Well, I now believe that range shouldn't matter, I've done some playing around on paper and I can see why, but it certainly does matter in the game for some reason. Try it yourself, do like I did. Set up the TDC with some arbitrary AOB, speed, and bearing and then leave them. Only change the range, and you will see that it affects the gyro angle, sometimes by a very large degree, meaning that you could easily miss if you don't put in the right range. The only thing I can think of is that it may be trying to account for the fact that it takes the torpedo a little while to get turned in the right direction, and it makes up for it by adjusting the gyro angle.

This theory of mine is backed by TDC behavior. For example, if I input a bearing, AOB and speed that gives me a 000 gyro angle, meaning the torp won't have to maneuver and can fire straight out of the tube, adjusting the range dial doesn't change the gyro angle that much, like less than one degree. If I input a different situation that gives me a larger gyro angle, like 30, then adjusting the range can give wild fluctuations in the gyro angle, like a 10 degree difference in gyro angle when changing range from 300m to 1500m.

This means that range really does matter in the game. At low gyro angles, range has a minor effect on the solution, at most 2 degrees or so. At large gyro angles, it has a huge affect. That's all I can say for certain right now, I can't think of any really good reasons for that behavior. Apparently, this needs to be discussed and thought about for a while. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.

Okay, done some more experimenting. This is just going to make your head hurt more, but once I'm sure I'm at the bottom of it, I'll offer a better explanation in a new thread that should be easier to understand, for those who want to understand. I like helping people understand complex things, so you can expect a nice big post once I'm convinced I've figured it all out.

For now, though, I'm looking for some feedback from other physics-inclined people, to see if they come to the same conclusion I do.

While I'm positive now that range wouldn't make a difference as long as the torpedo didn't have to maneuver, I'm also just as sure that it has a significant effect when the torpedo has to maneuver to hit short range targets.

Here's a scenario: Target at 0 bearing, 90 stbd AOB, speed 10 knots. You are launching a T1 at a speed of 44 knots. You can easily come up with a solution yourself with a calculator and some basic knowledge of trig. Do arcsine(10/44) to give an angle of 13.14. This means the torp has to turn 13.4 degrees to the right in order to intercept the target. If you input the same situation into the TDC with a range maxed out at 10,000m, it will give the same result, about 13.14 degrees to the right. If you turn the range dial to closer ranges, however, you will see that the gyro angle begins to increase, making the torpedo maneuver more and more to the right as the target's range gets closer. At 1500m, the TDC comes up with a gyro angle of 13.5. At 300m, the gyro angle is 15.8. That's over a 5 degree difference for the common firing ranges of 300-1500m. That's way more than enough to cause you to miss your target. This means range is extremely important when the gyro angle is not 000, and the difference is magnified as the angle gets higher.

Now for my explanation on why this is so. If the target is at close range, and the torpedo has to maneuver to hit it, it will certainly hit aft of the aiming point if it does not account for the time it takes to maneuver. I just did a quick test, and it took the torpedo about 3 seconds to maneuver to the 13.14 gyro angle as in the problem above. In 3 seconds, a target moving at 10 knots moves about 15 meters. This means that if you don't account for the range, the torpedo will hit about 15 meters aft of where you aimed. This is why if you set the range to 10000m, that 15 meters accounts for a very small angle and the TDC doesn't adjust the gyro angle much. If that target is at 300 meters, then that extra 15 meters that the torpedo has to make up for looks a lot bigger than it did at 10,000m, so the torpedo has to turn more to make up for it.

Long story short: Range really does matter, and if you don't want to have to bother with a bunch of math, that's what the TDC is for! It automatically accounts for the time it takes the torpedo to accelerate and maneuver to its course, so you don't have to bother with it. It is probably also why high gyro angles are less accurate. If the torpedo doesn't have to maneuver, then the TDC doesn't have to introduce any error by trying to adjust for torpedo acceleration and maneuvering time. The more time the torpedo has to spend turning to get on the right course, the more calculation the TDC has to do to adjust for that time spent, and those calculations are by their nature much less accurate than the simple trig calculations it has to do based on bearing, AOB and speed.

Like I said, this isn't meant to be the easy explanation, it's meant for peer review, so that other math-minded people can check it out and test its validity. After writing it, I am convinced that it's the correct explanation, but I'd like to hear from others and hear their thoughts. Eventually, I may post a new thread where I explain the TDC as thoroughly as possible, both for people that are new to manual targetting and for those like myself who are interested in how it actually does what it does. Even for manual targetting pros, knowing how it operates means you can use it more efficiently and accurately. On a side note, I wish I were one of those people who can turn a 1000 word explanation into a 200 word explanation and still keep it intelligible, but I'm not one of those people.

Orgy tried experimenting with slowing down the WO. I started some thread on this very topic a couple of weeks ago. Without the SDK, it cannot be (easily) done. The WO calculation algorythms are hard-coded into the game.

I am pretty sure his point was that the captain did not physically enter that data in the TDC himself. I think it would be more realistic if you never actually had touch the TDC yourself, but we could sure use a mod that slowed down the calculation among other things, if that is possible of course :)

Trav_R,

don't worry, I understood everything you said! :up:

His point was that captains did not figure out the calculations, not about entering them into the TDC.

Under realistic setting you do not enter the info into the TDC anyway. That is done for you when you click the "check" button on the notepad. In reality the captain would call out the data to be entered by the TDC Operator. SHIII simulates this calling out of data with the check box in the notepad.

Sorry U1966

Your WRONG. Yes i have read many biography on Uboat commanders. And the other guy got it write in what i was trying to say.

READ! :smug: