Motivated but Failed!!

[lord admiral]

Hi,

I was very much motivated by manual targeting practices by most of you and tried to play it! Guess what?? Karl Donitz would have sent me to the gas chambers!!! All torpedoes miss. Looks AoB calculation is going wrong.. Help me out pals

[Sailor Steve]

You'll get no help from me, and if you did you wouldn't want it. I gave up on manual targeting years ago. I have it turned on just to get rid of the stupid triangles, but I use WE assistance and let him do all the work.

[Hene]

If you're using contact map updates and don't mind "cheating" a bit you can use the the protractor in the nav map to check the AoB. just check the angle between the sub and the bearing of the target ship from the ships position and then enter it. Another way is if your on a 90 degree intercept course you can estimate the AoB from the targets position. So if you have the target at about 45/315 degrees you have an AoB of about 45, at 10/350 80 and at 0 90. not perfect but works good enough on short ranges. and lots of practice. Hope that helps

[Laufen zum Ziel]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

You'll get no help from me, and if you did you wouldn't want it. I gave up on manual targeting years ago. I have it turned on just to get rid of the stupid triangles, but I use WE assistance and let him do all the work.

I like your thought process.

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by lord admiral

Hi,

I was very much motivated by manual targeting practices by most of you and tried to play it! Guess what?? Karl Donitz would have sent me to the gas chambers!!! All torpedoes miss. Looks AoB calculation is going wrong.. Help me out pals

There are other threads that cover it, but the easiest way to deal with manual targeting, as well as avoid some weirdness with automatic targeting, is the Fast-90 method. AOB doesn't matter with Fast-90 because you have placed the boat in a position to have a ~90 deg. AOB already. Likewise, range does not matter either as Fast-90's mathematical error does not come into play until <500 meters or >7000 meters. In each case, the error is only a degree or so.

Search for Fast-90 and practice it.

[lord admiral]

Originally Posted by Hinrich Schwab

There are other threads that cover it, but the easiest way to deal with manual targeting, as well as avoid some weirdness with automatic targeting, is the Fast-90 method. AOB doesn't matter with Fast-90 because you have placed the boat in a position to have a ~90 deg. AOB already. Likewise, range does not matter either as Fast-90's mathematical error does not come into play until <500 meters or >7000 meters. In each case, the error is only a degree or so.

Search for Fast-90 and practice it.

Yes Sir! Thank you! I really wonder how did the real skippers dealt with this!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by lord admiral

I really wonder how did the real skippers dealt with this!

Months of school, then years of working up from junior to senior officer. By the time you make captain it's second nature.

[Red October1984]

I'd like to try Manual Targeting sometime. But it sounds hard.

If i did use manual targeting, i'd probably be using acoustic torpedoes as a failsafe.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

I'd like to try Manual Targeting sometime. But it sounds hard.

If i did use manual targeting, i'd probably be using acoustic torpedoes as a failsafe.

Errr.. don't acoustics defeat the purpose of pinpoint manual targeting? Acoustics with manual targeting is like using a sniper scope on a shotgun.

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

I'd like to try Manual Targeting sometime. But it sounds hard.

If i did use manual targeting, i'd probably be using acoustic torpedoes as a failsafe.

Acoustic torpedoes run too slow to be reliable beyond 1000m. Likewise, you either have to dive to get away from them or go completely silent (i.e. kill the engines) if they get stupid.

[Pisces]

Originally Posted by lord admiral

Hi,

I was very much motivated by manual targeting practices by most of you and tried to play it! Guess what?? Karl Donitz would have sent me to the gas chambers!!! All torpedoes miss. Looks AoB calculation is going wrong.. Help me out pals

I'd love to help. But the info you are providing is fairly little to provide some directed suggestions for improvements.

My general suggestion is to track the position of the target first. So plot where he is going. Ask the watch officer when he's up on the conningtower where the target it. Plot those on the map from your current icon. From that you can measure the target speed. Distance between points divided by the time between plots. (3 minutes and 15 seconds is a common interval, but preferably longer) And the course is then shown on the map as the line through the plotting circles. (place small circles, instead of marks, to show how accurate/inaccurate the plot is) This builds situational awareness. Very important.

Speed is the most important value to know. AOB is second of importance, especially if you attack the target from it's side. Just get it set to a ballpark figure. But invest effort to know speed.

You can also measure speed by:

1. Setting the periscope to 0 or 180 degrees.
2. Then turn your boat until the periscope line is just in front of the target bow. Take the time to start IDing the target.
3. Then rudder amidship, to prevent your boat from turning.
4. Wait until the moving ship starts crossing the line. Start a stopwatch. (in game, or a real watch)
5. Stop it once the rear of the target crosses the line.
6. Make sure you know the ID of the target. Atleast in as much as you can filter it to define the target length. (alot of ships in the RM have the same lenght)
7. Now, grab a calculator: divide length (meters) by time (seconds).
8. Double the result.
9. There, you have a number close to the actual speed of the target.

But above all, keep cool. Dont rush your attack. Attack on your terms, not that of the moment. Haste is fertilizer for mistakes. And don't make him spot you. Stay stealthy by keeping your distance and use the night.