Intercepting Question

[trenken]

I have an enemy south of me at about 1km, moving south at 7knots. I made a little diagram below just to show you the positioning. Again, he is heading south. I need to get perpendicular to him so I can hit him with a torp at 90 degrees. But I don't know much about intercepting even though I have read a bit on it, and don't know how to figure out how fast I need to go, and where I need to set the point that I need to make a turn toward him this was I can be in a good position for the shot.


* me
* him

[Wolfram]

I know not the immediate answer but here is a link to an excellent document:

http://www.paulwasserman.net/SHIII/

aka Wazoo's Tutorial, I think section 3

:lurk:

[trenken]

Great. Thanks man!

[P_Funk]

Intercepting a ship, so long as you know generally its course and speed, is cake. Its not science really. You can use math to determine how long it will take going a certain way at a certain speed to overtake your target but really all you have to do is head at a diagonal angle towards him and off to one side a bit (in your case SE or SW) so that you dont come within range of him seeing you. Then you have to select a speed thats faster than his (obviously more than just 1 or 2 knots faster) and once you reach a good distance between you two you can straighten out and go parallel to his course. You should then over take him and follow basic protocol in attacking a ship.

However before you should decide if its worth the time and fuel to chase him. If it turns out to be a dinky little merchant then its a big waste of your fuel (remember that overtaking a ship going 7 knots can take alot of fuel).

[Dantenoc]

http://subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=48026
Also try the Wiki manual... there's a sticky subject about it on the top of the forum

[trenken]

OK. I checked the tuturial on http://www.communitymanuals.com/shiii/index.php?title=Intercepting_Targets.

There is one thing that I don't think they explain. And I went through this twice in the game where I find a ship, and do the whole triangle thing. The one thing I don't understand is how do I figure out what my speed needs to be so that me and the target meet at the same place at the same time? He mentions that he is doing 17kts. Well if I do that speed in my situation, I will get there way early. Or is early a good thing so I can turn off my engines, bring down my scope and wait? Or can they still sense I am there and just take off?

[Dantenoc]

No no... didn't you read the part where it says that Claren's method is incorrect?... There's a small link there (that appears as a blue number one) that gides you through the correct procedure

Here it is again in case you didn't see it:
http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=47980

This method is basically the same as described by Claren except that this one is correct.

And to address your speed question directly; in step four of the tutorial presented in the linked that I mentioned above you get to choose whatever (within reason) speed you want (when you draw the circle).

[Dantenoc]

To avoid further confusion on this matter I have edited the Wiki manual and it now has the correct procedure. So just go back and reread it.

[trenken]

Good stuff. Thanks Dantenoc! Your method makes perfect sense. I thought there was something wrong with me when I was trying the other way and having problems with it.