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Originally Posted by Snowman999
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A stopped ship isn't headed anywhere.
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Not true in a legal, logbook sense. A vessel in water always has a heading. Speed doesn't enter into it.
Normally it wouldn't matter, except in some obscure admiralty law situation (Dragged anchor, what was anchored heading?) or in cases of high winds or seas where anchored aspect to the elements is a safety issue. But the heading is the direction the bow is facing, moving or not.
In cases where the vessel is going astern the log entry would be "Astern 1/3, making 4 knots, heading 000" even though the hull was moving toward 180 True. The course would be 180; the heading would be 000. |
But he is asking the question in relation to targeting with the TDC. It does not allow negative speed, so a backing ship would have legal heading minus 180º for TDC entry. Otherwise your torpedo isn't coming anywhere near that target.
And from a plotting point and TDC point of view, a stationary ship has no heading or angle on the bow, as heading and AOB in that frame of reference are always related to the motion of the target. Actually for a ship with zero speed, you an input any heading or angle on the bow you choose for a correct targeting solution. No measurements of any kind are necessary. Use your favorite number! I use 42, the answer to life, death, the universe and everything.
A target making 2 knots across a 2 knot current would have quite a different plotted heading than the compass course of the ship, which would be irrelevent to the submarine making the observation. If you are interested in striking the side of that ship with a torpedo, the heading is the combination of the two vectors for course/boat speed and current direction/speed.
A sub captain is interested in results, not the legal definition of "heading." In fact, the legal definition is worse than useless to him. We have no interest in the lawyer's heading because he is on shore and cannot help or hurt us. We have no interest in the target captain's heading because we are going to put him safely in Davey Jones' locker in a short while. We sink ships and worry about the legal bullschnitzel later. We confine ourselves to heading definitions that put the enemy on the ocean floor.
Arrrrrrrr matey!