Best way to practice determining AOB?

[Skweetis]

Seems I was leaning on my WO in SH3 to much to give me details, as I seem to not be able to determine AOB very well, unless they are at 90, 0 or 45, Im pooched.

However, the very few torpedos I actually get to hit are VERY VERY satisfying when I calculate the solution myself.

I went a head and changed the settings so that I nolonger have Manual Targeting active for this patrol, and have been basically guessing the AOB, then pulling the slidout to get the real AOB from the auto solution. My accuracy is still way off on the odd angles, so Im curious if any of you vetern skippers out there have any little tricks and ditties you have used to help improve your AOB accuracy?

Cheers

[tater]

One thing the recognition guide lacks are some of the top views.



Not that the masts, kingposts, etc, are marked. If you are in a position where two recognizable parts are just superimposed, you can place a protractor on the plan view lining up the two parts and read off the AOB. That's what they did in RL.

tater

[nattydread]

Get a merchant ship model, mounted it on a AoB card and practice at various angles.

Yeah, little specifics of a ship given to you on an ID chart at various AoBs help, but when it comes down to it, the similar shapes of merchants translates across the board for given AoBs

The big thing is the angles on the superstrutures and longitudinal(nose to tail) hull lines.

[Egan]

Getting closer helps a lot..:p

To be honest, i think experience helps a lot, probably more than anything else. I tend not to have many problems with AOB Unless I'm lining up a shot on a dark and stormy night and can't see them too well. I tend to be able to visualise the view from the target which helps a lot. If I'm targetting a ship that has started zig zaggin after an attack I try to dial in the probably AOB for where he will be when the torp hits him, based on observation. This isn't recommended if a DD has zeroed in on you though.

I also run a manual track on the nav map if there is some distance between me and the target and I have the time. I just take the bearing and distance (distance is often just guessed but uisually an educated one,) mark it on the map, repeat over a period of time and see what the base course is. This can provide you with lots of usful information. Actually, I'd love to take the bearing, dial in a probable range, press a button called 'Mark' and have one of my officers update the Plot - they should be working for their money, I think!

[don1reed]

Originally Posted by nattydread

Get a merchant ship model, mounted it on a AoB card and practice at various angles.

Yeah, little specifics of a ship given to you on an ID chart at various AoBs help, but when it comes down to it, the similar shapes of merchants translates across the board for given AoBs

The big thing is the angles on the superstrutures and longitudinal(nose to tail) hull lines.

...the above is exactly what, Dick "Killer" O'Kane, did when he was the XO of the WAHOO.

The crew rigged a ship model on a large relative compass card and, O'Kane, practiced getting the AOB by viewing the model through binoculars held backwards from across the wardroom. He got to where he was never more than 2° off.

(Saw this on a Historychannel VHS tape)

Cheers,

[Torpex752]

Another method to determine AOB when the taget is closer is looking at the bridge and superstructure which is the flattest surface 90deg off the side of the hull.

Frank

[nattydread]

Originally Posted by don1reed

...the above is exactly what, Dick "Killer" O'Kane, did when he was the XO of the WAHOO.

The crew rigged a ship model on a large relative compass card and, O'Kane, practiced getting the AOB by viewing the model through binoculars held backwards from across the wardroom. He got to where he was never more than 2° off.

(Saw this on a Historychannel VHS tape)

Cheers,

Dicky was the greatest wasnt he? If anyone wants to be a kick ass skipper you need to read up on O'kane, Morton, Fluckey and Calvert

[Bubbles68]

Another hint for determining AoB that I use is this: the sine of 30 degrees is 0.5, so if you compare the view in the periscope to the side view in the recognition manual, a target at 30 degrees AoB will look half as long as it does at 90 degrees. The same way, a target at 45 degrees looks 70% as long, and at 60 degrees, about 85%.

[greekfire]

I found this great thread on the official forums. check it out. If you're feelin' kinda anal about getting a really accurate AoB then this would be a good method but it seems to me that AoB isn't something we have to be exact with...decent estimates seem to be just as effective as exact angles. My only reservation with this method is that it requires an invcos calculation from a calculator or trig table and affects the realism factor a bit but this is still a good read.

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AoB Method #2: (Credit goes to paulyn8r at www.forums.ubi.com )

For those of you grog nards looking for an extremely accurate AOB method, look no further.

Stadiametric ranging should give you an extremely accurate AOB. I have used this method several times and my calculations have always matched with the AUTO-TDC mode. The method is fairly simple, although you will need a scientific calculator to complete it. It works on the same trigonometry which you use to determine range to target by measuring the observed mast height compared to actual mast height. Once you know range to target, and the length of the target, the rest is just simple trig.

First, figure out the apparent length of your target. Do this by measuring the width of the target in degrees from your periscope/binoculars. Remember, each TIC mark is 1 degree, .25 degrees, and .2 degrees for the attack scope zoomed out, zoomed in, and the binoculars respecively. Multiply this number by 174500 and divide by the range to the target (in feet) that you calculated before. The result is the apparent length of your target in feet.

[For those that care about the math, there are 17.45 milliradians per degree. A milliradian = 1 foot of distance at 1000 foot range. Thus, 1745*apparent length in degrees/range to target in feet = apparent length in feet]

Divide the apparent length by the actual length (all in feet of course). Ship length is found in your manual for the given ship type, and is also found in the in-game ship ID book (the scale bar is in hundreds of feet).

Take the inverse cosine of this ratio, and you have the exact angle off bow of the target ship. The result will always be 0-90 degrees, so you will have to visually determine if the ship is moving towards or away and make adjustments to the angle. For example if you result is 70 degrees, but you know the ship is looking back at you, the actual AOB is 110, not 70 (i.e. 20 degrees aft of 90)

Also, this will not work well with extremely low angles (which don't result in high PK torpedo shots anyway). You must be able to clearly see the length of the ship. If a ship is coming directly at you, or going directly away, you will not see both ends of the ship to get a good view of its length.

Example: A juicy European built liner is steaming at me around 50-70 AOB. I will throw in his approximate speed, AOB, and calculate his range to get the position keeper going so that I am ready for my AOB calculation. Initially his range is 3,000 feet. In the periscope I can see that he appears to be 4.5 degrees in length. I know his length is 520 feet from the books, and now I have all I need to calculate.

invcos[(4.5*174500)/(521*3000)] = 60 degrees

[jmr]

Sounds like something Hitman described here

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ighlight=ratio