Newbie needs help

[Vladiator]

Hi I asked the questions below at the ubi forum, but although quite a few people looked at it, no one responded (yet). So, I am trying my luck here...

Yesterday, I bought the U-Boat Missions Add-on. I am new to SH games in general (although I played a couple of missions on the American Campaign before that), and I have a few questions:

1) Normally I play with auto-aiming. When I started playing U-Boat, I accidently left "Manual targeting" turned on. So, I had to complete the mission with it being on. Although there are some explanations online of how to use TDC on American subs, I found that U-boats have a totally different sets up. I.e. on an American sub, all aiming entries about a target could be done at the periscope view. When I look through a periscope on U-boat, however, all I see is the torpedo launch panel, vessel recognition manual, and some little notebook at the top right coner which tells me the type of a vessel and has a line saying 3000m. I couldn't find any instruments that could help me to find the speed or AOB of the target. Could someone explain how it is done, please?

2) In that mission, I came accross a non-excorted convoy. It was night time, and I couldn't see much of any ships to be able to recognise them. Any tips about what to do at night (in this game, that is)?

I am sure I have more questions, but I can't remember them now.

BTW, somehow I still managed to sink a ship in that convoy with a torpedo. I just locked it in, chose some random tanker from the recognition manual (I knew it was a tanker because that little notebook in the top right coner said so), and released a few torpedos. Two of them hit the ship! They probably hit it only because it was only 600m away. I destroyed the remaining 4 merchant ships with the deck gun. 30,000 tons -- not bad for someone who didn't understand anything he was doing.

[Vladiator]

Sorry, I can't break this into paragraphs for some reason...

Edit: did it!!

[Fincuan]

Oldie but goodie for SH3: http://www.paulwasserman.net/SHIII/

It works almost exactly the same in SH4 uboats because the TDC is the same. There's plenty of reading, but I guarantee you can do manual targeting under almost any circumstances if you understand most of what's written there.

[Sailor Steve]

First, WELOME ABOARD!

There are many discussions of this on the SH3 forums; you might want to have a look around there.

In addition to the above link, here is an actual gameable maneuvering board. It alt-tabs to the top of your chart position, and has a fader so you an look at both the in-game chart and the mobo at the same time.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=116572

[Vladiator]

Thanks a lot, Sailor Steve and Fincuan!!

[Gezoes]

Try clicking on the 'lines' in the notebook

[ReallyDedPoet]

Welcome to SUBSIM


RDP

[Rockin Robbins]

I second the motion! Welcome to Subsim.

You'll find that a lot of us (myself included) are just cutting their teeth on U-Boat manual targeting. The SH3 forums are full of U-Boat veterans who can give you much more help than we can so far.

I do have a tutorial up on U-Boat Fast-90 tactics as perfected by Wazoo. That link will take you indirectly there as first you need an explanation of what you will see from another of my posts. Don't worry, all tutorials on Subsim are free, I was just having some fun there about free stuff with your order.

You already have one part of success down: get damn close!!!! That's fine technique, whatever else you do with it.

[Wilcke]

Welcome,

I also found it helpful to use the Single Missions to recreate predicatable scenarios so that you can setup multiple shots on target, spreads, Dick O' Kane.....etc...

I find the Borneo Convoy Single Mission just really handy for that. The speed and course of the convoy is very predictable. The tin cans are pretty much amateurs, you can even knock off a couple of those with the aft tubes.

The best thing is that you can fire six fish, watch the outcome. Re-load and do it again. You can also do a quick end-around with TC and shoot, watch and repeat.

Anyway, enjoy and happy hunting!