Yes they can be separated but they look better when combined. As for the pictorial example, look at this:

- The middle wheel 40 mark (blue) aligns with the 3000 yards mark in the outer wheel (red). That's what we set up.

- As a result, the 20 mark (Pink) in the same middle wheel gives us a read of 1600 in the outer wheel (Cyan). That's what we read.

- Moving the inner wheel 1 minute and 10 seconds mark (yellow) to align with that distance (1600), we can read in the outer scale the result 4.1 (Hidden here by the protruding arm of the inner wheel).

Hope that helps. the german wheel works the same, but the scales are in different places.:arrgh!:

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/8706/examplerh5.jpg

I am afraid that my wheel looks exactly as the one quoted in this post and not the one that you show in your last post ! They are totally different but I suppose you could link me to the B/W one that you show in quote then I could use that one.
BTW thanks for your rapid response, much better than the response from UBI for patch 1.3 for SH4 !!

LOL then the problem is that you have been trying to understand a quick-guide I gave for the US wheel and apply it for the german wheel:lol: No wonder you got confused and did not find the numbers:lol:

In the german one, the blue "40" is in the external magenta wheel. The red "3000" is in the centre wheel, duplicated in the exterior and interior section of the same wheel (In the centre is the speed scale). The inner time wheel is exactly the same in both wheels except for the form of the speed pointer.

So you align the 3000 in the middle wheel with the 40 in the exterior wheel. Then the 1-10 of the inner wheel with the 1600 of the middle wheel. That's the reason the distance scale is duplicated in the middle wheel, so you have it easier to read the 40 vs. the 3000 in the exterior and the 1600 vs. the 1-10 in the interior one.

O/K, now I have got it, I think. Silly me,:oops: trust the Germans (or Americans) to get things a#se about face. In the meantime I racked up a quick example (US wheel) in Paint Shop from your picture. Now when I compare the readings between the two I get a 0.4 knt increase in speed on the German one against the US one. Could be my assembly is not quite correct or it could be that the German one is a little faster !! vorsprung durch teknik. :hmm:
Still, many thanks, can now go ahead with speeeeed calculations. :up:

There should be a difference: The US wheel uses yards for it's distance calculation, the German one meters.

If a target is going 4 units per second, the speed is about 7.2 knots if units = yards, and about 7.8 knots if units = meters.

You can learn as much as Puster Bill, but you can't be faster:lol:

What he said:yep:

Can't be fatter, either. :D

I would have thought that, with the US wheel being constructed to US standard measurements and the German wheel to metric, as time, angles and speed (Knts) are the same standard for each countrythen the calculated speed should be the same in each case. Surely the difference should lay with the graduation spacings on each wheel type ? :hmm: and they are constructed to take length measurements into account. This length measurement seems to me to be the only 'variable' factor between each type of wheel. Or am I missing something very obvious ??

Yes, you are missing something.

The conversion from meters per second to knots is about .515, and the conversion from yards per second is about .56.

If you put the indicator for the American wheel at 1 knot, you will see that the distance reads 5600. If you do the same for the German wheel, you will see that the distance reads 5150. Both are indicating the same distance, but in different units.

That is because the base unit of distance is different (meters and yards), but the speed result is in the same measurement (knots) for both wheels.

A ship that travels 10 meters per a given unit of time is going faster than a ship that travels 10 yards in the same amount of time.

Make sense now?

Nice work on this:yep:

RDP

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Make sense now?[/quote]

Yes thank you very much, nice information. Will of course be trying speed calcs. sometime in the future, not tomorrow as it is Fathers day here in Germany and that mostly means 'one big p##s up (drinking session)' so no SHlll for me.
Once again, thanks !!:up: