Historically-Accurate TDC Usage

KlassenT · 05-05-10, 11:25 PM

I've been playing around of late with all manner of attack families in SH4, and at the end of the day, I have to say that I just don't come away with any feeling of trust in the TDC's "selling points." It's great for data acquisition / input and crunching some numbers for gyro angles on less conventional shots, but when the rubber meets the road I'm infinitely more confident using some sort of geometric approach.

The question, though, how does that stack up with the actual skippers in the earlier days of sub warfare, before we had the serious computing power to handle complex fire-control problems? Certainly the math behind vector analysis and the concept of 3min diagrams are older than even the rustiest of S-boats, so how many skippers ended up putting their trust in their TDC instead of their pencil and notebook? I've never had the privilege of reading most of the WWII-oriented books that come to such high acclaim here on the forums, and I'm certain there are several capabilities of the TDC that never got properly modeled into SH4's gameplay, so what's the skinny on this one, fellas?

05-05-10, 11:25 PM	#1
KlassenT Mate Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 54 Downloads: 21 Uploads: 0	Historically-Accurate TDC Usage I've been playing around of late with all manner of attack families in SH4, and at the end of the day, I have to say that I just don't come away with any feeling of trust in the TDC's "selling points." It's great for data acquisition / input and crunching some numbers for gyro angles on less conventional shots, but when the rubber meets the road I'm infinitely more confident using some sort of geometric approach. The question, though, how does that stack up with the actual skippers in the earlier days of sub warfare, before we had the serious computing power to handle complex fire-control problems? Certainly the math behind vector analysis and the concept of 3min diagrams are older than even the rustiest of S-boats, so how many skippers ended up putting their trust in their TDC instead of their pencil and notebook? I've never had the privilege of reading most of the WWII-oriented books that come to such high acclaim here on the forums, and I'm certain there are several capabilities of the TDC that never got properly modeled into SH4's gameplay, so what's the skinny on this one, fellas?