First experience with manual navigation in GWX
 

As I always played the game as a simulation for the purpose of immersion in the era, I have been since a long time bothered by the navigation system in SH3. I have a long time real experience at sea, and SH3 replicates modern GPS navigation. Your position is shown in real time as it would be on the screen of a GPS-map, you have the possibility of defining waypoints like you would do on a GPS. You just need to think then that your GPS data is linked to youe autopilot, and you have it.
I started sailing at a time when all this electronic didn't exist and the only help we had was radio-goniometry, a system which allows you to find the bearing of a radio beacon sending a morse letter signal. No need to say it was just a help and was far from precise...
After reading a few threads on this forum, and watching "Dantenoc's hardcore navigation" video on You Tube, I decided to have a go at it on my next GWX patrol in the Med (base Salamis). Distances are short, there are many islands and the weather should be better than in North Atlantic ( was a little wrong there as we will see...) As over the time I slowly came to playing 100% real, this was an interesting new challenge.

How I worked at it :

First step was to change the zoom level at which icons are drawn, so that the sub icon only appears at higher zoom level (20000m/pixel) so that the only information I can get is that I am somewhere in the Med. Then replace the bearing overlay by a transparent picture for close zoom up views. Of course no map contact update, so that sound bearings don't give my position on the map, and verboten to use the waypoint plotting tool, as the line would also give away the position. The result is simple : no more sub icon on the map...

Without electronics, they are two basic way of navigating : coastal navigation when you can see land and find your position by taking bearings on special features (lighthouse, castles, churches, watertowers, etc...) and triangle your position. This is easier IRL because in SH3 there are few land features. However, it was enough for hopping from one island to the other out of Salamis until past the east end of Kreta.
Once you don't see land anymore, you relied at this time on a chrono watch for longitude and a sextant. A sextant is basically used to measure angles of the sun or stars from the horizon at certain times and refer to tables and a little calculation to give your latitude.
The idea there is that your navigator does the job, but you need a proper sight to be able to have a precise position. The times I used were : sunrise (the moment the base of the sun touches the horizon - angle 0) noon (highest angle) sundown (same moment as sunrise) midnight (Polar star).

Whenever at this precise time I was surfaced and able to see the sun or the star (easy to find, just look north and you find the Chariot constellation, the polar star is the front "horse") my navigator was able to give a position. This was simulated by making a Ctrl-click on the map (thus bringing the sub at the cursor's spot) at max zoom in view (for precision) and mark it. To remember later what mark is what, either use paper and write "Mark 1 : Nov 7 07:30" or like I did use the ruler tool to draw a line 7.3 km long near the mark (or 7.5 if you want to work with hour fractions)
Knowing where you want to go, just draw a line from the mark with the ruler on compass mode, this gives you heading. You then just give the heading order thru the compass ( this is where I appreciated the precise 6 dials simfeeling compass...)
Two possible problems : you can't see it because of clouds or you are forced to submerge at this time because of bad company...

Remark : In SH3 your qualified helmsmen have trouble keeping the boat straight on a heading when surfaced. The waves drift the boat from course and the guys don't always bring it back. From this experience, I found the angle to the wind having an influence - the more crosswind, the more drift , less drift when you head straight into the wind. The heavier the wind, the more drift.
So if you want to be precise in your nav, you need to be careful with TC while surfaced - I used max 64 - and keep an eye on the compass to manually bring the boat on course from time to time.
Happily, the problem disappears when submerged and the boat stays on course for hours and hours.

Using this method on the first 10 days of patrol, I never drifted more than 3 km from my estimated position, which is good enough if you don't make course too close to land.

My problem there was that in the said 10 days I had patrolled my grid and patrolled the coastal route between Alexandria and Tobruk without any contact... Nothing, nichts, nada... empty sea although as usual I had every 3 hours a sound check with my personal mark 1 ears... At that point decided to sail towards the bottleneck triangle Sicily - Malta - Lampedusa. As soon as I got there, guess what : Rain, 15m/s heavy wind, rough sea, heavy fog and covered skies... Scotland in the Med...
Two direct implications : no attacks possible and no sun/stellar navigation anymore.
Switch to estimated positions from speed/time/heading and lot of drawings on the map... Of course submerged 50m and surface for reloading only. (discovered that GWX reload times were lot shorter than NYGM for same submerged times, in this situation it was welcome...)
Of course as soon as attacks were not possible anymore, tons of sound contacts : merchants, warships to and from Malta, even passing directly overhead... (never been detected, so GWX destroyers are not so uber when you are careful :D: every time a warship coming my way, went down 90 m silent running 2 knots)
After 3 days of "drawing circles in the water", I got frustrated... My navigation experience told me the best was to stay in deep waters away from land until weather cleared, but I was there to push the experiment in SH3.

I decided I would try to rejoin Lampedusa harbour where I would wait for better times. Problem : bad weather and 300m visibility. So if I really had to, what strategy would I use in real life ? Answer came loud and clear : use the depth features to confirm position. The depth are not precisely shown in SH3 like on real maps, but at least you can tell when it should go up or down. I noticed west of Lampedusa an underwater hill and headed that way (not knowing how precise my position was after 3 days of estimate only...
Heading 200° here we go... every hour, a hydrophone check to verify no nasty neighbour, then a ping from echolot. + 1000m for a while then 356m, 245m, 216m...
Switch to every half hour. 75m, 60m... switch to every 15 minutes : 40m, 35m...
Oops, may be heading directly inland ? Surface, ahead 2/3, can barely see front of the sub... it's night... heart beats a little faster... 30m... then suddenly : 35m, 45m...
Alleluia, we passed just about where we wanted, Lampedusa must be East of us. Heading 110° to be safe, submerged 2 knts to wait for daylight...
9:30 hrs : Contact, sound, warship slow moving away long distance.
Warship slow : Lampedusa must have a Flottenbegleiter or what's his name in Italian. Crew starts dreaming of Chianti and pizzas.. OK it goes to my right, then back to left. Periscope check : sea has calmed down, but fog still there...
All stop, ask sonar man to track the warship.... moving away 350, 340, then suddenly 335 closing, 340 closing... means only one thing : she's made her turnaround in port and heads out again. Surface, heading to the turning point. Suddenly the 2 lighthouses through the fog : we made it !!! Coming in the harbour, we see burning ships : must have been an air raid from Malta...

Conclusion : Without never seeing my sub icon I was able to navigate around with acceptable precision and also able to rejoin a port in the worst conditions (rough weather - no visibility) using only techniques of the time period.
Although I didn't fire one round or one torp in 13 days, it was never boring.
I guess most people will think this way of playing is definitely "too much". For those interested in the experience I would say : try it, it brings a new dimension to the simulation side. For me, no question, it's adopted...:up:

I will later post on how I did plotting an attack sequence with no icon on the map if I get a chance of shooting at something during this patrol...:-?

Yeah i think its just a bit to much, i mean we are only one person and in real life all work was made by 30 40 diferent persons, the game is a challenge as it is with manual targeting and all the calculations made by just one guy, i mean its difficult finding the solution for your target and also finding its real position and if you have to find your real position to its just to much for one alone and in the end it turns out not to be realistic at all because you loose so much time in finding so much info when at the time different persons worked together to achieve the goal.

Thank you very much, Corsair, for this report. I'm even more sure now that some day I'll try this kind of fun, maybe even I'll switch to it permanently.

As to attacks, you could always just:
— zoom in the map as much as possible after taking range and bearing of target,
— Ctrl + Click in the map center,
— draw a line from your boats position to target,
— draw a circle or mark the place where you estimate the target is,
— immediately after it delete the line from your position to target, thus leaving only the targets position, not yours,
— after engaging a target delete all the plotting marks, circles, lines etc.

What do you think about that method?

Well in fact after giving it a first thought I come to the conclusion that in an attack sequence,what is important is the relative positions of your target and your own sub.
So in fact it makes no difference if you draw the plotting at the place where you really are or anywhere on the map. You could even do it outside of the map ...

So I think when I have a contact I will just mark my position where I think I am and do the plotting from there (my course and target course) Will see...;)

Understand this will be the opinion of most people and it's absolutely respectable.
Some people just like a little more challenge everytime so the game doesn't become too repetitive, and having real life experience at sea, I feel at ease with it.
It just adds to the immersion and a little uncertainty, on top of some work to do while you spend some boring days with no contacts...:D

PS : if you read my post above, you will see that during an attack, the real positions are not important, it's only the relative ones that matter. You can plot your attack on a piece of paper without ever going to the map. I also used the word "immersion" and not "realistic"...
Also if you read my post carefully, you will see I didn't do the job alone. The Ctrl-click simulates the fact that my navigator has done his job, the depth were given to me by the same nav officer, the sound contact in Lampedusa was found and followed by the sonar operator. I used the info gathered by my team to take decisions, which is the job of the Kapt'n...

Good show :up:

I found this report absolutely fascinating. Great job! :up:

I'm going to give this a try but, will stay in deep water and away from
hard objects till I get the hang of it. Good work.:up:

Thks mate, it was your videos who gave me the kick in the *ss to get started...

Quite right, Corsair. Navigation and tactical plot are two different things. In the tactical plot, you're in the center of the universe and other vessels are in position relative to yours. You plot then by either visual or sound bearings.

When it comes to navigation, I would like to see a certain amount of ambiguity in one's position if the weather been foul (navigator unable to take sights) this being critical when near land. Radiogoniometry would help in this case when returning to base.

It would be fun to be able to take starshots, but one would need to get the tables etc. I already forgot the steps to even taking a bearing off the sun. :nope:

Well I can tell you when I decided to try and find Lampedusa after 3 full days of estimated plotting, I was feeling a lot of ambiguity.
Using the depth to confirm position is taken from real life, although in these weather conditions on a real boat, I would not even have tried it ( riding a storm with bad visibility is always better far from land...) and I definitely wouldn't have headed for this underwater hill, because the depth going on a short distance from 300m to 30m would IRL induce huge breaking waves and would be a death trap.
Most boats having big trouble in bad weather/visi are those who try to make it to shore as soon as possible when it is in fact safer to stay away from it.. As long as there is water downwind to drift, I stay outside.

Absouuuuutely superb Corsair. Adds a lot of immersion and works!

great post.

could anyone give me a link for this mod?
thanks:)

If you're talking about GWX you can get it from the link in my signature

errm, thanks ive already got GWX :lol: but i mean something to make navigating harder