- Yes
- No
With most ships equipped with these and some matches having low-visibility weather, detecting enemy aircraft or small coastal vessels becomes challenging.
Hearing a spotter shout “aircraft, 300, 1000m” gives us enough information to understand where the enemy is, but this is only applicable for those who speak English and/or the language your ship belongs to.
The second your crew detects an aircraft or coastal vessel, these searchlights would activate and track the closest spotted target to you without player input, then comes the secondary battery and anti-aircraft fire.
This also lets your allies know that you have spotted an aircraft or coastal vessel so they can steer away to avoid torpedoes or assist with shooting down the aircraft.
I’m not proposing any changes to the behavior of auxiliary weapons, just the addition of a new, passive tool.
It comes with the downside of revealing your position to the enemy if they haven’t detected you yet.
I do propose the addition of an “on/off” switch that would possibly be integrated into the auxiliary weapons targeting system (Naval Targets/Air Targets etc.) “keybind” incase you may not want to reveal themselves just yet.
Unknown photographer
Unknown date
“Scheinwerfer - Spiel der deutschen Flottille”
“Searchlights - Display of the German flotilla”
Blood and Iron: An Air-raid in the North, illustration from “The Naval Front” by Gordon S. Maxwell, 1920
Painting by Donald Maxwell
Colour lithograph
Possible identification: H.M.S. Lark (1913) L-Class Destroyer
Identification was done by me after looking up allied destroyer identification cards and paintings based on WWI era destroyers.