German Trp angle solver

[Rokket]

Pat has fund an excellent pic of a German angle solver from "Run Silent", by Philip Kaplan, Naval Institute Press, 2002, ISBN 1-55750-440-7

[SnakeDoc]

Hello

Nice picture.

Here the one I found in book "U-boat Combat Missions"



And finally link to the US Navy Attack Course Finder
http://www.hnsa.org/doc/attackfinder/
(although probably you know it already).

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Regards
Maciek

[Rokket]

thanks Snake, great site

[Pat]

Now that we've got pictures of two different versions of the torpedo targetting solver, (although one looks cruder than the other, you can see the similarity between the two, perhaps one is early war and the other is late war?), can anybody figure out exactly how they work?

I'm also curious as to how they were used. 

I'd always thought there was a sort of (mechanical?) computer attached to the bottom of the UZO that solved for torpedo angles but perhaps this wasn't the case?

Did an officer take the readings off the UZO/periscope and then spin the rings on what seems to be a sort of protractor/slide rule calculator and then feed those numbers into the machine inside the CT?  Or was this a backup device in case a conneciton between the UZO and the machine in the CT failed?

I remember when I was in the artillery decades ago, before computers, we had specialized acrylic slide rules and tables that we calculated the angles and elevations, altitudes and wind deflections, etc, etc, etc to feed back to the guns and it was amazing how fast we could get with a little bit of practice.

[Rokket]

In the USN the TBT (Target Bearing Transmitter, the equiv to the UZO) started as just a spinning holder for permanently mounted pressure-proof binocs, but then was upgraded to include a "set" or marking button that transmitted the bearing down below. I don't THINK it auto went into the TDC (Toro Data Computer), but this is all sketchy with time/date and details. I THINK the Germans had more of a holder and snapped in binocs, rather than permanent ones, so I doubt it was auto into their TDC (which did not have a Constant/Continuous Update feature like the USN version, it had to be re-input for every problem). The TDCs of the USN, UK, German, and Japanese subs were very hi-tech for the time an extremely complicated, each about the size of a thin and wide fridge. Each boat only had one, so there wouldn't be anything similar under the UZO.

The USN started with the "IsWas" (where is enemy, where was, etc)and "banjo", same thing to solve angles. After the TDC was introduced, they often still used the IsWas as a backup/parallel.

There's info on the US version here, would be same principle: http://www.hnsa.org/doc/attackfinder/index.htm

[SnakeDoc]

Hello

Here is another photo of "Angr-Scheibe" - Angriff-Scheibe that is Attack Course Finder:



from page http://www.atlantik-pirat.com/U-534page2.htm

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Regards
Maciek

[Rokket]

good-ish news on U 534...so sad she had to be cut, but looking good!