Originally Posted by bstanko6
GUESSTIMATIONS, AND WHY THEY ARE IMPORTANT
You are on the surface during a clear beautiful day.
Your watch officers yells down that smoke is on the horizon. You ask for the range and he tells you 12km.
After making a quick observations, the ship is a gray blob, which you cannot identify, making out an AOB, or even speed impossible.
You know you have to dive, or risk it seeing you and zig zag away.
Once we dive we are presented with new issues. First, no watch officer to give a range!
The target is currently headed towards you, and will eventually be in a position where you cannot attack it because of our slow speed. So you have to act quick in preparation.
Hydrophone tracking is not ideal because we can see the target. The periscope is more accurate.
We need to plot the ship to define it's course, determine an attack angle, prepare the attack run, and most importantly... know when we are too close.
Guesstimate! That's right. We watch a lot of videos, and read tutorials that always show a nav map that looks more like a chalkboard in Albert Einsteins office.
We do not need this. That stress is overrated and you can do more with less.
Pick a mast height. Most freighters average a 26-32 meter mast height. I usually choose 30 because it is an easier number for mental math. While the range of the ship may be off, it will be off consistently enough to plot a course on the map with a 4 bearing method. With this information, we can set an attack angle.
Pick a speed. Once underwater, our hydrophone operator gives us a lot of information! He tells us if the ship is slow, medium, or fast speed.
When you press E and bring up your speed table, at the top it labels as example: Slow speed is as high as 8 knots. Pick 8 knots and use that as a way of charting your target. I always pick the highest knot in whatever speed the hydrophone operator calls out. I would rather plot a faster ship (which is actually slow) and get my boat in position early, than plot a slow ship (actually fast), and ruin a chance to attack it because it passed me by.
Pre-set your AOB. regardless of what direction the ship is going, or it's AOB, I set up for a fast 90 or 45 degree attack. I then make adjustments as I get closer.
Why is guesstimation important? If you read any book the Aces, they all had one thing in common... They eliminated error from their solutions! They approached very close to their targets. But more importantly, we are setting our boat up for an attack early. When the ship gets in range to identify, we can then make more subtle adjustments without going crazy!
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