US boat's sonar range in game vs. real life

difool2 · 04-02-08, 06:45 PM

I am currently reading Silent Victory. It had a description of a sonar contact where the sub picked up a small naval convoy (with a big troop ship) at 5,000 yards, and later the CO was criticized for relying on sonar contacts to find ships. [Part of the problem was that the commanders of the early war years didn't surface to pursue the sonar contact, but that's another topic]

Of course in SH3/4 we can hear contacts at 35,000 yards, all the time under any weather/sound profile conditions (because the latter are not modeled as they are in say DW). I just found it odd that a big noisy troop ship was undetectable until it had come that close-even my deaf sonar operator can pick him up long before then. I gather from this and other tidbits in the book that US sonar lagged way behind that of the Germans. Just an observation.

04-02-08, 06:45 PM	#1
difool2 Commander Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 459 Downloads: 31 Uploads: 0	US boat's sonar range in game vs. real life I am currently reading Silent Victory. It had a description of a sonar contact where the sub picked up a small naval convoy (with a big troop ship) at 5,000 yards, and later the CO was criticized for relying on sonar contacts to find ships. [Part of the problem was that the commanders of the early war years didn't surface to pursue the sonar contact, but that's another topic] Of course in SH3/4 we can hear contacts at 35,000 yards, all the time under any weather/sound profile conditions (because the latter are not modeled as they are in say DW). I just found it odd that a big noisy troop ship was undetectable until it had come that close-even my deaf sonar operator can pick him up long before then. I gather from this and other tidbits in the book that US sonar lagged way behind that of the Germans. Just an observation.