Thanks for the positive input guys, I was wondering if my little novella was a little too long. I know it
was too long, but I ain't no Winston Churchill. It
was him who said "I'm sorry if this letter is longer than usual, as I didn't have the time to make it short," right? Anyway, yeah it's been a good time. My second patrol was heavy fog the entire time, but I managed to have the TDC already set nearly perfectly by the time the ships came into visual range (about 400m) because of my hydrophone readings.
Due to the way I record my readings, I was able to estimate speed to within 1-2 knots, AOB to within 5 degrees, and course to within 5 degrees. By the time he came into view, I was 400m away, on a perpendicular course, with tubes open and set to 3m impact fuses, with speed, AOB and range alrleady input to within an acceptable degree. I was able to put two torps to within 5m of my aim point without even touching the TDC after sighting the ships. Of course, the ships that I nailed doing it by this method were so close that 5m worth of error isn't anything to brag about, but when they come out of the fog like that, you don't have time even to do the notepad method (flipping through the manual, inputting range, inputting AOB, waiting on the stopwatch for speed.)
Anyway, looks like if I don't stop right now, my momentum is gonna pick up and I'm gonna write another novel, and I'm not a good enough writer to warrant that, so thanks for the replies and I'll be sure not to tangle with any airplanes!
P.S. To Keelbuster - It's not really that hard-core going with manual targeting, depending on the method you use. After checking out Wazoo's tutorial and trying out all those methods, I realized that that degree of accuracy isn't really necessary as long as you're in a good position (close range, perpendicular course.) Once in position and waiting for the target to cross your bow, you don't have to stress about doing a bunch of math, you have plenty of time to estimate the TDC inputs to a good enough degree that you'll always hit your target. It gives me something to do while waiting on the target to approach, keeps things interesting. Not to mention that it feels good when I hit that fuel bunker manually
