View Single Post
Old 11-17-05, 09:53 PM   #8
Pablo
Commodore
 
Pablo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 641
Downloads: 168
Uploads: 0
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by gouldjg
After reading some background stuff, It seems that DD should have a 300 yards blind spot at front and thus after that the DC was lucky guessing.
Hi!

The sonar blind spot is (in real life) not a constant, but dependent on the type of sonar and the depth of the U-boat. Early war sonars had a relatively shallow angle (say, 10-15 degrees wide just below the surface); this rewarded deep-diving submarines, since the range at which the surface ship lost contact increased as the submarine went deeper. Basic geometry gives a reasonably good first approximation of the size of the blind spot at different depths.

Later sonars had narrower beams but could look down at about a 70 degree angle, as well as looking to the side, resulting in a much smaller "blind spot" and giving a fairly accurate reading of the U-boat's depth.

In addition, destroyers developed a tactic where one ship would stand off and use its sonar to track the submarine while radioing directions to the close-in "blind" ships moving in for the kill.

It's not clear how well (if at all) SH3 models this kind of behavior or allows it to be modeled.

Pablo
Pablo is offline   Reply With Quote