What tactics do you use...

[Rosencrantz]

To mooncat:

But you don't know target's exact course fm long distance, right? So how do you find the proper parallel course?



-RC-

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Rosencrantz

To mooncat:

But you don't know target's exact course fm long distance, right? So how do you find the proper parallel course?



-RC-

I think I can answer that. Put your bow right on the target, and increase speed to full (no need to go flank at this point). Wait a while, and see which way he drifts, port or starboard. Don't get too close though. Reduce speed if necessary.

For example, if are heading due East when he is on your bow, then he drifts a bit to starboard, he is heading somewhat South. Contrarily, if he drifts to port to there is a northern component to his heading. If he stays directly on your bow after several minutes, you are either on the same or the reciprocal course.

Lets say that after a few minutes he drifts 10 degrees to port. Swing your bow 20 degrees port, then see what happens. Adjust course and speed as necessary.

Once you get close enough, you can get the course by taking two marks on him (separated by three and a quarter minutes to get speed), from them you can get the exact course, and plan accordingly.

[DIRTY DEALER]

At first sighting, I mark the position on the map.

accelerate time for a while, make second and third marks on map.

use the "ruler" and draw a straight line through those marks and that gives me the targets coarse. At that point I run a paralel course at flank speed untill I'm about 10 km ahead, do a 90 turn into the target coarse and run on the surface untill I'm about 3km from intercept point. Submerge to periscope depth at 1/3 untill I'm 1km away and wait.

I do a visual inspection, look for guns on the target. Large ships get at least one fish, try to hit fuel bunker or break the keel. sometimes second fish needed to stop it. small ships get one fish, unless trawler/tug/fish boat, dont waste ammo on those little ones. most ships that survive one or two torpedoes can get finished off with deck gun.

NOTE: If ship has guns, surface on the other side of tilting deck, guns can't tilt down low enough to hit subs !

[greyrider]

i use the hydrophones, and sound cones.
i divide that into two parts, the sound cone that the sonar operator measures himself
which starts at approx 7500 meters, with a one degree sound cone.
by the time a contact gets within 1 km of the u-boat, the sound cone measured by the sonar operator is now 10 degrees wide.

the second part is the part of the sound cone that i measure myself
those ranges are from 7500 meters out to 34 km, the maximum range of the hydrophones.
i am also able to determine speed by this method .
if a sound contact has a one degree sound cone as measured by the sound operator, at say 0:800 hours
then when the sound coune becomes six degrees in width, and the clock is saying 08:10
the sound contact moved 3400 meters in ten minutes, that would give the sound contact a speed of 11 knots
because when the sound cone is 6 degrees, the range to target is 4100 meters.
ive also been using the hydrophones to judge AOB