Well I'll be...I did not know that lil hot spot was there! Ok then ...I stand corrected! I will be happy now to use that feature:up: (I'd still prefer the SH1 TDC.... )

Huh? Did this come with the 1.2 patch?? Awesome. Why did not anyone mention it till now? Would give me reason to install the patch. I'm still on 1.0 and don't have any problems with it that would have been fixed in one of the patches. Now, this bearing readout is what I was hoping/praying for since day one. :D

My understanding is that the true bearing and bearing are just talking about the same thing. The true bearing is based on the true or magnetic bearing referenceing north, while teh bearing is referencing relative bearing to the bow.

That doesnt allow me to take a ship which as a given AoB, speed, range with the center of that ship at a bearing with respect to my bow of lets say 350. That will give me a specifc solution to hit the center of the ship. If I want to hit the stern of that ship which would be at a different bearing with respect to my bow, like 348, I'd have to set the TDC to have the same AoB, speed and range, but I need to be able to set into the TDC a bearing of 348 to get the subtle change in solution and gyros to hit the ship's stern. Now that may not be a function tied to the persicope, it may require a perosn actually physcally change that on the TDC, but it should be available in some capacity.

Unlike teh game, the skipper wasnt the only one perfroming tasks for fire control on the ship. I should be able to point my periscope at a bearing and hit a toolbar button or keyborad button and order my TDC operater to input the new bearing data without fear of corrupting any of the other data. That means he reads the periscope bearing off of a repeater, a meter visible on the scope an veiwable from within the command room or by simple having the skipper yell the bearing the scope is currently on for the operator to input.

Out of simplicity of modeling and I could see the feature being implemented as something that looks like physical TDC feature if though it wasnt. At this point I can almost careless how they implement it aslong as the function is there.

p.s. using the spread is in no way the same thing, nor is it even close to a substitute.

I just checked out the use of sending range data to update the bearing for accurate aiming. It seems to work but it corrupts the range data by inputing the original range determined at the beginning of the contact when data was first placed in the TDC. This may cause problems with longer shots, or very close shots against fast movers.

It may have comprimised a shot I had against a BB. I was less than 1000yds away and the its speed was high, the range inputed when I tried the range input work around did me no good since my last range input was about 2000yds, it likley threw the gyros setting way off.

Gyro Angle
 

Well gentlemen, I have to make clear one thing, which is ABSOLUTELLY TRUE, and I know it very well because of my service in the greek (american built) BALAO class submarines.

There was no connection of the periscope to the TDC!

BUT!!!! In the american submarines of WW2 you COULD set the gyro angle of your choice independantly from TBT-TDC-ETC by using a device right on the tube. That is because in case of a broken down TBT-TDC the X.O. calculated the gyro angle manually and was directlly set to the torpedo!

And this must be patched/moded in the game!

I personally calculate manually the fire bearing and the gyro anlge. In order to set my desired gyro angle I just turn the sonar wheel to the relative bearing=gyro angle and click on SEND BEARING button. So I have my gyro angle. Untill now I had only few misses because of speed bad estimate. By manually calculating the range is absolutelly useless!

This is correct. It is not sufficient to just hit the "send" button on the range page to send bearing, you have to re-measure the range via the stadimeter again or the outdated range measurement will be re-entered. This is why I thought it would have been cool to have a seperate mark button as iRL.
It's no show-stopper though. Just take range again at the point you want your bearing to be - that is quickly done since you don't have to be all that accurate with range anyway.

You should be re-checking your range on your shooting observation anyway. It confirms that your solution is accurate and tracking correctly.

JCC

I tend to re-send range data one more time before I fire, but with manual targeting at 100% realism, I dont always have the luxury of time to re-submit range data again, then unlocking the target and moving the periscope pip/luber line to where I want to aim, then re-sending range again, then firing.

Everything is done by mouse clicking, so I cant do multiple things at once. I need a send data hot-key like the fire hot key so i can free up the mouse for other things...thats why a bearing set hot key is essential.

Trust me, it gets really messy when your less than 1000yds from a high speed target, they fly by exceptionally fast. To make it worse, playing on very difficult with escorts passing by very close doenst allow for those long periscope looks so I have to gather a lot of TDC data at the last minute in very short looks.

It is indeed somewhat annoying, however from what you describe here you are doing one step too many: Why "lock" the periscope on the target to gather final range for new bearing transmission? You don't have to do that. Just point the crosshairs on the point of the target you want the bearing to transmit and take final range, send. You might have to start out by aiming a little bit ahead of this point because it takes a while. This is what still makes it a bit annoying indeed, but your solution sounds even more of a workload.

I hate "locking" the scope on the target anyway, because I need to look around a lot to maintain SA and also, when you lock your scope on the target, it will take away from the sense of target movement / relative movements somewhat and might even corrupt your sense for a good speed estimate.

My understanding is that you need to lock the target to use the stadimeter, do we not? So in order to get the best solution i need to get range data right before I unlock and get the new bearing. That way the range data sent with new bearing is as close as possible to the actual range.

Once again the best method would just be a mark or input bearing command to TDC...there is no real way around that fact, to some degree the devs have handicapped high realism, manual target users.

No, you don't.

There is no need to lock the scope when using the stadimeter. You just need to make sure that your crosshairs are on the ship when you hit the red button.

hmm, ok. That will certainly help some.

TDC
 

Once again the best method would just be a mark or input bearing command to TDC...there is no real way around that fact, to some degree the devs have handicapped high realism, manual target users.[/quote]

YOU CAN MANUALY SEND ANY BEARING, AS A RESULT THE TARGET'S BEARING AS WELL, FROM THE SONAR TO THE TDC (SEND BEARING TO TDC BUTTON) WHICH IS HISTORICALLY CORRECT!:yep: JUST TURN THE WHEEL TO EVERY BEARING YOU WANT!!!

so now i gotta leave the tdc and play sonar man too? there is no way a sound bearing should be able to replace the accuracy of a visual bearing, Im not just trying to hit the target, im trying to hit certain places on the target..i need to see it. Aiming the torps by visual bearing should be a split second process. Literally move it, set it, fire! It should be happening as fast as it takes to say it almost.