Questions

[meunomeeninguem]

I was wondering what would be the consequences of going around with tubes opened both in the game and IRL.

Is there a better way to read the precise course? At the moment the HUD gauge is useless so I'm forced to plot to extract course.

Is the 3000 yard bearing plot offset by one degree ?


Where can I get torpedo data sheet? (Speed for each slow fast setting)

Where can I get subs turn rate?



Does improve ship physics affect torpedoes? I'm asking because I had problem to deploy a torpedo using dick o' Kane method with ISP on.

[Rockin Robbins]

1. There were bad effects from running around with torpedo tubes open. First, debris could jam the torpedoes in the tube and that would be bad. The torpedoes were subject to only 1 atmosphere of pressure inside the sub (plus or minus a bit) and when the tubes were open they were under much greater pressure. In practice is a tube was opened and then closed again without the torpedo being used the torpedo was disassembled, spiffed up (especially the battery) and reassembled before being used again.

2. NO. Although there is no compass on the face of the earth without a lubber's line, our SH4 compass lets us guess what the course is, a must for precise navigation. I think Captain Scurvy is your refuge there, but even then the compass dial is not precise enough for you to read off a perfect course. You really have to use the nav map for that.

3. Yes, it's a degree off. I think Captain Scurvy has fixed that one too. I just don't worry about it. Haven't missed a shot yet because of the inaccuracy.

4. Talk to ColonelSandersLite real nice and I bet he can cough up the best one you ever saw. The torpedo screen in the game also gives you this data. But ColonelSandersLite's chart has wonderful stuff you haven't thought of yet.

5. ColonelSandersLite again. I never worried about precise timing of all that because I have concentrated in shooting one target at a time and doing so in a very leisurely way whilst my exec serves me mai tais. I nibble convoys to death. Now ColonelSandersLite comes up with a scientific way to take nasty hunks out of convoys and my style may get a bit more bloodthirsty.

I'll never remove the ice cream machine from my Balao though....

[ColonelSandersLite]

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

I was wondering what would be the consequences of going around with tubes opened both in the game and IRL.

In game, nothing that I know of. In real life, that would be pretty hard on the torpedoes. If I recall correctly, changing practices from flooding the tubes and opening the doors from the moment of contact to only doing so just before firing was part of the solution the the circular runner problem.

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

Is there a better way to read the precise course? At the moment the HUD gauge is useless so I'm forced to plot to extract course.

You can get your exact heading by centering the periscope with the view to heading command (minus key), and then pressing the heading to view command (equals). Time consuming though.

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

Is the 3000 yard bearing plot offset by one degree ?

A lot of the variations floating around are a bit off yeah. I don't know which one you're using exactly so can't be sure. If you want to know for sure exactly how much it is off try the following:
Center the periscope with the view to heading command (minus key) and enter a range of several thousand yards into the tdc.
Make sure speed is set to 0.
Check the attack map, and you should see the torpedo run line. This line is exactly bearing 0.

The scale of the bearing plotter also depends on screen resolution, so it won't be scaled correctly except at a specific screen res.

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

Where can I get torpedo data sheet?

If you're just wanting basic information on torpedos:
Mark 14 Slow Setting 31 Knots 9000 yards 643 lb torpex warhead - Severe reliability problems during the early part of the war
Mark 14 Fast Setting 46 Knots 4500 yards 643 lb torpex warhead - Severe reliability problems during the early part of the war
Mark 23 Same as Mark 14 with slow speed disabled - Just a cheaper version of the mark 14
Mark 18 29 Knots 4000 yards 575 lb torpex warhead - Copy of the german g7e
Mark 10 36 Knots 3500 yards 497 lb tnt warhead - Post WWI Torpedo, all the s-boat can equip
Mark 27 12 knots 5000 yards 95 lb torpex warhead - Homing
Mark 16 46 Knots 13700 yards 943 lb torpex warhead - Not actually used in WWII at all

If you're wanting tables for solving lead angle, I intend to post these in a couple of days. I'm currently working on a video though and it's a lot of work to get a good quality video out.

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

Where can I get subs turn rate?

This information isn't explicitly stated anywhere really. It also can vary by your mod configuration and exactly what sub you're talking about. I just use the stopwatch, time it and write it down. I keep a fact sheet with such information on the various subs that I command.
On this sheet, I note:
Depths:
Deck Gun
Diesel
A Periscope
Obs Periscope

Diesel Rough
A Periscope Rough
Obs Periscope Rough

Dive/Climb Times:
From periscope to test
From test to periscope
Any other combination I have found useful


Turn Times:
30 deg
45 deg
60 deg
90 deg
120 deg
135 deg
150 deg
180 deg

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

Does improve ship physics affect torpedoes? I'm asking because I had problem to deploy a torpedo using dick o' Kane method with ISP on.

I can't answer that. My experience with ISP is limited and I don't recommend it.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

I was wondering what would be the consequences of going around with tubes opened both in the game and IRL.

In RL, chambers within the torpedo (gyro-pots, for instance) could flood. Sometimes, tubes were kept flooded for periods of time as a quick reaction weapon, but this was not done frivolously.

Does improve ship physics affect torpedoes? I'm asking because I had problem to deploy a torpedo using dick o' Kane method with ISP on.

No. Torps and other weapons were not changed at all.

[Aktungbby]

meunomeeninguem!

[razark]

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

I was wondering what would be the consequences of going around with tubes opened both in the game and IRL.

Everyone else seems to have IRL covered, so I'll respond about the game.

If you dive below a certain depth, your tubes will close automatically.

Let's say you open your tubes at the beginning of a patrol. You run around for a while, and end up having to dive to get away from one of those pesky Japanese patrols. You go deep, and your tubes close. Later on, you're cruising around again and find a nice fat maru. You line up a perfect shot, fire off your torpedoes, and watch as they miss astern because the doors were closed.

If you get into the habit of not opening the tubes until you are almost ready to shoot, you don't have to worry about whether or not you remembered to reopen them.


Edit:
And welcome to subsim!

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by razark

Everyone else seems to have IRL covered, so I'll respond about the game.

If you dive below a certain depth, your tubes will close automatically.

Let's say you open your tubes at the beginning of a patrol. You run around for a while, and end up having to dive to get away from one of those pesky Japanese patrols. You go deep, and your tubes close. Later on, you're cruising around again and find a nice fat maru. You line up a perfect shot, fire off your torpedoes, and watch as they miss astern because the doors were closed.

If you get into the habit of not opening the tubes until you are almost ready to shoot, you don't have to worry about whether or not you remembered to reopen them.


Edit:
And welcome to subsim!

Rgr that

Welcome to SubSim meunomeeninguem

[merc4ulfate]

My son is a Torpedo man on a Boomer. You wouldn't believe the amount of sea life an open door will accumulate. They have to crawl in their and clean out all the fish guts and or half fish when the doors close on them.

[Aktungbby]

^Moreover as shown in Das Boot a considerable amount of greasing the eels was necessary to insure the air pressure release of an eel. http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1599&context=etd Required reading! pages 153 &154 especially the pressure issues inside torpedo tubes affected the poor depth mechanism. Moreover the tube open and the sub downward could cause an eel to slide out of the tube partially at which the bow would be elevated to cause it to slide back in.... always a precarious situation. http://uboat.net/forums/read.php?20,87333,87621 "

A torpedo stuck in the tube was a different problem but there were things they could do to try to free if the compressed air wasn’t enough to force it out of the tube.

There was a manual procedure to force out a torpedo that was stuck in a tube that involved using the mine ejector mechanism which injected the compressed air directly at the rear of the torpedo instead of behind the piston but most stuck torpedoes got stuck in the first place because one of the cables that were connected to the torpedo while it was in the tube didn’t retract when the launch was initiated and if it couldn’t he sheared off by compressed air it presented a serious problem. The outer torpedo tube door was open when the launch was initiated and if the torpedo moved far enough forward during the launch the outer torpedo tube door couldn’t be shut and the inner torpedo tube door was the only thing keeping water out of the boat and it wasn’t strong enough to do that at great depth so it rendered the boat somewhat crippled. The inner torpedo tube door couldn’t be opened so that something could be used to manually push the torpedo out either. The bow of boat could be dipped such that the considerable weight of the torpedo would aid in its sliding out of the tube but if that didn’t work the only way to get inside the tube to work on it was to surface the boat so the inner torpedo tube door could be opened and even then the “fix” given the limited room inside a torpedo tube might well have been beyond the capability of the crew at sea. Alternatively the bow could have been raised to use the weight of the torpedo to slide it back into the tube so the outer door could be shut but sliding a torpedo around inside the tube was also quite dangerous."

Salt water in an open torpedo tube, essentially a thru-hull weak-point, especially under water at depth(pressure) are mutually opposing concepts; the briny sea is nothing's friend. Gaskets, grease and temperature sensitive eel (eto) batteries are especially vulnerable.

[ColonelSandersLite]

Man, having a torpedo stuck partially in the tube like that would be a nightmare. The movement of the sub would surely make the torpedo think it has passed arming distance so it would be live sooner or later. That problem would be compounded by the magnetic influence detonator.

[TorpX]

Originally Posted by ColonelSandersLite

The movement of the sub would surely make the torpedo think it has passed arming distance so it would be live sooner or later. That problem would be compounded by the magnetic influence detonator.

That might be true of German torpedoes, but the USN types had the exploder and arming mechanism located back from the nose of the warhead. The torpedo would have to be out quite a distance to even expose the worm gear, and it was designed to require a high speed to turn it. Whatever the faults of the exploders, they seem to have anticipated that torpedoes would get stuck from time to time.

[meunomeeninguem]

First of all thanks.

From what i understand only the mk-14 and the mk-23 has double speed settings. Is that correct?
Is that a typo or the mk-27 that weak? In case it is not an error when should i use it? for what?
About the mk-14 the realibility issue is just on first years? I mean can i use it with confidence later or should i jump to something like the mk-18?
The mk-23 is just cheap or it does offer something less against the mk 14 (i note that it has already less lbs)?

[ColonelSandersLite]

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

From what i understand only the mk-14 and the mk-23 has double speed settings. Is that correct?

Just the 14. The mk23 was internally simplified so that it always ran at 46 knots. Just a wartime cost saving measure, nothing more.

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

Is that a typo or the mk-27 that weak? In case it is not an error when should i use it? for what?

Not a typo. It was originally an air dropped anti u-boat weapon, and was modified for use in submarines. The idea is that it can be fired defensively at incoming destroyers. I haven't had any luck with it, but others have.

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

About the mk-14 the realibility issue is just on first years? I mean can i use it with confidence later or should i jump to something like the mk-18?

Reliability will improve yes. Also, the mark 18 has problems as well, which also get solved later in the war.

Originally Posted by meunomeeninguem

The mk-23 is just cheap or it does offer something less against the mk 14 (i note that it has already less lbs)?

Answered above.

[Rockin Robbins]

The interesting thing about the Mark 23 is that it WAS a Mark 14 with the capability for low speed operation removed. Exploders were identical. Explosives were identical. Why the game makes them different is totally baffling. I guess game developers always know better than the truth.

Sub captains liked the Mark 23 because they never used low speed anyway. Bubble trail plus low speed equals a miss every time. Faster torpedoes are more accurate = more error tolerant = harder to maneuver away from.

[ColonelSandersLite]

The only thing I can think of in that regard is different mod numbers, which isn't really represented in the game.

Like maybe the mk14 is actually mk14-1 and the mk23 is based on the mk14-3a?