SJ radar depth

[ETR3(SS)]

[ETR3(SS)]

Just ran a test with the Sargo, late war CT, SD and SJ radar installed. As you said, option for turning on the radar cut out at 39 ft. But at this time I was still rotating and radiating on the SJ. Progressively took her down to 46 feet when I started taking hits on the antenna from wave action. Radar would shut down, and once the wave cleared would start up again. This is on a stock game with my test missions loaded.

[CapnScurvy]

The radar, both SJ and SD, are both controlled )n/Off by the Radar Antenna themselves, and their relationship to the water.. There are various types...all have the same function. If the antenna is above water.......it works; if it's below water......it doesn't. There is no set meter/yard/feet figure that effects the function. It's purely where the antenna is positioned in relationship with the water line that causes it to either turn On/Off.

[Sniper297]

Yeah, the actual problem may be the flotation physics. If you go to external view in rough weather the hull sometimes appears to be above the surface, even when the depth gauge is showing 19 feet or whatever. I'm watching the wave rise to the bridge coaming, depth gauge shows 22 feet, wave height is (visually) 10 feet below the radar dish and the hand icon goes dark.

I thought one possible solution might be to activate the radar periscope at the start of the war, but trying a BALAO career start 1944 there's no option for it. UpgradePacks.upc shows;

[UpgradePack 6]
ID= UpackSTRadar
NameDisplayable= ST Radar
FunctionalType= UpFTypeSensorPeriscope
UpgradePackSlotType= AdvPeriscope
Type=NULL
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptionCurrent= NULL, NULL, 0
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions1=1941-07-01, 1944-12-31, 3000
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions2=1945-01-01, NULL, 1500
IDLinkUpgradePackElements= ObsPeriscopeST

But with the 1944 BALAO career start there's no option for a radar observation scope.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Yeah, the actual problem may be the flotation physics. If you go to external view in rough weather the hull sometimes appears to be above the surface, even when the depth gauge is showing 19 feet or whatever. I'm watching the wave rise to the bridge coaming, depth gauge shows 22 feet, wave height is (visually) 10 feet below the radar dish and the hand icon goes dark.

I thought one possible solution might be to activate the radar periscope at the start of the war, but trying a BALAO career start 1944 there's no option for it. UpgradePacks.upc shows;

[UpgradePack 6]
ID= UpackSTRadar
NameDisplayable= ST Radar
FunctionalType= UpFTypeSensorPeriscope
UpgradePackSlotType= AdvPeriscope
Type=NULL
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptionCurrent= NULL, NULL, 0
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions1=1941-07-01, 1944-12-31, 3000
UnitUpgradePackIntervalOptions2=1945-01-01, NULL, 1500
IDLinkUpgradePackElements= ObsPeriscopeST

But with the 1944 BALAO career start there's no option for a radar observation scope.

Well, the stock ST Radar doesn't work as intended anyway. It's not implemented, due to the fact there's specific files missing to have it work. The Dev's didn't separate the two sensor's using the same object......A Visual Sensor using the Observation Periscope Head, and the Radar Sensor using the same Head. It works for the Visual, not for the Radar part. You put the ST into the air and go to the PPI screen.......you got nothing, it's not capable of turning "On".

As far as the different SJ Antenna's, one of the issues with them is the bottom of the antenna is where it decides whether it's above water or not. If the water line just swells up to the bottom of the radar antenna...its thinking its below water and Off it goes.

I'll admit, the idea of not getting the radar to work during a heavy sea/storm is authentic. It's been known that just the slight rocking of the boat lost radar contacts. Think of the radar as a beam of light streaming from the emitter. On a rocking platform, that beam drives into the sea just yards away from the sub, then shoots up into thin air with the following roll. It's wasn't very consistent with target acquisition when the boat rocked and rolled in moderate sea conditions.

[Sniper297]

Huh. Everything I read about WWII surface search radar said the rotating dish was gyro stabilized from the very beginning, so although you would get a lot of false returns from really high waves it wasn't affected by pitch and roll.

The ones I worked on were airborne sets (Lockheed P-3 Orion) in the 70s, a bit more sophisticated (gain and intensity controls on the PPI to filter out grass and false returns) but obviously different since flying below the waves would ruin your whole day.

Anyway the S class looks like 29 feet is the cutoff depth, 39 feet is standard for everything else from Porpoise to Balao regardless of actual antenna height. Looking now at the library sensors.sim and sensors.dat files - sensors.sim is too weird for words, seems to be all about decoy launchers and snorkels. Sensors.dat might be a leftover SH3 file since it's all German stuff (I'm running 1.4 so have none of the 1.5 U-baot stuff) and has radar like "FuMO29GEMA" with the same height and sensor height data as the ones from sub parts. I'll try setting MinSensorHeight in all those nodes to -10 and see if that file is actually used, they're dated 2005.

[CapnScurvy]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Huh. Everything I read about WWII surface search radar said the rotating dish was gyro stabilized from the very beginning, so although you would get a lot of false returns from really high waves it wasn't affected by pitch and roll.

I read the opposite. I think it was in one of the Navy Radar Manuals that even had a diagram of the beam and how it would rise and fall with a moderate to heavy sea state...giving you very limited, if at all, capabilities.

Anyway the S class looks like 29 feet is the cutoff depth, 39 feet is standard for everything else from Porpoise to Balao regardless of actual antenna height. Looking now at the library sensors.sim and sensors.dat files - sensors.sim is too weird for words, seems to be all about decoy launchers and snorkels. Sensors.dat might be a leftover SH3 file since it's all German stuff (I'm running 1.4 so have none of the 1.5 U-baot stuff) and has radar like "FuMO29GEMA" with the same height and sensor height data as the ones from sub parts. I'll try setting MinSensorHeight in all those nodes to -10 and see if that file is actually used, they're dated 2005.

I've not looked at my SH4 v1.4 game in a while, but that doesn't sound like anything for an American sub. You're looking in the Data/Library/USSubParts folder for the Sensors.dat and Sensors.sim files?