I Hate Single Ship Contacts!!!!

During the U-Boat War Commanders received reports on CONVOYS, not single little ships roaming the Ocean. The single ships they sunk, were ships they just happened to run across with no advance warning. I'm basing this on years of reading and research on the subject.

So how do you get rid of the single ship contacts, yet keep the convoy contacts?I'm currently running RUB 1.45.

The current assisted plotting mod 1.4b does not do away with the single ship contacts. I know an older version did, but I can not find it anywhere.

Thanks!

[Sir Big Jugs]

Stop whining so much! Do you really think that the "real" U-boat commanders saw a convoy evrytime they raised their periscope??? PATIENCE!!!

If you want convoys, try looking at the hunting grounds pages of the Wikipedia community manual.

Available here:

http://www.communitymanuals.com/shii...unting_Grounds


Also, in your SH3 box there came a map displaying all the main convoy lanes in SHIII. Look there!

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Magua

During the U-Boat War Commanders received reports on CONVOYS, not single little ships roaming the Ocean. The single ships they sunk, were ships they just happened to run across with no advance warning. I'm basing this on years of reading and research on the subject.

So how do you get rid of the single ship contacts, yet keep the convoy contacts?I'm currently running RUB 1.45.

The current assisted plotting mod 1.4b does not do away with the single ship contacts. I know an older version did, but I can not find it anywhere.

Thanks!

How handy are you with the mission editor and loading the campaign RND layer in wordpad?

Originally Posted by Brewster Pilot

Stop whining so much! Do you really think that the "real" U-boat commanders saw a convoy evrytime they raised their periscope??? PATIENCE!!!

If you want convoys, try looking at the hunting grounds pages of the Wikipedia community manual.

Available here:

http://www.communitymanuals.com/shii...unting_Grounds


Also, in your SH3 box there came a map displaying all the main convoy lanes in SHIII. Look there!

What are you talking about??? I'm not looking for a bunch of convoys.

I want the single ship contact icon on the map to go away forever.

[Sir Big Jugs]

Ahh LOL!

As English ain't my mother tongue so to say I understood your question completely wrong!

I'm sorry for my angry manner, welcome to the Subsim.com forums and as a note, I'm not usually this "unwelcoming" but you see my sub, U-53 had just been sunk and I was a bit angry and upset. Hope you understand.

[Gammel]

Hello Magua!

Maybe this is interesting for you, if you don´t wanna like messing up with the campaign file for yourself...

Here is the link to CB's modified campaign file:
http://www.ebort2.co.uk/files/wolfrnd1.zip



You´ll need Sergbutos AI subs for getting CB's mod to work. Download it (and other great stuff) here:
http://web.telia.com/~u18230645/


Hope Sergbuto and CB have nothing against hotlinking their sides in the main forum.

Or just download the NYGM Tonnage Mod 2.0 and install it. It removes God's Eye Mode and removes all single contacts. Plus it's really fantastic what with the realistic sinking of ships and all. The GW mod uses the NYGM damage model but I'm not sure if it eliminates God's Eye Mode and/or single contacts or not.

[Seminole]

I want the single ship contact icon on the map to go away forever.

The latest mega mods pretty much do that quite well....but careful what you wish for as they say......

Or just turn off the God's eye view....you'll get mostly what you are asking for....

[mike_espo]

Originally Posted by Fab

Or just download the NYGM Tonnage Mod 2.0 and install it. It removes God's Eye Mode and removes all single contacts. Plus it's really fantastic what with the realistic sinking of ships and all. The GW mod uses the NYGM damage model but I'm not sure if it eliminates God's Eye Mode and/or single contacts or not.

"Gods eye"???? What does this mean?:hmm: I agree. I was looking for a way to eliminate the single ship contacts. Not at all realistic. In my IXB U-64, Spring 40, I have used up almost half my torpedoes and not anywhere near my patrol hex yet-which is CG18.

I too, use RuB 1.45

[pythos]

I have seen this about single ship contacts before, and the same question comes to my mind.

What is the big deal?

Ships, either submarines, or surface ships, get contacts for whatever enemy vessle is spoted. If some kinda of intel said that at a ship was leaving port, there would such a contact message sent out to the subs of surface vessles.

Yes, convoys were more important, but remember, it was one lone ship that carried the attomic bomb to tinian island. Single contacts could potentially be more important than an entire convoy, if you really think about it.

You have to remember there were other subs out there, and they may also send out a contact message concerning the ship and its nationality. Ex. Have spotted 6000 ton steamer, in grid AK22, DO NOT ATTACK CONTACT, vessle is flying sweedish flag." These kinds of contacts were sent all the time, it is just not well simulated in SHIII.

Personally I like single ship contacts, cause they are easy pickings, unlike convoys which have destroyers and other nasty escorts around them.

Don't worry, later in the war, single ship contacts are a rare and welcome thing. Convoys get bigger, and much better defended.

Also, rmember this is a simulator, that if played completely realistically would take whole weeks of your life, which frankly would be quite sad. Without those single contacts, you would spend most of your patrol waiting for the rare convoy report.

[mike_espo]

I must disagree. In SHIII, the intel is way too accurate and right on the money in terms of course and speed. In reality, contact reports came in sometimes 8 or 12 hours late. This is not simmulated in SHIII.

[Hartmann]

i like single ships contacts because is a distraction while you are looking for convoys, also you have to do a decission about intercept or not the repport.
then a intercept plotting in the map and the chase .

FW condors and inteligence agents made report contacts for me.

[Sawdust]

Originally Posted by mike_espo

"Gods eye"???? What does this mean?:hmm:

"God's Eye" mode is another name for Automatic Map Updates in SHIII. You can turn this on or off in the realism settings.

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Hartmann

i like single ships contacts because is a distraction while you are looking for convoys, also you have to do a decission about intercept or not the repport.
then a intercept plotting in the map and the chase .

FW condors and inteligence agents made report contacts for me.

More likely it would have been Wilhelm Tranow's people at the Beobachtungs-Dienst ("Observation Service", commonly called B-Dienst for short). That was the service that intercepted, decoded, and distributed solutions of such things as the British Naval Cypher (which, by the way, was a code, not a cipher). They also broke the 'BAMS' code, the code the British used to coordinate shipping movements globally. At least, up until the British were able to change it to a more secure code after they figured out the Germans were reading their mail by breaking the Naval Enigma.

An example, given in David Kahn's book "Nazi Spies" says that on October 30th, 1942 B-Dienst decrypted a British message stating that convoy SC107 would steer a course of 45 degrees from it's then current location off of the tip of Newfoundland. Information like that would have even been transmitted for some of the individual ships sailing, since you have to coordinate your shipping to have it arrive at the proper port at the proper time in order to minimize bottlenecks.

The B-Dienst was reading that code well into 1943. So I just assume when I get a contact report on a map it came from B-Dienst. Of course, I might be biased towards assuming it was a SIGINT report, I was a dittybopper (Morse Interceptor) years ago. Also, since I haven't survived past November of 1942 yet, it hasn't been an issue for me

[Puster Bill]

I should also have mentioned that you don't need to actually break the other guy's codes to get this sort of information. You can get it from basic traffic analysis and HF/DF. Here is how it would work.

Admiral Goodbloke (He really is a good bloke!) on the SS Feathersword* sends a message in code at 19:00Z. Several German DF stations get bearings on it, and the position is gridsquare XYZ. Then, 8 hours later, he sends another message. He is then DFed in gridsquare XMQ. We know it is the same ship because we have studied the British callsign system. Gridsquare XMQ happens to be approximately 54 nautical miles southwest of XYZ. We now know the approximate course (Southwest), and the approximate speed ( 54 NM / 8 hours = 6.75 knots), along with his approximate current location.

You don't even have to know the actual callsign rota, as every morse operator has a distinctive way of sending, known as a 'fist'. A good dittybopper can recognize this and know that a particular operator didn't teleport from one ship to another in the space of a few hours. The 'fingerprinting' of individual transmitters was also known in WWII, and is another way to tell who is who, although I am not sure if the Germans did that or not.

The information that you would get from this kind of intelligence almost exactly tracks what you see in SHIII, as DFing is rarely precise enough to give you exact locations, so that "Slow, Medium, Fast" is appropriate speed-wise, as are general compass directions instead of precise numeric headings.

*Give me a break, I have a toddler at home.