Growl. My Weapon Officer has a mind on his own

[Safe-Keeper]

I've got to be missing something here. Last patrol I came under attack from a task force of five destroyers. After some fighting, most of them broke off and headed back to their station, and two stayed behind to hunt. They ran out of depth charges for their main racks and had to resort to harrass me with their K-guns, doing no damage at all (you'd think they'd compensate and aim their K-Guns at where you were, but oh no, they still drop one charge on each side of you).

Either way, eventually they lost contact (gotta love them Bolds:up:) and I go to periscope depth some distance away. I turn the sub around and aim my periscope to 350°, right between the two hunters, and fire all four torpedoes in a spread. They all head off to port as if my gyro-angle was 300° or something, and of course the escorts hear the launch and come straight at me.

Why can't the damned eels just go in the direction I tell them to go? What the Heck am I missing?!

[TarJak]

Where they pattern runners or plain vanilla straight shooters?

Did you have manual TDC on or off?

What speed were the DD's doing when you fired? If they were running fast then you might get them scew to one side to get in position?

Also how fare from them were you when you fired?

[Safe-Keeper]

Where they pattern runners or plain vanilla straight shooters?Two Type I and two Type II torpedoes, I seem to recall.

Did you have manual TDC on or off?Off.

What speed were the DD's doing when you fired? If they were running fast then you might get them scew to one side to get in position?I wasn't even locked on to either of them. I pointed my periscope between them.

Also how fare from them were you when you fired?Several kilometres.

Thing is, this has happened to me before. I sit aside a crippled merchant with automatic targetting turned on. I've got a perfect shot lined up and she's dead ahead, dead in the water, stationary. I line up the periscope so that it points straight ahead, 0°, and fire a torpedo. It heads off the left, missing by more than a merchant-lenght.

It's also reflected in the TDC screen: The brown line that marks the torpedoes' trajectory upon launch is turned not in the way the periscope or UZO is turned, but in some other direction. I don't know what's going on, but I seem to recall it only happens after submerging. Maybe if, say, your torpedoes are aimed to 45° before diving, they'll be at 45° after surfacing, too, regardless of where your scope is headed, until it's locked on to something again? It feels so sometimes...

[U-snafu]

[quote]Thing is, this has happened to me before. I sit aside a crippled merchant with automatic targetting turned on. I've got a perfect shot lined up and she's dead ahead, dead in the water, stationary. I line up the periscope so that it points straight ahead, 0°, and fire a torpedo. It heads off the left, missing by more than a merchant-lenght.

It's also reflected in the TDC screen: The brown line that marks the torpedoes' trajectory upon launch is turned not in the way the periscope or UZO is turned, but in some other direction. I don't know what's going on, but I seem to recall it only happens after submerging. Maybe if, say, your torpedoes are aimed to 45° before diving, they'll be at 45° after surfacing, too, regardless of where your scope is headed, until it's locked on to something again? It feels so sometimes...

In reference to a sitting (dead in water merchant) I believe with auto targeting & w/o assistance on---if you unlock the scope-the torp will go where you point the crosshairs. when locked--the solution given at fiiring will send the torp slightly ahead of the target ship as if adjusting for "leading" the target no matter the target speed. this becomes more pronounced the further away the distance of the target is--thus the wild angle of your torp shot---look at the F6 map and notice the black line representing the torp path is always a little to the side of 90 degrees even when no target in sight. I could be wrong though (I usually am when it comes to these matters)

[TarJak]

I'm at work right now I'll take a look when I get home though and see what I can come up with. I've seen conditions where the projected torpedo path is hanging out to the extremem left or right after you have lost visual contact with a target that you were locked on. The only way I know of fixing that is to lock first then move the scope to where you want to fire or use manual TDC

With auto targetting on if you don't have a little triangle up in the scope on a "selected" target, your torpedomen have no reference for speed etc and will sometimes loose of a wild shot.

When using auto targetting I always make sure I'm pointing at a target even if firing a salvoe.

[Tachyon]

Well...when I use manual targeting, I never lock on to my target, rather I just point the scope slightly ahead of the intended Merchant, and then fire. It's purely a guess that the torpedo will strike in the middle, I use the Merchant's distance (visually of course), and estimate the deviation the scope needs so that the Torpedo is bang on target.

[P_Funk]

Well if it was anything other than a statonary merchant that you mentioned as an example I'd suggest you remember to open your torpedo tube doors first.

Also if you are using auto TDC the theory that you had the wrong speed or something set makes no sense.

Do what the guys above said and report back.

[Corsair]

If they lost contact and run out of DCs, what is the idea behind spending 4 torps at them, other than waving "hey, I'm here !!" ?;)
I don't use it, but doesn't the auto TDC need to be locked on a target to work properly ? If not locked, where do the TDC data come from if you did not input them manually ?

[nightdagger]

They may not have their main weapons but if they catch up to you, their main guns aren't too fun.

[bigboywooly]

Let them go
Find some targets elsewhere

[MarshalLaw]

When you went to manual, did you set your Gyro angle to 0 degrees ( or 180 if stern shot)and set the speed knob to 0? What ever the angle and speed was before will stay there until you move it. I have done that myself before, scratching my heading and saying WTF, then I look at the Gyro angle knob or speed knob and see it pointing at 7 degrees and 5 knots. :damn:

Easy mistake to make if that's the case.

[Jimbuna]

Let them go
Find some targets elsewhere

AGREED...go for the bigger boys :yep: :up:

[Albrecht Von Hesse]

I wish I could remember the particulars with something that happened to me similar to you.

It was a singleton, dead in the water. I could lock onto it, and target it, but I couldn't get the TDC to accept the information. When I went to F6 to check out the run times, I was surprised to discover that, regardless of being locked onto the ship it wasn't showing any run time at all. I shrugged, figuring it must just be a slight glitch, and fired anyway. I fired twice, and both times they angled off into oblivion, absolutely not even close to where I was aiming and locked onto.

It wasn't until I manually targeted and entered the information that I generated a hit. :nope:

[d@rk51d3]

Same thing happened to me a couple of times. Way down the coast of Africa, spotted a few merchants and let rip with a salvo, only to watch them all go in the wrong direction:damn:


Reloaded, try again......... same:damn:


Reloaded, check all settings etc, fire......... same:damn:


I gave up and returned to base. It was just too frustrating losing about 10 torps, and watch them head off into the sunset, nowhere near the direction of their targets.:cry:

[Wave Skipper]

time for an all expenses paid vacation for your weapons officer to Stalingrad.

[U-snafu]

I don't use it, but doesn't the auto TDC need to be locked on a target to work properly ? If not locked, where do the TDC data come from if you did not input them manually ?

What I do is lock on target-hit identify then solution- -after "solution plotted" message--I unlock- put crosshair on where I want torp to go, then fire w/ the manual fire button --great for bow shots on fast moving dd's (leaving locked would have torp hit in middle of ship)

[Corsair]

I don't use it, but doesn't the auto TDC need to be locked on a target to work properly ? If not locked, where do the TDC data come from if you did not input them manually ?
What I do is lock on target-hit identify then solution- -after "solution plotted" message--I unlock- put crosshair on where I want torp to go, then fire w/ the manual fire button --great for bow shots on fast moving dd's (leaving locked would have torp hit in middle of ship)

Sorry, I was not clear enough, what I meant is that you need to lock at some point to get some data, even if you unlock right after to change your aim ?

[TarJak]

Corsair is spot on. If you just point the scope at a point between targets without having some input into the TDC, the torps will skew off to 90 degress port or starboard. In other words you haven't told anyone where you want the eel to go so the default is 90 deg.

You have to get some input into the TDC to work out a solution if you are using auto TDC by locking onto a target if only for a short time, or you will have to manually enter the TDC info yourself.

[U-snafu]

Sorry, I was not clear enough, what I meant is that you need to lock at some point to get some data, even if you unlock right after to change your aim ?

You were clear enough- sorry, I just misunderstood your question. you and TarJack are correct- when using auto you have to lock first to get the input before unlocking and moving the scope.