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Originally Posted by ddiplock
Well, I used the ruler to measure the distance between the points and it measured the distance as 1. Now can that be interpreted as 1000 meters or 1km?? I'm wondering how close my speed calculation was, i can't have been THAT wrong if the torpedo hit  But having said that they were not that far away, so being so close to the destroyer may have been the "saving" factor in allowing the torpedo to still hit the target. |
Well, first off, 1km is by definition 1,000 meters.
Your speed calculation was fine. You measured the distance travelled in 3 minutes 15 seconds, and the speed was 10 knots. I don't know what extra step you used to get 6 knots, but whatever it was, apparently one of two scenarios came into play:
1. You were close enough that the speed error didn't matter. I doubt this, though for the following reason: At 300 yards a 30 knot torp would take 20 seconds to traverse that distance. A speed error of 4 knots would result in changing the point of impact by about 41 meters, almost half the length of the average destroyer. If you locked on to the center of the destroyer, you would hit it's stern, or completely miss it astern. Since that's the minimum torpedo attack distance, most likely you were farther away.
Using a faster torpedo speed would minimize this error, but even with a T1 at 44 knots, the 20 second/41 meter error at 4 knots distance is still at around 450 meters.
2. An error in your AOB calculation serendipitously counteracted your
error in speed. Hey, sometimes you hit the lottery.
In any case, it's never easy to hit the damned things, so just make your log entry vague enough that Onkel Karl will think it was due to skill, not luck
Then soak up the glory that comes with hanging a red pennant off your periscope.