****breaths deep*****
OK....long story short:
I have been already for some time doing an article exactly about that: How the germans collected data for their firing solutions in real life. The information is far from complete and easy to get in the web, I have been researching the matter for several months and now I start to have a clear picture. I can't sum up what I am putting together in an already 12+ pages long article (with pictures included), but I can tell you that it is 100% sure that germans did
NOT make any plot on the map for the target solutions (Though they certainly plotted the contact info from BDU about convoys until they made visual contact for the first time), unlike their american Silent Service counterparts. Aboard a german sub only two persons did the full job of getting data and feeding the TDC: The commander at the scope (submerged) or the IWO at the UZO (Surfaced), while a petty officer auxiliated with some calculations and recognition manuals, and fed the data into the TDC. And they did it "on the fly", without any plotting. That was achieved through the combined use of certain manouvering tactics (Constant helming and bearing) during the approach at long distance, and the use of the specific instruments in the U-Boot optics when already close (submerged of surfacer), like the Rangefinder, Course finder, etc.
And no, they did NOT make always simple estimations of the AOB like the americans, they used instead a device (Mechanical wiz-wheel linked toa split prism optic) in the scope for measuring that.
The article should be available first in spanish and later in english in some time, I have written it already and I'm now busy drawing some schemes and re-organizing and revising the text.
P.S. I'm also working on that real life periscope wiz-wheel for printing and building up your own one. Hopefully also someone who knows how to add moveable dials to the game (Like the 6-dials simfeeling mod) will be able to help me adding it to SH3
