Circular Run Torpedoes

[Skubber]

I lost two careers due to inexplicable detonations ... it took the second time wondering how the heck I'd been blown out of the water before I had the "aha!"

The last time I fired and the steam wake wasn't where I was expecting, I immediately went to external cam, and sure enough there was the fish going in a nice, perfect circle. Fortunately I was deep enough to avoid being taken out a third time.

I realized a flaw in my tactics is that I like to fire my salvo from a stationary position.

New motto: Never shoot and stand still.

[DigitalAura]

?? your own torpedo would veer after you? I wonder if this is a glitch or if they legitimately modeled the torpedoes inherent design problems into the game??

[gAiNiAc]

It has certainly happened to me. I even survived once....In an S-boat!

[Sailor Steve]

USS Tang, skippered by the famous Dick O'Kane, was sunk by a circle-runner, which is why they are in the game. Some other subs were lost without any explanation, and that is considered to be one of the possibilities.
http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/ss-306.html

[SteamWake]

Yes they are modeled in the game, as well as incorrect settings in the targeting computer can result in them as well.

Keep a track on those fisheys :salute:

[Armistead]

Yes they are and I've had several a good career ruined by them. The bad thing is no sonar man to let you know they're straight and normal. I've been hit at periscope depth several times......

What's funny is I've had circle runners sink dd's several times. They come chasing you and find a circle torp to meet them.

Course mines can ruin your day also.

[Munchausen]

:cool: Dick O'Kane has a couple autobiographies that are well worth reading. You might find either or both of them at your local lending library.
What's funny is I've had circle runners sink dd's several times. They come chasing you and find a circle torp to meet them.
According to some skippers (including, IIRC, O'Kane), that's what they were designed to do. When tactics changed, the function was disabled ... but, evidently, not always.

[DigitalAura]

I'd love to read them, what are the titles?

[SteamWake]

"Designed to do so?"

Maybe if you launched one set 30 40 degrees offset with no target, yea they act as designed.

But designed to run around and catch a DD mmmmm I dont think so.

Later on there are torpedoes can be shot off into the blue and will run a random pattern till they pick somethin up. Just try to be sure that something aint you.

But circular runners by design... the risk is just to great.

[Munchausen]

...what are the titles?

:03: "Wahoo" and "Clear the Bridge."

But designed to run around and catch a DD mmmmm I dont think so.
Try reading "Submarines at War," by Edwin P. Hoyt. See what he says about circular torpedoes on page 268 ... maybe you're right (I no longer have the book available). Maybe I read that explanation somewhere else. I do know that O'Kane suspected (prior to more recent information) a circular run as the cause for Mush Morton's demise ... O'Kane, too, had something to say about the why and wherefore of such torpedo behavior.

[SteamWake]

Wait a minute, you dont have the book but remember the page number ! :o

[Munchausen]

:cool: I took notes.

When SH3 first came out, I went to the library and checked out (and read) all the books on U-Boats. When SH4 came out, I did the same thing. Concurrently, I also read here, at the forum, a number of "assumptions" about what fleet boats could and could not do. Many of the assumptions were B.S. and, as the B.S. got to the point where guys were demanding changes to reflect their uninformed assumptions, I (and others ... RR, for example) started posting facts. Naturally, facts require proof. So I provided quotes from the books.

:shifty: Unfortunately, some of the same assumptions came up time and time again. Along with the demands to change SH4. So, since the books belong to the library (and I don't care to go running back to the library and re-read a book every time I need a quote), I wrote down the page numbers.

[ETR3(SS)]

Gotta love people who think they know more/better than you. I've had people "tell" me all about the navy and they never served a day in the military. :shifty:

[Armistead]

A great read is "Escape from the deep" about the Tang's last patrol. The Tang was the only sub in WW2 where many crew members actually escaped from a sunk sub in about 300 ft of water. Obvious a circle runner did the Tang in. The book goe's into details about how they escaped, how many died trying and others too scared or wounded waited for death as they watched others try to escape.

Also get's into detail about the survivors being captured and what they went through as POW.s.

[Frederf]

From my understanding and reading circle runners were indeed real (no surprise there) but that long periods of time between tube flood and torpedo firing were causing corrosion that made them more likely to stick at full rudder when executing a gyro turn. I don't think a 0 angle shot could ever be a circle runner as it couldn't stick the rudder. I don't know if a very small gyro angle (1-10 deg or so) would ever command full rudder on the torpedo or if it would due to a "bang bang" steering type.

Improvements to the rudder posts (better grade of metal IIRC) as well as I think floodings much sooner to launch significantly reduced the problem.

[Munchausen]

...long periods of time between tube flood and torpedo firing were causing corrosion that made them more likely to stick at full rudder when executing a gyro turn.

:hmmm: Yeah, I read that too ... somewhere. The skipper in question had (for reason I can't recall ... I think it was because the tube(s) had been previously flooded and left open for an extended period of time) one or two "suspect" torpedoes. He saved it/them for last, originally planning (I think) to ferry them back to port. But, in the heat of battle, when he had nothing left to throw at the enemy, his last shot was a suspect torpedo ... and it went circular. IIRC.

[CaptainMattJ.]

ha! i sunk a Dd once without doing anything. he just plowed into my periscope and he caught on fire and blew up hahaha

[SteamWake]

ha! i sunk a Dd once without doing anything. he just plowed into my periscope and he caught on fire and blew up hahaha

Yes mighty devistating super structure these subs have :doh:

[Seaman_Hornsby]

I've seen the circular runs in the game, and both Tang and Tullibee are known to have been lost to their own torpedoes during the war.

O'Kane talks about why submarine torpedoes did not have anti-circular run devices on page 461 of his excellent Clear The Bridge. He describes how surface ship torpedoes had devices to make them dive for the deep if they turned too far, thus preventing them from circling and hitting the surface ship that fired them.

He says that the Navy brass deactivated the anti-circular run mechanism for sub torpedoes in a misguided attempt to give the sub a weapon against attacking destroyers. In theory, the sub would fire a torpedo while submerged with the destroyer overhead, the torpedo would climb to near-surface depth while circling, strike the attacking destroyer and the sub could escape. It was never used in this way (as far as I know) but it did cause the loss of at least two American submarines and most of their crews.

Also, O'Kane described firing his last two Mk 18-1 electric fish at zero gyro angles on a stopped target. The last one fired was the circle-runner, so jammed torpedo rudders were possible regardless of firing angles. Manufacturing defects or poor maintenance were probably the most likely culprits.

[CaptainMattJ.]

huh. never ACTUALLY fired a circle running torpedo. how does that work cause that makes no sense at all to me. how does a torpedo take a course that makes it go in an endless loop

[SteamWake]

huh. never ACTUALLY fired a circle running torpedo. how does that work cause that makes no sense at all to me. how does a torpedo take a course that makes it go in an endless loop

Physically the rudder gets jammed left or right.

It usually occurs when a torpedo is shot with some offset. The greater the offset the tighter the circle. Normally an offset shot leaves the tube, makes a turn / course correction, then straightens out. Circle runners never straighten out they just keep on turning. They just keep running in a circle till they run out of steam or hit something.

Note that nearly all shots have some degree of offset in them.

Honestly as many hours that I have played I have only seen it twice and both of those times I had gone deep already and they just wizzed by. Nervous moments at the sonar though :haha:

[magic452]

The only circle runner I have had was more than a year ago.

I didn't see it in time and was hit in the stern, Thank god for dud torpedos. It didn't go off. :yeah:

Magic

[Bubblehead1980]

Back when i played stock, had prob four of five, all but one were Mark 18's when they first entered service.One hit and caused me to lose the boat right then, other blew a nice hole in boat, put damage up to 95 percent, destroyed engines and lost all fuel, , caused heavy flooding.

I've ran TMO for a while now and had 1 impact, was a dud luckily.The others missed with some close calls.

[SteamWake]

Dog gone you guys jinxed me. After many many missions I got wacked by a circle runner.

I had launched 3 torps at a docked medium from quite a ways out. A good two or three minute run on the torps.

I watched the stopwatch peering through the periscope Kaboom... a premie goes off... Crappy damn torpedoes I forgot to set impact triggers :oops: Oh well still got two to go about 10 seconds apart... kaboom "Torpedoe impact".

Good I thought and watched and waited for the 3rd torpedoe. Time passes and I figure well crap another dud or it ran outa steam. So I set about setting up another shot. Plug in the data, double check the settings, open outer..... BOOOM "Were taking damage sir" :o :damn:

First thought "Damn shore guns ! Why dident they shoot till.... oh Im at periscope depth :88)

Fortunatly It wasent catastrophic damage and my repair crew go right on things (already at battle stations).

I opened the door to number four and set her loose and started our exit.

Couple of minutes later scratch one medium freighter, flooding stopped, pumping out water :up:

Time to go home :salute:

(Hull damage 72%)

Moral of the story, if one of your fish is un accounted for suspect the worse :D

[G2B]

Yep this thread has very bad juju. After reading it I thought "Hope that never happens to me." 4 days later on my second patrol out of Surabaya cruising the Makassar straights with nothing in sight decided to run the risk of the shallow waters outside Balikpapan.

Sneak in on the surface 2 hours after sunset at 3 knots, no moon, partial clouds relatively smooth seas. Warship spotted, The payoff, Get to the bridge what do we have, Coastal defense ship, closing at 5 knots 10,000 yards out.
He has not spotted us but is heading for the harbor as well. Hmmmm well can't be to picky. Battlestation,change course bring the forward tubes to bear. At 4,500 yards fire two torpedoes set for shallow run.....waiting.....2 minutes later an explosion and the boats rocking, what the......were taking damage sir, diesel engines DESTROYED stern batteries DESTROYED, we have flooding.

How is the crew? minor injuries, 47% damage, no diesel engines no stern batteries, battery power at 25%. A minute later another explosion, luckily there goes the target, cause we are now sitting ducks. No hope of getting back to base :nope:

[sergei]

Why is it the circle runners never seem to be duds?
Or am I just getting paranoid? :)

[SteamWake]

Why is it the circle runners never seem to be duds?
Or am I just getting paranoid? :)

Your just paranoid. If you read through the entire thread you will see at least one instance of "Thank god it was a dud". :salute: