Quote:
Originally Posted by gumbeauregard
To come at the issue from a different perspective imagine that your torpedoes can only run straight out the tube and develop a method to fire them accurately under those constraints.
You will arrive where I am if you do that.
If two cars are approaching an intersection, one at 10 mph (Car A) and the other (Car B) at 46 mph there is only ONE triangle of starting points that makes a crash happen at the intersection.
The triangle may have sides that are longer or shorter but the ratio between the two will always be 4.6 to 1.
If Car A is 10 miles from the intersection and Car B is 46 miles and they start towards the intersection at the same time, they will arrive there at the same time. The angle between Car B's line of sight to the intersection and his line of sight to Car B is precisely 12.26477 degrees at start.
That angle does not change as long as neither speed changes.
Car A at 20 miles and B at 92 miles is still a 12.26477 degree angle at the start and they collide 2 hours after start. Change either speed and the angle changes but range does not matter.
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Again, you did not defend or support your foundational statement. Irrelevant banter does nothing to support your method. Get relevant and support yourself. Why are target speed and torpedo speed the only two inputs you need to determine a firing solution? That's all that counts. Everything else is noise.
If you'll establish your method graphically, like I do here with a third valid targeting system, the John P Cromwell targeting system, you'll see that target speeds and torpedo speeds alone are not sufficient to aim a torpedo and have it hit the target. By making your shot straight shooting, gyro angle between 340 and 20 degrees you can toss out range, but there are other parameters which are absolutely necessary in any valid firing solution. Think man! You can't teach anyone if you don't understand your own method.
I'm not going to hand you the solution on a silver platter. You're going to have to work it out yourself, and the solution does not involve my lack of knowledge about the mathematics and application of trigonometry. Clue: your illustrations above include what you are not considering in your solution. You have the answer but don't know you have it.
Just use geometry and quit thinking about the trigonometry aspect. You want to draw a triangle. There are several ways to describe a specific triangle: ASA, SSS or SAS, that's angle/side/angle, side/side/side or side/angle/side are three of them. You need three pieces of information to define a triangle. You're telling me you can define a triangle only by specifying the lengths (speeds) of two sides. Can't be done. I can construct an infinite number of triangles from torpedo speed and target speed and every one of them will have a different gyro angle. Therefore you can't make a solution knowing only target speed and torpedo speed.
I know you can do it. Think.
You have committed the same mistake as the other great thinker who posited that by putting the target at your 80 or 280 bearing, your course HAD to be 90 degrees from his. But that target has absolute free will, not subject to his bearing from your sub, to be headed any direction he wants and only one of those infinitely possible directions brings him across your bow 90 degrees from your course. That guy never understood he was requiring black magic or voodoo to make his method work. You are in the same position. He had You Tube videos by the dozen. They were all a crock.