A question about the Sonar Ping

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by KriegsMarine

thanx for your info,armistead

so in real life, sub skippers could only hear the escort's active sonar ping while could not hear the bouncing sound caused by the sub hull ?

so in SHCE the bouncing sound we hear in a sub is not realistic, right?

Well, I was asking Wernher..., he's the brain.

I do know this. In reality if a ship goe's active you will hear the active ping. It doesn't have to have a target, he's searching, so you will hear the active sonar. If the active sonar hits a target, then you get a bounce back, if not, the sound wave will max out. I imagine with the equipment we have today you could pick up active sonar from hundreds of miles in the right conditions.

The return ping doe's sound different, obvious different sound waves on the return. If you're the one using active sonar, if you hit a target, you will hear the return bong in game, so yes, you will hear it if you hit a target.

I read a few stories of subs hearing active sonar from 50 plus nautical miles away. Sometimes the JP's escort did go active leading TF. I guess they thought with speed even if a sub heard them they couldn't catch up, so better to cover the front of the TF with sonar. Obvious a TF
has limited listening skills going fast on the surface. In game ships can only do one thing at a time, use sonar or listen, not both. So even if you're not being pinged, doesn't mean they're not listening. What hasn't been clarified in game to me is can a ship only listen when stationary?

What I was asking Wernher is if he knew is a sub could pick up a return bong. I assume not because the sound wave would be bouncing away, make sense. We don't hear the return in the
game, nor do I think we would. If he has us on shortscale, he's obvious getting a Ping/Bong every few seconds, but we hear only the ping.

Just like in your sub, if you send a active ping, you wait for the return ping, more of a bong....Your ping has hit the target, so it makes a different sound. Using that info you can figure distane to the target. In game it's simple, just wait for the return bong and send to TDC and you get accurate range.

I honestly don't know if subs had active sonar in WW2 that ran all the time as they do today. Obvious they wouldn't use it. The DD's did, so I assume a sub could go active...if he was dumb.

Shew..all this pinging and bonging is getting to me.

All this talk of bongs is giving me the munchies!!!

[Armistead]

Just know this, you go bonging around the Pacific, the DD's will hear it and come right to you, so be very careful about using active sonar. Sometimes I do it with cams and contacts off to get range when they're far away, but I've had escorts leave TF's from 13nms chasing my ping...

Sometimes it's useful, more than not it will slow the TF down as they go into zigs.

[Dignan]

Originally Posted by Armistead

Just know this, you go bonging around the Pacific, the DD's will hear it and come right to you, so be very careful about using active sonar. Sometimes I do it with cams and contacts off to get range when they're far away, but I've had escorts leave TF's from 13nms chasing my ping...

Sometimes it's useful, more than not it will slow the TF down as they go into zigs.

Has anyone ever tried intentionally pinging a convoy from a long distance to intentionally pull the escorts away? The goal would be to then quickly move away from that location hopefully leaving the DDs searching at your last known location. I haven't tried it but was wondering if it would work.

[Armistead]

I do that all the time, just have to do it from far distances and only dive when your worried about a visual.

Right now I've found a huge convoy. I have cam and contacts off, no surface radar. I tracked as best I could with limited sonar until warship was spotted, few seconds later he was shooting, so I dived. Trying to track a convoy with the useless sonar is hard. I have several escorts around and hear pinging. This is the failure of the game, I have no idea what direction the pinging is coming from. Asking your sonarman for nearest warship is almost a joke, so I have no clue what's going on up there. They haven't found me yet, but soon will. All I can try to do is keep the convoy at a rough 90 track so I will have a chance to come up and shoot, hard to do.
In reality you sonarman could give you speed, rough distance and course, not in game. Hard to figure a course of a large zigging convoy. Waters are calm, 200ft deep...I'll be lucky to live through this.

I think a great mod would be only sonar lines show with contact off, so you would have the info a real sonarman would have.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by Armistead

I think a great mod would be only sonar lines show with contact off, so you would have the info a real sonarman would have.

That's the way RFB plays. No contact squares. Unless, of course, you have visual or on radar. Oh yeah, and if you use the mod to add the sonar lines.

[KriegsMarine]

nice to see a simple sonar puzzle goes so far and have learned another useful attack tactics

thanx skippers

[Armistead]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

That's the way RFB plays. No contact squares. Unless, of course, you have visual or on radar. Oh yeah, and if you use the mod to add the sonar lines.

That's the way the game plays, you don't see the contact icons until you have a visual or radar, TMO same way. I thought RFB nerfed the contact icons when they got close? What I want is no contact icons at all like contacts off, but sonar lines.

I'm not sure what Steve is saying. I would assume there's a difference between the sound and direction. Sound comes from a direction, but the sound covers a 360 pattern of degree's, you happening to hear it doesn't mean it's coming just to your direction, someone else could hear it from a different direction, but I assume Steve is saying it's directional when you're the one picking it up and I agree. That's what I hate in game, we just hear the ping, but have no idea of direction it's coming from. I'm sure inside the sub the ping sound may be rather omni sounding, but the sonarman could easily figure direction.

If a bear farts in the forest and no one hears it did it actually make a sound.....

[Dogfish40]

I'm jumping on this rather late but one thing that I happened to ask myself, (being a sound engineer) I wondered if you could use your active sonar to cancel their pings if you could time it right, (an incredibly difficult if not impossible proposal) BUT....lo and behold, there was a protocol to use your active sonar to confuse the enemy when they were pinging. I know that this unfortunately is not written into the game but the Sub Doctrine said something to the effect that ; if you are using the same frequency, you had the possibility of confusing the ememy's active sonar, by pinging back. I'll have to go and get that chapter and share it, it was really interesting that it could be used in a desperate situation. I am sure no one would want to start pinging away when you're trying like hell to hide, but when the chips are down....hey

D40 Cmmdr Uss Gar

[MaddogK]

Just to add my 2 cents worth,
1. You NEVER want to go 'active' on a military ship, if they have any kinda passive sonar you will give them the vector your on and all they have to do is travel down that vector pinging, and they find you.
2. Unless your closing in for a kill you will almost always want to be below the layer. The layer is the boundary between warmer surface waters and the colder 'depths', and normally where sounds from the surface are reflected back toward the surface. Below this layer sound is generally reflected down until pressure refracts is back upward. I have verified the game does indeed model this as hunting destroyers usually cant find you (unless they're right on top of you) if your running silent below the layer.
3. I haven't noticed if the game imitates a doppler shift from shipping noise or active sonar, but it is present in aircraft, I can't imagine why it wouldn't be present in the game for underwater sound (you fellow sonar guys know what I'm talking about). I'll be paying more attention to this in the future.
4. I'm not a WW2 historian but before the advent of audio processing computers sonar operators could tell what type of contact they were tracking simply by listening to the noise it made. The game does a good job of recreating this but there's always room for improvement. There is a difference between tanker noise and a carrier, I'm just not sure how accurate it is (or how accurate it really needs to be), luckily this is an area that can be modded.

This game's sonar is nowhere near the sonar in 688(i) but I can't complain, it could be alot worse. (Me- ex S-3a senso)

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by MaddogK

3. I haven't noticed if the game imitates a doppler shift from shipping noise or active sonar, but it is present in aircraft, I can't imagine why it wouldn't be present in the game for underwater sound (you fellow sonar guys know what I'm talking about). I'll be paying more attention to this in the future.

This game's sonar is nowhere near the sonar in 688(i) but I can't complain, it could be alot worse. (Me- ex S-3a senso)

I believe the Dopplar Shift is inherent in all things that emit a wave form (i.e., sound, light, radar, etc.) I don't know if simulating that is even remotely possible in SHIV.

[aanker]

Changed my mind, I'm not giving up on pinging friendlies.

If I ping (let's say a friendly US DD), my reflective ping returns at about the same pitch, even at a great distance. The sound travels off and bounces back at about the same tone.

Occasionally when pinging toward a ship or group (friendly again) it seems like I get pinged back at a different pitch, sometimes it is a powerful deep toned pitch. Doppler doesn't account for this deep of a tone. I'm thinking that deep 'bong' sound I hear sometimes is a ship pinging toward me.

As a rule I don't use the active sonar at all unless I'm approaching Midway etc and then it is only for game 'immersion' purposes.

Anyone else ever get that deep "bong back" sound?

Happy Hunting!

Art

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by Armistead

What I was asking Wernher is if he knew is a sub could pick up a return bong. I assume not because the sound wave would be bouncing away, make sense. We don't hear the return in the
game, nor do I think we would. If he has us on shortscale, he's obvious getting a Ping/Bong every few seconds, but we hear only the ping.

Just like in your sub, if you send a active ping, you wait for the return ping, more of a bong....Your ping has hit the target, so it makes a different sound. Using that info you can figure distane to the target. In game it's simple, just wait for the return bong and send to TDC and you get accurate range.

Well, I am only drawing an inference based on extrapolated information but, that is exactly how I presume it works too. The initial ping sent out by the DD is omnidirectional, just by the nature of the medium (water) in which it is travelling. So, it's intensity should be constant in all directions. However, I think, once it hits the sub, it loses some of that initial intensity because now it is merely a (reflection) of the original sound (or ping). It may bounce again when some of that reflection returns and hits the hull of the DD but the intensity is diminished and therefore, I'm uncertain as to whether this can be detected by passive devices on the sub. My instinct would dictate that this is totally possible but remember, like Armistead says, the sound (reflection) is now moving away from the sub. To hear it bounce off the DD involves, yet again, another reflection and an even greater loss to the original sound density. You don't actually hear it the second it hits the DD. Just like lightning and thunder, you see the lightning first, you hear it afterwards. With the DD, you can't see it hit the hull, but you may (or may not) hear it's diminished capacity after it travels back to the sub.
Ugh, my head hurts now. Sniff, sniff: Do you smell something burning?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by WernherVonTrapp

The initial ping sent out by the DD is omnidirectional, just by the nature of the medium (water) in which it is travelling.

No, it's not.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

No, it's not.

OK, I wasn't sure, and was therefore assuming that the sonar emitter was not directional during WWII. I knew it was on the newer subs. Thanks for pointing that out, and for the manner in which you did. Everything else should still be applicable.