Hydrophones give you distance as well as bearing?

[Dantenoc]

In reality, your constatly redrawing the target's track as new "sound contact" lines are drawn. The basic assumption is that the enemy is traveling in a straight line (so that means that the systems doesn't work too good on a zigzaging target, and flops miserably if the target changes course) So your always trying to figure out what straight track satisfies the condition of crossing all of the different "sound contact" lines that you drew. In the begining, there's an almost infinite amount of different posibilities, but pretty soon, as you draw more and more contact lines, it will become very evident that there is only one possible solution. Specialy when you are able to catch the change from long to medium range or from medium to short range. The "choke points" created there limit the possibilities down a lot.
You can see this in action more evidently in the second example. In it the target was traveling from the right of the image to the left, with a course of about 260 degrees (I forgot the exact heading). From the right to the left, the first five lines correspond to the target being at long range. Then theres four more lines, continuing to the left, that were made at medium range, and then there's one last one made at short range. That creates two choke points (at spots where the target closed range from one level to the next) that pretty much narrows the posibilities to almost only one solution.

Of course, it really helps if you have obtained your target from a "radio contact" (the ship icons that pop up out of nowhere on the nav-map) since that will fix one of the end points for the target's track (which is why in the first example I only required so little "sound contact" lines before I knew the target's track dead on).

[Corsair]

For those who would like to keep the map contact updates but have some uncertainty, there has been a mod released for GWX 1.02 similar to the Assisted Plotting Mod used in NYGM. You can only track one visual contact at any time on the map and the sound contacts are shown by dotted lines which don't give the precise distance away.
Check in the Mods Workshop forum.

[Brag]

There is another method, which is quite accurate: THE RUNNING FIX. You must stop.

You draw the bearing of your first sound contact and mark your position. Wait 3 or 6 minutes and advance your position at the estimated speed of the sound contact

Take another bearing and advance your old bearing to this new (fake) position. this will give you a fix on the target.

[Rykaird]

Originally Posted by Brag

There is another method, which is quite accurate: THE RUNNING FIX. You must stop.

You draw the bearing of your first sound contact and mark your position. Wait 3 or 6 minutes and advance your position at the estimated speed of the sound contact

Take another bearing and advance your old bearing to this new (fake) position. this will give you a fix on the target.

Oh, how I wish I understood this.

1. "You draw the bearing of your first sound contact and mark your position".

Got it.

2. "Wait 3 or 6 minutes and advance your position at the estimated speed of the sound contact."

So the three or six minutes - is this related to the 3 min 14 sec rule?

When I "advance my position" is this in any direction, or on the original target bearing?

Got the speed - that's from "slow, medium, fast" from the hydrophone operator and using the standard speed ranges for those terms.

3. Take another bearing and advance your old bearing to this new (fake) position. this will give you a fix on the target.

Nope. Your brilliance met a brick known as my forehead on this.

Brag/Dantenoc - I know I'm the Gilligan and you two are the Professor in this little play, and I really do appreciate your help. Don't give up!

[Iron Budokan]

Dantenoc is an absolute genius. I always learn a ton when I read his posts...

Rykaird - do not despair, i did not "get" it either.

But this page explains it for dummies like us

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/55...scription.html

http://www.subsowespac.org/tactics/sj_radar.shtml

[Dantenoc]

Originally Posted by Brag

There is another method, which is quite accurate: THE RUNNING FIX. You must stop.

You draw the bearing of your first sound contact and mark your position. Wait 3 or 6 minutes and advance your position at the estimated speed of the sound contact

Take another bearing and advance your old bearing to this new (fake) position. this will give you a fix on the target.

Interesting :hmm: ... picture please