Clear the Bridge! Dick O'kane method

[I'm goin' down]

Knight is great. I wll ride a sea horse into battle. But right now, I am listening to sonar only tutorials and then I will return to decipher Nisgeis' masterful explanations.

[Rockin Robbins]

Is SUBSIM a great place or what?

[I'm goin' down]

Trying to install Jammimadrid's mini chron and tools got my machine out of whack and I was up until 5:30 a.m. reloading the game, mods, etc. I have given up on the tools aspect and ancient 46 is reviewing my mods and the mini chron, so I may get them in sync this year. Meanwhile, my WEBSTER'sS deck gun, which I downloaded as part of package of his mods for 1.5, takes between 17 and 18 seconds to reload. rahter than 2 seconds as he indicates. I confirmed it on my FULL SIZE stop watch. And, my source of relief, the CaptainsGirls, GirlsInEveryPort, and Captain'sDeskPhotos mods do not show anyone, yet alone, women. Oh yea, that and a destroyer that has a sonar man who never sleeps, and is on my ass, makes this sim something, but I am not sure what.

[Dogfish40]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Now, to change the subject, I'm goin' down, by the power vested in me by WernerSobe, Nisgeis, aaronblood, gutted, and the infinite might of man's imagination, I hereby dub you Knight, First Class, of the Dick O'Kane Manual Targeting Technique. May you use it well and wisely, always for the forces of right, good and and niceness. and never for the agents of evil and rottenness.

That was good!!

Originally Posted by I'm goin' down

Trying to install Jammimadrid's mini chron and tools got my machine out of whack and I was up until 5:30 a.m. reloading the game, mods, etc. I have given up on the tools aspect and ancient 46 is reviewing my mods and the mini chron, so I may get them in sync this year. Meanwhile, my WEBSTER'sS deck gun, which I downloaded as part of package of his mods for 1.5, takes between 17 and 18 seconds to reload. rahter than 2 seconds as he indicates. I confirmed it on my FULL SIZE stop watch. And, my source of relief, the CaptainsGirls, GirlsInEveryPort, and Captain'sDeskPhotos mods do not show anyone, yet alone, women. Oh yea, that and a destroyer that has a sonar man who never sleeps, and is on my ass, makes this sim something, but I am not sure what.

Yeah, I had a bit of a snafu with the 'mini chron' mod. The first time I loaded it I had to reinstall the game. The second time (because I forgot which mod had the problem) I got lucky and only had to take it out of the mods folder. I would love to have a smaller Chrono but I'm not going to chance the mod unless there's a certified fix.
This has been a very good read so far, I'm learning a lot.
Cheers and Happy Hunting
D40

[I'm goin' down]

Originally Posted by Dogfish40

That was good!!

Yeah, I had a bit of a snafu with the 'mini chron' mod. The first time I loaded it I had to reinstall the game. The second time (because I forgot which mod had the problem) I got lucky and only had to take it out of the mods folder. I would love to have a smaller Chrono but I'm not going to chance the mod unless there's a certified fix.
This has been a very good read so far, I'm learning a lot.
Cheers and Happy Hunting
D40

Dogfish, I stumbled upon your post yesterday. The posts you refer to are from November 29, 2008! A mere 25+ months ago. No one can say you failed to read the thread.

[Pitts2112]

Hello, everyone! I'm new here and have been playing SH4 for a few weeks. I played SH1 about 13 years ago and now remember why I played it so much.

I'm just now reading O'Kane's "Wahoo" and he described his attack method, which he and Morton developed together, as giving the enemy ship almost nowhere to go regardless of his maneuvering after seeing the incoming torpedoes. In reference to RR's recent post, RR explained the reasons for O'Kane's order of the torpedo/target points perfectly. O'Kane worked from middle to stern to bow, in that order, on most of the attacks he described in the book.

What I haven't been able to figure out quite well is how he moved his aiming point. I'm guessing he set up the whole attack for the first torpedo and held this bearing until the middle of the ship crossed the periscope hair, then moved the periscope to some point ahead of the first one, reset it in the TDC, then waited for the stern to cross that line, then moved ahead again to a third bearing, reset it in the TDC, and waited for the bow to cross the hair then. As RR says, that will result in three very divergent tracks, which give the enemy skipper no options that will avoid all the shots. O'Kane described pulling this kind of attack, and having all three shots out of the tubes in about 20-30 seconds. That seems to be enough time to reset new bearings for each of the target points on the ship, but that's just a guess.

The other thing he mentioned is that Morton favored a 120 degree setup with the above procedure, and that seems to be the key in the "no avoiding options" factor on this method, but I haven't been able to picture in my mind exactly what he means by that. I'm guessing he means firing from 30 degrees abaft the midships point on the enemy target, but i'm not sure about that or how that would be better than a straight 90 degree setup.

And if I understand how this method uses the technology onboard, the TDC is still giving gyro angles to the torpedoes that factor in speed and angle on the bow of the target but, since the bearing is fixed, the PK is not updating the position of the ship. In effect, it's tricking the PK by saying that the target is at the shooting bearing before it's actually arrived there and just holding off on the shoot until it does arrive. True?

And, finally, I saw someone earlier in this post someone talk about calculating AoB or eyeballing it. O'Kane was an expert at eyeballing it (as has been mentioned in other threads here), and doing so would be a good back-check that the visual, plot, and TDC data are all matching before shooting, meaning all the data input so far has led to an accurate solution inside the boat that matches what the skipper is seeing on the surface. I've not read anywhere of a plotted AoB being used as credible attack data. I think they were always eyeballed by the attack officer.

The amount of info on here is terrific and as added an enourmous amount to my enjoyment of the game. Thanks to everyone here for that!

Just .02 worth from a noob.

[I'm goin' down]

Welcome aboard skipper. You will be well served here. Yours was a very thoughtful, well articulated post. I am looking forward to the responses.

[Nisgeis]

Welcome aboard Pitts! Well, as I understand it, O'Kane set up the shot and then fired when the juicy parts 'passed the wire' e.g. the aiming mark on the periscope, so that would suggest Bow, MOT, Stern as the firing order. I don't remember him setting up for a different firing order. Have you got a page number for him doing that? It's been a while since I read either of those books.

Originally Posted by Pitts2112

The other thing he mentioned is that Morton favored a 120 degree setup with the above procedure<SNIP>

120 degrees of what though? 120 degree torpedo track angle? That would be fired from behind yes.

Originally Posted by Pitts2112

And if I understand how this method uses the technology onboard, the TDC is still giving gyro angles to the torpedoes that factor in speed and angle on the bow of the target but, since the bearing is fixed, the PK is not updating the position of the ship. In effect, it's tricking the PK by saying that the target is at the shooting bearing before it's actually arrived there and just holding off on the shoot until it does arrive. True?

Right, imagine everything is entered for the current target and it's all checked out with subsequent observations and the PK is running. What you do is move the periscope forward of the target and then tell the TDC operator to 'match' bearing. The TDC operator then moves the target bearing forward to match your aiming point. What this does is to advance the theorhetical TDC target along the ship's track, to a point where it would actuallt be if it had suddenly leapt forward along its own track. This makes the TDC adjust the range and the AoB of thetheorhetical target to what it should be for the target at that point. Now the TDC operator has to very carefully turn the target ship bearing input crank backwards so that the relative target bearing shown on the TDC does not move.

That's the key part really. What the TDC operated in this way what it is doing is continuously calculating the gyro angle for a torpedo to hit the spot at which the target's track and the aiming bearing intercept (if that spot was moving at the target's speed). This point moves continuously forward along the target's track, but less fast than the target moves along it. As you are calculating the intercept point between your periscope bearing and the track, when the part of the ship you want to hit arrives there as well, then you just fire a torpedo and it will hit that part of the ship. As the TDC is still running, it takes care of the range changes. The AoB will stay the same and as the speed is all entered in, the angle solver will provide the correct amount of advance to hit a moving target.