Plotting targets and AOB

[uhntissbaby111]

I have read that one of the things one should do when preparing for the attack is to plot the course of your target by making a few points on the map and connecting them. My question is, when marking the targets on the map, how do i know how far away from me i should make them? The bearing would be easy as you just look at the periscope. But its the distance that confuses me. Besides using the stadameter, which is read can be innacurate, what else is there? And also, what are some good ways of getting the AOB? Thanks for any help


adam

[joegrundman]

Unless you play with map contacts on, then there is no easy and reliable way for determing range (unless you have sonar or radar).


So basically the answer is to use the stadimeter and practice getting good results

but actually, it's very worth learning to get a hang of AOB by eye. Many here consider it to be an arcane art that is near impossible. I disagree, however, and I have come to expect my visual AOBs to be accurate to 5 degrees.

there is a thread here giving a walk-through the various AOB positions, and you can use the AOB to improve the reliablity of stadimeter/range estimates for purposes of getting speed

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=134200

and once you can do it a plot can be made which looks like this

[RoaldLarsen]

There are at least 7 methods for getting range to target.

1. Play with map contacts on.
2. While on the surface, ask your Watch Officer for the range to the nearest contact.
3. On the surface, if you have radar, turn on radar, obtain a radar contact, and read the range on the radar station's range readout.
4. Submerged, if you have active sonar (not just hydrophones) acquire a hydrophone contact and ask the sonar operator for range to contact.
5. Exploit the game system when you are submerged using hydrophones. Continually update the hydrophone contact, and at the moment the range changes from long to medium or medium to short, you know the range is the extreme of medium or short respectively. These values can be found in the [ContactRange] section of the file data\Cfg\Contacts.cfg. In stock they are 3km and 1km. They are different in supermods.
6. Surfaced or submerged, use the stadimeter. The rougher the sea or the more inexperienced you are, the more readings you will need. Average them out*.
7. Surfaced or submerged, if you have a good estimate of AOB and have identified the target, use the UZO or periscope to measure the angle between the locked on position and the bow of the target (if AOB > 90 use stern instead of bow), and call this angle T. Then use trig:

• Range_to_Target = 1/2 x Length_of_Target x sin(180 - T - AOB) / sin(T)

Personally, I don't use methods 1, 5, or 7 and I have never had occaision to try method 3.

Method 2 (Watch Officer) is probably too accurate, but I compensate for this a bit by zooming out on the map when plotting a report from my Watch Officer. Method 4 (Sonar) seems to be appropriately inaccurate. I use method 6 (stadimeter) a lot, and my accuracy has improved with practice. If you think the bobbing of the boat and the lack of a split prism make this method unreasonably hard, I suppose you could pause the game when you take the stadimeter reading.

* I mentioned averaging out your stadimeter readngs. I don't mean to just take the mean of a few range values taken close together in time and plot the mean. Take several readings over a longer period of time and mark each of them on the map. I just draw a line of the reported range and bearing from the current location of my boat. Others like to draw a circle (radius expected maximum error) at the reported location. Once you have several points to work with, draw a best fit straight line to represent the target's course, and project it forward along its future path. Now you can use the projected course to correct your future range readings. If you find that all or almost all of the subsequent readings are to one side of the projected course, then correct the projected course instead of your readings.