I almost forgot how aggravating Mark 14 issues are lol

[Bubblehead1980]

Third Patrol USS Plunger out of Pearl. Departed April 13 1942.

TMO plus my custom traffic and ship packs

After Flash Message on "Anticipated Enemy Offensive" in the Coral SEa, diverted en rout from assigned area off Truk.

Managed to find the Soho on May 2 off Central Solomons(supporting Tulagi invasion) and attacked, three prematures within seconds of eahc other less than 50 yards from the CVL. ( Looked like hits from the scope view, can see how fog of war made many skipper believe they had hits when did not) Fourth fish hit setting carrier on fire and slowing her. Escorts prevented a follow up when surfaced that evening, could not locate the tf again.

Snuck into Tulagi anchorage and torpedoed a Tama Maru Class Aux Gunboat of the invasion force that was anchored there. One premature from stern tubes, second one hit.


Guarded the approaches South of Rabaul. On May 9 received flash traffic about "Wounded Bear" (Shokaku) enemy CV damaged at Battle of Coral SEa May 8. Raced to specified coordinates and plotted a track based on the speed and course info in message. At 0844 on May 10 in pre dawn spotted the carrier in the morning haze.Due to high speed and escorts, had to fire from 5400 yards. Two prematured in en route. Then two prematuredly exploded again within 50 yards or less of carrier. Neither hit but one was close enough a small fire started on the deck, but carrier sailed on, never slowing while both her DD's forced me to 475 feet(in a Porpoise class!) and delivered an accurate depth charging which left us with moderate damage.

By May 11 fuel was down to 35 percent with four torpedoes left forward and two after. Decided to squeeze another couple days of patrol in before turning for Pearl for slow ride home or heading for Espiritu Santo or Brisbane to refuel.

On afternoon of May 11 south of Buka, Bougainville, while surfaced lookouts spotted two heavy cruisers, unescorted making high speed run northbound off the Bougainville Coast, likely heading for Buka. (A while back had added theis group to represent Aoba and Kako CA, which departed from Shortland Islands where refueled after Coral Sea Battle )

Went to GQ and closed off track on surface but their 21 knots to my 18 made it difficult. We were spotted, the first indications of which where large shell splashes.After a quick dive closed flank speed submerged. Was able to ID one Aoba Class Heavy Cruiser in the lead with one Furutaka Class trailing behind at some distance. Both were now zigging at 19-20 knots.

Due to their high speed, had to fire from 6200 yards with torpedoes on slow speed to reach them. Fired a spread of four.En route two prematurely exploded. After a long wait, the remaining two hit the Furutaka (Kako), setting her on fire. Out of bow torpedoes, closed in at best submerged speed to position for stern shot. Cruiser had now slowed to just 6 knots. On next observation a floatplane (PETE) was spotted flying just a few hundred feet off water and heading out way, we went deep , several explosions(depth charges) occurred above us.

Came back to scope depth. The cruiser was now dead in the water with a port list. Closed in set up for perfect stern shot from 1000 yards. Fired one torpedo for the coup de grace. Exploded about 100 yards from target. Fired final torpedo from stern, exploded half way to target. Out of torpedoes, with a 3 inch deck gun that is ineffective against a cruiser, went deep to avoid the aircraft and the DD racing in from Buka(sound had picked it up), which arrived in area and hunted for us but never made contact.

Surfaced and headed for Pearl Harbor.


So the Mark 14 issues cost me a CVL, a CV, and a CA . Ended patrol with one 1200 ton aux gunboat sunk. lol

[KineticDiplomat]

Ouch. I end up shooting contact fused to avoid the detonations, and then having to always shoot slow speed to prevent the pins from crushing too often, and then setting the depth to five feet because they like to run deep at the worst times.

[Bubblehead1980]

Ouch. I end up shooting contact fused to avoid the detonations, and then having to always shoot slow speed to prevent the pins from crushing too often, and then setting the depth to five feet because they like to run deep at the worst times.


Ah yea, the work arounds. So I run my "TorpedoUpdateV3" mod that is in the downloads section created a few years ago for TMO to portray the torpedo issues in a more accurate manner since by default they are linked to wave height, so in calm seas, you get few if any premature explosions and felt this was nonsense and was reflected in the obscenely high tonnage scores skippers turning in patrols.

Always had an issue with how the magnetic feature was portrayed as if were an easy thing to turn it off. Was not as simple as flipping a switch on the tdc panel. In fact until mid 43 in SubPac and Jan 44 for SubSoWesPac it was against orders to deactivate influence feastures. many skippers resorted to leaving port with them armed, then then having torpedo crews deactivate the magnetic exploders. They returned to port with fish left, reactivated the features. This is when duds first became apparent but once everyone deactivated them and could honestly report the duds in patrol reports, the firing pin issue was figured out.

My mod provides for erratic and unexpected explosions. One patrol may have few or no prematures, next will have many or somewhere in between. That helps create the conditions to really test the player.

I did leave the speed reduction in but made it less effective than standard torpedo settings in game, it reduced duds too much.All about the angle at which the torpedo impacts the hull of the target, such as in real life.

I did not give away specifics as want the challenge to remain, we have so much hindsight. On flip side, I created a "perfect torpedo mod" where torpedoes work as they did in theory, as if they had been tested. Fun to play around with if want a change.