I suck at this!

[Rockin Robbins]

I thought I'd share asking about the difference between the Fast-90 and Dick O'Kane attacks. I hope it helps both U-Boat and Fleet Boat skippers.

I looked at your Dick O'Kane Tutorial on Werner Sobe's thread, and at the Wazoo manual targetting page that describes the Fast-90 approach. I thought O'Kane's method was the Fast-90 method? What differences am I missing here?

The only thing I see is the uboat TDC calculates AOB for you so you can make higher gyroangle shots easier (faster), tho as I recall this is still possible in the US boat with an extra click.

Thanks for that tutorial by the way... I really really hated the stadimeter, your tutorial explained it so well, it got me into using manual targetting. That's it's intent: to take the intimidation out of quickly entering all those parameters in the heat of battle and eliminating the uncertainty of the stadimeter. Even if you're good at the stadimeter, I love setting up a whole attack half an hour before I shoot!

Fast-90 vs Dick O'Kane. They're the same, mathematically, but different mechanically because they were developed in different boats. Once you turn off the PK and nuke your stadimeter, there's one difference left between the U-Boats and Fleet Boats: the periscope can be linked to the TDC in the U-Boat.

That means as you aim the scope the aiming point of the torpedo changes AND the AoB is automatically updated as well. So, to set up a Fast-90, first you set your periscope at zero. Then you set bearing to zero and AoB to 90 starboard or port, depending on which way the target is coming from. Once all that is done, press the lock TDC to periscope button, which locks out manual TDC changes as well. From now on, pointing the periscope moves the aiming point of the torpedo, and changes the AoB automatically. You can shoot any time with a good probability of a precise hit. I'd shoot between left 30º and right 30º from zero bearing.

In the fleet boat the TDC is only updated when we push the send range/bearing button and when we dial up a new AoB and press the send button on that. So we have to decide ahead of time on what bearing we're going to shoot. I just use 10º before zero bearing for fast and 20º for slow or electric torpedoes.

So you point the scope at the shoot bearing (example 350º for 10º before zero to the left) and press the send range/bearing button. You subtract the 10º lead angle from 90º and enter starboard 80º for the Aob in this case of target coming left to right. Now you point the scope at 350º and shoot as the target reaches the crosshairs.

U-Boat people have trouble understanding the mechanics of the Dick O'Kane. But a fleet boat guy can do a Dick O'Kane in the U-Boat by just not hooking up the periscope with the TDC and entering the numbers manually, just like the fleet boat. If you hook the periscope to the TDC, you've switched to the Fast-90, which is impossible in the fleet boat.

Clear as mud?:rotfl: