Well, there are lots of ways to skin a cat. For example, let's suppose that you don't know how to use a three-bearing method to determine the ship's course. No problem. Here's an easy and infallible way to determine the ship's course, range, and speed.
Assuming that the ship is either moving away or constant distance, simply steer directly toward the ship on the surface. It won't be long till you will be directly astern of the ship and following the ship on exact same course as the ship.
Then you can easily pace the ship to determine its exact speed.
Let's assume, for example, that the ship is going 22º at 7 knots. Just locate the ship and draw a circle around that ship with a radius of either 7 or 14 km. The ship will be on the 7 km circle in 32.4 minutes and the 14 km circle in 64.8 minutes. So as long as the ship doesn't change course (ships do that sometimes) you'll know exactly where that ship will be at a specific future time.
Then conduct an end around attack. I'm assuming pretty much anyone can do that. Since you know the target's course, speed, and location at a set future time, you can easily move out to 10 km distance (assuming normal, imperfect weather) and race around the target at full speed without being seen. Move in submerged, set up for the attack, and hit it with a two-torpedo salvo at 1 km distance.
All of this can be done without identifying the ship, knowing its draft, or knowing its beam. In fact, the entire operation can be conducted periscope down till the last second when you go up just long enough to take the shot and send it to the bottom.
|