Unrealistic Ship Sinking times?

[hocking]

I am playing with GW/NYGM mod combination installed, and I am noticing some very unrealistic ship sinking times. I just put four torpedoes into the side of a Troop Transport, and it never did sink after watching it for several hours. Most of the time, the ship sink times are fine, but then there are times like this where the ship sink times just aren't realistic. A ship with four torpedoes in it should sink pretty quickly (less than 10 minutes at the most).

Is there somet type of fix in the making for this problem? What am I missing here?

[GreyOctober]

Did you read THIS FAQ (http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=50331)? Might help.

Cheers!

[Sailor Steve]

A very large ship taking four torpedoes and not sinking is not at all unrealistic. What was unrealistic was what we had before: every single ship that had it's hitpoint surpassed sank within 30 seconds. No ship ever stayed afloat for several hours and then finally rolled over and sank.

NYGM works just fine.

[iambecomelife]

I am playing with GW/NYGM mod combination installed, and I am noticing some very unrealistic ship sinking times. I just put four torpedoes into the side of a Troop Transport, and it never did sink after watching it for several hours. Most of the time, the ship sink times are fine, but then there are times like this where the ship sink times just aren't realistic. A ship with four torpedoes in it should sink pretty quickly (less than 10 minutes at the most).

Is there somet type of fix in the making for this problem? What am I missing here?

I guess you could assume it had its holds filled with empty oil drums, like some AMC's. This strategy enabled some of them to take 5 or 6 torpedoes before sinking.

[schuhart]

Hocking,

Read a book like 'Convoy' by Martin Middlebrook.
That will change your perspective of realism concerning sinking ships with torpedoes.

- Schuhart

[Salvadoreno]

Hocking,

Read a book like 'Convoy' by Martin Middlebrook.
That will change your perspective of realism concerning sinking ships with torpedoes.

- Schuhart

OR read the book "Night of the Uboats" by Lind and Lundlam Where ships sank rather quickly after only 1-2 torps. Most of the ships sunk at 1 torpedo.. So i believe taking 4 torps and staying alive is definately the RAREST of occurences.

Battle of convoy SC7. Pretty decent read.

[iambecomelife]

Hocking,

Read a book like 'Convoy' by Martin Middlebrook.
That will change your perspective of realism concerning sinking ships with torpedoes.

- Schuhart

OR read the book "Night of the Uboats" by Lind and Lundlam Where ships sank rather quickly after only 1-2 torps. Most of the ships sunk at 1 torpedo.. So i believe taking 4 torps and staying alive is definately the RAREST of occurences.

Battle of convoy SC7. Pretty decent read.

Most of the ships in SC7 were smaller vessels. Many were under 5000 GRT, and only one of the ships hit was over 7000. The SC convoys were designated for slow ships, and as a general rule small merchantmen tended to fall into this category (not much room for powerful machinery). In turn, smaller ships usually = faster sinking times and one hit kills. It didn't help that several of SC-7's vessels were carrying steel, iron ore, etc. (Another reason why I think that SH4's engine should factor in cargo weight w/regards to sinking time).

The troop transports in SH3 OTOH are medium-to-large, so as long as it's not too frequent a four torpedo kill is OK with me.

[Salvadoreno]

In SH3 terms, i would say convoy SC7 ranged from coastals and small merchants to medium cargos. A lot of the times medium cargos are a real BIATCH to sink...

[hocking]

Perhaps I should be a bit more specific about the conditions of this incidence to give everybody a better idea of why it was not a realistic event.

1) The Troop Transport was sitting motionless in a harbor.
2) All Four Torpedoes hit the ship in the mid-section directly underneath the smoke stack.
3) I waited for the ship to sink for about 18 hours, and it never did sink. It only tilted over on its left side and floated there indefinitely.

Sorry folks, this is not realistic. I have read several U-Boat books, and the bottom line is that it was not very hard to sink cargo vessels if you hit them in vulnerable areas. The hardest thing about sinking cargo vessels was avoiding naval escort vessels so you could actually get into a firing position on a cargo ship, and then hitting the cargo ship in vulnerable locations that would sink them. If you could get both these things accomplished, sinking the ships were not hard, and it usually only took 1 or 2 torpedoes at the most depending on where your torpedoes hit the merchant.

I truly do beleive that the NYGM and GW mods bring quite a bit of realism to the game, and I do not intend to put either of these mods down at all (I love them to be honest). However, I must also say that there seems to be this idea out there that simply making things harder to do makes them more realstic. This is just not the case. Remember the "Happy Times" of 1941. It simply was not hard sinking merchant vessels when you are giving the opportunity to fire torpedoes at them accuretly, and according to their overall tonnage sunk during those times they were sinking more than small merchants. I could see where it would be hard to sink a naval military vessel even after you hit it in vulnerable locations, but Merchant vessels would sink rather easily. This is exactly why Churchhill was so frightened about U-Boats, he knew that merchant vessels were so vulnerable to them. If it took, on average, four torpedoes to sink a large merchant vessel (like my experience in the game), Germany's U-Boat forces would not have had such a large impact on the war at all. Simple math would be able to show you this.

Hitting a motionless Troop Transport in the mid-section with four torpedoes and not sinking it is simply unrealistic, and I am sure most of you would agree with me at this point now that I have better explained the situation of this incidence. Remember, this has not happened very often in my games, and this is why I found it so odd.

One last thing, I have found that reading different books about U-Boats clouds historical facts such "How difficult it was to sink a merchant ships". For every writer who explains how difficult it was, you can find another writer who talks about how easy it was. The amount of merchant ships sunk during the war, when compared to the limited number of U-Boats that Germany employed at any giving time, really says it all. It was not that hard to sink merchant ships. The hard part was avoiding naval escort vessels when carrying this task out. I think we can all agree to this if we think it through based on facts and logic.

[iambecomelife]

I understand; that's why I would prefer for four-torpedo kills to be rare. I don't think it was difficult in principle to sink unescorted merchantmen. If you're in an oceangoing boat (VII, IX) you have at least 14 torpedoes. My major issue has been one hit kills on large units. This has probably been a major source of the inflated tonnage scores we keep seeing. IMO something over 5500 tons should be perfectly capable of withstanding at least two torpedoes as long as it's not carrying a hazardous cargo. Three and four-hit kills should be much rarer, but possible for a unit of that size. I definitely understand concerns about coastal merchants surviving two or three hits, which people have started to experience when using some modded ship damage files. Maybe the critical hit boxes for the models could be increased to compensate; it would also be possible to decrease the subcomponents' floatability values. I think Der Teddy Bar is working to address this...

[Seminole]

I am playing with GW/NYGM mod combination installed, and I am noticing some very unrealistic ship sinking times. I just put four torpedoes into the side of a Troop Transport, and it never did sink after watching it for several hours. Most of the time, the ship sink times are fine, but then there are times like this where the ship sink times just aren't realistic. A ship with four torpedoes in it should sink pretty quickly (less than 10 minutes at the most).

Is there some type of fix in the making for this problem? What am I missing here?


I think you are making the same observation that I have been.

It isn't that the sinking times are unrealistic. just the opposite in fact....it is that it often takes so long for some of them to sink....you are often robbed of the tonnage credit. It just isn't practical to wait about for days waiting for the sinking while the alerted bad boyz are heading your way looking for you.....plus this slower sinking times really changed the dynamics of convoy attacks.

[malcymalc]

You have given away your problem in one sentence:

2) All Four Torpedoes hit the ship in the mid-section directly underneath the smoke stack.

All four of your torpedoes hit one compartment of the ship, flooding it - but with NYGM you need to hit more than one compartment to overcome the ship's bouyancy.

Did you use the weapons officer assistance and fire tubes individualy?
If you read the NYGM user notes you will understand your problem.

With NYGM you will need to change your tactics to more realistic ones - ie fire a spread - to achieve the results you seek.

NYGM works fine in this regard - definately a big improvement over the stock game.

Regards
Malcolm

[jaxa]

Ship sinking times is the most controversial thing in GW for me too.
I don't want to say that every ship should be sink after one torpedo hit, but six torpedoes for C2 merchant and waiting long time for sink is frustrated and rather not realistic every time.
It should be more random, not common.
I don't see any effects after hitting ships by one torpedo - and we know that German torpedoes have 280 kg warhead, it's not toy even for battleship.

[CWorth]

1) The Troop Transport was sitting motionless in a harbor.
2) All Four Torpedoes hit the ship in the mid-section directly underneath the smoke stack.
3) I waited for the ship to sink for about 18 hours, and it never did sink. It only tilted over on its left side and floated there indefinitely.


I have a feeling all you guys are overlooking the obvious here...

This is the clue that gives it away
"1) The Troop Transport was sitting motionless in a harbor."

I am almost 99.9% sure this is what is happening.

The harbors in game are very shallow for the most part...I have had this happen a few times and it gets annoying.

What happens is when you hit the ship it will either list bad or sink by one end or the other...however sometimes the ship will hit bottom due to the shallowness of the harbor and stick on the bottom and never move again.

You all may have had this happen in shallow waters outside of a harbor.You sink a ship and it goes down but it hits bottom before all the ship is down and just sticks there.You will then see part of the ship permanently stuck above the water.

This is most likely what happened and has nothing to do with the ship damage model or anything like it.

The ship most likely listed over and the side of the ship hit the bottom and got stuck...Just one more in the long list of bugs in the game.

I have had this happen to the BB in Scapa Flow..I put 3 torps into it and it listed to the right hard..but the side of the ship hit bottom and got stuck and would sink no father.Hence I never got any credit for sinking the ship.

[booger2005]

The ship most likely listed over and the side of the ship hit the bottom and got stuck...Just one more in the long list of bugs in the game.



Its not a bug, this happens in real life. As a matter of fact, thats just what a master of a distressed ship is supposed to do- beach his ship if he can. In many cases the ship can be repaired and refloated if its accesable to divers. Go to u-boat.net and listen to the Reinhard Hardegan interview. This happened to him exacly. A ship he reported in as sunk was later refloated out of shallow water and put back into service within months.

I have noticed though in many cases you do get credit for sinking a ship in shallow water and it is still sticking out of the water.

[Sailor Steve]

Perhaps I should be a bit more specific about the conditions of this incidence to give everybody a better idea of why it was not a realistic event.

1) The Troop Transport was sitting motionless in a harbor.
2) All Four Torpedoes hit the ship in the mid-section directly underneath the smoke stack.
3) I waited for the ship to sink for about 18 hours, and it never did sink. It only tilted over on its left side and floated there indefinitely.
After reading this, I agree with you. This is one of the minor problems with NYGM, and it stems from the way the stock game does damage. As was mentioned earlier, torpedoes hitting the same place will not increase the flooding, so the ship won't sink unless it's hit points are exceeded.

You're right: in that regard it's not realistic. Still, it's better than the stock game where everything sinks in 1 minute or less. Still, I also wish the devs could make it better.

[Observer]

2) All Four Torpedoes hit the ship in the mid-section directly underneath the smoke stack.

This is absolutely, positively the problem. The depth of the harbor might be related to not getting credit for the ship, but the fundamental problem is the location of your torpedo hits.

The problem isn't the mod, but your tactics. You must destroy compartments, in many cases several compartments for the larger ships, to actually sink them.

One other point. Magnetic detonations will not break a ship's keel in SH3. Only impact detonations have the chance to break a ships keel. This is a limitation of SH3, not the NYGM ship damage mod.

[Salvadoreno]

I have reduced those problems greatly by firing 2-3 torp spreads are every ship i encounter now. Most of the time its a 2 torp spread 2degrees. Always does the trick. I also wanted to be a more realistic uboot kapitan by firing spreads, via the Uboot Commanders Handbook. Sometimes i even fire 4 torps at the larger ships (ie c3, hospital ships, large tankers, BBs, Carriers) and the results are excellent. Sometimes they get blown to smitherins and sometimes they sink in 20-40 minutes falling behind the convoy.

[sergbuto]

Magnetic detonations will not break a ship's keel in SH3. Only impact detonations have the chance to break a ships keel. This is a limitation of SH3, not the NYGM ship damage mod.

I break the ship in halfs with magnetic detonations all the time. Therefore, I do not find this limitation in SH3, at least for the stock version.

[Der Teddy Bar]

t....it is that it often takes so long for some of them to sink....you are often robbed of the tonnage credit.
I believe that you are mistaken.

This was tested extensively and I have been as far as 35 kilometres away when notified of the ship sinking.

Let me also say, that we never got further away than 35 kilomtres before the ship sank, so it is not a case that we reached 50 kilomtres and got no credit.

You could look at it from these gameplay points
1.As a real captain you could have only claimed it as damaged anyway
2. They would have used enough torpedoes to ensure the kill rather than trying to get by with the least

[Der Teddy Bar]

I think that many people overestimate the 'power' of a torpedo. Of the 628 ships sunk in the first 6 months of 1942 60% did NOT sink with 1 torpedo.

A torpedo only had 280Kg of explosive and it was not shaped i.e. the explosion did not concentrate itself for maximum value especially when used on impact.

U-boat Captains sank the ships, that is, they aimed at different locations so that the bouyancy was over come by the flooding. They didn't hammer the same area!

From January to June 1942 a total of 816 ships were 'hit' of these...
327, or 40% sunk with 1 torpedo
311, or 38% required two or more torpedoes
178, or 22% escaped after being hit with 1 to 4 torpedoes

Officially from January to June 1942 a total of 628 ships were sunk, if one adds 178 to this figure we get 816, close enough.

The 1942 figures are...
January Average Tonnage 4909
58 ships sunk (284.764 tons) and 8 ships damaged (51.849 tons)

February Average Tonnage 5602
70 ships sunk (392.161 tons) and 12 ships damaged (86.919 tons)

March Average Tonnage
86 ships sunk (449.369 tons) and 12 ships damaged (85.287 tons)

April Average Tonnage 5213
77 ships sunk (401.429 tons) and 12 ships damaged (95.905 tons)

May Average Tonnage 4705
128 ships sunk (602.273 tons) and 18 ships damaged (114.733 tons)

June Average Tonnage 4725
134 ships sunk (633.245 tons) and 12 ships damaged (67.802 tons)

[Observer]

Magnetic detonations will not break a ship's keel in SH3. Only impact detonations have the chance to break a ships keel. This is a limitation of SH3, not the NYGM ship damage mod.

I break the ship in halfs with magnetic detonations all the time. Therefore, I do not find this limitation in SH3, at least for the stock version.

If I had to guess this would apply to the smaller ships, and it's not breaking the keel so much as exceeding the ships hit points.

[hocking]

Thanks for those interesting facts. Please, everyone, I am not at all putting this mod down. Overall, I think the sinking characteristics of the ships are the most realistic that we have seen yet. I agree, larger merchants should not always go down after one hit. It should, on average, take at least two torpedoes to bring one down, and many more if you aren't hitting the vulnerable spots on the ships. Up to this point, I think the overall torpedo characteristics have been pretty accurate and realistic. This is why I thought this one incident was a little wierd, and why I posted it on here.

First of all, the ship was not sitting on the bottom and unable to sink further. I checked for that first, and noticed that the ship was actually sitting in rather deep water for a harbor. I had sunk a T3 Tanker in the same area (with two torpedo hits I might add), and it went down stern first, and was able to sink completely out of sight standing upright. water depth was definitely not an issue in this case.

As far as hitting the ship in different locations, this should not have been an issue for a stationary ship. The goal was to hammer the mid-section of the ship to get to the explosive engine areas in an effort to split the ship in two (hopefully with an explosion that rips the ship apart). If the ship was moving, and I only had one chance to shoot torpedoes at it, a spread would have been the more realstic option. Since the ship was motionless, I could sit in one spot and just send torpedo after torpedo into the mid-section of the ship and it would have split in two (probaly after two torpedoes at the most). I don't really follow your point where it is realistic for the ship not to sink since I was hitting the same compartment multiple times. The torpedoes were set on "Impact" and not "Magnetic". The torpedoes were definitely hitting the ship in order for them to explode. The ship would have been cut in two in real life, or buckle under its own weight after the hull sides were dramatically weakened by the torpedo explosions.

Furthermore, I have noticed that when I hit a ship in the same section on a second shot (usually hitting the mid-section of the ship for a second time) the ship usually explodes because I am hitting the engine area of the ship. Ships not sinking because I am hitting the same locations multiple times has not been an issue for me in this game at all. That is also why I am not buying into the "flooding the same compartment" argument. If this happened alot before I would be more apt to agree with you, but it has not even though I have a habit of aiming for the vulnerable spot multiple times. I do shoot a spread when I know I only have one chance to get off a good shot (this is not very hard to do you know), but I only do this when it is absolutely necessary in an effort to save torpedoes.

Hey, it is the first time this has happened, so maybe it is just a combination of a few quirks in the game that lift their ugly head from time to time. Overall, I think the GW and NYGM mods really add a great amount of realism to this game. I think we reach a point where it is simply to difficult to make every little experience in the game realistic on a consistent basis. I could honestly say that I see more realistic things now than unrealistic things by a long shot, so I am very happy. I also agree that large merchants should

[sergbuto]

Magnetic detonations will not break a ship's keel in SH3. Only impact detonations have the chance to break a ships keel. This is a limitation of SH3, not the NYGM ship damage mod.

I break the ship in halfs with magnetic detonations all the time. Therefore, I do not find this limitation in SH3, at least for the stock version.

If I had to guess this would apply to the smaller ships, and it's not breaking the keel so much as exceeding the ships hit points.

When a single ship becomes two separate halfs, this is called breaking. It is not fair to claim a limitation of vanilla SH3 after modding it to the extent that the ship does not break.

I recall that once I made a keel section in the stock ZON file infinitely thin and then I could not break the ship (it would always sink as a single piece), while with original keel section, it would easily break in halfs after one magnetic detonation.

[sergbuto]

From January to June 1942 a total of 816 ships were 'hit' of these...
327, or 40% sunk with 1 torpedo
311, or 38% required two or more torpedoes
178, or 22% escaped after being hit with 1 to 4 torpedoes

Was this statistics derived clearly excluding duds? Those could also produce hit splashes.

[Der Teddy Bar]

From January to June 1942 a total of 816 ships were 'hit' of these...
327, or 40% sunk with 1 torpedo
311, or 38% required two or more torpedoes
178, or 22% escaped after being hit with 1 to 4 torpedoes

Was this statistics derived clearly excluding duds? Those could also produce hit splashes.
Doenitz did not say and one would presume that they are only counting what is believed to be a successful attack i.e. no duds or misses counted.

I would be surprised if a dud torpedo would show any splash as it was several metres below the water.

[VonHelsching]

From January to June 1942 a total of 816 ships were 'hit' of these...
327, or 40% sunk with 1 torpedo
311, or 38% required two or more torpedoes
178, or 22% escaped after being hit with 1 to 4 torpedoes


Interesting data. I guess that some of the 38% (two or more torpedos) are cases that the Kaleuns shoot a salvo of 2 or 3 anyway and not consecutive torpedos, waiting after each one for the ship to sink. Therefore *some* of the 38% could have sunk with the first torpedo.

Right? :roll:

[sergbuto]

Good point, VonHelsching. Also, these data do not include torpedoes with magnetic pistols because they were not used in 1942 if I remember correctly. Even for other years when magnetic torpedoes were used, they did not probably contribute much to this kind of statistics because too often they failed to detonate or exploded too early. Nevertheless, the whole point for the employment of torpedoes with magnetic pistols was the ability to sink with one torpedo even relatively large ship by breaking it in half. Therefore, in my opinion, vanilla SH3 does not overestimate the 'power' of torpedoes but the number of duds could be larger.

[Boris]

40% of ships sinking with only one torp is quite alot, compared to what I'm getting with NYGM sinking.

[Keelbuster]

2) All Four Torpedoes hit the ship in the mid-section directly underneath the smoke stack.

This is absolutely, positively the problem. The depth of the harbor might be related to not getting credit for the ship, but the fundamental problem is the location of your torpedo hits.

The problem isn't the mod, but your tactics. You must destroy compartments, in many cases several compartments for the larger ships, to actually sink them.

One other point. Magnetic detonations will not break a ship's keel in SH3. Only impact detonations have the chance to break a ships keel. This is a limitation of SH3, not the NYGM ship damage mod.

Four torpedo hits = ~1100kg of HE. This much cumulative damage to the center of a ship will destroy it. I bet this even holds for BBs. The big shortcoming of NYGM damage model is that once a compartment is fully damaged, further hits in that spot do _nothing_ to the ship. In reality, the third and fourth torpedo would inflict further structural damage that would cause the ship to break up. I don't know this for sure, but it must be true.

Kb

[VonHelsching]

Four torpedo hits = ~1100kg of HE. This much cumulative damage to the center of a ship will destroy it. I bet this even holds for BBs. The big shortcoming of NYGM damage model is that once a compartment is fully damaged, further hits in that spot do _nothing_ to the ship. In reality, the third and fourth torpedo would inflict further structural damage that would cause the ship to break up. I don't know this for sure, but it must be true.

Kb

I couldn't agree more. This seems to be a limitation, due to the lack of hit points, like in the stock game, ie firing the ship at the same spot just subtracts 100 hit points out of +2000.

The problem is further enhanced for players like me who do not use manual tareting and therefore are forced to either point at bearing 000 (ie. turn the sub to target the ship, unlocking the auto target) or fire a salvo

[malcymalc]

The problem is further enhanced for players like me who do not use manual tareting and therefore are forced to either point at bearing 000 (ie. turn the sub to target the ship, unlocking the auto target) or fire a salvo

I guess this depends upon your viewpoint - as NYGM is a "realism" mod effects that promote realistic tactics (like firing a spread rather than sniping with torpedoes) should be regarded as a "beneficial result" rather than a "problem".

I, for one am more than happy to accept the odd ship that won't sink in trade for more realistic ship sinking times.

Malcolm

[GreyOctober]

Hmm.... just returned forom a preactice mission...

HMS Unsinkable (C2) took a spread of two one in the nose and one just below the smokestack at 6 meters. 2100 hours she started to take on water. I left here cause i was sure that either shell sink or come to a dead stop. I went to finish off the large tanker and returned after 5 hours or so on the reciprocal course only to find Her Majestys Ship SAILING at 3 knots and having the submerged profile of a Uboat 9waterline was basically on the deck and stabilized). Well, i thought, how long can it take. I shadowed her to see what happens. Dawn broke and she still sailed towards home. 0830 hours...nothing...0900 hours...nothing. I starting to get really agravated and order salvos from the main gun. After 100 shells peppered all along the waterline...nothing. After another 50 i hear the lads screaming...HMS Unsinkable was sinking, calmlly. NYGM at its best. :up:

[Phylacista]

I like NYGM ship sinking behaviour. Most times I need 1-2 eels. When I hit the stern the hit was fatal (and at the same time haltet the ship)

In my ongoing patrol a c2 took 3 hits in different areas (2 spread under keel, 3rd impact to bow). It took another 60 shells with the deck gun to get her sinking - but in a rather un-NYGM way: Suddenly it exploded breaking in half. Strange. Must have been hit points...

One Dido class light cruiser took 2 hits and remained floating draft increased by appox. 1 m. After catching up she looked back to normal. Must be a good repair crew - like mine ;-)

I like the unpredictability NYGM add. You never know how many eels to loose at one target. That is before and after hitting. Next time I will fire 3 torps at the dido...

[Oesten]

From reading this thread I get the impression that NYGM requires, on average, more torpedo hits per ship (on large ships) than other mods or stock SHIII.

Would this be a correct assumption, in general terms?

[Der Teddy Bar]

From reading this thread I get the impression that NYGM requires, on average, more torpedo hits per ship (on large ships) than other mods or stock SHIII.

Would this be a correct assumption, in general terms?
No not quite true or false.

But unlike the silly no HP = BOOM NYGM uses a combination of Flooding and Critical chance to sink a ship.

[Salvadoreno]

AHH Nygm at its finest..

After avoiding a damn Flower Corvette for over an hour in the Mediteranean i quickly got a fix on a small merchant and fired a salvo of 2 G7e torps 2 degree spread at the widly zigzagging merchant and scored a hit that blew its propellers away. I scurried away to avoid the flower and returned an hour later to see the poor merchant abandoned and low on its stern. rather than put it away with another torp i put a couple deck rounds into it, maybe 20-30 and saw it slowly turn starboard and sink. Awesome... Some fires broke out, i blew away the masts, blew away some other crap on deck.

This is when i love NYGM, i dont love it when i hit a coastal with 2 torp amidships and the front compartment, and nothing happens but a settle a couple meters in the water but still maintian 6-7 knots. THATS lame..

[GlobalExplorer]

I am having issues with NYGM in its current form, too. If a T2 tanker takes 5 torpedoes in all different sections or generally and many times I don't get credited for sinkings, it's frustrating, and I don't play games to be frustrated.

P.S. NYGM is a great mod if it works.