Estimate Range with Hydrophones?
 

In SH4 you can ping the distance to sound contacts from the hydrophone station. This was really useful during attacks during storms or in times of low/poor visibility.

Is there a way to do something similar in SH3? I can't see or click anything at the station that does it, is there a work around, shortcut or mod that has this functionality?

Sorry, but no. The KM did not put active sonar on U-boats, passive only. (They might have put active sonar on some of the very late "super-weapon" boats. I'm not certain.) So there is no way to ping for active range determination.

However, there is a passive technique for determining range. http://lnpi.net/docs/the_four_bearings_method_v2.pdf
There are in-game and DIY tools to make this task easier, and at least one excellent youtube tutorial. Google to find them.

Thanks for the info!

...didn't know I'd be going back to school so soon this year. This is the only game where you have to learn Trig to play.

There are tools to do most of the trig. There's one in MaGUI, and a cardboard one you can make. The tutorial is here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...6&postcount=38
It's for SH5, but the method and the map tools are the same. It really works!

Also, check here http://www.gamefront.com/files/user/joegrundman. In the documentation is a step-by-step description of a passive-sound-only attack tactic that really works! It's less math-intensive than the classic 4-bearing method, but operationally sound. I don't know if any U-boat skippers actually used this exact technique, but they could have.

But, yeah, come to think of it, there is a lot of trig here, either intuitive or calculated. That was the nature of the fire control problem and of ship maneuvers in WW2. I never thought I would be using a moboard in a game, but it's helpful, because those are the problems that keep coming up. What we get when we ask for "realism.":)