[IDEA] Aircraft recognition manual

[VONHARRIS]

The title says it all.
We all know the ship recognition manual in SH3.
How is it possible to create an aircraft recognition manual?

I created a new thread because I came up empty handed after a search.
Thank you.

[Wreford-Brown]

I think that's a great idea. Maybe have it as another drop-down chart along the lines of rudewarrior's JFO! mod?

[sublynx]

Yeah a great idea One would need to collect pics like these from the internet and then edit them into tga's where 4-engined planes, twin engined planes, single engined planes would be on their own charts for quick comparison.



Easy to add as a drop down chart. The most worksome part would be to collect pictures of all the necessary planes.

[sublynx]

This Aircraft recognition manual has a nice collection of the relevant pictures:

http://archive.org/details/Fm30-30

Goddamit I've vowed to myself that no more modding for me Would someone else feel energetic enough to do this?

[A6Intruder]

What for?
Nearly everyone knows Friends and Enemies. If you play with outsideview you can find it out by yourself. If you don`t know the plane you know the decals!
If you play without outsideview: How will you use it? Bridge calls FLIEGER, and now you go upstairs, take your binocular, take a book for finding out friend or foe? Not really.
So in my eyes senseless.
Best regards

PS: If you need some kind of training go to the museum.

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by Wreford-Brown

I think that's a great idea. Maybe have it as another drop-down chart along the lines of rudewarrior's JFO! mod?

Hi everyone,

Just because I have been invoked I will comment here, but I'd like to point out that the drop-down chart is probably more of a sublynx or a makman94 idea. I just don't want to take undeserved credit before I speak. But since sublynx posted here and didn't scold you, I guess he doesn't mind too much.

However, as much as I like looking at pictures of weapons platforms and trying to identify them, I can't help but point out that, IRL, aircraft were exceptionally deadly for a submarine.

Maybe during early stages of the war, when people were still figuring out how to wage war; maybe during times when Kaleun's were asked to engage aircraft on the surface, specifically when engaging convoys; maybe when performing some sort of mission, perhaps spotting for Kriegsmarine aircraft; you might be concerned with aircraft identification. But it was realized pretty quickly by Kaleun's that u-boat interaction with enemy aircraft was a very deadly proposition. So in general, the conclusion was that your best bet was to dive upon sighting of any aircraft!

But, like I said, I like looking at pictures, so I could see this sequence happening very quickly:

WO: Aircraft spotted, sir! Bearing 230 degrees! Long range!

Oh, cool! An airplane! Let me look through my id book/pull down my handy dandy chart and identify which one it is!

/opens manual or pulls down chart

Hey, that one looks cool! Check out that one, too!

WO: Enemy aircraft engaging us, sir!
WO: We're under attack, sir!
WO: We're taking damage, sir!
WO: Men down on the deck!
WO: Meediiiiiic!!!
WO: We have critical flooding, sir!

/deathscreen

So based on my research, I think the real course of action for any Kaleun upon sighting of any aircraft was:

WO: Alaaaaaarm!

[sublynx]

The usefulness of a plane recognition manual depends on the level of role play one wants to play with. No outside views of course.

Here's a situation I would find a manual useful:

It's January 1941. My U-boat is some 300 kilometers north of the Faroes. A plane is sighted. We dive while keeping a periscope on the plane. The plane doesn't seem to spot us so we stay at periscope depth. There have been no reports of airplanes in this area yet. I notice it's a single engine airplane. Now is it a carrier borne airplane or a land based airplane? If it is a landbased airplane it means that the enemy is flying from the Faroes and the area is unsafe permanently. If it is a carrier based airplane the area is unsafe for now and there is a task force nearby. I need to identify the plane through the periscope view and to do that a manual would be helpful.

This kind of reconnoitering would be crucial in a real U-boat. The info would help us and other U-boats in the area. As players we know about when Allied airbases are established so in that sense info about the planes is useless. It all depends how much one wants to role play while playing SH3. I like the role play aspect so I try to gather intelligence in a way I guess a real U-boat commander would have.

There was also a phase in the war when BdU ordered U-boats not to dive in certain situations when planes where sighted (desperate as that was) and during that phase one would need some help in recognizing the enemy.

[rudewarrior]

Originally Posted by sublynx

It's January 1941. My U-boat is some 300 kilometers north of the Faroes. A plane is sighted. We dive while keeping a periscope on the plane. The plane doesn't seem to spot us so we stay at periscope depth. There have been no reports of airplanes in this area yet. I notice it's a single engine airplane. Now is it a carrier borne airplane or a land based airplane? If it is a landbased airplane it means that the enemy is flying from the Faroes and the area is unsafe permanently. If it is a carrier based airplane the area is unsafe for now and there is a task force nearby. I need to identify the plane through the periscope view and to do that a manual would be helpful.

This kind of reconnoitering would be crucial in a real U-boat.

Yes, but would it IRL?

You say January 1941. In the game, that means the only British single engine aircraft that you would encounter would be a Swordfish, a Martlet, or a Hurricane (with differing mod lists, YMMV). The first two are carrier-based aircraft (and the Swordfish is easily recognizable as a biplane). However, the airfield on the Faroes was not operational until August of 1942. Now, yes, the Germans may or may not know this; however, your position of ~300 km north of the Faroes also puts you ~700-800 km north of the coast of the British Isles, well out of the range of a Hurricane, a non-carrier based aircraft. Now, I am not going to go to the full depth of research, but based on history and game mechanics combined, you would only see a Swordfish, again easily recognizable by the two wings as opposed to the single engine. This just leads to a carrier-based aircraft, regardless, which at this point is pretty easily assumable. So the very easy assumption here is aircraft in the area = carrier based aircraft -> aircraft carrier in the area, which would probably already be known at this point in the war.

I guess my point is that, when it comes to RP, I have a tendency to shy away from it, especially when there is documentation about what was actually done. As a scientist and a (very) amateur historian, I find it very difficult to say that u-boat commanders would do "x, y, and z," when there is documented evidence that their mentality was in a completely different direction. I have a tendency to allow RP to creep in when I am playing a game that lends itself more to an RP mentality, say Crusader Kings II. The documented evidence that we have available for WW2 is exponentially higher than for the medieval period, so it certainly allows for more flexibility in interpretation, but accurate RP for a game like SH3, IMHO, is difficult to achieve, as what was actually done is much more readily available and less open to flexible interpretation. However, at the same time, it requires a time commitment to actually research what was going on such that it can be thoroughly interpreted and introduced accurately into the game. Something that is much more difficult to do than making an assumption and interpreting that as RP.

There was also a phase in the war when BdU ordered U-boats not to dive in certain situations when planes where sighted (desperate as that was) and during that phase one would need some help in recognizing the enemy.

I'd like to point out that this actually occurred only during very limited conditions.

First, this tactic was implemented for a short time for u-boats trying to cross the Bay of Biscay in 1943. Generally, this was only done when working with a U-Flak boat. The other case was for a few months during 1943 for u-boats who were specifically engaging convoys.

I am quite sure that Kriegsmarine communicated to what was left of the Luftwaffe (at least the tiny bit that was left on the Western Front at this time in the war) that u-boats would be using this tactic and staying clear. In addition, I can't imagine the Luftwaffe being around convoys during this time of the war. So without a doubt, if you see aircraft during those periods, it's enemy. And identifying the type of aircraft that is trying to kill you would probably be best after surviving the engagement.

I guess the point of all this is that this particular type of intelligence gathering might not necessarily be a real reflection of what actually happened, especially considering that all the evidence in my research indicates that the most sensible Kaleun (after a learning curve factoring in Kaleun experiences and BdU stubbornness) did everything they could to avoid contact with aircraft, including not risking their periscope being observed, especially considering the periscope's (ultimately) limited view of the surface.

But to each his own. The bottom line is that we really don't know. So to say that it definitely would be happening, tough to back up. But we each play a different way.

After all, one man's 100% realism is "TOTAL BS!!!" to someone else.

[sublynx]

I agree that observing aircraft is really a risky business for a U-boat and should probably be avoided.

My Faroes example was not that thought out, just an example on why BdU would have found airplane type info interesting. We don't know what the U-boat commanders' exact procedure with airplanes was, but they did try to identify the type of the plane and wrote the info down for BdU to assess. Take a look at this war diary:

http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTB628-3.htm

It identifies a probable Whitney, Catalina, land-based airplane, flying boat, 4-engined plane and probable own planes. I would suspect they would have done the identifying bit after the danger had passed from an aircraft recognition manual of some sorts. In RL observing an airplane through the periscope would indeed be too dangerous for my taste as well.

It's a "to each his own" thing, like you said. The different playing styles and mods allow very different approaches to the game.

[sharkbit]

My set key for the aircraft recognition manual is the "C" key.

This would be neat. I think the easiest way to do it would be a copy paste of much of the rec manual things in menu_1028_728.ini file, and then finding plane profile pics and converting them to .tga, similar to the ship "sil" pictures (that's in every ship folder). Then you would have to renumber the rec manual elements and adjust certain things, but probably not too much.


I'd have to dig around a little to look how one could change the stat titles that are printed in the rec manuals to represent airplane statistics rather than ship charactersitics.


I think it would be quite easy, except the picture gathering part.

[sublynx]

The good thing: something like this would be pretty easy to do. I made this in less than an half an hour (would need a lot of polishing though). This picture could made to a dragdown chart like the map in GWX.



The bad thing: modding this in would demand a change to menu_1072_768.ini file which means trouble as most people already have changed menu_1072_768.ini files. Most people would need to add these kind of charts by editing the ini file themselves.