OMG the middle ranges are hard!
Can i add some "references" please that you may consider?
1. Funnel smoke... It trails more at 90 and is straight at 0. In your picture it wasnt so clear but brings me on to...
2. Wake... in the same way you brilliantly identified the bow, the stern appearance shows more and more. Depending on boat of course, but oval hulls give a lot more away after 20 deg. the trailing wake appears around 75 degrees. Unfortunately your images are still and smoke and wake move so not as easy to tell from still, but wakes are awesomely useful for nightime since they glow more.
3. Flat straight surfaces! Search for a flat panel, the most obvious and useful is the highly visible bridge, but also consider cargo containers which are nice and square. You get nice rectangular patterns that your eye can use when looking at the front "face". These are most useful in the lead up to 90 degrees when the ability to see right across the front of the ship gets closer and closer to 90. Its the same as using the masts although i find that unless you know the masts inside-out they can appear so confusing, esp from a distance. (Hands up who hates merchant masts?!)
4. Any protrusions, bilateral differences, distinctive features... For example the bridge on that illustrated ship sticks out either side. That sticky out point is useful at angles closer to 0. Personally i hate any military ships as the superstructures are so complex and there are lots of rounded parts. coupled with the fact that textures dont reflect the light as well as real objects its harder.
5. Finally i had a ponder about 35-55 degrees. I cant think of a single facet that could make this easier. Anyone getting these is either a genius on their ship recog or using the pause button! The one thing you dont have to help is height. As far as i can guess the best way remains with seeing more than one mast and knowing the distance between them. In truth AoB is all about horizontal distances in the same way that range is to vertical distances. If you knew the length of the ship at 90 and measured it at any angle theres some maths that can give you your AoB.
...I r not mathematizian. :p
PS...the maths bit would require very accurate measurement of the length and require very accurate range to convert your measurement from view to real size and would be innaccurate for AoB 0-20 and 70-90 as wouldnt account for the width. It would also be a huge waste of time and completely pointless when you should be getting other things done as AoB changes. :P
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