Premature Detonation and Other Mysteries

[TheOx]

Q1:Ok, whats up with 75% of my torps detonating before the target. They're going off faster than me at the junior prom. :p

Q2: Is damage adjusted for ships in port? I put 5 torps into a tanker in port and it caught a little fire, but no sinking.

Q3: Does the magnetic influence actually work? I have put several torps under the keel a la SHIII with no joy. Only contact detonation.


on 100% Realism with RFB 1.28

[John Channing]

1) This is historically correct. If you are using mag det. then premature detonations were the norm, especially in rough seas. By '43 they deactivated them (sorry to hear about that whole "prom" thing. Hope the tux was rented).

2) I think they just continue going on, although sinking can be verrrrrry slooooow (I had one tanker that took over an hour).

3) This seems to be a problem with the metric/imperial conversions and (fingers crossed) will be addressed in patch 1.03. Sometimes they work, but, in my experience, rarely. Just like it was in 41-43.

JCC

[Redwine]

Q1:Ok, whats up with 75% of my torps detonating before the target. They're going off faster than me at the junior prom. :p

It happens often inn heavy seas, even when you have "dud torpedoes" option unchecked.
There are many parameters to adjust into the files related to the torpedo reliability, you can play tweaking them.

Q2: Is damage adjusted for ships in port? I put 5 torps into a tanker in port and it caught a little fire, but no sinking.

Was you in campaign ? Into campaign there are some ships ... flolky called "unsinkable ships"... they are not filled with cargo, ammo, fuel and they are not empty neither...

I was not able to discover what are they...

If you buld a siongle mission, with the mission editor, all cargo options reacts well to the adjusted settings, but in campaign seems to be an "extra" option... those ships are very hard to sink...

Q3: Does the magnetic influence actually work? I have put several torps under the keel a la SHIII with no joy. Only contact detonation.

By default the detonation range for magnetic pistols are 2 meters, if the torp was out of this range, it is correct to not explode.
But you are right, there are many more settings related to the pistol and torp reliability, in SH IV magnetics seems to be not so good as in example into SH III.

:up::up::up:

[Takeda Shingen]

(sorry to hear about that whole "prom" thing. Hope the tux was rented).

Hahaa. I just spit tea all over my monitor. I am fortunate that it is not rented either.

[THE_MASK]

My wife says she hopes i can fix the premature detonation because its annoying .

[ReallyDedPoet]

Q1:Ok, whats up with 75% of my torps detonating before the target. They're going off faster than me at the junior prom. :p


:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Powerthighs]

Regarding magnetic detonators, see this post:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showpost.php?p=558332&postcount=42

It appears they don't work at all. When they do detonate, it seems to be due to contact hits only.

[juedes7dt]

I think one of the problems with sinking ships in port is that it is very shallow. I noticed the same thing when I was attacking ships in port. I would look under the water with the external cam and the bow or stern would be sitting on the sea floor, yet the majority of the boat would still be above water. You have to actually blow them up to get the kill in my experience. Which, unfortunately, can take quite a few fish. I would try aiming for the weak spots in a ship to lessen the number of fish required.

[CaptainHaplo]

Magnetic prematures were modeled in the stock game - but you said your using RFB - and the readme states that Beery changed the stats (aka chances) of prematures to emulate historical percentages. If you use RFB - your going to see a LOT more of these - unless you turn off the magnetic exploder and go contact only.

The stock game didnt have nearly the high percentage of failure that RFB introduces. If you unhappy with the way it plays - you can remove the specific file (or files) that affect that portion. Thankfully, Beery lists each mod and what files are changed to achieve the effect. Makes it rather easy to not only "reverse engineer" to learn more about modding yourself, but also makes it easy to take certain things out as desired.

[GTHammer]

Always important to remember that just because a torp passes under the keel and doesn't explode that it may not be the game's influence setting thats not working. Its possible the torpedo could simply have failed like a dud but without a report because it didn't actually make contact and not explode. This being said I've had better luck getting them to blow via influence when I set the dial to contact only... I tried to do some testing and establish how things all worked but the whole thing was pretty much hit or miss. Anymore I just go for contact shots to be safe.

[DirtyHarry3033]

Damn, I thought I was the only one with probs of "premature ejac... er, detonation"!!! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

I've never had much luck with the magnetic influence detonators. Actually in my case, I don't "go off" at all with 'em most of the time! Much less detonate "prematurely"... I've learned to stick with contact only, and no I'm not using RFB.

Far as sinking ships in port, well I've done several. Had a photo recon mission into Hiroshima harbor in early '42, took pics of a Hiryu and a Shokaku and completed the mission. But I was feeling nasty and in a risk-taking mood, I fired 2 torps at about 600 yds and both CV's turned turtle in less than 60 seconds. Strange thing is, it took 2 or 3 more torps to kill the DD that was weighing anchor and making steam to come after me!

DH

[SteamWake]

1) This is historically correct. If you are using mag det. then premature detonations were the norm, especially in rough seas. By '43 they deactivated them (sorry to hear about that whole "prom" thing. Hope the tux was rented).

JCC

Yea but 75% ?! Me thinks a wee bit stretching of the truth here.

(We all know nothing happend at the prom :D)

[Julius Caesar]

My wife says she hopes i can fix the premature detonation because its annoying .

lol!
Well, it's better from shooting duds!

[John Channing]

1) This is historically correct. If you are using mag det. then premature detonations were the norm, especially in rough seas. By '43 they deactivated them (sorry to hear about that whole "prom" thing. Hope the tux was rented).

JCC

Yea but 75% ?! Me thinks a wee bit stretching of the truth here.

(We all know nothing happend at the prom :D)

Well I am currently just finishing up "Silent Victory" and while there were no actual stats kept, the feel you get from the patrol reports is that 75% would be on the light side.

(and speak for yourself. My prom night was memorable... for me, anyway!)

JCC

[PepsiCan]

Hi

Actually, American torpedoes had multiple flaws. The detonators were buggy, but so was the gyroscope that regulated the depth at which the torpedo ran.

On average, until mid 1943 torpedoes ran about 10-15 feet too deep. That means that that in shallow water, based on the default depth setting in imperial, your torpedo is not running at 6 feet but at 16 - 21 feet. So, it may hit the bottom when fired in shallow water.

There is also a chance, given that the torpedos are running so deep, that they hit a torpedo net. Several users on the forum have reported that they got caught in them and couldn't escape.

Hope that helps.

[nomad_delta]

Hi

Actually, American torpedoes had multiple flaws. The detonators were buggy, but so was the gyroscope that regulated the depth at which the torpedo ran.

On average, until mid 1943 torpedoes ran about 10-15 feet too deep. That means that that in shallow water, based on the default depth setting in imperial, your torpedo is not running at 6 feet but at 16 - 21 feet. So, it may hit the bottom when fired in shallow water.

There is also a chance, given that the torpedos are running so deep, that they hit a torpedo need. Several users on the forum have reported that they got caught in them and couldn't escape.

Hope that helps.

Has anyone actually confirmed that the torpedos running 10-15 feet too deep until mid-1943 is actually modeled in the game? I don't doubt that that was true, historically, but I'm not sure whether the game actually models this accurately.

nomad_delta

[PepsiCan]

I have fired torpedoes set at a depth of 6 feet. And in 40 ft of water they run awfully close to the bottom in october 1942.

[TheSatyr]

Also,keep in mind that even contacts had occasional premature detonation problems up until '43. The Mk IVs were so wonky that even the wake from another torp could set them off.

Up until the MK IVs were finally fixed,sinking ships was more a matter of luck than skill.

[heartc]

The Mk IVs were so wonky that even the wake from another torp could set them off.


I've read the same thing at some point. I guess this is also why it was doctrine for the US submarine force to fire a "salvo" with SEVEN SECONDS time seperation between each torp release.

Really, when you think about it, you can only have the deepest admiration for those men who went out to face the enemy, deep in his territory far away from anything friendly, with their MAIN weapon being almost inoperable, leading them to not only fight against the enemy, but also an uphill battle against stubborn bureaucracy ("there must not be anything wrong with the torps, my form sheet says so") back home.

[Soundman]

1) This is historically correct. If you are using mag det. then premature detonations were the norm, especially in rough seas. By '43 they deactivated them (sorry to hear about that whole "prom" thing. Hope the tux was rented).

JCC

Yea but 75% ?! Me thinks a wee bit stretching of the truth here.

(We all know nothing happend at the prom :D)

I was in a bad storm the other day and the seas were very rough and visibility was so bad that even when using external views from as close as the camera would allow, it was very difficult to ID the ship I was hunting. After getting a solution by way of sonar, (using visual was impossible) I fired four fish. Three out of four prematurely detonated. I though it was a fluke, so I tried it again with the same result. I tried again, only changed depth, and this time there were no preemie's (how's that for a term:D ) I wish I could say if I went deeper or more shallow, but I can't recall. Apparently, rough weather is a factor here. BTW..The third time all four fish hit. I was so proud of myself, as this was my first attempt targeting only by sonar while remaing submerged. THAT was a blast!:up:

[CCIP]

the feel you get from the patrol reports is that 75% would be on the light side.


:yep:

I'm the one who originally did work on this mod, and that's exactly the figures I was getting. 75% is a fairly light median given how badly the torps were screwed up until '43...