Periscope won't work - and diesel/battery

[nukkxx5058]

Hi, I'm at periscope depth, clear weather, no rain, contact is at 10 nm away, detected by passive acoustic sensor (IPS CSU3), but not by "mk1 eyeball". I should be able to easily see it through my periscope. But nope ... Any explanation ?

I have a second question. Why am I running on diesel ? I would like to silently run on battery as I'm hunting. My doctrine setup has a charging trigger at 10% and my battery is about 50% full.

Thank you

[ultradave]

Periscope works fine. This goes right along with what I said yesterday. Save and experiment

Play a little farther and you will soon detect a helicopter using Mk1 eyeball to the southwest of you. In the vanishingly small chance you live to get close enough, you'd probably see the frigate through the periscope as well.

And sure enough, playing a little farther that's exactly what happens. At about 6.5nm the frigate is detected by eyeball. Remember that periscopes do not stick up very far so their line of sight is not that great.

As for the diesel, as far as I'm aware the game will start the diesel to recharge the battery when you come to periscope depth. I don't think the settings for what % to re-charge at affect this. What they affect is WHEN your sub will go to PD to recharge. So I don't think you can manually override this to be at PD and run just on batteries. I could be wrong, but I don't know how to do it.

And I think this is ok, because you have no business in this scenario going to periscope depth. Everything you do should be based on your sensors. At periscope depth, the radar on the FF or the ASW helicopter is going to spot your scope and in short order a rocket launched torpedo is going to come flying your way and sink you. Try it. I did and that's what happened.

Stay shallow, stay on battery, use your passive sonar, and maneuver into position and launch torpedoes. And hope you don't miss.

Submerged daylight periscope depth attacks are WW2 tactics. They worked then, but even then were chancy. In modern naval combat you should never use your periscope if you are close enough to be attacking something. It should only be used for gathering intelligence on something that can't shoot back.

[nukkxx5058]

Well, regarding the periscope it was surprising because I was at PD a good 10 minutes before saving the game and posted on the forum. My guess was that a contact at 10 nm should be immediately spotted. After posting this message I tried to plunge (just above the layer) and then re-surfaced at PD and this second time the periscope worked immediately as soon as I reached PD. So I have no idea why the first time I could't see the Frigate ?
In fact I lost the contact while submerged and could't find it anymore. This is why I initially decided to sneak at PD and have a quick look. I understand it's a mistake and certainly wouldn't do that in RL But I was surprised that I could't see the Frigate. Hence my post. Afterward I reloaded the save and accelerated the time and the Frigate has finally been detected by the periscope at 16:24, ie. 8 minutes later. Plus the (maybe) 10 minutes before the save, that's quite a lot. The helo was detected even before the frigate. [&:]

OK thank you for your confirmation regarding the diesel at PD. I thought I might have missed something. Maybe one day it will be possible to go on battery at PD instead of diesel.

Tanks for your comments, always appreciated

[dcpollay]

I think the point Ultradave is making is, why do you think the frigate should be detected at 10 miles? On a flat surface the viewable horizon from a 10-foot elevation is about 4 miles. http://www.ringbell.co.uk/info/hdist.htm At 20 feet the horizon is 5.5 miles. In order to see out 10 miles, the viewer would need to be about 65 feet above ground level.

This could be a combination of the viewer's height and the height of the viewed object, and the size of the object such as the diameter of the frigate's mast, etc. And I don't know how high the periscope sticks up, but likely not 20 feet. In any event it is very unlikely that you would spot the frigate from that distance.

This goes back to the post that came out yesterday that Ultradave alluded to. When you play the game, you need to understand why things are working the way they are. "Spotting at 10 miles" seems to be an assumption you made, but you never checked to see if it made any sense in the real world before posting the question to the forum. A minimal amount of prep work on your part would give you a pretty solid answer without asking. This isn't even a "game" question that would require the manual or forum knowledge to answer. It is the sort of question that frustrates many people in the forum.

The manual and database are good to teach you mechanics and what controls to use, but to learn naval warfare goes beyond anything the devs could put in a book, or the database. One of the things I like about this game is that other than the buttons to push, there are very few pat answers to the challenges the game provides. If the player wants to be good at the game, they have to have the desire to figure things out for themselves. That means playing (and losing), outside research, experimenting within the game, and, as a last resort, asking for an answer.

[nukkxx5058]

ORIGINAL: Colonel Mustard

"Spotting at 10 miles" seems to be an assumption you made, but you never checked to see if it made any sense in the real world before posting the question to the forum.

I checked the DB and Mk1 for my sub is given for up to 50 nm. And yes, the forum is another good way to check.
And 10nm doesn't seem absurd at all.

It is the sort of question that frustrates many people in the forum

And this is exactly what I can't understand. Is my question about Diesel and battery at PD stupid too ? Where can I find the official list of stupip questions so I don't frustrate you anymore ?

[Sardaukar]

Mk 1 Eyeball is when you are surfaced. And that's mainly against air targets. Earth curvature prevents such distances for surface targets.

Having 1-2 ft of periscope over waves is not going to give you 50 nm. Nobody would stick periscope higher than 1 m / 3 ft anyways.

You seem to have problem that you are stuck with your own ideas, instead of reading the answers...or believing them.

Good luck for anyone trying to seriously help you with that attitude.

And when you go to periscope depth with DE submarine, you also start charging batteries, meaning switching to diesel.

[Sardaukar]

And...your sub is switching to diesels because of THIS (you need to chance that setting, since your sub is 50% battery) You are telling AI to recharge batteries under 60% and it is just obeying your settings....:

This is just a quick example, not related to save.

[AlphaSierra]

Well Said.

Never looked through a scope on a sub, but I have stood on the bridge wing 80 ft above the water line.

On a clear day, sea state 0, At 10 miles even with the big eyes "seeing" a frigate wouldn't be easy. (horizon is 12 nm at 80 ft)

No way that sub can scope that frigate and live to tell about it. That's what makes this simulator fun is we can test!

[Sardaukar]

I just made that quick example why things happen as they do. Generic Doctrine and ROE settings are often good, but not in every case.

Since sub didn't detect yet any enemies, it kept "transit/station" settings. If it had, it'd not have switched on diesels unless having to go to PD with battery at 10%.

Sorry about sounding testy, but..every thing has usually an explanation.

[AlphaSierra]

You did perfect.

I'm jealous that you have taken the time to learn how to interpret game settings into what we want them to do.

That is the hardest part of this simulator.

[ultradave]

Sardaukar - I saw that too and I tried changing that setting in his saved game to "Empty" and it didn't make any difference. That's why I think that the game has the diesel run at PD, no matter what.

50 nautical miles? Not against surface ships. That's the practical maximum and would only be true of spotting aircraft in the distance. Note that in your save game you can track that helicopter for a while before losing it - farther distance than the frigate is from you. Simple geometry says that's not true for spotting surface ships even given a generous 10 ft or so of periscope exposed in which case you'd be in danger of exposing the sail too in the waves - but sea state 0, maybe an option. I don't think if you made your depth 60 ft instead of 66 ft it's going to change things. I don't even know if the game would account for that but given the calc below it doesn't matter much if it does. Too many other variables that could swamp the effect of that few extra feet.

Here's a pretty awesome calculator: (found this with a simple search "horizon distance curvature of earth" )

https://dizzib.github.io/earth/curve-ca ... t=imperial

You can calculate how much of something is hull down over the horizon. Frigates aren't that tall. Given a 4 foot exposed scope, and 10 mile distance, 38 feet of the ship is below the horizon. Thats going to put most of it, except for that cylindrical mast tower below the horizon, and it doesn't factor in any haze, or the effects of waves on the horizon (ever look at the horizon at sea from a beach in binos? Lots of haze from sea spray right at the horizon except on the most perfect of days ) Found that calculator in 10 seconds of google search, btw. Bookmarking it now

And let me preempt any discussion of the developers should list the surface distance for Mk1 Eyeball by saying that there isn't one. The use of that calculator should make that obvious. Are you looking at a FF, a CVN, or a surfaced sub, maybe a RORO automobile carrier (huge profile). There are hundreds of answers to this.

AND YOU SHOULDN'T BE AT PERISCOPE DEPTH ANYWAY!!!!!

[nukkxx5058]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

And...your sub is switching to diesels because of THIS (you need to chance that setting, since your sub is 50% battery) You are telling AI to recharge batteries under 60% and it is just obeying your settings....:

This is just a quick example, not related to save.

Nope, I have 10% and 10%.

[Sardaukar]

It could be a bug if sub could not obey ROE & Doctrine.

[nukkxx5058]

ORIGINAL: AlphaSierra

Well Said.

Never looked through a scope on a sub, but I have stood on the bridge wing 80 ft above the water line.

On a clear day, sea state 0, At 10 miles even with the big eyes "seeing" a frigate wouldn't be easy. (horizon is 12 nm at 80 ft)

No way that sub can scope that frigate and live to tell about it. That's what makes this simulator fun is we can test!

Yep I just did the math and 10 nm is too much, well depending on the height of the frigate and the sub's ... but yes, it's realistic. I would have never bet on it intuitively.

[Sardaukar]

You are right. Playing the save.

Looks like a bug to me.

[nukkxx5058]

ORIGINAL: ultradave


AND YOU SHOULDN'T BE AT PERISCOPE DEPTH ANYWAY!!!!!

LOL [:D]

[nukkxx5058]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

You are right. Playing the save.

Looks like a bug to me.

to me too ... let's and see if devs have an explantation.
But thanks for confirming there's something weird. I appreciate because it's never an easy thing, the soft is quite complex and I'm no hard core expert on modern military things (as you might have already guessed [:D]) .

[Sardaukar]

Definitely a bug. Even changing SIDE doctrine didn't change recharching.

[dcpollay]

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

ORIGINAL: Colonel Mustard

"Spotting at 10 miles" seems to be an assumption you made, but you never checked to see if it made any sense in the real world before posting the question to the forum.

I checked the DB and Mk1 for my sub is given for up to 50 nm. And yes, the forum is another good way to check.
And 10nm doesn't seem absurd at all.

It is the sort of question that frustrates many people in the forum

And this is exactly what I can't understand. Is my question about Diesel and battery at PD stupid too ? Where can I find the official list of stupip questions so I don't frustrate you anymore ?

Honestly, I don't think either question is "stupid" per se. But the larger point is that at least the periscope question is something that you can answer on your own, fairly easily. Most questions can be. I'm not qualified to say whether the diesel issue is a bug or not.

As for your Mk1 point, others have already addressed that so I won't go further.

[TyphoonFr]

ORIGINAL: nukkxx

Hi, I'm at periscope depth, clear weather, no rain, contact is at 10 nm away, detected by passive acoustic sensor (IPS CSU3), but not by "mk1 eyeball". I should be able to easily see it through my periscope. But nope ... Any explanation ?

I have a second question. Why am I running on diesel ? I would like to silently run on battery as I'm hunting. My doctrine setup has a charging trigger at 10% and my battery is about 50% full.

Thank you

Hello
I believe that the visual detection of the contact also depends on its size. In the "Signature" section of the Database viewers, you will find its range of visual detection (Front: 8.51nm, Side: 14.47nm).

In Command,a diesel submarine automatically starts its diesel engines and no setting allows to stop at periscope depth and surface (unless they are down).
The setting of the doctrine allows only to raise the submarine depth periscope so that it starts its diesel engines and recharges its batteries,when it reaches the level "recharge battery%" chooses.

In this scenario, you do not need to see the ship since you "hear", by regularly marking his position, you can determine his course.
The trick is to put yourself discreetly on the road of the ship.
In a shallow area, you put yourself on the bottom (As deep as possible), machines stopped.You let the ship pass and you put yourself in its 6 hours, as shown in the scenario:


"For bottom profiling to be effective, the submarine must be motionless. Any movement will increase the likelihood of detection drastically, particularly against high frequency sonar. A good submarine commander will decide on a suitable location (all the better if terrain masking is used) and get in place well before the target comes within sensor range. The submarine will then remain motionless and wait for the target to pass overhead, before manoeuvring into the targets baffles* for a high-probability-of-kill torpedo shot.

*Baffles is a term used to describe the relative dead-zone of sonar coverage behind a ship or submarine"

If you can not hear his active sonar (LF sonar), then you are in his baffles and he can not hear anymore, neither your submarine, nor your torpedoes.

If the helicopter has taken off, it is that you have been detected and that your end is near if you will not put you at the bottom, machine stopped ....

To all English teachers of the forum, sorry if English is not my mother language .