Knowing when a ship is sunk

[Tuee]

If a hit ship shows signs of flooding (e.g. lower waterline, "tilting" either forwards or laterally, etc.) will it sink eventually, even if the "enemy ship destroyed" hasn't been given yet, and the sunk-ship icon hasn't appeared on the map yet?

Once, I hit a C2 with a single torp below the stern; the whole back end of the boat tilted down and was swamped below the water, but the sinking seemed to stop there-- after some amount of waiting with time compression on, it didn't look like it would sink any further. I didn't want to spend another eel, so I gave her some encouragment with the deck gun, which worked nicely-- but I wonder if I could have just left it.

Same with battleships-- in some of the single missions, two fish below the keel (depth of 10m when firing on a Revenge) slowed her to 3 kts and caused some obvious tilting, but I'm not sure if it was a completely fatal wound or not. How can one tell?

Also, could someone direct me to a thread or article on effective tactics for sinking destroyers?

One more: what is the absolute minimum range for the torpedoes?

Happy new year to all! Tuee

[Rosencrantz]

Well Tuee. The only way to be sure is to stay there untill you can hear / see her going down... Just like in the RL. One eel more for her can make the difference... :yep: Or few rounds from your artillery. :up:

I think the minimum range for the torpedoes is around 250 - 300 meters. Or at least it should be. And to be honest, it might not be a very good idea to drive closer... :rotfl:

[Soviet_Warlord]

300 m minimum arming range for torpedoes.

Acoustic torpedoes from 400 m onwards home in acoustically, until then they run straight

Against destroyers? Well, in the later years of the war, outfit your sub in port with as many acoustic torpedoes you can lay your hands on. I always have the rear tube and at least one forward tube of my boat outfitted with them, in case a destroyer comes too close and I can't shake him off.

[Sniper297]

Hee-hee, sorry, couldn't resist. There is an option in the realism settings to turn off realistic sinking times, but even with that it sometimes takes 10 minutes or so, depending on the flooding rate. I generally wait at least 10 minutes if I have the time.


http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/8149/118ii.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Two fish in this carrier at 19:49, three minutes later (lower right, 19:52) it's listing about 10 degrees. After 10 minutes the list hadn't increased, and it hadn't settled any lower in the water, so I sent one more fish into her.

http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/7376/122hb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Two minutes after the third fish hit, edge of flight deck is in the water, looks like she's a goner.

http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/7998/135ou.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Yup, three minutes after the third hit she rolls over.

When enough is enough is a judgement call, a lot depends on how many torpedos you have available, how important the target is, and if there are three destroyers bearing down on you or not! Merchant ships tend to be easier to sink since they have less watertight compartments, and just as in real life I've found that rough weather tends to swamp or capsize them quicker once they're damaged.

"effective tactics for sinking destroyers?"

Fire everything you got, then quickly put in for a transfer to shore duty? :arrgh!: I try to avoid anything designed for the purpose of destroying a sub, for obvious reasons. There was one US sub skipper, Sam Dealey of the USS Harder who deliberately targeted Japanese destroyers, but only after getting intel that the Japanese were running short of them. In actual practice thru most of the war a destroyer or escort was considered not worth the risk, since a sub and crew cost a lot more than a tin can. I don't know about this game, possibly you get more renown for sinking a bunch of destroyers rather than the equivalent tonnage of merchants, I haven't experimented with it yet.

The difficulty has a lot to do with that, hitting a destroyer moving at high speed and making frequent turns would be like trying to line up a bow & arrow shot at an energetic fly. Best tactic if you gotta is probably the same for any sure shot - get as close as possible on the beam, aim for dead center to allow for turning and speed changes, fire a spread.

"One more: what is the absolute minimum range for the torpedoes?"

You know, I tried to find that in the manuals, it doesn't say. I have heard 300 to 400 meters, altho I tend to fire somewhere between 500 and 800 meters.

[Schpeedy]

For the C2's... I've done this with a type II uboat...

1) Be sure to have a flak gun installed prior to leaving port. (It's free)
2) Totally blow up just about everything that will come flying off of the C2 with the Flak-gun. I spend about 300 rounds to get it satisfactorilly hit. (don't bother shooting the hull, i've spent 1000 and nuthing doin, didn't effect it.)
2a) Blow the black tube things that stick out of the ships deck(top ones hard to get)
2b) Blow up the cargo on board, takes about 20round per boxes.
2c) Lifeboat and raft looking things...
2d) Don't try to shoot the hull, nor the smoke stacks... maybe the radio antena, not sure which it is though.
(thing is, that flak gun won't hurt some stuff on the ship, blow up just about everything that can be blown up.)

3) now.. pull along side of it, driving parallel to it... be about 400 meters from it. And just about after it did any turns or stuff, fire 2 torpedos in a row (with readings, speed set to fast for torpedo, locked onto the C2, you would be looking about 90degrees to one side of the sub or the other to the C2)... one right after the other. Firing two in a row, if both hit and explode, seems to do more than 2x the damage of one torpedo... more like 3x of one torp...
C2 should could hopefully would be sunk. (if it doesn't say right away, as in 10mins tops... might as well drive away.)

One guy in here posted that he got the 'ship sunk' statement when, after driving away, he was miles away from a C2. I play in full realism, but if not, it would show a sunk ship icon on the map he said.

If all this takes ya too long, depending where ya are, ya might wind up with planes or a destroyer entering the area.

[Hartmann]

I think that there aren´t differences in realistic sinkings or unrealistic.

i have the unrealistic and seems to be a lot of real :hmm:

i finish the ships that are stopped with a torpedo aimed to a vital part of the ship or using a magnetic under the keel.
or with the gun if the water is calm. :up:

I f i can´t stop the ship i choose it for the next attack as prioritary target.

[Deimos01]

It is modeled that ship crews will try and repair damage. Ive hit merchies before and had them start sinking only to have them restart engines and take off after a time.

Another time I nailed a small merchie in a convoy and had it keep chugging on for about another 30min before it finally sank.

[finchOU]

I hate the fact that you can put two torps into a ship (C2 most of the time) without them slowing down....that seems rediculous to me.......just he sheer amomt of extra weight on board (water flooding in) should be enought to slow one of those bastards down..to maybe fall out of the convoy....the only sure way is to nail the engine room, prop shaft, or screw....but flooding does not seem to have an effect on speed.

another bug that has been metioned is the fact that merchants do not slow down in adverse sea states like they do in real life (your sub slows down...but the ships dont!!???)....I've read of accounts of ships in heavy seas not being able to say in formation and falling out of a convoy only to be picked off my lurking U-boats (like wolfs hunting ...spotting the weak and attacking)

do some reading about convoys at U-boat.net: http://www.uboat.net/ops/convoys/