how to change the depth of torpedoes from a torpedo bomber?
 

Hello everyone!
I am now making a single misson about the Pearl Harbor attack. I have set some zero fighters, Val bombers and Kate torpedo bombers to attack the ships. But when the torpedo bomber drops the torpedo, it will dive to a deep depth. As the result, the torpedo will soon hit the see floor because the water in the harbor is so shallow.Could someone pls tell me how to set the torpedo to a shallower depth, or some ways to avoid this situation?
I am a gamer from China, and the chinese SH players are so few, so I came here and look for some help. Thank u very much:D

Welcome to Subsim, friend.:Kaleun_Salute:

Great to have you here! Regardless of the depth Japanese torpedoes were set they dove to a depth which could not be altered, except by the trajectory and height of the airplane. Then the torpedo's guidance system took the torpedo up to the depth set.

That made Japanese and American torpedoes both impossible to use in shallow harbors when dropped from planes. Now, whether the harbor in the game is as deep as the harbor in real life is a question I'd have to answer "not likely!" That also could contribute to the problem.

Hello takoyaki, and welcome to SubSim!

The Kate plane in the game does not fly very well, nor does it like certain situations while flying. You'll have to experiment, maybe with individual planes and their routes in, as they make their approaches, with multiple WayPoints for height and directional changes. I cannot find my research notes right now, and someone hopefully will come along and correct any errors, but it seems to me that 50 meters was the ideal height for the SH4 Kate to launch its torpedo from, but it may also have been 30 meters... Experiment with that for some better launching runs. If you get too low though, it's like gravity takes over and they fly into the surface. Either way, after the launch, the planes will sometimes climb too fast, and end up "stalling" and falling back to earth, crashing. Speed is another factor, and I also cannot remember the best speed to approach with. The slower, the better, but again, the Kate does not fly so well in the game, and will suddenly crash if you set this too slow. You'll see them "wobble" from trying to "target" and avoid countermeasures, but they will also wobble just before crashing... Also, make sure the "Loadout" of the plane is what you want / need.

As for the torpedoes themselves, it depends upon which mod you are working with. In Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate, you would look in "Air_Torpedo_JP.dat" and corresponding SIM files in the Library folder, with there being a "depth" setting in the SIM file under "amun_AirTorpedo", which is set to "depth=5.0" - I have no idea if that is "feet", "yards" or "meters". If I'm looking at things correctly, the "Stock" Kate uses the "SH_Torpedo_Mk13" as its weapon, which is the "Torpedo_Air_US.dat" and SIM files in the Library folder, with a similar structure as the FotRSU version. You will also find its "depth=5.0"...

Hopefully, someone with more / better concise material will come along shortly. As a little side-note, the Japanese put wooden "wings" on top of the torpedoes' fins, to slow down their entry into the water, so that they wouldn't "dive" too deep from the gravity of the drop. It did work for the most part. They also followed very closely a plan laid out by a US Naval officer (Reservist??) from a few years before, who was tasked with finding "weaknesses" in USN defenses...

Most numbers in configuration files are in meters. Your mileage may vary. It's not totally consistent.

OR
 

Fly IL-2 1946 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtWs-4NqmX0

Thank you so much for such a long reply! Like what you said, I have also found that kates are using Mk_13 torpedos instead of japanese air torpedo in original game version, and I dont know why either.:D But anyway thank you again for your guiding and hints, I will check the config files of the torpedos.

From the looks of a lot of things in the game, the devs were rushed and ran out of time to finish quite a few of the details of the game...

Or the game was programmed by a conspiracy between NASA and Satan (after NASA was no longer embroiled in faking the moon landings and Bill Clinton) to torment all Silent Hunter 4 modders until the end of time!:D:D:D

Hey, what do Flat Earth Enthusiasts and Moon Hoax Looneys have in common? They believe NASA and Satan are synonymous. Those two dark entities brainwashed the entire world into thinking the Earth is spherical and that we traveled to the moon in the 1960s. In "fact" no rocket has ever left the atmosphere!:D:D:D

Warning: this is just a simple observation of Flat Earth Enthusiasm and Moon Hoax Lunacy. Had this been a real post by either group it would have contained insults, profanity, name calling, misspelled words and fractured grammar, unfounded wacky accusations, bullying and "amazing" but completely unfounded "factoids."