A legendary sound missing...

[Lurhem]

Hi guys,

I wonder something. Am I the only one who finding there is a legendary missing sound in this game?

You know this famous "Beep Beep" that we are used to hear inside a submarine. Are we supposed to ear that sonar sound during play?
Or you will tell me that sound wasn't heard at all during that time...

Thanks,

[Cöunt Eastwood]

It's all good... we heard our first sonar pings after dropping Donald "Devlin" Sutherland off near Portsmouth at night (and sinking the destroyers and corvettes moored there).. we barely managed to sink a patrolling and pinging angry corvette coming right at us just in time and suffered heavy damage barely making it out alive with a swarm of MTB's randomly spamming the area with depth charges (no sonar on the MTB's of course).. so while it's cool to hear the pinging I'd rather not hear that nightmare sound ever again. For some reason I can't explain in this game being pinged was somehow more scary and tense than I remember it being in Silent Hunter III? Wish us luck at Scapa Flow XD

My only question is.. why didn't we get any medals for the Portsmouth job? My neck is "getting itchy" XD

[oscar19681]

are there any plans on adding the haunting crying sound of ships steel being crushed as it sinks? I really miss this sound.

[wolf310ii]

Originally posted by Swoop:

This is why things like sonar decoys work, they create noise in the water which can put off sonar operators. However, a sonar decoy won't have much effect on an active sonar wave cos it doesn't block it, it just interferes with the reflected wave a little. What will have an effect on active sonar is the 'cold water layer'. American submariners figured out quite early on in the war that an active sonar ping was more likely to reflect off of a cold water layer than a sub that's under it. Interestingly, the Kreigsmarine knew about cold water layers in 1939 but had no idea they could effectively block active sonar, it was just blind luck if a U-boat got under one.

The Bold dont create noise (that came much later in the war), the Bold created a cloud of hydrogen bubbles, wich creates a echo like a u-boat.

And it was not luck if a u-boat got under a thermal layer, they monitored the themperatur, because it affects not only the sonar, it affects also the dense of water and therefor the buoyancy of the boat.
Also the thermal layer and its effect on ASDIC is mentioned in the MDv 906 manual for u-boat commanders

[Pete Puma]

Actually the decoys are not so much the sound they make but the bubbles they make. WW2 decoys are like alka seltzer tablets they "fizz" but not real loudly. A FIZZ sounds entirely different than the hum of E motors so a good operator would not be fooled by the sound. It would just confirm a sub was there. Sound travels faster through water and steel than air. When the sound wave gets to the air bubble inside the sub's hull it slows. The wave following actually hits it, like the car in front hitting his brakes. This causes the sound wave to be reflected back. The small air bubbles from the decoy make an area were the sound wave is slowed and bounced back....mimicking a sub's air volume. So decoys are to give the sonar operator a false echo to track. Once a ship goes to active search the passive tracking of a target is disrupted. The ASDIC actually only looked at a cone of the ocean in front of the ship. U Boats were more manuverable than a destroyer so a common tactic was to wait until the cone passed over you then go flank turn hard and change depth to get out from under his depth charge pattern. Due to active disrupting the passive tracking the surface ship could not hear you go flank. You returned to slow speed to lower your sound signature and location before the surface ship can come around trying to reestablish contact. This is were a decoy came in handy. It would provide a false echo to confuse the active track. Since ASDIC was directionaly sensitive if you could get the DD to track a false echo in the wrong direction you could break contact by relative bearing and distance. I have no idea how all this is modeled in the game

[Buckshot]

I am no expert in uboats, but I believe there were 2 different kind of pings that could be heard in the uboat. Those were if other vessels were actively pinging and hoping to get return, and another is if the uboat sends out a ping to try and pick up and locate a target. Of course, the latter was a risky thing to do because when the uboat sends out a ping, it also broadcasts its own location. The constant pinging you hear in movies I think are just effects to make the movie more exciting, whereas in reality, I think things were pretty quiet for the sonar man, unless there were real contacts near.

[FirestormMk3]

Originally posted by Buckshot:

I am no expert in uboats, but I believe there were 2 different kind of pings that could be heard in the uboat. Those were if other vessels were actively pinging and hoping to get return, and another is if the uboat sends out a ping to try and pick up and locate a target. Of course, the latter was a risky thing to do because when the uboat sends out a ping, it also broadcasts its own location. The constant pinging you hear in movies I think are just effects to make the movie more exciting, whereas in reality, I think things were pretty quiet for the sonar man, unless there were real contacts near.

The submarines we see here in game did not use active sonar, only a hydrophone (passive sonar). Only their depth finder actually sent out a ping. Now depending on the age of the movie you are absolutley right; Cold War submarines had both active and passive sonar, and using active sonar obviously broadcast your position to anything around you. Also, sound waves get weaker over distance and because active sonar requires an echo, you actually gave away your position to everything up to twice as far away as your own ability to detect a return signal. Therefore active sonar was generally only used if your position was already known anyway or to gain a precise shooting solution right before an attack. Soviet wolfpacks were more agressive with their active sonar than solitary American submarines as USN submarine doctrine used single submarines focused on not being detected at all.

Movies obviously use this to build tension, but sometimes it is used correctly. In movies where you see nuclear submarines get into a torpedo duel and after the sonar man calling out an incoming torpedo you hear the pinging getting louder and more frequent that isn't just for suspense - that's the active sonar guidance on the torpedo. The torpedo itself is capable of sending out sonar pings to stay locked on a target (unlike WWII torpedoes that only had magnetic homing if they had any at all).

[oscar19681]

Originally posted by FirestormMk3:

Originally posted by Buckshot:

I am no expert in uboats, but I believe there were 2 different kind of pings that could be heard in the uboat. Those were if other vessels were actively pinging and hoping to get return, and another is if the uboat sends out a ping to try and pick up and locate a target. Of course, the latter was a risky thing to do because when the uboat sends out a ping, it also broadcasts its own location. The constant pinging you hear in movies I think are just effects to make the movie more exciting, whereas in reality, I think things were pretty quiet for the sonar man, unless there were real contacts near.

The submarines we see here in game did not use active sonar, only a hydrophone (passive sonar). Only their depth finder actually sent out a ping. Now depending on the age of the movie you are absolutley right; Cold War submarines had both active and passive sonar, and using active sonar obviously broadcast your position to anything around you. Also, sound waves get weaker over distance and because active sonar requires an echo, you actually gave away your position to everything up to twice as far away as your own ability to detect a return signal. Therefore active sonar was generally only used if your position was already known anyway or to gain a precise shooting solution right before an attack. Soviet wolfpacks were more agressive with their active sonar than solitary American submarines as USN submarine doctrine used single submarines focused on not being detected at all.

Movies obviously use this to build tension, but sometimes it is used correctly. In movies where you see nuclear submarines get into a torpedo duel and after the sonar man calling out an incoming torpedo you hear the pinging getting louder and more frequent that isn't just for suspense - that's the active sonar guidance on the torpedo. The torpedo itself is capable of sending out sonar pings to stay locked on a target (unlike WWII torpedoes that only had magnetic homing if they had any at all).

Actually the depth sounding equipment is also based on active sonar. Try some depth sounding when near a destroyer if you want to find out for sure 😁

[FirestormMk3]

I literally said that in the first two sentences that you quoted.

[wolf310ii]

Originally posted by oscar19681:

Actually the depth sounding equipment is also based on active sonar.

Well, actually its the active sonar wich is based on the depth sounding

[oscar19681]

Originally posted by wolf310ii:

Originally posted by oscar19681:

Actually the depth sounding equipment is also based on active sonar.

Well, actually its the active sonar wich is based on the depth sounding

[ждун]

Originally posted by Lurhem:

Hi guys,

I wonder something. Am I the only one who finding there is a legendary missing sound in this game?

You know this famous "Beep Beep" that we are used to hear inside a submarine. Are we supposed to ear that sonar sound during play?
Or you will tell me that sound wasn't heard at all during that time...

Thanks,

In the movies they just use it to make the scene more scary.

As others mentioned already, you hear the sound only when a anti-submarine vessel is aware of your presence and is actively searching for you and is very close and about to find you.


Actually when you hear it, you should start being concearned. When it suddenly becomes loud and intensive, it means the destroyers know where you are and will propably drop some bombs on you very soon and it would be a good idea to quickly get away from your current position.

[Waggy]

For a price I'll call you and make the sound with my mouth. I'll even increase the frequency of beeping when you're under duress.

[Pigasus The Immortal]

Originally posted by nihilcat:

You can hear it already, when enemy's sonar pings reflect from the hull of your sub :)

Can you really?? I was literally waiting on a sustained ping yesterday (on map and then inside the boat as it appears a lot of audio is just missing in the map view right now).. Pinging never reached my ears, so the depth charges came as a big surprise no doubt.

[Urfisch]

Originally posted by Gibbon Armstrong:

Originally posted by nihilcat:

You can hear it already, when enemy's sonar pings reflect from the hull of your sub :)

Can you really?? I was literally waiting on a sustained ping yesterday (on map and then inside the boat as it appears a lot of audio is just missing in the map view right now).. Pinging never reached my ears, so the depth charges came as a big surprise no doubt.

I also had the feeling, that they pinged me and made a well aimed dc run...but i heard no ping on my hull. Never heard it anyway ;)

[Snowcat]

Originally posted by Gibbon Armstrong:

Originally posted by nihilcat:

You can hear it already, when enemy's sonar pings reflect from the hull of your sub :)

Can you really?? I was literally waiting on a sustained ping yesterday (on map and then inside the boat as it appears a lot of audio is just missing in the map view right now).. Pinging never reached my ears, so the depth charges came as a big surprise no doubt.

I heard it once and since the escort got alarmed at the same time and went to my position, I think you don't hear it, when your hull reflect it, but only if the enemy detects the refelction. However the sound was not very prominent and could be easily overheard, so not really sure about this.
Like RADAR, the SONAR needs to be able to be detected by the target before the sender can receive the reflection.