Problems with Manuel Aiming

[Krauter]

Hey all, I recently made the leap from auto-boom to manual-targeting. ATM I am only trying to get used to the "stock" aiming method of PK. I am having certain troubles..

1) AOB how can I accurately determine this, I watched some of WernerSobes videos but still don't understand the basics of AOB and the dials.

2) range: Having trouble
a) with stadimeter giving me bad readings + - 200yds.
b) sonar, I'm finding if I use sonar I'm getting wildly different readings (like +- 500yds
c) manipulating dials.. I don't really understand how, say if I want to input 2000yds, to rotate the dials correctly

3) speed... How can I accurately determine this.. from what I've experienced, the stopwatch feature on the dial is not accurate..

4) In wat order do you input data or does it matter..

5) Rough seas/Fog/Rain :damn::damn::damn::damn::damn: says enough?...

Any help or tips would be wonderfully appreciated. Please don't supply me links to d/l videos if you can avoid it, I learn better by having someone explain it to me

Cheers

Krauter

[Platapus]

Hey all, I recently made the leap from auto-boom to manual-targeting. ATM I am only trying to get used to the "stock" aiming method of PK. I am having certain troubles..

Congratulations on trying manual targeting!!! There is a learning curve, but once you go manual, you never want to go back.

1) AOB how can I accurately determine this, I watched some of WernerSobes videos but still don't understand the basics of AOB and the dials.

First thing is to remember that it really is Angle "off" the Bow where the bow is the ship you are targeting. Imagine that you are standing on your target ship and looking at your submarine. That is the AoB

Determining AoB either requires experience to "eye ball it" or the ability to plot the course of your target with respect to the location of your submarine. If you have map contacts enabled, this becomes easier.

1. Use the marker pencil to mark the center of the box representing your target. Note the time. Wait three minutes and the mark where the box now is. Draw a line connecting both points and extend that in the direction your target is traveling. This is your target's course. AOB at any given time will be the angle from your target's course, through the target ship, to your ship. Pay attention to port and starboard. Two things to remember about AOB

a. Unless you are on a parallel course at the same speed as your target AOB wil change over time

b. AOB is not influenced by the heading of your submarine. Only by the angle defined above.


[/quote] 2) range: Having trouble
a) with stadimeter giving me bad readings + - 200yds.
b) sonar, I'm finding if I use sonar I'm getting wildly different readings (like +- 500yds
c) manipulating dials.. I don't really understand how, say if I want to input 2000yds, to rotate the dials correctly [/quote]

You are not alone. Stadimeter and sonar are inaccurate. Check out Rockin Robbins' posts on "fast 90" which is a very good targeting method that does not use the stadimeter.

As for setting the dials manually, you really can't. They are very very hard to set manually and is one of the things I really hate about SH4.

3) speed... How can I accurately determine this.. from what I've experienced, the stopwatch feature on the dial is not accurate..

Remember when I suggested that you wait three minutes between marking the position of your target ship? That is to get the speed.

Measure the distance your target ship moves in 3 minutes. Each hundred yards is one knot. Ship moves 700 yards in 3 minutes it is traveling 7 knots. If you prefer metric, use 3:15 and for every hundred meters = 1 knot.

There is another way to calculate speed but I only know the metric version

If the target ship is going to cross in front (bearing 000) or behind (bearing 180) your submarine, raise the periscope and lock it on to the target ship. Turn your submarine so that its nose (or stern) is just ahead of the target ship. Since your periscope is locked on to the ship it will "follow" the ship as it passes "across" your bow or stern. When the periscope reaches bearing 000 or 180 do the following at the same time

1. Start your stop watch
2. Unlock the periscope (don't rotate it after this)

Time the number of seconds it takes your target ship's butt to pass through the periscope's vertical hairline.

Target speed in knots is equal to its length in meters divided by seconds. This works because when you lock the periscope it locks onto the center of the ship. The actual formula is Knots = 1.94 x length of ship/ time it takes for the entire ship to pass a stationary hairline. Since 1.94 is pretty close to 2 we can just time how long half of the ship passes hence the use of the lock feature.

4) In wat order do you input data or does it matter..

Bearing to the target is the last thing you should update. In SH5 the easiest way is to re-enter the range as that also updates the bearing. But then you are back to using the crappy stadimeter. No one ever said it was easy being the Captain of a US sub.

I hope this helped. Go over to the SH3 forum and read the tips stickies as well as the SH4 forum stickies. There are very good explanations there. I know you wrote that you don't want links, but please be aware that some very smart people put in a lot of effort to make great educational videos on youtube as well as writing PDFs that need to be downloaded.

[Krauter]

Thank you very much for the quick response


So if I have map contacts enabled and use the angle tool if I have one point on the course, one on his ship and the other on my sup, what ever that angle is = the AOB?

As for stadimeter I've tried using sonar up until the last 1200 yds (barring warships.. then it's spray and pray..) and then use the stadimeter then.

Speed I've mostly been judging based on sonar.. usually i just put 7knts for merchants and 10 for DDs

By no means was I insulting the makers of the videos. By saying that I didnt want links I just meant I prefered "real time" discussions. I still find alot of the PDFs very helpful, but just had trouble with the terms :D

Cheers

Krauter

[Armistead]

Like them or not you should check the links out in the sticky above, Skippers bag of tricks. You'll learn much more watching the detailed videos than what people type. That way you can have someone explain it as your actually seeing what really happens.

It will make you a champion shooter....

[Krauter]

I do understand the concept of videos, and by no means am I saying that they are inefficient in teaching. What I mean is that, after watching some of the videos, more questions tend to appear then answers for me.

Krauter

[Krauter]

:D aah such a wonderfull thing a flat calm sea is :D

1130, 150nm off the coast of Kyushu New Years Eve 1942,

USS-Shark gets a sonar contact while travelling south to the Formosa Straits.
Sonar reports a contact closing west of us, single merchant contact.
Plot the contact and close to just outside of visual distance and submerge to 100 feet. Plot the track of the target and come up just off its starboard bow.

Guess speed to be around 9knts off of sonar. Range from pings reads 2500 yards to port. Going to pass at 0' in front of my bow. Sit tight, wait till firing solutions says he's around 500yds in front of me, poke the scope up guess to be a medium composite freighter. Ouch! plot was off, he's now 10' off to starboard. To a quick fix, put range in with stadimeter put the scope down and put a spread of 2 fish out.

Waiting.. Waiting... BOOM! Torpedos impack, poke the scope back up for a quick check and we've broke her back :yeah:

USS-Shark procedes SSW to Formosa with another kill tucked under her belt :arrgh!:

Cheers

Krauter

[Platapus]

Excellent :yeah:

One thing though. The Captain of a boat never guesses, he "estimates" :|\\

[Krauter]

:D I'll have to remember that :salute:

It's so much more.. fun manually aiming.. Even missing is fun :haha:

Cheers

Krauter