DicheBach Questions

[Sniper297]

1. What is the range on a hydrophone?

Enemy destroyers, about 2900 yards for passive sonar, 550 yards for active. Sub sonar will pick up contacts around 7-10 miles.

2. Do "thermal layers" block hydrophone detection by destroyers?

Yes. In the stock game the hydrophone is reduced to 33% effectiveness, active sonar to 20% if your sub is 60 feet or more below the layer (the BT is on the keel, so you have to get the whole sub under the layer). It's rather unrealistic and oversimplified.

3. How the hell does one use the stadimeter? (incredibly vague how to match up the two images)


Waterline of the top image on the top of the mast for the lower image gives the range, provided you have the correct mast height dialed in.

4. Using the U.S. TDC, how do I get my aft tubes to just shoot STRAIGHT out? I've managed to get it to do it a couple times, but it often seems to want to curve the damn thing around 150-degrees as if I was aiming at something in front of me.

Set the scope to 180, click SEND RANGE AND BEARING TO TDC, and the fish will go straight out of the aft tubes - if the speed is set to zero. Having a speed and AOB dialed in will change the gyro angle.

5. Assuming IDEAL circumstances (Hard difficulty), what are the exact steps one should follow to hit a slow moving lone merchant with a torpedo (and assuming you have already intercepted him and are a few nautical miles (nm) in front of him and 1/2 to 1 nm off of his projected course?

The very first and most important thing is to hit the Q key, then W then Q, repeat until ALL the outer doors for the tubes are OPEN. The game is set up to automatically open the outer doors if you forget to, but there's a time lag of several seconds if they're not already open when you fire - and that means the fish leaves the tube with ancient history instead of the current solution. That's the single most critical part of the firing solution, because it uses the solution at the moment the fire button is hit, which is no longer valid if there's a delay while the tube door is opening. 90% of misses can be eliminated if you get in the habit of checking that the tube outer doors are open before firing.

[DicheBach]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

1. What is the range on a hydrophone?

Enemy destroyers, about 2900 yards for passive sonar, 550 yards for active. Sub sonar will pick up contacts around 7-10 miles.

2. Do "thermal layers" block hydrophone detection by destroyers?

Yes. In the stock game the hydrophone is reduced to 33% effectiveness, active sonar to 20% if your sub is 60 feet or more below the layer (the BT is on the keel, so you have to get the whole sub under the layer). It's rather unrealistic and oversimplified.

3. How the hell does one use the stadimeter? (incredibly vague how to match up the two images)


Waterline of the top image on the top of the mast for the lower image gives the range, provided you have the correct mast height dialed in.

4. Using the U.S. TDC, how do I get my aft tubes to just shoot STRAIGHT out? I've managed to get it to do it a couple times, but it often seems to want to curve the damn thing around 150-degrees as if I was aiming at something in front of me.

Set the scope to 180, click SEND RANGE AND BEARING TO TDC, and the fish will go straight out of the aft tubes - if the speed is set to zero. Having a speed and AOB dialed in will change the gyro angle.

5. Assuming IDEAL circumstances (Hard difficulty), what are the exact steps one should follow to hit a slow moving lone merchant with a torpedo (and assuming you have already intercepted him and are a few nautical miles (nm) in front of him and 1/2 to 1 nm off of his projected course?

The very first and most important thing is to hit the Q key, then W then Q, repeat until ALL the outer doors for the tubes are OPEN. The game is set up to automatically open the outer doors if you forget to, but there's a time lag of several seconds if they're not already open when you fire - and that means the fish leaves the tube with ancient history instead of the current solution. That's the single most critical part of the firing solution, because it uses the solution at the moment the fire button is hit, which is no longer valid if there's a delay while the tube door is opening. 90% of misses can be eliminated if you get in the habit of checking that the tube outer doors are open before firing.

Ah thanks Sniper!

I've been experimenting with NOT using position keeping and just trying to "guesstimate" when to fire by setting the AOB to zero, range to max, and speed to zero.

I've found that, if one is within about 500yards, you can do reasonably well just by keeping the cursor locked on zero relative bearing in the periscope (or 180 if firing the aft tubes), better in many instances than plugging in the data and letting the position keeper program each fish as it leaves based on the currently inferred position. The problems I see with using the position keeper:

1. AOB: there are two ways to estimate this

(a) the unrealistic but somewhat more accurate way (plot ones course and that of the target on the map, then use the protractor to set an angle along the targets course that measures where the hypotenuse is subs course). This is ostensibly the most accurate as it allows you to measure all three angles in the triangle and reconcile if they don't add up to 180. But it is obviously unrealistic, and the time lost from switching back and forth between nav map and periscope tends to mess up the freshness of readings.

(b) assume a 90 degree intersection of ones course and the targets course (in fact one can do a bit better than that by observing the targets course by plotting dots leading up to the last moments before firing, but they always seem to wobble a bit, and the escorts weave around like rattlesnakes. Read the relative bearing, add/subtract a bit for what it will be in a few moments, add the two together and subtract that from 180 = AOB. The trick of course is that, all this math goes right out the window seconds after the skipper of the target ship tells his helmsman to turn hard.

It seems to me that the "precision" of all these readings is often specious for the simple reason that the target ships characteristics can change before you get all your readings and plug them in! With that in mind, just eyeballing it seems "just about as good," no?

2. I'm not sure if the position keeper continues to adjust angle on the bow or not? If it does then it isn't as bad as I would think. I've noticed the range resets (which I assume reflect a counter that ticks down the range assuming everything else stays the same in the equations) after readings are taken, but unless this "position keeper" analog computer had a laser lock on it, I don't see how it could compensate for slight changes in the targets course and speed. So the whole idea of "position keeper" seems to be farcical, no? More like "Inferred range keeper (based on your speed and course and that numbers you plugged in for your target a couple seconds ago . . . which might have changed by now).

3. The actual instrumentation is problematic. I had figured out how the stadimeter works (waterline, the FoTRS help clarified that, but I don't think the stock did) and it is actually reasonably useful to get an estimate on range. For speed, I find its utility limited because it depends on an accurate AOB reading. If that is off, then the speed inferred can be badly off, even when the image matching is good. A speed estimate from two dots on the map seems better to me: you can take it before the target you up periscope (and even at considerable range using the hydrophone) and given every other tabulation method involves "assuming" no change since last reading, then two timed dots at the hydrophone prong (which of course is not realistic I would guess?) seems just about as good as what the stadimeter provides.

So the method I'm evolving toward is:

I. Immediately after hydrophone contact, plot one to three points at 1 minute intervals. This will define the targets course and speed.

II. Setup an intercept course that is a 90 off of their course and sufficiently far ahead that you can get into position stealthily.

III. Lurk about 500 to 1200 yards from where their course is supposed to place them.

IV. Set the TDC to zero speed, 0 AOB and max range.

V. Observe how the hydrophone prongs move and adjust position accordingly, trying to maintain a 90 orientation on the targets course and within about 500 to 1000 yards of where they will pass.

VI. As they get close enough, up periscope and eyeball when to fire the torps so that they will hit him in the side. I think there are probably even some decent "rule of thumb" conversions for "degrees of relative bearing crossing" (assuming a 90) at any given speed and range, but I haven't thought through those maths recently.

[Sniper297]

Yeah, to me the whole realistic targeting is more trouble than it's worth. The AOB in particular changes very slowly until the range closes, then changes too rapidly to keep up with - my method was to manually set it to 80 when the target was within 2000 yards, just so I could do the "final bearing and shoot" with the AOB already set to near the correct angle.

The angle-off method is easier, set the range to whatever, speed to zero, ignore the AOB and set the scope for a straight out the tubes bearing. Then offset the scope for the lead angle, if the target is coming from the right set the scope 10 to 15 degrees right of zero. Target is a MAYA, when the forward turret hits the crosshairs, fire one. Bridge in the crosshairs, fire two. Stack, fire three, aft mast fire four, essentially spreading the shots along the length by letting the forward progress of the target advance the impact points.

Then all four fish miss astern because I forgot to hit the Q key, then the W to cycle through all the tubes to open the outer doors BEFORE the target came into range.

I emphasize that one factor, DO NOT EVER allow the automatic outer door "feature" to open the outer doors for you, because it's the single biggest cause of misses astern. In fact one of the first things I did after getting Silent 3ditor was to open the \Submarine\NSS_18\NSS_18.sim file, go to wpn_SubTorpedoSys and change auto_open = True to auto_open = False, then repeat for all the other subs. That way if I forget to open the outer door it just won't fire and waste the fish. It's only a few seconds, but all too often that's all it takes to miss.

[DicheBach]

Had a little jaunt in the Nautilus (this is with Fall of the Rising Sun mod, which is quite good, not sure if the V-boats are in stock). Neat boat but boy is it slow to dive. That career was going good for about a month, then I befell a common foible I make: interloping into enemy harbors and either detecting naval mines or sub nets (or stealthy Krakens, I'm not sure) the "wrong" way. As they say, any ship can be a minesweeper . . . once.

I'll generally give myself one or two "reloads" or esp. when it was for reasons other than me just making really bad decisions. Reloading right before turning point moments in battle can be a good way to learn how different choices work out. But in general I prefer a "dead is dead" playstyle in character-based games like this one. It forces you to learn to be better I think. Plus lots of restarting careers helps to iron out the exact mod configuration, which for me is just FOTRS for now (albeit with the changes from Crew Fix plugged in manually by me).

I guess I'll start a new one in a Salmon class in Cavite. The Nautilus seems awfully vulnerable to aircraft attacks and I'm bad about forgetting/risking going to periscope depth in daylight. The S-boat was interesting, but of course the main goal is "survive long enough to get assigned a better boat." Would be neat to check out those two 6" guns in a brawl, but Rockin' Robbins had gone and given me a complex about my big gun fetish so I guess I better learn to rely 99% on torps like a real sub ace

Actually that reminds me, a "sub" that I'd love to see in this game: the the French "submarine cruiser" Surcouf!



It was on its way to the Pacific under Free French command and it got plowed by a freighter coming out of the Panama canal. Not a hard "what if" to consider that it didn't get rammed and actually wound up serving in the Pacific. Would be very cool to see how it performs!

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by DicheBach

the French "submarine cruiser" Surcouf!



It was on its way to the Pacific under Free French command and it got plowed by a freighter coming out of the Panama canal. Not a hard "what if" to consider that it didn't get rammed and actually wound up serving in the Pacific. Would be very cool to see how it performs!

Let's keep score. Surcouf encounters a merchant with three deck guns running by itself. It's pretty even: Surcouf's two 8" guns against the frieghter's three 5" guns. However the frieghter is a very superior gun platform to Surcouf.

Although the 8" guns have longer range, Surcouf's lousy surface handling properties mean that she must be at lower range to get any hits. Let's say they both open up at 6000 yards. Surcouf is carrying only 60 shells, barely adequate to sink one and if very fortunate, two freighters. However one hit from a single shell to Surcouf's pressure hull means that the submarine can still dive but will never surface again. It will take several dozen hits from Surcouf to cripple the freighter. My money is on the freighter to sink the Surcouf without suffering a single hit.

Surcouf was fancifully built as an "underwater cruiser." Obviously the crazy French had fantasies of running gun battles between Surcouf and some cruiser out there. It would have been her last and would have lasted several minutes.

Surcouf: Frankenboat! Failure as a cruiser, failure as a submarine. Looks cool though!

[DicheBach]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Let's keep score. Surcouf encounters a merchant with three deck guns running by itself. It's pretty even: Surcouf's two 8" guns against the frieghter's three 5" guns. However the frieghter is a very superior gun platform to Surcouf.

Although the 8" guns have longer range, Surcouf's lousy surface handling properties mean that she must be at lower range to get any hits. Let's say they both open up at 6000 yards. Surcouf is carrying only 60 shells, barely adequate to sink one and if very fortunate, two freighters. However one hit from a single shell to Surcouf's pressure hull means that the submarine can still dive but will never surface again. It will take several dozen hits from Surcouf to cripple the freighter. My money is on the freighter to sink the Surcouf without suffering a single hit.

Surcouf was fancifully built as an "underwater cruiser." Obviously the crazy French had fantasies of running gun battles between Surcouf and some cruiser out there. It would have been her last and would have lasted several minutes.

Surcouf: Frankenboat! Failure as a cruiser, failure as a submarine. Looks cool though!

Yep, probably a very fair assessment of how it would play out. Still would be fun to play with in the game, if it were represented anything like 'reality' just to see what it maybe could have done.

There was some weird ass **** they came up with in the 1920s, actually quite a bit into the 1940s too . . .

There was a web page I found years ago through one of my WWII game communities that I've lost the link to. It had a series of "fanciful" parody WWII technologies for each nation, each one meant to reflect the fanciful notions that each nation seemed to entertain in engineering and operational doctrine. So for example, the Japanese tech was a bicycle powered balloon lofted "bomber" that had a basket with either bombs or rabid dogs underneath.

The Soviet one was this enormous bomber with like 12 engines, etc., Wish I could find that stuff.

This Surcouf thing seems pretty good as an analogy of French interwar fantasies, sort of a Jules Verne thing

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by DicheBach

Yep, probably a very fair assessment of how it would play out. Still would be fun to play with in the game, if it were represented anything like 'reality' just to see what it maybe could have done.

There was some weird ass **** they came up with in the 1920s, actually quite a bit into the 1940s too . . .

There was a web page I found years ago through one of my WWII game communities that I've lost the link to. It had a series of "fanciful" parody WWII technologies for each nation, each one meant to reflect the fanciful notions that each nation seemed to entertain in engineering and operational doctrine. So for example, the Japanese tech was a bicycle powered balloon lofted "bomber" that had a basket with either bombs or rabid dogs underneath.

The Soviet one was this enormous bomber with like 12 engines, etc., Wish I could find that stuff.

This Surcouf thing seems pretty good as an analogy of French interwar fantasies, sort of a Jules Verne thing

Yes, it's EXACTLY what you'd expect to encounter in a Jules Verne novel. We had some real winners too, like a plane mounted to the deck of an S-boat and the Nautilus with two 5" deck guns .

The Japanese had huge subs with aircraft hangers on deck and torpedoes with incredibly long ranges that couldn't be aimed well enough to hit anything at that range (it's always something....)

The Germans had little submarines up against 1000 ship convoys so that if they hit a different ship with each of their not enough torpedoes they still wouldn't have any influence on how many supplies got through. And they chatted on the radio like schoolgirls, then wondered why they were being sunk all the time.

Americans had this super sophisticated TDC that succeeded in making targeting more complicated but not more effective. All had deck guns and AA guns, whose main function was to make noise when submerged so enemy escorts could find them easier.

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by DicheBach

Had a little jaunt in the Nautilus (this is with Fall of the Rising Sun mod, which is quite good, not sure if the V-boats are in stock). Neat boat but boy is it slow to dive. That career was going good for about a month, then I befell a common foible I make: interloping into enemy harbors and either detecting naval mines or sub nets (or stealthy Krakens, I'm not sure) the "wrong" way. As they say, any ship can be a minesweeper . . . once.

I'll generally give myself one or two "reloads" or esp. when it was for reasons other than me just making really bad decisions. Reloading right before turning point moments in battle can be a good way to learn how different choices work out. But in general I prefer a "dead is dead" playstyle in character-based games like this one. It forces you to learn to be better I think. Plus lots of restarting careers helps to iron out the exact mod configuration, which for me is just FOTRS for now (albeit with the changes from Crew Fix plugged in manually by me).

I guess I'll start a new one in a Salmon class in Cavite. The Nautilus seems awfully vulnerable to aircraft attacks and I'm bad about forgetting/risking going to periscope depth in daylight. The S-boat was interesting, but of course the main goal is "survive long enough to get assigned a better boat." Would be neat to check out those two 6" guns in a brawl, but Rockin' Robbins had gone and given me a complex about my big gun fetish so I guess I better learn to rely 99% on torps like a real sub ace

Actually that reminds me, a "sub" that I'd love to see in this game: the the French "submarine cruiser" Surcouf!



It was on its way to the Pacific under Free French command and it got plowed by a freighter coming out of the Panama canal. Not a hard "what if" to consider that it didn't get rammed and actually wound up serving in the Pacific. Would be very cool to see how it performs!

I just stumbled across this again: [REL] Free French Submarine Surcouf mod I've never tried it myself, but anything from Keltos is good. It'll give you an idea of what the beast could - er, couldn't do...

[DicheBach]

Wow! Ask and ye shall receive!

[DicheBach]

General question about how "closely" the enemy spawns match historical events.

As an example: in my Yank career (starated in Cavite in a Sargo and now in a Gar out of Brisbane), I've just arrived at the patrol area for my 5th or 6th patrol, northwest of Bourgainville Island (north of the strait separating the Rabaul cluster on the west and the other Solomons on the east).

I'm aware that, in a few days, there are about to be some very famous and interesting battles down southeast near Guadalcanal. Most notably:

7 Aug: U.S. landings on Guadalcanal begin
August 8-9, 1942: Japanese battleships attack the American fleet.

August 20, 1942
Nineteen Wildcat fighters and twelve Dauntless dive bombers arrive at Henderson Field.
August 21, 1942
General Ichiki orders the first attempt to retake Henderson Field.
August 21, 1942
General Ichiki commits ritual suicide.
September 12, 1942
Japanese attack Henderson again but fail losing 1200 men, the Americans only lose 446.
October 11-12,1942
Japanese cruisers Furutaka and Fabuki are destroyed.
October 13, 1942
Japanese battleships Kongo and Haruna shell Marine positions at Henderson Field.
October 14, 1942
Japanese cruisers Chokai and Kinugasa bombard the Marines.
October 24-25, 1942
Battle for Henderson Field.
October 26, 1942
Battle of Santa Cruz Islands.
November 12-15 , 1942
Naval battle for Guadalcanal. Japanese lose battleships Hiei, Kirishishima heavy cruisers Kinguagasa, three destroyers and seven transports. American loses heavy cruisers Atlanta, San Francisco, light cruisers Juneau, and seven destroyers. Japanese heavy cruisers Suzuya and Maya.

etc., etc. all the way through eventual Japanese withdrawal in I believe Feb of '43 . . .

How much trouble is it worth to try to be "on scene" to try to get involved in any of these battles?

So far, I have not been impressed with how easy or clearcut it is to get involved in famous historical battles in a career campaign, even when the game is giving me signals that that battle is about to take place, and/or is taking place, and subsequently more messages that it took place.

More than once, I've been smack in the middle of the general region where the Japanese carrier TF should have been during Battle of Midway. I saw crap tons of planes behaving in ways that convinced me I could follow their trajectories to find me an aircraft carrier kill . . . but to no avail. I must've spent 10 hours of game play and nearly a full week in game trying to hone in on Kido Butai and save VT-8, etc. from the carnage, but . . . nope. No dice.

So tell me: is there any point at all in trying to participate in historical battles in a career campaign in this game?