target tracks

[dreadedlyfe]

let me start off by stating that this makes sense to me, but i am full tilt boogie on my pain pills. ...

here is what i have rattling around in my head. say you have a contact(s) and your watch was awake so you picked him up early instead of a snapshot situation. you are able to get a speed and coarse. all of this should be able to be completed without raising the scope for a peek. you should be able to watch the plot for your target to cross the shoot bearing. if you held your nose right, then you get get fireworks at the end.

when you do your 3 minute plot, you have all three things that are needed. if you extrapolate the 3 minute plot you should, in theory, be able to plot out a predictive path over time. as the contact travels through the time aspect, which is the only constant, if the contact changes direction or speed, then you should know ahead of time. on the flip side you should be able to fire on the target using the ships chronometer.

it might be watching the clock versus the plot, but it is the predictive part that seems important to me. idk. at any rate, im sorry if this isn't making sense and if it isn't right, let me know.

[Pisces]

How can you know ahead of time if a contact changes course and speed? Unless you designed the mission yourself. And if they spot you they go off in a random direction of their choosing.

Also, please clarify 'the time aspect that remains constant'. I don't capiche.

[dreadedlyfe]

if you have determined the the speed of the target, and you know that speed is distance traveled over time, then you should be able to extend that targets course out and at regular intervals mark where the target should be. you know it traveled 1200 yards in 3 minutes. in the next 3 minutes he should be 1200 yards further down the track. at that speed it will travel 400 yards every minute.

you can get a range by changing your bearing, usually 90 degrees, and marking more lines of bearing. i guess it works off the more points of data you have, the better picture you will see.

the thing about time being the constant, time is going to remain the same. a second is a second is a second. unless we can get the boats to go a healthy fraction of the speed of light, it will be the same. if we do get them to go that fast, i have the con

[Rockin Robbins]

What you say is fine but it lacks details. Are you submerged or surfaced? How did you develop the speed and course information? This is all unclear. It is all vital.

Assuming you did develop accurate speed, bearing and course determination submerged, yes, you could fire based on bearing, provided you have properly set up your submarine position, entering the proper data into the TDC. Sure it's possible and the devil is in the details.

There are two different methods of using active sonar to do what you describe, WernerSobe's Sonar Only Targeting technique and my Dick O'Kane Sonar Only targeting technique. Both do what you describe.

[dreadedlyfe]

i concur, the devil is in the details. im working to try and resolve a totally passive submerged prosocution of contact. it may not work in game, but i know it can be done in real life. the idea may be a pipe dream, kind of like doing celestial navigation in game. i am not sure, as i need to spend more time "in the pit" and work out some math.

by and large, it is irrelevant as to what sensor gives you the data point when you are projecting the course from last known position. there is uncertainty there, but that is why you use time as a constant. you can check, just like you would for a train or any other thing that has a schedule, for your target "to be on time" .

say the target is supposed to be at X location at 23:07 if the target is ahead of where he is supposed to be, that means he is going faster. lagging behind means he is slower. if you know the projected path, you know the location in "time", you can plot that out and watch for abnormalities. same thing for course. one out of wack reading and its a blip, but you see the next few marks leaning to port and a little slower(relative) you can bet the target has changed course.

sorry for getting long winded. am getting ready to try and chase a DD for a little role reversal and then work on this a little more tonight. at least after i get done looking at jupiter. moon is being accommodating for once and making jupiter a little more accommodating to my eye, though killing my fuzzies.

[Daniel Prates]

Originally Posted by dreadedlyfe

if you have determined the the speed of the target, and you know that speed is distance traveled over time, then you should be able to extend that targets course out and at regular intervals mark where the target should be. you know it traveled 1200 yards in 3 minutes. in the next 3 minutes he should be 1200 yards further down the track. at that speed it will travel 400 yards every minute.

That takes into account not only that the target did no changes in its pattern, but more importanly, that you did no mistake whatsoever in your estimates - and that is a harder thing to do.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by dreadedlyfe

let me start off by stating that this makes sense to me, but i am full tilt boogie on my pain pills. ...

here is what i have rattling around in my head. say you have a contact(s) and your watch was awake so you picked him up early instead of a snapshot situation. you are able to get a speed and coarse. all of this should be able to be completed without raising the scope for a peek. you should be able to watch the plot for your target to cross the shoot bearing. if you held your nose right, then you get get fireworks at the end.

when you do your 3 minute plot, you have all three things that are needed. if you extrapolate the 3 minute plot you should, in theory, be able to plot out a predictive path over time. as the contact travels through the time aspect, which is the only constant, if the contact changes direction or speed, then you should know ahead of time. on the flip side you should be able to fire on the target using the ships chronometer.

it might be watching the clock versus the plot, but it is the predictive part that seems important to me. idk. at any rate, im sorry if this isn't making sense and if it isn't right, let me know.

I'm still not sure what it is you want to accomplish here.

If you are talking about making visual/radar observations, and then submerging to make the attack, this is certainly possible, but to what end? It was generally considered neccessary (or at least highly desirable), to visually confirm hit and sinkings.

If you are talking about making a sonar only approach. This is theoretically possible, but difficult in practice. Sonar only approaches were taught in the USN before the outbreak of war, but quickly abandoned in the early months of the war. To have any real prospect of obtaining a good set-up and firing solution, without visual/radar data, you would need to ping the target repeatedly, which is more of a givaway than using a periscope would be. I'm sure some have done this and sank a few ships in this sort of way, but in ordinary circumstances, this would be going about things the hard way.