Targeting cargo ships?!

Hooston · 04-15-25, 03:36 PM

The stadimeter function of the periscope does not work like the real one, and in any case I've been told that it was deleted from uboats early in the war. Mast height is particularly hard to measure in practice (especially at night!), very susceptible to ship modifications and affected by the ship's loading.

It is possible to range on targets using the tick marks on the periscope graticule. The formula is based on the principle that the target is an arc of a circle centred on the periscope:

range in m = (180/pi) * size of target in m / apparent size of target in degrees

If you are at 90 degrees AoB you can use this approach with ship length as well as mast height.
The fly in the ointment is that SH3 periscope graticules have a variety of different markings! Most are marked in degrees at the base 1.5x magnification.
So at 1.5x magnification
range in m = 57 * size of target in m/apparent size of the target in tick marks
and at 6x magnification
range in m = 229 * size of target in m/apparent size of the target in tick marks

i believe the real periscopes, and some SH3 GUI mods, used tens of milliradians, and the 180/pi becomes 100 (or 400 when zoomed).
You have to "calibrate" your game GUI by turning on map contacts in one of the training missions and compare your measured ranges with the distance on the map.

With practice you can guess the range well enough by eye and you tend to shoot at zero gyro angle so the range does not matter. Tonci87 likes to use some particularly unpronounceable techniques from Kriegsmarine training manuals that remove the need for range measurements completely..

04-15-25, 03:36 PM	#9
Hooston 中国水兵 Join Date: Jun 2020 Posts: 274 Downloads: 16 Uploads: 0	Maths versus reality The stadimeter function of the periscope does not work like the real one, and in any case I've been told that it was deleted from uboats early in the war. Mast height is particularly hard to measure in practice (especially at night!), very susceptible to ship modifications and affected by the ship's loading. It is possible to range on targets using the tick marks on the periscope graticule. The formula is based on the principle that the target is an arc of a circle centred on the periscope: range in m = (180/pi) * size of target in m / apparent size of target in degrees If you are at 90 degrees AoB you can use this approach with ship length as well as mast height. The fly in the ointment is that SH3 periscope graticules have a variety of different markings! Most are marked in degrees at the base 1.5x magnification. So at 1.5x magnification range in m = 57 * size of target in m/apparent size of the target in tick marks and at 6x magnification range in m = 229 * size of target in m/apparent size of the target in tick marks i believe the real periscopes, and some SH3 GUI mods, used tens of milliradians, and the 180/pi becomes 100 (or 400 when zoomed). You have to "calibrate" your game GUI by turning on map contacts in one of the training missions and compare your measured ranges with the distance on the map. With practice you can guess the range well enough by eye and you tend to shoot at zero gyro angle so the range does not matter. Tonci87 likes to use some particularly unpronounceable techniques from Kriegsmarine training manuals that remove the need for range measurements completely..