Noobie: Best way to find bearing and range of a ship without map contact updates?

[liluoke]

Hey all, sorry if this has been posted before, I did a quick search and didn't find anything. I'm also sure this is in one of the videos, but I wanted to have it in writing.

I'm using TMO1.7.

1. What's the best way to find the what degree a target is headed without map contact updates?
**So far I have been making a mark, waiting some time, then marking again, and drawing a line through with the ruler. However, this doesnt' work too well for fast ships like warships...

2. What's the best way to find range?
**So far underwater I've been using the sonar station, looking in the direction of a ship, and pressing find range button, then drawing with a ruler on the nav map where it is (because I also have its bearing via the sonar man). I'd imagine it's easy to use radar on the surface.

Thanks ahead of time!

[Frederf]

1. There's basically two ways, plot two points like you have been doing or plot one point and be really good as finding out AOB.

Don't feel limited to just two points though. Plot on 3 minute intervals and draw a line of "best fit" through a dozen points. You may find out the target is maneuvering or your measurements are of poor quality. Stadimeter ranges get a lot more accurate under 5000yd and make sure to have the right ID. Right after I take a stadimeter bearing I lower the scope just below the surface and mouse over the TDC results window for true bearing as I'm also reading the range. "3-2-6 at 34-hundred." Go to the navigation map and use the advanced ruler function to pull a line from your boat's dot to that range and true direction. Get it to 50yd and 1° accuracy. I write down the mark number along with the time on paper so I can do speed calculations later.

Try examining the AOB too. Try setting the AOB dial so the target's course matches up with your plotting estimates. Does it look right through the scope at the actual target? Double check and prepare to admit the first info was wrong.

2. The range is best gotten from the following sources in order of more accurate to least accurate: radar, stadimeter, and sonar. Radar, even without the realistic digital readout is better especially at ranges beyond 4000yd. The A-scope is hard to read due to its logarithmic scale but the PPI scope can give very good accuracy especially with a school ruler and a pocket calculator (scope radius is 205mm, target distance is 130mm. 20,000yd * (130/205) = ???).

[Rockin Robbins]

I think based on the game we have, rather than the game we'd like to have, running the game with map contacts off is about as realistic as flying a plane with a paper bag over your head. Yes, if you can do it you're good, but it's not "realistic" in any sense. It is useful if you are training to fly IFR, but when doing it for real, you certainly don't put the blinders on.

With our game we have no digital readout for our radar. We have no direct link between radar and TDC as the real sub did, and we lack tools like the stadimeter plot, bearing difference chart and plot and various slide rules they used to reduce observations. We are simply too handicapped to run with map contacts off and call it realistic. I believe pausing the game to do external MoBo plots, paper charts and external calculators is much worse than leaving map contacts on under the right parameters.

I advocate running with map contacts on and using TMO or TMOplot, which limit the inappropriate information you are provided by the game. The one gotcha is that visual sightings are reported with their exact positions. That's fine, just don't take measurements from visual positions! If you have radar, you would know that position to that accuracy anyway. Imperfect as it is, until the next generation (does SH5 qualify?) of sub sims, it's the best we can do.

Lurker_hlb has come up with a plotting system of his own but I haven't looked into it. RFB has a plotting system but it's not well thought out and has some absurd effects.

Map contacts off is the ultimate challenge and it takes great skill to be successful that way, but it is in no way realistic.

[Frederf]

At my flying club some IFR student solo'd for an hour or so with the blinders on. He was buzzing around the SFO area under simulated IFR. When his CFI heard of this he almost had kittens. :rotfl::timeout:

I swear I'm going to mod in some better radar scope backgrounds so people can estimate radar ranges to maybe 200yd instead of the current "um, between 5000 and 10000." I know it's not a realistic looking background but the functionality is what matters. I think the real digital readout is just a numerical display of where a manual knob is turned so it would only be as accurate as you lined up the dial to the peak in the A-scope signal.

[Rockin Robbins]

Yeah, 200 yards would be acceptable, even though that's a lot worse than the real radar. Actually the real radar position is even more accurate than our automatically plotted nav map position because of the resolution of a one pixel difference in plot location. For our purposes, the best solution is just to plot the radar position on the chart.

Wouldn't it be great to greatly expand our options? Plot or don't plot radar positions. Plot or don't plot visual positions. Plot or don't plot active sonar positions. Plot or don't plot sonar bearings. Use or don't use friend/foe/neutral colors. Use or don't use text descriptions. Introduce or don't introduce realistic uncertainty in radar range. Introduce or don't introduce realistic uncertainty in visual range.

Why do we already have uncertainty in sonar range????? That's strange considering other choices the devs made.

I think success in a simulator is based on configurability so that learning is easy, but you can ramp up some truly realistic settings when you want them and have the skill to carry it off.

Ubi: MORE OPTIONS!!!

[Armistead]

Why I love the digital radar mod. However, when I run it with TMO I am unable to use the sonar station myself, though it works normally with a crew member. But I would rather have the readout than have to ping ships anyway.

I do play with contacts off a lot, but I agree with RR, without the other needed functions contacts on is more realistic than off.