Weather or not. . .

[Imabiggles]

Got to my patrol area only to find a huge convoy with large tankers and merchants all over the place. in examining the flags - as some of them were hostile and some neutral (that sucks by the way) - I even found one that was unflagged??? Anyway, plenty of other picks so I load up and shoot off some eels.

The weather was heavy rain with lighting - about 1/2 of my torps on mag blew up halfway to the target. Some of them that made it to the target, cruised right on under them at 0.5 meters.

Now did the random dud calculator just poop on me, or do they somehow model weather into how reliable mag triggers are?

[Wolfram]

Good question I think.

What was the date/year?

I have had 4 out of 5 "duds" on a Type IIB in September '39 :hulk:

Me I consider this failure a function of the "dud" and consider it part of the modelling of a dud. I appreciate that "dud" means to many of us a failed detonation.

Might be better if they called it failed torpedo option for clarity. But it happens, failed torpedos...

:lurk:

[Kaptan Tommy]

My last patrol (mid-1940) was fraught with terrible weather, high seas, thunder and lightning. I would guess that the vast majority of my torps blew up prematurely. I guessed it was because of the high seas and them broaching and somehow getting triggered by the waves. A totally lousy patrol. I couldn't wait to get back to port. Hell, the weather was lousy all the way back too...

As an aside, even trying to target the enemy was a pain. I think I sunk one ship on the whole 'cruise', and I accredit that to pure luck. :damn:

Hard to amass renown when you come back empty handed.

[Einzelganger]

I'd say you suffered from both but the main factor i think would have been the weather. With the rain and lightning i would imagine the sea was in quite a state aswell ?

If that was the case it would have effected for sure the torpedos with magnetic setting. I'm sure there are dozens of people out there who can explain it better historically speaking but i know weather played a factor. And for the torps passing underneath the ships, i have had those kinds of duds in even the best of weather.

Finally the magnetic setting was known to be unreliable early in the war

[DMarkwick]

I think it's mentioned somewhere (possibly in the manual) that choppy weather can cause the torpedo to run further under the ship than you intended, the ship bouncing up & down and the torpedo in turbulent waters I suppose can add up to quite some extra distance.

My advice would be to switch to impact only, you might have to suffer less efficiency for each hit, but at least the likelyhood of a hit is increased.

[Tonnage_Ace]

If the wind speed is 10m/s or over, I usually set it to impact or if it's got a really big beam then I set it to magnetic and put the depth about 1m below draft. If it's like pristine weather(5m/s or less) I'll set it to 2m below.

[irish1958]

One of the US Cmdrs early in the Pacific war reported that all of his torpedos were duds, and multiple duds were a problem into 1943.
irish1958

[Imabiggles]

Sea was choppy - but not enough for it to disallow the use of deck guns. Ive been in open sea with HUGE swells/chop and mag triggers worked well - this is the first time I am seeing this frequency of duds. Date is mid 1940.

[NeonSamurai]

In heavy seas i tend to only use impact torps set at 2m. With that setting as long as the hit a mostly flat surface they almost never fail to go off. In heavy seas the magnetic torpedoes and ships change depth too much to be reliable, chances are it will either bounce off the underside of the hull, or run too deep to get triggered.

Also (im not sure if this is modeled or not) but early war the torpedos were sensitive to natural magnetic shifts found in the northern and arctic waters. This can account for your torpedoes blowing for no apparent reason.

Good rule of thumb when dealing with impact torpedoes, always set the depth and aim at the ship so the surface the torpedo hits is never less then 70 degrees in any direction, any more then that and it will likely bounce off the hull (basicly this meens shoot at the side of the ship, high enough so it doesnt hit the under curve of the keel)

With magnetics your best off trying to run them so the torpedo intercets at an angle, not straight to the side. this gives the torpedo more time to be under the ship, and thus more chance it will realise this and detonate. I usualy set my torps for -0.3m under the keel for clear weather, -0.5m for light seas (1-6 m/s wind), -1m for 7-10. -2m for anything higher then 10m/s (though i usualy use impacts at +11m/s winds)