New Skipper: First experiences and requests for assistance

Hello subsim community.

I had very recently discovered Silent Hunter 4 and so far love it. Right off the bat I installed Trigger Maru Overhauled 2.2 and Run Silent Run Deep v502. Perhaps I am a masochist, but I like the realism and started right out with manual targeting. After doing the torpedo tutorial quite a few times, it is time to take on the Imperial Japanese Navy.

First trouble is locating Japanese convoys. Since I started right after the Pearl Harbour attack, my sub does not come equipped with a radar. Mission sends me to to some point, but after a week of patrolling around the destination, my fuel gets close to the amount to make it back to Midway, and that is that. In order to not have the embarrassment of a dry run, I started to ignore missions and just sit in the Formosa Strait which is like a shooting gallery of single merchants. Then I just go to Taipei port at night, blow or avoid the single patrol boat and use up every fish on the docked ships raking up about 60k tons per patrol. Trouble is: This feels cheap and cheating . Just anti-climatic to shoot poor helpless ships in port.

Any tips on how you locate the convoys? How do I find out where the shipping lanes are?

Secondly I have been looking at Uboat mission pack and am at a complete loss on the finer points of the manual targeting on the German side. The action map has all those switches and I can't find any videos or tutorials explaining them all. Youtube is full of American side but not German. What is that FAT button at the top near the tubes? What is the Gyroangle and the 2nd Gyroangle? Any guides on how to actually aim that great curvy torpedo pattern that comes up when I select that FAT button? What does that blue liquid signify on the periscope screen? Is this showing you the sea level relative to periscope head? Essentially I could use some links that explains all the finer points of German side UI.

Finally a request: Would it be possible for someone to upload the_four_bearings_method_v2.pdf file to the subsim forum. Saw it being discussed in the "XO, plot a corse for intercept!!" thread, but alas Gamefront and Filefront just refuse to work with my browser .

Thank you for reading through all that. I would appreciate any help with learning the finer points of sending ships to their depths.

[HW3]

In game, select the radio and pull it down, you will find the map there.

[I'm goin' down]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...98&postcount=8

I have not played the German side for awhile. The link above will help you figure out how to set set the TDC for the German side. There is no position keeper for UBoats.

A good mod set up is in the ATO forum. It is OM/OMEGU/KIUB. Learning the UBoat side takes awhile.

[I'm goin' down]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...98#post1619698--start at the beginning of the thread.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...98&postcount=8--the eigth post in the thread deals with reading the Aob dials on a UBoat.

I have not played the German side for awhile. The links above will help you figure out how to set set the TDC for the German side. There is no position keeper for UBoats. The thread discusses a UBoat attack. The post, which is at the end of the thread, discussed the Aob dials and settings for a broadside using the German TDC.


A good mod set up is in the ATO forum. It is OM/OMEGU/KIUB. Learning the UBoat side takes awhile.

[peabody]

Originally Posted by lotana

Hello subsim community.


Secondly I have been looking at Uboat mission pack and am at a complete loss on the finer points of the manual targeting on the German side. The action map has all those switches and I can't find any videos or tutorials explaining them all. Youtube is full of American side but not German. What is that FAT button at the top near the tubes? What is the Gyroangle and the 2nd Gyroangle? Any guides on how to actually aim that great curvy torpedo pattern that comes up when I select that FAT button? What does that blue liquid signify on the periscope screen? Is this showing you the sea level relative to periscope head? Essentially I could use some links that explains all the finer points of German side UI.

Welcome, lotana

I can answer some of your question, but I am not a good one to explain manual targeting, I'm not that good at it.

To explain some of the buttons in the "action map".
1. Depth. Obviously the depth the torpedo runs.
2. Speed: Again obvious
3. Pistol: Impact/Magnetic
4. Tube selection: Obvious
5. Spread angle: You will notice that does nothing, unless you use the button with T and S. T=tube, S= Salvo. If you set it to fire a salvo, then you can set the Spread angle. If is the degrees between each torpedo's angle, so they are not all fired at the same angle.
6. The other button to point out if you didn't try it, is the one with no label, if you hover over it the tooltip says "manual on/off". It lets you change some of the buttons that can not be changed unless you are in manual.

Now the 'Fat" buttons:
1. If you select the fat button you get new dials. The first is Straight run. That is how far the torpedo goes "straight" before it goes into the "curvy" stuff called the ladder.
Now there are two things you need to do. First on the torpedo screen check the torpedo to see the actual range of that torpedo so you have some info to work with. The second is the range to target. You set the 'straight run' so the torpedo goes far enough to hit the target before it goes into the ladder. If you are shooting into a convoy, the straight run will hopefully hit the target, if it does not then it goes into the ladder and possibly hits something rather then just continue on in a straight line and miss everything.
Now with a 'fat' torpedo the only other dial that works (in the 'fat' group) is the "Second Gyroangle", you can select the red or green side to make it go left or right after the straight run.

If you select 1944 to start the career, you will also be able to load some "LuT" torpedoes. So load a couple fat and a couple LuT and you will see the difference.

The first gyroangle is set with the bearing dial. The torpedo comes out of the sub going straight then makes a turn then continues for the "straight run' distance, then goes into the ladder. So make sure your straight run is long enough to get to your target.

Now with a Lut torpedo, after the straight run you can set a second angle with the "second gyroangle" to set the angle of the ladder section.
With the 'leg' dial you can set the length of each leg or rung of the ladder. Take into consideration where the ships are and the range of your torpedo.

The 'Pattern angle" will change the angle of each turn in the ladder section. So instead of the standard go right, turn 180 degrees and go back the other way, you can change that to whatever you want. Now if you notice if you set it at 90 degrees, the first turn is 90 degrees but after that they go 180. Now if you change that to 30 degrees it makes a smaller turn but covers more distance, so once again it depends on where the other ships in the convoy are and the range of your torpedo, so if you miss the primary target you may get a chance to hit another ship.

You can also set the dial to 0 degrees and get more distance out of your torpedo, BUT if you set the Second Gyroangle to 0 AND the Pattern angle to 0, it goes 0 degrees in relation to the sub not to the First gyroangle. If you play with the dials a bit it will probably make more sense than my explanation.

Now for the periscope screen the water level shows the depth of the sub, and the red indicator on the left shows the height of the scope.

Peabody

Thank you all so much for your answers! I will read up on all given links and see how I go.

Edit:

If you select the fat button you get new dials. The first is Straight run. That is how far the torpedo goes "straight" before it goes into the "curvy" stuff called the ladder.
Now there are two things you need to do. First on the torpedo screen check the torpedo to see the actual range of that torpedo so you have some info to work with. The second is the range to target. You set the 'straight run' so the torpedo goes far enough to hit the target before it goes into the ladder. If you are shooting into a convoy, the straight run will hopefully hit the target, if it does not then it goes into the ladder and possibly hits something rather then just continue on in a straight line and miss everything.

That is awesome! German torpedoes rock!

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by peabody

I can answer some of your question, but I am not a good one to explain manual targeting, I'm not that good at it.

In any case, there are dozens of threads dealing with that issue, all worthwhile reading.

[I'm goin' down]

I was under the impression that the initial post raised questions re manual targeting from the UBoat perspective. However, if he does not understand the concept from the American perspective, I would start in the Mods sticky for Popular Mods. Download Hitman's tutorial on Manual Targeting at 100 Percent Realism. Get out a pen, paper, and calculator, because you will have to do elemenatary math calculations. Work through the tutorial. Rockin Robbins has made a mission where you can practice the O'Kane method. Download it and use it to practice Hitman's manual targeting tutorial, which allows you to practice in the sunny waters of southern California (not Brazil, where the women on the beach would distract you. ) When you are done, you should understand the concept of manual targeting from the American perspective. Then download and use the Easy Aob mod to input the target's course, turn on the PK when its course, speed and range have been input, and you will begin to perfect the method.

It will help if you have mastered the O'Kane method first. Even though the PK is not activated in an attack using O'Kane, the manual targeting computer on your boat (the TDC) still sets the lead angle when you fire as the target crosses the wire, so it is "related" to manual targeting. In short, the PK, when activated, means that the Torpedoe Data Computer (TDC) will track the target's course, range, and speed, assuming that data has been input accurately using the Attack Dials on the upper right side of the periscope screen. When the target's course has been input correctly, you can verify target speed and course (but not range) on the ships' dials screen of the upper left. The ships' dials give you a lot of information, and you will have to spend some time figuring out or reading posts to understand them.

As for the German perspective, there is no PK. OMG! What do I do now? Relax. Because you understand manual targeting from the American perspective, the first thing to acknowledge is you will be engaged in an attack viewed from German perspective. You have to think like a German submariner. The trick for me was to understand that the target dials are written and "set up" in German, and the theory underlying the set up on those dials is not the same as on an American submarine. The links in my earlier post in this thread connect you to the thread and a post in the ATO thread that I wrote some time ago. They were were written when I was attempting to figure out the how the dials on the UBoat worked re manual targeting. Here is what I learned.

Targeting approaching from the U-Boat's starboard. When you set up the dials on a UBoat for an attack, remember that when the target is approaching the bow of a UBoat from the UBoat's starboard (e.g., right) side, the manual targeting arrow must point to the UBoat's left side (i.e. bow "luft" in German.) Why? Think about it. If you are on the bow of the approaching target looking for the UBoat, you will see the UBoat's periscope (assuming the UBoat is readying for an attack and is submerged) to the target's left (to the port side from the perspective of the target.) This is "Bugs luft" from the target's perspective. The dial on the UBoat must be set "Bugs luft," indicating the the UBoat is to the left side, viewed from the perspective of the target. "Bugs luft" translated means "bow left."

Targeting approaching from the U-Boat's port. Let's turn it around. You sink the first target. The crew gets drunk. Then, even though they are passed out, you spot a second target. It is approaching from the opposite direction -- the UBoat's port (e.g., left) side. Now you have to set up for manual targeting for a target approaching from that direction. When you set up the dials on a UBoat for an attack, remember that when the target is approaching the bow of a UBoat from the UBoat's port (or left) side, the manual targeting arrow must point to the UBoat's right side (i.e. bow "recht" in German.) Why? Again, think about it. If you are on the bow of the approaching target looking for the UBoat, you will see it's periscope (assuming it is readying for an attack and is submerged) to the target's right (to the starboard from the perspective of the target.) This is "Bugs recht" from the target's perspective. The manual targeting arrow on the UBoat must be pointing towards "Bugs recht," indicating the the UBoat is to the right side, viewed from the perspective of the target. "Bugs recht" translated means "bow right."

You cannot test the above using the O'Kane practice mission, because you will not be in a UBoat. So you will have to play the UBoat practice missions. But if you set up for a broadside in a UBoat and match the arrows to the target's bearing viewed through the periscope, set range and target speed, set the torpedoes speed, and fire a salvo with a spread when the target approaches a broadside position. You will hit it. From there, you can perfect the technique. Ultimately, you can attack at various angles, although the broadside shot gives you the largest target aspect ratio (and thus a better chance of the torpedoes hitting it.) Remember, don't go hunting the Bismark in the Denmark Strait off the coast of Iceland in late 1941, when it broke out in the open ocean. My UBoat was sunk. I forgot that the Bismark was on my side, and as soon as I got in position to intercept it in ATO (lurker, of RSRDC fame, created the mod and inserted the Bismark's famous excursion in the game) and surfaced to check out the situation, a British cruiser blew my beloved UBoat out of the water. Admiral Donitz retired me, one of his few blunders.


Whew. That was exhausting.