Thanks Coot!
Manual TDC I confess I never used. Granted I'm supposed to be the captain and he himself made the various estimates that got entered into the fire control computer from his own observations on the attack or sometimes sky periscopes, but for surface attacks it was the First Watch Officer's job to use the UZO surface sight and the boss just picked the targets. So in the latter case it's not unrealistic of me to rely on the crew. As you say it's an additional dimension that can add a lot to the experience if and when we take the plunge. so I would not for a moment get elitist and look down on any sH3 player who used the 'lock' key to get the estimates calculated by the AI.
Would be great to see to have more players posting on whatever subsim you get up and running with!
I have the original, un-patched Starforce DRM SH3 DVD release and the patched Steam version and both can be made to work reliably with mods using Fiedler's instructions (link in the Steam SH3 discussion forum). Vanilla Steam is good and being pre-patched a cheap and very convenient base. Having used Fiedler's guide, I have one of my Steam SH3 installs 'lightly modded', another mega-modded with Grey Wolves 3 Gold and the German U-Boat Compilation. But easiest of all is GWX Onealex Edition which is literally download, unzip and play:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhL1C-WDRWA