Manual TDC Fast 90?
 

Hello Gentlemen,

I've been toying with the manual TDC with SH5, and it's not behaving the way I expect it to. So I'm here to check with you experts to see if it's something wrong with the system, or am I simply clueless ;)

The scenario unfolds as follows:

1. I spot an Island Hog Type A sailing from right to left on my periscope at 11 knots (I have map contact on, the tooltip tells me this.)
2. I am facing AWAY from the target (firing from the rear torpedo tube), so target bearing is somewhere around 260. I am perpendicular (maybe off by 1 degree) to the target's direction of travel.
3. I tell my WO to turn on TDC
4. I lock onto the target, and identified the target
5. I enter the speed manually at 11 knots
6. I point my scope at bearing 180
7. I the AOB to 90 degrees port
8. I enter the range for target to be 600m (actual distance is somewhere around 400-ish at impact)
9. I rotate my scope to follow my target as it sails to around bearing 200. (I'm using an electric torpedo). The values on the "TDC" changes as I rotate the scope.
10. I point my scope at the smoke stack at the middle of the ship, and fire the torpedo.
11. The torpedo sails at almost an exact straight line at my target and hits.

This all sounds well and good, but the hits always seem to be too much ahead of where I was aiming (I am at 2/3 down from the front of the ship, and the torpedo hits somewhere around 1/4 to 1/3). I can chalk this offset to inaccuracies if it was over a long distance, but the shot is not even 500m. I reloaded the game repeatedly and tried the same steps numerous times, and reproduced the same aiming offset.

Any idea if I'm doing something wrong here or a better way to handle the new TDC?

Also: I find it massively annoying that the moment a tall wave washes over my periscope, I lock on my target, which causes my TDC settings dialog to disappear from the WO. I will have to rotate my scope to find the target again and relock it. I also can't tell updated TDC values if my scope is even remotely obscured. Is there a way to mod the loss of lock, or at least the loss of the TDC dialog when I lose the lock? This also renders it impossible to manually set TDC and fire a torpedo without visual on target.

I think this is a problem of speed. The Fast 90 works perfectly against a 5kt target, but these 11kt ones that have been showing up I'm consistently firing ahead of them. Often missing. So yeah, I've noticed what you're talking about with the same speed targets.

I'm starting to think the ships are actually traveling at 6 and 9 instead of 5 and 11 or something. Maybe I'll properly chart their speed next time. :03:

And yeah, the whole locking thing is a pain. Especially when you're CLEARLY looking at a ship, but can't lock it till your XO finally notices it.

The speed displayed in the tooltip on the map is often wrong, too. I've seen it be off by as much as 1.5-2 kts.

Best to use the 3:00 rule, or some other technique to measure speed just to be sure.

3 mins 15 secs in metric

yup, there's been a few times where i found one of those radio contacts, and when i checked his speed, he wasn't doing the speed the tooltip said.

If you set AOB before firing, wont the XO change it so that when the ship really is AOB 90 the TDC is set to something else?

@Illuminatus:

I think you excess lead may be an effect of your range setting being 600 while the range at the time of torpedo launch actually being 400.

The TDC's AOB setting is somehow automatically changed while you're turning (perhaps by a calculation based on range and initial AOB). Now, this may lead one to believe that the range would also be continually corrected but at least I've never seen that happen. That is, if you set the range to 600 meters at bearing 240, the range will still be 600 when the scope is pointed at bearing 200 or 180.

@Morgie: He said that he pointed the scope at 180, that is, the direction in which the target AOB would be 90 degrees.

[QUOTE=E.Dahlbeck;1301387 The TDC's AOB setting is somehow automatically changed while you're turning (perhaps by a calculation based on range and initial AOB). Now, this may lead one to believe that the range would also be continually corrected but at least I've never seen that happen. That is, if you set the range to 600 meters at bearing 240, the range will still be 600 when the scope is pointed at bearing 200 or 180.QUOTE]

Ah this explains why my long shots keep falling behind the Target, was driving me nuts.

I never set range in my TDC in SH3 and 4 (I leave it alone at zero)
Allways hit perfectly, unless its a dud

EDIT: I mean SH4 + OM :P

yes, bearing and AOB gets updated, but not range, you can see this in the last 3 screenshots here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163736