Realism: Is 100% really 100%?

[Sone7]

Originally Posted by gutted

map contacts is almost like cheating.
The real advantage of map contacts, is not really the hit or miss rate.. because i can hit equally well with them on or off. Its' the complete situational awarness that comes with map contacts that ruins it for me.

there's no guess work.

I can blindly wade into visual range of an enemy ship. And without any work at all i can look at the map to see exactly which way i need to turn to make an intercept, or if i even CAN make an intercept.

whereas without map contacts... i have to work harder to make that decision. I have to observe them, figure out which way they're heading, and determine the best course of action.

To sum up - it's really all about the ability to estimate data properly. Why not mark the visual contacts on the map every time? If you do it fairly accurately, you'll get something close to chart with contacts on. And here you go: situational awareness on paper
Updated map positions are somewhat historically accurate then, the problem is only a margin of error.
In real life a captain supported by a good navigator could've easily rely on the plot. At least I think so.

Originally Posted by Hitman

But the perfect accurancy of the estimates using a periscope is impossible, and in fact the opposite is more the rule. Good commanders like O'Kane or Kretschmer had a special ability to estimate AOB and speed by naked eye

Agreed