First Hit with a Cutie!

[doulos05]

Just south of Luzon in weather so bad I couldn't see beyond the arming distance of my torpedos, I hit a merchant with cutie. I got ahead of the track, and put the torpedo across the front of the boat. I didn't put him far enough in front, so it ended up behind the boat, but it did eventually catch it. Watching the incredibly slow approach on Free Cam was... pretty interesting, though nerve wracking. Range when I fired was just 1500 yards, but it took nearly 10 minutes to run the boat down. In the end, I froze their rudder hard to port, surfaced the boat, and put rounds in them till they went down. I'm putting at least one of those in my forward torpedo room when I get back, it was a pain to spin the boat and time the shot with sonar without losing him in my own wake.

[WernherVonTrapp]

Just south of Luzon in weather so bad I couldn't see beyond the arming distance of my torpedos, I hit a merchant with cutie. I got ahead of the track, and put the torpedo across the front of the boat. I didn't put him far enough in front, so it ended up behind the boat, but it did eventually catch it. Watching the incredibly slow approach on Free Cam was... pretty interesting, though nerve wracking. Range when I fired was just 1500 yards, but it took nearly 10 minutes to run the boat down. In the end, I froze their rudder hard to port, surfaced the boat, and put rounds in them till they went down.Just think, if you had used a Mark-14, you may have sunk it and saved all that DG ammo.:D

[doulos05]

Just think, if you had used a Mark-14, you may have sunk it and saved all that DG ammo.:D

Unfortunately, I started this patrol with Auto-Targeting engaged, despite my intentions to the contrary. And I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to set the TDC in auto-targeting for a sonar-only attack. I can send bearing and range, but I can't send speed without sighting the target in the scope. And when you can't see more than 150 yards, that's simply not possible for a shot. Hence the cutie.

[doulos05]

On a related note, firing blind and trying to guess lead angles, etc, led to me missing with 6(!) torpedoes against 2 boats, neither of which ever even knew I was there. That was when I decided to try the cutie.

[Hylander_1314]

The merchant ships they are really good at getting, are the mid-sized troop transports.

They are very vulnerable to hits from aft of the superstructure. Well, anything from the aft superstructure and back works reall good one them. They really seem to have a problem with taking on water compared to bow shots. Most of the time, (in the later war years), you can sink one with just one torpedo set to a depth of 10 to 15ft.

They will continue steaming on. Let them. If they don't sink outright, they will end up dead in the water from flooded engine rooms. You can then close with them to give them the final blow.

And yes, I have had them sink on occasion with a cutie, but I don't like to waste them on merchant ships. I save them for those DD escorts, and, or bigger vessels n a task force. If you can slow one warship down, the rest will usually adjust speed to keep the formation together.

It gives you time to record the course of the TF, and bug out, surface and race ahead to plan another attack.

[Daniel Prates]

This just goes to proove that the only decent use for a cutie is to 'drop' it along the path of a slow-moving target.

[doulos05]

I kind of wish I'd followed her out instead of finding her as she approached the target. It would have been interesting to see just how far behind she was through the approach. I think I'm gonna try a cutie on a shot I can aim just to see if that works. If it doesn't shoot to behind the target and play catch up, you could use it across the bow of a fast-moving target and still get a hit. I suspect it work better the closer the AoB was to zero.

[ColonelSandersLite]

I've tried them in various situations, including near zero shots on charging destroyers and have honestly never hit a damn thing with them... They're just too dang slow.

[MarkCt]

In my four rear tubes I put in two and two as spares. If I get a DD chasing me I fire one at each DD and dive deep. There's always that one DD that slows down to listen for you and that's when he gets hit. Sometimes they sink and sometimes they are damaged enough to leave. While diving the other two get loaded and if I get the chance I'll go up and fire the other two before diving again.

I don't think I would ever use them to attack as they are quite slow. But once you go defensive, it's nice to have a couple tracking a DD while he's tracking you. Every little bit helps.

[ColonelSandersLite]

You know where they would be *really* cool, but not possible to do in game?

Encounter a japaneese sub, drive him underwater, and fire one of these things at him :D.

[andy_311]

I use cuties from the outset of war but mine are modified to travel 4x faster than there original speed and twice the range but you can miss with them the not 1 hit wonders all the time.