Shooting at shallow draught ships

[BigRich]

I may have noticed a trend when I'm launching contact pistol torpedoes at escorts and light cruisers. Given their shallow draught, I set the torp to it's shallowest setting, which is one metre.
However, there have been occasions when (even in calm weather) when I have fired and the range the torp travels till impact is from 400 to 600m and the fish has bounced off the hull without exploding, even at 90 degree angles. If I move off to much longer ranges, even in rough weather, it's rare that a shallow set weapon will fail to explode on impact.
I was wondering if the game simulates the time and distance taken for the torpedo to get from the u-boat (tube maybe 12m underwater) up till it's set depth of one metre. While it arms around 300m is it possible that, even when set to 30knots, the torp does not reach a set depth of one metre till it has travelled further than this?
This problem does not seem to occur when firing at ships with deeper draughts.

[Captain Nemo]

I don't think the torp will need 400-600 metres to reach it's preset depth. Perhaps you just had duds, you do get them if you have the option selected in the realism settings. Personally, I set the depth to 2 metres for escorts and cruisers and normally get a good result.

Nemo

[danasan]

Could it be a question of the timeline you are playing?

I've found the most duds playing in 1940 for some historical reasons...

danasan

[Kaleun Cook]

I haven't played in a while but isn't the shallowest setting 0,5 meters? Anyways, I used to set them to the shallowest setting available and aim for the center. This has never failed, always sunk them on impact with GWX.

[Tessa]

Torpedoes take 300m to arm themselves, if the escort manages to close on you before the eel actually travels 300m then it won't detonate. I've had my fair share of eels bounce off what otherwise should've been a clean hit, some are just duds while others I'll fire a 2nd one at the same spot and the ship blows up and cracks in half as it goes down. If you're using electrics I'd suggest trying to aim them at 2m at a 30-60 degree shot and hope for an magnetic detonations, one of those will send any craft smaller than a light cruiser directly down to the bottom when they hit.

If an escort is charging you its a mixed blessing; as long as its staying directly on course (usually 0 or 180) fire an electric at it at 2-3 meters. The eel will travel under the entire length of the ship and eventually will raise up enough to make contact and sink her nearly every time. Depending on its distance from you being off by just a few degrees will result in a wild miss, and if using a steam it's likely to spot it and change course before it has a chance to hit.

[TorpX]

I may have noticed a trend when I'm launching contact pistol torpedoes at escorts and light cruisers. Given their shallow draught, I set the torp to it's shallowest setting, which is one metre.
However, there have been occasions when (even in calm weather) when I have fired and the range the torp travels till impact is from 400 to 600m and the fish has bounced off the hull without exploding, even at 90 degree angles. If I move off to much longer ranges, even in rough weather, it's rare that a shallow set weapon will fail to explode on impact.
I was wondering if the game simulates the time and distance taken for the torpedo to get from the u-boat (tube maybe 12m underwater) up till it's set depth of one metre. While it arms around 300m is it possible that, even when set to 30knots, the torp does not reach a set depth of one metre till it has travelled further than this?
This problem does not seem to occur when firing at ships with deeper draughts.
It looks to me like your torps are not always arming. If for example, I make fire a torpedo after I make a stadimeter reading of 600m on a closing ship, the torpedo track may be less than 600m. Is the initial range estimate good? Is the target moving closer to my boat? How much time elapsed between the range est. and launch? And finally, how far apart is the front of the torpedo tube and the periscope? Any of these factors could reduce the distance the torpedo travels and leave insufficient distance to arm in a close range situation.