Range and accuracy

[Von Due]

When you guys determine range to target, either by periscope or UZO, what level of accuracy do you expect, and what do you settle for? What I'm looking for is a cue on what errors one can expect, what is decent, what is poor and what is unrealisticly good, when determining range.

I understand accuracy depends on distance to target, among several other factors but let's assume some standard ranges, 1000m, 3000m and 6000m. Visibility not a factor.

What will you accept for error in each of these 3 cases?

Last, just to add some context to this:
How often do you hit the point you aimed at, within say, plus/minus 20 meters as opposed to how often do you hit more than 20 meters from the point you aimed at?

[bstanko6]

Hey Von Due, its a matter of experience. I have been playing this game a long time, and I can tell you that I usually hit where I am pointing at at 100% realism.

This is not bragging, its just from the years of experience. I have missed plenty of ships, had duds, and premature detonations over the years.

When it comes to range, range only gives the time you can expect impact. So if I have a convoy I could care less about range unless I am taking a long shot!

Lets say its a single merchant. For the UZO, I usually just use my watch officer to give me a general bearing and distance. I am only looking to perform my 3 bearing method on the map to determine ships direction and AOB. its not that accurate, but it works for me.

When submerged, I use the attack ring on the maGUI F. I never use the stademeter anymore. The ring is pretty good. But again I only depend on a range when I "NEED" to know when torpedo will hit.

I "NEED" to know when the torp will hit when I am surfaced at night and want to know how long I have to boogy out of there when the destroyers come looking for me in my current area.

Last night I had to attack a convoy in day time, because they were heading into the British isle. It was my only shot, so I was submerged and needed to know when the torp will hit. I usually send my fish flying, and flank my IXb out of the area and deep!!! And sunk a troopship!

Accuracy is great for range but not entirely needed. For plotting I just want a general area, and direction of travel of my target on the map! I am simply looking for a 90deg shot setup.

Hope that helps!

[Von Due]

Thanks for the input. Reasons I ask what you guys settle for and how accurate you can get it are a few:

Right now I have no idea really if my estimates are concidered good, poor or average, or stupid poor or stupid good. Say I do 3 readings on a target and get the results 2000m, 2700m, 1300m (close to actual gameplay results in heavy wind conditions). To me this sounds stupid poor but if that's how accurate I can expect it to be in high waves then it would be average and something I would be more willing to accept.

For the 3 bearing method, without hydrophone line overlays on the nav map and the initial contact 20 km away, it's common for me to see the calculated position to be off by more than 700 meters, course off by more than 2 degrees and speed can be wildly off. With the hydrophone lines I can get it down to within 10-20 meters, course within 0.5 degrees and speed within 0.5 kts which to me is stupid good.

Another reason I ask is I am still experimenting with what errors I could introduce by not having the periscope set up correctly when doing the reading, and to find the proper way of using the periscope for more accurate readings.

Yet another reason I ask is, I want to move onto angled shots, that is not 90 degrees shot. For that I need accurate distance for the torpedo turn and gyro setup. Even at close range being off by 300 meters matters a great deal.

So again, at the bottom of it, I want to know what one can expect in terms of accuracy in itself when it cones to range finding specifically.

[bstanko6]

And if you are really looking to "fry your noodle", try the UZO tick marks manually! Canovaro has a documents package that gives you a range per mast height according to power of the optic you are using. The UZO is about a 7x. Try that and see how well you do. Every so often I try to get away from using automated or assisted ranging/plotting techniques.

[Von Due]

The UZO tick marks are a bit of a puzzle. Sometimes a factor of 7 seems to work, other times it's 7.5. 7.5 seems to give better results on more occations though so right now I'm assuming it's 7.5 or thereabout.

I also have the MaGui night attack marks which, when combined with the regular tick marks seem to average at a very good result.

EDIT:

I am compliling data for other ship parts as well for, hopefully, all ships in the game. For instance, the chimney height on a large tanker I have estimated to be about 6.2 meters from the top of the superstructure and 21 meters from the waterline. Another example is the medium C2 cargo, with an estimated chimney height above the waterline of 20.8 meters and the estimated height of the 1st tall mast from the bow, from the base of the mast to the top, to be 13.3 meters. The idea behind these non-waterline heights is that they will work no matter how heavy the ship is in the sea, the height of a mast or a chimney, from a non-waterline mark, will stay the same always.