realistic S-Gerät range 400 - 500 meters?

[sublynx]

I've been reading u-boat POW interrogation reports on u-boat archive and found S-Gerät mentioned twice. A quotation:

(ii) "S-Gerät" (Detector Gear)
"U 574" was stated to have been fitted with a form of "S-Gerät," which could be inclined 80 up and down and also sideways. This S-Gerät was stated to have a range of 400 metres, and to be used only for detecting nets or minefields. Prisoners stated that a visual indicator (Mattscheibe) was employed; it was not often used for fear of betraying the U-Boat's position.


http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-574INT.htm

Another prisoner report stated the same purpose and a range of 500 meters. It is only a prisoner report, but can somebody confirm this? Was the S-Gerät so limited? If so, the game version of the S-Gerät is way über.

[Olsin]

Unfortunately i can't confirm what those prisoners said .. However, i can confirm that it's a prisoners duty to misinform / lie / decieve and waylay the enemy when captured.
The fact that 2 prisoners quoted 2 different distance measurements already suggests the possibility of misinformation..

The british army still regularly dishes up misinformation to the locals on peace keeping assignments with regards to weapons abilities and limitations....As i'm sure every other nations army does too....

[sublynx]

Originally Posted by Olsin

Unfortunately i can't confirm what those prisoners said .. However, i can confirm that it's a prisoners duty to misinform / lie / decieve and waylay the enemy when captured.
The fact that 2 prisoners quoted 2 different distance measurements already suggests the possibility of misinformation..

The british army still regularly dishes up misinformation to the locals on peace keeping assignments with regards to weapons abilities and limitations....As i'm sure every other nations army does too....

I agree on not taking prisoner reports at face value for all those reasons you stated, that's why I was curious about anybody having more trustworthy information.

However, I was very surprised about all the information the prisoner reports stated, that was accurate. I think there were prisoners that actually told the interrogators everything they knew (or they were eavesdropped on). For various reasons there are prisoners and sailors who don't follow their orders.

[CCIP]

Sounds like a fairly typical HF sonar to me. The Americans also developed one around then. However I don't think that's modeled in the game.

As far as the use of active sonar by the germans, I'm yet to run into any real indication that the U-boats used that in combat.

[Obersteuermann]

How do you actually use the S-Geraet in game? I can't figure it out...

[Jimbuna]

The S-Gerat (Special Apparatus for Active Sound Location) was essentially sonar. It transmitted sound pulses and timed the returning echo to detect underwater objects. Because it emitted sound pulses which also broadcasted the U-boats location, this device was not very popular. It could detect objects up to 4,000 meters away.