Fire my sonar man??

[chazsi]

Has this ever happened to you?

I'm on patrol in the North Sea. I submerge to give hydrophones a listen. I hear a faint contact of slow screws at 230 degrees, but he says "No Sound Contact."

I make my heading 230 degrees and surface at "ahead flank." After 25 minutes I submerge to get another listen. Still "No Sound Contact." But I hear the screws quite a bit louder. It's definitely a Merchant and it's at 359 degrees.

I surface and I'm ahead flank speed for about 15 minutes this time. Submerge for a listen. "No Sound Contact." THESE SCREWS ARE LOUD NOW. HE'S GOT TO BE CLOSE.

I hit the sonar man in the back of the head, "Unclog your ears, son. You're going to get us all killed."

I proceed ahead flank speed but at periscope depth. Continually checking with Mr. Sonar I continually get "No Sound Contact." I'm getting ticked off and ready to ram a torpedo suppository into him.

"Report to the aft torpedo room for medical treatment, Harvey."

His screws are LOUDER THAN EVER. I can hear them without muting the television which I usually do when using sonar.

I'm about ready to order ahead flank once again when what do I see in the scope? A medium cargo vessel (Norway) off my port bow. He's at 1300m.

"I said get to the aft torpedo room, Harvey!"

It is a shame I cannot surface and deck gun him to the bottom, but it's EARLY in the war, he's all lit up, spotlights on his flags and I don't want the penalty.

Boy am I glad he wasn't a warship of some type.

So...... fellow captains...

... what to do with Harvey when he waddles back from the aft torpedo room?

Anyone else ever had such a blatant miss from hydrophone?

[benitorios]

I believe the sonar man's ability is limited if the sound comes from bearings close to 0/360 degrees or in the 170/190. This is to simulate the limitation of the hydrophones themselves. But the game lets you hear those sounds if you operate the hydrophone yourself, which is indeed pretty frustrating: you can hear the sounds loud and clear, while your sonar man insists there is no contact.

If I need his assistance (e.g. I want to take care of other things while keeping an eye/ear on that sound contact), I would manoeuver the sub so that the contact is out of those blind hydrophone bearings, point the hydrophone hand right onto the contact i hear, and click the check mark on the hydrophone screen - that usually jolts the sonar man into action.

PS. just make sure your sound contact isn't a warship as showing your full sub profile in the manoeuver described above is certainly not the best idea in such cases.

[andwii]

I turned off my fatigue for just that reason, ive been sunk because of it. Task force came through, but I gave em a run for their money, sank one destroyer and hid below the half sank destroyer for hours before giving up and running flank underwater and getting depth charged.

[Boompus]

yeah... sometimes I don't trust him. "No contact" while the whole RN is above us. I manage him often to the quarter or torp section and operate the hydr myself.
He also drives me crazy when encountering a large convoy..so I put him somewhere where he's usefull...a medic for example ...

[Mittelwaechter]

There are some technical limitations of the different hydrophones as there are limitations through the quality of your hydrophone operator. A brand new VII in 1939 has deaf zones and the rookie operator seems to be quite "rookie".

Promote and qualify him and get you the second hydrophone model asap.

There are even limitations caused by your own speed, speed of contact as by weather conditions.
If you play with fatigue enabled your operator may be simply tired.

These limitations are for your operator, but not for yourself. Your best ever hydro operator may find contacts in 25 km distance - while you personally may be able to detect them directly after spawning at ~ 30 km distance.

If your periscope is up - even only a few centimeters - your operator will refuse to report contacts you should be able to detect yourself visually. This ensures he'll tell you about new contacts - like closing DDs - outside your visual range.

[chazsi]

THANKS for all the tips and feedback.

I knew about the "dead spot" aft but was unaware of the others. Went back into that game and while the periscope WAS retracted, it was not quite all the way down. That may have been it as well.

Thanks again all!