Sinking ships in Harbour

[otto69]

In SHI, it was possible and sometimes a mission to go to a harbor and sink ships.
I was on a mission in the china sea and went to a harbor that had a few ships at dock. There was a DD protecting so I sunk it and it was added to my list. Then I proceeded to fire at the docked ships. I fired 5 torps at a Tanker, set it on fire but it would not sink. Did the same thing with a Medium Cargo. same results. with only 4 torps left, I proceeded to another area. why do'nt the ships sink?

Otto

[chopped50ford]

Not sure if this is a bug...with a few torpedo slugs left to extinguish, i have infiltrated a couple harbors and let them loose with no results.

I even went in with a full load, extinguishing all torpedoes, at least 4 per ship and none still sank. Its a shame.

Hopefully the DEV's here can find a solution.

[FAdmiral]

I created a patrol with the editor where I went into a harbor and sank the
Yamato docked there. It sank and gave me credit but I placed the ship
at the dock myself with the editor. Random placed docked ships placed
by campaign layers I have NOT tried to sink so I don't know about them....

JIM

[billko]

I think it has to do with the shallow water. They can't go deep enough to sink! I notice that this happens when it sinks on one end and the other is in the air. I put a few holes to let the air out and it seems to work...

Bill

[tater]

in RL many ships sunk that way would have been raised anyhow.

[chopped50ford]

Pearl Harbor was shallow and the Japs managed to roll the Oklahoma with the keel sticking up towards the face of God. I have noticed that the ships (after 4 slugs) into thier sides, done even manage to roll over.

My only guess is the mooring lines are holding it upright, but that doesnt mean the ship can go straight down. Most shallow harbors (in game that I have seen) are only 40-65 feed deep.

[tater]

Well, it depends on the ship. A good test might be a stock Hiryu since in my experience they roll over to sink with 1-2 fish MOT every time.

tater

[Nokia]

For me the sinking of ships in harbours works pretty fine just brake the ships keel and they should go under. And if they don't i just wait a bit.

Like the Yamato for example
http://img178.imageshack.us/img178/1690/yamato2vc7.jpg
http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/9800/onepatrol232si0.jpg

[lba]

Well I have a similar problem right now, only it’s not inside a harbor. I’m doing a patrol off the Philippines and two days in I met this lone large tanker, and it just refuses to become my victim. I saved moments before so I’ve been able to ponder about it a few times now. At most I send 6 torpedoes, all impact and explode, but does she sink? No, even though half the boat is gone, seriously I don’t think I’ve seen any boat with as much damage as this before, but she just settled a little lower in the water and doesn’t even slow down. Note I’m not using any mods affecting the sinking dynamics. That is stock.

She doesn’t even attempt to get away from me either. She just continues straight on as if nothing happened. After firing six torpedoes and seeing the boat just keep on going I decided to observe her for about an hour on TC. Silly I thought that a boat with no hull would eventually sink. Well an hour later (game time) I had enough, but since I was out of torpedoes and I used all my deck gun shells the day before, I had to ram her on ahead flank. Well apart from killing a few of my crew I managed to get her to lean to one side, and in time she was almost submerged, but she still took her time going down.

Then when she eventually did, it did not register. I got no “enemy unit destroyed” message, no wreck update on my map, not even in grey. No tonnage was added to my log. It’s as if the boat never was. Since then I’ve tried various methods, such as different torpedo depths, different torpedo spread angles, different submarine attack angle (head on, side, from behind) and different ranges. Seriously it’s a tanker, there is a chance it holds fuel, I mean those times I do get it to explode there is a huge fireball indicating a secondary explosion. However no matter what I try it never registers as a kill. I’ve now decided to just leave it alone and use my last set of torpedoes on something else.

[Fearless]

Hmm, any mods used or is it in the vanilla game that this happens?

[alunatic]

I always sneak into harbors and I am able to sink ships. In fact I did it earlier I sailed into a harbor on Saipan(I think it was Saipan) and I sunk 4 merchants, a gunboat, a minesweeper, and even a hk6 seaplane that was floating.

[lba]

I came across a few more Large Modern Tankers that wouldn’t sink, well eventually they do go down, but the wreck never registers anywhere. Also I noticed that if they sink the people on board never make it to the life rafts. It’s possible they all go up in flames with the boat, but it’s odd since I was sure I saw a raft when I successfully sunk identical boats on my first patrol (same career mission). I sank two that time, but then from my second patrol and on they became untouchable for some reason.

Another observation: the buggy-boat never breaks in two, and when they sink they just go under straight, never sideways or anything. They just submerge, and then try to be submarines until the free cam looses sight of them I guess. Oh and one more clue, there is usually a nice stream of bubbles when a boat goes down, but I can’t recall seeing anything from these.

Oh well the game was nice to throw a Huge European Liner with a sloppy escort into my lap as compensation. That said I probably should have had some more patience there. On my way home I bumped into a fleet of battleships, apparently on their way to Guadalcanal. In other words the "Large Modern Tanker refusal to submit bug" was quickly forgotten as I looked into the scope and drooled down on the maps looking for a place to refit and get back to them, but it was too far away.

I have used a generous list of mods, no conflicts of course, but sure it may be a mod-bug. However this is the first time I have this problem, with this boat or any boat for that matter, therefore I’ll just hope it was the last time I have this problem too. If it does occur again I’ll just write “the torpedo was a dud” in my log and move on.

A fix would be nice as every bug is a concern, but as long as it doesn’t appear permanent I’m not too concerned. Lastly it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s just another save game anomaly.

I have no clue if this really is related to the harbor problem otto69 describes, but it sounds similar so perhaps it’s an indication that the problem is not the shallow waters. Perhaps the shallow waters only mask the real problem. Those boats in the harbor might sink completely in open waters like mine did, but then because they either somehow manage to die without the game realizing it or simply refuse to die all together, and in this case also end up resting on the bottom, well they remain as alive and visible targets, where as in open waters they would eventually sink into the deep and never be seen or heard of again.
:hmm:

Edit: I found this thread, sounds like the same thing:
"Large Tankers carrying CORK?! 10 torps and no sinking"
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=110193

[Javelin]

Slipped into Truk. Put 5 torps into a DD, which even though on fire from stem to stern, continued to do 8kts. Also, 6 torps into a Hiryu CV and couldn't sink her either. Followed the DD out of the harbor, surfaced at night and pumped 40 shells into her too. Actually got so fed up, I just left the area.