[John Channing]

Originally Posted by ddiplock

I came across a brilliant target, a Huge European liner sailing alone. Worth some 18,000 tons. So, I move into a position, dive down to PD and begin collecting target data.

I do a speed estimate, after 3 minutes she's gone 1600yrds. So, I input the speed as 16 knots into the TDC and then do the firing solution, also my radar indicated the ship was moving fast, so 16 knots sounded a reasonable estimate. Wait until he gets to my desired angle and I fire. All torpedos in the spread ended up going AHEAD of the target!!!! by quite a margin.

Does that mean that he was infact going alot slower than my speed estimate?? Or did he reduce his speed after my calculation was done?? I was so infuriated I surfaced and blew him to hell and gone with both my deck guns, but i'm not satisifed in sinking him that way, i'll claim the kill, but I'm not happy. I wanted to sink the bugger the traditional way with the torpedo.

Maybe he reduced speed after my estimate calculation and threw everything into dissaray. I've had targets change course at the last minute and nearly ruin everything, so if he slowed down that might not seem too un-plausible.

It would seem that either your original estimate of 13 kts was correct (in which case you would miss ahead) or your range was wrong and he was further away than you estimated.

Or maybe both.

JCC