Ships slowing due to damage IRL

[Nisgeis]

Hi Guys.

It's been noted that in SH5 ships only slow down if you damage their propulsion in some way. Now I have read accounts of ships slowing down to avoid increasing the damage to their hull / bulkheads espceially when in heavy weather.

Does anyone have any information on how much they should slow down and when they should stop? I've heard of severely damaged ships being taken under tow backwards, to avoid increasing damage to the bow.

Thanks!

[utops]

eel under funel disable ship, eel near propeller sometimes, but i observe merchant, steam away without propeller :woot:

[Mud]

but i observe merchant, steam away without propeller :woot:

Confirmed :yep:



Mud

[SteamWake]

I observed a merchant down by the bow, props clear up out of the water but still turning and making 8 knots :o :doh:

[tommyk]

I observed a merchant down by the bow, props clear up out of the water but still turning and making 8 knots :o :doh:

maybe headed south? downhill is faster, you know :)

scnr

[Dowly]

I observed a merchant down by the bow, props clear up out of the water but still turning and making 8 knots :o :doh:

Had this happen once with a large steamer aswell. Also, on the last patrol, troop ship was listing by the bow pretty badly, yet kept going at 10 knots. :nope:

[Nisgeis]

OK, forgetting about what does happen, what should happen? I know the ships carry on sailing with damage like nothing is wrong...

The question is what should happen and what levels of damage or sea states affect the speed the captain chooses.

[Dowly]

It all depends of the captain. Does he want to risk additional damage by keeping speed up or does he stop and see if the damage can be fixed enough to lower the risk of damaging the ship further if continuing to sail.

I think the ideal situation would be that upon impact the engines stop for the captain to get information how bad the damage wether he can continue at same speed or should either stop entirely or lower the speed.

[Sailor Steve]

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/listing.php

Many different accounts of attacks. Quite a few stopped and abandoned ship, and were sunk by coup-de-gras. Some escaped. I'm fairly certain that any torpedoed ship would slow down.

They hardly ever keep on at full speed. Especially with the screws in the air.

[Baltazar]

Had a nice one. hit a battleship (queen elisabeth class) 2 torps infornt of the first turret. Well it steamed happily along, buring it self into the ocean floor at full speed. Easy kill :D

[Bilge_Rat]

It entirely depends on the captain and whether he thinks the ship is still sailable.

If the damage is slight or if only 1-2 compartment is flooded, the ship may be able to continue at close to full speed. In WW2, you had many accounts of major warships (CVs or BBs) being hit by one torpedo and continuing on with little loss of speed.

On a smaller ship, say a cruiser or below or a merchant, it may be more of an issue. The torps will normally hit on one side and cause flooding on that side. If a ship continues on at full speed, there is the risk that the sea pressure may cause bulkheads to collapse increasing the flooding or that it may capsize.

This is even more of a problem with merchant ships which usually don't have the same watertightness as a warship and which has a civilian crew which has not been trained to handle such emergencies.

The normal course of action would be to slow down or stop the ship to assess the damage, perhaps counterflood compartments on the undamaged side to prevent capsizing and resuming course, if possible.

The problem in a game point of view, is how to program the AI to act like a real captain.

[Nisgeis]

It entirely depends on the captain and whether he thinks the ship is still sailable.<SNIP FOR BREVITY>

OK, so the merchant and warship behaviour would be different, the merchant being more cautious and the warship sort of being more aware of the damage situation and the implications?

The problem in a game point of view, is how to program the AI to act like a real captain.

I've been looking into that :DL. I think I can do it, but I sort of promised myself I'd play the game for a while before I got lost in the modding of it.

[Bilge_Rat]

OK, so the merchant and warship behaviour would be different, the merchant being more cautious and the warship sort of being more aware of the damage situation and the implications?

warship crews, because of their military training are mor likely to act in a logical manner.

merchant crews are more likely to panic. There were many instances were crews abandoned ships that could easily have been saved.



I've been looking into that :DL. I think I can do it, but I sort of promised myself I'd play the game for a while before I got lost in the modding of it.

that would be great, would be glad to help out.

[kylania]

This bastard has been afloat for THREE FULL DAYS while being entirely on fire and with the water above the rails! Even during a storm! I hate the stock SH5 "damage" system. It's fundamentally flawed. And yes, I'm out of all ammo, even flak guns. :(

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/3202/ihatesh5sdamagesystem.jpg

[thruster]

would there be a way to script that when a ship has reached a certain % of its hit points [i think its all governed by hit points???] that it then has a max speed of , say 2knots?

ive asked about this scenario a few times. i think its generally unrealistic for a ship to sustain a significant hull breach yet still maintain optimal speed.

they should slow down, and lag behind the escort screen.

[thruster]

re the 3 day floating wreck, i recall reading about a doomed ship that just refused to sink. i think it may have been in the Caribbean or off florida??

i guess its theoretically possible for heaps of trapped air to maintain buoyancy, tho how bizarre would that be.....!

[Steeltrap]

There were posts about this pre-SH5 launch, but here are a few observations:

* nearly every light cruiser sunk by torpedo in the war took only 1 hit to do so. A torpedo on a DD or escort, assuming torp wasn't an acoustic with its smaller warhead, was almost always fatal.

* warships have creater compartmentalisation and damage control equipment, not to mention trained and available crew, than a merchant. Warships are more durable.

* most merchants would sink from a single hit. The majority of merchants in WWII were reasonably old and had poor transverse bulkhead compartmentalisation. Many, many ships sank inside 10 minutes of being hit.

* cargo can have a great effect on survivablity. Ore carriers tended to float as you'd expect a mass of iron ore to do so i.e. not at all. Other cargoes could make a ship harder to sink, such as timber, balsa, other 'floatation' cargoes.

* tankers could be tough to sink as they are designed to fill with fluid. Even a laden tanker could be tough, as the oil was lighter than water and a hole in the tank might not destroy the compartment's ability to remain air-tight, in which case the flooding didn't sink it. Most reliable way to sink a tanker was to hit the engine spaces (that's true of pretty much any vessel, as that knocks out power, contains things like boilers/engines that can go 'bang', and was a large compartment). A good example of the potential durability of tankers is the Ohio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ohio) in Operation Pedestal.

* older capital ships could be vulnerable to torps. The HMS Barham (BB) sank fairly quickly from 3 hits (approximately 5 minutes). Various other BBs took hits but continued to port and were repaired. They ALL suffered loss of speed from flooding.

* ANY merchant ship struck by a torpedo should suffer significant loss of speed and stability, including the ability to hold a course. The flooding could do additional damage due to the pressure of the ship's movement through the sea.

In short, the damage model in SH3 was dodgy (the mods addressed this to a considerable extent), as it was in 4, and I've no doubt from what I've seen in vids and read here, it is also very poor in SH5.

And don't get me started on the modelling of damage inflicted by the deck gun.....

[thruster]

excellent reply steeltrap, thank you.

i hope this gets abit of attention from the modders, and that its easy to do.

[iambecomelife]

This has been a major gripe of mine too.

There's no way that a merchantman should proceed at near-top speed after being torpedoed. The side shell plating for merchants was thin to begin with, and many WWII merchants had been laid up during the Great Depression & corroded severely. Even a relatively new ship could not withstand high speed maneuvering after a torpedo hit - for instance the tanker "Sitala" survived a torpedo from Schepke's U-100 but broke in two after LOW SPEED maneuvers caused a hull failure in the area of the torpedo hole:

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/638.html

There should be almost no instances of torpedoed vessels keeping pace with the resto of their convoys.

And I agree that deck gun effectiveness is way too high. Undamaged merchants over about 2,000 tons should probably require about 80-100 rounds to sink, based on research by Beery and other SH3 super-modders. I recall sinking a Polish Hog Islander with about 20-30 rounds; it was entertaining, but way too easy.

[Bilge_Rat]

There were posts about this pre-SH5 launch, but here are a few observations:

* nearly every light cruiser sunk by torpedo in the war took only 1 hit to do so. A torpedo on a DD or escort, assuming torp wasn't an acoustic with its smaller warhead, was almost always fatal.

* warships have creater compartmentalisation and damage control equipment, not to mention trained and available crew, than a merchant. Warships are more durable.

* most merchants would sink from a single hit. The majority of merchants in WWII were reasonably old and had poor transverse bulkhead compartmentalisation. Many, many ships sank inside 10 minutes of being hit.

* cargo can have a great effect on survivablity. Ore carriers tended to float as you'd expect a mass of iron ore to do so i.e. not at all. Other cargoes could make a ship harder to sink, such as timber, balsa, other 'floatation' cargoes.

* tankers could be tough to sink as they are designed to fill with fluid. Even a laden tanker could be tough, as the oil was lighter than water and a hole in the tank might not destroy the compartment's ability to remain air-tight, in which case the flooding didn't sink it. Most reliable way to sink a tanker was to hit the engine spaces (that's true of pretty much any vessel, as that knocks out power, contains things like boilers/engines that can go 'bang', and was a large compartment). A good example of the potential durability of tankers is the Ohio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Ohio) in Operation Pedestal.

* older capital ships could be vulnerable to torps. The HMS Barham (BB) sank fairly quickly from 3 hits (approximately 5 minutes). Various other BBs took hits but continued to port and were repaired. They ALL suffered loss of speed from flooding.

* ANY merchant ship struck by a torpedo should suffer significant loss of speed and stability, including the ability to hold a course. The flooding could do additional damage due to the pressure of the ship's movement through the sea.

In short, the damage model in SH3 was dodgy (the mods addressed this to a considerable extent), as it was in 4, and I've no doubt from what I've seen in vids and read here, it is also very poor in SH5.

And don't get me started on the modelling of damage inflicted by the deck gun.....

very nice summary. Almost as important as the number of torpedoes was where the torpedoes hit.

USS Saratoga, IJN Musashi among others were hit by one torpedo in the bow and suffered little damage.

USS North Carolina, a brand new battleship was hit by one torpedo in sept. 42 well forward on the port side which tore a 32 foot gash, caused flooding over 4 bulkheads and a 5.5 degree list. The list was reduced to nil in 5 minutes and she was able to keep up with the formation at a speed of 25 knots.

During the Guadalcanal/Solomons campaign, many US heavy/light cruisers were torpedoed by IJN 24 inch "long lance" torpedoes (the 24" packs about twice as much explosives as the 21" torps used by U-Boats). Most of the ones that survived were hit in the bow. They suffered horrendous damage, bows blown clean off or bent downwards or sideways at 90 degree angle. Obviously, they were not able to keep going at the same speed.

On the other hand, a hit midships or in the engine rooms/stern was more dangerous. One of the torpedoes which hit HMS Barham ignited a magazine which is what caused her to go down so quickly. The light carrier USS Intrepid was torpedoed in the stern in jan.44 which caused her rudder to jam hard right forcing her to drop out of formation. She managed to crawl out of the area on her own power, steering with engines alone.

regarding merchants, it often took more than one torpedo. In Blair, you often see U-Boat commanders firing 2-3 torpedoes at individual ships. Also reading on the convoy battles, it appears that roughly 1/3 of the time, merchants were listed as "damaged" and not sunk. Blair gives little details on individual battles. I presume that ships which were "damaged" were torpedoed but not sunk.

Getting back to the game, except for battleships or carriers which suffer very light damage, any other ship should suffer a massive speed reduction when torpedoed.

[Conrad von Kaiser]

I hate using wiki but it's one of the few reference sites I know of that aren't blocked here at work.

"Immediately after the torpedo strike, Captain Maund attempted to order the engines to full stop, but had to send a runner to the engine room when it was discovered communications were down.[85] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_%2891%29#cite_note-Jameson338-84) The hole in the hull was enlarged by the ship's motion, and by the time Ark Royal stopped she had taken on water and begun to list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_nautical_terms#L) to starboard, reaching 18° from centre within 20 minutes."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91)

Depending on the location of the hit I would think a hole could be either bothersome but not a huge problem, or a serious liability.

For instance, regardless of the ship if you hit her square on the nose, chances are any forward motion is going to start ripping her apart lol

[Dowly]

You get a pretty good picture by reading the few translated KTB's, many attacks take only one torpedo, but like said above, tankers usually seemed to take 2-3 (well, not necessarely, but the common practice seemed to be to fire 2-3 torps just in case).

http://www.uboatarchive.net/KTBList.htm

Also, make sure the kaleun mentions he saw the ship go down, no point in taking account ships that were "maybe" sunk. :O:

[Bilge_Rat]

The sinking of the Ark Royal is an example of a worst case scenario, the torpedo hit in the engine room and knocked out power so they could not correct the list. This was compounded by poor damage control measures.

The Taiho sinking is another example of poor damage control:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Taih%C5%8D