Quote:
Originally Posted by ColonelSandersLite
You probably wouldn't want to use the map contact data anyways in that case. When you don't know your exact position, it's way better to use a maneuvering board, instead of an absolute cartesian coordinate system.
A very good chunk of the information you would want for this can be found here:
https://archive.org/details/maneuveringboard00unit |
That's a perfect analysis. Our nav map should only be for ship navigation. For tactical actions we should have a Dead Reckoning Tracer (DRT) (properly showing only relative positions), Parallel Motion Protractor (PMP), plot should have a bearing and range indicator showing true compass bearing to the target and range automatically provided from stadimeter or radar, various speed plotting devices and dividers (our nomograph kinda takes their place), and most importantly, because these are error mitigating mechanisms we do NOT have access to, the Periscope Radar Plot, the Stadimeter Plot (!!!!), the Radar Plot and the Navigational Sonar Plot. They also had a bearing rate plot and a bearing difference plot that we don't have. As a double-check against the above many plotting teams had a member with a banjo or is-was. If there was a difference between solutions of plot and TDC and/or banjo/is-was and TDC the fact was announced and torpedoes not fired.
It's easy to see that we have a gross generalization of the excellent tools submariners actually used to plot an attack. Check out the whole thing in the
1950 Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual. Chapter 5 is the one that describes the plotting crew's jobs.
Your observation that navigational and tactical plots should be separate is only the beginning of what Silent Hunter 4 lacks. Now our nav map and attack map are supposed to show the result of all the above working together as the captain gets the processed information. One misunderstood function of the attack map is that it represents the comparison of TDC solution with nav plot. If they didn't agree real boats didn't shoot. I've seen many posts where people completely misunderstood the attack map or thought it should be entirely eliminated. In fact it is a good representation of what really happened in fire control parties.
What is not simulated is the error that creeps into every observation, every calculation (they used lots of slide rules we don't have too), that accumulates over time and varies in magnitude by collection method, crew experience and sea conditions.
All these things are why I don't complain when the game is wrong about ship lengths or draft or masthead height. Lacking any errors in other aspects of the plot, these mistakes help reintroduce errors into our solutions. Add that to our being deprived of error mitigating elements of the real plotting crews and we end up with a different but at least present set of difficulties that we can't control.