Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitman
I could be wrong here, but I think that tactic was actually used when shooting without TDC and with zero gyro angle. The necessary lead was calculated beforehand, and then the uboot turned to escape and let the torpedo when reaching the bearing to target needed for the calculated lead. This was also a tactic employed by torpedo boats (S-Boats). The reason for using it with no TDC is that it was a mechanical device, not a digital one, and as such the huge cascade of tooth-wheels needed some seconds to update the calculations after any change in the inputs. So shooting while the uboot was turning essentially threw off the solution and was not used.
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That could very well be the case. What made me think that is I seem to recall reading Schussmeldungen where the shooting was noted as "im Abdrehen" and also noted that the TDC was used. I recall reading somewhere that the TDC had a feature, maybe in the later models, that you could set The turning speed of the boat, like "Rot 3" or "Grün 3" based on port or starboard rudder settings. As I think about it, it may have been from an excerpt from Schäffer's book about U–977. I don't have a copy of the book, wish I did, but I remember stumbling across an excerpt from it online where it was mentioned. I've tried to track that site down since but it seems to have been removed. That excerpt also had some interesting things to say about the Standsehrohr being a "technisches Wunderwerk", and its graticle having some kind of colored marks for different purposes. I've always deferred to your work on scopes, it's all I'll ever use, but I'd kill to find out more about these aspects from the book too.
Edit: See the link to Schußmeldung of J. Schepke below.
http://www.uboatarchive.net/U-100/KTB100-2Torpedo.htm
If you look at lines 22 and 23 of the report he did the shooting im Abdrehen (line 22), and on line 23 indicates the angle of turn and direction color for port/starboard as inputs, in this case "r 35" for 35 deg to port. At first I thought this might be the AOB, but that's on line 17. Line 14 has the same shot as being with Vorhaltrechner.
I would be interested in how that actually worked because it seems the computer could indeed compensate for a turn. An amazing piece of equipment that was actually not that far "behind" its American counterpart! And since our "TDC" isn't mechanical and since the devs have done their research and included "Lage laufend",we should be able to replicate this in Wolfpack it seems.