Aircraft attacking at night

[Charos]

Im playing on 100% full difficulty and Im really enjoying the challenge.

One thing though is really getting to me - If there is a valid REAL reason then I can accept it.

A few times now I have been attacked in the middle of the ocean IE: 1000+KM from Japanese mainland in the Inky black of night.

I have only been running at 8 Knots, Have not sent any messages in over 72hrs and not in my current area.

Now my lookout crew is spotting these AC at "long range" and the closure time
seems about the same as daytime.

Ontop of this the enemy AC always makes a B-line straight for my Submarine.

Somehow they simply know Im a bad guy in the middle of the night at long range.

This seems a little too hard to swallow unless there using radar?

[joea]

Oh it's wrong, the Japanese did not install radar on their planes til late in the war.

[TopCat]

yep, that's right.

But i was never attacked by planes at night until now (playing at hard and very hard). Strange...

[Charos]

Originally Posted by TopCat

yep, that's right.

But i was never attacked by planes at night until now (playing at hard and very hard). Strange...

Ive also set my campaign to "Very hard" whatever that may mean. I was hopeing
it just meant more realism.

If that means beyond reality then I dont want that - shame no-one seems to know what these setting actually do.

[gonzlor]

I'm playing on Normal (with edited configs to get various things different) And I've noticed also that I come into contact with planes, in places well beyond their range, at night even, and as you'd expect they always seem to be heading directly for me, How'd they know I was there? I'm MILES away from anything in the middle of the pacific.

Could they be coming from carriers? Which somehow know where I am?.


It's actually quite annoying because I dive to dodge them, surface later on when my batteries are up around 25 again and then the next thing I get is an aircraft spotted, 2 more bombers heading directly for me from the middle of nowhere.

It's becoming somewhat frustrating

[arkham1010]

Thats ok, lately I've been getting attacked by EA about 100nm due west for Midway Island. And i don't think it has anything to do with the battle of midway, unless that battle happens in Febuary/March 1942. :P

The only other thing I can think of is the devs 'parked' battle groups near where the battles take place, and activate them right around the time the battle is suppose to happen.

[Floyd]

Here's a link to some info about a recon plane:
http://www.answers.com/topic/mitsubishi-ki-46

Look at the range: 4,000 km (2,485 mi)
On the map that came with the game is the air cover for Japan 41-45
and it's radius is 600 mi. And, depending on implementation we should expect
more air cover once Wake is captured.
The file airstrike.cfg gives as aircraft range:

Maximum Aircraft Range=2500 ;[>0] in kilometers

Sounds reasonable. Even the Zero had a range of 3100 km:
http://www.answers.com/topic/a6m-zero

The planes are pesky, even more once they've found you. The probability for
airstrikes raises, check the airstrike.cfg file in the CFG folder for the numbers.

[Faamecanic]

What I find annoying is that the planes are like "dead eye dick"... in being that they almost NEVER miss. Couple that with the 40+ second dive times and your almost always dead.

Airplanes in sh4=dead ..... Jap destroyers in sh4 = brain dead.

[Egan]

There is a modifier in the 'airstrike cfg' file that changes the possibility of attacks at night. In the vanilla game it is quite high. I've changed mine down slightly. While I don't think it is possible to entirely eliminate air attacks at night you can certainly make them pretty rare.

Problem is, I don't think there is any way to differentiate between and radar-less early war aircraft and a late war radar equiped version.

Carriers will launch air patrols as well. If you come into their range and the logic call is made, they will come at you, same as regular air bases. I seem to remember from SH3 they had very high ranges.

[tater]

Zeros would not be flying at night excet as erzatz night fighters right over a target area. None of the CV planes should be seen at night at all, frankly. Flyingboats maybe. In terms of them making a bee-line for the player, seems like that is the way they model such air encounters. the planes that are not coming towards you you never see (they're not really there, but you get the idea).

Since the in game visibility range is so short (it's 8km, right?) I'd just assume they spotted you from farther away than 8km. Not sure, but a surfaces sub might be not to hard to spot with a phosphorescent wake...

[Banquet]

There was at least one instance of a bombing attack at night. USS Apogon was bombed on a pitch black night in late Nov 43 when about 75 miles north of Truk. (Info taken from SH1 manual)

There's a link here that is from a sailor on the Apogon. Although it doesn't mention the bombing it does say this;

'Although we moved into the blackest of night our decks were lit up from the phosphorous rich water that glowed brightly on both sides of the boat. The glow began at the point where the bow sliced into the water and extended seaward, from the hull, for a width of about 10 or more feet on each side of the boat and all the way aft, to the propellers and beyond. What a beautiful sight. I enjoyed watching this phenomenon from the bridge as often as possible. It was true that should enemy planes fly by, they could have seen us clearly outlined by the waters light, but the skipper chose to ignore the danger, trusting our radar and or lookouts to spot enemy planes before they could bomb us.'

I do think the night bombing could be toned down a bit though.

[U-Bones]

This is incredibly easy to address.

in Data/Cfg/Airstrike.cfg

Night Modifier=0.2 ;>0] Modifier on strike probability at night

Edit the file with notepad and change it to 0.01

Enjoy

[Charos]

The H8K2 had a range of 7000km and frequently did 24Hr long patrols.

Here is a Quote from http://avia.russian.ee/air/japan/kawanishi_h8k.php

"The further-improved H8K2, with 1380kW Kasei 22 radials and armament increased to five 20mm cannon and four 7.7mm machine-guns, of which 112 were built between 1943 and 1945, was unquestionably the toughest opponent faced by the Allies in the Pacific. It was also equipped with ASV radar, being responsible for the sinking of at least three American submarines in the area north of the Philippines during the last 18 months of the war."

There is a Top link on Japanese radar here:
http://www.star-games.com/exhibits/j...neseradar.html

The H8K2 had the Mark VI Model 1 ocean search radar or H6 Radar which had a surface search of 70km radius.

Really looks like 1943 bare minimum for air based radar for the Japanese and even then 1944 for wide useage,

Became Operational
August 1942
War Status
used operationally in war
Installed
large flying boats, mid-sized attack planes (H8K, G4M2, P1Y, J1N1-S/11, J1N1-Sa/11a)
Purpose
air and surface search
Wavelength
200 cm
Peak Output
3 kw
Transmitter
parallel two wire
Receiver
UN-954
Detector
n/a
Detected
aircraft, group at 100 km, single at 70 km
Weight
110 kg
Number Built
2000
Antennae
Yagi type, send and receive common use
This set probably did not come into common use until 1944. Prior to that time any sets in use were probably deployed on H8K flying boats.

[Charos]

Originally Posted by U-Bones

This is incredibly easy to address.

in Data/Cfg/Airstrike.cfg

Night Modifier=0.2 ;>0] Modifier on strike probability at night

Edit the file with notepad and change it to 0.01

Enjoy

Holy cow - I just got home and checked mine (My campaign is set to VERY HARD)

Night Modifier=0.5 ;[>0] Modifier on strike probability at night

So I take then that on very hard the chance is 50% being attacked by air during the night than during the day - thats insane!

Not only that but it looks like the detection distance at night stays the same as the day.

IE (From file) : 3.1 check number of aircraft that can strike at that range and conditions, and compute a coverage factor based on the range of each aircraft type
; and detection area around submarine ( 10 km radius )

So it appears that by default at night you can be spotted by Enemy Aircraft up to 10km range with 50% chance of that during the day.

Im not seeing any factor for airborne radar in there - is there one? :hmm:

As outlined in this PDF www.siaa.asn.au/get/2395356488.pdf

There should be a POD or "Probability Of Detection" assigned to each ASW sensor IE: Human eyes.

From what I can see the POD day or night in SH4 is the same at 10KM detection range from the players sub as it is at 1KM IE:100% .

Instead the Enemy AC should draw visible at 10KM but only if the POD aligns up with atmospheric conditions and sensor search limitations at range should the AC actually spot you - if not it should just trundle by on its merry way.


There should be a Simple POD matrix the simulation looks up to achieve this result.

[Charos]

A very interesting and excellent document on SAR missions and POD

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/g-opr/nsa...hodsReview.pdf


"Consider an omnidirectional sensor that is "perfect" (i.e. 100% effective) within some definite range and completely ineffective beyond that range. That is, detection is guaranteed for any object the sensor approaches more closely than the definite detection range, and the sensor never detects any object beyond that range. This idea is analogous to setting a lawn mower’s blade to a height of zero and then pushing it into tall grass. The lawn mower would leave behind it a swath of bare earth having a definite width (twice the definite detection range), while blades of grass outside this width would be untouched. Inserting this particular sensor into the previous description, it is easily seen that in this special case (and this special case alone), the sweep width is literally the width of the swept area where the detections took place, i.e. twice the definite detection range."


This is analagous to how SH4 appears to be doing ASW duty IE: with a POD of 100% with a detection range of 10Km or a sweep width of 20Km.

As the quote says (Consider an omnidirectional sensor that is "perfect" i.e. 100% effective).

So the ASW in SH4 is too good to be realistic its actually utopian.

When I get home I will try the following:

#1 Change daytime value from 1 IE 100% to 50% which is much more realistic for a visual sighting over 20Km sweep width during the day.

#2 Change Night time to say 15% which should provide a night time modifier of (0.5*0.15=0.075) OR 7.5% chance to find a sub in the dark within a 20Km sweep width or diameter as is the case here.


Without Radar most WW2 night time ASW patrols would have been more nuisance value to force subs under and hurt them operationally without actually making contact. We cant simulate that here because when your crew spots the Enemy AC its already been computed to spotting you and is already on an attack run.

That wasnt a problem when you could dive in 30 Seconds in SH3 but now it is.