Learning manual targeting

[Rockin Robbins]

And please keep in mind that our stock stadimeter is still better than the stadimeter in the real sub. When you make it super-effective you misrepresent history to achieve some kind of nebulous mechanical perfection that didn't help in the real war.

The vast majority of times a torpedo was shot it was at a misidentified target with a length error of +-50%, speed error the same and range error at least +-30%. That's why they shot six at a small freighter when we feel that is a complete waste of torpedoes and only shoot one or two, knowing in our fantasy land of stadimeter perfection we'll get the sinkings at 1/4 the cost.

That's fine if you want to KNOW the targeting is precise and can expect hits. It helps you develop your technique. Real sub captains could never know why they got hits or misses. They didn't know much of the time whether their torpedoes missed forward, back or passed under like we do. We live in a fairy godmother fantasy land and expect things to be even more so. The real guys would make fun of us, and not nicely either.

[magic452]

What you say RR is very true but very boring game play as well.
If I wanted to be that bored I'd just watch a soccer game.

Magic

[Sailor Steve]

Well, some of us are history buffs who want to replicate the actual experience. Others are gamers who want a quick thrill.

[Armistead]

I just look at the bow wake and guess speed, course I'm good.

[mike2R]

Originally Posted by magic452

If I wanted to be that bored I'd just watch a soccer game.

At least get the name right :P

Anyway, having just recently started learning manual targeting, what I found really useful was the Attack Map. Now this is grossly unrealistic, but since it shows the correct position of both your ship and the target, as well as a marker indicating where your current TBT settings think the target is and where it is going, you can use it to correct your readings.

And since it gives immediate feedback you can keep on taking repeated readings and checking them, which is a hell of a lot quicker way to get your eye in than shooting torpedoes...

Now of course I've become dependent on it, and guess I'll have to wean myself off it (it really is against the spirit of the thing), but it has helped me a lot learning.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by mike2R

At least get the name right :P

One of my old favorites. On the other hand it was the British who named it "soccer", not us Yanks.

[magic452]

Mark 14 high speed range 4,500 yards, low 9,000.

Duds are a random thing and it is possible to get 8 duds or even more in a row. Don't use Magnetic in the early war, or ever as far as I'm concerned.
Early war Mk.14s run too deep 10+ feet and when they did hit often wouldn't explode. Mid 43 most are ok.

Shooting at a less than 90° angle is just the same at a 90°. Just a little less target to shoot at. I typically set up at 60 to 70°, better for avoiding convoy escorts. If you have a good firing solution the angle makes little difference, with in reason of course. In my opinion gyro angle is more important than attack angle. Shoot as close to a zero gyro angle as possible, in other words as straight ahead as possible. The greater the gyro angle the more accurate your firing solution needs to be.

It's all about getting a good plot on the target and than getting ahead and setting up in a good firing position. The more time you spend doing this the easier the shooting gets. Don't be in too big a hurry, take your time and attack when and where you want to. Attack on your terms not his. Use every advantage you can, night time, bad weather, etc. Trail the convoy till you get the maximum advantage as possible.

Realism is as realism does. It's not what boxes you've check but how you play the game. Yes the attack map is unrealistic but not all that much if you use it right. I view it as your crew doing their jobs, don't track a target with it but check it every three minutes or so as a captain would check using the scope. If the target is where the TDC says it should be than you've got a good firing solution. You can't have your crew plot a new firing solution and compare the two so the attack map does this for you.

I fire the extra torpedo to make sure I get the kill.
Have the cams on but don't use it for an advantage in setting up a shot or avoiding DCs.

After a thousand duds I've had all the frustration real captains felt as I need. Turned duds off. Big deal that's the way I want to play, if I want some frustration later I'll turn them on again.

I just can't see why some here think everybody has to play "REALISTIC"
A new guy comes here looking for advise and than has to apologize for unrealistic game play. I did the 100% thing for a long time and found I didn't enjoy it all that much. A lot harder yes more realistic not so much as far as I'm concerned.

Realism is between your ears not on the options page.

Rant over.

Magic

[Rockin Robbins]

Thank you magic. That was refreshing. Perfect reasoning for why I don't play with map contacts off. We have severe sensory deprivation in the game anyway. Estimating angles is nerfed because we can't turn our head to look at the target. Our body has a built-in protractor for that somewhere, you know.

We can't hear properly, natural sea noises above surface are non-existent, sonar is ridiculous. We live in a dead and quiet ocean. The subs didn't you know. Heck, how easy is it to surface and just forget you are on ahead emergency until you notice your fuel is running lower than it should. You actually think that is in any way possible in reality? What would be painfully loud and impossible to avoid in real life becomes very difficult to detect in a sim.

So now you want me to run my sub with a paper bag over my head? You're going to call that "full realism?" I'm not supposed to laugh? No thanks. A real sub had a crew. This one already doesn't.

No captain would go to the sonar station, take the headset from his sonar operator and listen for himself. We are forced to constantly. No captain would run the plot himself. That's what we do. No captain would push his radar operator out of the way to measure distances and bearings off his radar screen, walk over to the plotting table, push all of them out of the way and then do all of their jobs plotting that radar position. We call it realism and try not to snicker too much.

At some point you have to decide whether you think SH4 should be more a simulation of machinery or men.

Let's not give Capn Scurvy a hard time here. Here's his position, as best as I can present it. He would do better, but here goes. First, the Capn took various ships from the catalog and placed them an exact distance from a stationary sub. Using the stadimeter, he painstakingly and repeatedly took observations based on the game's ship ID manual. What he found was that he kept getting different distance measurements for different targets!

What can cause that?

• Inaccurate angle measurement in the stadimeter itself
• Incorrect masthead heights in the target ID database
• Other unidentified and stranger problems

So what did he find? All three! The magnification in the periscope didn't correspond to the real scope. That could be fixed. Computers being organized around pixels meant that a one pixel error in positioning the pseudo-target in the stadimeter would result in a measurable error. That can't be fixed.

He took apart the entire target database, including friendly vessels and found it riddled with errors in ship length, draft, heights of masthead, cabin, nothing was correct. Some targets were nearly unhittable based on in-game identification, even on auto-targeting.

Then the wild card: Different graphics cards have given us a dizzying array of screen resolutions not contemplated in 2007. SH4 only displays as intended in 1024x768. Anything else renders relative sizes wrongly. They grossly distorted our view, and we were taking measurements from the distortions. Capn Scurvy fixed that. We can now depend on those tic marks to estimate masthead heights because we know how many degrees apart they are. Well, YOU know, if you're using OTC, I don't because I know I can't depend on them.

He spent hundreds of hours fixing the mechanics of the simulator. When he was done SH4 was as mechanically perfect as he could make it. I'm going out on a limb and telling you that will be as mechanically perfect as SH4 will ever get.

Now you could use conventional stadimeter targeting, ID a target, shoot one torpedo and hit the target wherever you aim every time because the mechanics were right. You did your job and got a boom.

But some loudmouth (me) jumped in and yelled "But that isn't how it was!" The WWII captain didn't have a magic book that contained every single ship in the ocean, whether friend or foe. The magic book they didn't have didn't have the perfect length, masthead height and tonnage either!" The flawed book they really had contained (contained??? It was RIFE with) errors in every category. Some was wrong because of lack of info. Some was wrong because we relied on published Japanese info. Some was wrong because of alterations after hostilities began. For instance, how difficult is it to saw 10' off the top of a masthead?

"As a practical matter," the loudmouth screamed irritatingly, "it was impossible for the US Navy to rent every Japanese vessel, both merchant and warship long enough to take it to San Francisco to get a crew of ship surveyors to swarm all over it, take those perfect measurements and then somehow get the Japanese to sign papers giving up the rights to make any alterations to that vessel later in the war. Scurvy, that is what you've done and you want me to call that realistic!"

So what do you want? Simulation of mechanical perfection? Simulation of decision making processes? Simulation of result? Simulation of behavior? Welcome to simulation hell! For every "Yeah, but..." of mine, the Capn has another equally valid "Yeah, but..." of his own. And behind it all, making both sides' arguments a joke is that Magic ID Manual, containing every single ship on the ocean. Real subs could ID perhaps a third of the targets they saw, and were wrong 50% of the time even then. They frequently claimed double and occasionally claimed half the actual tonnage of the ship they sank. None of this is possible with our Magic Manual.

So there we are. OTC or not to OTC? Take your choice. I'll not give you a hard time about your choice, but I will tell you what the assumptions behind the mod are.

What I want to know is, if we rented every Japanese ship, why didn't the just meet with an unfortunate accident while in our custody and then we wouldn't have had to fight about it?

Rant over. It's hard to do both sides of a rant.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by magic452

A new guy comes here looking for advise and than has to apologize for unrealistic game play.

My comment was aimed specifically at yours in the post just above mine. I don't care how people play, and usually encourage everybody to play the way they want. I personally don't use manual targeting at all, so I can hardly be accused of being hardcore about my realism. I agree that it's about how it feels, not the specifics.

Your comment was dismissive to anyone who feels differently, so I responded in kind.

[Jimbuna]

The bottom line for me is....play the game the way you get most enjoyment from it for yourself.

None of us is as clever as all of us.

[Rockin Robbins]

It sucks! There isn't any right way to play. But we can all fight about all the ways that are wrong!

Make your choices, play the game and if you had fun you did fine!

[troopie]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

And please keep in mind that our stock stadimeter is still better than the stadimeter in the real sub. When you make it super-effective you misrepresent history to achieve some kind of nebulous mechanical perfection that didn't help in the real war.

The vast majority of times a torpedo was shot it was at a misidentified target with a length error of +-50%, speed error the same and range error at least +-30%. That's why they shot six at a small freighter when we feel that is a complete waste of torpedoes and only shoot one or two, knowing in our fantasy land of stadimeter perfection we'll get the sinkings at 1/4 the cost.

That's fine if you want to KNOW the targeting is precise and can expect hits. It helps you develop your technique. Real sub captains could never know why they got hits or misses. They didn't know much of the time whether their torpedoes missed forward, back or passed under like we do. We live in a fairy godmother fantasy land and expect things to be even more so. The real guys would make fun of us, and not nicely either.

Awesome post RR! So true and you could not have said it better. I regularly swing between 'realism' and 'quick thrills' whilst also switching between platforms, but I definately get more satisfaction out of 100% and have never yerned for improved sensors.

@Magic: love your 'three minute rule', will definately try it out. I have been using 'length vs time between the posts' but it is very dependant on correct ID and AOB.

So much to learn.

That real sub captains had as much success as they did is incredible!

[JohnnyCarwash]

Originally Posted by troopie

That real sub captains had as much success as they did is incredible!

They often had a little better info then you may be led to believe. I mean, if James Calvert earned the reputation as a TDC wiz, that means he was able to develop accurate data to input. The two conditions (TDC expertise and unknown data) can not exist in the same universe.

They used everything at their disposal. I tend to think they did more basic trig in estimating range using periscope tick marks and estimated mast height, rather than trust a dial and prism's "inaccuracy".

And you can read in many books how solutions that missed were later broken down in the ward room and mistakes found. You can't find mistakes unless you are fairly sure what the data was (supposed to be) in first place.

It is amazing how accurate they could be, especially in mult-ship rapid fire engagements. Remember, their were usually several highly trained officers operating together during tracking and attack, with each team able to check and share information between them. They formed an amazing human computer, and training and doctrine served them well.

[hatemf90]

Thanks guys, great discussion , I also agree with Robins, I was able to make a few near perfect shots with the stock tools.

but I have a few questions:

1) I just fired 2 salvos of 8 torpedoes and they all detonated half way to the target or just after they were fired, is this failure rate normal?

2)what is the maximum range of torps on low/high speed?

3) I want to take the next step and learn how to attack convoys and navy ships, attack with angles other than 90 degrees... etc but I dont know where to begin.

4)I also dont know where to actually find these convoys

[troopie]

Originally Posted by hatemf90

Thanks guys, great discussion , I also agree with Robins, I was able to make a few near perfect shots with the stock tools.

but I have a few questions:

1) I just fired 2 salvos of 8 torpedoes and they all detonated half way to the target or just after they were fired, is this failure rate normal?

2)what is the maximum range of torps on low/high speed?

3) I want to take the next step and learn how to attack convoys and navy ships, attack with angles other than 90 degrees... etc but I dont know where to begin.

4)I also dont know where to actually find these convoys

... not sure about your '8' fish salvos....How to put this?....your stern and bow tubes are diametrically oposed and so the torps will arrive at very different times. Infact if you're much past abeam they will never all reach the same point. The dud torp rate is high as the early US torp stocks in WWII were apparently very unreliable. But 8/8 fail? not gonna hapen. most likely they are just missing.

IIRC there is some stock issues with recognition info? Ie the rec manual data is wrong; ie draught, length, etc? Also the magnetic detonators didn't work for the first few years?