Targeting cargo ships?!

Hooston · 04-12-25, 07:50 AM

Of course 1.944 is more or less 2! So double the length of the target and divide by the time it takes to traverse a fixed point. This is historically correct and I can do it in my head to the nearest knot. There are some mods with clever gadgets or tables to do the sum for you.
...unfortunately a real crew could not maintain periscope depth if the boat was stopped. Most people slow down and point the bow of the boat at the target before taking the reading or use a complicated correction table to compensate for their boat's movement.
...also wave action combined with the crew trying to steer a straight course would cause the periscope to swing side to side as well as up and down so it was necessary to get another crew member to manually stabilise the periscope in azimuth from a gyro reference when taking the measurement. The game does this for you!
...and it was unlikely you would know the target length. There were a LOT of merchant designs and modifications out there! Tonci87 has barred himself from using the manual for merchant ships and does it from experience.
So get close. Less than 1km means you only need to get within +/- 2 knots for a 100m ship.
If you fire when the gyro angle is about zero the range does not matter. That's easy!
Angle on bow is tricky. Most people do it by eye, and practice helps. If you know the target course there are attack disks in most GUI mods to calculate it for you, although I find it easier to do it in my head. Plotting target course on the map helps a lot, you can cheat by turning the map symbols on in the difficulty settings. The real TDC was locked to the submarine gyro as well as the periscope, so if you turned the boat the AoB would be corrected. Unfortunately the game one is a bit wonky and you have to manually update the AoB every time your boat turns.
With reasonable realism settings the game is stupidly difficult and you will get killed before the end of the war. Most of us have all the difficulty settings wound way up and we still do a lot better than real life Kaleuns. I strongly recommend installing a supermod, like the new GWX Knight's Cross or Fifi's NYGM Enhanced Hardcore which are both stand alone "download, unzip somewhere outside Program Files, select windows 7 compatibility and run".

04-12-25, 07:50 AM	#4
Hooston 中国水兵 Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 274 Downloads: 16 Uploads: 0	Life was complicated Of course 1.944 is more or less 2! So double the length of the target and divide by the time it takes to traverse a fixed point. This is historically correct and I can do it in my head to the nearest knot. There are some mods with clever gadgets or tables to do the sum for you. ...unfortunately a real crew could not maintain periscope depth if the boat was stopped. Most people slow down and point the bow of the boat at the target before taking the reading or use a complicated correction table to compensate for their boat's movement. ...also wave action combined with the crew trying to steer a straight course would cause the periscope to swing side to side as well as up and down so it was necessary to get another crew member to manually stabilise the periscope in azimuth from a gyro reference when taking the measurement. The game does this for you! ...and it was unlikely you would know the target length. There were a LOT of merchant designs and modifications out there! Tonci87 has barred himself from using the manual for merchant ships and does it from experience. So get close. Less than 1km means you only need to get within +/- 2 knots for a 100m ship. If you fire when the gyro angle is about zero the range does not matter. That's easy! Angle on bow is tricky. Most people do it by eye, and practice helps. If you know the target course there are attack disks in most GUI mods to calculate it for you, although I find it easier to do it in my head. Plotting target course on the map helps a lot, you can cheat by turning the map symbols on in the difficulty settings. The real TDC was locked to the submarine gyro as well as the periscope, so if you turned the boat the AoB would be corrected. Unfortunately the game one is a bit wonky and you have to manually update the AoB every time your boat turns. With reasonable realism settings the game is stupidly difficult and you will get killed before the end of the war. Most of us have all the difficulty settings wound way up and we still do a lot better than real life Kaleuns. I strongly recommend installing a supermod, like the new GWX Knight's Cross or Fifi's NYGM Enhanced Hardcore which are both stand alone "download, unzip somewhere outside Program Files, select windows 7 compatibility and run".