There are some clever and well written tutorials on how to sink ships with different grades of 'realism'. There are even Youtube clips showing how to do it.
There are some mods providing more and better tools to do the job.
I myself did a tutorial on sinking ships with hydrophone data only.
Great fun to learn all the stuff - and you are the right guy to do it. Never heared of a newbie working on trigonometric target solutions.
Im your western neighbour. We built the iron coffins you're sailing in.