Bearings in Bridge/Bino View - VIIB

[kylania]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I do have one question, though: In your diagram you have 330 and 340 on the left, but on the right you have 18 and 24, rather than 20 and 30. Why is that?

The 330 and 340 matched up with the shoulders of the front port watchman but on the starboard side the "corner" and the radar were better visual landmarks so that's what he marked. I think?

[bert8for3]

Originally Posted by kylania

The 330 and 340 matched up with the shoulders of the front port watchman but on the starboard side the "corner" and the radar were better visual landmarks so that's what he marked. I think?

Yup, simple as that. Wasn't so much going by regular points each side, but by identifiable marks.

@Steve. True (re eyeballing between easy 0/90 etc thus eg splitting for 045) enough and which is what I've been doing, just looking to improve my spotting a bit. And in RL doing it all the time (and having much better 3D perception to assist) they must have become pretty good at tagging the bearing. I suppose (not having the experience of it) that a lot of the time it was sufficient to tag a target as being eg on the port bow or quarter, or abeam. In other situations, I guess a more precise tag (give or take) on the bearing might have been necessary.

[Hitman]

@bert8for3: Many thanks for the ilustrative picture

I have been reading recently a 1st person account of the U-Boat warfare (Heinz Schäffer) and I have been able to confirm some of what I suspected: The Kaleun took bearings from the bridge -for plotting by the navigator- using the UZO and not by naked eye with binoculars. Therefore, the graphic you depicted is useful for the lookouts to indicate the approximate bearing of a initial contact but not for accurate plotting. Nevertheless, it has the value of being the historically correct method of reporting a new contact for lookouts and for the commander to have the first look at them.

So again, good job and many thanks

[Pisces]

VERY!!! good idea. Sofar, If at night, I used the obs periscope to see how the cloudtexture or stars look in a certain direction, and then use that to locate the propper bearing on the horizon with the bino (no high-contrastl graphics in the night). But this should be much easier... assuming I manage to memorize those degrees.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by bert8for3

Yup, simple as that. Wasn't so much going by regular points each side, but by identifiable marks.

:rotfl:

If I wasn't so pedantic I might have noticed that before. I see what you're talking about now.