US periscopes at night

[Snowman999]

Originally Posted by CruiseTorpedo

So I've been reading Clear the Bridge! and they mention a lot about not being able to use the periscopes at dusk and through the night. Said when they looked through them it was just pitch black. I'm wondering if SH4 will be the same way? Does anyone know what the big difference was between the uboats periscope vs US subs that allowed the uboats to use their's at night?

I've used the USN's Type II scope, which was a late-war US design. On moonless nights all you see is black unless the target is burning running lights, when you can get a very rough AOB. A wartime convoy ought not be using lights.

On full-moon nights, or very clear nights with stars, you can make out targets at maybe 2000-3000 yards, but probably not well enough to make a decent attack. More just blobs. Games have always made a lot out of moon-no-moon conditions, and the moon does put out a lot of light, but starlight shouldn't be underestimated. I've been on a darkened bridge hundreds of miles from land (no runnning lights) and the Milky Way was bright enough to read dials by. I've never come close to that kind of sky on land, even in mountains. It was spectacular.

WWII night surface attacks were the norm, but games, all the way back to Silent Service, have had a hard time making the trade-off between monitor capabilities and detection range circles. WWII patrol reports tell of US subs being well inside 1000 yards and remaining undetected, but games commmonly have detection ranges far outside that band.

As far as U-boat scopes they were very good, but if there's no light source no scope is going to work no matter how great the optics. It can only collect what light is there. That said, a PC monitor is never going to accurately recreate what your eye can see, especially in the area of depth perception.