Quote:
Originally Posted by BigWalleye
Was it possible to get the TDC to calculate a deflection angle and include that in the gyro angle setting? The in-game TDC requires that you estimate your own lead angle, just as if you were duck hunting. That's a learned skill.
|
No, in that regard the American TDC worked just like the game. However that is not a handicap. I used that "feature" in my Dick O'Kane method.
First you set up the TDC for what the AoB will be at time of firing. You're going to be 90º from the track and I have a rule of thumb for anything under 10 knots fire at 10º before your relative zero bearing and for anything 10-15, fire 15º before, higher speed make it 20º. That is a rule of thumb and people say "RR you're not being precise."
Well, actually I am, because while I choose the shoot bearing imprecisely, the TDC figures the gyro angle very precisely. No that torpedo won't generally go right up the zero bearing. I will be a few, maybe as many as five degrees off. But according to my experience and the Submarine Torpedo Fire Control Manual, any gyro angle under 20º was considered straight shooting where range mattered very little to a valid solution. Since my error is only 25% of the allowed variance, I hit every shot.
So long as you are shooting with position keeper off you can select shoot bearings arbitrarily and still get hits. With position keeper on you can shoot whenever you want so long as your solution remains valid.
So I'd say the American TDC is only a disadvantage if you want to try to force it to work like the German TVR. Taken on its own terms it's excellent. And the same is true of the TVR. You can't say it's garbage based on the fact that there are differences from the TDC.
After all, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is whether or not a target goes boom. If your device makes the target go boom it is a successful device.
But as for your question, with the American TDC you are not selecting the lead angle. You are selecting the shoot bearing and the TDC calculates the correct lead angle, inputs the gyro angle automatically (with manual backup available) to the torpedo and it hits. In my
video, I blew the attack and ran my mouth as the target ran past my shoot bearing. Rather than quit and begin again, I just aimed the crosshairs at the bow and stabbed the "send bearing and range to TDC" button, then fired four. All four hit when my AoB was 10º wrong for when I shot. The reason is that the TDC calculated a new gyro angle based on my erroneous input, firing 10º too late, and it was still plenty close enough. I published the video as an example of how error tolerant the Dick O'Kane attack is. That's because of how versatile the TDC is.