A Dud patrol

[kiwi_2005]

In the normal SH3 campaign i use to turn off Dud torpedoes. WAW requires realism so duds are turned on.
Playing WAW, SEPT1942 ordered to patrol AK53. During my patrol to GridAK53 i sunk one liberty cargo after many duds! 7 days later i reached my grid and patrolled there for 8 days was just about ready to ask for permission to patrol another grid when i recieved message of convoy in GridAL29 which was close. i sent message to FDU asking them for permission to attack convoy my request was granted. 22 hrs later I make visual contact with convoy order persicope depth, slipped pass the destroyer screen and am dead centre in convoy. They're all sitting ducks i thought. Well how bloody wrong was i. Out of 9 torpedoes 6 of them were duds! 4 detonated early & 2 failed to detonate :damn: 2 managed to hit a T3 Tanker but she just sailed away listing yet still running at 7khts while i watched through the persicope and cursed the gods. 1 torpedo left i decided to return back to Brest.
Still i feel like im playing the game like it should be. The duds frustrates you but its like how it is. I read on Uboat.net once of a kapitan that did 13 PATROLS and sunk only 3 ships!

Tonnages sunk: 1 cargo 7367 tons. 1 T3 Tanker damaged. All crew are frustatrated as hell so of course i ordered them all to spend a weekend at the brothel.

:arrgh!:

[Spaxspore]

heehheeh

My realism is all on

Except for dud torps.
That would frustrate the hell out of me.

[Trav_R]

I have dud torps on and only very rarely have duds. The times that my torps don't detonate are 99% my fault. The main causes for me are too close range and bad angle for impact pistol. Even when I use magnetic pistols in bad weather, they almost always work well. I guess they could be detonating early, but I don't know how I would tell that unless I was following the torp with the external cam. Anyone else have that much trouble with duds?

[Dowly]

I too almost never have duds. Only duds/malfunctions I`ve experienced have been with magnetic pistol in a rough seas.

Bad luck you got there, Kiwi. :nope:

[kiwi_2005]

Only duds/malfunctions I`ve experienced have been with magnetic pistol in a rough seas.

Thats new too me, never thought of that. It was rough seas and they were magnetic. :hmm:

[CCIP]

That probably explains it :)

I really don't have duds anymore, with rare exceptions when I take bad angles or fire too close to the target.

Torpedoes in SHIII are way more reliable than in real life.

Also, I don't use magnetics at all (at least in the first half of the war) :hmm:

[kiwi_2005]

Also, I don't use magnetics at all (at least in the first half of the war

I definately wont be using magnetics next patrol.

Nice tonnage score by the way CCIP.

[HMCS]

There's a problem there...

If this captain was shooting at liberty ships, then that would put the date at about '42 or later.

Historically, the Germans had pretty much sorted out the problems with the torpedo failures by that time. The odd dud might happen, but 9 in one patrol isn't realistic.

9 failures in a normal loadout (I assume a type Viic) is way, way off base as far as realism is concerned.

The worst period for torpedo failures was the Norway invasion of the spring of '40. After that it was occasional, but not necessarily common.

[CCIP]

Nice tonnage score by the way CCIP.

I prefer the ships sunk score :88)

A good source of statistics, by the way - you can calculate that in those patrols, I fired about 160 torpedoes, sinking 51 ships. That means on average, it's 3 torpedoes fired per 1 ships sunk. That's a pretty good statistic, considering about 1/3 are misses. Duds are probably 1/10th.

The biggest complaint is often torpedo power, and I see this come up in WaW every once in a while - that it takes too many fish to sink a ship. In my observation though, that hasn't been true. It was just under 2 hits per 1 ship sunk historically, and it's about the same for me.

[kiwi_2005]

9 failures in a normal loadout (I assume a type Viic) is way, way off base as far as realism is concerned.

Thats what i thought. But i even got duds on the way to my patrol grid - attacking the liberty ship i had 2 failures "early detonations" And yup i saw them explode through the scope.

[CCIP]

9 failures in a normal loadout (I assume a type Viic) is way, way off base as far as realism is concerned.

Thats what i thought. But i even got duds on the way to my patrol grid - attacking the liberty ship i had 2 failures "early detonations" And yup i saw them explode through the scope.

Well, that could only be caused by using magnetics in rough seas - so, just don't.

I think it's unrelated to the war period in the game. The magnetics will have that happen all the time in rough weather.

[PatAWilson]

Playing at 100% you can't see a dud bounce off with the event camera, but you can actually hear them.

I had a C2 coming directly for my boat, range 12000 meters. Went to periscope depth, turned 90 degrees, backed up a bit, and waited. He crossed my path at 700 meters, 90 degrees AOB. Fire tubes two and three. Wait 30 seconds - thunk! thunk! :damn:

Fortununately I still had a reasonable solution (about 100 - 110 degrees AOB) - quick setup and fire tubes 1 and 4. One hit him in the stern and he went down.

What I like about full realism is that my results more or less follow the path of the real u-boat aces. I am currently the tonnage leader, but just barely. If it was any easier I would be racking up ridiculous tonnage numbers.

Now if only I could learn to shoot from more than 1500 meters :).

[kiwi_2005]

Playing at 100% you can't see a dud bounce off with the event camera, but you can actually hear them.

Another way is watch your timer clock. when it reaches the time it should hit and the clock stops but theres no explosion. Its a DUD. :damn:

[Trav_R]

I can generally tell duds, but I don't know how I would be able to tell early detonations with magnetic torps without using the external cam. How do you do it?

[kiwi_2005]

I would be able to tell early detonations with magnetic torps without using the external cam. How do you do it?

The persicope. Watch. also your hear it explode to early, the timer will tell you its too early for an explosion, especially if theres like a minute to go yet you hear a boom!

[Trav_R]

I thought an early detonation was like 5-10 meters too early, in which case just listening or looking at the stopwatch wouldn't be accurate enough I wouldn't think. If the thing goes off before it even gets near the target then yeah I would notice, but if it's only a few meters then I think it would be near impossible to know without an external or event cam. That's what I'm asking about, how to tell an early detonation if it's only slightly early. 5-10 meters too early is a very big deal, it would barely even affect the target.

[kiwi_2005]

If the thing goes off before it even gets near the target then yeah I would notice, but if it's only a few meters then I think it would be near impossible to know without an external or event cam.

The early detonations went of at approx half way to the target. Im yet to experience... (well i hope i dont get to experience it!)... a torpedo going off a few metres from the target. I think if it did go off a few metres from the target it would still be a hit. Cos that close to the ship would surely damage it.

You could create a mission in the editor, have the ocean rough, dud torpedos turned on and maybe put 5 big fat tankers in, then do your results from that. Thats what im doing at the moment. Dont know but to stop a early detonation i would fire at 500yrds instead of 1000 yards. Im seeing if this would eliminate the early failures.