Mathematical View of AoB

[cleverusername]

AOB is basically your position relative to the target ship. Or, pretend you're on target ship and you're looking at ownship. What is its bearing? That's AOB.

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by cleverusername

AOB is basically your position relative to the target ship. Or, pretend you're on target ship and you're looking at ownship. What is its bearing? That's AOB.

That's only true if ownship's bearing is to starboard. If ownship is to port then you have to subtract 270° from the bearing.

[Frame57]

Bow to bow. The WW2 skippers and officers and quartermasters had to be so good at this, they could just look and determine AOB with great accuracy. using the bearing marker and line of sight to the targets bow brings it in resonably accurate for me. Of course i am always second guessing myself...

[I'm goin' down]

My key point was that it was an good graphical representation. There are several ways to learn: Seeing, reading, and hearing are key techniques to aid thinking. The post involveses visualizing AOB. For someone who is just being introduced to the concept it makes understanding it easier. Nisgeis post is also a good description, but does not contain a grahpical representation. The benefit of graphics is that it displays the various angles that are in play

To understand the importance of AOB applied in an attack scenrio is another issue, and Hitman's tutorial, where aspect ratio is manually calculated and converted to AOB is another ball game, but is useful as a next step because you have the oppurtunity to appreciate its relationship to torpedo attack schematics. Hitman's tutorial culminates in brilliant fashion with a screen shot of Attack Map displaying the results of his tutorial, i.e. the target's Range and projected course pegged to perfection by the TDC with a white "x" and directional line. That screen shoot is follwed by another showing the aftermath of his labors (i.e. the torpedoes' impact). I used his tutorial until I was comfortable with the method, and then moved on to the SCAF mod, which eliminates the need for doing the math he prescribes.

[joegrundman]

Originally Posted by Frame57

Bow to bow. The WW2 skippers and officers and quartermasters had to be so good at this, they could just look and determine AOB with great accuracy. using the bearing marker and line of sight to the targets bow brings it in resonably accurate for me. Of course i am always second guessing myself...

but judging by eye is not as difficult as you make it sound, and really is a skill that is attainable with SH3/4 and well worth it when you do. i did a brief tutorial to it somewhere, which took a specific example to show you the sorts of things you look for

Of course it's greatly helped when you fully understand the mathematical relationships involved

ah here it is

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...t=judging+aob*

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by cleverusername

AOB is basically your position relative to the target ship. Or, pretend you're on target ship and you're looking at ownship. What is its bearing? That's AOB.

That's what I said

[Rockin Robbins]

Actually if you're a German U-Boat, your bearing from the target is all that needs to be said because the Germans measured the bearing as 0 to 180 from the starboard or port bow. They'd say the target bears 45º port.

The American bearing system is a 360º system to avoid confusing starboard and port. The German bearing 45º port would be 360-45 or bearing 315º.

That's why I've been caught saying that angle on the bow is nothing more than your bearing from the target using the German system. No graphs necessary.