Realism question, safe distance to target and torpedo detonation

[ATR-42]

Okay heres one for ya, it was a first for me...
Raining like cats and dogs, dense fog, heavy seas. get a convoy on radar. but the vis is so bad i had to get within, 260 yards to ID my target! a large freighter.

I send a shallow fish out and it detonates broadside (within seconds) the ship goes up in flames with several secondary explosions simultaneously. Range still closing, i forgot to stop the motors.

at almost the exact same time my ship, at periscope depth, starts taking sever damage, all kinds of stuff, and its snowballing, now sinking...

i take a look around outside for mines, nothing. I didnt get run over.

The only thing i could think of is we were too close to the ship when the torpedo impacted. but ive never seen that happen before...and i didnt think it was modeled into the game.

Ive also read about DD's literally throwing ash cans, but ive never seen that either and theres no way they could have seen me, they were 1000+ yards away.


regardless it scared the daylights out of me and it was really cool

[cmdrk]

I can't remember the details, but I've read of a few occasions a ship would explode big time - ammo or AV fuel. The explosive force would rock the boat, shrapnel would splash around them and the boat was over 1000 yds away. One boat was on surface at night and the bridge crew felt the pressure wave.

The game does model ship explosions. It doesn't surprise me if you are close enough and the explosive force large, damage could be done.

I can only guess, but 500 yds may be a safe distance. Hard to tell what closing rate you had, but you may have been under 200 yds.

:hmm:Although, I thought torpedos don't arm if torpedo run is less than 300 yds.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yes, if you are two close you get some of the explosion as well. I'm quite sure it is modeled in.

[seafarer]

Has happened to me too, in both SHIV and SHIII.

The first few days I had SHIV, I surfaced after torpedoing a large merchant in order to finish it off with the deck gun. Once I got the word she was done for, I continued to close, to watch the sinking up close. A series of explosions began to rip through her as we got very close (coming up on her port side from astern) - I ended up with leaks bursting out all over, and my deck gun crew killed (they were on deck watching the show after securing the gun) :oops:

[Sailor Steve]

Yes, I too had a ship explode, but in SH3. I was using the deck gun, and was so close that the explosion killed me instantly. Unfortunately this was during the deck gun training school, so it was a very short career indeed.

[M. Sarsfield]

I think I had a torpedo hit a freighter at 600 yards and it rocked the hell out of my boat... and we were submerged. I ran the periscope around thinking a DD had snuck up on me Das Boot style.