Guides and Training

[ReallyDedPoet]

Great idea, well done


RDP

[Fincuan]

What RR's pic illustrates holds true anytime the gyro angle is zero, which was something I had a hard time believing until I drew it in MoBo:

Torpedo track angle 45 degrees


TTA 90


TTA 120

[Hmuda]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I just thought this morning I would post the pic I received from gutted just over a year ago that started me on all this craziness in my specialty of constant bearing longitudinal spread attacks. This really shows why, in this family of attack methods, range cancels out of the equation and simply doesn't matter:

The blue line is your course, the green line represents your shoot bearing. As the target crosses the shoot bearing, no matter what his range, he gets tagged. Neat, huh? This is the diagram that started my slow slide into insanity!:rotfl:

Heh, funny that I was once attemting something similar, but the targets were too close in bearing so I only managed to hit one of them (the rest of the torps meant for the other guy hit the first one as it stoped too quickly.

Although, the targets' watch-crew would have to be pretty blind not to see the torps meant for their neightbours passing in front of them.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Fincuan

What RR's pic illustrates holds true anytime the gyro angle is zero, which was something I had a hard time believing until I drew it in MoBo:

Great stuff, Fincuan. And that's why in post #1 one of my new items is a direct link to MoBo. MoBo was the place John P Cromwell was developed. When I come out with my rules of thumb, for instance the AoB in the John P Cromwell technique is 45 minus the lead angle, those are derived in MoBo. He might never appear in the thread, but aaronblood, author of MoBo is a huge part of all my attack techniques, even if my oversimplification drives him crazy!:rotfl:

Aaronblood loves fine nuances and really hates it when I throw them overboard to the fishies in the quest for simplicity.

[XLjedi]

FYI, I'll probably release the next MoBo update on Jan 31st. (on my birthday, BTW )

[Rockin Robbins]

Yahooooooooo!!! I presume the link above will still work? If not, please get with me to make sure that my link stays current. For a submariner, MoBo replaces the number 42 as the answer to life, death, the universe and everything.

[XLjedi]

Your link just goes to my forum... so I'd say that's a pretty safe bet.

[Bosje]

good work, Sir

stand up and take a bow

[Rockin Robbins]

Everybody who contributes to this thread, take a bow! This is a group effort.

[Hmuda]

I would like to clarify a few things.

The method I use is when I take a few measurements, place the solution ahead of the target's course and then fire as those vulnerable parts cross the wire. Is this what the 'Constant Bearing Method' is, right? If the target doesn't do something unexpected, I almost always score a hit (duds included :P ).

Now, I read in the DOC method that you can safely alter the bearing a few degrees without loosing enough AOB to miss. My question is: why do you suggest we go from bow to aft on the target? Is there a special reason, or can we just as well go from aft to bow?

[AVGWarhawk]

All of these solutions to a kill work just great. I do not lock ship anymore using the bow tubes. I only lock and update the TDC when I have to swing around to use my aft tubes I drag out the pencil and make manual calculations thus making it more challenging and satisfying.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Hmuda

I would like to clarify a few things.

The method I use is when I take a few measurements, place the solution ahead of the target's course and then fire as those vulnerable parts cross the wire. Is this what the 'Constant Bearing Method' is, right? If the target doesn't do something unexpected, I almost always score a hit (duds included :P ).

Now, I read in the DOC method that you can safely alter the bearing a few degrees without loosing enough AOB to miss. My question is: why do you suggest we go from bow to aft on the target? Is there a special reason, or can we just as well go from aft to bow?

On the first question, yes, these are constant bearing attacks. They are called constant bearing because you aim for an constant bearing and wait for your quarry to cross your sights. You are just timing the shot to hit where you want. So with a constant bearing attack you are aimed at a constant spot and waiting for the target to be there. The Dick O'Kane, John P Cromwell and Vector Analysis Techniques are all constant bearing attacks.

Second question: There are two basic families of torpedo spreads, longitudinal, where all the torpedoes follow a single path to the target or targets, and a divergent spread, where each torpedo takes an individual path. The paths in a divergent spread fan out from the submarine.

With a constant bearing attack, the easiest spread to shoot is the longitudinal spread because the bow crosses the wire and you shoot, the main stack crosses and you shoot, the aft crane passes and you shoot. And that is where your torpedoes will hit because of the timing of the shots.

So why wouldn't the bow, MOT, stern attack be best all the time? Well, in a John P Cromwell attack, where you are 45º ahead of the target, here comes three torpedoes in a single line toward your ship and you sight them. All you have to do is turn into them so that line doesn't intersect your new course and you've avoided all the torpedoes.

But suppose in the submarine, you take the trouble of reversing the procedure and shoot stern, MOT, bow. That is the most divergent possible spread, with the torpedoes taking the most widely separated 3 paths to the target. Not only that but the stern is further away than the bow, but you shoot that first. So not only are there three paths to avoid but as long as you can shoot in a moderate hurry all three torpedoes will strike at almost exactly the same time! MEGABOOM!

I'm playing too much Unreal Tournament 3. The game isn't so good, but the commentator booming MEGAKILL! is just awesome. It makes the game really addictive.

[Hmuda]

Got it, that's a useful thing to know. Thanks.

[vanjast]

When I could, I always did that constant longitude attack in SH3 - managed to nobb 3 ships (1 sank and gunned the other 2 a few hours later).

This depended on where the juicy ships were.

[groomsie]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

So why wouldn't the bow, MOT, stern attack be best all the time? Well, in a John P Cromwell attack, where you are 45º ahead of the target, here comes three torpedoes in a single line toward your ship and you sight them. All you have to do is turn into them so that line doesn't intersect your new course and you've avoided all the torpedoes.

But suppose in the submarine, you take the trouble of reversing the procedure and shoot stern, MOT, bow. That is the most divergent possible spread, with the torpedoes taking the most widely separated 3 paths to the target. Not only that but the stern is further away than the bow, but you shoot that first. So not only are there three paths to avoid but as long as you can shoot in a moderate hurry all three torpedoes will strike at almost exactly the same time! MEGABOOM!

RR, you specifically cite the JPC attack in this example--does the principle work for the DOK method and vector analysis method as well?

I ask because I use the JPC when I can set up for it, but typically I'm doing the DOK. Using the stern-middle-bow shots I seem to get more misses and have been avoiding it thus. I do re-click the settings (re-input) with new wire angle, so maybe that is throwing my solution out to lunch?