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Now I know that this was simply so accurate and if doing it right you couldn't miss. Wow!
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Well, not that easy, and certainly there were many errors, but the german success laid most in that they fired very close (Less than 1000 metres if possible, better 500). Mast heigth and ship length is not so easy to estimate if you don't know for sure the values, but since U-Boot commanders were after all people experinced at sea (Some came from the merchant Navy like Prien or Schulz) they tended to make good estimates.
Also many times they fired at a ship but actually hit another (The advantage of shooting at convoys), something that actually happened a lot to Kretschmer
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Captain identifies ship, and checks mast height and ship length from manual, or estimates them. He then turns a couple of dials on the periscope, matching two pictures, and has range and AOB.
All he needs in addition to this is speed. And that could be measured exactly using any of the following (and probably by some other means too):
- Matching course and speed when doing long range approach, even before identifying ship.
- By keeping a constant bearing during perpendicular submerged approach. (Or at any other angle, but this would require a bit more calculation).
- From any two timed spottings with some trigonometry.
- Using the stopwatch to measure speed from stationary sub at any time after ship was identified and length known.
The Submarine Commander's Handbook suggests that measuring range was the only somewhat difficult part (which is quite true at least in the game through the periscope/uzo). An error in the range estimate would also mean an error in AOB. But AOB could be visually checked, to make sure there is no large error. (And if there was, the range could then be rechecked.)
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Yes, that's more or less how it was done
