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The reason you're having difficulty getting an accurate course is because (if I understand your post correctly) you're trying to get it in five minutes. IRL commanders spent hours (sometimes days) tracking a ship/convoy in order to get accurate course data, and this is what works best in SH3 also. Spot a ship/convoy, mark it's position and approximate course on the map as you are doing now. Then track it at the edge of visual range for... lets say 50km. This is quite arduous and requires constant adjustments to your course to make sure you don't get too close or too far away, so if you're feeling lazy/lucky just flank it and position yourself 50km ahead of it and wait for it to re-appear. Either way you mark it's position again once it's moved 50km. You now have two marks separated by at least 50km, which means each mark can be innacurate by a couple of kilometers and you'd still have good course and speed data. For even more accurate data go another 50km... but beware of the ship/convoy changing course!
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Very, very well summed up
From the U-Boat commander's handbook (The official doctrine for the U-Boot commanders in WW2):
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112.) The overhauling maneuver requires a high degree of tactical ability; its success is the pre-condition of the following underwater attack, and therefore the success of the operation. As a tactical masterpiece, the overhauling maneuver is therefore the exclusive business of the commander, and its preparation and execution require his unremitting attention.
113.) In fighting its way forward to the position ahead of the beam of the enemy, in borderline conditions of visibility during the day, the submarine is engaged in a long, drawn-out and extremely tiring overhauling operation. It is an incessant "nibbling at the horizon" [i.e.; to keep the enemy on the dip of the horizon] - going in again and again as soon as the tops of the masts get smaller, and sheering off again at once, as soon as they rise higher again. These strenuous efforts to overhaul the enemy are continued, in the Atlantic, hour by hour, and can only succeed as a result of indomitable resolution and an unchanging, obstinate refusal to let the enemy escape, even when the submarine finds that progress is very slow. Any change of course on the part of the enemy, or engine trouble, etc., occurring on board the enemy ship, may immediately alter the position in favor of the submarine.
114.) The overhauling maneuver should always be exploited, in order to obtain the particulars of the enemy (course, speed, pattern of the zigzag course) by careful observation of the course of the submarine itself, exact D/F of the enemy ship, estimation of range and position at regular intervals of time. These particulars are almost always more reliable than those obtained underwater.
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You will never get good and accurate values if plotting quickly in 5 minutes, as OLC said, and that is correct because nobody got them like that in real life. If needed to shoot quickly, real commanders (and IWOs) just estimated with the MKI eyeball. And trust me, once you have practiced enough it is not a bad method at all
A suggestion that will not decrease realism, but will make life much easier: When overhauling at surface, ask your IWO each 3:15 minutes to tell you range and bearing to target, you will be able to plot it fairly well that way.
And in any case, AVERAGE the results of the plot. Never, never, plot the enemy in two observations and take the data from them. This can only work in ideal (And unrealistic) conditions.
Good hunting
