point and shoot possible?

[Joe S]

In the days of Sub Battle Simulator,and SHI people figured out that if you had a good estimate on target speed, you could easily estimate the amount of lead required for a hit and at close range you could reliably get hits by aiming the periscope ahead of the target by the requisite number of degrees. I tried that in SHIV but the only way I can get it to work is by using the gyro angle setter which is limited to 15 or 20 degrees from the heading of the boat. does anyone know if we can use the scope to point to where we want to shoot without entering data into the TDC? Thanks! Joe S

[louist]

There may be a better way to do it, but you can in realistic mode if you take a distance reading in the direction that you think the torpedo should go, leaving the speed of the target at zero (in which case the direction of the target is obviously irrelevant). Also, note that the computer calculates for a initial straight run, so the direction of the torpedo will be very different from the direction you point the scope if :
a) it is close and/or
b) it is not directly ahead or behind

For that reason, I max out the range when I am taking such a pot shot, and try to wait until the boat is pointed in the direction I want to fire.

[Asmodean]

Point and shoot can be a bit tricky:

a, turn off Position Keeper
b, set target speed to zero (and send it to the TDC), this makes the targets' course irrelevant
c, set the range as high as possible (don't turn the dial, use the normal gear, just bring the two images really close to each other and you will get a large range, everything about 3000m is fine)
d, look into the direction you want to fire and click 'send range to TDC' (which also sends the direction)
e, fire away

As louist said, the trick is the difference between the point from which you gather your data (tower) and the point where the torpedo starts to turn (several meters away from the tube). Because of this, the torpedo angle has to be a bit larger than the one you measured, it is set this way automatically and there's nothing you can do about it. You can, however, minimize the effect:

a, The longer the range, the smaller the correction the TDC makes (-> step c)
b, The smaller the angle, the smaller the correction, you can ignore the range if you shoot at 0 or 180 degrees.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Asmodean

Point and shoot can be a bit tricky:

a, turn off Position Keeper
b, set target speed to zero (and send it to the TDC), this makes the targets' course irrelevant
c, set the range as high as possible (don't turn the dial, use the normal gear, just bring the two images really close to each other and you will get a large range, everything about 3000m is fine)
d, look into the direction you want to fire and click 'send range to TDC' (which also sends the direction)
e, fire away

This is a nearly perfect list. Step c is not necessary though, as at zero speed, range cancels out. The range can be whatever garbage resides in the TDC when you turn it on. I tried it out last night during an actual career, and verified that setting any range (mine was zero, having counted down to that from a previous AOB 0º shot) is not necessary.

See how the fast-90 attack method works at http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=625379&postcount=66
and jump to the end of the thread for my test reports. This technique turns point and shoot into point and carnage! I took out 2 ships in 30 seconds this morning. Most of that time was just waiting for ship #2 to slip into the crosshairs.

So you're onto something here! Have fun.

[GT182]

You can unlock the target you've selected, put your crosshairs on any portion of the ship and fire. I've hit center locked, fore and aft unlocked with no problems. TDC will remember range and speed of the target. Just make sure you open the "tube" before you launch that fish.

My reply isn't inteneded to take away from your technique Rockin Robbins.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by GT182

You can unlock the target you've selected, put your crosshairs on any portion of the ship and fire. I've hit center locked, fore and aft unlocked with no problems. TDC will remember range and speed of the target. Just make sure you open the "tube" before you launch that fish.

My reply isn't inteneded to take away from your technique Rockin Robbins.

Not at all! You GWXers are bringing a whole new world over here to SH4 land. Just remember that in SH4, when you sight onto the fore or aft part of the ship, unlike SH3 where the TDC automatically follows the periscope, you must push the send bearing to TDC button to hit that spot. Otherwise there goes another torpedo to the exact spot you hit last.

I believe the Germans would have killed to have an American TDC/PK. But Americans mostly (except for Dick O'Kane and very few other TDC gurus) did not understand German torpedo aiming principles. The Germans would have loved to have another tool, but would not have depended on it for their success. Most American skippers would have to go home if the PK broke down.

[Frederf]

This is a nearly perfect list. Step c is not necessary though, as at zero speed, range cancels out. The range can be whatever garbage resides in the TDC when you turn it on. I tried it out last night during an actual career, and verified that setting any range (mine was zero, having counted down to that from a previous AOB 0º shot) is not necessary.

Try a 0 kt, 90 deg reletive bearing shot with the range at 300 yards and try it again with the range at 1200 yards and tell me the range doesn't matter. The short range shot will set the gyro angle for greater than a 90 degree turn since the torpedo doesn't curve instantly but will go considerably forward before making the turn and the TDC knows this and will set a higher than normal turn on the torpedo to turn back after going forward to hit the short ranged target.

You can easily miss a stopped ship at 2000 yards if you point-shoot using 300 yards instead of 1200 if the ship isn't closer than +/- 45 deg from straight ahead.

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by Frederf

You can easily miss a stopped ship at 2000 yards if you point-shoot using 300 yards instead of 1200 if the ship isn't closer than +/- 45 deg from straight ahead.

OK... torpedo advance skews the solution for unusually large gyro-angle shots. Is that how you're takin your shots? ...runnin on a parallel course?

For a 10-20° solution it's off maybe 1 degree for every 500M or so... you could set it at 1000 and pretty much ignore it if you took most of your shots in the 700-1800M range. At 700M the ship nicely fills the scope at highest mag, a degree doesn't matter much. I tend to take most of my shots at 700-1000M.

Distance is really more important for helping to guesstimate speed (if you don't already know it) and assuming you like to use that chrono-gadget. In SH4 they made the distance input dial particularly annoying in that it forces you to use the stad sometimes to even get the dial to function in the right range. That was just bizarre... not sure why I can't just dial it to what I want without hindrance.

[greyrider]

Originally Posted by Joe S

In the days of Sub Battle Simulator,and SHI people figured out that if you had a good estimate on target speed, you could easily estimate the amount of lead required for a hit and at close range you could reliably get hits by aiming the periscope ahead of the target by the requisite number of degrees. I tried that in SHIV but the only way I can get it to work is by using the gyro angle setter which is limited to 15 or 20 degrees from the heading of the boat. does anyone know if we can use the scope to point to where we want to shoot without entering data into the TDC? Thanks! Joe S

well joe, the good news is that you can point and shoot in sh4, without
using the targetting mechanics of the PK, and stratimeter.
i never used the german tdc in sh3. and i dont use the stuff in sh4, and i hardly ever miss a target.
i do not care about a targets course, accept its relativity to my sub. i get on a ninety degree
course to target, just by getting him on my 80 degree bearing, if its a closing target, and wait for him to approach.
port side advance for closing targets, get him on bearing 280.



starboardside advance, get him on your 80 degree bearing, for closing targets.
for the stern, get target on bearing 260 or 100 degree bearing , depending on which way the target
is closing. this can be done over 30 km away, by sound.
this is all you really have to do to get on a ninety degree course, for shooting, the targets AOB will determine how much you need to travel, once you turn to
get him on a collision course, if his AOB is small, you may just need to turn and stop, and wait, he will cross your bow at a beautiful 90 degrees.
if his AOB is deep, or moderate, you may have to travel a couple of km to get close, but he still crosses your bow, on a ninety degree angle.
thats all i do to get on a collision course with a target, simple isnt it. i never miss.

do not touch, set, or otherwize F with the PK, keep your scope free. get the bearing speed charts
from the sound trainer tutorial,
once you get the speed bearing charts from the sound trainer, now you will have the attack angles for different speeds of targets,
calculate the targets speed, i use ships length., once you got his speed, now wait until he closes to the firing bearing for that speed, and torpedoes los!
the target is all done, after that.
in convoy attacks, do the same thing, get the bulk , or the loudest portion of the sound signal, on 80, 280, 100, or 260 bearings, depending on its direction of approach.
calculate convoys speed, then when the ships approach the firing bearing, Los torpedoes, as the targets are crossing the bearing.
depending on how many torpedoes are in your forward tubes, you can have 4 to six hits, on four to six different targets.

i just remembered , the bearing speed charts in the sonar tutorial are for german torpedoes, you can get the bearing speed charts for american torpedoes here:

http://hosted.filefront.com/greyrider/

[GT182]

RR, not true. I've been using auto TDC in SH4 and still hit where the crosshairs are aimed on the target, with the scope unlocked. And GWX has nothing to do with it.

You might want to check the discussions before you jump in and say it can't be done. Maybe you can do it in SHIII also but I've never tried. SH4 is the first I've heard it being done, as others have done it and said so. That's the only reason I tried it and found it works with SH4's auto TDC too.

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by GT182

RR, not true. I've been using auto TDC in SH4 and still hit where the crosshairs are aimed on the target, with the scope unlocked. And GWX has nothing to do with it.

You might want to check the discussions before you jump in and say it can't be done. Maybe you can do it in SHIII also but I've never tried. SH4 is the first I've heard it being done, as others have done it and said so. That's the only reason I tried it and found it works with SH4's auto TDC too.

I must be dense as a doornail or totally not following, or somethin... cuz I've been ranting about the scope being disconnected from the TDC for some time.

What am I missing?

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by aaronblood

I must be dense as a doornail or totally not following, or somethin... cuz I've been ranting about the scope being disconnected from the TDC for some time.

What am I missing?

You're not missing anything. If you are on manual, pressing the send bearing/range button is what tells the torpedo which direction to go. From that moment you can lower the scope, point it any way you want, fold it up and put it in your pocket, the the torpedo is going where you told it by pressing the button. This results in some very entertaining curse words if you're not expecting it. The only way the torpedo automatically follows the scope is if you are not on full manual targeting. In that case you don't have a send bearing/range button anyway.

[don1reed]

The "Sugar Boats" did not have a TDC. They used this formula:

Offset Angle of Collision = asin (( target speed / torp speed ) x sin Aob ).

However, they could direct the torp via gyro-angle...if needed.

[greyrider]

i dont know, but if you guys still insist on making things difficult for yourselfs,
who am i to get in your way.
but i just thought i would post some shots to back up what i posted.
last nite i played alittle, in the campaign, and a lone destroyer came upon me while i was traveling
to my objective., i was far enough ahead of him, that i could just submerge, wait til he goes away,
and then continue toward my obj.
i thoght this would be a good example of what i was talking about, so i started taking pictures.
i missed this target, i identified this target as an asashio class, it was a minekaze class dd, which threw off my speed calculations by 2 knots.
i didnt realize the dd was minekaze until after she passed my zero degree bearing without being hit.
but this is still a good example on getting into a 90 degree collision course with the target, just by sight alone.
the dd appeared to my rear, i submerged, then began to turn to starboeard, setting up my target to get on bearing 280, the target
will be closing from the port side. from his AOB, i can see its shallow, and all i will have to do is turn, and stop.

in the pic above, the target is falling toward bearing 280, with the sub turning to starboard.

below in pic 2, i have gotten my target on 280, and cut my engines, coming to a full stop, in this picture, the triangle, right triangle, is now set.


now in pic 3 below, this is the reason why i missed this target, i had id the target as asashio.

pic 4, the target continues to approach, on bearing 290 now, closing toward my zero.

in pic 5, the dd continues to close, toward bearing 300. see how beautiful the 90 is being set up? in a minute or so, my SO, should be singing the constant distance song.

at this point, i have to stop, because imageshack, just went off the air for awhile, i cant upload ppics to it at the moment, so i will finish this later.

in pic 6 , the dd continues to advance to my zero bearing, the torpedo is set to run straight and true, when it fires
by leaving it alone, the only setting i change is torpedo depth, which in this case, 2 meters is enough, so i left it as default.


pic 7, continuing the advance,


pic 8, the destroyer advances close to the attack bearing of 340, in a perfect 90, the scope is set to 340, and waiting for the target.


somewhere before i had calculated the speed, using the time passed from the bow of the dd to the stern,passing the vertical aiming wire,
and got 17 seconds, for an asashio dd, that would be, 13 knots, therefore my attack bearing will be 340 port, for a 36 knot mk10 torpedo.
thinking thats what i had, an asashio class destroyer, i waited until the destroyer got on bearing 340, and i fired the torpedo.


pic 10, the torpedo has been fired, the target is almost at zero degrees, where it should be blown out of the water in a few seconds.

pic 11, just about there, a few seconds away from collision with the torpedo.

pic 12,
there is no pic 12, this picture should have been the one that showed the torpedo hitting the destroyer, but the real picture
here should of been of my face, when i watched the whole length of the ship pass my aiming wire without being hit, i looked around for answers,
it wasnt torpedo depth or bad positioning, it was bad identification of the ship, realizing it was a minekaze now, i recalculated the speed, and the speed of
the destroyer was in reality 11 knots, my torpedo passed his bow at the collision point before the destroyer got there.
but at any rate, this shows that you dont need the targeting mechanics of the pk, how you can get on 90 courses to targets without plotting.
you can also use hydrophones, at great distances, getting target on the 80 degree offsets i spoke about, and keep them on the 80 degree offsets,
as much as possible, if they drift in sound bearings,( advancing in bearings, either forward or to the rear of you, move forwaed, or backward, keeping them on 80 degree offsets, until you
make visual contact with them.
by keeping them on 80 degree offsets, your shrinking the right triangle, and keeping the ranges manageable.
i hope this helps out alittle, i will play the game alittle later, and when i come across something again, ill take pictures, this time, with a torpedo hit
and a convoy attack.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by greyrider

i have to stop, because imageshack, just went off the air for awhile, i cant upload ppics to it at the moment, so i will finish this later.

Don't you hate it when that happens? Looking forward to the rest of what amounts to a great tutorial!

One question. You didn't attempt to plot his course? How did you project it in order to set up your right angle?