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Didn't know that.So how did the captain actually go about it.Did he use the scale to read the tickmarks for mast height and scream it to the WO who entered it into the TDC?Or did the cap'n count the tick marks and then use the RAOFB and send all the info it gives to the WO?I am so lost in how a uboat actually operated.
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Basically they made a WAG estimation (Wild Ass Guess)
But seriously, in the naval academy distance estimation was practiced to death, according to Uboat Ace Georg Lassen they even went out to sea 8 times a day just to exercise it. In short distances -i.e. shooting distances which are about less than 2000 metres- it worked so well that the hassle of recognition manuals, stadimeters, etc was not worth the effort and actually delayed the process.
What the captain/IWO did was look at the ship, estimate the size of it and use the lense as reference. They knew that a ship of this or that size would cover the whole lense at this or that distance and that sufficed normally to get a good estimate. If you take a look at my GUI for SH3 you will see that I added in socpes & uzo station a copy of one of those tables that were sometimes stickied to the periscope for quick reference.
I myself have becomed pretty efficient at range and AOB estimation in SH3 after some practice and knowing what I had to do. When you get the hang of it, it beats any other method in quickness and if not as accurate, at least it is good enough except for long range shots (>2000 metres).