1939 and fresh out of U-Boot school. Gameplay Q.

[Von Due]

Ok so the player (me) is perhaps not exactly fresh out of u boot school but my captain is. I chose to start the first patrol on August 1st 1939 as it would give me about a month of brushing up on old dusty skills as well as trying to figure out all those things I never figured out in a rather friendly environment.

1) Hydrophones: Is there a consistency with engine and screw frequencies and speed for a given ship or is it as chaotic as the moon phases?

On my way to the p grid, I'm doing a series of tests one of which is to listen for these 2 frequencies whenever I get a merchant in listening range, then note down what type exactly when it gets within visual, plan is to plot out if eng/screw frequency can be used to determine speed with some accuracy but also if one can determone type of merchant, or at least narrow it down to only a few candidates.

Example: This slow moving tramp steamer had an engine freq of 2.63 Hz and a screw freq that was just a hair lower, but close enough for me not to be able to tell from the eng freq.
A slow large merch had a much lower screw frequency (about 1.2 Hz) and roughly the same eng frequency as the tramp.
These two findings made me wonder.

Has this been done before by any of you and if so, what did you find?

2) Any idea what is up with the hydrophone you start off with? 140* angle it says but my sonar guy kept track all the way from 2* stb to some 172+ (bear in mind I was going slow with minimum engine/screw noise). To hear it is one thing but to track it is pretty astonishing, or he couldn't write down the number 140 if his life depended on it.

Makes me wonder if there is a point at all in upgrading that particular piece of hardware.

3) How close do you guys generally go for identifying nationality, weather and light depending of course (no external camera). I'm getting better at long range ID of type of ship but the nationality is way way tougher, even in broad daylight I need to get really close.

4) I am also trying to work out some sort of time plan for the crew, to get rid of this micro management every hour or so. I haven't gotten far yet and there are complications like weather, p***ed off British destroyers etc, that will affect the resting time needed.
Any tips on tested and proven time schedules for these brave but often exhaused sailors?

6-8 hours on, 4 hours off seems to work for all stations in calm seas with no activity but I would need a more complete plan for this to have much worth.

Goal is to have a predictable scheme with as few changes as possible in a 12 or 24 hour time frame.

[HW3]

1. There was a hydrophone training mod years ago. I do not have it, and I do not remember who made it.

2. He will lose ships in a small cone directly in front of you. The upgrade solves this.

3. I get as close as I need to to identify the flag. I also like to shoot close in too, around 800M - 15000M.

4. I use SH3 Commander and turn the fatigue off. The captain was not in charge of crew rotation, so why should I be is how I feel about it.

[fumo30]

Originally Posted by HW3

4. I use SH3 Commander and turn the fatigue off. The captain was not in charge of crew rotation, so why should I be is how I feel about it.

I use crew fatigue neither. There should be "pervitin-mode" for the crew at least to make that crew management function somewhat realistic.

Well, fatigue off setting can be considered as permanent pervitin-mode.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by HW3

1. There was a hydrophone training mod years ago. I do not have it, and I do not remember who made it.

Thanks. Looking around for it.

2. He will lose ships in a small cone directly in front of you. The upgrade solves this.

The issue to me was according to the description of the hydrophone, it had a detection angle of 140* to both sides so if we assume for the sake of nice figures that it picks up the trace at say 5* off the bow, then it shouldn't be able to track it much more than 145*, far less than the 170+ degrees I got.

3. I get as close as I need to to identify the flag. I also like to shoot close in too, around 800M - 15000M.

I just like to prepare for those convoys where getting that close is near suicidal.

4. I use SH3 Commander and turn the fatigue off. The captain was not in charge of crew rotation, so why should I be is how I feel about it.

This I can agree on but I have a slightly different take on it. There are up to 5 officers on the VII (in the sim that is). Which one, if any am I supposed to be?
Have a look if you haven't already. http://www.uboataces.com/ref-crew.shtml
Since 5 officers AND a captain sounds a bit crowded I choose to see it as I'm really all of the officers at the same time taking on the roles of all including crew management (petty officers would do that it seems).

Anyway, I might have found a few working schedules for various situations from cruise to tactical. Let's see how it all works out.

[tomfon]

Here is manos' tutorial on youtube:

[20000 Leagues]

Most of your questions appear to be answered. When it comes to identifying ships, you pretty much have to get close to see the flag. No real way around that. I have some techniques I use when I don't want to get too close, but they're far from perfect.

Single Ships

If I don't want to move in close, I consider where the ship is and the type of ship. Then I decide if I want to take a chance on a shot. I would be much more likely to use this method in the middle of the North Atlantic in 1942 than say in the area bordered by Portugal, Africa and Madeira. There is a lot of Japanese and Spanish traffic through this area.


Convoys

I use the same type of method for convoys, except I have other information I can rely on to make a better decision. In addition to the type and position of the ships, I also have the size of the convoy and number and types of escorts. This is still not perfect, as I have encountered friendly ships mixed in with enemy convoys. I've hit a few friendly's here and there, but hey, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs!!

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by Von Due

1) Hydrophones: Is there a consistency with engine and screw frequencies and speed for a given ship or is it as chaotic as the moon phases?

The higher the pitch, the faster the ship.

I don't recall that you can differentiate between vessel types, but merchants are generally slower than independent warships so there is that clue. Your best bet would be to set up a test scenario with a single merchant ship going by your U-boat: alter the ship's speed and find the correlation.

2) Any idea what is up with the hydrophone you start off with?

IIRC the Kristalldrehbasisgerät has a better range that the hydrophone you start off with (the Gruppenhorchgerät (GHG)) in addition to being able to listen directly in front of your boat.

3) How close do you guys generally go for identifying nationality, weather and light depending of course (no external camera).

I usually shoot at a range of 600 meters to 1 km, which allows me to see the flags pretty easily.

4) I am also trying to work out some sort of time plan for the crew, to get rid of this micro management every hour or so. Any tips on tested and proven time schedules for these brave but often exhaused sailors?

I use the default GWX crew management settings. As it happens, I usually stop and submerge to use the hydrophones about once per hour anyways since the hydrophones can detect ships at a much greater range than you can detect them visually. Crew management is only a minor inconvenience since i"m already stopping..

Hope this helps!

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by tomfon

Here is manos' tutorial on youtube:

Thanks for the inputs! Yeah the 4 bearing method has been with me for quite some time now. It is astonishingly accurate given the limitation that is pixelation.

Originally Posted by 20000 Leagues

Most of your questions appear to be answered. When it comes to identifying ships, you pretty much have to get close to see the flag. No real way around that. I have some techniques I use when I don't want to get too close, but they're far from perfect.

Single Ships

If I don't want to move in close, I consider where the ship is and the type of ship. Then I decide if I want to take a chance on a shot. I would be much more likely to use this method in the middle of the North Atlantic in 1942 than say in the area bordered by Portugal, Africa and Madeira. There is a lot of Japanese and Spanish traffic through this area.


Convoys

I use the same type of method for convoys, except I have other information I can rely on to make a better decision. In addition to the type and position of the ships, I also have the size of the convoy and number and types of escorts. This is still not perfect, as I have encountered friendly ships mixed in with enemy convoys. I've hit a few friendly's here and there, but hey, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs!!

Thanks! Misidentification has always been a danger so I'm quite happy with that the game includes that as a factor. Still, appreciate your inputs on building up and using my own experience on ship types for ID. It certainly adds to the game IMO.

Originally Posted by Pablo

The higher the pitch, the faster the ship.

I don't recall that you can differentiate between vessel types, but merchants are generally slower than independent warships so there is that clue. Your best bet would be to set up a test scenario with a single merchant ship going by your U-boat: alter the ship's speed and find the correlation.

IIRC the Kristalldrehbasisgerät has a better range that the hydrophone you start off with (the Gruppenhorchgerät (GHG)) in addition to being able to listen directly in front of your boat.

I usually shoot at a range of 600 meters to 1 km, which allows me to see the flags pretty easily.

I use the default GWX crew management settings. As it happens, I usually stop and submerge to use the hydrophones about once per hour anyways since the hydrophones can detect ships at a much greater range than you can detect them visually. Crew management is only a minor inconvenience since i"m already stopping..

Hope this helps!

Thanks heaps. I was never aware of any management setting on GWX so that's one to look up. Another thing is, after a bit of thinking, perhaps getting SH3C and turn off that fatigue will still let me keep whatever realism I have now. The way I figure is, the subs didn't have a limit on only 2 officers could nick off to the officers' quarters at the same time. So, I could very well imagine they do even when the icons say they are on station. Same really for the petty officers/ordinary crew.


EDIT: For anyone not aware of this site, here's a bunch of info on subs, VIIC in particular but a lot of goodies to read still.
http://www.uboatarchive.net/

[Tupolev]

Unescorted always get identified by me. Which, of course means I go in close. If I can't ID it, I don't shoot it.

As far as convoys, they're escorted ships and therefore denied any protection of neutrality. Same thing for merchants with deck guns. If I can see a gun, I consider it hostile.

T

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by Tupolev

Unescorted always get identified by me. Which, of course means I go in close. If I can't ID it, I don't shoot it.

As far as convoys, they're escorted ships and therefore denied any protection of neutrality. Same thing for merchants with deck guns. If I can see a gun, I consider it hostile.

T

You are too polite. Once I caught a yatch with English flags off the coast of France. A yatch there could only mean S.O.E so down that one went.

[digression]
Another thing and totally unrelated: I think I discovered the Flying Dutchman today. Was down at 40 m while hiding from a storm off the southeast coast of England when I got sound contact. Merchant, slow, closing.

Now the headache begun coz no matter how I maneuvered, I couldn't get him on another bearing. I surfaced, cursing, then headed off towards him. Turned out he was a flaming wreck but boy was that captain one mean unholy spirit.

His flaming ship was raging across the stormy waves at speeds close to UFO speed. I turned to intercept, he went ballistic and shot across the ocean in his burning boat to stay well and truly on my port side. UFO speed is no joke, that guy was barely visible in the distance and still he managed to travel what must have been at least 10 nm in barely a second.

Methinks Dönitz wouldn't believe me if I told him.
[/digression]