Angle Of Bow.......Quick Question

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Another way to simply think about it is to imagine you're holding two flashlights on the bridge of the target ship. Straight ahead is 0, directly behind you is 180. Aim one directly ahead of you, and the other at the submarine. Whatever the angle between the two flashlight beams, that's your AOB. In other words, if the sub is directly aside you on the starboard side, it'd be a 90 degree starboard AOB. If it's directly aside you on the port side, it's a 90 degree port AOB.

I think that's "bearing", not "AOB".

EDIT: relative bearing, anyways. The course to a target, considering a north/south line, is "true bearing", whereas the course to a target, considering your own axis ov advance, is "relative bearing". What you are describing is relative bearing, not AOB.

'AOB' is the direction towards which the target is pointing, as you look at it directly.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Daniel Prates

I think that's "bearing", not "AOB".

He mentioned "on the bridge of the target ship". The bearing he sees you at is the AOB.

[19Herr_Rapp86]

For those who use gadgets, this thing helps

[Sailor Steve]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/down...o=file&id=2902

[LordCucumber]

I generally try to eyeball the AOB. Interesting to read people have developed a tool for it. I take it eyeballing was the practiced method back in the day?

[razark]

Step 1: Get range and bearing. Mark on map.
Step 2: Wait a bit. (Note the time between fixes.)
Step 3: Get range and bearing. Mark on map.
Step 4: Draw line between two position fixes.
Step 5: Get target course from line.
Step 6: Get target speed from line.
Step 7: Enter target course, speed, and bearing into the 3D TDC mod.
Step 8: Maneuver into position, refining your data.
Step 9: Fire!
Step 10: Reply to four year old posts on Subsim.

Originally Posted by LordCucumber

I take it eyeballing was the practiced method back in the day?

Eyeballing it was often the only method available during the war. Some, like O'Kane, got very good at it.

Using it in game is not always easy, due to limitations of the graphics, but you're also not under the same sort of pressure the real skippers were.

[denny927]

Originally Posted by LordCucumber

I generally try to eyeball the AOB. Interesting to read people have developed a tool for it. I take it eyeballing was the practiced method back in the day?

hey, but you are that lordcucumber who upload a let's play silent hunter 4 on youtube?

[Rockin Robbins]

On a submarine in pre-radar days, the most accurate piece of information you had on the target was your Mark I Eyeball estimate of its Angle on the Bow. Therefore, using anything else to figure it just didn't make sense, because it was all MUCH less accurate than the AoB estimate! Therefore, eyeball estimated AoB became the standard for WWII.

Actually, if you had radar you could use the two position method of deriving target course and speed, and be more accurate than we are able to be in the game. But, submariners being a traditional lot, most captains had their crew still using the eyeballed AoB for their plotting.

Now if you study it, you can directly set target course into the TDC in the place of AoB, and this is exactly what they began transitioning to when radar became the targeting method, replacing all the black magic that came before.

Just that word, radar, spells the absolute superiority of the American submarine over the U-Boats in WWII. With radar their productivity doubled because they were no longer shooting on a guess.

[I'm goin' down]

Originally Posted by razark

you're also not under the same sort of pressure the real skippers were.

Getting knocked off by one of Ducimus' dds in TMO may cause you to be late for dinner, but it won't (or shouldn't) kill you.

[razark]

Originally Posted by I'm goin' down

...cause you to be late for dinner, but it won't (or shouldn't) kill you.

You don't eat dinner with my wife.

[Arlo]

Originally Posted by I'm goin' down

Getting knocked off by one of Ducimus' dds in TMO may cause you to be late for dinner, but it won't (or shouldn't) kill you.

Well, as my dear sweet better half occasionally reminds me - the game has a pause button but dinner (and the rest of the family) doesn't.

[Arlo]

On a slightly related note, my wife has quite a rack on her so when she's headed straight for me the 'angle of boobies' is 000'.

[CapnScurvy]

Man-O-man, bringing back a post from 2007!

As Mookiemookie pointed out with his "flash light" analogy, Angle on bow is the point of reference taken "from" the target ship. Putting yourself on the target ship is a good way to think about it. The angle of the subs position compared to the target ships "relative bearing" is AoB.

Relative bearing is the "relationship" (see the connection, relative/relationship?), of a specific bearing that surrounds you (or to be specific, the ship that you're on). In the case of either the sub or target ship, the relative bearing of zero is at the bow, 180 degrees is directly over the stern, 90 degrees is directly perpendicular to the ships right (starboard), 270 is directly to the left (port). Relative bearing does not change, no matter which direction the target or sub is traveling, relative bearing of the stern is always 180 degrees.

AoB is the amount of angle of an "object" (like the subs position to the target ship) compared to the targets ship's relative bearing (or the zero degree reference point, the Bow of the target ship). For instance, the sub is sitting on the targets port side, directly perpendicular; the AoB is "90 degrees, port".

A tutorial that might be helpful is found HERE. Not only are AoB, relative bearing, or true North bearing explained, but how to get accurate AoB by plotting a targets position on the Navigation Map (with "No Contacts Updated" enabled in the options menu).

As Rockin Robbins mentioned, AoB was most accurately obtained by eyesight. Nothing beats the human binocular vision for determining distance, or judging angles. Surface scouting, and target determination's were much easier with the use of the bridge as a vantage point. But lets face it, the game is played on a 2 dimensional screen, you're looking at one right now. Get up for a minute and look out a window. Judging distance to an object, or making a guess of it's measurements is fairly easy using both eyes. Now cover one of your eyes and make the same estimate of distance or size. It's much harder. That's what we are doing with the 2 dimensional game, trying to make a simulation of real life to work in a game environment that can't duplicate real life.

So we're left with making determinations of range, or AoB with the tools available. Not a very closely followed simulation of the real thing, but it's all we got.

[I'm goin' down]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Another way to simply think about it is to imagine you're holding two flashlights on the bridge of the target ship. Straight ahead is 0, directly behind you is 180. Aim one directly ahead of you, and the other at the submarine. Whatever the angle between the two flashlight beams, that's your AOB. In other words, if the sub is directly aside you on the starboard side, it'd be a 90 degree starboard AOB. If it's directly aside you on the port side, it's a 90 degree port AOB.

That did not work. I could not get to the bridge. My boat was submerged.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

As Rockin Robbins mentioned, AoB was most accurately obtained by eyesight. Nothing beats the human binocular vision for determining distance, or judging angles.

Well, that IS half right. With lots of practice, judging AoB by eyeball gets pretty accurate. Without practice, just using horse sense you'll get it wrong every time. It is definitely a learned skill, but the skillful can be within 5º and that's good enough.

However, I fly radio control airplanes and I can tell you that binocular vision is not good, it is not fair, it is not poor, it is worse than terrible for judging distance. It's worse than terrible because it flat out lies to you...... Try to fly the airplane behind the telephone pole 150' away......CRASH!!!! Let's try in front of the telephone pole. Surely that wil......CRASH!!!! I have determined that our binocular vision is way out of warranty and that a separation of 6 feet between pupils would be a good fix. The manufacturer says he can't retrofit all humans with the fix and won't fix just me.

However I have discovered a workaround that works well if you do not wish to impact with an object. If you see blue sky above the object and the same blue sky underneath your airplane it is likely you will not hit it. After lots of practice that's the best I can do.

I noticed the same thing when I moved from Michigan to Daytona Beach back in the 1960s. I was used to judging distance by how hazy things were in the distance. In this high humidity atmosphere right on the ocean, I lost my ability to determine distance. What I thought was half a mile away turned out to be three times that far.

I think our binocular vision, at best, gives us distance determination inside of 20' or so, and a false impression of distance determination further away than that. Our pupils are just too close together.