"Sturdy" Liberty Ships

[Qairyl]

In a mission earlier...ran into a pair of ships, a C3 and a Liberty. Immediately went in to attack, fired two torps each at both ships. The Liberty was hit twice, the C3 once. Since the Liberty was closer to me, I went after it. I waited for a bit to see if it'd go down, and finally saw "Enemy Unit Destroyed" at the bottom of the screen; but it wasn't the Liberty. The C3 had gone down after just one hit. The Liberty was still floating there, dead in the water (one of the torps had taken out the props). Water was too rough to use my deck gun, so I had to keep firing torps at it. Shot a third, direct hit amidships, barely anything but a black mark on its hull. After waiting to see if it'll sink for another five minutes, I fire again, hit a bit further towards the bow than the previous torp. Wait again.....it's a bit lower in the water, but not sinking any lower. So finally, exasperated, I turn around so it's in my periscope at 180 and fire a rear tube at him. Hits at almost the tip of its bow, and it finally flips over and sinks. My question is, is there an easier way to sink these apparently extremely sturdy Liberty ships other than five torpedoes along one side?

-Qairyl

[andy_311]

Never used 5 fish on a Liberty ship they normally go down for me with 1 shot into the engine room,sometimes 2.

[Keelbuster]

I find Liberty ships to be B*STARDS to sink. I never get them with one shot - even when I get a crit (engine room explodes, oil burns, etc), they don't sink - they just stop moving. It then usually takes 2 or 3 more torps to get her down. I don't think I've ever broken one in half (is it possible?). I think I end up sinking them via HP rather than buoyancy most of the time. Also really annoying is that keel shots tend to be one-side; only one side of the ship floods rather than bilaterally. I've never seen one capsize, even with all(?) compartments flooded on one side. I hate Liberty cargo - but they are worth 7500, so...

Kb

[cobalt]

try and make sure that you set your torpedo depth according to the draft of the liberty, you want to have it run about a meter under her and you'll do more damage

[Keelbuster]

Actually, typically I aim for 0.5m under the draft. I find that slips it right in, almost scraping the hull. The problem is, I think that early in the war there's a 2m depth error on torps (TW?). That makes mag shots hard. But you don't need a full meter. Anyway, keel shots are nowhere near as damaging to libertys as they are on other ships (transports!).

Kb

[shegeek72]

A related question about draft: Wouldn't a fully-loaded cargo ship sit lower in the water than an unloaded ship, thereby increasing the draft? I haven't noticed a difference between the two in SH3. I remember watching an old war flick - can't remember the title offhand - where there was a decoy ship part of a convoy that the sub captain recognized, since it was sitting too high in the water. I wonder if this will be addressed in SH4?
--
http://users4.ev1.net/%7Etaragem/moon_sub3.jpg

[WolfyBrandon]

My question is, is there an easier way to sink these apparently extremely sturdy Liberty ships other than five torpedoes along one side?

Funny you ask this, I was returning to port in my current carrear not an hour ago when I got a single ship contact not far from my current position. I decide to take a look and arrive in its suspected path and find not one, but two Liberty Cargo's sailing in a straight line together. I have found Liberty's to be a bit tougher than most other cargo ships, and find myself spending 3-5 torps per Liberty to sink it depending on where the torps hit. The first Liberty took three torps, one in the bow, one in the mid section of the forward compartments and the third under the smoke stack and she gave me the big boom and sank. I actually managed to sink the second Liberty with only two torps one in the forward bow section of the ship and the other right before the main bridge. By that time she was listing pretty bad. I sent a third torp speeding her way but by the time it got half way there she decided to go under from the heavy waves coming on to her deck. This caused the stern to come up high in the air making my third torp flat out miss. :doh: Oh well, I'm just happy I was able to sink both of the Libertys since my entire patrol up to that point was pretty dull... :)

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2543/pic11lo.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pic11lo.jpg) http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/1555/pic20og.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pic20og.jpg) http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/2295/pic36te.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pic36te.jpg) http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/8638/pic40es.th.jpg (http://img154.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pic40es.jpg) http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/7919/pic55sm.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pic55sm.jpg)

:arrgh!:
Wolfy

[Keelbuster]

My question is, is there an easier way to sink these apparently extremely sturdy Liberty ships other than five torpedoes along one side?
Funny you ask this, I was returning to port in my current carrear not an hour ago when I got a single ship contact not far from my current position. I decide to take a look and arrive in its suspected path and find not one, but two Liberty Cargo's sailing in a straight line together. I have found Liberty's to be a bit tougher than most other cargo ships, and find myself spending 3-5 torps per Liberty to sink it depending on where the torps hit. The first Liberty took three torps, one in the bow, one in the mid section of the forward compartments and the third under the smoke stack and she gave me the big boom and sank. I actually managed to sink the second Liberty with only two torps one in the forward bow section of the ship and the other right before the main bridge. By that time she was listing pretty bad. I sent a third torp speeding her way but by the time it got half way there she decided to go under from the heavy waves on her deck causing the stern came up high in the air causing the third torp to flat out miss. :doh: Oh well, im just happy I was able to sink both of the Libertys since my entire patrol up to that point was getting pretty dull... :)

:arrgh!:
Wolfy

what mod is that? I'm glad to know that you can really break a liberty in half.

Kb

[WolfyBrandon]

what mod is that? I'm glad to know that you can really break a liberty in half.

Stock :p

I don't have any mods that change the ship's damage any different than stock, but I use the hollywood damage mod for eye candy ;)

Wolfy

[Qairyl]

Thanks for the tips everyone...my torps are much more effective now, getting one of the coastal/small merchants in one hit where previously it took two or three...just got back from a "patrol;" didn't actually go all the way to the patrol square, but ran into a small convoy off the coast of Portugal. Only three escorts proper, with a troop carrier on the east side (I was approaching it from the west). Took out two destroyers with torps, then ended up accidentally punching a hole in the bottom of the third with my conning tower:oops: Ruined both flak guns and both periscopes. Anyway, I went screaming into the middle of the convoy, firing my deck gun as accurately as I could towards the guns on the troop carrier. Sank it, then went on a killing spree; when all was said and done, I had sunk the entire convoy of 11 ships (12 if you count the "accidental" kill; the game didn't give it to me), including a T2, a C2, and a C3, and went home with nothing left but one torpedo, not even any cannon shells. Using a brand-spanking-new IXC. I got the most renown I had ever gotten for this one; almost 750, sinking over 44000 tons. My best patrol to date. Thanks everyone!

-Qairyl

[enaceo]

Gj on that patrol:up:

A while back i had the same "problem" you had with the ships,only for me it was for C/T3s .Sometimes when i met them,it took me at least about 5 torps+some constat water-line deck-guning to actually make them sink or sometimes only to lean to a side or take some water on .This happened at seldom and i have no ideea why (maybe i was just unlucky:) ).Usually it takes me 2 well placed shots (If i'l lucky i'll cut it in half with one).

[HunterICX]

My standard way of sinking big cargo's (C2,C3,Liberty etc etc)
1 Torp in her Engine compartment to get her laying dead in the water, and the second on her ammo stash and pray she isnt transporting Vegetables:up:

I run GW mod and I nailed 2 torps in an medium cargo, I waited 3 - 4 hours (in game) before she finnaly sank. I watched the bitch closely with my periscope and what you know...the Bitch called some male escort to nail me :arrgh!: Harrrrrrrr....sank the V&W destroyer with 2 torps in shot under her keel making him scream like a baby when he made an V split in the water!

[Qairyl]

It's just startling to me how a slight change of tactics could produce such a drastic improvement. One of the funny things about that patrol was the fact that I sank the last small merch with star shells:lol:

Current patrol, have a liberty, a T3 and a coastal down with 5 torps. Proof is in the pudding, as they say! Thanks again!

-Qairyl