Torpedo blast radius

[roadhogg]

Does anyone know what the blast radius of the G7a and G7e was in RL during WW2?
I've searched torpedoes on the net and found loads of info on these fish, but none on what their blast radius effectiveness was.

[Rapt0r56]

Iv'e also searched by some tags, don't find anything.
I think it's difficult find something specific of the radius of torpedoes, I have not really found something. :hmmm:

[roadhogg]

Hi Rapt0r,

first and foremost, thanks for both bothering to reply, and for taking the trouble of doing a search.

I thought this was going to be another of my posts where people seem to cock a def un, so to speak :DL

If your searches came up anything like mine, you found lots of info on torpedo development history, projectile sizes, propulsion systems and faults, but absolutely nothing on the weapon's effective blast or damage radius.
I'm posting because i'm trying to give the ship engines some survivability to magnetic torpedo impacts in SH3, so they don't necessarily all stop at once, but i'm finding it real tricky.

It seems as though the blast radius is at least 9 metres, although the torpedo .zon in the library says it's only 5.5m.

Makes life difficult when the torp destroys all zones the full width of the boat, unless i make the engines wafer thin and stick them to the side of the hull.

I'm having the same problem even with the battleships, which suggests it's the torpedo strength and blast radius, and not the armour levels.

It would be nice to know what the RL effective blast radius of the more common torps was, at least then i'd know whether the SH3 torps were super powered or realistic.

Thanks for trying :up:

[Draka]

Closest I've found is this thread - it at least gives the nomenclature of the explosives used, and the composition of it. It also leads to a discussion of the Bismark's armor, and the effectiveness of the torpedoes it was designed to resist - one would think that it would be about what the German torpedoes were capable of at the time of the design.

http://www.kbismarck.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=360&sid=0c93deb41c5775722d644fda231667aa

Still looking .....

[Freiwillige]

I dont have that info either but I did do a search of "torpedo damage" and found some interesting pictures.

http://www.ussholder.com/DE401-Photos-Damage.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jbenson2/122434909/

http://www.bobhenneman.info/damagehome.htm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/duddyd2003/2880469773/

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/DD415/Plate17.jpg

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/DD415/DD415ForwardRepair.html

http://www.nzetc.org/etexts/WH2Navy/WH2Nav37b%28h280%29.jpg

http://www.hms-arethusa.co.uk/nov_1942/november42.html

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_6-50_mk23_pics.htm

Hope this helps.

[Fluffysheap]

Blast radius in water doesn't work like blast radius in air, and anyway it doesn't matter, which is why it's so hard to find data. Water is extremely incompressible so the blast of a torpedo is essentially all directed up, where the force can be used to lift water (easy) instead of compress it (hard). This is why a spout of water shoots way up into the air when a torpedo goes off. Even depth charges, dozens of meters down, will form water spouts, even though the depth charge can only damage a submarine within a few meters. It's also why the magnetic torpedo trigger is more effective than the impact trigger, because most of the force always goes up.

[roadhogg]

Thanks fellas :DL

Drake that page on explosives was fascinating, i even downloaded and read the report on the sinking of the Tirpitz.

Freiwillige some good pics there, and some big holes.

I understand you Fluffy, displaced water moves towards a path of least resistance, ie air.

In RL the destructive force of a torp was affected by several factors, not least of which would have been the amount of armour blocking it's path.
( Note there ref. the Tirpitz anti-torpedo bulkheads, which were designed to withstand a greater amount of hexanite explosive than used in German torpedoes of the time).
Unfortunately SH3 makes no such destinction, and with the SH3 torps being capable of penetrating even the heaviest armour levels, will destroy the same zone area on a battleship as on a merchant.

The simplest solution would be to reduce the strength of the torpedoes, which worked great on the A/C's and battleships, producing much more realistic damage effects and survivability of engines further from the blast radius of a magnetic.
Has to be said that anything that reduced the strength of the torps would be unpopular though :D

Unfortunately it also produced an anomoly in the case of the Glorious, with her concave hull bottom.
On one occasion 2 magnetics detonated under the engines, without stopping any of them or even lowering her draft. She just carried on regardless.
It seems that although SH3 doesn't compensate for armour, it does compensate for the amount of water between the detonation and hull contact, reducing it's effectiveness considerably.

I've had some success by lifting the engine zones towards the waterline, further from the blast radius, and replacing the lost bouyancy caused by the smaller engine zones with " dummy" zones. Effectively a twin layer of engine zones.
It may look a unrealistic in the zone model, but if it produces a more realistic damage effect i figure that's what counts.
I see no point in setting up British ships realisticaly as possible if i can't emulate realistic damage resistance to torps.
Thanks guys, i'll keep working on it :up: