New kaleun; a few realism questions
 

Hello, frens!

I have some experience with military sims (mainly flight sims), but I'm new to Silent Hunter (and sub sims in general). As such, I've a few questions regarding realism, if you'll indulge me. SH3 + Onealex mod. Out-of-the-box settings, except that I turned off crew fatigue -- not a captain's job, imo, and not something that interests me from a simulation perspective.

1) Regarding the map view (F5)... Would there have been officers or POs in the control center constantly updating the position of enemy ships on the navigation map? Would I, as captain, have been able to visualize a ship's movement imposed upon the map... if not to the same real-time extent as the game portrays?

2) How accurate was the range estimate from the hydrophone operator? In the game, you can use the hydrophone contact vector to fairly accurately determine the range. Was that possible?

3) How does the community feel about using the F5 map for plotting a targeting solution? Do "real kaleuns" solely use periscope target recognition and speed/range determination, aided by clues from the hydrophone operator?

Regardless, I've very much enjoyed my time with the game so far! Currently in December 1939, having started a 1st flotilla career based in Kiel. 26,000 tons sunk after five patrols... and quite a lot of malfunctioning torpedoes!

All the more satifsying when they DO find their targets. :p

Typically only the navigator, and only at the request of the commander. Plotting was very typical when shadowing a convoy in order to determine zig pattern, speed etc. A plot of each individual ship though wouldn’t happen. In short, the plot was primarily used as a means to determine target data, and not so much for situational awareness.

Very inaccurate. There are instances in the historical record of experienced sound men being totally confused about the distance of certain sounds, in one memorable case aboard U-47, which picked up explosions that turned out to be miles away, which the operator mistook as right on top of the boat. Passive listening was so dependent on ambient factors (sea state, water depth, salinity, stratification etc) that conditions were often far less than ideal.

It provides far too much information. During a submerged attack, the commander was looking through the attack periscope in the tower making all the decisions for the approach based on what he saw there, assisted by the navigator, who used slide rules and tables to assist him there. Surfaced, the commander would be on the bridge overseeing the situation and supervising the I.WO, who was doing the aiming at the UZO.

Silent Hunter series provides no middle ground. Map contacts on provides way more information at a glance than any real commander could dream of, and map contacts off falls short as well as you are almost entirely dependent on what you yourself can see/gather. In real life, data gathering was normally a team effort - a target would be followed on a parallel course at max range for a time and its speed and course matched (called “Ausdampfen”), or the data was determined by plotting. The officers had a little pow-wow and agreed on the course and speed, and these were documented in the KTB. At the time of the shot, the data was then confirmed by estimation. This is how SH targeting falls short - either you “have it all”, or you are forced to be on your own. That said, I personally play no map contacts, as I find using the historical data gathering methods (matching, plotting, estimating) to be a big part of my enjoyment.

Follow Tonci87
 

Excellent post. "Silent Hunter series provides no middle ground." That's the problem in a nutshell. With manual targeting you tend to be very busy doing several people's jobs, but if you let the AI do things for you it does them much too well.
In particular without radar it was very difficult in real life to calculate range to target - whether by hydrophone, periscope, Uzo or naked eye. Using the mast height or ship length for range was not very practical when there was such a vast number of merchant ship types.

Historically there were a number of clever methods of deriving a target solution without having to directly measure range to target accurately. Can I recommend Tonci87's excellent series on "U-tube"? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...Ig-rUT4Z3fOPPS He really makes an effort to use realistic attack methods. I think he still goes a bit far in drawing super-accurate lines on the plot, but it's really up to you how you choose to play.

You are spot on! Not to mention that as long as the gyro angle is low, say within 30° of your bow, range hardly matters to the computation of lead angle. It’s only when the gyro angle gets large, especially at close range, that accurate range input into the TDC makes a big difference, due to parallax. Hence why it is always best to minimize the gyro angle to the extent possible, to eliminate one potential source of error. Then you can get away with ballparking it, as was typical in real life, estimating the length of the target and gauging range by how much it filled the optics when close to a 90 AOB. Lots of mentions of this in KTBs.

I always recommend people play with the TDC to see these impacts. Move the bearing so that the gyro angle is low, and then turn the range knob through its entire throw and watch the gyro angle - it will hardly change. Now do the same thing, except move the bearing so that the gyro angle is very large. When you turn the range knob, the gyro angle now changes significantly.

Welcome aboard!
 

This game is absolutely great for trial and error. Try out some weird angle shots and see what happens. Keep trying and learning!

In terms of plotting a very good in between is the Assisted Plotting Mod.
https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/dow...o=file&id=1328
But don't get caught up too much in the pursuit of "realism". It's just a video game and there are many glaring errors and omissions still in it.

Thank you all so much for the warm welcome vis-a-vis these great responses -- very helpful, and confirming of my suspicions.

I have indeed been watching the excellent Tonci87 videos on YT. In fact, I would attribute my small successes thus far almost entirely to both him and to Wolfpack345, whose videos are also excellent, if somewhat less "realistic" given his greater use of the in-game navigation map. My attacks to date have been more like Wolfpack's -- more dependent on information derived from the map. He often uses the U-Jagd as well, which I don't believe is available in the OneAlex mod that I'm using?

To clarify somewhat, I'm not really striving for "absolute realism" in what is, after all, a "computer game." I guess I'm more curious about how _you_ approach the game, and how _you_ strike a balance between realism and fun. And, of course, I'm also trying to understand what truly was realistic (being a newcomer to this aspect of WW2-era combat), so that I can make informed decisions on how to approach the game myself.

Anyway, thanks again!

I've enjoyed my time thus far with the Type II, but, I'll admit, I'm looking forward to a Type VII upgrade. :p

:Kaleun_Salute:

Ujagd is really a game thing
 

I'm told by others on this forum that the Ujagd was not a uboat thing. It seems to be disappearing from recent supermods. However the basic technique of timing the target past a fixed point to get speed is valid. You really need to be more or less stationary or, at a pinch, moving directly towards the target to get a good answer.
To do the calculation you can either use one of the tools provided by various mods or simply double the target length in metres and divide by the time to pass a fixed point in seconds. This gives speed in knots since 1 knot=0.52m/s. When sober I can do the division to the nearest knot in my head.:yeah:
Of course in real life it was unlikely you would know the target length as there were too many different ship types.:hmmm:

Iirc, the "going to stationary and timing the target" was not a historical method used, more of a game method.

But I can't recall exactly. Anyone else?

Well, sort of...
 

The "stabilized azimuth line" on the periscope was indeed used for speed estimation.


http://www.tvre.org/en/stabilized-azimuth-line


Of course SH3 doesn't have this, but as the boat keeps an unrealistic very steady course the basic periscope markings can do the job provided you don't move the periscope and steer straight.


The site linked above gives you a lot more information than you would ever want about historical procedures! Someone put a LOT of effort in!

Play in full realism in Fifi's NYGM in bad weather, let's talk again..!!
of course it remains a game... but in this mod the feeling is very well conveyed...:D
Negative buoyant..No Ujag.. No point.. no map attack.. no update cible... in Mod 4.4 NYGM Enhanced Hardcore « Steel Coffins edition »
Thank" s for documentation it' s interessant

I'm not talking about the stablized line as much as the stopping of the boat. Whether that was actually used in combat operations vs. pre-war sops. But I could just as easily be thinking of something else altogether.

And yes, I've had that site bookmarked for many years.

Stopping the boat underwater in real life near the enemy at periscope depth is a recipe for disaster. A U-boat needed momentum for effective depthkeeping. The exception is the trick of “hanging the boat by the scope”, which was more of a parlor trick, if anything, and possible only in very calm seas. Certainly not something to risk near the enemy.

Correct on U-Jagd. “U-Jagd” means ASW in German. This watch was for timing closure rates for attacking a submerged sub with depth charges. I happened on the MDv for U-Jäger vessels a couple years ago and the watch’s use is fairly well described there.