Good torp tactics, or am I just lucky?

[vek73]

Quick background: I am new to SH4, and am on the 3rd patrol of my first career. I was wondering if my success was b/c of legit tactics which I thought I would share, or just luck, or both? (running 1.4 w/ no mods on 'Hard', if it makes a difference).

I've read that I will find a lot of dud torps pre-43, but to my success I haven't been experiencing much of an issue with it yet. I read that crushed firing pins or bad angles would cause duds frequently, so I figured, shouldn't keel shots using 'contact influence' negate this issue?? I've read about 'cont. inf.' torps having some early detonation issues or something, and that if you go too deep you can obviously go right under the ships, but haven't witnessed this yet?

I've been successfully sinking most large passenger/cargo ships with 2 torps each, with about a 1 degree spread?? (1 notch), on contact influence and 15ft depth. No deck gun assistance, and more importantly no duds or running too deep. I must have found their sweet spots because most times the ships at first show no visible fires or extensive damage, the suspense hits in and you consider another torp, but then you gradually notice that the whole ship is slowly up ending and i just grin as it takes a dive.

[Mush Martin]

1.4 vanilla has a soft damage model.
the situation will change with some of the
major mods.

also though the game tries to simulate
the chronic issues of the mk 14 it cant quite
do it exactly. I know that it was bitterly frustrating
for many Captains and crews in RL.

[Sailor Steve]

You have been lucky. I'm sure there was at least one captain who agreed with high command and thought the others were just poor-shooting whiners.

"Torpedo problems? What torpedo problems? Mine work just fine. Quit complaining and learn how to shoot straight!":rotfl:




Oh, and WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

[hyperion2206]

You have been lucky. I'm sure there was at least one captain who agreed with high command and thought the others were just poor-shooting whiners.

"Torpedo problems? What torpedo problems? Mine work just fine. Quit complaining and learn how to shoot straight!":rotfl:




Oh, and WELCOME ABOARD!:sunny:

From what I've read Mush Morton was such a guy. He didn't have the problems other skippers reported... well at least at the beginning.
Shortly before Wahoo was sunk the bad luck cought up with him and he had a lot of duds. That unsettled him quite a bit and some people say that this is one of the causes why Wahoo was sunk.

[M. Sarsfield]

After installing TM I have noticed more duds and under-runs. I had a large freighter lined up at 2300 yards and fired 3 torpedoes at a slight angle, with depth set to 5 ft., and contact exploder only. The first one was a dud and the next two ran under. The escorts then went on alert and I spent the next few game hours avoiding detection. I didn't mind what happened, because it happened in real life. I was just happy that I made a good end around set-up and a good estimate on the target's AOB when it was still 9,000 yards away.