SO

[Nabeshin]

I think my SO's ears are full of wax. Anyone having problems with him NEVER discovering enemy ships. Just for giggles i got within 300m of a c2 cargo at parascope depth and went all stop. He still could not detect the ship.

Is there some special thing you must do to get him to actually listen around that the manual does not say?

I;ve tried both normal sweep and follow nearest sound.

I'd realy like to toss him overboard and get some flak gun practice.

[Venge]

Ya, I just use the hydrophone myself. Duck down to periscope depth and do a sweep in likely areas.

[Dominico Baggio]

i think this is the way it works.

The sweep and follow nearest target sets his work pattern.

Follow nearest target he will stop reporting on everything. Sweep he will give you fairly regular updates on ships and tell you about dangers. "ship close range closing fast!" ect.

To find the ship closest to you use the notepad thing i think it is, lol im at work and cant check. I think its the selection in his options on the left, then say report nearest target and he will give you the direction. Unfortunatly he doesnt seem to give you the distance or speed...

Probably the most realistic way to play would be with dynamic map markings on, because it shows you the contacts all the time and gives you the idea wether they are close med or long from the rough length of lines.

I used this at first but then switched it off to try to work with him on "realistic" I suppose in real life he would find it impossible to keep track of all the targets like that.

The cool thing if you have him on track nearest, is if you jump into his seat he will be pointing to the target he was tracking very funky.

[zak]

I don't understand how to get the range to the target from the sonarman... He just says "no target selected".
And anyway i thought U-boats didn't have active sonar on them, so how can he get the range?

[Nabeshin]

I do all of that prety regularly, the problem is that when i ask him to report on the nearest target he alwayse replys "No sonar contact" even if there are many ships very close by and we are submerged and stopped. I can find them no problem manually but the SO himself seems to be complety deaf.

[zak]

Lol, i can't find the button for manual either. I mean i see the big dial and know how to work the hydro, but where is the ping button?

[Wittmann]

In the VIIB the ping button is on the left side of the big steering wheel, Can't find it either in the type II. Is it possible the type II doesn't have such a ping-button? Maybe it wasn't invented or implemented yet into these types of subs. Just guessing.

[zak]

Well u-boats untill type XXI didn't really have active sonar, and they didn't really call it sonar anyway on u-boats. The allies named it sonar. Just ask Stryker

[Dominico Baggio]

Americans named it sonar. Allies called it ASDIC, and yes i think there is no button on the type 2 as this is correct. There also should be no button on the 7. I never use it caus its a bit cheaty

[dagamecat]

Dominico said:

Americans named it sonar. Allies called it ASDIC, and yes i think there is no button on the type 2 as this is correct. There also should be no button on the 7. I never use it caus its a bit cheaty

afaik this has been fixed in patch 1.2.

well I did a patrol in my VII-C last night and there was no "Sende" button. which is good. there definitely used to be one.

can anyone confirm this?

[Albert Trotter]

Hi guy's
i just read your posts about the sonar operator , there is a good chance you have the contact visually but he is in one of the hydrophne blind spots , they only cover 140 degrees either side of the hull , try changing your course , consequently bringing the contact into earshot,! if you get what i mean .
As far as ranging goes the way i see it is like this , you have the guy sittting there turning the hydrophone, and when you ask him for a range he use's his experience to tell you how far away the contact is , rather than using an "active " ping which would give away your position anyway
As far as a" bit cheaty " hell , a submarine is as blind as a bat with when dived , you've got a guy who's trained in the art of extracting every bit of sound info he can from a contact , use him , he could save you and your boat one day,

Albert Trotter AB RN

[memoryleak]

Not one person in my crew can see or hear a ship even if it rammed us. Very iritating. This needs some attention.

[dagamecat]

MemoryLeaK said:

Not one person in my crew can see or hear a ship even if it rammed us. Very iritating. This needs some attention.

that's very strange... cos it seems to work pretty good for me.

I can always detect ships on the hydrophone before any crew member can, but he always seems to pick up the contact eventually.

i dunno whats goin on...

[Venge]

When manually using the hyrdophone and you can dial into a "Unkown" contact, (it shows up in the note pad in the upper right corner of the screen), you can click on the arrow and select either merchant or warship. If it sounds like a merchant scroll to teh word merchant and then check the box. Then sonar dude will announce bearing and approx distance of merchant.
The sende button is definately taken out of the early subs with 1.2
They should not of had them yet. Was handy though lol
Who needs the friggin SO anyway. I like to get in there myself.
Oh, and something else they changed with 1.2, you now have to be at least periscope depth (on calm days) or deeper (on rough seas) to use the hydrophone and have a chance of hearing any contacts.

[Dominico Baggio]

Its great isnt it they are slowly perfecting the game.

A hint for people with rubbish hydrophone operators, give him medals and promote him asap. Promotion increases their skills a lot and he will hear at greater range. Make sure he has the radio skill also.

All in all with these skills he gets pretty good.

Also it takes him a while sometimes to hear them, if you give him enough time he will pick it up, though it is quicker sometimes if you are trying to chase something, to do it yourself. And more fun!!