Mystery Ship #50 - Gonna be tough.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Well, since I was implying that I could read text on the object within the red circle...[:D]

heh - some security... the guy wrote the combination next to the dial!! [X(]


[:'(] [:'(] [:'(] (<-- that's a joke, Feinder!!)

Oh, I have managed far too many people not to believe someone would do that. [:D]

No - someone would do that all right ... but no way anyone is going to pick up that info off this shot...

[panda124c]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

You guys constantly amaze me at your ability to ID ships.  You'd put WW II bomber pilots to shame.

Playing this game I'm having a growing appreciation for the smaller combatants.  I've always been into aircraft, and had an interest in anything WW II, but I never studied ships in much depth unless they had a flight deck.

I'm not one for the cute gifs, but this one is called for here [&o]

Bill

Oh I don't know let's see some picture of ships from 20,000 feet and see if anyone can id them. [:D]

[Feinder]

I thought it was interesting that from what I recall in shattered sword, the searches were usually flown between around 1000' to 2000'.

At about 1000' you have about a 40 mile visible horizon.
At about 2000' you have about a 55 mile visible horizon.

Reason being that, it's easiest to spot a ship as it's sillouette first appears to interrupt the edge of the horizon. As you go higher than 3000', the haze obsures the "hard" line of horizon, and makes a ship harder to spot. But between under 3000', the sillouette of the ship stands out quite well.

Now, if you're bombers, you probably don't want to be just coming in at 2000' (altitude is your friend!).

But I hadn't thought about the fact that the patrols would be going in lower on account of haze. I always figured it was like you see in the movies where the PBY pilot looks down and sees wakes.

Who here was the P-3 pilot? Castor, was that you? Some real-life input...?

-F-

[DuckofTindalos]

Not Castor, I think (he's Austrian, IIRC)...

[Local Yokel]

ChezDaJez?

[DuckofTindalos]

Sounds about right...

[spence]

Though I imagine he may have had a chance to look out the window occasionally I think Chez was some kind of electronics guy riding in the back.

[DuckofTindalos]

Think you're right... Haven't seen Chez around for a looooooooooooong while, though...

[ChezDaJez]

Who here was the P-3 pilot? Castor, was that you? Some real-life input...?

I wasn't a pilot, I was the lead acoustic sonar operator and relief radar/EW operator. I believe one of the moderators (Kidd?) was a P-3 pilot.

We typically searched from about 5000 feet on a clear day but the altitude was largely mission dependent. If we were trying to keep from being seen, we flew at lower altitudes. At 5000 ft, the visual horizon was about 90nm but no way could you see a ship that far unless it was very large, at high speed and with perfect visual conditions.

Typically, you could spot a carrier-sized vessel at about 40-50nm, a destroyer about 25-30nm. The first thing you normally see is the wake then you begin to pick up the ship itself. But you probably won't be able to identify it until much closer. At low speed, warships can be very hard to spot. A task force is easier to spot than is a single ship due to the many wakes. But again that is speed dependent.

Visual searches are very tiring and your efficiency at spotting starts dropping after about 20 minutes, sooner if it is a sunny day. Glare is an eye-killer. You snow skiers know what I mean.

Chez

[ChezDaJez]

Think you're right... Haven't seen Chez around for a looooooooooooong while, though...

I'm still here. Don't often have much time to post lately. I'm in my final semester of registered nursing school and is becoming rather intense. It's all I can do to keep my games going with AndyMac and BradfordKay and keep my grades up.

But, hey! Only 5 weeks and 3 days to go!!! Then it's no more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks!!! Unfortunately its also "get a job" time. ...sigh...

Chez

[bradfordkay]

I keep hoping that school will distract Chez into mistakes, but that hasn't happened yet (that I know of!). If he focuses as well on his patients as he does on the game, he's got some lucky charges...