Torpedo reloading times.

[Kruger]

Hello all. I was wondering if somenone could explain me why these times are so big when set to historical. Why did it take soo much time to put another fish in the tube ?

[VoodooPriest]

I'll try.

To reload a torpedo you have to do a bunch of things.
At first, you need to dismantle half of the torpedo-room to lay open the torpedo (reomve the bunks etc.).
Then you have to crank the torpedo in front of a tube by a manually driven crane, not an easy task if you consider that a torpedo is 6 meters long, 53 cm in diameter and has a weight of ca 1.5 tons.
After that, the torpedo has to be greased and put into the tube. If you have an electric torpedo, you also have to warm the batteries before that, something which isn't even simulated in sh3.

So the 7 1/2 minutes reload-time in the game are quite optimistic in my opinion, considering the fact that all the things described above have to be accomplished by ca 10 men in a small, hot room with bad air and hardly enough space to move, even without a torpedo hanging amidst them.

[Egan]

In a XXI it was quicker due to a mechanised reloading system being installed which shortened the time it took. At least that was the idea, I don't know whether it worked so well in preactice.

Something that is also not modelled is that if you wanted to changed the trigger from Magnetic to Impact, you had to remove it from the tube, open up (the Warhead? I'm not sure.) and change it manually. No little button to press. That took a good while as well.

[Sailor Steve]

Also the torpedo has to be carefully lined up in relation to the tube. The gyro angle settings are also done manually, so there has to be a connection from the torpedo through the tube wall and to the actual angle-setting wrench; so it has to be perfect, and that also takes time.

[Kruger]

Yap...I reckon it must have been a hell of a tough job. Except the torpedoes in the tubes, all the spare ones were stored under the floor ?

[tycho102]

The 8 minutes is highly optimistic.

However, it has been said the XXI took ~8 minutes to load all tubes, not just one.

[Fab]

And while it's not modeled in SH3, in real life didn't they have to pull electric torpedos out of the tubes every few days to service them? So once they were loaded in the tubes it's not like the mechanics were off doing other jobs. Torpedoes required a lot of attention day to day.

NYGM 2.01 has the torp reloads set to 12½ minutes or 25 minutes (depending on staffing and experience) for each eel. I think that's probably a little more close to what you could expect in real life.

[VoodooPriest]

Except the torpedoes in the tubes, all the spare ones were stored under the floor ?

Some where stored under the floor, some above. Untiill the tubes could be reloaded, some bunks were unavailable because torpedos were stored at their positions.

[Mooncatt]

lol not sure id like to share a bed with a torp tbh, but yeah really tough job those guys had