metric vs imperial? something seems off

[taukarrie]

im hardly an ace of the deep at this point in my subsim training period but according to the selectable ranges available it seems like you can set at range of up to 3000 meters for torps when in metric but in imperial you can only go up to 1500 yards.. a big difference

also, when drawing lines on the map in metric measurments are listed in kilometers and when in imperial its listed in nautical miles, which requires manual conversion to get yards.. which can be annoying when attempting to get accurate measurments in yards at longer distances.

i would rather play with yards over meters since that seems more authentic when playing as an american sub captain. but the differences between my two options seem like much more than a simple matter.

or am i just missing something?

[corsair15]

Well, One-Nautical Mile in the US was 6,080.2 Feet up until 1954, when the US adopted the international standard of 6,076.115 Feet. It's the same as one minute of angle at the equator. You'll want to use 6,080.2 Feet as your standard.

That's 2026.74 Yards. So if you're having trouble trying to figure it out, it's one minute of angle at the equator.

So, I just remember it as:
1/4 NM: 500 Yards
1/2 or 2/4 NM: 1000 Yards
3/4 NM: 1500 Yards
1 NM: 2025 Yards

It's not exact but it's approximate (within 20 yards)

If you're measuring long distances, you won't see yards on your ruler line, it'll be in nautical miles, but if you want the distance just multiply 2025 by the number of nautical miles, and you've got total yards (approximately)

Note: In this game, one minute of angle is the same at every line of latitude or longitude; but in real life the further north or south of the equator you get, the shorter the distance between minutes of angle. You don't have to worry about that though.

If you can just remember 500, 1000, 1500, and 2025 you'll get good enough measurements to shoot something or navigate.

As far as being able to shoot something at distances longer than 1500 yards, you have to update the TDC.

What I mean is, you have to identify your target with the recognition manual before the Range selector will let you go further than 1500 yards. The stadimeter will get you a good enough range for a firing solution at distances under 5000 yards or so. If you're not using manual targeting you can't use the stadimeter.

If you're having any trouble I'd suggest going here http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=146795&page=11

There's a whole lot of information there that will help you with everything you need to know to play this game at 100% realism and be successful. Try everything, and you'll figure out what works best for you.

Have Fun,
Corsair15 :salute:

[taukarrie]

Thanks for the clarification. But what about speed calculations using the 3 minute rule? When using imperial measurments can I still use the protractor between the two points to get speed? I.e. begin the measurement at the first mark and expand the circle to the second point to determine knots? It seems like in doing that I get a measurment of yards that I can use by figuring 100 yds = 1 kt

[magic452]

That is correct for getting speed. 1 knot per 100 yards.
If I understand it right the game uses an even 2000 yards per Nautical mile.
At 10,000 yards the scale will change to Nautical Miles, 5NM.

Magic

[Rockin Robbins]

In practice the difference between 2000 yards and a nautical mile is so slight as to have no bearing at all on attack accuracy. Real skippers used 2000 yards/nm and never considered using any other numbers.

So long as your constants are at the same accuracy as your measurements you're going to have valid results. Increasing the accuracy of the constants does nothing to make the results better. Even at 2000 yards, we're more accurate with our constant than we can possibly measure Aob, target speed or target range. The only thing we add by refining the number to 2025 yards is to make calculations more complex and introduce a hundred times more human error. That means significantly more misses, not fewer, by using a more accurate constant.