Man, people sure like the ship's length crossing the wire method of determining speed! I haven't read a single instance of that being used in real life. Why? They didn't know ships' lengths! Most of the time either they could not identify what they were shooting at or misidentified it, completely invalidating the use of the method.
There is slightly more justification for using it in U-Boats, as there were scads of nearly identical Liberty Ships all over the Atlantic and the Germans MAY have known what their length was.
Can someone come up with a historical reference to any captain routinely using that method during the war?
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