That is exactly right. The reason range cancels out of the solution is that you are shooting a "straight shot" as defined by the US Navy, that is a shot with less than a 20% gyro angle. The smaller the gyro angle, the less range matters until you get to zero where range has no bearing at all on the accuracy of your shot.
Since I'm using rules of thumb and not calculations to picking a firing bearing the gyro angle is not going to be zero. It will be a small one digit number though and you will definitely hit your target.
Keep in mind that in the stock game where ships basically have no inertia, shooting a DD from ahead will usually mean that they dance out of the say of the torpedo and come after you. I'd avoid that.
But against merchies where you haven't been sighted and with ranges not exceeding 1200 yards it is pretty deadly. And if you miss you can set up for a 90º Dick O'Kane shot really quickly to snag him on the rebound.
I've found that the Cromwell attack has more of a chance of the torpedo being spotted and the ship maneuvering out of the way than a Dick O'Kane attack. It's a lot of fun with electric torpedoes. It's absolutely deadly at night.
You can modify the John P Cromwell attack to attack from any angle you wish. For instance on an attack from 50º in front, choose a shoot bearing 10º before your zero bearing, angle on the bow would be your approach angle (50º) minus your lead angle (10º in this example), so his angle on the bow would be 40º, either port or starboard depending on which side of the target you can see.
As soon as the part of the target you want to hit crosses your shoot bearing pull the trigger and that's where you will hit regardless of his range.
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