What is your favorite manual targeting method ?

[Captain_AJ]

I am Asking a silly question.. I know that there alot of more expereanced Kaluens out there , and I wanted to get some feed back and or links to find out how you expreanced captains plot for a soulution for manual targeting .. I am currently using stoiams method for tracking targets , I saw a you tube viedo were a captin was able within seconds find the AOB , Speed , and range .. He was using a variation of Blank to zero method . I know that are other method and styles out there I just wanted to see what feedback there is .. I will not use auto targeting .. =NO FUN . manual targeting is alot of work but its your caculations and your input that can make or break a ship breaking up ! .

Another question has anyone noticed how weak a liberty ship is in the bow section ? I have used a magnetic setting and always have aimed for the bow so three out of three shots have blown off the bow and disabled the ship this is a AOB of 90 degress , , This is on a liberty ship !

[Maki4444]

Hey kimuraijn, well what I use might seem a bit crude but here it is. I find the course and general distance via hydrophone(4 bearings method), then I try to get into position around 1000m from the target course. I use the hydrophone to calculate I know a bit from experience now where the ship will be depending on speed and bearing on hydrophone.

After I have the target in visual range, I use the stadmeter take a reading on a 00 or 5 bearing (so either 330 or 335) after I take the first bearing and distance I wait 60 seconds, after that I take another reading from the stadmeter. That way I have 2 marks, a line through them is the exact course, the distance between mark 1 and mark 2 divided by 60 time 2 gets me the speed in knots. That's it.

Ofcourse I don't have so much time to manouver but neither did the real captains. I would love to learn the exact method those guys used. Keep things as close to the real deal as possible

[jason210]

I look at the ship through the periscope, and time it as it passes a reference point. This fed into a slide rule gives me the speed of the target.

I estimate the relative bearing of the target, then use a physical whizz wheel to feed in target speed, target bearing and torpedo speed to get the right torpedo fire angle.

TDC is off, and manual entry on (green button). This is so the gyro angle does not alter when I move the periscope.

The hardest part is estimation the relative bearing of the target, because it can be very deceptive through a periscope. I haven't figured out a way to reliably and accurately measure that yet. However, since the ship mast height and ship length can be expressed as a ratio, then it should be possible to derive the angle of the ship by comparing the apparent ratio with the actual.

[quink99]

The best way to measure speed quickly and easily if your using TDW's NewUIs, such as the current NewUIs_6_9_0_ByTheDarkWraith, is to bring up the conventional clock (L key) and right click on it. This will bring up the very accurate and historically correct U-Jags chronometer version which was actually used in U-boats.

To use this clock either begin your timing as the bow of the target passes your scope's vertical crosshair and stop it as the stern passes the crosshair or using the TAI map do the same with enough magnification to show the entire hull figure rather than just the contact circle or diamond.

What to do with the results of your timing are well shown in Stoianm's excellent tutorial video here:

How to use the U-Jags Chrono in SH5 ==> Link

The advantage of the method is that it only takes a few seconds, not 3 minutes and 15 seconds and you don't have to refer to any charts.

[jason210]

Or use your iPhone stopwatch :-)

As the target ship can be identified and thus its length known, then what you're doing is measuring the time it takes for a point on the ship to pass its own known distance. Then you have all the information you need to calculate its speed. What's neat about that method is you don't need to know the range, and it doesn't matter what bearing the ship is at either. The formula can be summarised as:

(ActualShipLength/TimeTaken) x 2

where the 2 is a rounded decimal that converts the metres per second to knots. Nice easy calculation.

The ship's bearing, which matters for other calculations, is more complicated to measure, because as the relative angle gets away 90 degrees, the width of the ship hides the stem or the stern, making it harder to measure the ship's apparent length. Once you know the apparent length, there's a formula you can apply but it requires tables, a whizz wheel or a calculator.

I've been working on a simple whizz wheel that does all these calculations, and which is easy and intuitive to use, and which can be printed out and assembled quite easily.

When it's done I'm going to make it available to whoever wants it. It's rather nice, I have found, to actually have items in your hand to refer to!

[Wigabee]

Hi Kimuraijn!

I am only small fry in this forum and am learning these methods too!
I have tried many methods but I always come back to the ''Fast 90 Basic" from Wazoo's manual targeting guide. It is under the SH3 newbie forum on the first post. I can get about a 90% hit rate on this method! I highly recommend trying it and I hope that I was a help to you!

Happy Hunting!

(P.S. Jason, I would really love it if you could post something about how to make your whiz wheel! That would be great! )

[Maki4444]

thank you quink for posting this method!!!!! Soooo realistic wohooo!! Can't wait to try it in the southwestern approaches Hell yes!!!! I knew there was a better way than my method. If only I could calculate the course quicker.

[quink99]

My pleasure Maki! ........and Good Luk with the hunting!

Quink

[Captain_AJ]

Thanks for posting this information as well .. I saw another variation using the RAOB ..crossing the same line and than dividing th lenght of the ship by the seconds on the clock than multiplying that by two .. However using the UJagged ,, forget about all that mess .. Nice thanks ,, any now of a shortcut to find AOB on a fly ?

[jason210]

Originally Posted by kimuraijn

Any now of a shortcut to find AOB on a fly ?

Historically it was estimated by experienced crew. The identification book shows what the targets look like for various angles.

The problem with the AoB is that you need to feed it into the TDC along with an estimated range. What I'd like is an easy way to estimate the target's relative heading, ie the angle where its course and your course intercept, because with that one you don't need to consider the range or the use the TDC.

[Maki4444]

Ok another question. I have tried the U-jagd chrono method, I have watched the tutorial, and first I had in sight a small composite freighter, the max speed of which is 13 knots. I use the u-jagd and get 14 knots, so I set the speed to 13 thinking I made a mistake. The torpedo barely hit the back of the ship......

next I was hunting a "convoy" of one small composite and a modern liner. The modern liner's top speed is 17 but the small composite has 13 knots,, since they are in a convoy my guess is that speed is 13 (oh yeah Benno says moving fast, that's how I know the speed isn't 12 or 6 knots).
I use u-jagd 2 times I get a speed of 14 knots......I am really careful when I start and stop the watch. So I fire two torpedos at around 1100m one barely scratches the front of the ship the other one misses......

Any suggestions or something.....anyone?? :/

[jason210]

Originally Posted by Maki4444

Ok another question. I have tried the U-jagd chrono method, I have watched the tutorial, and first I had in sight a small composite freighter, the max speed of which is 13 knots. I use the u-jagd and get 14 knots, so I set the speed to 13 thinking I made a mistake. The torpedo barely hit the back of the ship......

next I was hunting a "convoy" of one small composite and a modern liner. The modern liner's top speed is 17 but the small composite has 13 knots,, since they are in a convoy my guess is that speed is 13 (oh yeah Benno says moving fast, that's how I know the speed isn't 12 or 6 knots).
I use u-jagd 2 times I get a speed of 14 knots......I am really careful when I start and stop the watch. So I fire two torpedos at around 1100m one barely scratches the front of the ship the other one misses......

Any suggestions or something.....anyone?? :/

It could be a lot of things. What method are you using, and are you able to check it all on the map? Until you get used to it, it's a good idea to have all the contacts visisble on the map with, and "No Map Contact Update" unchecked.

Then you can make sure that the other variables are correct, such as AoB, and range, using the drawing tools, and eliminate those as a sources of error. Use pause if you have to.

[Maki4444]

Thanks for the reply jason, well I use the external view to check course, I use advanced shift kesy to check range, I have a pretty high success rate but the problematic factor is the target's speed, more accurately it's calculation.

Well thank you for the help but I will rather try trial and error in "realistic circumstances"

[jason210]

Then check torpedo speed and torpedo skill speed fix.

[Maki4444]

I alreadyhave the vanilla torp fix