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Hooston · 02-03-23, 05:05 AM

ASDIC for a hedgehog attack. Mindbogglingly complicated, needs a lot of people who know exactly what they are doing.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7qjuo7

I'm sure it also took real grit to stay awake all the way through the training film.

I've found a good overview of escort tactics here:
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/fil...317/408475.pdf

initially the RN had a hopelessly optimistic view of ASDIC effectiveness. Later they recognised that only a minority of attacking uboats would be detected before launching torpedoes because of the system's short range compared to the size of a convoy and the inherent unreliability of the process. However ASDIC remained the basis of the convoy screening diagrams and so escorts could be expected to ping more or less continually. SH3 only lets the player hear a ping at close to the threshold of detection, so it's hard to say what the escort is using. For sure the escorts do not ping at all for a lot of the time in game. Overall the percentage of times it is possible to penetrate the screen undetected underwater seems about right, although maybe not for the right reasons.

SH3 depth charges seem to be very well aimed with regard to depth, when in reality the escorts would be forced to bracket a huge range of depths. This can be used by the SH3 player as a radical change in depth will almost always result in a miss. On the other hand extreme depth is not a sure fire protection in game, when in real life maximum depth charge settings were always a good deal less than the 200m+ boats could go to. On the other other hand the escorts clear off after less than an hour when the late war real life advice was 24 hours!
So there's a LOT wrong with SH3 as a simulation, yet thanks to years of work by modders it still holds up against the competition and still captures the "feel" perfectly.

02-03-23, 05:05 AM	#7
Hooston Soundman Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 145 Downloads: 15 Uploads: 0	How ASDIC was done in 1943 ASDIC for a hedgehog attack. Mindbogglingly complicated, needs a lot of people who know exactly what they are doing. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7qjuo7 I'm sure it also took real grit to stay awake all the way through the training film. I've found a good overview of escort tactics here: https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/fil...317/408475.pdf initially the RN had a hopelessly optimistic view of ASDIC effectiveness. Later they recognised that only a minority of attacking uboats would be detected before launching torpedoes because of the system's short range compared to the size of a convoy and the inherent unreliability of the process. However ASDIC remained the basis of the convoy screening diagrams and so escorts could be expected to ping more or less continually. SH3 only lets the player hear a ping at close to the threshold of detection, so it's hard to say what the escort is using. For sure the escorts do not ping at all for a lot of the time in game. Overall the percentage of times it is possible to penetrate the screen undetected underwater seems about right, although maybe not for the right reasons. SH3 depth charges seem to be very well aimed with regard to depth, when in reality the escorts would be forced to bracket a huge range of depths. This can be used by the SH3 player as a radical change in depth will almost always result in a miss. On the other hand extreme depth is not a sure fire protection in game, when in real life maximum depth charge settings were always a good deal less than the 200m+ boats could go to. On the other other hand the escorts clear off after less than an hour when the late war real life advice was 24 hours! So there's a LOT wrong with SH3 as a simulation, yet thanks to years of work by modders it still holds up against the competition and still captures the "feel" perfectly. Last edited by Hooston; 02-13-23 at 10:36 AM.