on the UZO, directed by the commander (probably preferable for same reasons as real life – commander can focus on other sectors etc).
D – Control Room – Ready at the dive station.
R – Bridge – Same station but covering horizon away from the attack.
H – Tower – Manning TDC and, since right behind him, also the rudder when course changes are needed. Since most course changes ordered during the attack are rudder commands, he doesn’t need a compass. He can also assist with rangefinding at the attack scope.

At any one time, there is always one man in the tower on the surface (either the Navigator or the Helmsman). This man will always be the one to man the aft vents on the dive order. The dive procedures that follow assume the Navigator is in the tower, but it could just as well be the Helmsman in the case of a night attack. In that case, Navigator and Helmsman roles are temporarily reversed for the dive, as then Helmsman would go to Echolot and aft vents instead. I have included them in parentheses for the procedures where this would be reversed. Only real thing to remember is – the man in the tower will jump down on the aft vents!

Stations While Submerged:
C – Control Room – best situational awareness here.
N – Control Room – ready to perform duties as required, also plotting underwater movement.
D – Control Room – at planes maintaining depth.
R – Hydrophone – searching for contacts.
H – Control Room – at the rudder station.

Underwater Battle Stations:
C – Tower/Control Room – attack scope/obs scope
N – Tower – TDC and assisting with range tables, attack disc etc.
D - Control Room – at planes maintaining depth.
R – Hydrophone – searching for contacts.
H - Control Room – at rudder station.

See you this Friday blackswan!

I like your suggestions. However a few I think differently about.

D moves back to aft ballast vent, N to Negative valve, R to dive station. Seems like they all run crossing through eachother's path. Why not have D stay at diving station and negative, R only fwd ballast vents. And N to aft ballast vents. And their movement is as little as possible obstructed by the ladder/conningtower-base. I often got stuck or slowed my movement down.

Also, I would think that for each situation each crews movement should be the same as much as possible. So it becomes an automated reaction. Not in this situation to forward ballast vents, another to negative valves, then another situation to aft ballast vents. I can see that you gave it enough thought. But its a bit disorganized for my liking.

Approaching from below, wasn't that only with a quick shallow dive? No need to come up from below at deep depths. As far as I can remember from the document. Unless real submariners have a different view.


I have different experiences with unmanned rudder on the surface. After I turned and left the rudder amidship on a specific heading I still noticed the boat slowly turned a few degrees or so. It interfered a bit with my plotting. That is to say, I had to correct with my attackdisk too much for my liking. This was at max speed iirc. I'm sure that would not make the Navigator happy when this happens. Also when I move around a convoy I often do so with a special kind of intercept drawing and as such a specific course to get my relative motion pointed correctly w.r.t. a convoy member. With this sim I would really like to have a helmsman that stays awake on the job. (As opposed to SH3)

Thanks for taking the time to read through and commenting, Pisces, I appreciate the input and have always appreciated your posts. I hope you do join us on Friday!

My intent with having R and D on the vents is that they are already below. Having N go on vents I think may be too late - by the time flooding starts, his feet are probably just then hitting the control room floor from the bridge, it should happen that quickly. D can scoot on the starboard side of the attack scope well to get aft to the vents so as to not interfere with those coming below. R won't get in anyone's way since he just pops to the fwd ballast and then quickly sets planes and is out of the control room by the time D is back to diving station (D has already moved aft). If enough interest is shown for something like this, I intend to sketch out a schematic of how this all would look.

This is a very valid point, I may need to look closely at that aspect. My thought process was strictly speed - who is where at what time and can do a transitional task while others are elsewhere, until the dust settles and each mans his true station.

Could very well be the case. This was the so-called "Durchpendeln", the reason for which was to tilt the boat a few degrees up and down in order to force air bubbles out of the ballast tanks that could cause problems with depth control (and make noise). Obviously not modeled in-game (but oh if it were..), but the practice does allow for a bit more leniency on the planes I feel since D doesn’t necessarily have to concentrate on “nailing” the depth on the way down.. Now as to whether this was done at all depths, that I would have to look into. Good point!


Very interesting, I never must've paid close enough attention - thanks for pointing that out. May need to rethink then (and I've edited OP), but then again the helmsman could throw a glance now an again down at the compass between scans of the horizon. I think the extra set of eyes on the bridge would still be an asset. Never will forget the sleepy helmsman of SH3. I tried the "real nav" trick for a while of hiding own sub and ctrl+clicking to get a "fix" a couple times a day, but then doing the helmsman's job for him was tiresome!

Again, appreciate the comments and I have modified OPs as a result.

I'll be joining this crew as your radioman ON FRIDAY Captian Lt:) , oR AS YOU MARINES SAY... L... T!!:Kaleun_Salute:

ILl Be there !!Friday !!

Sounds great, might have to have you get me up to speed on the ins and outs of the radio shack!:yep:

I'm WAYYYYY in... how can I help?

Has anyone ever found and translated the SOP's from real Type VII's?

I can't believe after all these years and all the WW2 sub sim games and enthusiasts this hasn't come up before, but, it's true this is the first co-op WW2 sub game so maybe not.

Considering too, that usually everyone would be up on the bridge except the diving officer, so I would have thought that for the dive SOP, they would set the engines to battery and set speed, then go back and man the dive planes until the Captain yells "Flood" - at which point the Radio and Nav are down in the command room with Helm on the way and Captain closing the hatch, the Radio turns right and goes to man the aft vents and the Nav turns left and mans the forward vents and the Helms officer goes to their station.

Then when dive is underway, the aft (lets say Radio) goes to man the negative tank (never crosses anyones path) and the navigator (who manned the forward vents) goes to the chart to start the plot.

At that point the Helms officer can man the forward vents when they need to be closed, and the radio moves to cover aft and no-one crosses anyones path.

What do you think?

I’m glad to see someone actively interested in this - you and I are of a mind I think with our approach to this game!

I based my SOPs on the KM diving regs for U-boats (at uboatarchive.net) but tailored to the “crew” in WP. We don’t have a Zentralemaat (control room petty officer) as in RL to do the control room work.

One thing to note is Radio would need to be at his post in the radio shack while on the surface. This puts him close to the fwd MBT vent and the planes to quickly open vents and set planes for dive then get back to hydro to get that prepared and get out of the way.

Diving officer mans aft MBT so he can report to Commander that both are open. I have Helm hanging back in the tower so as to keep out of the way in Control room until the dust settles.

Diving officer uses the gap starboard of the scope well going aft to stay out of Nav’s way and comes back port of the well to again avoid Nav who is by then at negative. He should already be aft by the time Nav gets to negative. After Nav blows negative Nav moves aft to MBT in the starboard gap as well.

All should be clear of one another but we really need a group to try and refine these ideas in practice.:yep:

So who else is in?

Hmmm, I'll think more about what you've just written, but re: Radio Officer.

Everyone hears the morse saying a message is coming in, and unless you're in a Wolfpack (at the moment of course) then waiting for a radio message to come in that may never come is boring for the poor guy - so better to have their eyes up top looking for contacts.

Maybe when the DF and aircraft come in, then there's more of a need for keeping them downstairs...

Mmmm lots to consider... I LOVE that!

I tried setting up a group this evening to practice drills and SOP's but I couldn't get more than 3.

Maybe we can try and plan and schedule an hour to so to try all this out?

Thanks for pointing that out about messages, didn’t realize that Radio didn’t need to be down there! That changes things so I need to revisit our ideas in that light later tonight. Some edits to OP to come.....

My concern when I originally wrote it was that the bridge crew wouldn’t be down in time for the flood order, but now I’m wondering if that truly is the case. So I wanted two Crewmembers below to start with, but with the slide down the ladder feature to the control room, that might just work to just keep the diving officer below. In which case I’d have radio go to the forward vents since he has to go forward anyway and Nav to the aft vents then to negative (moving starboard of scope well). He would have to take his depth sounding after flooding though, but at this point shallow depth isn’t much of a concern.