Attacking moving objects: Four bearings method or not...

[easy]

I'm now ready to attempt to attack moving ships (as opposed to stationary ships). I've read a lot about "four bearings tactics" (quite complex) but also captains who write "I don't do that anymore" or "I never do that".

My question : if you don't attack according to the "four bearings method", then how?

[razark]

Observe target, plot on map.
Wait some known time.
Observe target, plot on map.
Do some measuring and math, you now have its course and speed.


Maneuver to get to a firing point in front of the target, enter relevant data into the TDC, and fire at the appropriate time.

[derstosstrupp]

Exactly, it doesn’t need to be any more complex than razark describes.

Here’s my beef with 4-bearing method:

Many of us play these games as simulators, not perfect ones, but try to play them to the best of our historical knowledge. This method was developed in the 1950s in the US when submarine warfare was transitioning to sub versus sub during the Cold War, when submarines needed a way to develop solutions on passive bearings only, pinging active sonar being a bad idea.

It is perfectly mathematically valid to use it, but highly anachronistic, and also very much impossible given the nature of targets in World War II. Convoys, and almost always single ships zigzagged, quite erratically so. This method assumes and works on a target on a steady course and speed. Nor does it really make sense in these games, since there are way easier ways to skin the cat.

People use it in my opinion for two reasons. One, they don’t know that there are easier ways out there that are coincidentally also more historical. Or two, as it appears “mystical”, they want to smell their own farts and demonstrate how smart they are by being able to do this mystical exercise. But it’s silly, because it’s making your life artificially more difficult for the sake of looking really smart. There is no sense in staying submerged and trying to figure things out by listening to passive bearings, when you can be on the surface observing enemy behavior with your eyeballs.

So my recommendation is to just stick with history, and use the methods that these guys developed, which worked best for them. I describe what I call the first principles of torpedo shooting in this post below, and also touch on a preferred method of gathering data historically, matching course and speed (at least for the Germans, forgot I’m in SH4 area lol). The method razark describes, plotting based on ranges and bearings, was the primary method used by the US boats, comparing the plot with the TDC’s position keeper output and refining the solution.

https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=2747651&postcount=5