TMA and range determination

[OKO]

Originally Posted by TopTorp '92

Make a series of scenarios with two vessels in the game: own ship and a target. Place the target at a known bearing and range for each scenario and give it zero speed. Place OS on a known course that is perpendicular to the target. You now know what the bearing rate is for a stationary target for the canned range. You can also measure the bearing rate from the broadband display using an index card as a ruler. The bearing line will be less slanted at narrow aspects and at farther distances. Doing this will build judgement about bearing rate behavior and target range given OS speeds and various LOSs.

I'm sorry but that's really not a good way to proceed =>
you will have near the same bearing rate for a ship going 20 knts at 20 miles and a ship going 10 knts at 10 miles, and also same bearing rate for a ship with a 45° course to you at 20knts and 10 miles.

You definitly CAN'T have a range with this method
And this is why Target Motion Analysis ... was created ...

The next time you do battle with an on-line gammer, you will have the ability to estimate with reasonable precision target range simply based on the bearing rate and the LOS. ADCAP needs no additional information to find its target.

If all you have is a bearing and no bearing rate or even a bearing drift (you don't know yet whether the target draws left or right) then you can snapshot the target using the bearing you have and enable the torpedo at the minimum range.

1 rule of torpedo use : Never ever open the seeker to early or your target will fly away.
Certainly one of the biggest mistake to do : nothing easier than to evade a torp pinging you at long range.

You still have a wire to the weapon that can update its course and other parameters.

If you don't know the target range, this is completly useless to try to guide a torp.
Is the target at 5 miles or 15 miles ? when do I have to open the seeker to lock the target ?
You talk me about a blind trying to throw the ball into a basket ...

And defender will have all time needed, because you gave him informations about torpedo position and threat, to built a big a efficient wall of CM that will make your torps completly crazy !
You even better open the seeker to late, and then turn the torp to 180° than to open your seeker to early.
because this way, you passed the CM wall (any confirmed skipper should know how to build a good CM wall) and your torp could come back from behind.
So, NEVER open the seeker to early.

Don't waste too much time polishing the TMA cannon ball thinking you're gonna get the best firing solution available or even get a decent range.

ok, you probably must be joking : I told you just above
1) just work at TMA when it's time to do and not before (read above...), it takes 2 minutes to make a VERY accurate TMA if you do it at the right time, after you have made a good recording patterns
2) if you apply the method described above, you will have a range at less than 5 % of the real one, say 2% when you are trained.

You only need to get the best bearing available and use it. This is the way it was done in WWII, during the Cold War and I tell you it is the way it can still be done in this computer game.

We are not anymore at WWII
torps are now wire guided, are going more than 10 times (for diesel) and 25 times (for nuke) farther than WWII torps, and your sub have much better detection capabilities

On what you said, I can tell you never had a decent solution on a manual TMA. You told me about snapshoters story here.
And a snapshoter against a confirmed skipper, with manual TMA, is just dead meat

So I just couldn't agree at all to any of your statments above