Hydrophone Hunting in SH3 v reality

[Sea Hawk]

I've been reading the excellant SH3 Hydrophone Hunting Tutorial by raduz. I find this excellant and I will definitely be trying it out. I note that he has less interest in reality and more interest in what he can do within the limmitations of the game. Many thanks for putting this tutorial together.

My question is how much of this was a real sub commander able to do?

Why can I hear ships at 34km when the sonar man can only hear at 20km. Did U-boat commanders have better ears than sonarmen? is this an unreal glitch in the game?

How accurate in real life was the sonarmans ability to gauge the range to target as long, medium and short range?

[Pisces]

I don't think this was realistic at all. Game limitation (developmental oversight) for sure.

The sonar crew would be concentrated on his job the whole time, allowing his ear and mind to tune to the noise in his earphones. Whereas the commander would have no time to do this. He has the rest of the boat to supervise. Last week I watched a video on Youtube (link was given not long ago here) where a german commander (iirc) said they could hear on the order of 100km with the passive hydrophone. It would be great if the 34km could be extended in a mod but I understand it is a limitation of the game. Otherwise it would have been done by now.

[Sag75]

Hi, so there wasn't "TMA" like plotting at hydrophones or any other stations? So, how they was able to understand the ship/convoy course from 100km?

[Pisces]

It's a mystery to me to how they really did it. (though I didnt make any effort to investigate either) I suppose just moving along the bearing was simple to do.

But I myself made a tool that allows you to calculate course/aob with three bearings only if you are not moving. As I said, I have no idea if the germans or even the americans used this technique during the war. Just that it can be done with enough patience.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147719

Read also:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=110619

[Sag75]

HI thanks! you can find some information here:

http://hnsa.org/doc/attackfinder/index.htm


They quote a Subsim discussion!!

[Pisces]

Yes, I know. I have allready made the tool. But the method described in the document doesn't work for hydrophone TMA since it relies on a range input and visual AOB.

[Sea Hawk]

Originally Posted by Pisces

But I myself made a tool that allows you to calculate course/aob with three bearings only if you are not moving. As I said, I have no idea if the germans or even the americans used this technique during the war. Just that it can be done with enough patience.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147719

This looks excelant, I will make one and try it out. Thanks Pisces.

[Sea Hawk]

Originally Posted by Pisces

It's a mystery to me to how they really did it. (though I didnt make any effort to investigate either) I suppose just moving along the bearing was simple to do.

But I myself made a tool that allows you to calculate course/aob with three bearings only if you are not moving. As I said, I have no idea if the germans or even the americans used this technique during the war. Just that it can be done with enough patience.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147719

Ive worked out how the geometry works with this slide rule, and I'm very impressed with it. I particularly like the fact that it does not religh on the unreal parts of the hydrophone such as me hearing a target at 34km but the sonar operator only hearing at 20km (I dont want to detract from what raduz has done with his excelant tutorial, I just want to try out what was possible in 1939-45)

Presumably you get from this an AOB and therefore the heading of the target, but you still have to use skills in listening to the hydrophone to gauge the range to target and his speed (which would help you gage his range in relation to the 3 bearings.

Ive not tryed it out yet as I tried moving the hydrophone hunting tutorials into the program files, caused the game to crash and I have ended up having to reinstall the origonal version from my DVD. Its just finished reinstalling.

Thanks.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by Sea Hawk

Ive worked out how the geometry works with this slide rule, and I'm very impressed with it. I particularly like the fact that it does not religh on the unreal parts of the hydrophone such as me hearing a target at 34km but the sonar operator only hearing at 20km (I dont want to detract from what raduz has done with his excelant tutorial, I just want to try out what was possible in 1939-45)

Presumably you get from this an AOB and therefore the heading of the target, but you still have to use skills in listening to the hydrophone to gauge the range to target and his speed (which would help you gage his range in relation to the 3 bearings.

Yes, I didn't mention you can derive speed and range because I didn't want to complicate things. But if you read the last link (MittelWaechter's thread) you would have found a way to derive it after sprinting away perpendicular to the 3rd bearing line. My tool only replaces his 2-big-triangles-and-cirlces-drawing for determining AOB. (though also allows to see all bearingdifference-pairs at a glance for one AOB) The rest of the procedure is still the same. Just try to get big bearing differences to make the AOB accurate for use. Meaning you have to wait a while.

[later edit:] Maybe I misunderstand you, but I don't see what's 'unreal' about listening yourself upto 34km. The game is limited to allowing the crew to listen upto 20km, but you can get extra range by placing yourself temporarily in his seat. That extra range is too good (and probably more real based on the video reference above) not to use it because of such a stupid code limitation.

Ive not tryed it out yet as I tried moving the hydrophone hunting tutorials into the program files, caused the game to crash and I have ended up having to reinstall the origonal version from my DVD. Its just finished reinstalling.

Thanks.

The solution to this crash issue was that the hydrophone tutorial missions were made for an old version of the GWX mod. With GWX 1.03 I noticed the Ammo-ship got a different database number which confussed Sh3 to end up crashing. Changing the ID number to the propper value in the mission files with a text editor would have fixed it. There should be a few posts about how and what exactly in the back of Raduz's Hydrophone thread.

[Sea Hawk]

Originally Posted by Pisces

Maybe I misunderstand you, but I don't see what's 'unreal' about listening yourself upto 34km. The game is limited to allowing the crew to listen upto 20km, but you can get extra range by placing yourself temporarily in his seat. That extra range is too good (and probably more real based on the video reference above) not to use it because of such a stupid code limitation.

In real life I think the sonar operator would have his ears tuned in and be able to listen for contacts as well if not better than the comander. Also I think the sonar is unreal in being able to guage range when the type of ship appears on the notepad, this would not have happened automatically in reality.

Thanks for all your excellent tips.