stubborn ships

[rcs929]

I have been patrolling in my IIA for quite some time now & it's getting to a point where I want to tranfer so I can get a deck gun. Each patrol I come across a merchant that is just plain stubborn & I use all my remaining torpedoes on it. My last patrol was unfortunate because this happened with my 1st encounter, a C2.

I try to only shoot at 90 degrees angles for impact at 5m-6m depth. My first torpedo is usually a magnetic set at .5 (0-3 windspeed) or 1.0 (4-8 windspeed) below the keel at a 90 degree angle. My usual range to target is from 400m to 1200, the C2 from last night was 600-700 meters. The sonar guy says it was a hit & the merchant kept going full speed.

I then surface & put torpedo 2 into it's stern, killing it's screw from 350 meters. The next few were right into it's side while it was stopped, about 90 degrees & 400 meters out. All shots provided splashes & were said to be hits. The ship sat all night with it's repair crew busy instead of abandoning ship. I split when the DD came in to investigate. I have tried ramming a ship a couple of patrols ago & it would not go down as well. I don't like to ram, it was my first & only time doing it, but I was getting frustrated.

I usually aim for the area below the stack- boiler room but sometimes the fuel area from a submerged position.

Usually this works well & 1 torpedo will do the job. But there seems to be a stubborn ship in each patrol that just will not go down. With the ship stopped dead in the water I will put 1,2,3 FOUR torpedoes into her from 400m out & nothing. Sonar tells me they are hits. There are huge splashes & explosion sounds. The stern just hangs just above the waterline. Then the DD's come along some hours later to run me off.

My settings are all realistic except auto targetting (I can't hit the broad side of the milky way yet), I have RuB v1.45 & SHIII commander 1.24.(thank you mod builders, great work, really adds to the games!)

so, any ideas on how I can improve on this situation or know what I am doing wrong? I must be missing something here, perhaps it's just bad luck, the ship is filled with barrels.

thanks!

[Dantenoc]

My OPINION is that your better of setting your torpedoes for impact pistol instead of magnetic. Magnetic is best used for hitting ship at angles OTHER than 90 degrees.

Think about it... why have the torpedoe explode very near the ship (magnetic) when you can have it explode while actualy touching the ship (impact)?

Also, you mention that all your shots produced splashes... BUT, where the splashes in the exact place that you wanted them? You don't have to just hit the ship, you have to hit it at exactly the right spot to sink it with one shot (the big ones, I mean).

The are other several reasons that could be the cause of your targets not going down in one shot, but they all have to do with making small and subtle errors in your target solution... but that's not your case since you say that you don't do it manually, right?

One last thing: on higher realism settings locking the scope on a target doesn't allow you to choose what particular part of the ship to hit.

Hope this helps

[HW3]

Try setting your impact torpedos at 3M instead of 5-6M and aim for the fuel bunker.

[rcs929]

ok will try impact for most of my shots now and at a lesser depth. Thanks for advice guys :)

I'm not sure why I was setting for magnetic more than impact, I remember reading about magnetic not being a reliable trigger. Also I think I read that the critical hits only come from impact hits the day before yesterday around here somewhere. Perhaps it was my thinking that the explosion under the ship by a magnetic detonation would break it's back.

no aim being available is good to know as well, won't try that now. I hope to get good enough to use manual targetting soon to fix that.

setting sail on my next patrol now to try it out :)

[Letum]

Try setting your impact torpedos at 3M instead of 5-6M and aim for the fuel bunker.

Only works if you have auto TDC enabled