Why are my torpedoes missing?

[RingMyBell]

I'm very grateful for your various insights and suggestions. I am using your advice and having much more success now.
I try to get close and at a 90 degree angle to the target. Then I lie in wait, then ambush! It's enormous fun.
I have become more aware of the importance of accurately estimating the target's speed.
I have also learned not to rush shots--better to pass and try again later than to rush and miss. Perhaps with more practice I'll get better at quick shots on the fly.
"Silent Hunter" is the perfect name. It really does feel like hunting.
I am still struggling to identify targets correctly. To me, the ship recognition manual is frustrating to use when I'm on high alert preparing for the next shot. However, I am beginning to think that target identification is not very important (except of course for confirming that the target is not from a neutral country). Specifying a torpedo depth of 4m seems to work well and if the range and speed estimates are correct, recognizing the target's identity is not helpful. Or do you disagree?
Thanks again!

[derstosstrupp]

Glad to hear it! And absolutely, the recognition manual is not needed. The real skippers generally used the “recognition manuals” (which were more often just lists of ships with ID numbers/letters, not pictures) to identify ships by their identifying number that had been radioed in the distress signal, or from info they obtained from survivors. They generally did not know the target parameters (height, length, tonnage etc) from a book prior to shooting. They matched the target’s course and speed on the surface to figure out the data, and if that wasn’t possible, they simply estimated. Getting very close mitigates the impact of wrong estimates.