Mathematical Question concerning Firing Solutions - what am I doing wrong?

[HMS Vanguard]

Originally Posted by vindex

What the ... holy ... ???

You don't actually need to calculate this stuff. The mechanical computer on your boat does. You just need three inputs:

1) Range (the system is a bit off, but you can get it by trial and error or installing one of the fix mods)

2) AOB (either estimate it visually, which is often flawed, or by protractor -- it's the angle between the target's course and a straight line to your boat)

3) Speed (the stopwatch method is broken, hopefully will be fixed, so better to do it by marking location, waiting a specific period of time, and then marking a second location, then multiplying up to get the distance in nm you WOULD have gotten if the interval had been one hour).

Right now I don't use 100% -- it's really unfair with all the broken range-finding and speed-measurement tools -- I still allow the contacts to appear on the map. If you do this, it's relatively easy to enter a solution then look at your battle map to see how accurate it is (in all three inputs) and make adjustments accordingly.

Unless you LIKE doing math ...

Well, I'm playing on 100% realism myself, and given that the stopwatch system is not working, I was trying to work out the calculations according to the guide I was using in that link I posted. Also, to a degree, I enjoy the idea of realistically trying to input firing solutions in the way that they had to do on the submarines at the time to make it as realistic as possible. It's also quite satisfying to see a fish slam home as a result of your calculations (managed to do it once - JUST caught the rear end of the cruiser, dunno what I did differently that time), but the problem I'm having is that I'm doing something wrong with the calculations. If anyone can help with this, I'd appreciate it.