How do you calculate AOB - Frustrated!!
 

Hi, after many attempts I'm at the point of throwing it in! I must say that manual targeting in SH3 is much easier! By the time I have come up with a AOB and gone to the stadimeter to select & enter it, then select the PK it's way out, the torpedo's miss by around 500 yards!! I'm doing something wrong!:-? I looked up tutorials but most go way over my head, especially this AOB by ratio method, I have tried to watch some of the videos but quality is poor and sound is very low & the whole thing is too fast to get what's going on. On Gizzmoes Video where does he get his AOB settings from, he doesnt go to map to calculate he just guesses in a second, enters it & it is correct, how does he do it!!!:oops: Can someone please assist or point me to a tutorial that is easy to follow, I must say the manual says very little on this topic, Thanks in advance.:yep:
PS. I'm not a mathematician.

It's very easy. Your crew will give you the target's course when you use the Estimate Speed button. Adjust the AOB setting until the bow of the ship on the top dial of the TDC points to the number on the outer ring.

Assuming your target's course is 60 degrees:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...212706_000.jpg

That's it. No funky calculations needed. It's another reason why the American TDC was superior to any other type produced during the war.

you mean the stadimeter speed button, my crew says nothing! I'm lost!
Do you select the PK first? what stage do I do this?
You set the AOB to 60 degrees, the ships bearing, I thought you had to set the AOB to the ships AOB, I'm lost! (again!):cry:
Sorry for being a bit thick!:88)

What I have been doing:
1) Lock onto target ship , Identify then send to TDC.
2) Get Range with stadimeter, send to TDC.
3) select speed on stadimeter, wait for 10 seconds, press timer, does nothing, wait for 10 seconds press timer again, nothing happens, repeat step 2, this time it works, stuffed if I know!:doh:
3) Try to workout on navmap the AOB, go back to scope & enter in the AOB, send to tdc, set PK on, fire torpedo, according to attack screen the range is always only half way & the torpedoe's miss his stern by 500 yards or so.:damn:
Usually by the time I get the AOB in, the ship has travelled so far that the AOB would have chaged dramatically anyway!!:oops:
This is sooooo frustrating!!:stare::cry:

You're close, do this:

1) Turn PK off
2) Take a range/bearing with the stadimeter and send to TDC.
3) Wait at least ten seconds. In RL it would be more, but the devs said 10 seconds is enough.
4) Take another rang/bearing with the stadimeter and send to TDC.
5) Click the Estimate Speed button. Look at the speed and course estimate your crew gives you.
6) Repeat steps 3-5 several times if possible, and average out the various speed/course reports your crew gives you.
7) Send the estimated speed to the TDC.
8) Adjust the AOB and send to the TDC. Adjust and resend until the bow of the target on the TDC (the top dial) points to the to the estimated course of the target on the outer ring.
9) Take another range/bearing with the stadimeter and send to the TDC.
10) Turn on the PK.

Now the PK should perfectly track the target, not counting of course the error inherent in the crew's estimation and your own range measurements.

Note that this is just one way to get the AOB. In real life, they would estimate visually, and check against the plotting team's calculations if they were available.

OK, lost here already, where is the Estimate Speed button, is it the third one on the bottom of the Attack Data Tool? if so what do I do with the timer button at the top left?
In the torpedo tutorial mission, I hardly get enough time to do it once!!:88)
My crew says nothing, do I have to be in a certain mode for this to work?
How do you "estimate course of the target"?:doh:
That ship is gone past now!:damn:
I can't understand how you can do all this in a couple of minutes, because that is all the time you get to sink the ship in the torpedo accademy!

The torpedo attack training is muffed, you have to be very quick to get this. Your best bet on learining is run the mission editor and make a single mission. Set your target farther out say around 9000 yards or so. It'll give you a better chance to learn the system. The torpedo training mission would be a good excersise on shooting from the hip as it were. Watch the video's in the stickies to get a better idea on how to use manual targeting.

I have, like Gizzmoes, he enters the AOB without telling how he arrived at the number he puts in, I wish I could just guess a number, enter it & it was correct!!
I thank everyone for responding but no one has said yet how to determine the AOB, or is it just the ships course, is this an error on the game dial, should it read Ships course instead of AOB?:doh: There must be a lot of others out there who have given up & just used auto, I wrote a Manual TDC tutorial for SHIII, available at my site, but for the life of me I can't figure this out!!:damn:

Have a look at this page, it helped me to understand how to get a correct AOB (at least most of the time).

http://mysite.verizon.net/ress1z18/id1.html

Check out this thread from Hitman, in it is a good guide for calculating AOB :up:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=111998


RDP

Thanks, I'll give them a good read, after a nights sleep, a fresh start might get the old cogs moving again.:yep:

One word: WernerSobe
 

Please report to WernerSobe's Advanced School for Submarine Attack Tactics for great, non-muffled movies that will teach you exactly what you want to know.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=118923.

While you're at it you can look toward the end of the thread for my tutorial on the Dick O'Kane attack method, which doesn't use the PK at all and uses a fixed AoB since you are attacking at 90º to the target track. Not only will you hit the target with this technique, but you will individually aim each torpedo for a specific spot on the target to distribute damage for efficient sinking. Let us know how you do and we'll fill in the blanks!:up:

If you want to use the PK, turn it on first. Then enter target speed, AoB or course (you can see how to forget all about AoB and just use the target's course in Werner's videos), and lastly bearing/range. Then assuming all your parameters reflect reality, you'll hit your target. The important thing is to enter range/bearing LAST. The PK works like a spreadsheet, new data simply replaces old data.

On the dial at the upper right hand corner of the screen that lets you input range, AOB, or speed. Select speed. The estimate speed button is at the upper left corner of the dial.

If you've taken at least two range/bearing measurements, pressing this button will cause the crew to give you an estimate in the little text window they talk to you in. Something like:

"WO: Estimated speed, 9 knots, estimated course, 210 degrees"

All this stuff is much easier to do when you detect a target from far away and have lots of time to track it as it approaches. In the game, if you don't start tracking a target until its really close, you will have to do more estimation of values instead of calculation.

If it’s the video I think that you are thinking of, he just eyeballed it. AOB was pretty much always estimated from the person on the scope with the MK1 Eyeball, not calculated. Some of the other members have already posted good tutorials however the best advice I can give you is to practice, practice, and practice just eyeballing it. Remember, it’s estimation so it doesn’t need to be exact. If you are within 1000 yards a difference of 5 degrees isn’t going to make a lot of difference.

If you play with map updates on, you can also do it by drawing a line down the length of the target, and then draw a line from the middle of the target to your sub. Now get the angle and that’s your AOB.

@ Powerthighs, that explains why nothing showed until I went back and did the Range again, it was actually only after 2 inputs,:oops: the manual is rather vague on this. To me this is the most important part of commanding a submarine, pity a better explanation wasn't given in the manual.:-? Thanks.
@ Rockin Robbins,
Ahh a quick 90, that's the one I use the most, will be checking that out!:up: However I won't be going for advanced yet as I can't even master any method yet!:roll:
@ Nightmare, yes I suppose Gizzmoe has had a lot of practice but not a good video for for learning how to calculate the AOB.
I have been doing this and it seems that I might have been setting AOB correctly and failing the speed, The Torpedo School Mission is rather poor, the ship is presented to you a little too close, I would have prefered the ship starting a little further away!:yep:

If anyone has created a simple mission for torpedo practice would you please upload for me, Thanks.:D

Saw this post awhile back Reece :yep:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...93&postcount=2


RDP

Thanks a heap RDP, I'm starting to get the idea, so far still doing theory, will attempt practical soon (I get butterflies when pressing the SH4 Icon).:yep:
I thought I'd stick to Metric but noticed the Attack Data Tool is still imperial.:-?
Question: Can you change range etc and send to TDC with PK on?

Well I still can't get this, I have tried dozens of times with the Torpedo school mission & cant get this to work, the torpedo's allways miss by 200 yards to the rear!:damn::damn:
Please tell me the steps I should be doing to get this mission complete.
What I am doing is:
1) setting speed to 1/3rd, raising scope & locking target.
2) finding correct ship on Recognition manual & clicking the tick box.
3) using stadimeter to get range & sending to TDC.
4) lower scope for 10 seconds, raise scope & lock target, use stadimeter to get range & send to TDC again.
5) select speed on the tool & click on Esimate speed, comes 90% of the time as 5 knots, send to TDC.
6) goto nav map to get idea of AOB, go back to scope & set, usually around 85 degrees to Starboard.
7) lock PK.
Fire & misses by a mile!
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...sedbyamile.jpg
Anyone here that can do this mission please tell me where I'm going wrong please, step by step.:-?

At 30 deg the visible length of the ship will be half, at 45 deg it will be about 2/3 or 70%. Get a feel for that and you can work the AoB to some more exact...plus if your in close(about 1000yds) just getting the AoB is good enough.

I tend to look for/wait for specific AoBs that Im good at eye-balling and set/check my solutions then.

That may work over time, but not at this stage, the ship changed course as you can see & I did actually change the AOB before setting the PK on. I hit the "z" key but didnt change to silent running, don't know how he saw me, if it was my scope then how the hell can I get the data, this is most frustrating!:cry:

From the picture I can immediately tell you two things: Your target speed in TDC is zero(notice the yellow SPEED 00 below the target wheel), and target range is way too short. Once you have used the estimate speed function, remember to click the send to tdc button. Similarily, it MUST be done after you have scrolled the speed wheel manually.

A few words on AOB: At distances as short as that you can usually eyeball it well enough, but getting the precise AOB is very easy by using just the TDC, provided that you know the target course. Screw the map for getting the AOB, it's too slow and will be a few degrees off by the time you input it to the TDC(though a few degrees does nothing if the distance is anywhere under 2000 - 3000 meters). As many have already said, even the ingame TDC has the whiz-wheel functionality and a lot more to it. The estimate speed function also gives you the target course, or you can get it via the map. Whichever way you use, the target course is important at this stage, not the AOB. Once you have used the estimate speed function to get a speed AND sent it to the TDC, enable tdc. Then go to the AOB wheel, eyeball an AOB and send it to the TDC. It doesn't need to be even nearly correct at this point, within 45 degrees is easily good enough. Then you look at the target wheel(the upper one) on the TDC and keep turning the AOB input wheel and sending it to the TDC until the ship on the target wheel has the correct course. AOB is what it is, just look at the course. Course is the outer ring of numbers. Once your target wheel is on the correct course, you would take one last range and bearing reading and send it to the tdc, then re-check that the target wheel is on the correct and adjust if necessary. Then you could fire. This is exactly what WernerSobe does in the video, and it gives you the correct AOB every time, provided that your course is correct.

edit: When sending range, remember to click the send button TWICE just in case. In certain conditions it only sends the bearing on the first click and the range on the second, but I can't remember when this occurs. Clicking always twice eliminates that problem.