I would say there are 3 main ways of determining AOB:
1. Eyeballin' it. Using your hand, comparing it to the recognition manual's pictures (including the 45 degree one), and other such methods are often good enough for short range shots. This should serve you well enough for shots 1200 yards and less.
2. Knowing the target's course. If you know the target's course then you cna just drag the AOB dial around until the nose of the target in the wheel is pointed at the course you know the target is going. Bam, instant AOB. The best way of knowing target course is via 2-10 plots using sonar/radar/visual and connecting them with a straight line.
3. "Visual Squish" Technique. As a ship turns from 90 AOB toward or away from you the ship appears to be shorter visually. One can count how high and long a ship is in the recognition manual and form a ratio. Say the ship is 200 yards long and 100 yards high. If you then find that the ship is 15 marks long and 10 marks tall then you can figure out how visually squished the target is and then find out the AOB.
Ship Length: 200 yards
Ship Height: 100 yards
Aspect Ratio: 2.0
Apperant Ship Length: 15 marks
Apperant ship Height: 10 marks
Apperant Aspect Ratio: 1.5
Apperant Aspect Ratio / Aspect Ratio = | Sine ( AOB ) |
Real WWII US Subarmines had a stadimeter-like device to measure this visual squish. It worked just like the range stadimeter but horizontally instead of vertically where you could align the left tip of one image with the right tip of the other. This combined with the range information and ship length would give you an AOB solution quite nicely. Unfortunately it's not part of the game. Patch maybe? Mod even?
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