Where merchant ships are?

[egarcia]

Well, I've tried TMO+RSRD and RFB but I feel very very frustrated as I'm unable to find any ship to sink. In SH3 there is a lot of targets and I'm sure that the PTO was full of them.

What I'm doing wrong?

Another question... Does the TDC work? If I play "auto targeting" it looks so easy, but with "manual" I never can get target's speed... Always "not enough data" or 68knots. I've seen some tutorials (posted here, btw), but for a casual "decimal system" player (casual 'cos I cannot spend too much time on SH) I feel really lost.

Thanks.

[Schroeder]

There are only very few ships around in early 1942. It gets much better later in the war and you should be able to find plenty of unescorted merchants.

The TDC works, but you have to calculate the target speed yourself (The TDC can not track a target for you like a radar can, you have to give it all the input like speed, angle of bearing and distance before it can start to compute your torpedo solution and track the target. It also only works as long as the target stays at the same speed and heading).
The easiest way of getting the speed of a target is with map updates on. Just mark your target on it and start the timer. After 3 minutes mark the target again and measure the distance between the two marks. If the distance is 1200 yards then the speed is 12 knots. 700Yards = 7 knots and so on.

[egarcia]

ahhhhh... Thanks for the answers. Playing early dates (dec 1941) so makes sense no enough targets at sea.

For the TDC I'm almost able to get an accurate distance and angle... not so lucky with speed. I'll try your method.

[tater]

Actually, there are a lot out there, just clumped up in japanese invasion forces. Almost 2/3 of japanese merchant shipping was commandeered by either the IJN or IJA. The initial japanese advances in the war were to Malaya, then Philippines, then the Indonesia/NEI area. Play out of Manila in 1941, you'll see no shortage of targets.