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.