manual targeting in a convoy traffic crowd

[sublynx]

I was just in a situation where I had to make a hasty torpedo launch against a cruiser in the middle of a convoy. I had no accurate info on the speed and course of the convoy so I had to rely on last minute mast height, ship length and fixed wire speed estimations.

But... I couldn't see the cruiser properly as it was behind other ships. So what did I do... Shot 4 torpedoes with very rough guesses and got no hits.

What should I have done?

Exactly. Just measure any ship in the convoy for aob and speed and I would have gotten the course and speed of the cruiser too as it travelling inside the convoy...

The range I would have got from the cruiser's mast that I could have seen, but even if I hadn't seen that, I could have just measured the closest ship in the row and just add 2 times 500 - 600 meters to the range as the gaps in between the ships were probably something like that.

Do I feel silly now thinking about those 4 torpedoes :oops: First manufactured in Germany, taken by train to St.Nazaire, then loaded to my boat with sweat and curses, then hauled to BE59 and then wasted due my sheer stupidity :dead:

Well, if there's one consolation: maybe you guys can learn from this and won't make the same mistake I did even once. I certainly won't make this one again - if BdU doesn't send me to the Eastern front.

[sckallst]

Live and learn.

I once thought I had come up with a very nice and clever solution to get at the big prize in the middle of a convoy. What I forgot was that the ship in the nearer row was going to get in the way of my torps before they got home. If I had figured that out I could have set the depth to run under the first guy and into my intended target. It's taken too many hard earned lessons for me to become vigilant about depth/pistol settings on the fish - easy to forget when you get wrapped up in the data collection/plotting aspect of the approach.

[badwolf]

I once hit a cruiser in the middle of a convoy by first getting a solution of a merchant ship that was closest to me and slightly ahead of the cruiser. As long as you don't alter course or change the periscope view angle and the fleet remains on course, that resolution applies to any range of ship. I waited for the cruiser which was over double the range to come into my firing angle. I had to set the depth to go under a ship that was also coming in between me and the cruiser, but kept all the other settings. Perfect strike, all 3 hit dead on target, the cruiser went down fast.

I used that method to to take out multiple ships in a convoy after that, working from the farthest to the closest so they hit at roughly the same time, not giving ships time to react. Getting a solution only once makes it really easy, only hard part is getting the torpedoes to hit the different ships at the same time, as you have to wait for them coming into your firing angle.

[Svonne]

I once hit a cruiser in the middle of a convoy by first getting a solution of a merchant ship that was closest to me and slightly ahead of the cruiser. As long as you don't alter course or change the periscope view angle and the fleet remains on course, that resolution applies to any range of ship. I waited for the cruiser which was over double the range to come into my firing angle. I had to set the depth to go under a ship that was also coming in between me and the cruiser, but kept all the other settings. Perfect strike, all 3 hit dead on target, the cruiser went down fast.

I used that method to to take out multiple ships in a convoy after that, working from the farthest to the closest so they hit at roughly the same time, not giving ships time to react. Getting a solution only once makes it really easy, only hard part is getting the torpedoes to hit the different ships at the same time, as you have to wait for them coming into your firing angle.

This webpage has a Time to target calculator for Mark type torpedoes. Sounds like it would be pretty handy for hitting ships at the same time. Wish there was one for G7s.
http://www.gizmology.net/sliderules_mancomp.htm

[sublynx]

This webpage has a Time to target calculator for Mark type torpedoes. Sounds like it would be pretty handy for hitting ships at the same time. Wish there was one for G7s.
http://www.gizmology.net/sliderules_mancomp.htm

Well there is :) Here you go:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=198016&page=2

The time to target calculator I made is already modded in my Charts addon mod that you can find in the downloads section. It's not a slide rule, just a slideout picture but I think it's easy and fast to use it without it actually sliding.

My Charts addon is tricky to install if you don't use MaGui F so you might just print the picture or add just the one tga I shared in the thread.