The four bearings method

[Dignan]

Originally Posted by palatum

Given you are quite a distance from the convoy, you should have dound bearings covering about 10 degrees. I usually try to listen where the sound is loudest, and make the plot from that bearing. Or I take the middle of the sector, ie if I hear contacts from 220-235, I take 227. Not the most accurate, but it works until I have the convoy in sight, and I can verify my results.

Palatum

Not a half bad idea. I'll give it a try. I'm currently tracking a large convoy for the second time. The first time, I blew the approach, had to fire my torps early and spent the next 5 hours or so (game time) evading about 7 destroyers. Eventually shook them and am lining up for another ambush. Thanks

[gap]

I will add a few more suggestions:

when you ask the sonarman to follow the nearest contact, he will keep following the same ship, no matter if in the meanwhile another ship has got closer, until something stops him (be another user command or lost signal). With this in mind, you should:

• When you start tracking a convoy, turn your boat so to offer one of its sides (where hydrophone sensitivity is better) to it. If the convoy moves too much toward the bow or toward the stern, turn again the boat, and remember to account of the changed heading in your plottings.
  
  
• Avoid abrupt maneuvers or high speeds. Ideally you should be listening to the enemy at dead stop.
  
  
• Mantain a constant depth, the further below the sea surface, especially in bad weather, the better. In general, 20-30 m are enough.
  
  
• If possible, always ask the sonarman to follow the nearest merchant: destroyers tend to move a lot within the convoy, and they change speed often.
  
  
• Refrain yourself from giving our Benno any further order while he is doing his job: he is prone to loosing concentration. You can nonetheless ask him to report the bearing of the current target without any adverse consequence.
  
  
• If you are using New UI's, you can set the interval (in degrees or in seconds) between two consecutive hydrophone logs. Set this interval reasonably low. In this way, if you loose your contact, you will know more or less where to look for it again.

If, despite all your precautions, Benno looses the contact, keep note of its last known bearing and do one of the following:

• Try again asking the sonarman to report the nearest contact. If you are lucky, he will track again the same target.
  
  
• If you are using New UI's, a while ago TDW added a command for following the contact closer to the current hydrophone bearing: go to the hydrophone, sweep it to where the contact was reported the last time, adjust the bearing so to get the strongest possible sound, and ask the sonarman to follow it (it should be one of the arrows protruding from the hydrostation notebook).
  
  
• If eveything else fails, the one option left is to follow the target yourself (), and remember: unlike in SH5, real German hydrophones weren't so accurate to provide a reliable firing solution. A good dose of approximation can only increase the realism of your gaming experience

[Dignan]

Originally Posted by gap

I will add a few more suggestions:

when you ask the sonarman to follow the nearest contact, he will keep following the same ship, no matter if in the meanwhile another ship has got closer, until something stops him (be another user command or lost signal). With this in mind, you should:

• When you start tracking a convoy, turn your boat so to offer one of its sides (where hydrophone sensitivity is better) to it. If the convoy moves too much toward the bow or toward the stern, turn again the boat, and remember to account of the changed heading in your plottings.
  
  
• Avoid abrupt maneuvers or high speeds. Ideally you should be listening to the enemy at dead stop.
  
  
• Mantain a constant depth, the further below the sea surface, especially in bad weather, the better. In general, 20-30 m are enough.
  
  
• If possible, always ask the sonarman to follow the nearest merchant: destroyers tend to move a lot within the convoy, and they change speed often.
  
  
• Refrain yourself from giving our Benno any further order while he is doing his job: he is prone to loosing concentration. You can nonetheless ask him to report the bearing of the current target without any adverse consequence.
  
  
• If you are using New UI's, you can set the interval (in degrees or in seconds) between two consecutive hydrophone logs. Set this interval reasonably low. In this way, if you loose your contact, you will know more or less where to look for it again.

If, despite all your precautions, Benno looses the contact, keep note of its last known bearing and do one of the following:

• Try again asking the sonarman to report the nearest contact. If you are lucky, he will track again the same target.
  
  
• If you are using New UI's, a while ago TDW added a command for following the contact closer to the current hydrophone bearing: go to the hydrophone, sweep it to where the contact was reported the last time, adjust the bearing so to get the strongest possible sound, and ask the sonarman to follow it (it should be one of the arrows protruding from the hydrostation notebook).
  
  
• If eveything else fails, the one option left is to follow the target yourself (), and remember: unlike in SH5, real German hydrophones weren't so accurate to provide a reliable firing solution. A good dose of approximation can only increase the realism of your gaming experience

Great ideas. Thanks for the detailed response. I think my problem was that I kept asking for nearest contact which was usually a zig zagging escort. I'll try asking consistently for closest merchant. Thanks a bunch