In Dic O'Kanes book on Wahoo, he mentions his tactic of overriding the PK by ordering that the bearing be held constant (ie, like setting the PK solution, but leave the tracking feature turned OFF) and as various targets (and specific targetted locations on each ship) passed the wire, he would fire.

So we know at least O'Kane and Mush Morton had some tricks up their sleeves when playing with the TDC. The way I read it was they had ways to bypass the PK that gave them more direct access to the TDC. I think we can mimic what they did, but the user interface is a tad cumbersome in that respect... (no way to mark bearing without turning PK on, although IRL we KNOW that feature existed)

I haven't been playing SH4 (and presently I don't have access to it) but it would be interesting to see if folks had success with aiming techniques that mimicked what O'Kane did by entering the TDC solution, but leave PK turned OFF. I suspect it would work just as it did for O'Kane. That's probably the direction I'll take when I finally return to an SH4 patrol.

The lightbulb just lit!
 

I think you've hit the key! Leave the PK off and the setting stays fixed, just like a U-Boat. It is such a shame that Morton didn't live to write a book. The things we could have learned!

Anybody getting an important point here? SH3 and SH4 feed off each other to make both games better, just as American skippers studied German tactics to learn their trade. If you own SH4 and not SH3, you're missing something great. It works the other way too. Buy 'em both!

Tonight is going to be dedicated to the nuts and bolts of making the simulation do the mechanics, in spite of not being designed to set bearing without the PK turned on. It should be fun.

The way I would propose to mimic O'Kane would be...

From a stationary position, determine target true course and develop a solution for a 20° bearing (70° AoB) shot assuming zero target speed. Turn on PK to mark bearing and AoB. Turn PK off and send 7kt speed to TDC and LEAVE PK OFF! Now as targetting points of interest pass your aiming wire you may fire. ...and since distance doesn't matter in the math, just leave it at whatever the default is (about 1000 or so).

Unfortunately, it's not just like a u-boat cuz the u-boat would have the PK off and the scope would be attached to the gyro-angle calculator to allow you to pan, aim, and fire... in the US fleetboat you have to leave the optics stationary and wait for the aiming points to pass the wire.

Actually, not to be argumentative, but I still don't think it matters.

I'm thinking as long as your PK-entered distance to target is large and you don't completely close that distance in the PK universe (which would instantly flip the solution 180°) you're still going to have a good solution as you maneuver and the PK tracks.


Edit: Actually, after second-guessing myself, I just did the math and the PK would indeed be wrong, I have to correct myself. So PT's comments are correct as is.

the more i look at this the more we are all wrong. it doesn't matter if its a right triangle or not. the only time range becomes a factor is when the gyro angle is greater than 0. the further away from 0 the gyro is the more the range matters. this is due to the intial run the torpedo makes before turning. If it weren't for that.. range wouldn't matter at all.

this can easily be seen in SH3, since most of the dials are linked.

setup a solution for a a fake target (on any AOB), and turn your scope till the gyro reads 0. go to the F6 screen and enable manual entry. turn the range dial back and forth and notice how the gyro doesn't flinch.

disable manual entry and go back to the scope and turn it 30 degrees left or right.. now go back to the F6 screen, re-enable manual entry and move the range dial around... and note how the gyro angle moves considerably.

if you setup your own solutions instead of using the PK.. you can get away with not worrying about the range for most targets if you keep your gyro angles to a minimum. my advice is that if you have the targets course plotted on your map, turn 90 degrees to it and eliminate any gyro/range errors when doing your own solutions. so yeah.. make a right triangle.

Mmmmm...

You're noting the effect of torpedo advance in the calculation. If you fire when the target is at more like a 0-10° gyro angle you eliminate the torpedo advance error. It's probably fair to assume most commanders would prefer to fire at minimal gyro angles, but the error introduced by torpedo advance is certainly worth noting (and admittedly something I tend to ignore).

You need a pretty high bearing angle 30+ and a 500m variance in distance before you move the gyro 1-2°.

A good point though... and another good reason to fire at low gyro angles.

Range is important, because the in-game speed calculator uses this. Get the range wrong, and you will also get a bad speed, which means you will have a problem with the solution.

I never use the in-game speed calculator...

a real man plots his targets speed from 3 hours worth of marking target locations. :arrgh!:

Fun!
 

Ingenius!!!!! But like cowboys from the old west we're trying to shoot from the hip here. So where exactly is the hip of a submarine?

I'm playing with point and shoot in American subs on manual targeting.

Question: does the Position Keeper have to be on to send a bearing? The answer turns out to be no. Whew! That would have been a deal-killer. So it turns out that turning the PK on and off is not necessary.

Do you have to use the stadimeter to send a bearing? Again, no! Although the manual says bearing and range must be sent together, as usual, it is wrong. Gutted clearly proved to me that you only need to point the periscope and hit the send button. So the only difference between SH3 and SH4 procedures will be hitting the send button.

(deleted tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing)

So to work gutted's chart, first you set the aiming point as above to a bearing 90º from the course of the target. Then you look on gutted's chart and see how many degrees from the aiming point you will point the scope. When the ship is in the crosshairs, you'll shoot. You should shoot at least 2 torps, timing the different parts of the ship as they cross the crosshairs. Using the cycle tubes button and opening the tubes ahead of time you can riddle the ship of your choice.

On another note, I was working on WernerSobe's Natural Sinking Mechanics mission with stationary ships. I found that at an aiming point bearing 40º (starboard of course) torpedoes aimed this way struck the better part of 2º left of the aiming point due to the initial leg and turning of the torpedo to the set gyro angle. So it looks like errors resulting from that could be integrated into a second table. I expect the error to vary with range and with the bearing angle. Hopefully, range will not be a major factor, as we're trying to eliminate range as a factor in our strategy.

So it turns out the American boats can execute this process just as well as a U-Boat, in spite of their superiority:rotfl:(purposeful ambiguity there). Gutted is working on a video and he'll be starting a new thread on the technique. Of course, he gets full credit for the work and anything I do he has full rights to use as his own.

Cali03boss, if you felt guilty before, we're about to unleash unbridled carnage such as the Pacific has never dreamed!:arrgh!: We'll end up with a hybrid stragegy where we're actually taking out single ships, but targeting a ship for every two torpedoes and shooting six shots at three targets in 20 or 30 seconds, maybe quicker. Even our hangdog Admiral will buy this one. Hang on for fun!

you don't need to play with the stadimeter or look at a ship at all with my method.

just point the scope where you want it and hit the input button. it will send the bearing.

Holy Mother of Tojo! Or duh! Whichever. I am just another victim of the thought prison imposed by all this advanced equipment: "We got it, so we gotta use it!" So much for documentation, it works! Point the scope, hit the input button and against all instructions, it sends the bearing! Probably sends a range too, but who cares! We're not looking at the F6 screen anyway.

Well, scratch one lengthy test session, and one post. That method works but takes too long and is unnecessarily complicated. Can we get about four more torpedo tubes in the bow of this Balao? How about an auto torpedo loader that will give me reloads in less than 60 seconds?:arrgh!: Naw, next I'd be asking for tractor beams and phazers and feeling the force.

Let the US Navy Accellerated Artificial Reef Program begin! Homes for fishies!

I'll edit my testing post so nobody reads it and thinks I know what I'm talking about there. ("But it works!!!!!!:oops:" / "Yeah, like counting a herd of cattle by counting the legs and dividing by four.")

Cool... that's pretty much a Mark button then. Sounds good to me.
I suffer a bit from not actually playing SH4.

So I guess I should modify my suggested strategy to take advantage of the input button used to MARK...

From a stationary position, determine target true course and develop a solution for a 20° bearing (70° AoB) shot assuming 7kt speed and MARK. Never turn on the PK!

Now as targetting points of interest pass your aiming wire you may fire. ...and since distance doesn't matter in the math, just leave it at whatever the default is (about 1000 or so). For a 20° target bearing you should have a very low gyro angle, therefore torpedo advance error is negated (again, not to worry bout distance).

Unfortunately, it's not just like a u-boat cuz the u-boat would have the PK off and the scope would be attached to the gyro-angle calculator to allow you to pan, aim, and fire... in the US fleetboat you have to leave the optics stationary and wait for the aiming points to pass the wire.

In the above scenario when I suggest setting TDC inputs for a 20° bearing, with a perfect 90° position abeam of target true course, AoB is easily determined with (ie. you can do it in your head):
AoBp = 90° - Brg (Target Approaches from Starboard/Right)
AoBs = Brg - 270° (Target Approaches from Port/Left)

My shoot from the hip approach, based on hydro guy calling it out...
Slow = 6-7 kts
Med = 9-10 kts
Fast = 13-16 kts

My fallback...
Mk I Eyeball

If I have time...
I can indeed plot and do the TSD calcs.