RFB, Accurate Manual Targeting and Realism

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by tater

When Shinano was attacked, they had no idea how big—or tall—she was. The skipper made some observations, perhaps assumed the island was XX feet tall, then set up the shot.

Tater:

Enright left his radar on through the entire encounter and used radar range in his attack. No sane skipper used the stadimeter unless there was absolutely no alternative.

[tater]

True, cause it wasn't terribly accurate

tater

[Rockin Robbins]

Also, field distortion, such as CapnScurvy shows in the game, was rampant in lenses used for submarine and tank periscopes. I'm an amateur astronomer and our first wide field eyepieces were refugees from tanks. They were of Erfle design and gave us incredible (for the time) wide apparent fields of about 60º. Unfortunately, there was a cost: incredible, nausea inducing field warpage! It made the field warpage in the SH4 periscope look like excellent optics. I have one of those "Awful Erfles" and if you look at the moon it looks like it survived (or maybe didn't survive) a collision with a brick wall. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the field in a real sub periscope wasnt MUCH worse than CapnScurvy's couple of pixels anomaly from the SH4 periscope.

A linear field isn't one of the things I would expect from WWII optics. I wouldn't expect a flat field either. Actually I would expect plain and simple junk.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

A linear field isn't one of the things I would expect from WWII optics. I wouldn't expect a flat field either. Actually I would expect plain and simple junk.

The war patrol reports are full of defects related to the periscopes. Excessive vibration, lenses fogging up, complaints about the scopes being too short for the job, etc., were all commonplace grievances filed by the skippers in their reports on the boat's mechanical condition. Trust me, we have it very good when it comes to equipment reliability in this game.

[AVGWarhawk]

To put some closure on the ID manual. From "The Depths of Courage", Flint Whitlock and Ron Smith:

"Following Sealion II's departure, Tang sailed to Korea, where the crew would get the chance to celebrate the Fourth of July in typical American fashion, complete with fireworks. At dawn, a large ship hove into view. "I liked a part of what I saw," said O'Kane, "the massive bow, broad superstructure and bridge, the great, heavy masts. Perhaps we had forgotten what a big ship looked like, but everything suggested an auxilairy warship. It would take a broader angle, uncovering more details, before we could further identify her." A quick study of ONI-14, the Warship Recognition Manual, brought a difference of opinion as to what their target might be. Some of the officers said it was the Kuroshio Maru, but O'kane wasn't so sure: he thought it might be a conversion to a seaplane tender or perhaps an aircraft transport."

What Tang really could not identify beyond a shadow of a doubt was the Asukazan Maru. 6,886 tons sunk on nothing but know-how!

On the same patrol:

"The range to target closed to 7,500 yards-a little over four miles. As the ship zigged and presented her flank to Tang, the identification party leafed quickly through the silhouette book but could find no match. It would be learned later that the ship was the 7,500 ton Yamaoka Maru, Laden with 7,000 tons of iron ore and heading from Tientsin to Kobe. "

With nothing but a ship in his scope, O'Kane did the deed with what he knew and visually could see. It is highly unlikely his solution was dead nuts accurate. Specifically when his ONI manual was only good for toilet paper on this patrol. Dead on accuracy made little difference in getting the job done as witnessed in this passage from the patrol report. A dead on recon manual makes for an easy game. The fog of war makes for an imaginative game and one that develops a sense of accomplishment.

Read this thread here:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...80&postcount=1

Develop a second or third line of solution to a sinking. Trust your eyes and instinct

[heartc]

Originally Posted by CapnScurvy

And two, if that really is the correct height for the carrier deck why doesn't the game produce an accurate manually found range to it[...]

My point has been that to deliberately throw off numbers for the sake of creating a more real life simulation is (in my opinion) wrong. Do it through other means like creating the atmosphere of doing extra tasks. Doing manual plotting of ship positions in prep for attacks could be one. But to permanently have the numbers skewed so you would never correctly hit a target at a reasonable range is again (in my opinion) wrong.

The point is that in real life, they didn't gather range, AOB and speed in a single initial observation just like that and had an instant firing solution. In reality, they would enter their initial guesstimates and then OBSERVE the target to increase the accuracy of their solution. That means they would compare the observed relative target bearing over time to the relative target bearing the TDC put out. The fun thing is except for a prolonged period of time or unless your own boat changed positions dramatically, it almost doesn't matter which of the three factors (AOB, speed or range) you would then "correct" in order for the observed and generated relative bearing to match. But most easily it is done by "correcting" the target speed setting.
When you target a specific point on the target ship, and this point is neither "outrunning" the relative bearing generated by the TDC, nor is it lagging behind, then you have a VALID firing solution, since the gyro angle is then the proper lead angle.

Say, because of inaccurate masthead height data on the Jap ship you come up with a range that is actually too short. What this would mean for your initial solution is that the generated relative bearing on the TDC would slowly outrun the actual relative target bearing. You observe this, and "correct" the speed value in the TDC by say -0.5 knots (adjust it manually in the speed dial). The more the generated and observed bearings stay close to each other, the more accurate the solution is (optimum is when they stay identical), and depending on how far out you are, it will be accurate enough for a hit. They did like to get within 1500 yards or less in real life.
What is important too is that just before taking the shot, you have to take one last actual relative bearing measurement, so that when there is an error in your solution, it will be "reset" to zero for that moment and only develope anew from there, which is better than taking the shot based on an already further developed bearing error. Does "This is a firing observation. Match bearings and shoot!" say anything to you? It's exactly based on the process I described.

This might all sound much more complicated than it really is. If you picture that process and try it out in game a few times, you will see how easy it really is. The important clue here is to play with the target speed input value to make the generated bearing match the observed bearing, so that they are identical (optimum) or only very slowly walk away from each other over a period of time, then take one last bearing measurement before the shot.

What makes this process more complicated than it was in real life is SHIV's extremely GAMEY data gathering mechanics. Since this game was out I was wishing / demanding for a way to enter the target data, and especially the observed target bearing, in a more simple and direct way by - well - simply entering it in the TDC. There should be some sort of MARK button when you have the target in your sights for the relative target bearing to enter into the TDC, just like iRL the skipper called out "MARK" when he wanted to enter it. In SHIV, bearing gathering is tied to the range measurement. It will only enter into the TDC when you take a range measurement of the target. That is beyond ridiculous. The game is almost forcing you to take the observation data in its gamey way, which makes correction of individual data extremely cumbersome. I know you can turn the bearing dial on the TDC directly, too, but the input as well as the readout on that dial is way too inaccurate due to the small size of the device. You CAN get a digital relative bearing readout by hovering the mouse over the 12 o'clock position on the inner ring of the bearing dial though (otherwise this whole method would be impossible to apply). But for entering a bearing you have to take a gamey range measurement, which is stupid.
iRL there was a readout directly on the periscope mast in the conning tower, exactly to make it more accurate because of the bigger scale then, the XO for example would read it when the Skipper said "MARK".

In SHI you could enter all the data manually and directly into the TDC, with the bearing readout being a digital number, only way to make it accurate enough on a PC monitor, unless the dial is about the size of the whole monitor. Even though SHI wasn't "designed" to use full manual targetting, you could do it better there than in SHIV. Some smart guy back then came up with the masthead heights of the ships. You could then get the range by actually calculating it based on the angle from the horizontal plane to the masthead, guesstimate speed with an initial value, and enter bearing simply by hitting a mark button when the target was in the crosshairs. SHI (wrongly) used target course instead of AOB, which you could gather from the overhead map (godseye view...) or calculate it by adding or subtracting the observed AOB to own heading +/- 180° (which was highly inaccuarte though because SHI was actually 2D, and the ships AOBs would change suddenly in roughly 10° increments lol!). Then the same process applied: Comparing generated TDC bearing to observed bearing, adjusting target speed, last bearing update before firing, shoot.

I wish there was a mod for SHIV that would enable a more direct TDC interface like in SHI instead of the gamey and in fact restricted one we have now, which almost forces the gamey "notepad" data gathering process on you. But I guess this stuff is hard coded. In their quest to make the manual firing method available to people who don't REALLY know what they are doing and why, the devs came up with a solution that makes it more difficult in fact than it was in real life. SHIII allowed for more direct inputs in the Torpedovorhalterechner, and getting target bearing was not tied into range gathering, which is a really retarded way to do it.

[AVGWarhawk]

Oh definitely! A more interactive TDC would be key!

[CapnScurvy]

Heartc, you've made a very good point regarding TDC interaction. I haven't played SHI in so long I forgot what I liked about it. May have to dust it off to remind myself. I know the eye candy is great with the newer versions, but I still remember there were some game play aspects that were outstanding with the older games. It's like the developers knew they had to make game mechanics worth while since the graphics were only so well developed.

I remember one of the neat game play mechanics for Epyx's Sub Battle Simulator game was you had to type in the latitude and longitude coordinates to get to your way-points and destination. Made you to have to learn the process of global positioning on a map, which is a good thing for RL. The draw back to the game was the graphics. I thought I was flying high when I bought my first RGB monitor to play Sub Battle on. For a good while I'd been playing on an Amber colored monochrome monitor (which was a step up from the black and white monochrome). Graphics does make a difference, but good game play should never be cut short.

[AVGWarhawk]

I find it strange that you can only move the TDC dials just so far for range. For lack of a better way to say it, although the TDC is wonderful in the game, it is dumbed down. Only a fully interactive TDC would really lend itself to the true reality of the use of the TDC. I find the attack map to be worthless really. No tools to make a mark and really attempt to make a very real simulation of plotting the attack course, etc. CapnScurvy, what a cool idea it would be to have a fully interactive TDC were a hot key could bring up the TDC to full screen so the player could read it and dial in the numbers.

[tater]

I'd like to have an interactive TDC so I could experiment with playing the TDC officer, but as skipper, I want to say (command key), "Bearing. Mark" (which in effect is the L key now), "Range. Mark" (which would be assumed should I use the stadimeter) and have my men plot them and even work up elements of the solution.

[tater]

As an aside I was testing something in RSRDC last night, and I entered all the mast heights myself as guesses. I fired one spread of 3 and got 2 hits, though 1 was a dud, and the other was not quite so good as I misjudged the target's speed by a knot or so, I literally went past the bow by inches ) contact setting since the spread of 2 I had just fired at this target looked like good shots, but both prematured on me.

[tater]

I was looking at the heights of things in the dats with S3D by placing nodes on top of masts, funnels, pagodas, etc, then reading off the heights.

Anyway, cherry-picking the place you set as the lock can have some goofy effects vs what RL skippers had.

Fuso, for example. RFB uses the funnel---which makes sense, it's right amidships, so is more AOB independent than the pagoda or mast. Trouble is, ONI was grossly wrong on the funnel height of Fuso, but they were dead on for the pagoda and mast heights.

Me' I'd likely use the pagoda, myself, since I'd be getting ranhges while she was hull-down.

Look at a real ONI doc:


What might make sense would be to add a few height marks (appropriately off if ONI is off from RL) for the various features. The default "lock" point can still be whatever, but the player can always dial the superstructure, etc, and use that if they prefer.

[AVGWarhawk]

The hardest part for me is getting the speed down. AOB and range can be fudged some for a good hit but if you are off a knot, things can go horribly wrong. I do my best to get within 1500 yards. This makes the fudge factor not quite as damning.

[Munchausen]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I find it strange that you can only move the TDC dials just so far for range.

Modded, TDC range can be set to any value on the dial.

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by heartc

it almost doesn't matter which of the three factors (AOB, speed or range) you would then "correct" in order for the observed and generated relative bearing to match. But most easily it is done by "correcting" the target speed setting.

That's only valid as long as your range estimate is close to the actual figure. From a static point, a ship steaming East at 5 knots at a range of 5,000 yards will have the same bearing change rate as a ship steaming East at 10 knots, at a range of 10,000 yards. This is a problem if you spend some time observing your target whilst running a parallel course.