Torpedos running under targets.....

[suitednate]

Hello I'm playing stock SH3 with the Hsie and stiebler patches enabled. Currently in a career in May 1941 and I have a huge bad rash of torpedos running under the targets...... I'll set the depth for 3.5 meters (usually for a finishing shot to induce flooding on a crippled ship on parts where maybe it hasn't flooded yet) and it will totally go under a C3 (9 meter draft) by at least 3-4 meters!!! :/\\!! I'll end up blowing like 5 eels on one target!! This has been happening in rough, moderate, and calm seas (maybe not as much in the calm). Ideas anyone? If I'm in rougher seas and I fire when the uboat is pitching down, will that throw off the torpedo's depth? Does the game model that? Hell......did that even happen in real life? I thought the torp's internal equipment was supposed to stabilize it at the depth one would set it at. All input welcome and appreciated. Thanks.

[vanjast]

For half the war period the Germans and USA had 'dud' torpedoes. Only the Japanese had decent torps.

what you're experiencing, is one of the failures of the German torps. You have to set the depth to minimum and impact detonator for best results.

Another problem is that if the torp hit the target at exactly 90 degrees or close to that, it'd break the firing pin = dud. Aim to hit your impact torps between 5 - 15 degrees off centre.

[suitednate]

We are talking like 3 out if every 4 though. I do expect duds now and then but I am talking about the torp running nowhere near it's assigned depth. I assign 4.5 meters.....it will run 14 meters deep.....:/\\!!

[Dellson]

I'm pretty sure that dud torpedoes are modelled in hsie's patch. While in rough seas you need to set torps deeper or their "failure" will occur. Failure is modelled by torpedo running deeper than usual.

If I recall correctly, the exact formula for minimum dud chance is:
safe torpedo depth >= (wind speed / 2).

You can find it in patch documentation.

[allievo]

Briefly, before you fire a torpedo, ask for a weather report take note of the wind-speed and multiply it by 0.4 and you'll get the value, above which don't set the torpedo's depth setting.
For instance, in a 15 m/s wind, set the running depth to 6 m or even deeper and this way you'll be less likely to experience dud torpedoes. Additionally, in harsh waves prefer using impact pistols to magnetic ones, especially early-war.

[scott_c2911]

I believe hsies patch also models realistically torpedoes that have poor depth keeping properties. It is mentioned in his readme. If this is a problem the patch should be reapplied with the torp settings off as the patch can be modified to suit the players needs. I only use it to force the "lazy 1wo" out of his bunk. This looks like a mixture of both duds and deep runners plaguing your career. I characterise duds as torps that bounce off the hull and deep runners as self explanatory

[Schöneboom]

I have used both the earlier and the newest versions of hsie's patch, and there is (documented) a big difference in the latest version: rough seas require you to set the eels deeper, i.e., use magnetic pistols, not impact. This is the exact opposite of the earlier patch.

The logic is that eels running deeper will not be as badly affected by wave action. Of course, if you combine this with early-war magnetic pistol defects, it's a recipe for many duds. I personally prefer hsie's earlier patch, as I think impact pistols in bad weather makes more sense, and they are more reliable even in the early war. Hope this helps.

Gute Jagd!

[suitednate]

Thanks for the replies everyone.......yeah maybe I was setting too shallow. I won't turn that realism setting off, I want this thing as realistic as possible without taking up TOO much if my life.:D. but I'll take the necessary steps from now on to fix the problem and set them to run deeper. Just wanted to get everyone's input as to whether this was "supposed" to be happening. I'll try the new tactics and report back in. :salute:

[TorpX]

Something to consider when torpedoing a damaged ship; it will probably no longer be on an even keel. If the first hit was at the bow and you need to hit it again, at the stern, you will be aiming at the part that is at the shallowest depth. This might be throwing off your calculations.

[UKönig]

There is a simple, real life explanation to the problem you are (We all do at some time I guess) facing, regarding torpedos.

German torpedos were crap. In the beginning...

Let's look at the evidence...

In terms of complexity, the average "fish" weighs 1.5 tons; is almost itself, a miniature Uboat.
We have the T1 - in service since 1918. But uses compressed gas to propel it forward, leaving an obvious trail than any competent watch should be able to spot and react to in time. Not all the time, but nothing and nobody is perfect after all...
Still useful in night attacks, and choppy weather with bad visibility, but to fire in smooth seas with clear skies is to invite a miss.
By 1939, I would imagine that the Kriegsmarine would have solved a lot of the problems of the 1918 model, but they still had troubles with the depth gear. If stored for too long, it seems the spring inside becomes partially unwound or unspooled which loosens the hydroplanes responsible for holding pitch in the water, and thus, your torpedos can run 5 - 10 meters lower than what you set it. We also have bad magnetic influence detonators. Can blow too early, too late, not at all, or even by hitting a large enough wave, on its way to the target.
Next we have the T2/3 - improved versions of the T1. Wakeless now so to as hide the firing sub. Better range and yield. Early T2 still had depth keeping issues, but by 1943 depth gear problems had been fixed. Mag fuses more reliable. It was the kind of reports that kept coming across Dönitz's desk from his uboat captains "in the field" about the high failure rate, until he held the feet of the torpedo manufacturers to the fire (probably literally), until they categorically fixed all the faults found thus far. But in the meantime, U-captains had to just 'make do'...

[suitednate]

I'm seeing better results guys. Thanks a bunch!!:salute::subsim:

[UKönig]

As far as realism goes, at least we don't have to maintain the equipment in the usual sense.
In peacetime/practice firing, recently manufactured torpedoes had always been used, and so the question of longevity never came up. But now it was discovered that after lying for a few weeks in a patrolling U-boat (with all the dampness, temperature variations, and crew knocking about), their functioning was further impaired. So, to add to all the existing burdens on the uboat captain, a new one was introduced, namely, to periodically regulate *all* torpedo mechanisms on board. In the case of those currently loaded in the tubes, this meant withdrawing them 3/4s back into the sub, recharging the batteries and checking the accuracy of their instruments, once every 48 hours (this was the procedure that the crew in "Das Boot" was doing, which earned Lt. Werner an oily rag in the face, when he got in their way).
Although these efforts did help reduce the number of torpedo failures, it was the early detonation of a torp fired by U39 at the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, 150 miles west of the Hebrides, on Sept. 14 1939, responsible for the first U boat loss of the war...

[Rob Jacobsen]

I keep saving and trying again. I'm pretty sure it's a glitch in my vanilla game.

Launching Mark 14s at a convoy of small passenger ships at 2-3000 meters with a draft of 15.1, I have tried:

Magnetics set at 16 feet, both slow and fast;
Magnetics set at 10 feet, both slow and fast;
Contacts set at 6-10 feet, both slow and fast;
Firing from the surface and from PD.

Repeatedly they run under, as the attack map shows.

I'm going to have to head back to port with a sorry report.

[Hooston]

Ah! That would be silent hunter 4... Wrong forum.

The US mark 14 was a torpedo where everything was faulty. The contact fuse, the magnetic fuse, the depth keeping. They sort of mostly fixed it eventually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ5Ru7Zu_1I


I would really like to see some more failures like a "hot runner" where the torpedo fails to leave the tube and torpedoes with gyro failures that circle back.

[pmcmull]

I keep saving and trying again. I'm pretty sure it's a glitch in my vanilla game.

Launching Mark 14s at a convoy of small passenger ships at 2-3000 meters with a draft of 15.1, I have tried:

Magnetics set at 16 feet, both slow and fast;
Magnetics set at 10 feet, both slow and fast;
Contacts set at 6-10 feet, both slow and fast;
Firing from the surface and from PD.

Repeatedly they run under, as the attack map shows.

I'm going to have to head back to port with a sorry report.
In SH3 the measurements are all metric. So 16 m or 10 m are on the deep side. And a few torpedoes run deep anyhow.

Or else you are running Silent Hunter 4 as Hooston suggests. So post to a different forum. And start a new topic.