The Control Room and TDC
 

With the TDC I am rather confused. A couple of my queries:
1. Does the bow of you sub have to face the target ship?
2. Where do you get the target angle (I assume the compass but so far that hasn't really worked out for me)
3. How accurate must the calculations be? (what's the maximum room of error)
4. Must the sub be at full stop to fire?
5. Is the torpedo depth just the depth of the submarine?

Thanks! :)

Works a lot like the Silent Hunter series if you've played any of them!

1. Only if you have the TDC computing a straight on attack. Otherwise, you can approach from basically any angle (assuming you have the correct measurements) and the torpedos will correct their trajectory after leaving the tubes.

2. I'm not sure what dial you're asking about, if you're asking about the left dial, that you have to experiment and get to know the destroyer and its silhouette. Imagine that the nose of your sub is at the bottom of the dial. For the right dial, that is simply calculated by noting how many degrees off of the submarine's true heading the periscope (and target) is, and pretending like the sub is in the center of the dial. You input that deviation from the sub's nose in there.

Maxim is working on a PDF or PowerPoint to break down how to use the TDC soon.

3. From what I've found, you can play pretty fast and loose with your angles, so long as they're withing 5 or 6 degrees of true. What's important is the distance. If you under-estimate you'll get early detonations.

4. Nope, the current movement speed of the sub and its direction is taken into account by the TDC.

5. No, it's the depth at which you want the torpedo to sit in the water. Normally, you'd want to make it so that the impact point is deep along the keel, so that as large a breach as possible is made under the waterline. At this point though, we don't know the keel depth and don't have magnetic detonators, so you can use 0 or 1 meter.

I try to do what it says but nothing ever hits the ships.
I'm honestly confused now because my and about 3 other have all tried to hit them but no one can.
What's the best distance to hit?

I just played solo and managed to sink the enemy flagship first go, one torpedo. Even though I normally use auto-TDC in SH, and having to manually set things up is very different...

I did use some experience from SH:

Most notably I remembered the range of keel depths of Japanese destroyers, and guessed 4 metres for the torpedo depth. It worked a treat. I don't think these destroyers are entirely to scale though.

I also had experience of making approaches, which really helped for getting into a favourable position. You want to be ahead of and slightly (a kilometre or two) to the side of the target's course - and undetected, to minimise the likelihood of him manoeuvring to avoid or attack.

The TDC supplied appears to be based on the American model's functionality, which attempts to track both target and ownship positions and update them over time. Your goal is to feed the TDC a sufficiently accurate estimate of the target's distance, bearing, course and speed. With that data, the correct torpedo gyro angle will automatically be set, ready for you to hit the fire button. The real American TDC gives you a lot more info about what's going on.

It's very important to check the TDC data by letting it run it's prediction for a while (a minute, perhaps), then taking a new bearing and range and comparing them to the generated ones. If the prediction is correct, you've probably got a sufficiently accurate firing solution. If it isn't, you can use knowledge of the discrepancy to make new estimates of course and speed, as well as correcting the TDC as to the actual bearing and range, then wait another minute and check it again. Hold fire until the TDC "checks".

When estimating speed using the stopwatch/waterline method, don't forget to come to a halt yourself. Your own motion interferes with this method of measurement. Real submariners used other clues such as the propellor speed (via hydrophones) and bow-wave appearance as well, but those effects might not be implemented in this game yet.

Incidentally, I fired my single shot from about 3000m away. That's much further than I would expect any kind of success against a warship in SH. Yet my TDC work was spot-on and the target never knew what hit him.

Welcome aboard!
 

You sound like a natural....welcome to SubSim :salute:

Yeah,
I've tried again both times around 2000-3000 both unsuccessful...
Perhaps it is the crew? (bloody mutineers and German spies!?!?)

Although I think if I get someone who may have a better understanding of the TDC that may help xP

Any how, I managed to get a new crew of 4 to help me sink the Klaus Jager! Hopefully successful. Thanks Chromatix & Napalm42! :salute: