Just print out my quick reference guide earlier in this thread. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...2&postcount=41

Once you do it a couple of times you will see how easy getting and intercept is. The hard part (in 100%) is getting the targets exact course and speed. Once you have that, the plotting is really pretty simple.

-D

Darksun, thanks for that diagram, makes things real simple. The entire post is amazing. I have been playing for less than a week. Before this post I had done 4 missions in a campaign and was averaging 1 and 1/2 ships sunk per mission. After reading this thread, in my last 2 missions I sank 14 ships. Thanks everyone for the info! I use 96% realism with no mod. The only thing I left checked was no dud torpedoes.

Setting up the fast 90 attacks is a great deal of fun without nav updates as there is no cheating in getting 500 to 700 feet of the targets track. Someone had mentioned about the watchman calling out bearing and distance. I get 3 readings from him about a minute apart. Then I draw the angle off my bow that corresponds to the bearing and measure the distance and mark the ship location this way. Connect the 3 marks and I have his track. Its usually off a degree or 2. So I have to eyeball him as he nears and either back up or go forward. One time I was sitting right on his track and didn't get far enough away to fire as the torps don't arm until 300 feet. Is it 300? I don't know for sure but from trial and error I believe it is.

The last mission I just finished was a blast. By the time I reached my patrol area I had sunk 6 ships and was down to 4 torps. I got a radio message about a huge convoy in the sector just south of the one I was assigned. I arrived to meet it about 1 hour before sunrise. Upon locating the convoy I veared away about 1 km so to remain unseen and planned my attack about 7 km further along their path. I had my eyes on a cargo ship. The sea was rough and bad visibility. I was getting reports on multiple bearings. Being that I only had 4 torps left, I figured I better just hit what comes across and run. A warship had moved ahead of the merchant ships and he was write in the spot where I was set to ambush from. Seeing as in the campaign I hadn't sunk a warship yet. I let him have the first torp. Turns out it was just a cutter. But I had a ship coming directly at my 90. I mean dead center, so I had to pull the trigger and flank ahead.

Then I turned into another ship and fired from 00 and hit his bow, I think it was a liberty cargo, the torp hit and he caught fire but didn't sink. I had the torp running at 4 meters deep as earlier, I had set one to run 1 meter under the keel of a merchant ship and in the high seas when the ship got pitched up on a wave the torp was too deep to detonate.
At this point some ships are zigging around and in the dark its total chaous. I dove to 20 meters, went under the cargo ship thinking I could finish it off with my stern torp. When I came back up to periscope depth it was like Christmas for any U-boat commander. A big juicy T3 Tanker broadside to me and moving at a snails pace. I just turned about 10 degrees and sent a torpedo just in front of his bow. He was maybe 800 meters away. I had set the torp to run 1 meter below his keel. It hit him dead center,he split in 2 and sank in about 20 seconds.Then I missed with my last stern torp and headed all the way back to Kiel from sector AL37 with no torps. Plus ran out of diesel and made the last leg on batteries. But I got 2 medals after sinking 28 tons. :rock:

Still I was cursing that I had only 4 torps when I arrived at the convoy. The other 5 missions when I was on patrol, not a single ship was in my sector:stare:

So thanks again for all the tips guys. This is the most fun I've ever had playing a video game!:arrgh!:

Well done Otto :yeah: Pat your navigator on his back. He deserves it too. ;)

As you get really close to the convoy keep a check on how the ships in the collumns and row line up. Very telling information. If a collumn (in direction of movement) is lined up you are right on their path and need to watch getting ran over as was your case. (or you could be behind them and that is an excellent opportunity to get their course to a degree accurate) If you are next to the convoy and see rows (sideways to direction of movement) lined up you can also get their course (row direction +/- 90 degrees). But it also allows you to match their speed accurately. (it is allready given as you get the longdistance map report, but they can allways make an unsuspected course speed change) Keep them lined up by adjusting your speed, and then measure the distance you have moved on the map over some time (3 minutes is a bit on the short side, it get's a rough estimate imho), convert that to a speed. Just make sure it's not a lined-up convoy diagonal you are looking at.

I loaded GWX3.0 and Commander 2.7. Do I own all the mods needed to follow this and Wazoo's instructions?

Yes, it has the inverted compas scale on the line tool, and the nomograph on the map iirc. That's the most basic you need.

Does he mean kms? what is an mks? Someone needs to fix that.

Yes, he must mean kilometers (kms). Though I've never used it in plural like that before. It's allways km, whether it's just one, or a gazillion. Definately wrong in a physical sense since it could mean 'kilometer-seconds'. Which could be some kind unit of a relativistic/Einstein concept of space-time. But I'm sure Dantenoc didn't go there. :)

Mods:

This thread should be a stickie. One of the best on intercepting ships. People can learn a lot of basics from this. Plus, there is the link to Wasserman's manual targeting tutorial.
Thanks.

:)

In official English, "kilometres" should always be abreviated to: "kms". There is a "kilometres per second" notation and that is: "km/s". So he's right in using "kms" to denote kilometres. :yeah:

In fact, he is wrong. According to "The International System of Units (SI)" 8th edtion, 2006, published by
Organisation Intergouvernementale de la Convention du Mètre, in other words, according to the official standard:
(empahsis added)

So in official English, "kilometres" should always be written either as "kilometres", or "km", never as "kms".

I understand all but step 4.

At what point did I choose to represent each knot by 10 mks? I don't understand how this works. My brother said it has to do with scale and tried to explain it to me, but I didn't get it. :oops:

Edit: Figured it out. I'm somehow doing it halfassedly, don't really know how to be precise with it, but it works, sort of.

You could have done it with a scale of 1km for every knot. But that becomes a tiny drawing. Or 100 km for every knot. But then it may be too big so you loose oversight on the map. But other scalefactors require multiplication of numbers. 10 km per 1 knot is just moving over the decimal point and still reasonably in scale with the actual distance to your victim.

Yeah, that's what I figured out. But I don't know hot to set a true intercept course. I always arrive way too early (or sometimes too late).

Great work, Dantenoc...well done! :yeah:

Spunky48

A good tutorial there for Intercepting just in time :

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tp...3&m=5051056603

And Math speaking in general ( From my archives ) :

ANGLE TO INTERCEPT

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To calculate the angle you need to turn from to intercept the contact. You should use knots as the the u-boat and ship's speeds.

Angle to intercept :

Sin-1 ( Target's speed * Sin ( AOB ))
= -------------------------------------------------------------
u-boat speed

now use this formula to calculate the angle you need to turn from to intercept the contact. You should use knots as the the u-boat and ship's speeds.

If my u-boat is traveling at 12 knots and the contact is traveling at approximately 5 knots :

Sin-1 ( 5* Sin ( 123 ) / 12 ) = 20.4534 Degree

And so the angle I need to turn to intercept the ship is 20.4534 degrees


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:salute: