SH5 Dick'O Kane (DoK) Tutorial

[Aufklarer]

Hello and welcome to my tutorial on the Dick'O Kane attack method.

Mods used in tutorial

Just before i start ill just clarify a few points about my mods so that eliminates questions later, these mods will allow you to adjust the dials manually more easily than the stock version:

NewUIs_TDC_1_1_0_ByTheDarkWraith
BRF 1.3 full
Enhanced Ship Recon Manual V1.02
Old Style Explosions V1.1
Damage assessment

Important Points about the Dick'O Kane (DoK) attack method

This attack method was designed to be used in US submarines. A number of captains used the DoK method as their preffered choice to calculate a firing solution due to the fact it helped to overcome the inadequacies of the position keeper. This tutorial will show you how to apply the same method in UBoats. This solution is not as accurate as some of the other methods available to you, however it is easy to set up and execute allowing minor discrepencies in your infomation gathering.

The following points should be taken into consideration:

1 - It works for any angle.
2 - A gyro angle of 000 once the solution is completed will eliminate range from the equation.
3 - This method is best used on large single targets or large convoy groups in line abreast formations (as in tutorial).
4 - Targets MUST be on a constant speed and heading for this method to be accurate.
5 - The DoK method allows you to engage as many targets almost simultaneously as you have fore torpedoes loaded (in most cases 4 if you so choose).

The ability to engage multiple targets with a single firing solution is a massive plus, however the drawbacks being your unlikely to score kills with single torpedoes against larger vessels. In this instance you can double up torpedoes or alternatively hit them with one and cripple them. When they fall behind the convoy and escorts, they are just tonnage waiting to be claimed.

The Dick'O Kane attack tutorial

For this tutorial i played with map contacts on and free camera to allow for better understanding.

So on to the scenario....

Slide 1



So we have detected multiple noise contacts, and have established that they are heading roughly due east or on a heading of approx 90'. We can tell this as the sonarman has informed us of their bearing and that they are closing from long range.

All we will do now is make sure that we are at periscope depth, waiting to see the ships with the attack periscope and prepare to intercept.




Slide 2



Once the ships are visually in range we can prepare to intercept and set in motion our plan of attack.




Slide 3



Now we need to mark the nearest ship to you and ascertain as to where his heading ill take him on the map in relation to our submarine. We do this by marking with the pencil tool the dead centre of the ship in question. Repeat this process after about 1 min to have 2 points marked (note - the more marks you take the more accurately your ruler will mark his course).




Slide 4



Use the ruler tool to link the 2 marks you made and extend through the target and out past your area of operation, at this point be sure to be accurate with your measurement, I will set up at a 90' angle. This will give me a greater chance of a kill due to a decreased chance of non detonations from a shallow torpedo strike angle, and maximum target profile (The whole length of the target)




Slide 5



Now we use the targets course to set our sub up at a 90' angle, use the protractor to accurately mark a 90' angle and position you sub anywhere on that line, remembering to take into account the distance for your torpedos to arm and the enemy watch crews will be looking for you! Remember your sub MUST be stationary so the knot counter is showing 00. In this example i set up approximately 1km from where the nearest ship will pass. You should aim to set up the same distance from the nearest ship as the convoy is deep, in this way your torpedoes should impact at roughly the same times give or take 30seconds.




Slide 6



Now we must work out speed. To do this we need to one ship in question, lock the ship in your periscope and bring up the recognition manual. You need the Enhanced Ship Recon Manual V1.02 Mod as this will give you the length of the ship. Once you have the length you can dismiss the weapons officer and unlock your target.




Slide 7



Now place the crosshair of your attack scope at the bow of the target and start your stopwatch.




Slide 8



As the target passes through the other side of your crosshair stop your watch. We now have the length of the ship and a time. Now comes the maths:

[L(length)/T(Time)] x 1.94 = S(Speed)

once you input these values and get your answer you can round up or down to the nearest whole number giving you the targets speed in knots. eg an answer of 5.86 is rounded up to 6 knots.




Slide 9



Now you have the speed of the target we can manually input that into the TDC. Unlock it by clicking this button, now we can adjust the dials as we please.(note - you need NewUIs_TDC_1_1_0_ByTheDarkWraith or a similar UI mod to see the dials).




Slide 10



Scroll the speed round to your calculated answer.

[Aufklarer]

Slide 11



While we are here adjust the range to maximum, range should not be an issue although it should be noted that accuracy is decreased the further the target is an extreme shots (over 2k) could possible miss.




Slide 12



At this point we have half the solution, give yourself a break and set your torpedoes up, set all to fast and if you have enough time individually set depth to match your chosen targets. Right back to the protractor.




Slide 13



Ok we will opt for a lead angle on our targets of 10' (There is no hard and fast rule but the greater the lead angle you give the less accurate your solution becomes, keep this in mind). To set up our Angle Off Bow it is very simple. As we are going to give a lead of 10' we will be firing before the target is directly in front of us. So 10' early will be 90' minus 10' which gives a result of 80'. We will fire when our submarine is 80' to starboard of the target ship. Use the protractor to plot that on the map as shown. (In bad weather when you cant see the targets you can extend this line across the convoy and fire blindly when you see sound readings crossing this line, and still accurately hit).




Slide 14



Input 80' to starboard on the dial like shown.




Slide 15



The final thing to do is set your bearing. Now remember we said we would lead the target 10'. Wherever you sub is pointing is a bearing of 0' if we lead a target by 10' then we need to set out attack periscope to 0' minus 10' giving a result of 350'. Do that now using the graticules on your scope.




Slide 16



Check my minimap and you should have something like this, you are now ready to unleash the tadpoles of doom. (note - due to the tanker being slightly ahead of the rest of the ships in the first line, i decided to engage the second line of ships) That is the beauty of this method it is very forgiving and versatile. (At this point a gyro angle of 000 will result in a perfect torpedo intercept course, however as you can see when i fire it is around 7.4)




Slide 17



Right without moving your periscope left or right wait for a target to pass through your crosshair, as soon as the part of the boat you want to hit is in your cross fire a torpedo. If you followed the steps accurately and made the perfect solution your torpedo will hit the exact point you fired it. I fired 1 torpedo at the bow wave and one at the first mast.




Slide 18



As you can see here from the minimap all 4 torpedoes are in the water unfortunately as my first 2 torpedoes passed the bottom left hand merchant he managed to spot their wake and alerted the rest of the convoy, now all ships are making evasive manouevres! How vigilant! trying to mess up my tutorial is he?




Slide 19



So the net result was 2 sunk and the furthest target evaded 1 torpedo but my second still got him, after 30 minutes he had taken on alot of water and slowed to 2 knots. His convoy left him to his fate and i introduced him to Hans Myer my deckgunner.

As you can see even though they started evasive manouevres early in the engagement i still scored good hits, and the furthest target at approx 2k still couldnt evade, even after i aimed at his bow.

I hope this has been of some use to you if you have read this through and put it into practice. Even if this method is not your chosen one hopefully it has been a display of the fundamental basics that all solutions require.

Happy hunting men!

Dieter Von Houghton signing out........

[Westbroek]

Nice tutorial.
All hale Rear Admiral O'Kane!

[BigBANGtheory]

Wow this guide is gonna take longer to digest than the salt water crocodile's meal of the year. Nicely done

[gutted]

You dont need to be at exactly 90 degrees... and you are not even leveraging the biggest plus of the U-Boats TDC.. the linked AOB & periscope.

It can function as a pseudo lead angle solver.


1. Approach target from a desired angle (doesn't have to be exactly 90 degrees). It could be 60 or 30 or 45.. whatever.
2. Input the target's AOB if you are looking at him.. or put the scope at 000 and enter what it would be if he was on your nose.
3. Input the targets speed.
4. Input any range.
5. Move the scope until the gyro reads 0. (this is your lead angle)
6. Fire when the target reaches the periscope line.

Works for any speed.. any angle.. any range. And you dont have to draw a thing on the map.

7. If you dont want to wait for him to cross your "lead angle", you need to input an accurate range and fire whenever.

Your abritrary 10 degree lead is only valid for a specific torpedo speed, taget speed, and intercept AOB. If he was going faster or slower (or you used a slower torpedo) you would miss.

Use the TDC. It is smart.

[Aufklarer]

i thought id make it as detailed as possible so as to eliminate as many questions as possible

[Aufklarer]

Originally Posted by gutted

You dont need to be at exactly 90 degrees... and you are not even leveraging the biggest plus of the U-Boats TDC.. the linked AOB & periscope.

It can function as a pseudo lead angle solver.


1. Approach target from a desired angle (doesn't have to be exactly 90 degrees). It could be 60 or 30 or 45.. whatever.
2. Input the target's AOB if you are looking at him.. or put the scope at 000 and enter what it would be if he was on your nose.
3. Input the targets speed.
4. Input any range.
5. Move the scope until the gyro reads 0. (this is your lead angle)
6. Fire when the target reaches the periscope line.

Works for any speed.. any angle.. any range. And you dont have to draw a thing on the map.

7. If you dont want to wait for him to cross your "lead angle", you need to input an accurate range and fire whenever.

Your abritrary 10 degree lead is only valid for a specific torpedo speed, taget speed, and intercept AOB. If he was going faster or slower (or you used a slower torpedo) you would miss.

Use the TDC. It is smart.

Points taken, however this is designed to show the DoK method as previously mentioned and is taken verbatum from previous explainations just using SH5 as the 'platform' to help newer people to the game.

While a slower torpedo or faster target will cause the shots to miss i have had success with this method on targets ranging between 6-11 knots up to distances of around 2k. Bearing in mind this is primarily for use against large convoys where a miss will likely result in a potential hit on a differing ship. I understand that your method stated above is wholly more accurate but it isnt the DoK method which is what i hoped to demonstrate in this tutorial.

Drawing on the map helps grasp the basics, for me especially pictures paint a thousand words i hoped it would help others too.

[gutted]

Fast Torpedo (44kts) vs. a target at 90 Intercept AOB:

Target Speed - Lead Angle
5kts - 6.5 degrees
7kts - 9 degrees
9kts - 11.6 degrees
11kts - 14 degrees

The error in degrees is amplified by range.

90 degree intercept (medium speed 40kt torpedo)
5kts - 7.1 degrees
7kts - 9.9 degrees
9kts - 12.7 degrees
11kts - 15.4 degrees

Nearly a whole degree difference (on average).. just changing the torpedo speed.


60 degree Intercept AOB (44kt torpedo):
5kts - 5.3 degrees
7kts - 7 degrees
9kts - 9.1 degrees
11kts - 10.9 degrees


All values found using my "Solution Solver" (which in itself is totally not needed, and is more of a toy).

If you use the TDC how it's supposed to.. you will get the correct lead angle for any speed and any intecept angle.

[gutted]

I understand that your method stated above is wholly more accurate but it isnt the DoK method which is what i hoped to demonstrate in this tutorial.

I totally understand what you're trying to do. But i think it's more important to point out to people who dont know how all this stuff works... what exactly is going on... and what to expect if they stick to a step by step rigid inflexible method.

I was never a subscriber to the DOK method in SHIV btw.

Sorry if i hijacked.. i wont bother the thread anymore.

[kylania]

Nice tutorial! However as gutted pointed out, using the Fast90 or DOK method on a u-boat without using the gyroangle feature is an oversight imo.

All the AOB and lead stuff isn't needed. Just rely on the gyroangle rather than just say "I'm gonna use a 10 degree lead". The gyro shows you why (due to speed) you'd need 10 or 20 or whatever degree lead. Set the scope to 0, set 90 degrees AoB (required for this attack method) and turn the scope back so you're at 000 gyroangle and fire when ships pass center line. Personally I'd also use the meters in 3m 15s divided by 100 for the speed rather than L/T divided by 1.94. 100 is easier to remember than 1.94, way easier math and it doesn't require you to keep your scope still and exposed for the minute or so it takes to cross.

Surely all these various methods "work". The thing about the Fast90 approach I always loved was how quick and easy it is. Reducing math and letting the gyroangle work for you is a big part of that approach for me. Keeping it simple is the key.

[gutted]

The thing is... Fast 90 is a misnomer. It works at ANY angle.

[karamazovnew]

Since you already have the gyro angle displayed on the screen, why don't you use it?

In your shot the gyro was 7 degrees port. You should've move the periscope a bit until it showed 000. And you don't need to be at a perfect angle either. Just put the right AOB and speed and move the scope until the TDC shows a 000 gyro.

[Aufklarer]

Originally Posted by karamazovnew

Since you already have the gyro angle displayed on the screen, why don't you use it?

In your shot the gyro was 7 degrees port. You should've move the periscope a bit until it showed 000. And you don't need to be at a perfect angle either. Just put the right AOB and speed and move the scope until the TDC shows a 000 gyro.

Too many people are getting hung up about this.. I understand that the gyro angle set to 0 will show the lead angle required, but when DoK devised this method he didnt have the advantage of 'linked periscope to gyro' that Gutted mentioned earlier. DoK couldnt have accurately known where to move his periscope to achieve the perfect 000 on his gyroscope because his submarine didnt have the facility that the german UBoats did.

While i know that it isnt the most precise solution it is still a historically proven method that was used and that is what i tried to demonstrate. The tutorial is meant to show the DoK attack method, and this is what it does. Variations of angle speed and such are not part of his original method of attack, advances in submarine optics and TDC made the job ever more easier allowing for the variations pointed out previously.

I thank everyone for their comments, but i would like to hear about points people have relating to the DoK attack method specifically.

[Fincuan]

Originally Posted by Aufklarer

but when DoK devised this method he didnt have the advantage of 'linked periscope to gyro' that Gutted mentioned earlier.

1. This is not devised by DoK but based one some of the most basic principles of torpedo usage and proably invented much much earlier. IIRC Rockin Robbins just named it such because he had read in a book that DoK used such method and needed a good name when he wrote the original tutorial.
2. Real US TDC's did have a direct link to the periscope, something which just isn't modelled in SH4.

[karamazovnew]

Originally Posted by Aufklarer

Too many people are getting hung up about this.. I understand that the gyro angle set to 0 will show the lead angle required, but when DoK devised this method he didnt have the advantage of 'linked periscope to gyro' that Gutted mentioned earlier. DoK couldnt have accurately known where to move his periscope to achieve the perfect 000 on his gyroscope because his submarine didnt have the facility that the german UBoats did.

While i know that it isnt the most precise solution it is still a historically proven method that was used and that is what i tried to demonstrate. The tutorial is meant to show the DoK attack method, and this is what it does. Variations of angle speed and such are not part of his original method of attack, advances in submarine optics and TDC made the job ever more easier allowing for the variations pointed out previously.

I thank everyone for their comments, but i would like to hear about points people have relating to the DoK attack method specifically.

For a 000 gyroangle shot, it takes 5 minutes of elementary geometry to figure out a formula and print out a few tables with all AOBS and Speeds possible. Actually here's the formula:

Vs-speed of ship
Vt- speed of torpedo
B- 000 gyro bearing
AOB- angle on bow of target at bearing B (at the moment of fire)
this is actually AOB=(Intercept_angle - B)

From the law of sines:

Vs/sin(B)=Vt/sin(AOB)

and after 2-3 minutes you end up with (i might've done something wrong, I was writing in notepad after all):
B=atan[(Vs * sin I)/(Vt + Vs * cos I)]
And there you go, ready for excel (or angle charts if you were using Norie's tables)

Quick checkup: I=90 degrees
B=atan(Vs/Vt)....


Using this in Excel you get:

torp____ship__Bearing for 000 gyro
40_____1_____1.432096184
40_____2_____2.862405226
40_____3_____4.289153329
40_____4_____5.710593137
40_____5_____7.125016349
40_____6_____8.53076561
40_____7_____9.926245507
40_____8_____11.30993247
40_____9_____12.68038349
40_____10____14.03624347
40_____11____15.37625125
40_____12____16.69924423
40_____13____18.00416161
40_____14____19.29004622
40_____15____20.55604522
40_____16____21.80140949
40_____17____23.02549201
40_____18____24.22774532
40_____19____25.40771811
40_____20____26.56505118

Now, O'Kane might not have had his periscope linked to the German TDC (would've been funny). But if a math noob like me can do this in 5 minutes with highschool geometry, i'm sure he could too.