Will it sink, or not? That is the question . . .

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

OK, odd intro. But I'm odd, so it works out well. :doh:

Don't remember the name of the cable channel, but last night (11/02/2006) I watched an hour-long show on the Battle of the Atlantic (from the Allies persepective).

One of the things they showed were film clips and still photos of quite a few merchants that had been torpedoed and had made it back to port. My GOD!!

One was missing it's entire bow. I mean, you could look straight inside the ship from in front!

They showed several shots from the outside, showing huge gaping holes in the hull, and another from inside, looking out. And when I say huge, I mean huge. One hole looked like an oval 30 feet long and 20 feet high. I've seen smaller swimming pools!

I can more easily accept the damage modeling of NYGM and GW now, after having seen how big freighters could 'take a licking and keep on ticking'.

It's just those dinky little tubs that burn me. It's a lot harder to swallow needing 3 torpedoes to sink a small merchant that it is needing them to sink a wallowing porker of a cargo ship.

Did anyone else happen to see this on cable too?

[P_Funk]

The ships that durvived I'm sure were carrying some kind of cargo that was... favourable whilst in Convoy. What the ship's carried was for the sailors alot like how the special food rations were handed out to Canadian soliders in Normandy "What am I gonna get? Something that looks like congealed Beef Stew or is it gonna be Candied Peaches?"

Favourable cargoes were things like Lumber that actually increased the boyouncy of the ship so much that you couldn't really sink it.

A bad cargo was of course oil or gasolene but even worse was lead cause that would sink so fast that you'd barely be able to jump ship.

I'm gonna wager these "surviviors" were either carrying lumber or nothing.

[VonHelsching]

One of the things they showed were film clips and still photos of quite a few merchants that had been torpedoed and had made it back to port. My GOD!!


These were the odd cases that the Allied media loved to show in order to raise the morale. E.g. that merchant withstanded 4 torpedos, or that tanker that was burning for some days and the survivors in the life raft found her drifting and re-boarded.

These were the exception that verified the rule. The average WII merchant ship, especially the smaller ones was virtually a rust bucket, mostly old and if it wasn't old made in a hurry with the cheapest materials available. A good example were the Liberty ships. Due to the fast production rate, many had structural problems.

The average Uboat captain used a salvo of two for a merchant in case of a miss or a dud torpedo. The vast majority of the small and medium merchants needed only one torpedo.

[P_Funk]

[quote=Albrecht Von Hesse]
The vast majority of the small and medium merchants needed only one torpedo.
I wish I could meet them on patrol.:lol:

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

[quote=Albrecht Von Hesse]
The vast majority of the small and medium merchants needed only one torpedo.
I wish I could meet them on patrol.:lol:

Psssst . . . P_Funk, VonHelsching said that, not I.

[VonHelsching]

[quote=Albrecht Von Hesse]
The vast majority of the small and medium merchants needed only one torpedo. I wish I could meet them on patrol.:lol:

You will, and they will be very interesting to sink, believe me I made the damage models myself.

But in GWX, you will not be having the luxury of sticking around convoys to see what happened, especially later in the war...

[Soviet_Sharpshooter]

Ive managed to sink large c3's, medium tankers and fiji light cruisers, and troop transpots in one hit.

If you got grey wolves, go to Dover... theres a troop transport early in the war thats in such a easy place to attack, just do it from plus 3000 metres so you dont have to go into the port, shoot one torpedo at the rear lifeboat, and that should take it out in one hit :up: *must be where the fuel tank it*

some ships are so easy... but most of the small ones, are so hard :huh:

[AVGWarhawk]

Back to the original post.....many did still make headway and return to port. I did not see this episode on TV but I have seen the picture of that ship and yes, you could drive a semi through the hole!!!!!. If read books on the ships/subs you will find that many claims of tonnage were reduces for some captains during the after war analysis. Some claims of sinking were later found untrue as the claimed ship made port. As you probably know the ships had water tight compartments. So a large hole in one and the others are water tight allowed the ships to float. The Titanic for example had numerous compartments but the lack of closing the bulkhead doors after the iceberg gashed a hole in the side allowed for flooding of unaffected compartments. I believe that GW simulates this aspect very well with exception of the tramp steams that have the same shields as the star ship Enterprise.....I understand this will be fixed in GWX:up: . They are however giving the tramp steamer the Klingon Cloaking Device:down:

[Sailor Steve]

Back to the original post.....many did still make headway and return to port. I did not see this episode on TV but I have seen the picture of that ship and yes, you could drive a semi through the hole!!!!!.
I've also seen photographs of a destroyer that had both bow and stern blown off by torpedoes...and survived to be towed back home. It did happen-once.

If read books on the ships/subs you will find that many claims of tonnage were reduces for some captains during the after war analysis. Some claims of sinking were later found untrue as the claimed ship made port.
This was also true of many American claims against Japanese merchants, according to Blair.

They are however giving the tramp steamer the Klingon Cloaking Device:down:
Actually it was originally a Romulan cloaking device, the episode was Balance Of Terror, it was based directly on The Enemy Below and the 'cloaking device' was meant to represent the U-boat's ability to dive!:sunny: What goes around, comes around.:rotfl:

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

The Titanic for example had numerous compartments but the lack of closing the bulkhead doors after the iceberg gashed a hole in the side allowed for flooding of unaffected compartments.

Actually the reason the Titanic flooded to sinking wasn't the failure to close the bulkhead doors. It was because the bulkheads didn't fully extend all the way up. The first five compartments were opened to water from the impact (not a gash, actually; the freezing cold temperature of the water made the sulfer-rich steel extremely brittle, and the hull more or less fractured rather then being torn and gashed). With those five compartments flooded, it made the Titanic so bow-heavy that the interior water level crested compartment five, flowing over the top of the bulkhead into compartment six which, in turn, overflowed into seven, etc. etc. etc.

Had just four of the five compartments flooded the Titanic would have remained afloat. And had it rammed the iceberg bow-on instead of bumping along the side, it would have remained seaworthy and made port under its own steam.