Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Rockin Robbins

01-13-09, 05:46 PM

Well, we're giving the old WernerSobe thread (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=118923) the old heave ho and starting a new tactics thread. The intent of this thread is to keep it about tactics, not SH4 game mechanics, although sometimes we will have to visit that as a side effect. Principles in this thread should apply to SH4 submarines, real submarines or the submarines of any diesel electric submarine simulation.

Of course we're still going to feature all of Werner's great work and maybe repost some of his best stuff here. All links will be preserved, and since they will lead to Werner's thread, all that great material will continue to help all the great skippers at SUBSIM. This first post will contain all the tactics links I can cobble up. If anyone else has some that were left out PM me and we'll get them included. Here we go with Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks, Mark I:

US Navy Links:
The Fleet Type Submarine Online (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub/index.htm)
The Submarine Commander's Handbook (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/uboat/index.htm)
The Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm)
Torpedo Data Computer, Mark III (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/tdc/index.htm)
Submarine Periscope Manual (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/fleetsub/pscope/index.htm)
Standard Submarine Phraseology (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/subphrase/index.htm)
Target Bearing Transmitter, Mark 9 (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/pdf/tbt.pdf)
Submarine Attack Course Finder, Mark 1 Model 3 (http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/attackfinder/index.htm)

WernerSobe links:
Basic TDC/PK tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFqpZ5jRljo) link fixed 6/23/15
SH4 Complete Setup and Attack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuSCx91PUmU)link fixed 6/23/15
Sonar Only Manual Targeting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1EZl4agxo) link fixed 6/23/15

Aaronblood's Links:
MoBo: Electronic Maneuvering Board and Dead Reckoning Tracker (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/forumdisplay.php?f=225)

Rockin Robbins' links:
Airplane Avoidance with Radar (https://youtu.be/Hidf8p64_CE).......brand new video 8/14/2015!!!!
Nav Map and Charting Tools Tutorial Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_XOYLy0nSE)
The Dick O'Kane Manual Targeting Written Tutorial (includes the U-Boat Fast-90 Technique too!) (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=652326&postcount=67)
The Dick O'Kane Manual Targeting Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k5yJI6Z5AU).......link repaired again 5/23/2012
The Dick O'Kane Sonar Only (by God!!!) Video (https://youtu.be/vpc_6qT0r9o) .......link repaired 7/23/2015!!!!
Rockin Robbins' Auto Targeting Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy92uIw4wUc)
Nisgeis' and Rockin Robbins' John P Cromwell Targeting Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYmQoe_LYEM)
Printable 3x5 Crib Cards for Above Techniques (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1007637&postcount=204)
Further Explanation of the 3 Main Attack Method Families (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=995114&postcount=3)

ColonelSandersLite's links:
Advanced Convoy Simultaneous Hits on Multiple Targets Tutorial (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=221623).......brand new 9/10/2015!!!!

Tale's links:
Convoy Multi-targeting Video #1 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=955573&postcount=182)
Convoy Multi-targeting Video #2 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=973837&postcount=191)
Radar Approach Video Tutorial (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1020754&postcount=209)

Rocks'n'Shoal's links:
Constant Bearing Technique with TDC thread (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=996547&postcount=1)

HalfjackHJ's links:
(http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=996547&postcount=1)A Brand New Sonar Only Video--conventional TDC technique (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAt5cAfeL9c).......new addition 5/3/2012
(http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=996547&postcount=1)

Edit: 8/14/09
And a very important and useful part of Subsim history:
Legion's Noob Guide Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub3J6BNe2fI)

Edit: 10/22/09
From the guy who started it all, gutted:
Solution Solver 1.3 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=156698)
The sound you hear is me munching on my words "I believe in attack methods using only in-game tools: no external calculators, no alt-tabbing out of the game for external software, nothing that would damage your immersion into the submarine." YUM! This tool is so useful that it cannot be ignored. You'll be glad to kill the immersion a little and astounded at the sophistication and ease of use of this software torpedo fire control tool.

Edit: 12/15/09
Ducimus link:
SH3 & SH4 "Uber" AI Explained (http://www.ducimus.net/sh415/ai.htm)
This is a detailed explanation of how escort sonar works and how to handle your submarine to give you maximum advantage. It also explains how the enemy AI works so your strategy can actually work FOR you instead of being counterproductive. This work is of vital importance to any player of SH3 or SH4 especially if running Brand X in 3 or TMO in 4.

Whew! What a collection! Do we have enough yet? NO! But I'm just trying to get everyone I've promised inclusion in this thread together in the same place. Enjoy!

SH4 Video Thread (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=123293)
Formerly a sticky topic, here is the link.

AoB Calculator based on CapnScurys Realism Tutorial (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=153347)
Link to formerly stickied topic.

banjo

01-13-09, 06:11 PM

Excellent

Church SUBSIM

01-13-09, 06:49 PM

These videos took me from frustrated to highly capable. One of the most valuable links on these forums ;)

Thanks for taking the time to make them and share them.

Rockin Robbins

01-13-09, 09:29 PM

Werner's videos made me a sub skipper. Part and parcel of this thread is to keep his advice alive and helping people. That will include copying his best posts to this thread. We have been accumulating more and more people interested in tactics and techniques with the ability to write clearly understandable tutorials and make great videos.

Our aim isn't to brag or impress you with our sub handling, it's to make YOU able to brag and impress US with YOUR sub handling. So if you've checked out some of the materials and have great stories to share about your success, those stories are welcome here alongside the tutorial stuff. Our aim is to encourage people and let them know that they CAN do this stuff and your success stories are an important part of that.

And remember, there are always several right ways to get the job done! The successful skipper is the one whose bag holds the most tricks so he can pick the best one out for a given situation. Don't let yourself get caught in a rut and do the same thing over and over. Try something new and learn it so you can pull it out when a target calls its name! The more techniques you master the more successful you will be.

One thing that I recommend is that everyone read the Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual (http://hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm), a 1946 publication of the US Navy. To start off, just read it through without trying to dissect it or letting it intimidate you. Bookmark it for future reference. We will try to use language from that manual in our tutorials so if you have a question you can just say "that sounds familiar" and look it up. That way we can all speak the same language and won't have to reinvent the wheel in sub lingo. And you can see for yourself that the Dick O'Kane procedure or the John P Cromwell method are nothing really new, just adaptations of real submarine tactics to Silent Hunter.

AVGWarhawk

01-14-09, 09:14 PM

I started fooling with these RR. They work well. Nice job. I like the crib sheets that are printable. :D Yes, just another trick in the bag!

Rockin Robbins

01-14-09, 10:23 PM

Yes, I was messing around with an Ubuntu Linux program that brought back the old CorelDRAW! days. I found that it would do everything I remembered and for free! So I cobbled up those flash cards. It's nice to have something small enough to hold in your hand to help you remember the steps for the different procedures.

Watch for more of those in the future, which I hope contains a new power supply for my game computer. Thanks for setting us up with this sticky thread. We're going to maintain lots of links back to Werner's thread so all that great material isn't lost, but we'll be able to keep the #1 post in the new thread updated with all the great stuff we're expecting from people we don't even know yet.

Alky

01-14-09, 11:59 PM

Your links are much appreciated. I'm a total noob and have looked at a couple of the videos and I can see the links will be a huge help in getting me going in SH4, thank you. :D

AVGWarhawk

01-15-09, 02:22 PM

Watching these now makes you realize just what your geometry and Trig teachers were attempting to teach you. :know:

Rockin Robbins

01-21-09, 12:38 PM

ReallyDedPoet

01-21-09, 12:41 PM

Great idea, well done :yep::up:

RDP

Fincuan

01-21-09, 12:52 PM

What RR's pic illustrates holds true anytime the gyro angle is zero, which was something I had a hard time believing until I drew it in MoBo:

Torpedo track angle 45 degrees
http://staufa.sytes.net/files/sh4/pics/45degrees.jpg

TTA 90
http://staufa.sytes.net/files/sh4/pics/90degrees.jpg

TTA 120
http://staufa.sytes.net/files/sh4/pics/120degrees.jpg

Hmuda

01-21-09, 01:05 PM

I just thought this morning I would post the pic I received from gutted just over a year ago that started me on all this craziness in my specialty of constant bearing longitudinal spread attacks. This really shows why, in this family of attack methods, range cancels out of the equation and simply doesn't matter:

The blue line is your course, the green line represents your shoot bearing. As the target crosses the shoot bearing, no matter what his range, he gets tagged. Neat, huh? This is the diagram that started my slow slide into insanity!:rotfl:Heh, funny that I was once attemting something similar, but the targets were too close in bearing so I only managed to hit one of them (the rest of the torps meant for the other guy hit the first one as it stoped too quickly.

Although, the targets' watch-crew would have to be pretty blind not to see the torps meant for their neightbours passing in front of them. :)

Rockin Robbins

01-22-09, 02:59 PM

What RR's pic illustrates holds true anytime the gyro angle is zero, which was something I had a hard time believing until I drew it in MoBo:

Great stuff, Fincuan. And that's why in post #1 one of my new items is a direct link to MoBo. MoBo was the place John P Cromwell was developed. When I come out with my rules of thumb, for instance the AoB in the John P Cromwell technique is 45 minus the lead angle, those are derived in MoBo. He might never appear in the thread, but aaronblood, author of MoBo is a huge part of all my attack techniques, even if my oversimplification drives him crazy!:rotfl:

Aaronblood loves fine nuances and really hates it when I throw them overboard to the fishies in the quest for simplicity.:up:

XLjedi

01-22-09, 04:39 PM

FYI, I'll probably release the next MoBo update on Jan 31st. (on my birthday, BTW :smug: )

Rockin Robbins

01-23-09, 06:22 AM

Yahooooooooo!!! I presume the link above will still work? If not, please get with me to make sure that my link stays current. For a submariner, MoBo replaces the number 42 as the answer to life, death, the universe and everything.

XLjedi

01-23-09, 12:24 PM

Your link just goes to my forum... so I'd say that's a pretty safe bet.

Bosje

01-28-09, 04:54 PM

good work, Sir

stand up and take a bow :up:

Rockin Robbins

01-28-09, 10:29 PM

Everybody who contributes to this thread, take a bow! This is a group effort.:rock:

Hmuda

01-29-09, 04:21 AM

AVGWarhawk

02-11-09, 08:38 AM

All of these solutions to a kill work just great. I do not lock ship anymore using the bow tubes. I only lock and update the TDC when I have to swing around to use my aft tubes I drag out the pencil and make manual calculations thus making it more challenging and satisfying.

Rockin Robbins

02-11-09, 12:05 PM

I would like to clarify a few things.

The method I use is when I take a few measurements, place the solution ahead of the target's course and then fire as those vulnerable parts cross the wire. Is this what the 'Constant Bearing Method' is, right? If the target doesn't do something unexpected, I almost always score a hit (duds included :P ).

Now, I read in the DOC method that you can safely alter the bearing a few degrees without loosing enough AOB to miss. My question is: why do you suggest we go from bow to aft on the target? Is there a special reason, or can we just as well go from aft to bow?

On the first question, yes, these are constant bearing attacks. They are called constant bearing because you aim for an constant bearing and wait for your quarry to cross your sights. You are just timing the shot to hit where you want. So with a constant bearing attack you are aimed at a constant spot and waiting for the target to be there. The Dick O'Kane, John P Cromwell and Vector Analysis Techniques are all constant bearing attacks.

Second question: There are two basic families of torpedo spreads, longitudinal, where all the torpedoes follow a single path to the target or targets, and a divergent spread, where each torpedo takes an individual path. The paths in a divergent spread fan out from the submarine.

With a constant bearing attack, the easiest spread to shoot is the longitudinal spread because the bow crosses the wire and you shoot, the main stack crosses and you shoot, the aft crane passes and you shoot. And that is where your torpedoes will hit because of the timing of the shots.

So why wouldn't the bow, MOT, stern attack be best all the time? Well, in a John P Cromwell attack, where you are 45º ahead of the target, here comes three torpedoes in a single line toward your ship and you sight them. All you have to do is turn into them so that line doesn't intersect your new course and you've avoided all the torpedoes.

But suppose in the submarine, you take the trouble of reversing the procedure and shoot stern, MOT, bow. That is the most divergent possible spread, with the torpedoes taking the most widely separated 3 paths to the target. Not only that but the stern is further away than the bow, but you shoot that first. So not only are there three paths to avoid but as long as you can shoot in a moderate hurry all three torpedoes will strike at almost exactly the same time! MEGABOOM!

I'm playing too much Unreal Tournament 3. The game isn't so good, but the commentator booming MEGAKILL! is just awesome. It makes the game really addictive.

Hmuda

02-11-09, 12:16 PM

Got it, that's a useful thing to know. Thanks. :)

vanjast

03-14-09, 12:23 PM

When I could, I always did that constant longitude attack in SH3 - managed to nobb 3 ships (1 sank and gunned the other 2 a few hours later).

This depended on where the juicy ships were.
:)

groomsie

03-20-09, 01:09 PM

So why wouldn't the bow, MOT, stern attack be best all the time? Well, in a John P Cromwell attack, where you are 45º ahead of the target, here comes three torpedoes in a single line toward your ship and you sight them. All you have to do is turn into them so that line doesn't intersect your new course and you've avoided all the torpedoes.

But suppose in the submarine, you take the trouble of reversing the procedure and shoot stern, MOT, bow. That is the most divergent possible spread, with the torpedoes taking the most widely separated 3 paths to the target. Not only that but the stern is further away than the bow, but you shoot that first. So not only are there three paths to avoid but as long as you can shoot in a moderate hurry all three torpedoes will strike at almost exactly the same time! MEGABOOM!

RR, you specifically cite the JPC attack in this example--does the principle work for the DOK method and vector analysis method as well?

I ask because I use the JPC when I can set up for it, but typically I'm doing the DOK. Using the stern-middle-bow shots I seem to get more misses and have been avoiding it thus. I do re-click the settings (re-input) with new wire angle, so maybe that is throwing my solution out to lunch?

Rockin Robbins

03-21-09, 05:17 PM

groomsie

03-21-09, 06:30 PM

Oh yes! It works just the same for the Dick O'Kane technique or vector analysis method. And it has the same limitations there. You are going to absorb some AoB error, which is inconsequential at the right angle Dick O'Kane attack and more and more consequential as the torpedo track angle increases or decreases from 90º.

Personally, at night I don't bother with this. During the day, where there is danger of the target seeing and avoiding, the stern, MOT, bow shot becomes more and more useful.
So do you reclick to send data to the TDC when resetting the scope firing bearing? Or do you just fire after restting the scope firing bearing and assume the change in AOB and such is negligible? I'm assuming at this point the latter.

Rockin Robbins

03-21-09, 06:35 PM

Setting the AoB would involve going to the AoB dial and resetting. We don't have time for that. What we WILL have to resend is the periscope shoot bearing. You'll re-aim ahead of the target, hold the periscope on that new bearing, click send range/bearing and wait for your new juicy part of the target to cross the wire, at which time you'll send your regards to the Emperor for that part of his ship.

So it's shoot the stern, leapfrog ahead (click), shoot MOT, leapfrog ahead (click), shoot the bow, watch the fireworks.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/Partay.gif
(http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/smileys/Partay.gif)

ichso

04-16-09, 05:59 AM

Those tutorials are still too easy :arrgh!:

Since I used the Real Navigation mod in SH3 I was forced to track the movements of my own boat from the start of my map drawings on, too (because the mod removes all of the magically real time updated sub markes from all maps).
This makes the whole process quite more interesting. You can't just position yourself along the course line of your target anymore, you have to estimate in which direction you would have to travel for how long to get into the desired position and would also have to recheck your targets range and bearing constantly to become aware of errors in the process soon enough to adjust for them.
It was still a ery successful method using the fast 90 tactic. I'm still new to SH4 and got a bit confused by the TDC a bit.

When I feed the TDC with range, AoB and speed of the target but the PK is turned off, the gyro angle still gets calculated, right ?
The input in SH3 felt a bit more 'manual', or I just need more time getting used to the matter.

Rockin Robbins

04-16-09, 09:51 AM

Those tutorials are still too easy :arrgh!:

Glad you like 'em! My aim is to make tutorials so easy my cat can do 'em. Actually my cat outshoots me every time. Your first reaction after putting one of my tutorials into practice should be "I was afraid of THIS?" That's why the advanced targeters rag me a bit about being too basic. I toss out every complication I can, plus irrelevant precision in calculation to arrive at successful manual targeting for the beginner. From that point it's easy to introduce more complexity and better technique.

Since I used the Real Navigation mod in SH3 I was forced to track the movements of my own boat from the start of my map drawings on, too (because the mod removes all of the magically real time updated sub markes from all maps).
This makes the whole process quite more interesting. You can't just position yourself along the course line of your target anymore, you have to estimate in which direction you would have to travel for how long to get into the desired position and would also have to recheck your targets range and bearing constantly to become aware of errors in the process soon enough to adjust for them.
It was still a ery successful method using the fast 90 tactic. I'm still new to SH4 and got a bit confused by the TDC a bit.

That's where "Real Navigation" conflicts with real plotting. On your target plot, you could care less what your geographic position is, because you're always "here." And all target positions are plotted in relation to "here," wherever that is, as if we cared.:haha: What I'm getting at is that you WOULD know the relative positions of target track and your sub to the accuracy shown on the nav map. "Real Navigation" throws out the baby with the bathwater though, because relative plotting is lost along with geographic positioning. You're denying yourself information that would be available to a real sub crew. It's like piloting an airplane with a paper bag over your head. You can do it, and it's admirably difficult, but unless you're being taught instrument flying you're being a bit eccentric.:88)

When I feed the TDC with range, AoB and speed of the target but the PK is turned off, the gyro angle still gets calculated, right ?
The input in SH3 felt a bit more 'manual', or I just need more time getting used to the matter.

Yup, the TDC works just fine with the PK turned off, it just doesn't update the gyro angle with time. The PK tracks the actual motion of your submarine and the inputted motion of the target for a continuous update of gyro angles. When we use a constant bearing technique like Dick O'Kane or John P Cromwell, there is no need to track target motion. Our target is an empty spot in the ocean soon to be occupied by our hapless victim. With the vector analysis technique we can use the entire TDC for a paperweight!

Just take your time with the American TDC. It WILL make sense after all the mental short-circuits with the German TDC are broken and new connections can be made. Sounds like you're well on the way to figuring it out. Welcome to fleet boats, where the rules are just a bit different!

ichso

04-16-09, 10:02 AM

My point didn't was that your tutorial is bad or too easy, I just wanted to find a good starting sentence to introduce my point ;)

That's where "Real Navigation" conflicts with real plotting. On your target plot, you could care less what your geographic position is, because you're always "here." And all target positions are plotted in relation to "here," wherever that is, as if we cared.:haha:

Yep, I know. I usually just make a mark at some empty spot of the map defining this as my position and start plotting target bearings and ranges from there as well as tracking my own movements from there on.
I can still do that, just grab another empty spot on the map instead of where my sub marker is. This came to my mind when I already had sent the last post, oops :doh:

Then again my first attack failed big time. I just wanted to do it as being used to from SH3 but the torpedo must have sailed happily into nowhere. Must have set some of the settings wrong where the TDC differs from the u-boat's one. I will take a closer look at the tutorials again to figure that out. Skipped some steps when watching the first time because it seemed very similiar to what I had read in the SH3 forums some time ago.

Rockin Robbins

04-16-09, 11:16 AM

My point didn't was that your tutorial is bad or too easy, I just wanted to find a good starting sentence to introduce my point ;)

Yep, I know. I usually just make a mark at some empty spot of the map defining this as my position and start plotting target bearings and ranges from there as well as tracking my own movements from there on.
I can still do that, just grab another empty spot on the map instead of where my sub marker is. This came to my mind when I already had sent the last post, oops :doh:

Then again my first attack failed big time. I just wanted to do it as being used to from SH3 but the torpedo must have sailed happily into nowhere. Must have set some of the settings wrong where the TDC differs from the u-boat's one. I will take a closer look at the tutorials again to figure that out. Skipped some steps when watching the first time because it seemed very similiar to what I had read in the SH3 forums some time ago.

Dick O'Kane not only seems similar, it is entirely based on Fast-90. I was innocently speaking with gutted and aaronblood, who both hailed from U-Boat land, and searching for a way to execute a right angle constant bearing attack with the same geometry as the Fast-90.

I had quit SH3 before I learned manual targeting there because it ate a couple of careers that I had invested a couple of weeks into. I was a bit miffed and then had the opportunity to pick up a copy of SH4 at a good price. It NEVER forgot my career and I hadn't gone back. After talking with aaronblood and gutted I jumped back into a U-Boat long enough to learn Fast-90 and then started searching for ways to overcome the fleet boat's lack of direct link between TDC and periscope.

The result was the Dick O'Kane method, a plausibly historical method developed independently of reality. A real fleet boat could have managed an attack exactly like it. It's safe to say that the sugar boats had little choice but to do something very like the Dick O'Kane attack. It does a very good job at highlighting the difference between firing an American and a German torpedo. Dick O'Kane/Fast-90 is the best way to manage the transition between Fleet boat and U-Boat simply because so much of Fast-90 feels familiar to fleet boaters and so much of Dick O'Kane feels familiar to U-Boaters.

Similarly, John P Cromwell could be adapted to a Fast-45 U-Boat attack that I might just work up since it's been a while since I wrote a U-Boat tutorial and I love to make those to tweak those people who like to try to paint me as a U-Boat hating fleet boat fanboi. I can see the whole attack in my head right now. It's pretty elegant and no calculating AoB will be necessary.

Just doing my part to encourage amity between American and German target killers.:rotfl:

XLjedi

04-16-09, 12:52 PM

Similarly, John P Cromwell could be adapted to a Fast-45 U-Boat attack that I might just work up...

What you call "Fast-45" was addressed in the original "Fast-90" documentation as "Advanced Fast-90" and it applied to any approach angle from 0 to 180. :03:

Rockin Robbins

04-17-09, 06:03 AM

What you call "Fast-45" was addressed in the original "Fast-90" documentation as "Advanced Fast-90" and it applied to any approach angle from 0 to 180. :03:

Oh, I would do my customary oversimplification hatchet job and reduce it to a "wham bam thank you ma'am" short list of steps without all Wazoo's theory and precision.:har:

XLjedi

04-17-09, 07:39 AM

Oh, I would do my customary oversimplification hatchet job and reduce it to a "wham bam thank you ma'am" short list of steps without all Wazoo's theory and precision.:har:

Have you ever tried Fast-90 in Uboat missions? Not sure how much more you could actually simplify it. ...barring possibly not using the TDC.

1. Aim scope wire on 90° beam to target TC (regardless of your approach angle)
2. Set AoB at either 90°P or 90°S and lock TDC.

Then fire when ready...

Rockin Robbins

04-17-09, 03:10 PM

Oh you've got the instructions, all right. But just like Wazoo's, nobody knows what they are. My aim is that when I get done beginners understand and use the technique. I don't bring any special knowledge to the process at all, and anyone who thinks I do is mistaken. I specialize in instruction and techniques for beginners in manual targeting. What I bring is an ability to communicate to beginners at a level where they understand what to do and understand the process well enough to reason for themselves that my instructions are valid. THEN they can introduce wrinkles of their own, refine the process for more precision, adapt for angles other than 45º and 90º, and whatever else. But that's more advanced stuff. I'm building confidence that they are capable of manual targeting. Only confidence allows you to go forward and perfect your skill.

I am more a translator than a theoretician. OK, I'm a cheerleader too. :woot:My stock in trade is language, not the science behind the attack techniques. That's YOUR specialty and without you and several others I would have done NONE of this.

XLjedi

04-17-09, 07:31 PM

I'm neither a gifted mathematician (mediocre would even be a stretch) nor someone who delves into the intricate details of attack theory. I just played SH3 and read a few books.

Oh you've got the instructions, all right. But just like Wazoo's, nobody knows what they are.

On my 10th patrol with U-53 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=121786) (an SH3 patrol) I explain, I think in fairly simple terms, exactly how to setup the TDC for fast-90 attack (see time 17:38). I don't think it's too hard for newbs to digest... and I imagine anyone who reads it would know exactly what my instructions are. It's 100% portable to the SH4 Uboat Missions addon.

But you've got a wide following with the DoK stuff and you like to spend time creating movie tutorials and so forth, so sure, you should continue on with doing the sort of things you like to do. Namely, helping newbs sink ships. :yeah:

At the moment, I kinda like tinkering with my maneuvering board, so that's where I'll probably continue to focus my efforts. :smug:

Rockin Robbins

04-17-09, 09:13 PM

Just remember, aaronblood, I'm lurking around making stupid mistakes to pounce upon. You have a valuable function in keeping me straight and not misleading any of these newbs!:salute:

And I'd be happy to link to anything you've written on any aspect of manual targeting. This thread isn't just for me, it's for anyone who wants to lend a hand. So, I'll follow and I urge others to follow your post on your 10th patrol with U-53 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1086071) because for somebody your explanation will be the one that makes the difference between getting it or getting frustrated.

My goal is to keep very frustrated people playing the game, whether SH4, SH3 or SH4UBM: whether playing in a U-Boat or fleet boat. I have you and gutted to blame for getting me started in this insanity!
https://image.ibb.co/fsu8ua/Vector_Analysistargeting.png

https://image.ibb.co/fNb4Za/John_PCromwelltargeting.png

https://image.ibb.co/i8G4Za/Dick_OKanetargeting.png

GulfXray

05-09-09, 10:33 AM

Using the Dick O'Kane method.... Night Attack from ~900yds submerged... Freighter...:woot:

However, it took me four tries with a break to rewatch the DOK video for the 2nd time today... :cry:

For some reason, my torps kept going about 5 degrees in Front of the target - only thing I can figure is I somehow messed up setting the shooting bearing in the periscope...:confused: Well, there was the one time I shot behind the ship because the Exec entered the AOB wrong...

Anyways, after rewatching the video and writing things down step by step, I hit with 3 of 4 torps!

The one question I have is in the video RR points the 'scope at the target and waits for the 'crew' to identify - this never happened for me, any ideas? I am running TMO, RSRD, Max Optics, Websters Ship Manuvering, Crew Qtrs for TMO, & ROW Sound v9.

Update; Well, I seem to still be shooting in front of my target by a few degrees (or .5-1 target ship length) when aiming at the middle of the target. When shooting at a freighter I am using a 10deg lead angle and calulating the shooting bearing like this with target approach from my port 360-10=350deg and like this with target approach from my starboard 360+10=10deg. I then point my periscope down that bearing, click so it is locked, and then send distance/range to the TDC again. Things look OK on the target map, but No Joy ...

Rockin Robbins

05-12-09, 06:05 AM

Shawn, if you're missing ahead, you most certainly have the speed estimated too high for some reason. Missing ahead is not easy to do, so it is the easiest to diagnose. Go over how to determine the target speed again.

Identifying by keyboard command is part of Trigger Maru and my TMOkeys mod, where you lock on a target, press shift-i and a handy crewman eventually id's the target. Identifying the target is NOT NECESSARY with the Dick O'Kane procedure, and was only done to make the video more interesting. People enjoy plugging a tanker!

Keep at it. You know you're close to making it work. Good shooting so far!:salute:

GulfXray

05-12-09, 06:52 AM

Shawn, if you're missing ahead, you most certainly have the speed estimated too high for some reason. Missing ahead is not easy to do, so it is the easiest to diagnose. Go over how to determine the target speed again.

You are spot on RR!

I replayed the mis-ahead situation multiple times trying all kinds of different things. I finally realized that the only possible issue was the speed setting and what I was doing wrong that was affecting the speed setting...

Basically, I would get the speed very early and plot the course. From that I would rush ahead and get into position. Since it was night, I got sloppy and stayed on the surface where they spotted me and started the lazy zig-zag and ping away at me so I would dive to periscope depth. Once it finally dawned on me (took a a while) that the zig-zag was messing up the solution, I re-measured their speed in the zig-zag and it was 50% of what I had before. I adjusted the new speed, an viola! What a dope!

Side note, I actually seem to miss less (rarely) and have far fewer duds now then when I played with auto targeting! Setting up for the manual DOK is second nature now - need to work on the sonar only...

Now I just need to learn the best places to aim so I don't use so many torpedoes per ship... :)

Rockin Robbins

05-12-09, 11:18 AM

Generally, I'll allocate two per target, one a quarter of the way back from the bow or aimed at the first crane and the second a quarter of the way forward of the stern or at the aft crane. If that doesn't sink 'em it stops them to be mopped up later.

ichso

05-13-09, 03:49 AM

Hi,
I think you all know the problem of setting up an attack when your target is still far away. AoB can be estimated roughly at best and therefore the ship's course also.
Without radar for long distance range estimation you would usually have to get pretty close (something about medium range) before you can make any precise assumptions about your target's movement. Here is a little workaround, that will allows one to estimate the target course when it is still far away. It's more like a little trick than a complex technique so it might be well known already. But let's start:

I got in front of the little convoy to do the rest of the approach from beneath the surface. The approach was already on the way for ~20min now.
http://cip.uni-trier.de/%7Eschmidt/sh4/peri.jpg

First thing to do is to mark your own position on some empty spot on the map and use it as starting point for your observations.

Keep course, take a reading of the ship's bearing (don't forget to calculate true bearing from that) and draw a line from your position onwards in the direction of the true bearing to target. The length doesn't matter as we don't know the range to the ship yet.

From all the previous observations when getting in front of your target on the surface or from using passive sonar you should have already gotten an idea how fast the ship is traveling. Then you approximate it's speed which is mostly a thing of experience values here.
You should be able to tell whether it is moving at fast, medium or slow speed. But what that means for the actual ship depends on your judgement. A slow moving passenger/freighter convoy for instance, I would estimate as ~6.5kn from my previous experiences, so I'm using this value here.

You then wait a fixed period of time. In this example I'm using 5 minutes.
Use the stopwatch and after this time expired let the stopwatch keep running. Otherwise you won't be able to continue tracking your own movements afterwards.
While doing this there's enough time to estimate and draw you position after 5min. Here I'm moving at slow speed underwater = ~1kn, meaning that I will travel ~150y (heading south).

When the 5min have passed, take the second reading and draw another line only now originating from your new position.

So far nothing new. What I'm gonna use now is the fact that the target's speed will have it travel ~1100 yards during this time. See the nomograph on the right for this.
Now, with both bearing lines in place you only need to pick *any* spot on the first line and draw a line that will end on the second bearing line and has the lengh of 1100y.

Note that the first spot you picked there is most likely not the actual position of the target (relative to yours) because we don't make any attempt to get the range yet. The only thing that's important here is that the speed estimation is roughly correct. (And that your drawings are o.k. of course ;)).
But after encountering many many freighters at a speed of ~6.5kn (when moving at slow) you would accept this as a reasonable base for these estimations.

Here is an image of my in-game nav map to show what I mean.
http://cip.uni-trier.de/%7Eschmidt/sh4/map.jpg

The small line with length 150y is the way I travelled during those 5 mins and the lower circle shows the spot I picked arbitrarily for the target ship.
The target's course line reads something like 310° and when the vessel gets close enough to do a reliable range estimation you can draw it's real course line (relative to your position at least).

Knowing the course allows you to position yourself precisely, set a course perpendicular to the one of your target (for fast 90 or dick o kane).
Also the target AoB is then only one step away, especially when using an AoB-wheel.

Hope it's not all old news, just figured it might be helpful in some situations.

happy sailing :salute:

Rockin Robbins

05-13-09, 11:18 AM

Neat application for optical course determination. I might figure out a possible range of course, say from a convoy speed of seven knots to four or five knots. This would yield two possible convoy courses. Maneuvering yourself to take advantage of either, the real position compared to the two possibilities will allow you to refine your convoy's speed.

swmicros

05-14-09, 01:22 AM

Very good ichso, nice explanation. I have watched and studied the many tutorials on 100% realism but they (at least the ones I have discovered) all deal with the short range final delivery, not the long range approach. I could not figure out a reliable way to predict the target's course. I will definately try this out. :know: (been schooled again!)

Rockin Robbins

05-14-09, 05:58 AM

I still say the "realism" and "map updates off" cannot be rightly put in the same sentence. The game's rendering of map updates off corresponds to driving your car with a paper bag over your head. It may be possible. It definitely would demonstrate great skill. But there is no realism there.

Real sub captains did not pause during the attack, go below to a blank chart and work out the entire solution themselves. Their radar gave MUCH more precise ranges than our radar screen without map updates. As a matter of fact, it was more accurate than when we have map updates ON because they had a digital range readout.

They also had many tools we do not have to work out solutions, bearing rate charts and plots, stadimeter plots, lots of specialized slide rules. We don't have the resources to be able to single-handedly run a plot and call it realism. Check out the Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual (http://hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm) and see what realism looks like. It ain't our game with map updates off.

It is true that the stock plotting system, while great for learing the ropes, gives the captain WAY too much information. But that is not a decent rationale for tossing the whole thing overboard. The TMO plotting system is the best we have at rendering appropriately selected information without providing "cheats." The only exception is the hardwired too-perfect rendering of positions of visual targets. If you just don't measure from them you'll be fine.

Hope SH5 does better!

ichso

05-14-09, 07:01 AM

I believe you, RR.
But so far I don't own a radar on my boat, so drawing very unprecise lines might be a bit more realistic than if I had one ;).

I think I don't play for realism at this point when drawing all the map contacts by myself. It's mostly for what feels the best or most realistic or whatever. I just like to see stuff on the radar or through the scope and then work out the map overview by myself. Has a touch of 'bringing it all together' or however one might describe it.

It is also a matter of what specific part of the submarine theme you want to be simulated. If you turn map contacts on you play more of a skipper's view where you only have to make your judgements based on the already evaluated information.
My approach is a bit more crew-based, probably. If someone's job on the crew is drawing map contacts than I simulate it by doing it myself. But when drawing I don't play the captain anymore I play the navigator or some other officer at this point. Both ways have their own appeal to them.

But something in between satellite guided, realtime updated maps and drawing unprecise line based on unprecise estimations and readings would be great, that's true ;).

By the way, what is it that TMO does to provide less cheated information ? I only really used RFB so far. Maybe I try a switch for comparison.

Rockin Robbins

05-14-09, 09:47 AM

OK, TMO plotting fixes:

Friend/Neutral/Foe and merchie/warship colors are killed, both on ship position plots and sonar vectors. This is information that sonar, radar, and in most cases, visual sighting would not give you. TMO totally nerfs it with black for everything.

Target silhouettes are replaced with round position markers. Same as above, information not available to real observers. In the stock game you can even identify a radar target by its shape, a definite no-no if you're seeking realism. And you know the length of your target right on the plot. All that is TMI! Round target position indicators for everybody!

Target ID, course, speed text is gone! Sight a target on the horizon, whip over to your nav map, click on the colored silhouette and see identification, course and speed? Don't try that with TMO. Nerfed. "Fast" was a giveaway a narrow speed range. No more, you have to determine speed for yourself.

x on the attack map is gone. This one I don't necessarily agree with. The back end of the vector is still the torpedo impact point, so no real harm done, but comparing TDC data to actual position was central to real targeting. No captain would shoot a torpedo without confirming the value of his solution and many shots were stopped by the officer in charge of the TDC (could change from boat to boat) announcing "bad solution. Do not shoot." He knew this because he was comparing the position output by the TDC to plotted position and finding that they didn't agree. You can't do this with map updates off. A real skipper would lose his command if he were to waste torpedoes in this manner. TMO preserves your ability to perform this indispensible function without letting you cheat.

Is that it? I think so. I'm working strictly from memory on my work computer. So, what is the weakness of the TMO plotting system? There is one.

That is perfect positioning of visual targets on your plot. It's interesting. The mission editor lets you assign a spawn point for a target and say "start this guy within 10 miles of this spot." But it doesn't say, "Ok, this is a visual target, fog, rough seas, 4500 yards, plot this anywhere within 500 yards of its real position." In other words, the game could plot with a random error within a certain uncertainty determined by the qualities of the sighting, but the devs chose not to. They had already done 9/10 of the work in their mission editor!

In the example above the 500 yard uncertainty could be different, based on visibility, range, sea state, sub crew experience, etc, so that each sighting would have its own tailored uncertainty. The position would then be plotted in a random direction and with a random error up to the uncertainty number in position. Add that to the wishlist for Silent Hunter 5!

So what do you do? Throw out the baby with the bathwater, kill the map updates, drive your sub with a paper bag over your head and claim you're playing realistically? Or use the TM plotting system and just don't take any measurements off visual positions?

I think I'd have a problem deciding if I had a boat without radar. Neither would seem right and I might end up turning map updates off, although that would also kill my air radar: an unacceptable situation. I'm not happy with either way if you don't have radar. You might be best served using TMOplot (http://files.filefront.com/TMOPlot+Finalrar/;12584220;/fileinfo.html) and not measuring anything from a visual position on the nav map. It's not perfect but its the best we have for now!

ichso

05-15-09, 04:55 PM

My above method of course estimation is not all that good as I hoped I'm afraid :oops: It worked well a couple of times because the plotted bearing lines where almost in parallel to each other. But if they are divergating then my suggestion of picking an arbitrary point on the first line is not correct.

At least this method can be refined a bit in this way:
First draw the first bearing line and track your movement as well as letting the stopwatch run until you draw the second bearing line. And at this point you should be able to get a range estimation via stadimeter for example. Then you have one fixed point on the second bearing line and with that and the estimated length of the targets line of travel you can eventually draw this one and read the target's course off of it.

Rockin Robbins

05-15-09, 08:02 PM

I consider it good enough for preliminary sightings. Remember, precision is not necessary at that range. All you are trying to do is put your sub in the ballpark for a successful approach. As things get closer together you can worry about precision.

You are just trying to bring target and sub together on converging courses that will put the sub in attack position. This is plenty good enough for that. It's an approach strategy, not a shooting strategy. As such it's useful and belongs here. It's easy enough by inspection to determine whether you are on a converging or diverging course. If you find yourself diverging it is entirely possible that no attack is possible.

Good contribution!

owner20071963

05-15-09, 08:14 PM

Great work Rockin :salute:
This will help those New to the game
in Multiplayer too,
Salute :salute:

Rockin Robbins

05-15-09, 08:23 PM

owner20071963

05-15-09, 10:48 PM

Absolutely! Everything used in single player can be used in multiplay. But many things encountered in multiplayer can never be experienced in single player mode. Hope we have lots of multiplayer visitors here in this thread!:salute:

Totally agree,
Now lets ask the Multiplay Community Members,
Let them decide,
But may I disagree,
Many things encountered in Multiplay,
Goes beyond single player,
Why?
listening to others on TS,
Live in gameplay,Multiplay,
Hearing their emotions in gameplay Surpasses Single Mode,
Even Career Mode,
Try It,Blows you away,
Listening Live as you play Hear a Captain lose his Sub?
Or hit a Target?
Sink A Ship?
Emotions Run high,
Try it somtime :salute:

Mikeb213

07-04-09, 08:51 PM

Guys I need some help, I hate having to go deep, I really really hate destroyers and I wanted to know if anyone has some tips or tricks to deal with these bastards. If I remember right Mush Morton and Dick O'Kane would battle it out with these guys, how can we do that? So far the best trick I have found either gets me dead or I can blow him out of the water. I stay at PD running away from the DD at flank speed until he stops zig zaging back and forth then I let him have to from my aft tubes. I get them about 40% of the time......so it really doesn't work out very well. Ideas?

Rockin Robbins

07-08-09, 06:03 AM

Ok, first, are you running TMO? With any other mod combination your task will be easier, but the method is usable with TMO with great caution.

I use a yo-yo technique when submerged. At first, I never go deep unless I am forced. I am at periscope depth, above the sonar cones, and much harder to find than if at depth. Especially in TMO be sure that you are at silent running and 100 RPM for max stealthiness. If conditions are calm, good luck. Not much of anything will help you there with TMO. With other mods don't worry about it.

Now at periscope depth you can evaluate the skill of the escorts better. What you get is what you get, and can be somewhere in the intelligence range of rock to Albert Einstein. Either extreme is relatively rare. Is he clearly clueless as to where you are? Fine, don't panic. Just continue setting up your target. He's not it, by the way because he's not so bright.

If he's making a real run at you, he will accelerate sharply, go to fast ping and turn directly toward you. There will be no mistaking his intentions. Then it's time to decide whether you will try the down the throat shot, more likely to succeed if you're not using TMO, or just avoid.

He's pinging, so he's not listening to you. Time to go ahead emergency. Dive with the "d" button and pull the periscope down. Hold your heading until he's just before the drop point and then make a 90º turn to port or starboard. If this were real life, you'd go port, as all Japanese escorts were trained that you would go right. As you hit the thermal barrier, go to silent running. Time to evaluate.

Is he continuing to make runs? How close is he? If he's making runs on your last known position he has no idea where you are. If he's following you and dropping overhead, he either anticipated your tactics or knows where you are. Change course and see what he does.

Put the bad guy astern and wait for a time when you are pretty sure he doesn't have you pigeon-holed. Don't sit down there dummy! There's work to do! Every second you're down below the layer, you should be asking yourself "why can't I come to periscope depth NOW? If you can't come up with a good answer, it's time to try something.

So what are you waiting for? I said we're using a yo-yo tactic, come to periscope depth and let's see if we can make something happen! It may be that as you rise through the barrier, Mr Escort changes whatever he's doing and saunters your way. Don't panic, just dive at silent running below the barrier and make a 30 or 45º turn and go back to looking for another apparent opportunity. Ask yourself the magic question often.

But if he continues cutting his nails as you ascend to periscope depth, you're about to cause great harm, maybe. Keep your stern pointed at him and pop up that scope preset for his bearing. Keep it up for no more than 30 seconds. What's he doing? Most likely he's circling your last known position.

Can you get to the convoy? If so, it's time to maneuver for another shot. Are you too far away? It's time to slink out of there at periscope depth or do battle with the escort.

If you choose to do battle the best way is the down the throat stern shot. Shooting at him while he's circling is a sucker's game of chance. Stick that periscope up there as far as you can. Hit ahead full and wait for a reaction. No reaction? Hightail it out of there, surface, end around and have another go at the convoy.

If he follows you, you'll know it. He'll accelerate to high speed and come right at you. Set up a couple of stern torpedoes for zero gyro and wait. Make sure you keep him on bearing 180. Go to the attack map and wait until he's at 400 yards, shoot one and immediately hit dive. As you pass 100', turn to the port, do the dive below the layer and hit silent running, changing course again below the layer. If all went well, you heard a boom during the process and can return to the surface.

If you didn't hear a boom, resume the process. "Why can't I return to periscope depth NOW and do great harm?" Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Spectator

08-03-09, 10:29 AM

Rockin Robbins encouraged me to post in this thread, so here's my take on a vector analysis attack as seen here on the last picture (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=1007637&postcount=204) :salute:

I made a video that shows the whole process from target spottet, till target on crash dive :arrgh!: -> youtube video here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqb2v4dcKew)

(Don't get confused that I chose 90° for my approach, you can do this with any angle! It's not limited to 90° like seen on the Dick O'Kane Method picture. This is the method in the last picture, which of course is similar, but there are some important differences.)

In case the video leaves some questions, here's what happens, step by step:

Determine the target's speed: There are many ways to do this. The one I choose in this video is the so called "3 minute rule". You mark the current position of the target on the map, then you wait 3 minutes and mark again. The distance beween those two marks in yards represents the target speed. In the video the two marks are 900yds away from each other, that means the target runs at 9kts.

(In the video the "no map contact update" realism setting is disabled, so the marks are pretty straightforward. However, usually I have that option enabled, so there's no contact updates on my map. It's still pretty easy to mark the target on the map without those automatic updates, you should try it, it's no big deal and adds to the immersion if you like micromanagement. :) All you have to do is to get target bearing and distance and draw it on your map, maybe I'll make a tutorial Video about that too :))

Planning the approach: After determining the speed with the 3 minute rule, you have 2 marks on your map, let's go ahead and use them for another task. Take out your ruler and draw a line that crosses those 2 marks, and there's your target track. To increase accuracy you can add some more marks before you draw the line, or add them later to verify your estimation of the target's course.

In the video I drew a line that's 9nm long on the map. The reason I did that is, that it gives me another piece of information without me having to calculate, ... a vessel running 9kts will travel a distance on 9nm in exactly 1 hour, so no I know exactly where the target will be 1 hour from now. (You have to make sure that the 9nm are measured between the target's current position and the end of the line if you chose to do it like seen in the video. Of course you can use other tools to measure and mark those 9nm on the map, that's up to you :))

Now that i know where the target will be, I take out the protractor and draw a 90° angle for my approach at the 9nm point. I want to be within about 700yds of the target when I fire my torpedoes, so i make sure to plot my course accordingly. Make sure that, if you have a similar setup on the map, concerning your position relative to the target's position, that you don't get too close to the target while approaching your "hunting spot" on the surface. Better run faster a bit further away to get out of sight (I ran at flank on a parralel course until i intercepted my 90° approach line just to make sure. Of course flank isn't really necessary, but I won't get into detail on those calculations in this tutorial)

Getting the lead angle: Now we are at ~00:50s in the video, it's time to find out the lead angle for the attack. The lead angle is where your periscope will point to later, while your ship points to the impact point, the 9nm "hunting spot" in this tutorial.

What you do now is, you draw a line from the impact point towards the target. The line's length is the target's speed * 100 yards, so in our example it's 9kts * 100yds = 900yds. Then you draw a line representing the torpedo speed of 46 kts (4600yds) towards your boat. The last stept is to measure the angle between the torpedo line and the imaginary line from torpedo line end point to target speed line end point. If that sounds too cryptic, check it out in the video, I hope that will show it better. :)
In this tutorial with an approach angle of 90°, a target speed of 9kts and
mk14 torpedoes on high speed setting running 46kts, our lead angle is 11°.

Setting up the shot: Make sure your boat is properly aligned, so that your bow points at the impact point. What follows now is always the same process, no matter how far you are away from the target (the closer the better in terms of accuracy, therefore i chose ~700yds)

Go to the periscope, make sure your periscope is at 0° and then enter the following data into the TDC:

- AoB = 0 -> send
- Speed = 0 -> send
- Distance = max (turn the distance wheel to the right, should give you about 1200yds in the tdc after you send it) -> send

Now turn your periscope towards the target until you match the lead angle, in this example 11° to the left which means you have to go to 349° (360-11°). If the target would cross your view from right to left you would point your periscope at 11°.

Set up your torpedoes to run at high speed (46kts). You can also do this with slow running torpedoes or totally different speeds if you have some fancy modded ordnance, just use the proper yards representation when determining the lead angle.

You won't need to touch the gyro dial! Your "spread" will be archieved by the target travelling along it's course, you'll see further down.

Don't forget to open your tubes before you shoot, the time it takes to open them will mess up your solution, so better open them early.

That's it for the Setup. Leave the position keeper OFF, you won't need it.

The moment of truth: When the target is close to your lead angle - I usually monitor the target with sonar until it's about 10° away from the lead angle, so in this example I raise the scope when the target passes 339° (not sure if I did that in the video, might be a bit later there, don't get confused :)).

Now all you have to do is, wait for the target to pass your scope and fire at the parts you want to hit. What I usually do is, I shoot the first torpedo as soon as the bow is in the center of the scope, then wait for the center (usually between command deck and funnel for a merchant) to fire #2 and finally i put a third one under the last 3rd of the target (usually that's the stern mast)

And that's it. If everything went right, the target should be on its way to some deep sea exploration.

//sidenote: 90° isn't a good choice for this method, especially with mk14 torpedos. Those fish tend to turn out as duds very often if you hit the target at 90°. Chosing a steeper angle reduces the dud risk, and since this method's advantage is the fact that you can choose any approach angle you want, you should use that.

rsvette12

08-03-09, 05:47 PM

Wonderful stuff guys, thank you. :up: :up:

Regards, Rich

Rockin Robbins

08-03-09, 09:10 PM

Best illustration of a vector analysis attack so far! The fact that you did choose a 90º angle to the target track shows the relationship the vector analysis has to the Dick O'Kane attack. But as you say, the beauty of the vector analysis attack is that it is just as easy to do at any angle to the track.

Note that no calculators or pieces of paper and writing instruments were harmed here. Everything is done within the game and there's not a calculation to be seen.

Also note that the TDC and the PK are not used here. (You do need to check that the speed is set to zero and/or the AoB is set to zero or 180) No Easy AOB mod came anywhere near this attack. It can be done in a U-Boat as well as a fleet boat with equal ease.

So, if it's that good, what are the weaknesses of the vector analysis attack? If you compare it with the Dick O'Kane and John P Cromwell attacks, it has only one weakness: you MUST know the correct speed of your torpedo. If you figure 46 knots for the fast Mark 14 and accidentally leave it on the 31 knot slow speed, you miss by a mile. In the other two constant bearing attacks the TDC remembers the speed of the torpedo and figures the lead angle for you.

But that's it: the only gotcha in a vector analysis attack. I highly recommend it! Thank you, Spectator, for the best tutorial I've seen on the vector analysis attack.

Kapitan Soniboy

08-09-09, 06:48 PM

Rockin Robbins

08-10-09, 05:42 AM

Hey

I downloaded the Cromwell attack and the Dick (by god!!) tutorials:know:. Want to say thanks because this is really fun to do. Still have some trouble with the Cromwell attack method though, but with a little more practice it will turn out good in the end. Very satisfying to sink a ship with sonar only.

Did they really manage to sink enemy ships without ever raising the periscope?? I mean really... at that time? :salute:

Thanks

(sorry if it's anything wrong with my english)
Your english is great!

With the Cromwell attack, the main hazard is that the target sees the approaching torpedoes. Then he only has to turn 45º into the torpdoes to avoid them. During the daytime, this is a good time to use Mark 18s. At night use the fastest torpedo you have.

At the beginning of the war, doctrine was that all shots were to be taken with sonar only, as it was thought to be too dangerous to raise the scope in close combat with the enemy. In practice before the war they did have success hitting single ships that way.

However in the real war, a single target was pretty rare. Even in the game, it's difficult to use sonar only in a crowded situation. What happens if you ping one target on your first observation and another for your second? You've just created a fictitious target and will hit nothing! There are many ways to miss using sonar only and our submarines found most of them.

Then successes started to come when aggressive younger commanders who were willing to buck the system and use their periscopes to obtain more accurate targeting information. They obtained several times the hit ratio.

As a matter of fact, after the advantages were discovered, Admiral Lockwood made periscope attacks official policy. Even then the real life ostriches (we don't just have them in the game, they were a real life problem) had to be rooted out and relieved of their commands when they were unwilling to take necessary risks to obtain success. Later, Lockwood had to go through round 2 of removing ostriches for those captains who insisted on remaining submerged all day, ruining their combat readiness during their nighttime recharging ritual.

Kapitan Soniboy

08-10-09, 07:01 AM

Your english is great!

With the Cromwell attack, the main hazard is that the target sees the approaching torpedoes. Then he only has to turn 45º into the torpdoes to avoid them. During the daytime, this is a good time to use Mark 18s. At night use the fastest torpedo you have.

At the beginning of the war, doctrine was that all shots were to be taken with sonar only, as it was thought to be too dangerous to raise the scope in close combat with the enemy. In practice before the war they did have success hitting single ships that way.

However in the real war, a single target was pretty rare. Even in the game, it's difficult to use sonar only in a crowded situation. What happens if you ping one target on your first observation and another for your second? You've just created a fictitious target and will hit nothing! There are many ways to miss using sonar only and our submarines found most of them.

Then successes started to come when aggressive younger commanders who were willing to buck the system and use their periscopes to obtain more accurate targeting information. They obtained several times the hit ratio.

As a matter of fact, after the advantages were discovered, Admiral Lockwood made periscope attacks official policy. Even then the real life ostriches (we don't just have them in the game, they were a real life problem) had to be rooted out and relieved of their commands when they were unwilling to take necessary risks to obtain success. Later, Lockwood had to go through round 2 of removing ostriches for those captains who insisted on remaining submerged all day, ruining their combat readiness during their nighttime recharging ritual.

Wow you sure know alot! One more thing. I tried diving to 140 -150 feet the first time I wanted to perform a sonar only attack. The maximum depth for torpedo launching is something like 150 feet (I think). I experienced some problems when trying to figure the enemy ship's course and speed. I recieved false information about the target's range. Do you think it has something to do with the depth I was in (thermal layer?) ?

Rockin Robbins

08-10-09, 07:45 AM

I doubt it. Sonar ranges are not exact. You have to take several readings and kind of average them by gut feeling. Of course, while you are taking the ranges, the range is changing, adding to the challenge.

Sonar only can never be as accurate as periscope guided and radar guided attacks. And we've got it easy! Our sonar bearings are exact, where on the real boats there was a 2º slop factor where it was impossible to perfectly center the sonar bearing. I'm unclear whether that was plus or minus two degrees or two degrees total error. It doesn't matter. It means sonar only was more difficult for a real submarine than it is for us.

In the game, make sure your sonar man is following and announcing the target bearing. Put your sonar on that bearing when you ping and don't forget to send bearing and range separately. In the stock game you can use the switches on the panel. For some reason in TMO and RFB you need to use the button bar to send range but can still send bearing from the panel. Be sure you send both to the TDC! I just use the button bar to send both and remove all doubt.

You're right. The sonar only method should never be your default method. It is mostly a demonstration exercise that gives tremendous satisfaction when it works properly. However, in real combat it is VERY useful in heavy fog or rain, where you can get darned close and blast 'em from nowhere.:arrgh!:

Kapitan Soniboy

08-10-09, 08:23 AM

Thank you once again. I play TMO since it add so much more fun to the game. I followed every inch of your tutorial and it worked great but I forgot that you were playing the stock game when making the tutorial. However, it worked in the end and it was very fun.

Right now I'm having a Gato in mid 1943 but I find destroyer escorts too easy to evade. Does Japanese ASW techniques improve later in the war? (last question) :know:

Rockin Robbins

08-10-09, 08:29 AM

OOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH!!! Japanese escorts are nasty, nasty from the last half of 1944 on. I just attacked a nine ship convoy guarded by four assorted escorts in the South China Sea just north of Formosa. It was stormy conditions, so sonar wasn't the greatest, but I only had 150' of water and no thermal barrier to deal with.

Three night attacks over two nights and I never got a shot at the merchies. I did sink my first escort in a surface gun battle (is there any other kind?:har:). I consider that an impressive achievement in TMO. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn in the rough conditions and I played Jack-in-the box with him. I'd pop up, take four shots or so, submerge and pop up again somewhere else. Between the deck gun and 40mm I finally sank him. Didn't do any good. The remaining three drove me off again. What a battle! 48 hours of pure mayhem.

Kapitan Soniboy

08-10-09, 09:02 AM

That's awesome! I would never challenge a Jap escort to a gun battle! But I did have to blow ballast once since my boat kept sinking after a severe depth charge attack (S-boat of course) and a big gun battle happened on the surface and my little S-boat got pounded in the end... :wah: (Now I think it's easier to evade with my Gato)

I raised my SD antenna while at periscope depth and it was able to detect ships (?). I thought the SD radar could only detect aircraft and there is no information about the SD radar on Wikipedia:oops:. Do you know anything about it?

Rockin Robbins

08-10-09, 10:42 AM

SD didn't detect anything below a certain number of degrees elevation, so would have had a tough time reporting surface ships. It's a game glitch that we have our radars combined and kind of mashed together.

DigitalAura

08-11-09, 07:02 PM

Setting up the shot: Make sure your boat is properly aligned, so that your bow points at the impact point. What follows now is always the same process, no matter how far you are away from the target (the closer the better in terms of accuracy, therefore i chose ~700yds)

Go to the periscope, make sure your periscope is at 0° and then enter the following data into the TDC:

- AoB = 0 -> send
- Speed = 0 -> send
- Distance = max (turn the distance wheel to the right, should give you about 1200yds in the tdc after you send it) -> send

If I may ask a couple of things regarding this portion of your tutorial, Spec.... I seem to be missing something:

1/ You say you are about 700 yds away, but didn't you just infer that you had to be 4600 yards off because the torpedos range was 4600? (Your cue card for Vector says trace backwards from impact point 4600 yds.)

2/ Why do you enter 1200 yds into the TDC... I mean, why enter anything? From 4600 yds, there is no need to enter any distance.

This worked for me the first time! (Although upon trying again, my torps run out of steam as they hit the boat and usually don't explode....unless I move up to about 4500 yards.) :shifty:

magic452

08-12-09, 12:49 AM

You just draw your course line 4600 yards from the target track.
You do not have to be 4600 yards away, you can be any were along the your course line (500+ yards) and you just shoot at the angle of the constant bearing line.
If your constant bearing angle is say 10° just point your periscope at 10° Left or right of 0° depending on which direction target is coming from and as the ship crosses the wire you fire.

The instructions you refer to are to clear any old data from the TDC so that the torpedo shoots straight out the front. To do this you must set the periscope to 0° and pull the range all the way down to about 1200 yards. Click the send range button twice to set the gyro angle to 0°

To shoot stern tubes you do the same thing only point the periscope to 180° and sent 1200 yd to the PK.

You must also set speed and AoB to 0 for the same reasons.

If you have good accurate speed and course data this is the most acute and versatile shooting method there is, as far as I'm concerned, and Spectator's tutorial is EXCELLENT. :rock: :rock:

Magic

DigitalAura

08-12-09, 04:17 PM

ahh... I see, as long as the angles all stay the same, the size of the 'triangle' (including range and target path lines) doesn't even matter.
This is cool! I must try this now that I see it's much easier than I thought.

TwinStackPete379

08-14-09, 07:19 AM

Werner, you magnificent bastard, I WATCHED YOUR VIDEOS!!:salute:

Rockin Robbins

08-14-09, 07:33 AM

Yes, hats off in memory of the great WernerSobe, who started the entire manual targeting and targeting school of Silent Hunter 4, right here at Subsim. Werner never returned from his last patrol, but I like to think of him always hunting, always perfecting techniques, always teaching.

Yes, he is gone from Subsim, but he continues to work every day, raising the next generation of manual targeting professionals.:salute:

Frederf

08-14-09, 06:05 PM

There's a lot of torpedo targeting already down so I'll see what I can think of apart from that.

Drastically reducing speed and turning 0/180 "slim" to an aircraft contact, radar or visual, is a pretty reliable way to observe it safely while remaining on the surface and get under way again quickly. Keep a finger on that crash dive key in case you're spotted though.

A-scope radar ranges are logarithmic so be careful not to overestimate. 90% of the way between the 5000yd and 10,000yd marks is much closer to 6,000yd indicated than it is to 9,000yd.

Remove the radio_track file from the game's directory and leave the radio on all the time to get instant radio updates for major war events without the silly menu music playing all the time.

The sonar bearing to a contact will generally trail the contact's MoT visual bearing for two reasons: 1. The sound producing part of the contact is the propellers which are located aft of the MoT visual point 2. The speed of sound means that the sound heard currently is associated with where the contact was several seconds ago.

Enemy sensors change behavior under time compression, keep TC use to low values in the presence of escorts.

Keep patrol search pattern turns at right angles or more obtuse to avoid patrolling areas already known to be clear.

Make a habit of depthsounding before diving below periscope depth, especially crash diving.

Count fuel used and time taken on the transit out or calculate how much is needed to get back and add 10%. Write down the date and fuel state you want to leave the patrol area for that 50-70 day endurance and 10% in the tanks as you pull up to the slip.

Use the protractor tool to plot sound contacts based on the width the green light is on making little "crows feet". A history of these on the map helps get a feel for the approach and relative distance.

Rockin Robbins

08-14-09, 06:54 PM

There's a lot of torpedo targeting already down so I'll see what I can think of apart from that.

Drastically reducing speed and turning 0/180 "slim" to an aircraft contact, radar or visual, is a pretty reliable way to observe it safely while remaining on the surface and get under way again quickly. Keep a finger on that crash dive key in case you're spotted though.

And how! Especially important is reducing speed. Why? Because the most visible part of a submarine is the wake! Captain Fluckey used to remain on the surface and reduce speed all the time. Observe the plane. If it approaches to a distance where it could see you, THEN submerge. If you are doing this with radar, there is no reason to crash dive. Just hit D, ahead standard and submerge. If it's a visual sighting and you're doing this hit C and get the heck out of Dodge quickly!

A-scope radar ranges are logarithmic so be careful not to overestimate. 90% of the way between the 5000yd and 10,000rd marks is much closer to 6,000yd indicated than it is to 9,000yd.

A previously unmentioned great gotcha that all who play with map updates off need to take to heart. Great observation!

Remove the radio_track file from the game's directory and leave the radio on all the time to get instant radio updates for major war events.

Enemy sensors change behavior under time compression, keep TC use to low values in the presence of escorts.

Keep patrol search pattern turns at right angles or more obtuse to avoid patrolling areas already known to be clear.

Make a habit of depthsounding before diving below periscope depth, especially crash diving.

Count fuel used and time taken on the transit out or calculate how much is needed to get back and add 10%. Write down the date and fuel state you want to leave the patrol area for that 50-70 endurance and 10% in the tanks as you pull up to the slip.

Use the protractor tool to plot sound contacts based on the width the green light is on making little "crows feet". A history of these on the map helps get a feel for the approach and relative distance.

Great stuff Frederf. Thanks for dropping by and posting this. There is a range at current speed button on the orders bar in RFB and TMO. I don't know about stock.

I've never had a range problem on a single loadout cruise if I kept speed to 9 knots on the surface and stayed up there unless I was absolutely forced to dive. If you get fuel tank damage all warranties are cancelled!

Frederf

08-14-09, 07:18 PM

Oh yeah, the range at current speed button is in stock back to SH3. It's very handy but you have to make sure you're stabilized at speed before you trust it. If you're going 20 kt, order 1 kt, and then immediately press the range at current speed button you'll get 20 kt speed at 1 kt fuel consumption and your navigator will estimate you can sail to the moon with plenty left over.

There's also the issue of getting a very low expected range when recharging batteries since the engines are operating at flank loads for mundane speeds.

Batteries recharge faster as no or slow speeds when surfaced. Engine power going to the screws can't be used to charge.

I've also noticed that the commanded speed and the actual speed aren't one and the same. The command room to-the-0.2-knot dial in front of the helmsman reads different than the GUI dial, usually faster.

Here's a golden tip I almost forgot: Under semi-high TC settings you can check the sea state by how fast the knot-meter wobbles on the GUI. Lots of wobbles means high waves and no wobbles means calm.

Do you know if prop turn counting works in this game or is the sound file static not changing based on merchant speed?

Rockin Robbins

08-14-09, 07:43 PM

Nope, it doesn't work. the game used too few samples and does vary the speed for slow, medium and high speed but not continuously between speeds.

Actually in WWII there were very few targets where speed could be deduced from beat count anyway. They didn't have anything like the modern computer databases that can take a hydrophone input and tell you the name of the ship and how fast it's moving. Most of the Japanese merchant fleet was completely unknown to the Americans. And those that were known were in generally fouled and messy below the waterline, so would run different speeds than they should were they clean and in optimal condition.

For most targets, "speeding up," "slowing down," "running fast," "moving slow," etc, was about as good as you got. We did have some data on a few of the warships.

Armistead

08-14-09, 09:18 PM

RR,

What method do you prefer to use if the convoy is zigging?

Frederf

08-14-09, 09:20 PM

Ok, thought as much but checking. All of the historical documents of the time referred to prop counts as the primary method of attaining speed (sonar training LPs, TDC manual, etc) but this was likely the Navy's bent on the submarine as a fleet asset and warship killer and not a commerce raider. Having much better data for warships would be a natural reason to make the conclusion of prop counts being the "primary speed reference."

Rockin Robbins

08-15-09, 07:11 AM

I haven't found any actual wartime references to taking prop counts and I have a fair collection of WWII related submarine books. My favorite incident is when Dick O'Kane's radar went out and he made a sarcastic comment amounting to "damn, now I'm going to waste half of my torpedoes."

You don't need any better testimony to the relative worth of stadimeter and radar positions than that! Our game experiences faithfully reproduce that result, especially if you run TMO or TMOplot.

liluoke

08-18-09, 05:34 PM

thank you for such a helpful list!

Rockin Robbins

08-18-09, 05:58 PM

The entire goal of this thread is to take the scariest part of Silent Hunter, manual targeting, and convince you that you will be successful in short order. Then we aim to make it true.

Nobody needs to be afraid of manual targeting. There are so many ways to do it, you are sure to find a couple of methods you will immediately like. Once you're hooked you'll never consider going back to auto targeting again. That's a promise.:up:

TwinStackPete379

08-22-09, 03:13 AM

RR is right, once i watched the Werner vids, it all made sense, and it's so gratifying when the fish hits after you've put together the solution piece by piece. This game is fun. Can't believe i only discovered it 10 or 12 days ago.

Frederf

08-28-09, 04:24 PM

RR suggested I transplant this explanation of how the nomograph works from another thread:

I think it's too easy to overestimate the complexity of the nomometer and treat it like it's some black voodoo magic. All it does is calculate time, speed, or distance if you know the other two things.

"How much time does it take to go a distance at this speed?"
Time = Distance / Speed

"How much distance is traveled by going speed for time?"
Distance = Speed x Time

"How fast does something have to go some distance within this much time?"
Speed = Distance / Time

These are the only three questions that the nomometer knows how to answer. If you want to know the course or angle or when the moon will rise, you need to look somewhere else. You ask by drawing a straight line through the two values you do know and the answer is discovered by finding where the line crosses the scale of the value you want to find out.

A practical example is (for me) commonly that I have plotted the target's location and I know its course and speed through previous calculations. I've decided that I want to shoot at the target when it gets to some specific future position since that makes for a good shot with short range and good angles. So I measure the distance from the target's current position to the desired future position and maybe it's 4600yd. Also say for example that the target is going at 8 kts. What I want to know is "How much time is it going to take that 8 kt ship to travel 4600yd?" This is important to me because I want to know how long I have to get into shooting position.

I pull out the ruler tool on the navigation map and I start a line from the 8 kt mark on the speed scale. I pull this line through the 4600yd mark on the distance scale until I cross the last scale, time. I notice that this line that passes through "8kt" and "4600yd" also passes through about 17 minutes. This tells me that something takes 17 minutes to go 4600yd at 8 kt.

Just for fun the problem can be extended. Using the previous result of 17 minutes until the target gets where I want him to be for shooting I discover that my submarine is too far away to make a shot. Oh no! Now I pick where I want to be to shoot which I measure to be 1200yd away from my current position. OK, I have 17 minutes to go 1200yd. How fast do I have to go? Leaving the right end of the line I made in the paragraph above at 17minutes, I drag the left end of the line around until the line crosses through 1200yd mark on the range scale. Then I look to the speed scale to figure out my unknown. The line crosses the mark at just over 2 kts. "I must go 2 kt to travel 1200yd in 17 minutes."

17 minutes later the 2 kt submarine has traveled its 1200yd and the 8 kt target has traveled its 4600yd. The nomometer has allowed me to arrive just in time.

Rockin Robbins

08-28-09, 06:32 PM

And I've been playing mods without a nomograph lately! When I loaded up TMO 1.8 beta, there was my old pal the nomograph again. It's great to have a refresher course on just how useful it is. Thanks Frederf!:up:

Distortion

09-01-09, 10:21 PM

I have a question for the excelent vector analysis attack: If for instance the speed of the ship is 5 knots, I draw a line of 5 miles, from where I start the attack. Is it possible to attack let say from a distance of 2 or 3 miles?

If I would plot the attack from 2.5 miles, doe I need to cut any other lines? like torp speed, and the 500 yards line for the lead angle?

cheers

magic452

09-02-09, 03:09 AM

Distortion The values for the lines are 100 yards for each knot of torpedo and target speed. Ex. Mk 14 high speed is 46 knots, your course line would therefore be 4,600 yards long. Target speed of 5 kn. = 500 yard speed line.

You can shoot anywhere along the course line more than 500 yards (arming distance) but not beyond it, the torp won't travel more than 4,600 yards on high speed.

Spectator explains it much better than I can in post #55 in this thread.
He uses an approach angle of 90° but it works at any angle, I always use something like 60°.
Vector analysis is a firing solution method so you must be in range of the torpedos for it to work,

Magic

Hitman

09-02-09, 06:48 AM

I haven't found any actual wartime references to taking prop counts and I have a fair collection of WWII related submarine books

That's interesting, I though I had readed something about it in one of O'Kane's book, must be wrong. What I can confirm is that Erich Topp's sonarman certainly did estimates of speed based on propeller counts. NOt only have I readed it in a book, but there is also video footage in which he appears doing that during Operation Drumbeat.

Distortion

09-02-09, 11:28 AM

Rockin Robbins

09-02-09, 11:55 AM

Yes, it's really easy to forget that all we're doing is drawing a scale model of the firing solution and start to confuse 4400 yards on the graphic solution with an actual 4600 yards distance required to make the shot.

Keep practicing and it all becomes automatic. But when you're first learning it's easy to become confused about all the details. Keep up the good work!:up:

Hitman, the fact that the Germans did it could have lent a halo effect to the assumption in American sub movies that Americans did it too. The Germans had some important advantages. First the Atlantic was crawling with hundreds of pretty identical cookie-cutter Liberty boats. Once you learned the RPM/speed curve for one you had the keys to the city. Also the open nature of American and British societies, where information valuable to enemy combatants easily enters public knowledge, made information on our merchant shipping much more accessible than the relatively closed society of Japan.

Hitman

09-04-09, 05:44 PM

First the Atlantic was crawling with hundreds of pretty identical cookie-cutter Liberty boats. Once you learned the RPM/speed curve for one you had the keys to the city. Also the open nature of American and British societies, where information valuable to enemy combatants easily enters public knowledge, made information on our merchant shipping much more accessible than the relatively closed society of Japan.

Cheers, good observation :yep:

As far as I have seen, boy have you guys been able to capitalize on any new idea that someone has pointed out! The cold war american sonars were simply the best, despite germans having lead the way to that rpm count, and I always like to remember the memorable sentence from Jules Verne in his novel "A Journey to the Moon", where he said "What an american can imagine, another one can do it" :up:

In any case, I wanted also to pay another tribute to the John P. Cromwell attack method (45º AOB shots) with something I recently readed:

The very same U-Boot Commander's Handbook says:

95.) When attacking ships with low and medium speeds, at close range, it ballistically advantageous to fire at an angle of the target of 90, as errors estimating the position will in this case have the least effect, besides which the speed of the enemy can be most accurately gauged in this position. If the range is longer (over 1,000 m), and the target is traveling at a high rate of speed, an attempt should be made to launch the torpedo at a smaller angle, say, 60.

Since the angle the book is referring to is the opposite to the track angle, it is in fact recommending a 40º attack :rock:, i.e. the John P. Cromwell one!

Amazing :salute:

Rockin Robbins

09-04-09, 07:04 PM

Amazing find! Yes, the John P Cromwell is a finicky beast too! If you're firing torpedoes in the daytime, you'd better be using electric eels. Especially if you're launching them with a longitudinal spread, all in the same line, all the target has to do is turn into the line of fire and watch them all miss.

But with electric torpedoes, the game changes entirely in your favor. The effective speed of the torpedo is greater because the closing speed with the target gets a healthy assist from 70% the target's own speed plus the speed of the torpedo. With a 31 knot Mark 18 and a 20 knot target, that's a healthy 45 knot closing speed! With no wake! This is calculated from the standard 45º attack.

Also those nasty warships have a habit of detecting you just before you unleash the Dick O'Kane shot. Then the whole plan goes to worms, you try to get a quick down the throat shot, which just puts you at death's door when you miss... It can be very bad for your disposition.:haha:

Yes you hit on a great point. The John P Cromwell is for warships! And we're not doing anything new. Those WWII sailors were pretty sharp!:up:

Hitman

09-04-09, 07:21 PM

And we're not doing anything new. Those WWII sailors were pretty sharp!:up:

Ah, you touched now a sensible point in me! :D I am a great enthusiast of the classics (I mean roman and greeks!), and did you know? The romans had a saiy that goes like this: "Nihil novum sub solem" which means in latin "Nothing new under the sun", i.e. we are continuously reinventing the wheel :haha:, but those before us knew that already!

Not a long time ago, I was developing a method of determining AOB based on "aspect ratio", and once I had finished, you know what happened? I discovered that by 1912 the periscope manufacturers Zeiss (German) and Barrs& Stround (Britain) had long ago developed such a method! And me, here, thinking I had found the keys to the holy grail :har: :damn::salute:

So, when I read books like those from O'Kane, Kretschmer and similar aces, I just can think: "Respect, man!" Those guys knew the same you just have found out, but decades, or even centuries before :o

Distortion

09-05-09, 02:04 AM

Yeeeaaah, on my 1st patrol, using the vector analysing, I`v got myself a nice Kongo class ship, and sink it with 3 torpedo`s. It was a convoy of about 2 Kongo`s in the middle, defend by some destroyers, and cruisers. My first plan was to use slow and fast torpedo`s, and put both kongo`s out of action. That didnt worked well. For the first kongo I used slow torpedos, with a speed of 31 knots. For the second I used fast torpedos with a speed of 46 knots. The speeds of the targets was 14.5 knots. I draw 2 line for the torpedo speed, one 3100 yards, the other 4600 yards, and calculated the lead angles. Strange thing it the slower ones didnt hit the target, the fast ones did. What gives? Do I need another tactic with this one?

thanks guys

Robert

Rockin Robbins

09-05-09, 08:15 AM

Error tolerance, man! When you're out there bobbing around in the big green ocean, there are errors in every measurement you make, especially in target speed. Warships love to speed up and slow down, zig back and forth and generally screw up our magnificent vector triangles. And they are moving fast. A small error can make us miss, not just hit an unplanned part of our target.

So everything we do in putting together an attack plan should have one goal in mind: mitigating the effects of inevitable error. The absolute BEST factor in that is torpedo speed. The faster the torpedo speed, the more error tolerant your solution.

Three rules for maximum error tolerance:

GET CLOSE a shot from 700 yards gives the enemy almost no time to avoid and is twice as error tolerant as a shot from 1400 yards.

WATCH YOUR TORPEDO TRACK ANGLE that's the angle at which the torpedo strikes the target. The closer to 90º the torpedo is, the more error tolerant your solution. As mentioned above in another post, there are reasons to toss this one out the window with warships.

USE THE SMALLEST POSSIBLE GYRO ANGLE preferrably zero, with the vector analysis attack. This eliminates range from the solution and is possibly the most important factor in mitigating error if you have no radar.

USE FAST TORPEDOES discussed above. The faster you can get the boom to the target the less time there is for something to go wrong. And the difference in impact point along the target length for a given error is larger or smaller in proportion to the torpedo speed, with the faster torpedo having the least variable impact point.

One, two three.........more than three.:oops: See? There is error in my targeting solution. And a final thought: you're going to have some misses. I have lots of them. If all you shoot is the sure things, your score isn't going to be very good. Take your misses with a smile and learn from them. No guts, no glory.

Distortion

09-05-09, 08:42 AM

I`l guess you are right, I trust to much on my calculations, and the fact that the enemy screw things up. Thanks for your tips, really appreciate it.

Frederf

09-05-09, 03:44 PM

WATCH YOUR TORPEDO TRACK ANGLE that's the angle at which the torpedo strikes the target. The closer to 90º the torpedo is, the more error tolerant your solution.

How do you explain this diagram?

http://www.hnsa.org/doc/attack/img/platexvii.jpg

Don_D_Dwain

09-05-09, 04:42 PM

Hello Guys,
I did not see this in the thread, but I just skimmed over it , so if it is there, please disregard this comment. As you probably already know, the Germans developed the first homing torpedo. One of them, the G7es (Falke), was used but reports that it was too slow to be useful (20 kts), and the target vessel needed to be going at least 12 kts (I think), for it to home in on. When I go out for a patrol, I have one of these fish in my rear tube (lol, ok no pun intended), just sounds funny. If you should happen to come across a Pesky escort that will not leave alone, or if you absolutely have to get rid of him, then try this. WARNING: it is a VERY RISKY tactic. At a distance that you determine is safe enough for his GUNS not to hit very accurately, at you stern, you SURFACE, to let him see you. Make sure your stern tube with the FALKE is open. When he gives chase, SUBMERGE to Periscope Depth, and turn till he is about 180 Bearing. Remember, this is RISKY. Take a set of Range, Bearing and Speed, all does not need to be very accurate, as long as he is close to 180 from you. Now, the same as when a cop is running radar, he will see you, and the chase is ON. Let him come a bit closer, launch your FALKE, and shut your engines off and DIVE. The rest is HIS LUCKY DAY. Thanks.

Rockin Robbins

09-05-09, 07:28 PM

How do you explain this diagram?

OK, I've gotta hit the books. I want to be right and easily understood on a graph that's darned difficult to read! Stand by......

Beginning to understand...... Processing.....

magic452

09-06-09, 02:30 AM

@ Distortion Good work on the vector shots, to get two different ships at once takes a little practice.

You can shoot both a 31 Kn and 46 Kn vector solutions at the same time.

What I do is approach the target course line at about 60° AoB.

For a convoy pick a target in the first column for the 31 Kn shot and a target in the second column for the 46 Kn. shot. With a 60° AoB the two ships will almost overlap at the time you shoot. The slow speed will hit first so you must adjust your targeting towards the stern of the second to allow for it slowing down. Did this just yesterday for a total of 18,000 tons, two very large freighters. You want to shoot from about 1,700 yards so the high speed torps have a chance to catch up with the slow ones.
With a little experimenting with the range you should be able to get almost simultaneous hits on both ships.

What Rockin Robbins says is very true, You must get very good speed and course data and be able to adjust for conditions and errors.
With a 60° approach you must get everything right, there is little room for error. When trying to shoot both high and low speed the range is critical so you get near simultaneous hits and it takes somewhat longer ranges to do this.

As with any firing solution, conditions play a big part, very good visibility may allow the target to see the torpedo wakes and start to slow and turn.
If possible I will tail the convoy and try to set up a night attack.

Haven't tried this against warships yet, they are a different can of worms.
They see the torpedos sooner and react faster than merchants.

I may have a shot at it tomorrow. Setting up on 5 ships running line astern. Don't know what they are yet but looks like warships. I have an early save so I can try different set ups. This will be a night attack so I think I can pull it off.

Good luck and good hunting. Stick with the vector shots I think you will like them.

Magic

Distortion

09-06-09, 03:49 AM

@ Magic

Thanks for your reply. But if you know the distance between the two vessels, and if they running the same speed, I thought it is possible to just arrange the heading of the periscope, hit the send button again, and fire the other two fast torpedos? Problem is, how do I plot that on the map?

Rockin Robbins

09-06-09, 12:36 PM

OK, here's the deal on Frederf's chart above. If you think about it, your lead angle changes, depending on the angle on the bow of the target. To take an extreme example, when the AoB is zero he's headed straight toward you. There is no lead angle at all! You just set speed to zero or AoB to zero and if your bow is pointed at the target, out comes a zero gyro angle shot.

However, when you are at AoB 90, the target has the highest apparent motion from left to right or right to left and you must make a maximum lead angle ahead of the target bearing to achieve the boom.

So you can see that as the target approaches, the lead angle is constantly changing. However, the graph doesn't graph target bearing. It graphs torpedo track angle. You may swear now. Oh, they're not tracking real torpedo track angle, but pseudo torpedo track angle! @#$@#$%@#$ I'm going to have to pull out a chart here.....

https://image.ibb.co/j06UHv/TTA_Optimal_Slow_Mark_14.jpg

Now your sub is on the right end of the sub's course line. Yeah, I know that's not obvious. Why didn't they just SAY SO???:har:. Point P is the periscope. The middle line between M and P is the bow of the submarine. Point M is the end of the torpedo's straight run, where it turns to its set gyro angle along the curved course to the torpedo track toward the target. Kapeesh?

Actually that's not going to matter much, because in the special case these graphs show, the deflection angle is exactly equal to the periscope lead angle. They don't explain that in the Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual, they just claim that "From a study of the curves it is evident that..." NO, IT"S NOT EVIDENT!!! THAT"S WHY WE"RE LEFT WITH THESE FREAKIN' QUESTIONS!!! Thank you, I feel much better now.

To further muddy the waters, the manual doesn't say what the optimum periscope bearing to fire is, it relates everything to the resulting angle the torpedo takes when striking the target, measured from zero at the bow to 180 at the stern. So to make any sense out of what they say you have to reverse engineer all the gobbledygook.

I've done that. You're going to laugh. All the charts can be used to start campfires or something. Let's take the chart you used above.

http://www.hnsa.org/doc/attack/img/platexvii.jpg

Let's take the bottom curve, for 8 knots. The deflection angle is the exact same as our lead angle because they're all zero gyro shots. It says if the track angle is zero (you are shooting directly at the bow), the deflection (lead) angle is zero, you don't have to lead the target at all.

But as the angle on the bow, which is a bit less than the deflection angle, increases and the target bears more and more boadside the lead angle increases until you get to the optimum track angle, where the curve levels off and starts to fall again.

In the shaded area, between a 90º track angle and the next radial line over, where the lead angle is again the same as a 90º track angle, the lead angle changes least for each degree of target bearing. So shooting a torpedo track angle in that range will give you the most error tolerance possible. Gee, I think I've talked about building error tolerance into our attack plans before!:D

Well, all thse graphs are very fine and great for impressing girlfriends over dinner if you've run out of things to talk about, but what in sam hill do they mean? You're gonna die...

Shoot from a course at right angles to the target track, ala Dick O'Kane and fire when the target bears 0º. The torpedo will automatically (if your TDC is set for AoB 90º and correct target speed) take the optimum track angle toward the target. If you care about the resulting 10º to 20º gyro angle (you shouldn't worry about gyro angles of less than 30º) you can alter your course to about 110º from the target track instead of 90º. This will reduce your gyro angles in all reasonable circumstances to less than 5º. I'm not going to worry about it myself.

Now you can go make paper airplanes from those pretty graphs and use them to entertain children. Yup, there's the right way, the wrong way and the military way. Welcome to the military way to make the simple into brain surgery...:woot:

Frederf

09-07-09, 12:40 AM

You know I've been looking at the graph I posted and even half-arse using it in SH4 for a while now but I've always put off applying some greygoo power to it until you splattered against it first. :D

When I saw deflection angle on the plate I remembered it was back in that previous diagram in the same document about the angle between the periscope and pseudo-winkler-bajoob or something and never bothered to look it up. It turns out the deflection angle is more or less what we've been used to thinking of as the "shoot lead angle" or the angle between the direction to the target visually at the moment of firing and the direction of torpedo travel.

Oddly enough I've been using the concept of "optimal track angle" for ages in Silent Hunter but in a totally different context. I never thought of it as the most error-tolerant or the least rate of change of deflection angle but simply the best chance to hit another ship in a convoy row if I missed the first target.

If you try to hit a convoy target squarely and miss astern there's no chance to hit his neighbor traveling abreast of him. So instead of perfectly abreast of a convoy row I'll skew the shot (or spread) several degrees beyond 90° impact then a miss of the first can hit the second or even third. The improvement in hit percentages is very noticeable! For example if the convoy is going 10 kts I would shoot at a torpedo track angle of ( ArcTan (10/46 ) = 12.3°) 90 + 12.3 = 112.3°.

I had the suspicion but never a firm understanding that when firing in this way not only was I increasing my chances of hitting a 2nd or 3rd target I was actually increasing my chances of hitting the 1st or single target.

Let's check this method vs. the plate and see if they agree.

D'OH WRONG: TORPEDO TRAVELS ALONG THE HYPOTENUSE
ArcTan(8/46)+90° = 99.9°
ArcTan(12/46)+90° = 104.6°
ArcTan(16/46)+90° = 109.2°
ArcTan(20/46)+90° = 113.5°
ArcTan(24/46)+90° = 117.6°What's with me and Tangent vs Sine lately?

BETTER
ArcSin(8/46)+90° = 100.0°
ArcSin(12/46)+90° = 105.1°
ArcSin(16/46)+90° = 110.4°
ArcSin(20/46)+90° = 115.8°
ArcSin(24/46)+90° = 121.4°Plate
8kts: 102
12kts: 108
16kts: 111
20kts: 118
24kts: 122

Hmm I was hoping those would come out closer. It's probably just a coincidence that these values are close.

I think of it this way: If you know the enemy's course very, very exactly and know the enemy's speed very, very poorly my best shot is against the target's bow or stern to rule out errors in speed. However if you know the speed very well and the course not so well it's better to shoot into his sides as his ( angular speed ) x ( target angular width) is not so strongly tied to his AoB the closer you get to 90°/270° AoB. Somewhere between these two extremes must be a balance for an equal uncertainty both with speed and course.

This of course all goes out the window because with these darn faulty impact pistols I am habitually shooting from 50-60° torpedo track angle or 120-130° to avoid the square-shot pistol jam dud-amabobber!

magic452

09-07-09, 01:40 AM

@ distortion

To shoot a true vector analysis solution you will have a 0° gyro angle, speed = 0 and AoB = 0 and bearing = 0. The only time you hit the send button is to set these values. A 0 gyro angle will send the torpedo right down your course line. If you move the scope to any bearing other than 0° and hit the send button you will change the gyro angle and therefore the torpedo track.

Once you have your shooting bearings just point the scope to that bearing but don't hit the send button. Fire when the part of the target you want to hit is in the cross hairs. Wait till the second target gets to it's shooting bearing and do the same. The two targets must be very close to each other for this to work, that is why I shot at ships in two different columns at a 60° approach.

I tried to get a single column type of shot off today but no way it would work, too much distance between the targets. By the time I was able to shoot the second ship it had already reacted to the first being hit and changed course and speed.

What I had was a large troop transport (9494 tons) followed by about 200 yards by a DD (2700 tons) and that followed by a very large transport (18765 tons) by some 1,400 yards.

I shot the first ship with a 31 knot vector shot and then just adjusted a few degrees and shot the DD, both sank. For the other transport I just used a position keeper shot as he was slowing and turning, got him also.

Not a bad days work, almost 31,000 tons with only 6 torpedos and not a single DC dropped any were near me, shot from 2800 yards.

As far as sending a different gyro angle to shoot a second ship I don't know how you could plot that out. But it may be worth a look and see if it
can be done. Darn it now you got me thinking and it hurts. :haha:

You might be able to do something like that with the O"Kane method but I don't use that so I don't know.

Magic

TwinStackPete379

09-07-09, 02:25 AM

I just did my first O'Kane fast 90 after reading RR's tutorial. out the stern tubes at 2600 yds. that was way cool! both fish hit EXACTLY where i aimed for. that was FUN, I wanna do it again!

Rockin Robbins

09-07-09, 07:20 AM

And there are lots of other factors to be concerned with than just how tolerant of target course errors our solution is. For instance against warships, I believe you want the John P Comwell shot from ahead of the target, because every second you wait to shoot is a second during which they might detect you. When they do, all that beautiful data you've collected is in the garbage and you don't care HOW accurate it was...:wah:

Also there's the error mitigating fact that the faster the torpedo's approach speed to the target, the smaller the error radius of the impact point. Using the roughly 110º torpedo track angle, the torpedo is approaching the target from 20º aft of the beam. So from your 46 knot torpedo speed you must subtract some of the speed of the target to get the torpedo approach speed.

Similar to the way speed is added to torpedo speed by the target's approach in the John P Cromwell technique, the approach speed of the torpedo must be reduced by the speed the target is receeding from you at point of impact. Well that is calculated by the cosine of the 110º torpedo track angle, .34 in round figures. So the 31 knot approach speed of the torpedo must be reduced by 34% of a 20 knot target's speed! That leaves the already anemic electric with an approach speed reduced by 6.8 knots! And with a target approached at only 24.2 knots, there is all kinds of time to ruin all your beautiful numbers.

The graph shows a very incomplete view of all the decisions you must make during an attack. I question their usefulness as a practical matter.

Distortion

09-07-09, 11:06 AM

Yesterday I`v been working the hole day with the numbers. the first target is not a problem, can hit it at 1k-2k-3k yards, slow or fast torpedos with the vector analysis attack. I tought it can`t be that hard to hit the second target, witch course and speed it the same than the first one. But it is very complicated, without turning your own sub. Afcourse, when I turn the periscope away from the 0 dergree point and send the new calculation, its not an vector analysis attack anymore, but who cares. If I know course and speed, it can be that hard? How much degree need I for the second target, what is the lead angle, etc.

I have some calculations, and I think I was very close yesterday. Tonight I will try another round, with new ideas (yes, when in bed new ideas came up:woot:) based on those calculations, and see what happens.

I do have a problem with the 3000 yards bearing plotter i use, its not for 1680 X 1050, so its off by 1 degree. And this can be a problem at high distances. Anyone here can help me with that? I`v asked this question also here http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=132000.

We will continue..., thanks for all the input guys:yeah:

Robert

Hitman

09-07-09, 03:12 PM

Fantastic explanation RR :up:

On this piece I wanted to add a small comment:

you can alter your course to about 110º from the target track instead of 90º. This will reduce your gyro angles in all reasonable circumstances to less than 5º. I'm not going to worry about it myself.The manual for the Attack Course finder uses an example to illustrate how it works and do you know what track angle is chosen? Bingo .... 110º :D

I quote the manual:

5. EXAMPLE: Heading by compass 230 degrees. Enemy relative bearing by periscope 315 degrees. Angle on the enemy's port bow 25 degrees. Estimated range 5000 yards. Desired track angle 110°. Good proof of how right you got it :yeah:

Rockin Robbins

09-07-09, 04:07 PM

It was the use of the technical scientific term "gobbledy gook" that did it!:D

Frederf

09-07-09, 04:17 PM

I think it's rash to discredit any of the graphs or math for not taking in all possible tactical factors. The base assumption in pretty much all of these targeting tools is a contact that will continue to travel in a straight line throughout the attack. O'Kane or Cromwell methods are similarly lacking in their encompassing of all factors.

Another big one is these all assume our ordinance works perfectly which, don't mention this to the Admiral Lockwood, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. All methods are limited by their driving factors. This is the only thing that makes the problems tractable. It is up to the commander to utilize the various methods with the brainglue to bridge all of them together.

I'd like to throw a red flag at this notion that "fastest speed-made-good to target" is somehow the best. A meeting of greater than right angles means a slower effective torpedo speed...boohoo. If torpedo approach speed was such a boon, we'd all be shooting straight down the bow's of targets. I could even argue that the slower torpedo approach speed places the torpedo in close vicinity of the target for longer which should increase the odds of impact. Obviously shortest physical run and endurance are nice things but the balance point between that and other aiming factors likely skews the best combined track angle away from 90.

Practically, my track angle depends on a lot. Due to the problems with the MK14's impact detonator, my TTa windows are currently 50-60 and 120-130. I hear that shallower tracks are better for magnetic detonation too. It's really nice to know what the best TTa's are for perfectly functioning hardware for when I get some more reliable fish. Against convoys I'll most certainly be using a convoy speed-directed TTa as the chance of picking up secondary impacts outweighs first target accuracy.

magic452

09-08-09, 02:35 AM

@ distortion

Good luck with this, it could be very helpful.
I'm working on it as well but from a different track.
I got a couple of ideas I'll try tomorrow.

Magic

Rockin Robbins

09-08-09, 05:21 AM

I'd like to throw a red flag at this notion that "fastest speed-made-good to target" is somehow the best. A meeting of greater than right angles means a slower effective torpedo speed...boohoo.

Perhaps in real life you would be correct, but this is a game in which a target can accelerate from 15 to 30 knots in about five seconds. Shortest time to impact is very important in Silent Hunter 4 compared to real life.

CaptainJack

09-18-09, 11:20 PM

I tried to search this thread, but did not see this question. Sorry if I missed it. I am playing SH4 1.5 with RFB 1.52 and the Easy AOB.

Can we talk range here for a minute when using O'Kane? I've been using this method fairly successfully - I say fairly, because it seems mostly accurate, but I also experience occasions where the torp will run mysteriously just ahead or astern. I get hits, but lots of time not in location where the ship trips the wire when I fire. Sometimes, I will set-up being careful to double-click on AOB and bearing, yet I can tell by arrows on the TDC that that shots will go terribly awry - and they do - mystery :hmmm:

After watching Rockin Robbins tutorial for the 4th time today, I finally noticed something. When he drags his range triangle as far counter-clockwise as possible, his range on TDC goes to about 1240 (IIRC); when I do same, my range on TDC goes to 241 :o - 1000 yards less, that is not a typo!

OK - so I go back to save game and try something: My range to target is 750 so I drag range triangle until range on TDC is 800 before clicking range and bearing having previously set target speed at 12 and AOB at 75 (target bearing is set at 345). I've tried this shot with mixed results before and the only change now is range setting. Fire four torps - bow crane, 1st funnel, 2nd funnel, stern crane - guess what: four precise hits. Go external and check damage on ship - four precisely spaced holes exactly where I aimed.

Conclusion: perhaps range does matter, and I can't simply drag my range triangle as far counter clock-wise as possible. In fact, playing with range meter, I seem to be able to drag around a max range of 12030 down to 241 - so where that range registers when you drag the triangle to the right seems to be a function of where it started - results will vary wildly. And since the arrows on the TDC will move as range is adusted, it seems to matter. With O'Kane, I am now going to be setting range at least higher than my actual - or maybe just 1000 is the magic number - just not sure. Please tell me what I am missing! Thanks

Rockin Robbins

09-18-09, 11:24 PM

Yup, you're right. You're experiencing an Easy AoB hiccup, where it acts differently from the stock dials I'm using in the tutorial. However you have to do it, entering a range of 1200 yards or so should make the technique deadly accurate for gyro angles of under 30º.

If, for some reason you're shooting at great range or outside the 30º gyro angle it's important to set your range to somewhere in the rough neighborhood of the target range. Several hundred yards plus or minus shouldn't matter much. All the guys who love precision are just cringing right now!:D

CaptainJack

09-19-09, 12:27 AM

OrangeYoshi

10-24-09, 03:02 AM

Rockin Robbins,

Thank you for the videos you make. They are very informational, easy to understand, and possibly most of all, you are fun to listen to! I haven't watched all the other videos I've downloaded yet, but I wanted to stop in and be just one more person to try to tell you how good you are at this stuff, and thank you for all your work.

Rockin Robbins

10-24-09, 02:42 PM

OrangeYoshi

10-24-09, 06:15 PM

Yeah, when I get the facts all wrong I can always fall back on the entertainment value!

Actually, with the requirements I put on my videos, real time with no time compression, one cut production so you can learn the pacing of the actual attack, complete with dead space and boredom sometimes, "live" production values with no editing afterwards, I'm always worried that they will be too boring and that people will stop watching before they can learn what I'm trying to teach.

I'm glad to learn that isn't always the case.

It isn't really boring at all. The background music is a little loud at times so that people have to struggle a bit to hear, but it isn't bothersome. You fill the time well talking about your failures, or giving little jeopardy quizzes, etc.

I'm goin' down

10-25-09, 10:41 PM

What is missing?

The fundamental concept of aspect ratio and AoB are laid out in Hitman's tutorial (pdf format) by the one and only Hitman. I recommend it be included for those like me who had no inkling of the issue and concepts to overcome in successfully executing a manual targeting attack.

Rockin Robbins

10-26-09, 02:05 AM

I don't use that because it's not realistic. Information on target lengths and heights was not available during World War II. Even if it were, cut-down masts, paint jobs to make it difficult to see mastheads, disguising of ships to look like other ships of different lengths and aspect ratios all took place. That will never be part of any tutorial I ever do. I will never advise anybody to use that method, as it is entirely bogus for use in US fleet boats. It was very rarely used on U-Boats as a last resort.

I'm goin' down

10-26-09, 04:40 AM

the point is that it teaches aspect ratio and AoB. It is a tool to help understand those features for those who are not familiar with them.

Rockin Robbins

10-26-09, 06:50 AM

Hitman

10-26-09, 08:07 AM

Aspect ratio is not a legitimate targeting tool, especially for fleet boats. Not once in the entire war can I find a single instance of using aspect ratio or timing the length of the target by the wire. Both of these techniques enjoy a peculiar popularity here at Subsim and both are illegitimate techniques when applied to World War II submarines. As I said earlier, very rarely, U-Boats used aspect ratio as a last resort tool.

After-war analysis of targets sunk and not sunk by American submarines revealed that most of the time targets were misidentified. That means that if they had Capn Scurvy's perfect list of hull lengths, heights of all features and Hitman's aspect ratios, they still couldn't have hit the broad side of a barn.

RR is mostly right. The aspect ratio and fixed wire methods are not, by any means, historically correct for the us submarines, and in the german uboats were they come from they also weren't that much used.

In the us submarines, plotting was the main way of getting the necessary values for the firing solution. Plot was fed from periscope observations (stadimeter for distance, based on mast/funnel heigth estimates and AOB by plain eye observation) and then checked against the TDC position keeper. When radar appeared, this task was greatly improved in accurancy, because the distance could be accurately determined, but overall the method was still the same, only more precise. Developed in the interwar period, when submarines were thought vulnerable if close to the target, the method ensured that even long range shots could have accurancy, and that firing even without seeing the target was possible (Thanks to the position keeper).

The german uboats in turn resorted to other systems, and the plot was mostly unused. The only time when something similar was used was when overhauling in the surface a target, be it a convoy or a single ship. In those cases, the captain would rely to the navigator a crude estimation of distance and issue the proper orders to keep the uboat in paralell course beyond the horizon. The comparison of own uboat course changes and bearing lines gave the navigator an approximate idea of the enemy course and speed. And when in perfect paralell position, the commander would make some speed variations until the bearing stayed constant, showing true enemy speed. In other circunstances, mainly night and submerged attacks, the commander or IWO estimated all, distance, AOB and speed by naked eye, and if available, used the values gathered previously during the overhaul maneuver.

The aspect ratio system is derivated from the horizontal stadimeter present in early war uboats and interwar periscope makers, which was not unknown to the americans. It was a useful gadget in the peacetime maneuvers, where dimensions of target ships were well known, and it helped the commanders develop the seaman eye. But in wartime, for all circunstances explained by RR, it was mostly useless.

Not so much the fixed wire, which was still used, but again not as widely as plain eye estimate.

The reason I adapted them to a quick tutorial for us submarines was to get people started on manual targetting and familiarize them with some concepts. Since the AR and FW methods were useful in situations where target dimensions are know and there is no pressure on the shooter, they fitted well the concept of SH3/4 gaming. We don't risk our necks, and the limited number of ships in the game allows us to use it. And, in the same run, the player starts understanding concepts such as the non-linear change of AOB, and the sense of relative motion of the target. In my experience, after some time using the system, the user discovers that he has developed enough experience to tell the AOB by naked eye estimation, even in a 2D environment as a game screen. And the speed also starts being judged with some accurancy, at least in some 3-4 knots interval.

I don't however concur so much with the idea that it is impossibel to guesstimate more or less correctly a ship's length (Mast heigth is more difficult), because with some practice it isn't so difficult. There are certain naval construction rules that help a bit, because shipbuilders always tend to keep some proportions, and because a few meters up or down in length don't make a lot of difference for us.

Rockin Robbins

10-26-09, 12:12 PM

Thanks Hitman! Yup, you've hit on the single most important factor in why Americans had MUCH worse hits per torpedo and sinkings per torpedo ratios: excessive dependence on fussy accuracy, while shooting too far from the target. They didn't know that precision is wasted when your measurements are not accurate enough to justify the precision.

Germans, with full realization that it was war and they were risking their sorry necks anyway, knowing that they could be killed even if they took every precaution, and not wanting to waste their lives, properly analyzed the relative interaction between unavoidable errors and precision. They pressed the attack darned close because they KNEW their solutions contained errors and that the solution to the errors was closing the distance. Result: more booms with lower technology and more "questionable" precision. Questionable!!!? You heard the boom didn't you?:har:

Until Admiral Lockwood started replacing sub commanders wholesale because they were just plain unwilling to put their boat at any risk whatever (forget about the fact that leaving the dock did that!), our performance was frankly terrible. The fact that Mush Morton and Dick O'Kane garnered popular reputations as crazy madmen who would just get their crews killed (well, actually they did, but not for that reason, the evidence seems to show), is very revealing of the general attitude of the non-commanders in the fleet.

In fact, one book I have, which is self-published and I fear not available to anyone, is Torpedoman, by Ron Smith. This book parades as fiction but it is clear that it is based on Ron Smith's personal experiences as a torpedoman. Its whole focus is the wide gulf and mistrust between the officers and men on a US submarine. From the liner notes:
The story moves into the real area of combat unique to submarines with its physical and emotional demands that challenge human endurance—where the desire to perform one's duty is in constant conflict with the desire to live. A near mutiny occurs as the crew struggles with the decision of sacrificing themselves by blindly following orders or disobeying and surviving.The book is rather crudely written, but this serves to give the book authenticity: its written by a torpedoman, not a college educated pretty boy from officer country. Hell, they couldn't tie their shoes without the chief of the boat holding the knot as they did so.

There was little trust and no respect between officers and men of many US submarines. It apparently was worse in the Royal Navy. The destructive dichotomy led to a restructuring of relationships after the war was over and the harmfulness of this lack of trust was revealed. The boats that succeeded in eroding that wall between officers and men, Barb and others, were much more successful than those that ran stictly "by the book." Today, this aberrant relationship is mostly written out of history. And there is a higher sheen of professionalism top to bottom in our modern sub navy. Yes, we've lost some character but we've gained a lot of effectiveness.

Heck, I've wandered into Davey territory and left Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks territory. I'll shut up now.

But on tactics: do the best you can on working out a solution on a historically justified basis, but then use the hammer. Getting close makes the errors insignificant and ensures a very high hit percentage anyway. It worked for the Germans and it will work for you.

I'm goin' down

10-26-09, 12:34 PM

You have quoted a book of fiction and assumed the quoted portion is not fiction.:hmmm:

In TMO 1.7 to 1.8 beta, the dds can find you if you are close. I have been in position for 15 minutes before the convoy arrives and in silent running mode. Still, the dds have been dancing on my soon to be grave, pounding the sea for 5.:damn:

How do you position your boat to keep a low profice on radar, so the dds won't hammer you? Someone send me a PM noting that is what they do, but they filed to respond to my follow-up question on how to do it.

Rockin Robbins

10-26-09, 12:51 PM

A cursory reading of the book and its crude fictionalization quickly reveals the reality of the experiences related. This guy is not skilled enough to make anything up, and that actually serves to accentuate the book's reality. The word fiction is not synonymous with the word untrue. Some truths are best related within fiction. That is why Edward Beach chose fiction for his Run Silent Run Deep trilogy. If you want to know how to run a WWII sub, there is no better source material.

In TMO, if the escorts are around you can safely assume they will be on top of you.:shifty: Therefore, you have to outsmart them. I usually plan on an action which will take several hours. I begin my attacks at sunset to take advantage of the cover of darkness during the entire action.

The first attack is a compromise. I'm targeting the largest merchant, because I'm going to be shooting from a distance. I'd love to sink him but my primary goal is to concentrate the escort screen on my side of the convoy. I'll close to between 2000 and 2500 yards and shoot two torpedoes at the same target from outside the escort screen. Don't do anything fancy or try to hit multiple targets. Immediately after the torpedoes leave the tubes, turn tail and run. The escorts will dutifully charge your last known position, but you'll be out of there, on the surface at 3000 yards or so from the nearest escort.

Do an end around to the other side of the convoy. You have about 30 minutes. Now you have a completely unguarded side of the convoy. Press your attack close, hammer 'em hard and again turn tail to run before the escorts can get to you.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

If the escorts do succeed in pinning you down, look for the sneaky guy that stops to listen to tell the others where to drop their greeting cards. Once he vanishes from sonar you can be sure he's stopped. It's time to set a torpedo or two for point and shoot. A Mark 18 is great for this. Speed zero, AoB zero or 180. Come to periscope depth, point the boat to put him on the zero bearing, press the send range/bearing button and shoot one quarter of the way back from the bow. That way if he hits the jets you'll still get him.

I find that a sinking buddy cools their aggressiveness enough for you to get away.

Ducimus

10-27-09, 08:46 PM

In TMO 1.7 to 1.8 beta, the dds can find you if you are close.

I'm guessing by close, you mean within 6,000 yards and yourself being above the thermal layer. If that's the case, you might see a small change in behavior soon.

I'm goin' down

10-27-09, 08:55 PM

If the dds can locate you at that range, how can you ever approach a convoy? They have already located you are are dialing in. :wah:

Rockin Robbins

10-28-09, 04:14 AM

How do you approach within 6000 yards? See my post above. Not only is it possible, but a routine occurrence.

Ducimus

11-20-09, 06:24 PM

I had a fun time this morning.

Heavy fog + SJ radar = Daylight surface attack.

You can use sonar for ranging if you want to, but radar is all you really need. Get a rough range guesstimate with the A scope, you get your bearing by manning the thing yourself, and coast your boat right in to 500 yards. I still couldn't see them at that range, but at that range so long as you got the bearing right, the rest is unneeded. Set for fast speed on the fish, with 2 to 3 degree offset, and fire a fan shot. It's almost like shooting fish in a barrel.

Nobody can see you, you can get in super close, can't get a decent solution but one isn't needed anyway, and you make your exist on the surface. Tin cans can't find you at all. Hell, i even took to going parralell with the convoy and firing my deck gun in a broad side manner by shooting at the nearest target via radar bearing and ranging. Deflection is a non issue, all you need is bearing, and use the shell flash as a guide to hit or miss. The escorts may come to investigate, but since its super foggy they' go slow, which gives you plenty of time to fire some rounds and make a get away if they get close. I let one tin can get within 1000 yards before i turned tail. Was plugging away at a maru i pulled alongside from a 400 yard range.

In one daylight surface attack, i made 3 consecutive attacks before i withdrew from the convoy. It was, quite literally, "a running gun and torpedo battle." Radar and Heavy fog, a friendly combination ! :arrgh!:

Rockin Robbins

11-21-09, 04:23 AM

Arrrrrrrr!:arrgh!: Thanks for visiting Ducimus. And radar attacks in fog were a submariner's dream in the real war too. When you get soup, don't reset the weather! Bag the best cruise you've ever had instead! There is no fun like plugging targets you've never seen. Unless it turns out to be the USS Essex....

Armistead

12-16-09, 08:29 PM

I love OKane in bad weather using sonar lines. I sunk entire convoys with the deckgun pouring down rain with fog. Just ask for sonar updates and fire away. Course always fun sinking the escorts in bad weather.

BGrey

12-18-09, 09:24 PM

The link for understanding the AI goes to the solution solver.

magic452

12-19-09, 12:42 AM

BGrey Not sure what you are asking for here, give more details.

What AI to what solver?

Magic

Rockin Robbins

12-19-09, 03:32 AM

Ruh roh...... I'll fix the link later today. Thanks!:D

markly

12-19-09, 08:02 AM

I downloaded a video called automatic targeting with a .7z extension, how do i view it?

irish1958

12-19-09, 08:34 AM

Google "7z" and get the free program to unzip the archive. This is the very best compression program available and it is free.

I'm goin' down

12-22-09, 10:37 AM

That's keeping 'em honest magic. Somebody has to patrol the troops or the inmate's will run the asylum.

Rockin Robbins

12-22-09, 05:57 PM

Actually it was Magic who missed the point of a perfectly logical and informative post. Thanks BGrey! Link fixed!:D

jerm138

12-28-09, 02:34 PM

Yesterday I was browsing this thread and others for instruction.

There was a tutorial that showed how to intercept a ship that's out of your sight range... like 8 hours away.

In the tutorial, the ship was headed WNW and you intercept it from the east. It had a good narrative that went with it, saying that you calculate the time to intercept at about 8 hours, then go off to bed... but then you remember that you want to get there early, so you raise your speed by 1 knot, then go back to sleep.

This is the most I can remember and I can't find it anywhere now. Can anyone help me?

Thanks in advance!

Hitman

12-28-09, 02:47 PM

Might that be Dantenoc's tutorial? Look here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=88961

jerm138

12-28-09, 04:17 PM

That's it!

Thanks. I can tell I'm gonna like this place.

MikeVictor

01-18-10, 10:33 PM

Can I determine the true course of the target via the TDC only...after I take a couple range/bearing readings and calc/enter the speed...:06:

I would think that two range/bearing checks would plot two spots that could be connected automatically in the TDC and the course thus determined.

Or is the only way to determine course by plotting two points on the chart and drawing the true course on it?

What is the fastest method to estimate the true course..

I've watched the videos on how to use the TDC for all targeting set ups.

Mike:)

MikeVictor

01-20-10, 06:43 PM

So you see a convoy on the plotting map....

How do I determine the range to a single target ship using sonar, can I somehow pick out the ship I'm pinging?

Need to do this to determine course and speed, but not sure how to pick out one via sonar to do that. Perhaps I have to use either radar or periscope to do that?

Mike

Rockin Robbins

01-21-10, 06:38 AM

Well, hey there! Thanks for dropping by. Pull up a chair and feel free to pull yourself one of those semi-adult beverages over there whilst I dig up a couple answers here:

Well, if all you want to do is take a couple of range/bearing observations and not plot them on the chart (why would you want not to use a plot?) there is a way to find the course and speed using only the TDC. Our game developers crumbled to repeated requests and included a calculate speed and course button on our TDC. I think that's a tragedy, but here's how it works.

You take two different stadimeter readings of range/bearing at least 10 seconds apart. Then you proceed to the speed input mode of the TDC input dial and press this button:

https://image.ibb.co/iDu5qF/Estimate_course_speed_button.jpg

Now your accuracy is strictly dependent on the accuracy of your two observations and is rendered more accurate by increased time between observations. Keep in mind that stadimeter and accuracy are two words that probably shouldn't be allowed to occupy the same sentence.

With radar, using the plot and actually measuring the distance between two positions three minutes apart, drawing the course and measuring it is a technique that will give you MUCH more reliable information on all parameters, speed, course and range.

The fastest method of determining true course is to spend an unreasonable amount of time playing with gutted's Solution Solver (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=156698), quizzing yourself with his AoB sight determination gillhickey on there. With MUCH practice you can do like the real sub skippers used to do: sidle up to the periscope, take a gander and intone "Angle on the bow 47º starboard." As long as an accurate bearing is in the TDC, entering the AoB will cause the target's bow on the output dial of the TDC to point to that AoB. You'll notice an outside ring of numbers there also. They are the true course, which you can read outside the AoB number. WernerSobe's video on manual targeting explains and shows this process.

Well, that's the good news. The bad news is that picking out a single sonar contact in a crowd is pretty impossible. Contacts have to be several degrees apart to resolve them as individuals. Even when you can resolve them, how do you know you are picking up the same one for two different pings? Even with continuous monitoring (which would keep you from skippering your sub, most un-commander like) two contacts could cross and you could be following a different one for your second ping. The verdict: sonar only is not suitable for convoy situations.

KlassenT

01-21-10, 08:38 AM

Boy, this is gonna turn out to be a bit longer than expected. Guess I'm full of questions today, but you've been given fair warning. ;)

Well, that's the good news. The bad news is that picking out a single sonar contact in a crowd is pretty impossible. Contacts have to be several degrees apart to resolve them as individuals. Even when you can resolve them, how do you know you are picking up the same one for two different pings? Even with continuous monitoring (which would keep you from skippering your sub, most un-commander like) two contacts could cross and you could be following a different one for your second ping. The verdict: sonar only is not suitable for convoy situations.

Actually, RR, that brings up one of the only gripes I have about SH4, and some historians 'round here might even set about proving me wrong and showing that it's accurate, but here's the skinny: I've always been frustrated as all get out that I have commands for 'report nearest contact' and 'follow nearest contact,' but no 'follow current contact.' (Ideally, would be used identically to follow nearest, but would rely on the current hydrophone bearing to pick up the initial contact) Assuming that you're facing a light convoy, perhaps a few little merchies with a pair of DDs in a flanking escort, there should certainly be a point where it becomes viable to track a single sonar contact. I've done it myself many a time for TMA in unfavorable conditions where it's either too muddled to see squat, or too clear to risk exposure, so as far as SH4s mechanics are concerned, I see it as viable, prima facie.

Now, though, the test; are the sonar mechanics modelled with enough accuracy in this case that such a task would have been feasible? Of course you're going to get a fair bit of interference for long-range convoy intercepts, but I'm concerned primarily with low-volume surface traffic, not rushing headlong into a carrier TF bound for Midway. If it does seem plausible enough, does anyone know if there have been any efforts to implement this via modding? It seems a bit silly to jump back and forth from my comforting protractor and compass to continually take hydrophone bearings to complete my TMA plot. Almost started pulling my hair out when I spied a large modern composite cruising along in an otherwise unremarkable mini-convoy, but my soundman was only interested in the DD playing catchup from behind my juicy freighter-snack.

I'm certainly not opposed to having realistic situations where you could lose a sonar track from ships crossing (though I doubt the engine allows for that much flexibility) but the exclusion of a seemingly-obvious feature like this has always stumped me.

---

On another note, I've still been playing stock for some time, and I think I'm finally hitting the cusp where I'm confident enough in my approach and intercept tactics to take on Ducimus' DDs. I do, however, want to finish out my career (And maybe squeeze in a few S-boat excursions for kicks and grins) but there are a few 'secondary' mods I recall hearing about but no clue what they might be called. Before I make the transition to full-fledged TMO/RSRDC, I intend to grab TMOkeys to speed up the inevitable learning curve, and get my grubby paws on the 360d bearing plotter as well. One thing I've never much cared for is the impeccable accuracy of my hydrophone crew when it comes to giving me exact ranges from passive listening. I share the opinion that 'map contacts off' is just about as silly as the uber-contacts in place by default, so I'm still hunting for that happy medium. One of the mods I read about in passing, as I understood it, converted all sonar contacts into extended dashed lines, and it sounds like it's right up my alley for the balance I'm looking for. Anyone have a name I can go drum into the mods page?

---

Final question (Promise!) any special concerns that pertain to running JSGME on digital distributions? (STEAM in my case). I know where all the relevant program directories and such are, but just wanted to make sure that there weren't any special considerations for electronic editions.

Thanks in advance for puttin' up with me! :arrgh!:

Rockin Robbins

01-22-10, 12:44 PM

First of all, that's what this thread is for: good questions like yours. So let me take my time and go through these.

Yes, a follow current contact instruction would be VERY logical. In an unambiguous situation, that would save us a lot of grief as our brain-dead operator keeps switching targets to the closest warship or just the closest enemy vessel, depending on your orders. Heck, he doesn't even do that reliably. Actually, he should be able to follow a current contact while still retaining the ability to advise you of new developments that could change your orders.

Were that idea implemented in the game, we would then be talking about how the sonar operator is so perfect in a convoy situation, able to continue following a single target even when you couldn't pick him out if you were using the sonar yourself. Every silver lining has its cloud, you know, and Ubi could have turned this into another iteration of perfectly plotted visual sightings and plotted passive sonar spikes whose lengths tell you the range.

Now, if you think about it, the MOST confusing situation would be a small convoy of merchants. Why? In a warship convoy, you have many different types of target, all with different sounds... Well, not in SH4 because we only have two sounds: merchant and warship. These are played at a finite variety of speeds to convey slow, medium and fast. That's why we can't do turn counts, which is good, because WWII subs really couldn't convert turn counts to speed either because they didn't have sufficient data on non-warships to do so.

In a merchant convoy, you are more likely to be dealing with half a dozen to a dozen identical merchants with no difference in sound to speak of. They are lined up in columns and rows in such a way that even when you are close, the contacts are continually crossing, giving you a random choice, when the single contact divides in two, of which one is your original target. However, let me suggest that you try tracking the closest target in front or at the rear of the convoy. This way, every time contacts cross, when they divide, you automatically pick the front or the back one! I think this should work even in the game as we have it now, so long as the AoB is less than 90º. After 90º, the lead target would always lag the crossing target and the last target would always lead.

That should be no problem, as your plot would show you the parallax situation created by the AoB and you would know what to expect. Is anyone else following my reasoning or am I being way too abstract here?

Along with grabbing TMOkeys (which you will like much better than the stock keyboard layout, once you are used to it. I bet you'll use it even if you stick with the stock game), you might also grab TMOplot, which will let you play with the TMO plotting system. TMO tosses out the ship silhouettes, the target ID text, and the friend/foe/neutral colors. That's why I only found out I sank the USS Essex after I returned to port. That's why I fired the torpedo. I had no silhouette telling me it was an aircraft carrier and it wasn't green. Result: bustin' rocks! What's not to like?:haha:

As far as the passive sonar spikes telling you the position of the target, why plot those points? I just note that particular target seems louder than the rest and leave it at that. Certainly a competent sonar operator would tell you that. He would also tell you that local listening conditions could mean that the loudest contact is not really the closest, but we are talking about an imperfect game here. I treat it just like I treat visual sightings. Plotting positions and making speed and course measurements are a no-no for those two categories of info in SH4.

I look at having sonar spikes extended to the edge of the screen as the same thing as turning map updates off: the solution is worse than the problem when a little discipline in not taking measurements from those positions is all that is needed. After all, in real life that competent sonar operator is making decisions about what information to pass on to you as commander based on his assessment of which are the closest targets of concern.

I am running JSGME with a Steam installation of Left 4 Dead (amazing how all those other games use the brute force method of mod installation. Dummies!) and it works flawlessly. I've also used it with a non-Steam installation of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and it worked marvelously there too.

ReallyDedPoet

02-08-10, 08:16 PM

Awesome thread here :yep::up:

Rockin Robbins

02-15-10, 10:38 AM

Thank you RDP. Yours is the praise I value most highly here at Subsim as I rate you consistently the most positive and helpful member here both before and after you became a moderator. Salute!:salute:

Don_D_Dwain

02-17-10, 03:57 AM

Hello Yall,
I am sure you guys know this by now, but if not, here goes. There are 2 things I have noticed in SH4.
1) If you are playing the German side, you can access the map, as you would in SH3 by clicking on the map, but only if you put the crew at "battle Stations," then click on the guy standing by the map (yes the navigator), and then point camera at map, and clickon the map. Also each time you zoom in or out of the map, and look at the map, it shows the last level of zoom you were just looking at.

2) Again, the Germans. The G7es (Falke Torpedos) are slow, and were the first homing torpedos. I know you know this, but if you load one or two in the aft tubes, and A destroyer is a bother, get it to chase you from behind. If he is going 12kts or faster (very likely if he saw you), then line him up in the scope, as close to 180 as you can, then that slow homing torpedo works miracles. Good by destroyer. Don't forget to shut off your engines so the torpedo can find its mark easier. Thats it.

3) This is not a trick, but a even though, you guys will probably like it, so enjoy. http://www.uboat.net/gallery/index.html

Rockin Robbins

05-01-10, 06:24 AM

There have been several threads lately about problems with planes in Silent Hunter 4, especially with TMO. These posts are quickly followed by advice on how to cheat and modify the configuration files to minimize or eliminate airplanes. I'm sure that's exactly how Dick O'Kane handled the planes.... Let me flatly state that planes in SH4 and in TMO are not a problem and if you are running your sub properly they cannot ever see you and cannot ever attack you unless you are attacking a convoy at periscope depth and get VERY unlucky.

Planes are not a problem if you handle them right. You don't have to and it isn't helpful to stay submerged all day or even for an hour after sighting one. All that does is discharge your batteries so you aren't combat ready.

Remember, a submarine is a surface boat with the unique ability to submerge when absolutely necessary, and to stay submerged for the absolute minimum amount of time. With airplanes, that means about 10 minutes total per plane. Our goal is to travel at maximum fuel economy speed, 9 knots, on the surface so we have 100% charged batteries available to fight at all times.

Let me explain. First of all, this strategy needs air search radar, a pretty common thing on American submarines. When a plane is first spotted on radar, you have several minutes of decision time. Let's use them! A couple of planes just showed up. What are they up to?

I immediately draw a 5 mile radius circle around my sub. That's my danger zone. If the planes enter that zone, they can possibly see me. My goal is never to be seen by a plane, EVER. That means no John Wayne popgun ineffectually giving away my position so the pilot can call his good buddies to the party and I'm swarmed for several days. I'm not going there. If a plane can possibly see me I'm pulling the plug.

OK, we have the visibility danger circle around the sub. Now, from the position of the plane, draw two lines from the plane(s) to both outsides of the circle (tangent lines).
https://preview.ibb.co/kpon4a/Airplane_detection_cone_1.png

Not every plane is going to enter your danger zone. If it does not we want to stay on the surface. 100% battery charge at all times you know... With our "ice cream cone" chart, we can easily tell with plenty of time whether this bad guy is going to be a problem. If he stays outside the cone, we're golden. If he crosses the line to the inside it's time to initiate avoidance.

At that point our goal is to be at or below periscope depth when he crosses the circle line of our danger zone. Pick a number below 100', I always just use about 110, your mileage may differ but I haven't had a problem with that and full-blown TMO. As you cross periscope depth, start your stopwatch. When it reaches 5 minutes, press surface ("s"). Do not dawdle around at periscope depth looking for planes. He's gone. No buddies not previously spotted on radar have had time to enter your danger zone. Your combat awareness is 100%. You are safe. Just get up there and resume surface travel.

You haven't been spotted. No little flyboy buddies will be checking you out. Also, I run around at best fuel economy, about 9 knots all the time. during my plane avoidance drill I don't touch the throttle. I submerge normally, none of this crash dive silliness, because you have plenty of time. Have you ever crash dived, surfaced and reentered time compression not remembering you were at full throttle? It'll make you cranky! Don't do it. Following my procedure it can never happen.

Planes are not an issue in TMO. They are not a threat. They cannot ever see you. The only thing that can hold you down is an escort. And if you didn't follow my airplane avoidance strategy, you're not ready for them because you have low batteries. You're a dead duck. Why would you care whether you were killed by a plane or by an escort. Wouldn't you rather not be killed by either?:D

BillBam

05-01-10, 08:24 AM

Good advise RR, I remember seeing this same advise in one of your videos and have "never" had a problem with airplanes in TMO by following this advise. One problem I had early in my careers was cruising at too high of a TC rate and allowing the planes to get inside that 5 mile circle before TC reset to normal, not allowing enough time to know what was happening and get to below 100'.

One other problem I had early was not going to 100'+ and allowing the planes to see me at periscope depth, planes do see you so get deep. But don't waste time going to 450' it is a waste of time, 100+ works just as well and saves time on going down and up.

Rockin Robbins

05-04-10, 08:31 AM

In plane infested areas, I'm usually cruising around at TC about 500 to 1000x. When a plane is sighted, I step it down to 8 or 16x while I figure out where he's headed. I'll step it down to 8x if he's approaching the danger radius, leave it at 16x if he's going to pass harmlessly by and leave it there until he's at least 10 miles off, going away. Then I resume 500 to 1000x.

If I have to dive I leave it at 8x, hit the dive key (not crash dive) in time to be at or below periscope depth as he crosses the line, start the stopwatch, step up to 16x until 5 minutes are up, hit "s" to surface and after I'm surfaced I'll go back to 500 or 1000x.

Admiral8Q

05-04-10, 12:59 PM

One problem I had early in my careers was cruising at too high of a TC rate and allowing the planes to get inside that 5 mile circle before TC reset to normal, not allowing enough time to know what was happening and get to below 100'.

What would the optimal TC rate be then to get the most TC, with the best time for it to switch back to normal?

BillBam

05-04-10, 01:58 PM

I have never had a problem at 1k TC, at 1.5k TC you better be quick to the keyboard to get down, after that it is a crap shoot.

Admiral8Q

05-04-10, 02:44 PM

Probably between 128 and 1k then :03:

I'm going with 128 TC max on my way to recon Osaka.

Rockin Robbins

05-25-10, 01:11 PM

Hey guys! I was innocently stalking another thread on authentic methods of speed measurement in a pre-radar submarine. Someone popped up with the time the length across the wire method, which for some reason is very popular on Subsim. I'm afraid I blasted that great method as completely historically bogus.

So we talked about using bow wave and then stern wave to estimate speed. That works well, and in the game it's very reliable with experience. It was also used during the war.

But I was looking for a more analytical method, because that's my personal character defect :D, and ended up looking through the Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual from 1946 (link later). It was so great that it belongs here in your bag of tricks! It's amazing what happens when you look at what the real submariners did. There sure weren't stupid!

However, the stern wave is tremendously influenced by the hull shape, and of course there is a wide variety of hull shapes. You can also judge speed by the spacing between the bow wave and the quarter wave, which is further away from the bow wave with increasing speed.

Of all the methods, however, the bow wave is the most uniform between different ships.

Now this is all about the real thing and I don't know how closely the game reflects reality in this area.

Now here's an even better method stolen from the Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual of 1946 (http://hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm). It relies only on achieving a collision course with your target. This can be done at just about any own speed, and even submerged if need be. How do you know you are on a collision course? Your target's bearing doesn't change with time. Your target is traveling from right to left. So let's say you take a target bearing of 15 degrees. Two minutes later it's 20 degrees (sorry, the alt-0186 shortcut for the degree sign doesn't work in Linux and I don't want to chase down the equivalent right now.). This means that the target is lagging behind. Either change course slightly toward the target or slow down. Take another measurement two minutes later. If you're still at 20 degrees, you have achieved a collision course. Make minute adjustments over time until you hold the same bearing for over three minutes. Collision course achieved! It's chart time:

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Silent%20Hunter%204/collisioncoursespeedmeasurement.jpg

All right, in official Navy terms Ab is angle on the bow. You understand that. LA is the lead angle, that's the angle between the bearing line to the target and your bow. S sub T is target speed and S sub O is Own Speed. These abbreviations are used uniformly throughout official submarine attack procedures. So, reading the formula there, Target Speed equals your own speed times the sine of the lead angle divided by the sin of the angle on the bow. The real guys would work that out in seconds on a slide rule, so you may authentically use a calculator.

Now you have with perfect authenticity calculated the speed and can derive the exact course of your adversary. Is it too much for some game players? Sure it is. Is it possible to do within the game? Absolutely. It's what I will do next time I'm caught in a boat without radar! If I can. The eyeball methods are better for quickly developing situations where you either shoot quickly or not at all. Guess this post ends up in the Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks thread now...

And as a bonus, I found something else. You can put your target abeam and eyeball a relatively parallel course, right? You don't have to be accurate: 25 degrees off one way or another still yields pretty good results. Some idea of range is necessary too. But for what it's worth:
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Silent%20Hunter%204/abeamspeedmeasurement-1.jpg

OK, that means that you're on a parallel course with your target. Your courses are the same, but of course, your speeds are different. We'll just say he's a mile, 2000 yards, away. Taking a series of bearings, his bearing is decreasing, he's falling back of 2 degrees per minute and you're going 10 knots. So he's traveling two knots slower than you are! Peg that guy at 8 knots.

Now get on a collision course and do the other calc. This will confirm and give you a reliable range at the same time when you diagram it out at the plotting table!

WarlordATF

05-25-10, 03:40 PM

Rockin Robbins

05-25-10, 07:58 PM

Lol! It doesn't matter if the planes are realistic or not in SH4 with any mod configuration. They are not dangerous, cannot see you and cannot hurt you unless they get VERY VERY lucky if you follow my strategy.

The only weakness in my strategy is if you are engaged in a prolonged submerged approach to a target, you have lost situational awareness of the air and a plane accidentally spots you submerged. What can I say? War ain't totally safe.:D

rein1705

07-06-10, 05:26 PM

OR... if you're commanding the Narwhale.... you'll barely have time to get under. Hope you're a pretty fare hand with an AA gun. :D

Rockin Robbins

07-06-10, 05:43 PM

In that case you submerge when the plane is further away. When in frequently trafficked areas, running with decks awash would be a fuel consuming but smart tactic. Same deal though. You fight with planes and you're a loser. Either you shoot down cheap, easy to replace planes with your expensive, difficult to replace submarine (and are a chump for it) or a cheap, easy to replace airplane sinks an expensive, difficult to replace submarine (killing over 60 highly trained and difficult to replace men) and the sake flows freely tonight. Heads they win, tails you lose. That's not a good game to play.

Fight your battle, not theirs. YOU choose the game. Then it's heads you win, tails THEY lose. Never fight a fair fight. You have too much to lose.

Very nice sugar boat shot you have there!

rein1705

07-06-10, 06:20 PM

Thank you very much. And your advice has been priceless to me in the past. I was just pointing out that early in the war and even with the better air radar theres not a lot of warning time to dive the Narwhale if there headed directly in your path. i should have been a little more detaled maybe. I pretty much follow your tactics and only dive when i need to, run around 8-9 knots most the time and utilize my heavy guns when its safe enough. :salute:
Currently playing as the Narwhale Nov 42 out of Perth.

rein1705

07-06-10, 06:22 PM

PS. thats the S-36 in the pic. I played as her for a very long time and it's still my fave. I got the picture here: Submarine Photo Index (http://www.navsource.org/archives/08/08141.htm)

Rockin Robbins

07-06-10, 07:28 PM

Nice! I love playing the sugar boats in SH4! Out of Australia they're a blast.

sergei

07-07-10, 06:43 AM

OR... if you're commanding the Narwhale.... you'll barely have time to get under.

Using the Narwahl in TMO, running trimmed down in areas of high air cover is essential.
Learnt that by bitter experience :DL

badaboom

07-11-10, 07:41 AM

Wonderful info here,Thank You!!:rock:

Barkhorn1x

08-20-10, 08:10 AM

OK - maybe I missed it earlier in this thread - but; Can anyone point me to the link that describes - in a step-by-step manner - how to do a Stern/MOT/Bow distribution w/ the JPC method?

Rockin Robbins

09-06-10, 05:14 PM

I was looking at it just a couple of days ago. In order to do it you'll have to have a small bit of tolerance for imperfect solutions because we won't have time to update the AoB while doing this. It won't matter much in the location of the hits.

First of all, we want to do the stern, MOT, bow shot for two reasons. The first is that we are shooting the longest distance shot first. This makes run times closer together and your hits will be very close together, if not simultaneous. but the second reason is that when you shoot the bow, MOT, stern shot, all three torpedoes proceed in a single path toward the target in line ahead. By turning into the torpedoes, the target can easily evade. Evading one of them is evading all of them!

BUT when you shoot stern, MOT, bow, the torpedoes take the most divergent paths possible. Now they are spread out, not taking the same path. This makes it very difficult to evade all three torpedoes.

So let's do this monster for a target moving left to right! Set up your first shot up the 45º line just like normal. We'll estimate a 10º lead, so we'll point the boat up the 45º line and set our scope 10º left of that to the 350º bearing. Our AoB will be 45-10 or 35º starboard in this case with target traveling from left to right. We've got our speed from radar in our original plot of the target course. Our PK is off.

Now we'll diverge from our normal practice. Set our input TDC on the right so you can immediately send range/bearing because we're going to have to do that twice quickly!

We are waiting for our first shot with scope on the 350 bearing and we'll wait for almost the entire ship to cross the wire and aim our first shot to the stern area! Shot away.

Now aim the scope just ahead of the target and press the send range/bearing button. Wait for the MOT and shoot again.

Then jump just ahead of the target again and press that send range/bearing button. Shoot at the bow. Remember that after you press the send range/bearing button you cannot move the scope until after you shoot!

You're done. Taking the minimum time between shots by setting the TDC ahead of time for quick input of range/bearing has kept the consequences of the slightly inaccurate AoBs for shots two and three bearable. You might miss by five feet or so from the spot you aimed. He's still going to make a satisfying blub, blub, blub!

Let me know how your success goes!:salute:

reignofdeath

09-21-10, 08:18 PM

That would be very nice. I could try but I doubt I have any of the knowledge to put togethe such a thing, I mean I know basics?

Can someone knock together a DD evasion tutorial? I know its kind of hit and miss evading but a general idea on how to handle a sub and some evasion tactics might help some first timers.

Batch

11-21-10, 12:10 PM

Hey Sailors !

Anyone know what became of Legion's Noob Guide for casual gamers ? I am new to Silent Hunter 4 and have found the manual totally inadequate.

Regards,

Batch

Diopos

11-21-10, 12:25 PM

Hey Sailors !

Anyone know what became of Legion's Noob Guide for casual gamers ? I am new to Silent Hunter 4 and have found the manual totally inadequate.

Regards,

Batch

Link (http://www.filefront.com/14286753/Legion%27s_noob_guide.wmv)

.

Batch

11-21-10, 01:01 PM

Diopos,

Thanks a Million !!!

Batch

Rockin Robbins

12-17-10, 08:51 PM

I received a PM from taukarrie that was so good the I think it needs its own thread. As that thread sinks in the sunset, I think it deserves a place in the Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks thread:
your first O'Kane method tutrial that is. first off, very well done. a lot of my most recent ciritcal questions were answered by watching it just once. one question though...

when estimating your lead angle you, as a rule of thumb, go for 15 degrees. but you also said that it doesnt really matter what that number is. my question is why would you choose 15 degrees and why does that not matter?

it seems to me that the lead angle estimate is crucial for this method and to regard it so lightly confuses me.

thanks for your time. OK, I'm going to do this without reference to my video, so I may be correcting my own error here. Here is where language becomes very important and I believe that it's important that we be careful to use the same terminology as the military.

Why? Because knowing that lives are at stake, they take great pains in using carefully defined terms that can't be mistaken for each other. They are extremely disciplined in their use of terminology. They don't tolerate sloppiness too well. In this case the sloppiness may be mine, so let me set things straight.

Taukarrie, I think the problem comes with the definition of "lead angle." The lead angle is the difference between the shoot bearing or aiming bearing, along which you sight your periscope at the target, and the bearing the torpedo travels to impact the target you're looking at. Of course, if the TDC just sent the torpedo up the aiming bearing, by the time the torpedo got there the target would be gone! But you've told the TDC that the target is on a course at right angles to your own, traveling at 8 knots. From that the TDC does its analog calculation mumbo-jumbo and says, well, I have to send the torpedo 10º (or whatever lead angle) ahead of the aiming bearing.

You see, Dick O'Kane came about because of my stupid mistake. I was using Gutted's great chart, which he had just adapted for fleet boats. It looks like this:
https://image.ibb.co/g9pPZa/OKane90_Firing_Angles.png

OK, so you pick the target speed out of the first column, travel across the row to the column reflecting the torpedo speed and there's your lead angle. We'll take a target traveling left to right at 8 knots. For a fast torpedo your lead angle is 9º. You subtract 9 from 360, where you want the boom to occur, and sight your periscope up the 351 bearing. So your lead angle is 9º and your aiming bearing is 351º. When the target crosses the wire, you push the button, the torpedo zips up the zero bearing and kaboom!

So I did it wrong when I first tried it. I looked across the 8 knot line and picked the wrong column. That gave me the 14½º lead angle for the slow torpedo. I aimed up the 345½º bearing and pushed the button. The torpedo shot up the zero bearing just as it was supposed to but there was no boom. The target got there after the torpedo did. I was a bit miffed.

Then I had an idea. If I could screw that up, so could everyone else. And that chart only had columns for fast and slow Mark 14s. How about Mark 18s and Cuties? Heck, that's two more columns to make twice as many mistakes! The chart is great but we are not. How can we fix that?

It just so happens we have a built-in chart on board that automatically knows what torpedo and what torpedo speed we have selected. It NEVER makes a mistake. It's called the TDC. When we're using the chart, we tell the TDC where we want the torpedo to go and WE pick the lead angle. Let's do it backwards!

Instead, let the stupid people pick the aiming bearing only! The TDC can calculate the lead angle for us and send the torpedo up any bearing it needs to to make a boom. In the Dick O'Kane bearing we pick an arbitrary aiming bearing with a goal of getting somewhere close to a boom at the zero bearing. That's where the rules of thumb come from: under 15 knots, pick 350 or 10 as the aiming bearing, knowing that the lead angle is going to be somewhere around 10º. If you have a faster target than that pick 20º and aim up the 340 or 20 bearings, depending on which direction the target is coming from.

Now this aiming bearing means nothing at all to the solution! Let me explain. Our target is coming left to right at 8 knots. I'm going to choose my 10º offset and aim up the 350º bearing. The TDC is set for 8 knots, AoB 90º-the 10º correction for an aiming bearing of 350º. But that 10º isn't the lead angle! It is the correction for the aiming bearing. We're letting the TDC set the lead angle. And if you check Gutted's chart you can see that the TDC does its magic and calculates the lead angle as 9º. So it adds 9º to the aiming bearing of 350º and sends the torpedo up the 359º bearing. BOOM!

So aiming bearing: where you point your scope. THAT's what we arbitrarily pick by rule of thumb in the Dick O'Kane method! And yes, we can actually pick any aiming bearing we wish. The TDC will hit the target regardless.

torpedo track bearing: the path of your torpedo. That is calculated by the TDC much more precisely that we can with a chart!
lead angle: the angle between those two bearings

Clear as mud?:up:

I'm goin' down

12-17-10, 09:52 PM

Hypo 1:

It's Thanksgiving. A 450 foot wood duck, quacking wildly, is traveling from left to right at 8 kts, range 2,000 yds., bearing 270 degrees and closing. (It is lost and not flying very fast.) You put your shotgun away because it does not have enough fire power to bring down waterfowl of such immense size, and forget that it is Thanksgiving. You decide to take it out with a torpedo! You set the scope to 350 degrees, set Aob to to 80 degrees starboard (i.e. the duck is showing you its starboard feathers), and set range to 2,000 yards. Even though the PK is not activated, the TDC, which never sleeps, calculates a lead angle of 9 degrees. If you fire when the duck crosses the wire (i.e. at 350 degrees), the duck and torpedoes should rondeveous at 359 degrees. (See gutted's chart posted by Robbins.)

Hypo 2:

Same duck as hypo 1, but you spilled your coffee, and did not fire when it crossed the wire at 350 degrees. You still want to take a shot at it, because a portion of the duck is better than not eating on Thanksgiving, and your kids are hungry. Swivel your periscope to a bearing of 10 degrees. Reset Aob to 100 degrees starboard, as the duck is flying away from you and still showing its starboard feathers. Click range. The TDC will recalcuate the lead angle, which will be approximately 9 degrees. (The TDC will calcuate the precise lead angle, which could be slightly more or less than 9 degrees.) Fire when the duck crosses the wire (i.e. 10 degrees) and the torpedo should hit the duck on its starboard side at a bearing of approximately 19 degrees [wood duck crosses wire and torpedo fired at a bearing of 10 degrees + 9 degree lead angle = torpedo and wood duck rondeveous at a bearing of approximately 19 degrees], as the TDC, even though the PK is not activated, calculated a lead angle of approximately 9 degrees. Dinner is served!

The key is that the TDC will calculate the lead angle since it operates even if the PK (Position Keeper) is not activated.

Download gutted's remarkable Solution Solver program, and once you are familiar with it, you can input the variables of these hypotheticals and confirm Robbins' instruction. Don't forget to reset range when switching from a fast to a slow torpedo or vice-versa, because that will impact the TDC's calculation of the lead angle. And in the early war, set your torpedeos to run fairly shallow, as the Navy manufactured them to run too deep and did not tell anybody.
__________________

ronjonthobi

08-09-11, 03:28 PM

i hope the make this into a fps like silent h8unter 5 just without all the bugs and crap

Son44

09-18-11, 11:29 AM

Been a long time since i played the game or checked the forum. Thanks for the awesome collections of tutorials (It's gonna help be remove the rust from my tactics xD)

Gerald

09-18-11, 11:30 AM

@Son44. Welcome to SubSim! :salute:

cdrsubron7

09-23-11, 04:09 PM

It seems like most of the links for the manual TDC videos and tutorials are dead. Anyone know where I can download or access them?

Thanks for your help in advance. :salute:

Able Brown

09-23-11, 06:27 PM

It seems like most of the links for the manual TDC videos and tutorials are dead. Anyone know where I can download or access them?

Here are some of my favorites. None on are on easy and none are with mods:

Silent Hunter 4 Manual Targeting Noob version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y58dWSILYY&feature=related

SH4 Double Attack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnOsBxVi84U&feature=related

400 M Torpedo Attack

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwk8rDRpemc&feature=related

Radar Approach:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6kq4simwI0&feature=related

I couldn't find a "best of" playlist I liked.

Rockin Robbins

09-23-11, 07:49 PM

A lot of those links are mine. I'll have to check them out and see which ones work. Good think I've kept local copies of all of them. The Internet is a beastly unreliable place to store stuff. Sure wish Subsim had a way to store the videos, but they're strictly limited. Filefront has been totally reworked in a way that isn't very friendly to what we do any more.

I'll look around and see what works.

cdrsubron7

09-23-11, 10:15 PM

Thanks, Guys. :D :yeah:

19Herr_Rapp86

10-09-11, 11:33 AM

I've noticed that most of the tactics I have learned from SH3GWX can be carried over to SH4TMO. The map has similar overlay tools for manual plotting and targeting techniques.(Thank you Paul "Wazoo" Wasserman!) And of course you can't forget your trusty whiz wheel :)

19Herr_Rapp86

10-09-11, 11:55 AM

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Rockin Robbins

10-09-11, 02:56 PM

Wow! I haven't seen CapnScurvy's Angle on the Bow Calculator in years, although I have one in the chair 4 feet from me. Here's the link to his Angle on the Bow and Speed Calculators web page (http://myplace.frontier.com/%7Elee4pat241/index.html)!

19Herr_Rapp86

10-09-11, 03:29 PM

Great tools to improve the realism that much more :)

I'm goin' down

10-09-11, 05:30 PM

gutted's solution solver program comes with an angle on the bow calculator built in and ready to go. It is quite extraordinary. You can input the target speed and it will indicate the finite shoot bearing at any angle. He had a three parted video post on you tube for awhile that explained how it worked. I would pay for that device if someone would make one --hint, hint.

19Herr_Rapp86

10-09-11, 07:16 PM

And you can never go sailing without the 2 most important items of all....

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Rockin Robbins

10-09-11, 08:00 PM

My personal preference is to play with no external tools at all. No pausing the game and destroying my immersion to work any version of whiz wheel. No alt-tabbing to any angle on the bow calculator. I don't find that any of that is necessary at all and they ruin the flow of the game.

The real captains had to make decisions in real time and if we want to experience something valid that they experienced, time should not be stopped during the attack.

Sometimes these external tools actually increase complexity while giving you the same answer as determining enemy course and speed by plotting two radar positions 3 minutes apart. Then you can find angle on the bow with the protractor, clicking on the target track ahead of the target, clicking again on the target and a third time on the center of your sub. The angle shown is the AoB. Why leave the game to get it? You just can't get it any more accurately or as quickly any other way.

Yes, it would be nice if we had some more authentic tools in the game. But replacing them with external tools forces us into god mode where we have to stop time to use them.

That being said, if CapnScurvy's Angle on the Bow calculator were available in-game, I'd use it because my objection would be met and I no longer would have to alt-tab out or pause the game.

I'm goin' down

10-09-11, 08:02 PM

Double R, aka RR, should love this. Tracked and sunk an Otari Toramuzu with the OTC real scopes mod at night with no moon, map contacts disabled. Because the dd (or whatever it is) probably had radar, I did not use the TBT, which has illuminated Telemeter markings to get range at night. Plus, with Tokkyo's Revenge, if my sub were at TBT depth (around 30 feet), I am confident it would have been spotted. The OTC real scope's periscope's Telemeter marks are not illuminated, so it is usless at night. Thus the OTC mod could not be of help in planning this attack. What to do? Easy! Set up with an O'Kane shot per the Double R tutorials. (Did I ever understand that technique? We will find out, won't we?) The Otari Tormamuzu was steaming like a bat out of hell at 21 kts. Sheesh. It must have been going to a party or was late for a date! I set up with a 20 degree lead angle and fired as it crossed the wire at 20 degrees (Aob 70 degrees port). It looked like the torpedoes were off course, heading to the extreme port side (left side) of my boat. But wait. The dd, charging like a bull at Pamplona, steamed past 0 degrees, past 355 degrees, past 350 degrees, past 345 degrees, and there it was, sailing directly in front of four torpedoes wakes which were on a course closing on it fast. Two or three(?) hits at 340 degrees port side! I paused the game and grinned. She is going down! Break out the whiskey! Er... I meant the ice cream. Back to the game... so I can watch it sink.

Rockin Robbins

10-09-11, 08:07 PM

Holy Toledo, this guy is making whiskey ice cream!:har:

19Herr_Rapp86

10-09-11, 10:57 PM

Touche on your comment RR! Yes you can not have a god mode and stop time. Completely unrealistic. I put tons of hours in on SH3 GWX at perfecting my manual targeting skills. Observations, distance/speed conversions off observations, all that good stuff. I've got using my AOB calculator and making observations down to a science, mate. No alt-tab or pause needed. :) Once I have course and speed entered into the computer AOB is easy and fast to come up with. My course + target course + bearing. Timing target zigs comes into play sometimes so AOB is not too difficult there either. My method is to observe general course, and get an angle on bow reading after the first zig, wait for the second zig, then fire on the third zig. Doesn't take enough time to pause game or alt-tab. I've got a pretty effective system set up. It's working for me, and that's really the key, right? Every captain has their own method, and what works for them, works. :)

CapnScurvy

10-10-11, 10:21 AM

With the use of "tools" comes a learning curve. Like we used to say "this guys so green, he doesn't know which end of the shovel to pick up"!

For most players learning which side is Port, Starboard, what's Relative Bearing, what's Angle on Bow, are new terms that need digesting. The manipulation of a tool like a slide rule, Omnimeter, Is-Was, the AoB Calculator, the To-North protractor on the Navigation Map, all need time to understand and use. Once understood and practiced a seamless progression could be made with real time.

The point is, in real life there was a whole group of trained specialists that were a part of the "Firing Party". Each having their specific task to do and check, while the Approach Officer (usually the Captain) sighted the target. This manual, the "Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual (http://www.hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm)" in Chapter 4, referrers to anywhere between 13 to 15 men involved in the firing solution process (depending on what detection system is being used). It stands to reason that the game does not lend itself to use manual targeting and simulate these different specialists duties within a real time environment. Sure, we can with Automatic Targeting, but who wants to follow the "green triangle" to tell us when to fire. There's more to this game than just that.

So a compromise must be struck between a simulation of real duties/activities and real time passage. There is no crime to "take time" in ones attempt to make a simulation of the various tasks involved. As you learn, the process will become less time consuming, more automatic.

Yes, having the firing technique of setting up close to a passing ships track and "leading" the target as if it's a duck flying past a blind, doesn't take a slide rule to figure the shot. If it was always that simple though, the "Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual" could have been only 5 pages long! It's not, and for good reason. The purpose is to learn all aspects of preforming your tasks, in all different situations. Isn't that what we find ourselves doing? Each of us simulating what we believe is reality for the enjoyment of playing a game that can be played differently?

Rockin Robbins

10-10-11, 10:46 AM

And Scurvy has a point. They didn't pluck some bozo from the street and say "You're in command of a submarine! Good luck!" They had an extensive training period where they played war games. The most detailed discussion of this wargame training process is in the Run Silent Run Deep trilogy. Edward Beach (every submarine captain had his own firing party proceedure and some were quite diverse. Sometimes the captain figured he should be the one looking through the periscope, Morton and O'Kane figured the captain was a supervisor and the exec should be getting the periscope experience to move up to command of a submarine.) where was I?

Edward Beach explains how the war gaming procedure worked (really primitive and fascinating how they actually achieved enough realism to do the job!) and in that, they DID have the freedom to freeze time, talk over how they would run the procedures on the boat, learn to use all the tools, etc. Of course, with experience they evolved into a completely real-time process to have as much transfer as possible between dry land training and submarine application.

We should probably progress the same way, feeling free to stop time, puzzle out our procedures, work the tools, set the settings and then resume time again, when we are learning manual targeting. I think the whole thing could get really overwhelming otherwise, because even for an experienced player who knows what keys do what, is that starboard or port AoB, what do I do differently to set up a stern shot, what's that time/distance formula again, when all that is automatic, we STILL get pressed by time sometimes to the point that the prudent thing is to pull out and set up another attack. You have to develop the spider senses that tell you "the attack is blown" or "we're still good to go, shoot stupid!"

Please keep in mind that when I say my preference is to play in real time with no external tools, part of the reason is that it is appropriate for my level of experience. That advice would be foolish for a beginner unless he were learning the Dick O'Kane technique. Even then I bet he would want to pause the game and think about it a couple of times at first.

Part of what Silent Hunter teaches us is that there is a reason why there were so many misses in the war. Shoot or don't shoot wasn't a simple question of "are we still good" but also "if I don't shoot now will I get another chance before he kills me?" A shot not taken never hits. In combat, time is a harsh mistress. When lives are on the line, torpedoes get mighty cheap.:rock:

Arlo

10-10-11, 11:05 AM

I'm goin' down

10-10-11, 11:58 AM

Arlo, If I started barking voice commands to raise the pericope, take her to periscope depth, etc., my three poodles would certify me as "nuts."

Speaking of pausing the game and having more than one person on the firing team, yesterday I forgot to slow down my boat's approach and overshot its ideal firing point by several hundred yards. By the time I realized it, the Bizo Maru, which I had tracked for an hour, was almost on top of me. I fired from a few hundred yards off of its starboard beam, and all shots failed to detonate -- too close to detonate. I was so close the gunners on the target fired at the torpedoes' wakes. If I had only paused the game to check out the details .... And my Tambor had no deck gun, so the target escaped unscathed. A rare miss at close range with the OTC/real scopes/map contacts disabled....Arrrggghhh!

Rockin Robbins

10-10-11, 01:23 PM

My kingdom (or what passes for it) for audible commands and information I could speak into a mike while looking through the scope and a crew that mans the TDC and other stations inputting the information I give verbally.

Alas .... meh.

Still the best submarine sim evah. :shucks:

I'll take a pass on your kingdom, but there is an add-on that works fine! Let me get back to you on that one after I find all the links and local files.

Okay, there are two, count 'em! two solutions. One is a program called Shoot! 1.6.4 Main page (http://clans.gameclubcentral.com/shoot/). Download page (http://clans.gameclubcentral.com/shoot/downloads.php). It comes with an SH3 configuration file that I used extensively. When my wife began looking at me as if I were possessed, I kind of quit using the program. I THINK I have a configuration file I made up for SH4 somewhere around here. This program works magnificently, translating your words into keyboard commands and passing them on to SH4.

The second is a mod made specifically for SH4 called either shSpeech or sh4Speech, by minsc_tdp, because the author discovered that his program was useful for far more than SH4. No kidding!!! Anyway, you can download this at http://knepfler.com/shSpeech, and you can read the original thread at http://www.subsim.com/radioroo/showthread.php?t=119430 (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=119430). I've used it too and it works wonderfully.

Both have configuration files that you can edit. Shoot! has a configuration editor program that I like. I've edited it in my favorite text editor (notebook ++) too.

It's about time somebody asked the question that brings these two great additions to Silent Hunter back in the public eye!

19Herr_Rapp86

10-10-11, 05:46 PM

Voice mods.... I like that! :D

I'm goin' down

10-10-11, 06:09 PM

"!#ck yo!, you SOB," he said, as the crew fired torpedoes, ordered to do so upon hearing utterance of the voice command.

19Herr_Rapp86

10-10-11, 10:13 PM

Kapitanleutnant Rapp

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/9008/img00295201110102202.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/708/img00295201110102202.jpg/)

19Herr_Rapp86

10-10-11, 10:16 PM

Off topic I know. Sorry guys

Rockin Robbins

10-11-11, 11:41 AM

He really should quit smoking. That could kill him, you know!:har::har::har:

19Herr_Rapp86

10-11-11, 12:11 PM

:har::har::har:

Smoking was the cause of a majority of the u-boat crews deaths in WWII!!!! LMAO

Platapus

10-14-11, 07:02 PM

And as a bonus, I found something else. You can put your target abeam and eyeball a relatively parallel course, right? You don't have to be accurate: 25 degrees off one way or another still yields pretty good results. Some idea of range is necessary too. But for what it's worth:
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa293/RockinRobbins13/Silent%20Hunter%204/abeamspeedmeasurement-1.jpg

OK, that means that you're on a parallel course with your target. Your courses are the same, but of course, your speeds are different. We'll just say he's a mile, 2000 yards, away. Taking a series of bearings, his bearing is decreasing, he's falling back of 2 degrees per minute and you're going 10 knots. So he's traveling two knots slower than you are! Peg that guy at 8 knots.

I could not tell from your post whether these were your words or someone else's words you were quoting.

I do not believe that would work. It is really designed for a stationary observation viewpoint where it is simple trig function to calculate the angle. Hence the warning about the statement disregarding the movement of the submarine.

This is because, if stationary, you are constructing a simple triangle with the submarine at one of the vertexes and the ship movement forming the two end points of the opposite side of the triangle. Knowing the relationship between the angle changing over the period of observation and the range, it is possible to calculate the speed. However at ranges over 2,000 yards one would either need to be able to measure the bearing to 0.01 precision or extend the period of observation for longer (10-15 minutes minimum). This can be demonstrated using Excel with the formula =DEGREES(atan(b/a)) where b= the target ship and a= range.

All this works great at long as the submarine is stationary. Once the submarine moves the simple triangle problem becomes a very complex quadrilateral problem.

I just don't think we would ever have enough information to be able to solve a single quadrilateral problem like this. I am trying to work out whether a series of contiguous quadrilaterals might be workable but so far it does not look good.

If, and this is a large if, I can steer my submarine on a parallel course with the target ship, the problem becomes a trapezoidal problem. But the only immediate payoff of that would be that I could calculate the target's AoB and, therefor, the target's course.

AoB = 180 - bearing to target (expressed as a number 0-180 not 0-359). Note, this only applies when the submarine is on a parallel course with the target.

If, I somehow know the target's speed, I can take two bearings over a measured interval and calculate the range...this is not a simple formula but a combination of separate geometry and trig calculations. I am trying to find them and baring that I will try to create it.

Surprisingly calculating the range using this method is pretty straightforward if you use plotting paper and scale drawings, but trying to find a series of equations is challenging.

Rockin Robbins

10-16-11, 01:36 PM

Actually the post tells where the method comes from and the info is a screenshot. It's part of the official US Navy Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual of 1946 (http://hnsa.org/doc/attack/index.htm). And it is self-validating. Just reading it and understanding what it says reveals a proof of concept from within the method.

It's a simple concept of relative motion. You are constantly in motion. In fact, if you are at the equator, you are rotating with the earth at 1,000 mph, while simultaneously orbiting the Sun at about 100,000 mph. However, in our relative motion calculations with the submarine and target, we ignore both of those components and do not end up with a multiple variable solution.

This method simply stops the motion of your submarine and calculates the target speed relative to your stopped submarine. Let's say you calculate 2 knots, Yeah! But the sub is moving 10 knots. Fine. We know he's going 2 knots more than we are. 10 + 2 means our target is moving 12 knots.

If our method "stops" our submarine, we eliminate that variable. The result is that our resulting single variable solution is only calculating the target speed relative to ours. It's the simple method of eliminating a variable by expressing it in terms of another variable, then ending up with a single variable equation.

It works. Don't believe me, it's not my idea. Believe the US Navy!

Solidsnake2234

10-16-11, 04:06 PM

I need the Sonar manual targeting, yet all the downloads were erased from the website it's on. can anyone help me?

Rockin Robbins

10-16-11, 07:54 PM

I'm still looking for a sticky place to put all the video downloads. The written tutorials and mods are okay, but the videos were all dumped by Filefront when they became Gamefront. They're busily destroying their usefulness and that is somehow supposed to make them money. It's very complicated I'm sure and it resulted in this community losing a lot of valuable information.

I had planned for that to happen from the beginning and have all my material backed up locally. But, as I said, I'm still looking for a good and sticky place to put it all back on the web.

Any ideas?

EDIT: I am uploading the WernerSobe videos to 2shared right now. We'll see how long they live. When the files are uploaded I will update links. Sure wish these tutorials could live on Subsim where they would be valued and preserved.

White Owl

10-16-11, 08:11 PM

I'll toss out the kinda obvious suggestion for the tutorial videos: how about Youtube?

Rockin Robbins

10-16-11, 08:47 PM

Stooooooooooooopid me. Duh. That's a brilliant solution and I'll get right on it.

In the meantime the WernerSobe video links are now fixed in post #1 and point to 2shared for now. That will change as I get videos to You Tube.

Thanks for the necessary step of pointing me to the obvious! Yikes. Just when I had it all together I forgot where I put it! Somebody slug me.........

White Owl

10-16-11, 08:51 PM

It only seemed obvious to me because it seems I spend half my internet time these days uploading things to Youtube. :)

19Herr_Rapp86

10-16-11, 10:11 PM

I seem to have found a reliable solution for destroyers. (Though not recommended. My tactics seem to be more aggressive than a lot of the sub skippers I see on here. Besides, the speed and maneuverability of a destroyer make for a poor target and tend to waste fish.) So far, have successfully sank 14 destroyers using this method, and would be good to note that I have only encountered 14 destroyers on my patrols ;) I set my course to have a 0 degree bearing on my target. When he commences his attack run (points his bow straight at you, pings with active sonar, and starts zig-zagging), I completely clear the TDC, set first to fire at a 0 degree bearing, next 2 (in rapid succession), at 5 degree left and right bearings, and the next 2 at 8 degree right and left bearings. The destroyer can not as it seems, outmaneuver that particular spread of fish. It seems thus far as a good destroyer tactic. (Though please keep in mind that it requires 5 torpedoes, not counting the possibility of duds, run-deeps, etc, and that I personally recommend not attacking a destroyer unless the situation is absolutely perfect for you and you have not been detected. This method I will note is for use when you have been detected and the destroyer is making his attack run) (also to note, the best range for this particular spread is between (1200 and 900 yards)

Rockin Robbins

10-17-11, 10:18 AM

That would work. But expending five torpedoes for 1300 tons is mighty expensive tonnage. That's one I would only use if my life depended on it. Usually I put 'em on my stern and do the same zero degree solution in the TDC. I preset the TDC into send bearing/range mode.

I hit ahead emergency as the DD comes up on me, lock the target and hit the send bearing/range button. Then it's attack map time. As soon as he gets inside 450 yards, fire one and hit crash dive, keeping full throtte. make a turn when you're 100' down or so, straighten out the rudder when you're at least 45º off course, wait for "passing thermal layer" and hit the silent running button <ctrl-z>.

That way either I heard a boom and I got my DD or I missed and I'm safe. Either way I've only collected 1/4 of the guaranteed misses of the high probability shot and can try four more times if I have to. This is about a one-third chance of sinking the DD. The key is to continue in a straight line as you dive until after the torpedo hits or misses. Then make your avoidance turn. Too early and he will follow the turn resulting in a guaranteed miss.

Rockin Robbins

10-17-11, 10:19 AM

Videos are uploaded to You Tube and all links in post 1 are good to go!:D

19Herr_Rapp86

10-17-11, 12:33 PM

Hey bud, says your vids have been removed by youtube because they are too long

19Herr_Rapp86

10-17-11, 12:35 PM

They work on your personal youtube page though

Rockin Robbins

10-17-11, 05:14 PM

<grumble, grumble, grumble> I'll have to chase that rabbit later. Yikes. I tested them all and now You Tube's having a cow? Sheesh. I'll be back later tonight to try to sort it all out.:woot:

Rockin Robbins

10-17-11, 08:19 PM

Okay the only two videos that are gone are the two Dick O'Kane videos, normal and sonar only. They are gone from my You Tube Channel also. I'll have to see if I can edit them down or maybe put them on 2shared. I just don't know how long videos last on 2shared before they are deleted. Everything else works!

White Owl

10-17-11, 08:53 PM

Were the videos longer than 15 minutes? Youtube limits you to 15 minutes until you upload several videos. Nobody seems to know exactly how they figure when to change your limit, since it's different for everybody.

Rockin Robbins

10-18-11, 08:07 PM

I have to check the lengths. I'll bet they're over the limit (because that's what the message on You Tube said......). It's always something......:D

scubamatt

11-08-11, 04:00 PM

Coming back after several years gone, and I remember watching the Dick O'Kane Sonar Only attack video. It changed the entire game for me.

I was excited, and then depressed, to discover the link in this thread leads to YouTube's 'sorry we removed this video' comment. (scuttles YouTube)

If you get them up and running somewhere, I swear I'm gonna figure out a way to copy them to a DVD and burn myself a permanent SH4 reference disc. Those are fantastic tools for any sub driver.

norppis

01-27-12, 01:44 AM

Oh wow, as a new subsimmer these are veery helpful! :yeah:

I'm goin' down

01-27-12, 03:07 AM

all of the links are great. For attacks, if you want to start with the basics, I would look at the constant bearing technique, and move on the the Dick O'Kane method. When you get really good at those, move on to manual targeting using the Easy Aob mod, the OTC mod, or, if you have lots of time on your hands, the 3D TDC and Radar Range Mod. Mobo is the most incredible program in the forum. It will knock your socks off.

Just so you know, RSRDC is a mod that mirrors Japanese convoy and task force traffic in the war. So, for example, if you want to fight in the battle of Midway, the enemy fleet will be at that location in June '42. Same for Coral Sea, the Marianas Turkey Shoot, etc.

fright52

02-07-12, 01:12 AM

:damn: Is there any basic tutorial that shows how to use navigation tools for plotting course, finding bearings etc. Tired of zig-zagging and making "donuts" in the pacific. Ubisoft manual leaves a lot to be desired for beginners.
SH4 is fantastic! Just tired of dying and not knowing why. Help greatly appreciated.

magic452

02-07-12, 02:49 AM

Welcome to the boat mate. :salute:

It's pretty easy. Go to the navigation map, that's the second button in from the left on the top row. Double click this button. That opens the navigation map.

On the lower row of buttons the third on in from the left will say "Plot course". Just click this and a line will show on the map. One end of the line is anchored to your sub. The other end is at your mouse pointer. Just move the mouse to where you want to go and left click, that will place the end of the line where you click and the sub will follow that line, it's your course. You can click on the second point and start another line to a different place on the map and click there and a second line will be locked. You can set way points in your course to take you any place you need to go.

At any time you can click on any way point and drag it to a different place. You can also click on any way point and release the mouse button and draw a new course from that point and any way points after the one you clicked on will be erased.

If you turn off the plotted course using the compass you will head where the compass is clicked. If you click the E you will change course to the east. To return to your original course there is a button in the bottom row that says "Return to course" Click that and you will head to your next way point. If you have a way point set anywhere you will see a line from your sub and it will go to the next way point.

The three dials on the lower right are for speed, course and depth.
there are tabs under each and clicking the tabs will bring up different dials that will do the same things.

Read the sticky post at the top of the main page and there is a ton of information there.
try this one
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107783

And this one.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=146795

Magic