Something I wanted to share

[Bosje]

Just a quick taskswitch out of the game because I want to share this with you all.

Still learning the ins and outs of manual targetting. While having some success in U-735 by fast 90 targeting (quite a lot of success in fact, compared to history), I want to train myself further to become an expert shot, including eyeball shots on twisting Destroyers.

I hate to mess up my realism career on U-735 because it would be cheating. The Duke is usually on 100% except I wanted pics of the boat, so the latest patrols were on 90%. To prevent cheating on the duke, I started a new one on 90%, using the external cam to keep an eye on the shots: if i miss, what exactly went wrong?

To this end, I took a big bad IXb (more eels to play with) out of wilhelmshaven in march 1940, Kaleun Bjorn von Braque. After the shakedown I found myself in the narvik fjord early april, brought down the Warspite and evaded destroyers at 90% realism. fun but nothing new. Good screenies on the kill, pleased to see the shots being accurate, all good. Anyway...

I wanted to know if I could take the IXb out AND back again on full realism. So...
now doing 100% realism on the girl, to further enhance the experience. I'm scared because she is such an unresponsive monster.

U-104, Feindfahrt 3

sailed out of wilhelmshaven early summer 1940. stormy weather near shetlands, cleared up as i got into the atlantic. sonar contact, warships. too scared to run an intercept on the surface (very clear weather, around tea time), turns out they are heading my way

identified fleet carrier 6 kilometers away, approx 19 knots, about to cross my bow at a distance of 4500 meters. Solution satisfactory, launched 2 electric eels. 2 minutes later, new solution again satisfactory, followed up with 2 fast running steam torpedoes. all set for impact pistol.

after launching all 4 bow tubes, boat rigged silent and began evasion by turning away and diving at 3 knots. (closest escort still estimated 3000 meters away)
without the external cam, obviously, the only way to determine the outcome was to join the sonar guy or watch them run on the weapon officer chart.

strangely, this is the first time I ever came to experience this sort of thing after all those hours and hours of vanilla, gwx2.0 and gwx2.1. I'm usually too busy with calculations or crew management or checking what the escorts are doing or looking through the scope for other targets etc etc to actually listen to the torpedoes on their track. During all those convoy attacks, I never actually came to experience this before. Sad but true. This time, i had nothing else to do as the boat was quietly slipping down and away and the torpedoes had several minutes to reach the intended target.

I heard the torpedoes running on the hydrophone and I heard capital units 'closing in' on the bearing of the eels. after several minutes, getting close to estimated impact time, I heard several destroyers rev up, increasing speed and turning. I heard the capital units (some light cruisers were sailing in the wake of the fleet carrier) speeding up as well. The torpedo pitch merged with the capital ship screws and... crack, crack.

torpedo treffer!

I was at first annoyed about not being able to see the impact. I usually hang around at periscope depth to see the pretty boom boom hoochie woochie or I have the external camera ready for the candy but this time, being a girly girl in a big fat sonar magnet, i was deep and blind.

But then, slowly, as I was restricted to hydrophone only for situational awareness, not looking at the sonar contact lines on the chart (my usual method for staying alive, I simply assume the sonar guy can tell me the stuff I see on the chart, doesnt feel like cheating ;) )...

I started to love it. What are those destroyers doing? getting very loud... all engines stop, maintain planes on dive, rudder 20 starboard. Splashes, behind me. should be safe from those. Capital units still going strong. damn. pinging. damn. more splashes, charges going off behind me.

after several depthcharge runs, all some way behind me, I heard it: rumble, whoom, rumble, crack...and then the wonderful yet horrible sound of a ship breaking up. Something died, but what?

Later, a peek in the log revealed I got credit for sinking an Illustrious class fleet carrier at 23000 tons. It would have been even better if that confirmation was given only by BdU through intelligence sources, on my return to port of through the radio, but still...

The destroyers never got a fix on me and soon sodded off to join the cruisers, way off in the distance. U-104 is waiting for nightfall at 140 meters depth and Kaleun Bjorn von Braque is pleased as punch, his second capital ship kill without suffering so much as a scratch.

A truly great experience, I can't believe I never listened this intensely on the hydrophone before. It was very exciting, kept me on the edge of my seat. I imagine the real deal must have been quite similar, apart from the luxury of drinking coffee, smoking a ciggy and sitting on a desk chair: 'did we get her? are we about to die? How close are those splashes? Can I hear the stricken ship slow down or is it my imagination?' You just don't know and all you have is your ears. What I'm trying to say is: hydophone sounds can make your day!

Thank you, GWX team! (And to some extent the dev team, ofc)

I prostrate myself before you and you're all free to marry my sister any time.

Bosje
(getting more immersed every time, reality check please)

[Frank0001]

That's a great story there Kaleun, and congratulations on the fleet carrier!
Unfortunately, I haven't got as much succes as you with the targetting, perhaps 70% chance on a hit.
My question: how did you input the speed, by means of manually inputting the 19 knots of the radio report, or by fixing the height, and then follow the ship for a few minutes with your scope?

[Jimbuna]

Welcome to 100% realism Kaleun.

I still use 99% because of the need to take screenshots.

Equally as immersive as long as you are able to resist the temptation to peek.

[Bosje]

The 90 fast thing works great for me.

i track the target for 6 and half minutes, use the two 3.15 marks to come up with speed, input that in the tdc manually. point scope to 0, calculate aob on chart, turn scope to target, take range through scope, quickly crosscheck that with the estimated range from the chart. when happy: check the notepad while only the range is on it, thus ensuring that both aob and speed are taken from the manual input. Los!

for eyeball shots i've come up with around 15 degrees ahead of destroyer bow on fast runners, as much as 30-35 degrees for electrics. that is if the destroyer is in it's turn, presenting her flank at around 1000 meters. i hit some of em under the depthcharge racks by aiming 10 degrees ahead on fast runners.

for some reason, the tdc will not give me correct readouts when i input all data manually for dryruns (without any ships in the area to lock on to)

the tdc will insist the same gyroangle for both 1000 meter and 4000 meter shots, which is just stupid. does the tdc manual range input not work perhaps? on actual attacks, with the range taken through periscope, I usually hit or at least come very close. same for ladder patterns, I hardly ever get those right when I aim just from the F6 screen.

jim: I try not to cheat but it's too hard, lol. I can't help myself when the the camera is there to use. did some single missions late war, for training before I let the Duke get out there for real. I can't stop peeking at those nasty hedgehogs, lol

I sure hope the Duke is gonna make it on his next patrol, which will be full 100%

[Mittelwaechter]

Your TDC is working perfectly!

The distance is irrelevant for the gyroangle. (Pythagoras :) )
as long as the bearing to your target is fix.

Assuming your target is at bearing 40° starbord 1000 meters away (course and speed are constant) you'll set up a fast torpedo to hit it after one minute at given gyroangle.

If your target would be 4000 meters away (same course, speed and bearing) the torpedo would have to run 4 minutes to reach the target - but at the same gyrosettings.

The contact travels four times the distance it would have done in the first example - as the torpedo does. They meet under the same angle - in both situations - and therefore the gyroangle is the same.

Phew - I hope it's comprehensable.

[Bosje]

somehow, that made sense to me

never thought about it this way, didnt think it through

thanks for that excellent explanation :)

i dumped math as soon as i saw the first sinus on the blackboard, you see. never quite got the hang of it since.

one other thing: electic eel / steam torpedo at slow speed seem to generate different gyroangles when i put in a theoretical solution. i thought they both ran at 30 knots?

[Bosje]

AAAAAHHHHHH

whats with the wild night in bangkok avatar?

i shall have to spam my way through this sheman asap!

edit: lol it only showed at post 179...phew

[Mittelwaechter]

Hell - I start to translate my password phrase into english to log in. :)

This function is called a "bug" from stock version...

... but maybe there is/was some difference in acceleration or endurance between those to propulsion methods resulting in slightly divergent gyroangles.

[Jimbuna]

AAAAAHHHHHH

whats with the wild night in bangkok avatar?

i shall have to spam my way through this sheman asap!

edit: lol it only showed at post 179...phew

....and now your the monkey man :p