Hydrophone - Three Questions

[capt_frank]

i've got three relatively easy questions:

1. say i'm at 50m submerged, dead stop with a heading of 180 degrees. over the din that's emminating from klaus in the WC, the hydrophone operator picks up a contact bearing 122 degrees. am i supposed to set my course to 122 degrees to intercept, or do i ADD 122 degrees to my current heading to intercept?

2. when does the notepad give any information, when i'm close enough to spit?

3. i see that one of the hydrophone commands is to follow the nearest contact...but my operator always tells me there isn't one.

thanks!

frank

[bobo]

1.) the bearing on the hydrophone is relative to the sub not a true bearing. I find that easiest way to head to a hydrophone contact is to use the periscope.
Example:
Bearing to hydrophone contact is 030.
go to periscope view and move it to 030 then hit the "=" key.
( The helm will change course to whichever way your facing when you hit "=" )

2.) The notepad is an interactive tool to calculate firing solutions.....it doesnt just provide info without input. Besides, there are MUCH better methods than using the notepad. The Fast90 method is tops in my book.

3.) Sometimes the hyd. operator just plain refuses to do his job.......grab yer service revolver and shoot him.

[Karl-Heinz Jaeger]

Originally Posted by capt_frank

i've got three relatively easy questions:

1. say i'm at 50m submerged, dead stop with a heading of 180 degrees. over the din that's emminating from klaus in the WC, the hydrophone operator picks up a contact bearing 122 degrees. am i supposed to set my course to 122 degrees to intercept, or do i ADD 122 degrees to my current heading to intercept?

2. when does the notepad give any information, when i'm close enough to spit?

3. i see that one of the hydrophone commands is to follow the nearest contact...but my operator always tells me there isn't one.

thanks!

frank

1) As Bobo said, the bearing on your hydrophone and the bearing on the periscope is always relative to the front of your sub/boat and not North. So, if you are travelling due East, which is 90degrees relative to North and you pick up a sound contact bearing 180degrees that means the contact is directly behind you relative to the front of your boat which would be 270degrees relative to north. It's confusing but you get used to it!!!


2) The notepad only gives information when you are locked onto a target, however you can lock onto targets that you cannot see in heavy fog/rain or rough seas if they are within the normal viewing distance, which is around 8000meters I think. You won't actually be able to see the contact, but if you put your scope on the bearing your sonarman gives you and hit the lock target button, chances are your scope will lock and you'll get data on your notepad. (This all assumes you have Manual TDC off like I do!!)

3) This happens to everybody, only thing I've been able to do instead of telling him to follow nearest sound contact, just click report on nearest contact and he'll read off the data for you.

Hope this helps!!

[Iceberg]

About #3, The hydrophone operator seems to stop hearing a contact once it's in visual range! If you're submerged, just lower your periscope and the guy should start hearing it again!

Weird way to do things but that's what the devs gave us!

Iceberg

[Twelvefield]

About #1: you can click and drag on the inner ring of the compass to bring the sub aroud to a particular bearing. The numbers in the inner ring are exceedingly small, so it's not exact. For precise manuevers, use the periscope.

[capt_frank]

as to #1.

then it really is adding or subtracting the bearing from your current heading. i've been playing around with it and conclude that bearings from 0-180 degress you add, from 181 to 360 you subtract.

for example: i'm heading 299 degrees and get a hearing heading at 347. i'd subtract 347 from 360, which is 13 and subtract that from 299, which is 286. so my new heading would be 286. or you can do the long math: 299 plus 347 = 646 minus 360 = 286.

another: i'm heading 137 degress and get a hearing heading 179. if i add 179 to 137 i get 316 and that's my new heading.

once the quick math is done, i change my course on the compass and voila, i'm done.

quicker method is yes, the periscope but i like my math thing better.

once i realized the hydrophone north/south was likened to my uboat, it all became crystal clear, well kinda.

anyway, thanks to all who replied, it now makes sense.

cheers!

frank

[MuscleBob.Buffpants]

Old pilots trick here...

When it comes to calculating a reciprical bearing, the quickest way to do it is use the plus2/minus2 method (or vice versa).

Eg, if you are heading 035 then Plus 2 = 235, Minus 2 = 215

If the reverse is true, then 215 Minus 2 = 015, Plus 2 = 035