SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post

Sniper297 · 04-26-17, 11:42 AM

Um,

"We are talking about 2 different uses of the term "lead angle". I used it in the sense of shooting at a moving target,where the shooter "leads the target" to compensate for target motion."

Lead angle is firing at where the target will be when the projectile (in this case a torpedo) crosses the target track. Unless you're shooting at a moving target you don't need a lead angle.

The TDC had the same capability of shooting multiple targets and/or spreading by shifting crosshairs, there was a button on both periscopes and the TBT to send a new bearing to the TDC - if the speed and course of the target(s) didn't change all you needed was a new bearing. And the TDC had enough sense to fire at where the target would be rather than where it is at the moment the button was clicked, that's lead angle. I agree that the actual lead angle is nice to know if for no other reason than a double check on the accuracy of the TDC solution, but I'm sure there was someone on the plotting team responsible for checking that. Many skippers had someone on the attack team standing by with a "banjo" and Is/Was just in case, especially early in the war when the TDC reliability was still unknown.

04-26-17, 11:42 AM	#13
Sniper297 The Old Man Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Philadelphia Shipyard Brig Posts: 1,386 Downloads: 160 Uploads: 19	"You say tomato, I say tomahto" Um, "We are talking about 2 different uses of the term "lead angle". I used it in the sense of shooting at a moving target,where the shooter "leads the target" to compensate for target motion." Lead angle is firing at where the target will be when the projectile (in this case a torpedo) crosses the target track. Unless you're shooting at a moving target you don't need a lead angle. The TDC had the same capability of shooting multiple targets and/or spreading by shifting crosshairs, there was a button on both periscopes and the TBT to send a new bearing to the TDC - if the speed and course of the target(s) didn't change all you needed was a new bearing. And the TDC had enough sense to fire at where the target would be rather than where it is at the moment the button was clicked, that's lead angle. I agree that the actual lead angle is nice to know if for no other reason than a double check on the accuracy of the TDC solution, but I'm sure there was someone on the plotting team responsible for checking that. Many skippers had someone on the attack team standing by with a "banjo" and Is/Was just in case, especially early in the war when the TDC reliability was still unknown.