[Pablo]

Originally Posted by Von Due

1) Hydrophones: Is there a consistency with engine and screw frequencies and speed for a given ship or is it as chaotic as the moon phases?

The higher the pitch, the faster the ship.

I don't recall that you can differentiate between vessel types, but merchants are generally slower than independent warships so there is that clue. Your best bet would be to set up a test scenario with a single merchant ship going by your U-boat: alter the ship's speed and find the correlation.

2) Any idea what is up with the hydrophone you start off with?

IIRC the Kristalldrehbasisgerät has a better range that the hydrophone you start off with (the Gruppenhorchgerät (GHG)) in addition to being able to listen directly in front of your boat.

3) How close do you guys generally go for identifying nationality, weather and light depending of course (no external camera).

I usually shoot at a range of 600 meters to 1 km, which allows me to see the flags pretty easily.

4) I am also trying to work out some sort of time plan for the crew, to get rid of this micro management every hour or so. Any tips on tested and proven time schedules for these brave but often exhaused sailors?

I use the default GWX crew management settings. As it happens, I usually stop and submerge to use the hydrophones about once per hour anyways since the hydrophones can detect ships at a much greater range than you can detect them visually. Crew management is only a minor inconvenience since i"m already stopping..

Hope this helps!