Distance of spotting ? GWX2.1
 

Hello,
i just again encountered a destroyer who saw me at 10 miles in 1939, shelling me. This ship had no radar then, so it must have been visual detection. This was daylight and calm seas, but i could not even see him when he already began shelling me.

Now my wach officer spots a ship at 13300 meters/8-9 miles distance, but it is 1.45 o'clock, and pitch black night. Ok i know my officers are good, but still...

Just wondering,
greetings,
Catfish

Ooo goodie, I'm prepared for this.:lol:

These are not figures that GWX has used to base any of the detection ranges etc on, however they do give you an idea of what's happening regards spotting ranges.

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s...photo/Visi.jpg

Ok, these are distances to the horizon however, obviously you can see over the horizon when taller targets are involved & visa versa.

Ships did & do have better optical equipment than you do on your U-Boat, as discussed in the manual.

However, at the end of the day, it comes down to 'game balance'. GWX is limited to the confines of the game code, so a change to night time spotting distances may affect day time ranges etc (as well as other aspects of sensors)....sucks I know but I feel the best balance has been achieved.

Hello,
this was one fast reply :o :lol:
thanks, however this seems a bit far at night.
The special coated Zeiss lenses of the U-boat crews should have been the best at that time, if not the height of the conning tower would spoil it.
It is certainly easier to see a target against the horizon than if it is closer, when towering at a greater height. I will have look at Buchheims numbers, however this list is something to work with.
Thanks a lot and greetings,
Catfish

I would be interested in what you find.:yep:

It has bugged me on occasion but I accept it as a game limitation.

Edit - As for being a fast reply. It's only because I was recently tweaking my files to remove a small annoyance of mine.

I agree with Catfish. Destroyers and above had better fire control ranging optics than any submarine, but spotters used the same binoculars as everyone else. Again, as he said, smaller targets are not seen against the horizon, and smaller ships almost always spotted bigger ships before the vice versa.

Anyone already listened about StayALert crewmod?:hmm:

Just kidding because I never adapted it to GWX2.x (it's for GWX 1.03)

This issue was in better conditions on that mod mod. Your crew will see the ships first almost all the time (exception to heavy fog where it's uncertain) and will see "more at the same time that you can see". Also, FYI, in the GWX 8km this problem is more accentuate.

Anyhow, StayAlert crew mod was dropped down for some ppl that don't understood that it is customizable for any play style (more or less sensible).
However, the "night vampire vision", is really hardcoded, a true bug left behind by the devs...

Hello,
i do not want to be the Mr. Wiseguy, and i appreciate the people who made this total conversion possible. It is not necessary, maybe not even possible, to change the night sight in SH3, i only post this to show real life visible distances as i experienced in real life, and also read in some books.

This is from the Buchheim book "The Uboat crews", real life vision is certainly always better than we "see" on video cards. I tried to remain close to the text, which may appear a bit rough that way, as well i'm no native english-speaker, so please bear with me:
"The visual range of the U-boats was low. Although one could see for 10 to 20 seamiles [appx. 1.8 kilometer per german seamile] during good weather and ideal visability, but when was there ever an "ideal" visability in the North Atlantic? If at all during summer - and even then not in typical fog zones like near Labrador, and in the Denmark strait.
It even happened that U-boats which encountered dense fog near Newfoundland or Labrador, had to use the Typhon not to collide with fishing boats.
...
It is hard to say how far the radar horizon of aircraft was. The wave impulse's intensity was hardly sufficient to reflect the small U-boat silhouettes at a range of 90 miles, as often suspected. Most probably the observers received a signal up to a distance of 25 to 30 miles from each side. But they were certainly able to control large regions quickly.
..."
I realized that there is so much information in the books, i can hardly translate all this. Anyway if i find something directly mentioning visibility i will post this.

Remains another thing: When you are in the lookout of a destroyer, your visibility regarding the horizon is not necessarily better than if you were in a lower position. Certainly the horizon around you is more distant than the one you see from a small boat, and you will see silhouettes around that "ring of visibility" in a greater distance, but you will fail to see ships that are closer, because you do not see the silhouette, but look at it from above. The "tower" of a U-boat is only a raised platform, a small grey/black tin drum, which will be very hard to detect in anything than calm seas.

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

Good Point!

True,
and more if the boat use a camo paint.:yep:

usually the boat is a "Heavy" object in the sea, with the waves cover¡ng the deck with only the little tower visible at some distance.
it´s the cause of the importance of allied radars late in the war.

For example a 2 meters men can walk on the grass, but a mice could detect the men and evade before he can see it.

Hello,
i only tell what i found in Buchheims three photo books, and i say a visual detection of a U-boat or even a small ship by a destroyer, at a range of 30 or even 20 kilometers, and even during calm seas, is not possible.
I do not understand it, when i last played SHIII with a lot of mods it was somehow more realistic. Realistic does not mean for me to make the sim unnecessarily hard, if it does not reflect the real thing.

Some texts:

"One time a destroyer just came straight at us. We thought that was it - but he had not seen us, raced by us, and vanished."
Happened during dawn, no storm.

"A U-boat operating surfaced was almost invisible for the enemy: It towered only a small amount above the surface, and had no conspicuous silhouette if it did not run fast on a parallel course. Downside was the low lookout and thus a narrow field of vision"
No numbers here, but if you see the photos of the calm sea it is even here downright impossible to visually detect a boat, without radar.

"Assuming good weather and a steamer mast height of 40 meters, a rough estimate would be that a ship is sighted at a distance from 12 to 15 miles"
This is the distance a U-boat would get a glimpse of a ship with masts of 40 meters height. If you want to detect a U-boat with some 2-3 meters of elevation above the sea level, 8 miles is the absolute maximum.

If there was a large convoy it will most probably be detected much earlier and at a greater distance, for the plumes of smoke were treacherous. Warships usually did not produce the typical black smoke, if only intentionally for making up a smoke screen.

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

<to address this matter definitively again>

Regardless of the situation, the consequence for reducing visual sensor sensitivity in GWX would be to return AI units to their former status of wandering around in an alcoholic stupor.

I have no intention of walking backwards in that way. Nor do I feel that the benefits of ubering the player visual sensors to compensate, outweighs the negative consequences of doing so.

Hello,
only to make this clear:
A U-boat can be spotted visually by the AI at a range of 30 kilometers.
I can spot the AI at, hmm, 20 ? Or less ? It just felt unreal to be shelled by a ship which smoke i cannot even see - and no radar was used.
If it is not possible to change this without breaking the entire artificial "intelligence" in SH3 there seems to be no way out. However this takes away one of the biggest advantages a boat really had, and makes the shadowing of a convoy almost impossible in calm seas. Seems we will have to live with that :shifty:

Greetings,
Catfish

Hmmm.....actually a good point..I could possibly somehow have understood the fact that the ship had seen you (visually confirmed you), but shelling...? At that distance, such a small target and not sure of your speed and heading (Too far away to get excact readings)? From a moving destroyer....? I dont think the hit percentage would be high in that matter..... :yep:

Hello Seth,
i repeated this a few times, the destroyer was invisible for me, even with exterior cam on. Calm seas, ok. And believe me, i instantly dived when those shells hissed by. I had stayed at PD, running with less than 100 rpms silent. Hm.
Not even that helped me, after 10 to 12 minutes he became visible, and then he was right above me - exactly - hit - sunk. In 1939, by a four stacker.:88)

What does that "chunk" value of 30 mean in the AIsensors.dat file ? Does it mean the 30 kilometers visibility for the AI, or is it another value?
Greetings,
Catfish

Hmm...weird... :hmm:
The destroyers "crew experience" would play a role here, i think, but as you say, mate; A total "invisible" ship should not be able to send shells down on you from that distance, without having a rather sofisticated weapon system combined with a good radar (something this one didnt have, since it was too early)..

***

I have no idea what that number means, mate..Here we need the help some excellent mod-brains...:up: