Hydrophone Tracking & Interception

[Twitchy]

I've having trouble intercepting ships using the hydrophone.

What is short, long and medium range in kilometers/meters?

And when they give me a bearing, do i head toward THAT bearing? I assumed that the bearing they give me is the direction that the ship is moving, so I go in the opposite dirction to intercept. Is this correct?

[lafeeverted]

I don't know the distances in relation to the reports. From what I have read, hydrophones could pick up a single ship at up to 7 NM and convoys up to 50 NM. I don't know exactly how this is modelled in the game.

When you get a hydrophone bearing, that is only where the contact is in relation to your sub. If you are heading North (0') and a contact is at 90' that means it is currently at your 3o'clock. You should stay submerged and ask your hydro operator to follow the contact and determine where the contact is going. This will only take a few minutes game time. if thew contact is reported at 91,92,93. It is probably moving in the opposite direction from you. This is only part of the game. You do not know exactly what direction. Your report may also tell you if the ship is closing or heading away. That will give you another piece of the puzzle.

Once i get a contact , I generally turn to directly face the contact and then monitor which way it is moving. Then i will surface and head down a bearing that puts me slightly ahead of the direction of travel of the contact. I attempt to intercept for 20-30 minutes, then resubmerge and again establish hydrophone contact and start again. This can go on for hours, especially at night and in poor weather you can sail right past them, or even into them! nothing quite like chasing a contact in bad weather for hours only to find it to be a neutral ship or a 185 tonne trawler not worth wasting a torp on and with swells too high to use the deck gun.

[jason10mm]

The line is a bearing from your boat to the targeted ship. If you were stopped and the ship was circilng you, that line would follow them like the hand of a clock. The longer the line, the farther away they are. I think that the better your sonar guy is, the more accurately the line is drawn.

I have no idea what close, medium, and long ranges are.

There are plenty of sources out there to help you use the hydrophones. In a nutshell, you have to mark the enemy position based on the line (puut a marker at the end of the line). Then a little while later mark it again, and again until you get a track of dots which should give you an idea of the targets course. Then you can run a line along it to find the general path of the ship, do a high speed run around to get in front, then wait for your prey. If you are trying to manually target ships, you have to do a lot more and would benefit from the many tutorials and tool mods floating around.

[Twitchy]

I don't think you get sonar lines without map contacts enabled, do you?

[Twelvefield]

I don't recall exactly what the close, medium, and long ranges are, but these are my rules of thumb:

SHORT RANGE: anything between ramming the sub to 2,000 meters, I am guessing. If you use your periscope (or your eyeball) at zero magnification, and you can clearly see details of the target ship, you are at short range. It is possible to be at short range and too close for the torpedo to arm itself, so it's not always an ideal place to be. The sounds of the target in hydrophone, and even in the command room can be loud.

MEDIUM RANGE: 2,000 to 8,000 meters? If you use magnification, you should be able to see some details on the target ship, and the ship should be "hull up". If a target is hull up, you can see the sides (or bow or stern) of the ship). If the target is hull down, all you can see over the horizon is the smoke from its stack. If you are at close medium range, your torpedo should hit. If you are at far medium range, your torpedo will fail to reach the target because of lack of fuel. The sounds of the target will be clear in the hydrophone, but you won't hear them in the command room.

LONG RANGE: 8,000 +. At close long range, the target appears as hull down. This will allow you to track the target without it ever seeing you. At far long range, the only way to track the target is with your hydrophone, as it will be beyond visual range. This is the how the majority of your merchant contacts will be with respect to your sub, as you want to find and close in on them much, much more than they want to do the same to you.

Again, my range numbers are pure guesses. I vaguely remember a thread where someone had these numbers figured out. By now, though, I just use the rules of thumb that I have here posted.

[Twitchy]

But is the bearing the direction in which they are traveling or where they are?

[Boojum]

0 is your bow/front and 180 is your stern/back end. It is the bearing from your boat to the contact.

[Twelvefield]

The bearing needle on the hydrophone points to where the target is in relation to you (where they are). The hydrophone does not directly tell you the target's course (the direction they are travelling). You have to do multiple plots on the navigation map to figure that out.

[Twitchy]

Thanks for the tips! I just managed to hpdrophone and blow a merhcnat out of the water

[Twitchy]

LOL!
Right after i torped that merchant I started taking damage and I wondered why. Turns out I beached myself LOL!!!! GOTTA take a closer look at those maps.

[Twitchy]

Okay, now that I have WaW mod on, it just kicked it up a level. Now I cant track ANYTHING, PERIOD. I've been tracking for 3 hours, real time, and havent even SEEN a ship.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Twitchy

Okay, now that I have WaW mod on, it just kicked it up a level. Now I cant track ANYTHING, PERIOD. I've been tracking for 3 hours, real time, and havent even SEEN a ship.

Something's fishy.

With the WaW Realsim Mod installed, does your hydrophone work for you when playing the Naval Academy's torpedo mission?

[Twitchy]

I'm sure it does but i SUCK at using it.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Twitchy

I'm sure it does but i SUCK at using it.

I think we've found the problem! :hmm: