Zip yer fly.

[sapienza]

Since radar and sonar weren't used back in WWI to guide torpedoes to their targets, sub skippers had to be able to gauge ship speed and bearing and then lead the shot so that the torpedo would hit where the ship would be 30 seconds, 2 minutes later. Whenever.

The crazy camo distorted the sub skipper's perception of their movement. It was much harder to tell which direction (no, really) the ship was moving, what speed it was moving at, where the front of the ship was, etc. So it made it less likely that the torpedoes' proper trajectories could be estimated.

Plus, it was practically the jazz age and all that military gunmetal grey was just soooooo 19th century.

sapienza

[CharlieG]

Originally posted by Anton
Why did they do thay crazy camo on the ships? What was the thinking behind it?

When you launch a torpedo (even today), you don't launch it at where the ship is now, but at where the ship will be when the torpedo gets there.

To calculate this (Let's assume no radar/sonar) isn't trival, and you use something called a "Position Keeper" (Note: I've worked on one a little bit)

When you take a sighting of the target (Think about the movies you've seen) The captain gives a "Mark" - That is your Zero time - you take the following readings

1)The angle to the target from your heading (aka, which way the periscope was pointing from your own bow)
2)Your own heading
3)The estimated range to the target - this requires that you know the height of the target (why they have target books)
4)The estimated speed of the target
5)The Direction the target is going - called "Angle on the Bow" - if he's pointing right at you, the angle on the bow is 0 deg, and goes clockwise from the TARGETS perspective

from items 1 and 2, you can calculate where the ship is (bearing wise) from you in real terms. Item 3 allows you to plot it on the map

Items 4 and 5 then allow you to figure out where he will be when your torps get there

The thing is, usually when you saw your target the first time, you were not in a position you could shoot! The running time/target position were such that you could not hit the target, so you took a guess

You would then try to get to a place where you COULD shoot. In the mean time, the Position keeper was keeping track of your moves, and where it thinks the target is. You then take another sighting. You take readings 1-5 again, and re-enter the readings into the PK - it would take it's estimate, and your new readings, and integrate to correct your old readings! (refine your estimates) - you could keep entering as many of the different readings, and it would estimate the rest

Well, if you could throw of the Angle on the Bow reading by eaven a few degrees, and the subs skipper went the wrong way, he might never catch up (remember, you might run down your batteries, and subs were slow)

[Anton]

Wow! Thanks for the low down sapienza and CharlieG.

I was struggling to comprehend how making something look so stupid could possible stop it getting hit but I wasn't aware of the methods they used to shoot at them. I guess it's because im from the fire and forget age