Periscopes

[con20or]

I tried posting this one in the ubiforum,but didnt get a proper answer. does anyone know if:

-you are playing on full realism
-you are at periscope depth
-u are sailing along with you scope up, (either one,its not important)
-u arent looking in it,say u are at the map screen, will you crew keep lookout for you?
-if sonar hears it first,will u still get a ship sighted report?

ive tried taking my sonar man off watch, and sailing along when i knew there was a ship close by, but they have evaded me each time so i am no closer to finding out my answer.


this answer is really important. because if it didnt do that, when u were in later war, and had ur schnorkel up, and diesels going, ud be practically deaf. in that case u would have to stay at 1X compression and do your own lookout.

actually, looking at it like that, i suppose they have to keep lookout for you at periscope depth. but has anyone seen it happen?plus do they anounce airplanes?

[Dominico Baggio]

Dont think they do, but then i dont think uboats sailed around with the periscope up, even when snorkling but i could be wrong.

Im pretty certain they dont spot for you through the scope.

Its a good point! Though since i have never survived past the battle of britain i dont know about snorkels lolz

[faamecanic]

One thing I wish they would implement is the Sonar guy reporting to you more often...especially after you tell him to "follow nearest contact". You know like, him informing you when a sound contact he is following changes direction after you tell him to follow it.

Or ESPECIALLY during a hunt where he reports "Warship contact, bering 215 long distance, Closing"....would be nice if he would tell you approx range (medium, close with hydro or actual range with sonar). I dont know how many times I have been hunting a merchant with my sonar guy reporting a warship long distance...then 5 min later Im getting depth charged. If I was the sonar guy and that warship got close I would be YELLING at the Captain!

[con20or]

im pretty sure they would have to have their scope up when schnorkelling. after all they would have nothing to gain by keeping it down. the schnorkel head would make a far bigger radar echo than a periscope.


plus when u were running diesels submerged, i doubt ud hear much around and nothing behind u, so you would be blind without it.

[Messervy]

Regarding the tilt angle for observation periscope one might assume it was used to spot airborn threats.

[con20or]

yeh,thats what its for,but its no use if your crew wont man it for you.

im surprised this hasnt come up b4.il test it 2nite and let u all know my findings.il eve take my sonar man off watch,and i wont look through the scope myself.il use the external view.

[faamecanic]

con20or said:

im pretty sure they would have to have their scope up when schnorkelling. after all they would have nothing to gain by keeping it down. the schnorkel head would make a far bigger radar echo than a periscope.


plus when u were running diesels submerged, i doubt ud hear much around and nothing behind u, so you would be blind without it.

Good point Con... I dont see why they wouldnt have the scope up when snorkels were up. Those snorkels also left a MUCH bigger wake than the P-scope also. So like you said they would have no reason NOT to have it up as a lookout.

[Muto]

I don't think they do. And I hate using the periscope to chase down targets, particularly in areas infested by enemy DDs. Also, the sonarman is unreliable. You will achieve many more kills if you use the hydrophone yourself.

I used to lose contacts all the time because I left it to my crew, so I have perfected a way to track distant sonar targets. I'm using the RealUBoat mod so there are far fewer merchant ships, I have to make the most of every contact....

First, I sail submerged during the day at 1024x compression. At night, I sail surfaced at 64x or 128x compression, but every hour (mission time) I submerge to have my sonar guy listen for contacts (better you do it yourself) ... this is much more reliable than your officers and sailors on watch.

Once your sonarman has identified a target, its your turn to sit on the hydrophone and stay there. First, check his contact with ambient volume on high. Is it a well-defined signal (i.e. medium- to long-range?), or is it very feint (long range and moving away?). Order Ahead Full or Flank Speed and change course to the direction of the contact so it is bearing 000 or close to it on your hydrophone. Go into your map, place a marker at your current location, and draw a bearing line with the ruler tool extending out 20km on bearing 000 ... you know your contact is on this line.

Now sail at 32x time compression for 20 real-time seconds (i.e. 10 mission minutes), slow time compression back to 1x, and listen for the contact again. The reason you should do this rather than your sonarman is because those guys sometimes lose a contact. Lord knows why ... tired, fatigued, or just inexperienced, but many times I have asked my sonarman to report nearest sound contact, he says 'No Contact', but when I jump on the hydrophone, the contact is even louder and clearer than before. So if you leave it to your sonarman, you are definitely missing several contacts that are well within range of your hydrophone. If you feel like trusting your sonarman again after you've reacquired a contact, just click on the upper right-hand corner while you're on the hydrophone and select either merchant or military vessel and click the check box, and your sonarman will magically reacquire the signal. But I don't do this, I stay on the hydrophone myself.

Anyway, if the bearing of the target is the same after slowing down the time compression, you KNOW the target is sailing directly away from you on your current heading, and its time to surface the boat and go flank speed to catch the target ... this is actually best case, cuz then you can go to map view and use 64x or 128x time compression so your crew doesn't get fatigued while you chase the target (don't go faster than that in case the target changes course, in which case you might miss it).

More than likely, however, the bearing of the target will have changed, which means you need to start triangulating him with hydrophone and stay submerged. Again, turn your boat so that the target is bearing 000 on the hydrophone, go into your map and mark your current location again, and draw another bearing line going out 20 km on bearing 000.

Now repeat the sequence for another 10 minutes of mission sailing time, again turning your sub to bearing 000 and marking your map with a third bearing line. Now look at your map, you know that the ship was on the three bearing lines you have drawn at each 10-minute interval. What you don't know is where exactly on those lines the target was. However, you do know that the distance between the points on the three lines must be equidistant (unless the target changed speeds). If your sonarman gave you an indication of whether contact was bearing slow, medium, or fast, you can make some assumptions on speed (slow = 4-6 knots, medium 7-8, fast 9-12). You know that 1 knot = .5144 meters per second, so if your sonarman originally indicated target was moving slow, you know that the course of the target at each point across the lines you drew for the 10-minute mission time intervals must be somewhere between 1250 meters and 1850 meters apart. So use your Ruler Tool in the map to draw a course line that goes from the first bearing line you drew across the second bearing line and onto the third bearing line where the distance of that line is exactly 2500 meters and the second line is exactly at the midpoint of that line ... this is the course the ship is on if it is travelling at 4 knots. Then draw another course line doing exactly the same thing except where the distance from the first bearing line to the third bearing line is 3700 meters and, of course, the second line is at the midpoint ... which would be the course the target is on if it is travelling at 6 knots.

There you go, from this 'channel' you know the target's approximate course and speed and where to find it. Now you just plot your own course to intercept (I would assume 5 knots for the target and the middle of the channel ... as you get close, you can use your hydrophone and more bearing lines to do more triangulation to figure out exactly where your target is, and get an exact course and speed for your target and thus determine your best firing position along the target's path).

Using this method, you don't need to use your periscope at all until you reach the Kill Zone. And it's amazing how deadly you become ... basically any merchant that comes within 20km of your U-boat is dead meat using this method.

[faamecanic]

Pretty much the method I use mut. My Sonar guy AND radio guy are Snr Warrant Officers both with Radio specializatons....and they STILL loose targets frequently. I think they need to patch this. A good sonar guy can track a whale for DAYS in real life.

The point about the periscopes is if you are using snorkels...you 1) have no watch crew 2) you have these two BIG funnels sticking a few meters out of the water. So you might as well keep the P-scope up... so you can frequently scan the horizon for boats/aircraft.

[con20or]

yeh,im gonna have to stick by my guns on this one. i cant believe that a uboat captain would not use his periscope if he was cruising along near the surface with a giant schnorkel sticking out of the water.

hydrophones would rarely hear airplanes,but airplanes would definetly and could definetly spot schnorkels by eye or on radar.

[faamecanic]

Your hydrophones would be useless unless you stopped engines.

That would be nice to be submerged already though....

[con20or]

ok, i tried it out.it doesnt work.i took my crew out of the hydrophone station so they couldnt report it. i used the hydrophone myself,only twice,at long range 2 make sure he was coming at me. parked in front of hime,raised both scopes, and switched to external view.
he was 1000m off b4 i decided they werent going to call it. it was perfect visibility too.

i dont get that one,so u cant cruise at periscope depth without doing your own lookout?i no u have hydrophones,they arent great either.