[Dissaray]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

OK, first question:

I always approach ships being well in front of them, and I point my sub 90 degrees TO THEIR TRACK. This is NOT, as I understand it, the same thing as having an Angle on the Bow of 90 degrees.

Angle on the Bow, as I understand it, is the angle from the target ship (not their heading) to my sub.

So if my sub is 90 degrees to the target ship's HEADING, but they are a zillion miles away, the angle on the bow will be quite small, approaching zero the farther away they are. Angle on the Bow will not equal 90 degrees until they are directly in front of my sub, and then, of course, it's too late to be shooting torpedoes.

Is this correct?

You are right in so far as if you are perpendicular to the targets course and out in front of it the AOB will be smaler than 90. Set the AOB to 90 any way. Put the parascope to 00 degrees and then AOB to 90 and then lock in your TDC data. This should cause your gyro angle to read out some number, 045 for example. This number is the number of degrees your torpido is going to turn when you fire it. Now you rotate your parascope until your gyroangle reads 000, meaning your torpido will run in a strate line after you fire it; realy anything that is +/- 10 from 000 will work just fine. This will also adjust your AOB reading in your TDC, if you have it locked in properly, to a close estamate of what the AOB will be when the ship is at that point. If you rotate further to the ship it will tell you, more or less, what the current AOB for the target is. After you have all this set up you wait. Wait until your target comes into your scope. Where ever your verticle line in your parascope crosses your target when you fire the torpido should hit there, or relitivly close to it.

The way I understand it, I want to position my sub 90 degrees TO THE TARGET SHIP'S HEADING.

I then calculate the angle on the bow quite precisely using the protractor tool on the map, picking a point directly in front of the target ship, then ON the target ship, then ON my sub. This give me the angle between the target ship's nose and my sub. This should be the AOB, right?

This part I have down.
Steve

I think this method for calculting the angle will actualy get you closer to the angle on the stern, or the AOB for yoru position from the other side of the ship. I use that method my self, with a minor adjustment from your method, when I have time or visibility is too low for parascope observations. What you need to do in order to get an AOB that will work best for you is put your first protractor mark on the stern of the target ship, then extend to the bow of the ship and then finaly out to your sub. At least that is what works for me.