Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks

[XLjedi]

Your link just goes to my forum... so I'd say that's a pretty safe bet.

[Bosje]

good work, Sir

stand up and take a bow

[Rockin Robbins]

Everybody who contributes to this thread, take a bow! This is a group effort.

[Hmuda]

I would like to clarify a few things.

The method I use is when I take a few measurements, place the solution ahead of the target's course and then fire as those vulnerable parts cross the wire. Is this what the 'Constant Bearing Method' is, right? If the target doesn't do something unexpected, I almost always score a hit (duds included :P ).

Now, I read in the DOC method that you can safely alter the bearing a few degrees without loosing enough AOB to miss. My question is: why do you suggest we go from bow to aft on the target? Is there a special reason, or can we just as well go from aft to bow?

[AVGWarhawk]

All of these solutions to a kill work just great. I do not lock ship anymore using the bow tubes. I only lock and update the TDC when I have to swing around to use my aft tubes I drag out the pencil and make manual calculations thus making it more challenging and satisfying.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Hmuda

I would like to clarify a few things.

The method I use is when I take a few measurements, place the solution ahead of the target's course and then fire as those vulnerable parts cross the wire. Is this what the 'Constant Bearing Method' is, right? If the target doesn't do something unexpected, I almost always score a hit (duds included :P ).

Now, I read in the DOC method that you can safely alter the bearing a few degrees without loosing enough AOB to miss. My question is: why do you suggest we go from bow to aft on the target? Is there a special reason, or can we just as well go from aft to bow?

On the first question, yes, these are constant bearing attacks. They are called constant bearing because you aim for an constant bearing and wait for your quarry to cross your sights. You are just timing the shot to hit where you want. So with a constant bearing attack you are aimed at a constant spot and waiting for the target to be there. The Dick O'Kane, John P Cromwell and Vector Analysis Techniques are all constant bearing attacks.

Second question: There are two basic families of torpedo spreads, longitudinal, where all the torpedoes follow a single path to the target or targets, and a divergent spread, where each torpedo takes an individual path. The paths in a divergent spread fan out from the submarine.

With a constant bearing attack, the easiest spread to shoot is the longitudinal spread because the bow crosses the wire and you shoot, the main stack crosses and you shoot, the aft crane passes and you shoot. And that is where your torpedoes will hit because of the timing of the shots.

So why wouldn't the bow, MOT, stern attack be best all the time? Well, in a John P Cromwell attack, where you are 45º ahead of the target, here comes three torpedoes in a single line toward your ship and you sight them. All you have to do is turn into them so that line doesn't intersect your new course and you've avoided all the torpedoes.

But suppose in the submarine, you take the trouble of reversing the procedure and shoot stern, MOT, bow. That is the most divergent possible spread, with the torpedoes taking the most widely separated 3 paths to the target. Not only that but the stern is further away than the bow, but you shoot that first. So not only are there three paths to avoid but as long as you can shoot in a moderate hurry all three torpedoes will strike at almost exactly the same time! MEGABOOM!

I'm playing too much Unreal Tournament 3. The game isn't so good, but the commentator booming MEGAKILL! is just awesome. It makes the game really addictive.

[Hmuda]

Got it, that's a useful thing to know. Thanks.

[vanjast]

When I could, I always did that constant longitude attack in SH3 - managed to nobb 3 ships (1 sank and gunned the other 2 a few hours later).

This depended on where the juicy ships were.

[groomsie]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

So why wouldn't the bow, MOT, stern attack be best all the time? Well, in a John P Cromwell attack, where you are 45º ahead of the target, here comes three torpedoes in a single line toward your ship and you sight them. All you have to do is turn into them so that line doesn't intersect your new course and you've avoided all the torpedoes.

But suppose in the submarine, you take the trouble of reversing the procedure and shoot stern, MOT, bow. That is the most divergent possible spread, with the torpedoes taking the most widely separated 3 paths to the target. Not only that but the stern is further away than the bow, but you shoot that first. So not only are there three paths to avoid but as long as you can shoot in a moderate hurry all three torpedoes will strike at almost exactly the same time! MEGABOOM!

RR, you specifically cite the JPC attack in this example--does the principle work for the DOK method and vector analysis method as well?

I ask because I use the JPC when I can set up for it, but typically I'm doing the DOK. Using the stern-middle-bow shots I seem to get more misses and have been avoiding it thus. I do re-click the settings (re-input) with new wire angle, so maybe that is throwing my solution out to lunch?

[Rockin Robbins]

Oh yes! It works just the same for the Dick O'Kane technique or vector analysis method. And it has the same limitations there. You are going to absorb some AoB error, which is inconsequential at the right angle Dick O'Kane attack and more and more consequential as the torpedo track angle increases or decreases from 90º.

Personally, at night I don't bother with this. During the day, where there is danger of the target seeing and avoiding, the stern, MOT, bow shot becomes more and more useful.

[groomsie]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Oh yes! It works just the same for the Dick O'Kane technique or vector analysis method. And it has the same limitations there. You are going to absorb some AoB error, which is inconsequential at the right angle Dick O'Kane attack and more and more consequential as the torpedo track angle increases or decreases from 90º.

Personally, at night I don't bother with this. During the day, where there is danger of the target seeing and avoiding, the stern, MOT, bow shot becomes more and more useful.

So do you reclick to send data to the TDC when resetting the scope firing bearing? Or do you just fire after restting the scope firing bearing and assume the change in AOB and such is negligible? I'm assuming at this point the latter.

[Rockin Robbins]

Setting the AoB would involve going to the AoB dial and resetting. We don't have time for that. What we WILL have to resend is the periscope shoot bearing. You'll re-aim ahead of the target, hold the periscope on that new bearing, click send range/bearing and wait for your new juicy part of the target to cross the wire, at which time you'll send your regards to the Emperor for that part of his ship.

So it's shoot the stern, leapfrog ahead (click), shoot MOT, leapfrog ahead (click), shoot the bow, watch the fireworks.

[ichso]

Those tutorials are still too easy

Since I used the Real Navigation mod in SH3 I was forced to track the movements of my own boat from the start of my map drawings on, too (because the mod removes all of the magically real time updated sub markes from all maps).
This makes the whole process quite more interesting. You can't just position yourself along the course line of your target anymore, you have to estimate in which direction you would have to travel for how long to get into the desired position and would also have to recheck your targets range and bearing constantly to become aware of errors in the process soon enough to adjust for them.
It was still a ery successful method using the fast 90 tactic. I'm still new to SH4 and got a bit confused by the TDC a bit.

When I feed the TDC with range, AoB and speed of the target but the PK is turned off, the gyro angle still gets calculated, right ?
The input in SH3 felt a bit more 'manual', or I just need more time getting used to the matter.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by ichso

Those tutorials are still too easy

Glad you like 'em! My aim is to make tutorials so easy my cat can do 'em. Actually my cat outshoots me every time. Your first reaction after putting one of my tutorials into practice should be "I was afraid of THIS?" That's why the advanced targeters rag me a bit about being too basic. I toss out every complication I can, plus irrelevant precision in calculation to arrive at successful manual targeting for the beginner. From that point it's easy to introduce more complexity and better technique.

Originally Posted by ichso

Since I used the Real Navigation mod in SH3 I was forced to track the movements of my own boat from the start of my map drawings on, too (because the mod removes all of the magically real time updated sub markes from all maps).
This makes the whole process quite more interesting. You can't just position yourself along the course line of your target anymore, you have to estimate in which direction you would have to travel for how long to get into the desired position and would also have to recheck your targets range and bearing constantly to become aware of errors in the process soon enough to adjust for them.
It was still a ery successful method using the fast 90 tactic. I'm still new to SH4 and got a bit confused by the TDC a bit.

That's where "Real Navigation" conflicts with real plotting. On your target plot, you could care less what your geographic position is, because you're always "here." And all target positions are plotted in relation to "here," wherever that is, as if we cared. What I'm getting at is that you WOULD know the relative positions of target track and your sub to the accuracy shown on the nav map. "Real Navigation" throws out the baby with the bathwater though, because relative plotting is lost along with geographic positioning. You're denying yourself information that would be available to a real sub crew. It's like piloting an airplane with a paper bag over your head. You can do it, and it's admirably difficult, but unless you're being taught instrument flying you're being a bit eccentric.

Originally Posted by ichso

When I feed the TDC with range, AoB and speed of the target but the PK is turned off, the gyro angle still gets calculated, right ?
The input in SH3 felt a bit more 'manual', or I just need more time getting used to the matter.

Yup, the TDC works just fine with the PK turned off, it just doesn't update the gyro angle with time. The PK tracks the actual motion of your submarine and the inputted motion of the target for a continuous update of gyro angles. When we use a constant bearing technique like Dick O'Kane or John P Cromwell, there is no need to track target motion. Our target is an empty spot in the ocean soon to be occupied by our hapless victim. With the vector analysis technique we can use the entire TDC for a paperweight!

Just take your time with the American TDC. It WILL make sense after all the mental short-circuits with the German TDC are broken and new connections can be made. Sounds like you're well on the way to figuring it out. Welcome to fleet boats, where the rules are just a bit different!

[ichso]

My point didn't was that your tutorial is bad or too easy, I just wanted to find a good starting sentence to introduce my point

That's where "Real Navigation" conflicts with real plotting. On your target plot, you could care less what your geographic position is, because you're always "here." And all target positions are plotted in relation to "here," wherever that is, as if we cared.

Yep, I know. I usually just make a mark at some empty spot of the map defining this as my position and start plotting target bearings and ranges from there as well as tracking my own movements from there on.
I can still do that, just grab another empty spot on the map instead of where my sub marker is. This came to my mind when I already had sent the last post, oops

Then again my first attack failed big time. I just wanted to do it as being used to from SH3 but the torpedo must have sailed happily into nowhere. Must have set some of the settings wrong where the TDC differs from the u-boat's one. I will take a closer look at the tutorials again to figure that out. Skipped some steps when watching the first time because it seemed very similiar to what I had read in the SH3 forums some time ago.