How to Recognize Targets at Night?
 

I have just decided to go for more realism by restricting auto-TDC.

Now i am ok with positioning my boat and finding targets speed however i experience a lot of difficulties in;

*Recognizing targets at night. I cant. (thanx to the assistance of the yellow pointer in my periscope enables me to locate it) although my watchofficer says the bearing and marks on the map :shifty: It seems not possible to ID it. I dont wanna throw a starshell and allow them to detect my presence also. So what to do?

*Recognizing in great distances.. ?? How do you manage it?? from 6000m it is even a blackish silhouette!! and the only recognizable thing is the smoke high above. wonder if the 6x max zoom for the periscope? or you guys know a way to increase it? How to see farther? UZO? OP?

*Stadimeter sucks! It is not possible to get a decent range value even in calm water as a little move of a mouse can differ a 1000m in range??? it is only possible if it is quite close to my position but it happens to be pointless then. In rough weather it is even worse! And how to determine it in a case when it is constantly changing, say target is heading towards you in a 45 degrees?

*Most importantly; What do you do when to make an instant shot? (Say time is of an essence and have a little time before the opportunity is lost) No time to calculate, or to position your boat.. what do you do? Snap shot??? :roll:

*Why not anyone bothers AOB, and take it as 90 everytime? What happens if i take it 45 and it is 55 in reality?

*Gyroangle is shortly the set heading of your torpedo isnt it? a Gyro 000 means, no angle given to torpedo? What does Gyroangle indicator show in the periscope screen?

*HELP pls.

well, what i do is select a commonly seen target and shoot shallow. If I can make out something from the silowette to judge if it is a small costal vessle or large vessle, i ma try 2 shots, one at 8 -9 feet and one shallow.

Sometimes i use starshells if is a single ship.

never in convoys !! :dead:

Done that on single ships either am doing something wrong,never picked out a ship with a starshell something am trying to work out.

I guess he meant he uses them to get some light on the target, would be nice tho, if you would fire that phosphor bullet into a nice tanker, and it goes off in there, mighty hot flame, making the whole ship explode

send bernhard in a rubber boat and give him a lighter ... and let him write down the name when he's next to it:up:

Get real close. U-32 commanded by Hans Jenish sank a Dutch ship. He went closer at periscope depth to try and read its name before it sank. However the sun was shining directly into the periscope so he misjudged the distance and rammed it. Thankfully for them the bow was damaged but not the torpedo tubes. Not that I'm suggesting ramming is an option :D

I do the same, but after 1942 I don't recommend it.

if you use starshells, they now that you are here and they start to Zig zag which makes harder them to hit.