[REL] Trigger Maru Overhauled

[ekempey]

Data/Cfg, its the file named commands.cfg

[Suicide Charlie]

Once again, thank you good sir!

[JoeCorrado]

neilbyrne, thanks for the input and the professional background information. Your comments reflect what I have learned from reading first hand accounts by sub commanders of the war like O'Kayne. It was quite illuminating the cavalier way that escort vessels were viewed as inconveniences more than threats so long as their position was known and reasonable care exercised. Same for aircraft- they were threats to the careless or unwary but not so much to an alert sub w/ an experienced crew with some water between the keel and the bottom.

Some of the escorts, and certainly some of the planes and even merchants in SH4 appear to have an uncanny ability to detect what they should not. Escorts were much better equipped to handle ASW when doing so as a group, and even then their task was more one to disuade the submarine or prevent the attack by forcing the sub to evade than to actually sink it. Still, the US sub force lost a large number of boats so the IJN did something right and they did have some savvy commanders to press things.

Certainly not to speak for him, but I think that Ducimus treads a fine line and realism shares the stage with game play and enjoyment... and that means the threat of detection and the consequences of same. Although I do agree that being detected at ranges and speed / depths that defy logic makes it more difficult to plan and execute an attack at times.

Originally Posted by neilbyrne

Ducimus, your eminence, I have been playing SH since the original and your TMO mod is just wonderful. You are indeed a talented guy.
I was just going to leave it at that because I did not want to alloy my praise with suggestions, but the detail of the mod and the enormous number of things that are rendered correctly indicated to me that you are most interested in accuracy and so would not mind the following. Some is just background with a couple of suggestions and maybe a question or two.
Just a little about my background so you don’t think that I’m pulling this stuff out of whole cloth. I’ve been a lifelong student of naval history and that was before I ever entered the navy. I am a retired Captain USN with 31years on active duty. Eighteen of those years were spent in ships, mostly destroyers. I was privileged to command a frigate, BRONSTEIN, and a destroyer, BRISCOE. So my actual experience of submarine warfare is on the ASW side. Or as it is jokingly called in the USN, Awfully Slow Warfare.
I was CIC and then ASW officer in BROWNSON and attended both of the associated schools in the early ‘70s. At that time, most of the US fleet was still not equipped with the Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) which put many of our sailors at computer consoles and automated a lot of the detection and tracking functions. Ours was what was then called a “grease pencil CIC”. Even air tracks were plotted on large Plexiglas status boards called vertical plots (VPs). VPs came in two flavors, informational and tactical. The info VPs were for displaying all manner of data so the watch standers didn’t have to keep it in their heads. This was stuff like radio freqs and handset stations, call signs, threat emitter signatures, formation guide, speed and spacing, etc. These VPs were unattended and only updated as reqd. The air plot VP was only manned in exercise or real world situations when we cared about the air picture. It was manned by two radarmen (RDs), now called operations specialists (OSs). They would stand behind the plot to be out of the way and write backwards in white grease pencil. When we were training kids to do this, we would always tell them, “Don’t scrub off the whole tail.” That meant to leave enough track history on the plot’s tracks so anyone could glance up and see quickly what was going on. The marks were normally an arrow in the direction of movement and a connecting line to the last mark, like so: <-<.
ASW was never done on a VP, and to my knowledge was never done so in submarines either. We were equipped with two plotting tables. The older one was the Dead Reckoning Tracer (DRT); the newer was the NC2 which was stood for Navy Canadian plotter #2 after the inventing navy. The DRT was more reliable; the NC2 had more capability when it was working. Both used a moving “bug”, essentially a compass rose shining up from inside the table with a cross in its center representing own ship. The tops of both tables were glass and the RDs covered them with large sheets of tracing paper. In an ASW situation, the plot was manned by a minimum of four watch standers, the ASW evaluator (an officer) who was calling the shots. There was a TACOM, tactical communicator (junior officer or a petty officer). There were two plotters, north and south, junior petty officers or strikers. The south plotter was connected by sound powered phones to sonar and his job was to plot own ship (in black pencil) and own ship’s sonar contacts (in red pencil) at no more than one minute intervals. The north plotter was connected to the surface radar operator and the Anti-Submarine Air Controller (ASAC) if we were controlling an ASW aircraft. The north plotter’s job was to plot friendly ships (in blue) and their sub contacts (in red). Aircraft were not put on the plot except for helos when dipping their sonars, but any sonobouys dropped by a/c were plotted and all a/c symbols were plotted in green pencil.
A long explanation, for what is a relatively minor quibble. TMO replaced the unrealistic shp.dds red hull silhouettes with a black grease pencil mark. My experience in talking to submariners was that they also kept the tactical plot on the plotting table in the control room, not on a VP. So my vote for a shp.dds replacement symbol would be something like the “don’t scrub all the tails” VP symbology, two arrowheads connected by a line <-<. And since it’s the enemy, in red.
Next, I’d like to go into sub detection by escorts with sonar, visually and later with radar. Here I have a lot of experience, and it is very difficult. This is why between us and the Brits, we built 1600+ destroyers/escort vessels in WWII. There is strength in numbers, because the individual capability just sucks. In ASW School, we were taught the capabilities of all the sonars then in the US surface fleet. There were still some WWII ships active, mostly old FLETCHERs and SUMNERs, that hadn’t been through the FRAM (Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization) refit that installed newer systems. As I recall, these old girls had the SQS-46V sonar. We did a day or two in the attack trainer using this system. In absolutely beautiful water, isothermal (no layer) to 400ft, it had a reliable detection range of 2000-2500yds. Now remember this was the best sonar we had toward the end of WWII. In worse water, it was less. And a good rule of thumb about subs below the layer is that range across the layer is no better than 33-25% of range above the layer. The IJN had nothing better than this, and in my research in Morison’s 15 volumes History of USN Ops in WWII and Roscoe’s histories of US Sub & DD ops, I never found a sub detection at greater than 2,500 yds on active sonar, and most IJN detections were at 2,000 or less. On passive sonar, those sonars could detect thermal (steam) powered torpedoes pretty well but close. The only condition when a sub on her battery would be vulnerable to passive detection though was if she were cavitating her screws, normally at 7kts or more and only above 150ft, or at 15kts or more above 300ft. Deeper than 300ft, water pressure keeps the cavitation bubbles from forming.
Max sonar speed for WWII ships was 12 knots and it was not graceful degradation above that. Go faster, and you were deaf as a post in both active and passive.
OK, so that’s sonar detections. How about visual? Very hard and you get lots of false contacts. For most of my time as a junior officer, seniors kept telling me that periscope detections by lookouts were a training problem. Then I got a look at about 30 years of exercise results and the opportunities vs. detection numbers were just dismal. Obviously, I can’t put classified numbers out here, but suffice it to say that the US Navy has finally decided that this is a job for a machine.
A warship has about seven folks looking out full and part time. Three are full time lookouts, port, stbd and aft. Then you have the OOD and JOOD who look out when they can. Last you have the two signalmen who are supposed to be looking out when not signaling; although, in fact, they hardly do. The lookouts have 120 degree sectors that do not overlap. The officers, when they are looking, normally search the forward 180 degrees. The aft lookout has no one else looking where he searches and his primary responsibility is to be the last line of defense for a man who falls overboard, so often he is searching in the near field which the others are not.
In eighteen years of sea duty, I saw three visual periscope detections that actually turned out to be submarines. Now admittedly, we weren’t worried about being torpedoed, and so our attention was less focused than that of our WWII brethren, but still, not great. That doesn't mean I only saw three periscopes in 18 years; I saw a lot more than that, but only three or so were initial detections. Whenever you get a sonar contact, sonar calls CIC and the bridge. The bridge watchstanders immediately look down the bearing of the contact. Sometimes, there's a periscope there, but these are cued not initial detections. If I had to attach an unclassified number to uncued detections, I’d say a ship had no better than a 10% chance, maybe less, of detecting a periscope that wasn’t way high out of the water and then only in daylight within 4000 yds. At night, or in low visibility, or high seas, forget it; zero percent.
Surface search radar, until the relatively recent advent of one and two second scan rates in systems like SPQ-9, was only a little better than visual. This was mostly because with six to ten second scan rates, everything as small as a periscope looks to the operator like sea clutter. And we didn’t get good at sea clutter rejection features until after the war. Plus radar sea return clutter is worst right where you’re wanting to look, within 6kyds of own ship.
So there I was last night in my S-40, west of the Ryukus, in February ’42. I was at periscope depth closing on a firing position, ahead standard, for a lone SHIRATSUYU Class DD who was off my port bow at 5000yds. He was doing 12kts on a course of about 340. The sun was setting behind his port quarter; time was like 1700. The thermal layer was at 150ft. He had been tracking right down his DRM (Direction of Relative Movement vector) and then at 5000 yds, he suddenly altered course right at me. At that range, I have no idea what he could have detected.
I'm running the U-boat missions add-on and TMO v1.5.
Along this line, do we know what the sonar/visual detection ranges are for the various settings in data/sim/cfg that you refer to in your FAQ?
Once again, I want to say, you’ve done a spectacular job with TMO. These are admittedly little things, and I thought you might enjoy the background. Bravo Zulu is the navy signal flag combination that means Well Done; in your case exceptionally so.

[Ducimus]

I just wanted to pop in and say thank you all for your input. Any questions im not fielding right now, as i insist that i take a break. If i could hang a sign on "the door", it would read, "On vacation", or "On leave", hell, im *almost* to the point of "FIGMO".

At any rate, i just wanted to say that im not ignoring anyone, its just that i need to take a break. Ive been working on this mod for sometime, and have spent untold amounts of midnight oil on it. Right now is a good stopping point to kick my feet up on the desk and take breather. And that's what i intend to do! (right now i got myself engrossed in another game that is most defiantly taking my mind off of modding)
I'll be around later on. Probably in a week or three.


edit: Updated orginal post to reflect publish of the latest version while subsim was down.

[kwbgjh2]

Ducimus, i really love the TMO, so take a break and enjoy it. You brought the Narwhal to the game which i know since "Silent Service" (for the young folks: my first subsim on the famous Amiga 500 ).

[Quagmire]

Enjoy your shore leave, Ducimus. And thanks again for all your efforts.
.

[Nuc]

Originally Posted by neilbyrne

My experience in talking to submariners was that they also kept the tactical plot on the plotting table in the control room

A great source for historical information about the Submarine Fire Control Plots (and there was more than one) used by Fleet boats is in chapter five of the Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual here: http://hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm#platevii

It has several examples including the one seen by clicking the link.

[neilbyrne]

Joe,
I agree with your post. My intent was to heap praise on Ducimus while offering a few suggestions with supporting background and trying to find out what the sim/cfg values actually meant in the way of detection ranges. I hope he enjoys his time off; he has more than earned it.
The IJN’s ASW record was, to me, no better than mediocre. We lost 52 subs in the Pacific war, a couple of those not to IJN ASW efforts, but to bad torpedoes, grounding, etc. The IJN sank about 20% of the USN’s engaged force of submarines and killed one in seven US submariners. This was bad enough to make being a submariner the most dangerous thing an American could do in WWII. Second was being air crew in an 8th AF heavy bomber, one in ten died. In the infantry, the fatality rate was around 1%.
Contrast this to the Atlantic theater where the allies sank 785 German U-boats and killed five in six German submariners making that, so far as I know, the most dangerous thing anyone could do in WWII. Of the 785, US forces sank only 129. The British RN and what was the world’s third largest navy on VJ-day, the Royal Canadian Navy sank the rest. Clearly there were many reasons for the allied victory in the Atlantic. My two favorites are Ultra and the enormous allied ship building capability. Just two examples, in March ’42, the navy let a contract to Kaiser Steel to build fifty CASABLANCA Class CVEs and took possession of #50 a year later. We once built a Liberty ship as a war bond stunt in 96 hours from the keel to the whistle.
You are absolutely correct about the escort mission. The mission is to get your charges safely across the finish line. If submarines are coincidently sunk, that’s terrific, but the overriding mission is to be a good shepherd, get the sheep home. Once the allies had the escorts to accomplish this reliably, they went on the offensive and formed hunter killer groups (HUK) centered on CVEs. The HUK mission was to come to the aid of beleaguered convoys and when free of that, to hunt down and kill U-boats based on datums received from HF/DF and Ultra. The IJN never had the surplus CVEs or escorts to engage in this tactic.
The reason I classed the IJN’s ASW as mediocre was not that they didn’t have effective and well trained folks. They did. The problem was that their inter-war ship building program encumbered them with a force structure that was unsuited to what developed into a massive convoy escort ASW mission. This, by the way, was the exact same mistake that the USN and RN inter-war construction programs made, but the allies’ wartime shipbuilding programs were robust enough to bail them out of their errors.
The IJN’s escort shortage became so acute that it was noticeable in USN patrol reports toward the second half of ’44. SUBPAC jumped on this and changed the target priority list for, as I remember, one patrol cycle. Escorts were moved way up the food chain, only subordinate to capital ships (CV/BBs) and tankers. One result, USS HARDER torpedoed and sank three IJN escorts and crippled two others in less than a week in October ’44.

[geosub1978]

Originally Posted by neilbyrne

Not correct. With perhaps a few exceptions, only the FRAM recipient ships got the SQS-23.

Excuse me for mixing up things, I also refer to the FRAMs for the SQS-23. I also know them very well...

HS TOMPAZIS (D-215) (Gearing-FRAM I) - rest in peace in 1997 in a very good condition, sailing in 9 beaufort seas until the last moment, carrying plus eight HARPOON missiles!

[neilbyrne]

I remember the Hellenic Navy and Athens fondly. I was Ops officer in USS SAMPSON (DDG_10) when she was flagship of Destroyer Squadron 12 home ported in Athens, Greece; in Elefsis actually('73-'75). A bunch of us had "snake ranches" (bachelor apts) in Paleon Faleron.

[neilbyrne]

Am I correct that I just put 1.5.2 into JSGME and install over top of 1.5?

[Defiance]

Hiya,
Your best off disabling the TM that's in JSGME don't overwrite the old one

Then add new TMO in then enable it

Start new campaign

Ciao

Def

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by neilbyrne

and trying to find out what the sim/cfg values actually meant in the way of detection ranges.
....
The IJN’s ASW record was, to me, no better than mediocre.

I'll field this one since it appears im dealing with a career officer. First you should know that i was never in the Navy. I was a civil/combat engineeer in the Air Force. So you have an ex Airforce E-5, playing navy. :rotfl: Point is, most Navy acronyms go right over my head. Now if you want to talk about laying AM2 matting while doing 'Triple R', well, thats another story!


Anyway, i do however have a basic understanding of active and passive sonar. Learned by neccessity from tinkering with and playing submarine sim's for a number of years. First i must laydown my intent when i make changes. I do, as some else stated, walk the tightrope between "game" and "simulation". It sum, its just my personal beleif that attacking convoys with near impunity makes very dull after awhile. To me, part of the submarine sim experience is getting depth charged. Without upping the AI detections from stock, more often then not, this is an experience that is very rarely seen, or at the least, very brief. Which in the end, makes things dissappointing to me.

When i increased the AI, i had one thing in mind. "Better then stock, but less effective the allies ASW effort in the atlantic". I beleive that passive and active sonar in TM, is *JUST* below "atlantic level difficulty". At the most, its probably equal to allied early war ASW (circa 42, aka 'uboat happy time')


Now the thing about the AI in general, is you can only get it to do something, by increasing the stimulius it gets from its sensors. Otherwise it doesnt do much. How detection works, is rather mechanical in nature. For instance, silent running, is a boolean flag. Its either on, or off, no in between. If your within 2000 to 3000 yards (maybe even farther) to a unit equiped with hydrophones, without silent running on, chances are he will detect you.

Active sonar detection is also sort of mechanic. Typically the AI won't ping unless your
a.) giviing him a large surface area to ping off of (ie broadside to him)
b.) In his active sonar cone (ranges vary from 1200 meters for early war and i think 1900 or 2000 meters for late war, all active sonar have a downward angle of 112 degrees modded, stock is 100, by way of comprision allies has a 140 to 150ish downward angle on their active sonar beams)
c.) Doing A and B for X amount of time.

At any rate the point here is that to get the AI to behave at a desired intelligence level, all a modder can do is increase its sensors, in order to illiciet a response. Its a very hard thing to balance and takes alot of time to get it just right. The biggest problem here is that once you understand how AI detection routiines work, it often doesn't matter how sensitive you make the active or passive sonars for the simple reason that one learns how to work around or exploit their shortcomings. To the new player, the AI seems incredibly hard. To the "experienced" player, not hard enough.

[cgjimeneza]

Ducimus, go see the sun, have a beer, watch a game... even just play a game.

we will be here... and waiting for whatever you invent or change....

so now everyone, download 152 and keep still while the man charges his batteries

you are welcome in Costa Rica if you feel the need to run south of the border.

[neilbyrne]

Ducimus, thanks; I did not mean to get you off R&R or detract in any way from the great work that you've done on TMO. I'm surprised you were never in the navy given how accurate and immersive an atmosphere you created. A friend of mine, also retired USN, and I have been playing together and we just have a great time going to sea without all the BS. Thanks again. NB