[Greenhornet]

It would be great to "maually" load torps, flood tubes and open bow caps as sub command has. I looked at the screen shots of the game and they look great. I don't think you need to see the crew though, if they just sit there frozen it kinda kills the point of the crew and if they move around it might take resourses of something better like a way better sound system with screw sounds that you can tell apart from one another.

Also, in the control room you could have the board that says everything is ready for a dive and is in the green or "KLAR" making sure that all compartments are not open to the sea, like the engines, hatches etc.

stuff like this really makes it immersive and when you spend hours under the waves you got a few things to do instead of stareing at depth gages for hours.

Another cool idea would be when you bottom the sub you cannot locate it and the DC's don't blast you with one can.

I know this post is almost a waste 'cause I won't happen, but I just had to say what I figured would be easy additions to the game.

Also Movie sound and music, al la das boot really makes a difference!!

[finchOU]

I think the Tech. is there for sure........its whether the company is going to spend the extra money for the immersion effect........I'm just waiting to see if their is a truely new game or just a SHII++.....it will be interesting to see what they come up with......good or bad.........I prey it will be the best to date over all previous U-boat sims. That is the best we can hope for

[Der Teddy Bar]

[Sailor Steve]

[Etienne]

Active. Passive can still hear you just as welll, althought being on the bottom should allow you to shut down the engines.

Now, wether bottoming out is a good idea... Well, I'll leave that to you to decide.

(Hey, Captain! We're taking on water, the rudder's ripped off, the screws sound funny, and, um, didn't we have dive planes when we left port?)

[AS]

It was quite common to ground the boat when waiting for something, e.g. for meeting a freindly escort bringing you home to port (which was usually the way they did it due to the mine-danger) or just having a safe rest. Prien reportedly lay on ground before night fell and he went into Scapa Flow. So, it should be an option and it should be taken into account that a U-Boat wouldn´t been detected there "just so" by ships just passing by. It´s a different matter, though, when you are searched for actively and the enemy knows that you are there. But if he doesn´t, he wouldn´t notice you.

Cheers, AS

[Sailor Steve]

[Der Teddy Bar]

To all!

Yes it is possible to hide on the bottom of the ocean when being hunted by an escort though this would be the exception and would only be done as a last resort. It also can only be successful in ideal locations. That is to say, just sitting on the bottom of the ocean will not allow you to hide from an escort using passive or active sonar.

In the example of Prien, an escort can detect you using passive sonar when you are not moving. It can do so as all the auxiliary machinery must still run, such as bilge pumps, air scrubbers, compressors and the likes. Of course if you are hiding from a known escort you would turn these off for as long as you could.

A ships active sonar can detect a u-boat/submarine on the ocean floor as practically as an airplane can detect a u-boat/submarine on the surface with radar at night.

So how is it possible to hide on the bottom of the ocean? With a great deal of circumstantial luck. It is not a valid tactic and has its own negatives.

The circumstances; In shallow waters of varying depths i.e. high sand banks, or in an area with many wrecks, or in narrow bays multiple echoes may occur which make it difficult for the escort to locate you. I would expect that these alone without the assistance of water effects such as stratification, the salt content and good luck would not suffice. I also feel that the possibility of successfully hiding on the bottom would greatly diminish in the case of an experienced allied sonar man as compared to the Japanes counterpart.

There are negatives, such as your location being divulged by seeping/leaking oil. A hairline fracture can be enough to enable an oil slick to advertise your current location. There is also the issue that you cannot keep the smallest profile to the escort, not can you escape the area.

There will always be exceptions to the rule; times where something as dangerous as sitting on the bottom as an escort hunts you, will against the odds win you the day.

Note - Stratification can occur after long spells of sunshine on calm water; where two or more different water conditions merge.

[AS]

Sorry, I don´t agree. I don´t like this English phrase "active/passive sonar" in the first place, as it only accounts for TODAY`S warfare. In WWII there was no "sonar" at all. There were either ASDIC, which reportedly wasn´t as fool proof as the Royal Navy had thought, or very simple "listening devices". Both didn´t work as good as SH2 makes us believe. The U-Boat success in early war was unbelievably great because the Royal Navy was not so good at detecting U-Boats.

Apart from technical devices, detecting a U-Boat is also a matter of AWARENESS. A destroyer not expecting a U-Boat would NEVER, again: NEVER detect one ACCIDENTLY (unless it´s running at flank speed at 30 meters while the crew is singing the Tipparary song).

So what I´m getting at is: don´t make the destroyers over-aware and over-accurate. They weren´t historically. Read about actual U-Boat attacks (normally SURFACED, at night, within 600 meters or so next to cargo ships) and you will easily see that detecting a U-Boat - no matter whether surfaced or submerged- wasn´t an easy task.

Cheers, AS

[Der Teddy Bar]

[NeonSamurai]

[Der Teddy Bar]

NeonSamurai,
Yes the limited range and the narrow area of the 'search light' active sonar was a considerable handicap. However, even the first active sonar could tell what direction the u-boat was.

However, the later implementation of the Q and Type 147 as shown in this picture did allow the escorts by 1942 (?) to be able to tell the depth and direction in which the u-boat travelled.

Of course it was not all seeing and all conquering as I have said time and time again in the SHII forums.

[AS]

... interesting discussion going on here

...we shouldn´t also forget that a destroyer had to run very slowly to use it´s sonar/ASDIC whatever equipment effectively. So it´s not likely that a destroyer at normal cruise speed would detect my HIFI playing Metallica´s new album at top volume (yes I DO love exaggerations...)

Ironically, DDs had to slow down to LISTEN/DETECT, but they had to speed up (approx. 12 knots+) to be able to throw depth charges without damaging themselves. While axccelerating they lost contact (if they had any in the first place) and went blind (or deaf, rather) for some crucial moments. Moments a godd Kaleun would know how to make use of...

Cheers, AS

[NeonSamurai]

Not very acurately, it would give an aproximate bering, and even depth, but the bering could be easily off due to the outgoing/returning wave getting bent by differences in the water between the sub and at what angle the sound wave hit the sub, also sound curves as it goes deeper into the water and will even bounce/disipate if it hits a thermal layer. At best it would give you a rough bearing and very very rough depth. Direction takes multiple acurate pings, Even modern active sonar supposedly cant acurately tell the depth of a sub, takes multiple pings for course, and needs to be plotted out on the computer to get the course easily. So i doubt that a ww2 escort would have the time to plot out the course the sub is heading while charging in on a depthcharge run. I also would bet that the ranges listed on that chart are for ideal conditions. If it was that effective there would have been alot more dead u boats during the war from ship droped depth charges.

As an example the us subs pre ww2 were taught never to use their periscopes when attacking but to use active sonar to get the shooting information. When ww2 came around they quickly discovered that what they were told to do didnt work, the torps would miss flat out almost all the time, not to mention give a good indication to the enemy that a sub was out there and where it was. Given that the technology for analizing the sonar returns didnt change much thru out the war, i doubt the acuracy improved Of course i need not say for you vet subsimers that active sonar can be heard 2-3 times as far as you can detect with it.

Oh and active sonar you can use when running full speed from what i know, though it will cut back alot on the range you can detect stuff . Reason being that the sound return can be strong enough to pick up over everything else (sonar sound pulses are very powerfull and loud ). They lost contact as the sub went behind/out of the active sonar arcs. and then from the depth charge blasts which would fill the water with several million small bubbles for 30 seconds or so (those bubble clouds block active sonar, and make way too much noise for hydrophones to hear through.).