Adm. Lockwoods submarine doctrine

[Jackdaw]

Hi Mates!
Did someone in regard of SH 3 ever ask himself where from the programmers of SH 4 have, for instance, the different mission tasks? No?

Here the solution is: The US american equivalent to the german U-Boot Kommandanten Handbuch. Interested?

Download:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=5294

Pleasant reading!

[Rockin Robbins]

Good show Jackdaw! There's some tasty stuff in there.

[Rockin Robbins]

Here's a very interesting tidbit. I've long maintained that when sighting a target, the commander should assume that the target is either in the recognition manual with the wrong masthead height, or not in the manual at all, or misidentified. In all three cases, which cover a majority of sightings during the war, the TDC and position keeper are useless because your range is wrong.

How to fix that? How about taking a single ping range at about 3,000 yards and then setting the masthead height manually so the stadimeter reads the right range? Then the rest of the action you have him pegged without the need to rely on unreliable information?

2303.Echo ranging during the conduct of an approach must be used with discretion and with full consideration of many factors. If it is certain that enemy craft lack the equipment necessary to detect transmission from own equipment on the frequencies used, it can then be used with impunity. Under these conditions, when approaching an unscreened target, echo ranging can no doubt be used effectively for checking course and speed, for solution of the torpedo problem, and for own maneuvers in conducting the final stages of the approach. The importance of obtaining a single ping range at about 2500-3000 yards in order to accurately determine target masthead height with which to correct speed data is obvious. Under these same conditions, periscope observations are usually available, but when the masthead height of the target has to be estimated, echo ranges may be more accurate than periscope ranges.

It seems my logic and assumptions, according to Admiral Lockwood, are locked on target! Unfortunately, our game TDC has no way to input masthead height in order to perform the "obvious" necessessity....another Ubi game fail.

[BigWalleye]

Cap'n Scurvy's excellent OTC mod, addas a range dial which allows you to enter the range into the TDC manually, from whatever source, and to update it as estimates improve.

[Rockin Robbins]

And that is realistic. TDC operator, sonar operator and radar operator could all input a range in yards into the TDC directly. What is not accurate about OTC is that it has a perfect record of all characteristics of every ship on the ocean, where the real TDC had less than half, plus much of the info it had was wrong.

Therefore the necessity, according to Lockwood, of taking a single ping range at somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 yards so the periscope operator could manually enter the masthead height that yielded the same number as the sonar range. Thus calibrated, the stadimeter would be accurate for that ship only for the rest of the encounter.

Now here's where the logic comes in. If the recognition manual contained accurate information on every ship on the ocean, Lockwood would not say it was a necessity to ping at 3,000 yards to calibrate the masthead height so the stadimeter was worth more than the backgammon table in the crew's mess. Therefore, it was expected that most information on the sub was bad enough to make it necessary to risk the ping.

[Drakken]

A bit of necro, but reading this I feel bad using the stadimeter now, like it is cheating.