Doubt about sinking subs with one torpedo.

[Sulikate]

Hello, I just installed DW again, and while playing a mission made by myself (akulaII (me) vs two kilos), I sunk both with one torpedo each and I wander if this is realistic. I can't remember a single time I wasn't sunk by the first fish too...
Wouldn't a sub be able to survive a single hit?

[Kapitan]

nope not at all maybe surfaced but not deep.

[SeaQueen]

Hello, I just installed DW again, and while playing a mission made by myself (akulaII (me) vs two kilos), I sunk both with one torpedo each and I wander if this is realistic. I can't remember a single time I wasn't sunk by the first fish too...
Wouldn't a sub be able to survive a single hit?

Maybe, it depends. Certain subs might be able to sustain multiple hits, particularly large double hulled vessels. On the other hand, if a submarine is at the right depth and the right pipe breaks, a torpedo won't even have to penetrate the hull for the sub to sink. Modeling damage on submarines is kind of a squishy subject. In general, the assumption of a single hit putting a sub out of action is probably fairly good.

[sonar732]

Something else to think about is the size of the warhead on the torpedo.

[Henson]

In general, the assumption of a single hit putting a sub out of action is probably fairly good.

With a heavy torpedo, yes. Airdropped, maybe.

[Sulikate]

For example, in Hunt for the Red October (the book/movie), a Typhoon takes 3:o hits and doesn't sink: is this possible?

[LoBlo]

I don't remember the Red October taking any hits in the book or the movie.... which scenes are the talking about?

Ever seen the pictures of a surface ship practice targets that have been hit with a heavyweight torpedo as an example of their explosive power. They have been known to completely break the ship in half. Total underwater detonations carry a slightly different explosive dynamic iirc, but afaik even high strength steel is no match for the explosive pressures/power of a direct hit.

[SeaQueen]

With a heavy torpedo, yes. Airdropped, maybe.

Well... ya know... it's a toy simulation. I feel like the most crude approximation in these kinds of things is frequently more instructive than trying to make a more sophisticated assumption and doing it wrong.

[LoBlo]

I've always wondered if there was anyway to randomize the torpedo damage in the game so that the number of torpedoes that it would take to sink a sub/ship would be a little more unpredictable. Right now, the torp damage is fixed as well as the platform hit points so that once you know how many torps it takes to sink a ship then it will always take the exact number everytime.

Perhaps a .ini file that boots up with the game and adds/subtracts from the damage points of each weapon randomly.... hm... I'm going to put this on the the suggestion thread.

[Henson]

With a heavy torpedo, yes. Airdropped, maybe.
Well... ya know... it's a toy simulation. I feel like the most crude approximation in these kinds of things is frequently more instructive than trying to make a more sophisticated assumption and doing it wrong.

I said maybe for an airdropped because I'm not sure what the warhead on those things can do. I assume that it's sufficient to do the job, but it IS a lightweight torpedo that I know very little about, so who knows.

A PBXN-109 warhead detonation from a 48 will ruin your day though. Big boom, dead sub. :arrgh!:

[Deadeye313]

at the depth modern subs cruise at, any kind of significant torpedo caused rupture would likely lead to an implosion due to the tons of pressure exerted on the hull.

[Sub Sailor]

Gentleman;
In most cases and even on the surface a sub being hit by one of the heavy weight fish will sink.
A problem for, at least US Boats, lack of compartments, almost any major hull breech will be enough to sink the boat. I don't know the compartment layouts of other countries boats.
I agree many of the light weight fish will not sink a sub , example the 46, but again depth is always a major factor. I would think a double hull boat could take a hit by a 48 and possibly not sink, but down at max depth she would rupture. Probably a Typhoon could take 3 maybe even 4 hits by Mark 50s or 46s.
US Boats even the Ohio class have very large compartments, compare any of our Nuke boats with a WWII boat. My first boat USS Swordfish SSN 579 had more compartments than a 688. The secret don't get hit.:arrgh!: One of the things we learned from Thresher was it would be possible to draw residual heat from the core to drive yourself to the surface. We developed sub safe with emergency blow to utilize this. If a hit did not scram the plant you good go to flank and hit the chicken switch and maybe make it even with say the bow compartment flooding, but it would be a close thing.

Respectfully,

Ron Banks MMCM(SS), USN(Ret)

[jason taylor]

I don't remember the Red October taking any hits in the book or the movie.... which scenes are the talking about?

Ever seen the pictures of a surface ship practice targets that have been hit with a heavyweight torpedo as an example of their explosive power. They have been known to completely break the ship in half. Total underwater detonations carry a slightly different explosive dynamic iirc, but afaik even high strength steel is no match for the explosive pressures/power of a direct hit.
_______________________________________
At the final scene when Tupolev tries to save the Motherland's bacon, in the book he gets one hit on Red October. It wasn't enough to sink it but it certainly would have crippled it for several months except for the fact that the Americans intended to disect Red October anyway so it didn't matter whether or not it could sail as long as it could get to port.

[OneShot]

Well,

I played a Quickmission a week or so ago where I had to find and destroy an OSCAR-II class and it took me 3 torps (Mk 50, I played the P3) to bring it to the bottom. The sub itself was in very shallow waters.

[SeaQueen]

The way to do that would be to somehow use the Weibull distribution. The idea being the probability of failure given a "weakest link." I'm not quite sure how to do it, though.

I've always wondered if there was anyway to randomize the torpedo damage in the game so that the number of torpedoes that it would take to sink a sub/ship would be a little more unpredictable. Right now, the torp damage is fixed as well as the platform hit points so that once you know how many torps it takes to sink a ship then it will always take the exact number everytime.

Perhaps a .ini file that boots up with the game and adds/subtracts from the damage points of each weapon randomly.... hm... I'm going to put this on the the suggestion thread.

[Linton]

SQ what is a weibul distribution and are there any different patterns?

[SeaQueen]

SQ what is a weibul distribution and are there any different patterns?

An engineer came up with it for modeling material failures, and it turned out to work well for any problem involving a "weakest link" most likely to fail.

http://www.weibull.com/LifeDataWeb/the_weibull_distribution.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weibull_distribution

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/WeibullDistribution.html

[LoBlo]

Nah, it wouldn't have to be that complex. Something simple that would get the job done with a minimal of coding and processing time too. I'm thinking that when the game is initialized, randomize the damage value of each weapon by a factor of X and the armor value of each platform by a factor of Y. Something like this.... and don't laugh at my amateurish/nonexistant coding skills:oops: ....

For n = 0 to numberof platforms
X = Random (-20 to 20)
Damage_wep(n) = Damage_wep(n) + X
Y = Random (-20 to 20)
Armor_platform(n) = Armor_platform(n) + Y

In a file at the beginning of each game, so that each time the game is started the damage value and the armor value of each platform is varied by a small amount, but enough to makes hits a little less predictable. To increase/decrease the probability of a kill, one would increase/decrease the baseline armor/damage rating and let chance do the rest.

[kage]

Here's my suggestion. Have the torpedo doctrine, when initing, select a random distance from the target. When that close, go boom. There you have randomized amounts of damage.

Should be adjusted to each kind of torpedo, though, which will be some work, but it is fully doable.

[LoBlo]

Here's my suggestion. Have the torpedo doctrine, when initing, select a random distance from the target. When that close, go boom. There you have randomized amounts of damage.

Should be adjusted to each kind of torpedo, though, which will be some work, but it is fully doable.

Hey, that's a great idea. I've taken your suggestion and gave it a go by messing around with the torphoming doctrine to try to randomize the torp damage. So far its working pretty nicely. Thanks.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?p=291629#post291629

[SeaQueen]

Here's my suggestion. Have the torpedo doctrine, when initing, select a random distance from the target. When that close, go boom. There you have randomized amounts of damage.

Should be adjusted to each kind of torpedo, though, which will be some work, but it is fully doable.

That begs the question, though, how should torpedo range errors be distributed? Certainly not uniformly!

[LoBlo]

Your still thinking too complex.

The way the game engine handles target range, blast radius, and armor damage kage's suggestion actually works quite nicely. Increasing or decreasing the probability of a kill can be achieved by bringing a platforms armor value closer and closer to the weapon damage rating. The probability that the blast radius of the torp will surpass the armor rating of the platform decreases as the platforms armor rating nears the weapons damage rating.

Its not a perfect RL solution, but its a nice upgrade in unpredictability.

[JgzMan]

If I were going to randomize damage, I would do it as follows:

1) Reduce damage of each and every weapon in the game by, say, 15%, or 25%, or somthing similar. Call that number X. (the actual number, mind you, not the %)
2) each time a weapon explodes, add to the damage a random number ranging from 0 to 2X.

That seems that it wouldn't require too much editing. Each weapon would need an additional constant assosaited with it (the number 2X, for that particular weapon) and a RAND function. To save time, you might call the RAND function on launch, or even on weapon load. Whenever the CPU load is lowest.

[anthrax]

I think that any hit on a submarine that breaches the pressure hull will basically right it off. For a single hulled sub, I think a 100 pound warhead found in a light weight torp will be more than enought to rupture the 3 to 4" thick preassure hull found a single hull sub especailly when it is at depth.

If the pressure hull ruptures, uncontrollable flooding and result and the sub will drop to the bottom as submarines when submerged have ZERO reserve boyancy. Any flooding will cuase it to sink. I suspect that the MBT on a typically sub isn't that big and will definately not compensate for a hull breach and flooding of a compartment.

[micky1up]

i think you had better take alook at the royal navy heavy weight torpedo spearfish with its shaped warhead and up to 70kts speed more than a match for any of todays boats dare i say even the double hull monsters:D

[Kapitan]

Typhoon and Oscar class submarines are designed to take a direct hit and manage to come to the surface with two compartments fully flooded.

Note when kursk sank she had her first three compartments flooded but still her rear broke surface and nose climbed up however it took the flooding of 7 compartments to pin her down to the ocean floor, and it was multiple torpedos that did that.

[micky1up]

Typhoon and Oscar class submarines are designed to take a direct hit and manage to come to the surface with two compartments fully flooded.

Note when kursk sank she had her first three compartments flooded but still her rear broke surface and nose climbed up however it took the flooding of 7 compartments to pin her down to the ocean floor, and it was multiple torpedos that did that.


nope her aft end didnt reach the surface at all where did you get that from?

[Kapitan]

Well i have been in reasearch for now five years on kursk, i have a scaled down report thats 700 pages long, i also have other documents relating the kursk is 505 feet long the sea she sank in was a little over 300 feet deep if she sank at a 28 degree or more angle down then her back end would have come up to the surface.

Also note the vessels that she was simulating attack wouldnt have seen her back end they were to far away and more concerntrating on a torpedo coming than a missile so all eyes were on sonar systems.

[micky1up]

considering that the fleet spent time looking for her when she sank i doubt that her aft end came out of the water and the blast whole being so big in thebow the whole boat apart from the aft end flooded very quickly preventing the angle needed to broach the surface also the depth of water here works in my favor the rush of water and weight gained she would have hit the bottom before the ass end came out yet again preventing the aft end coming out

[Kapitan]

Yes its very true however thats a theory, theres others, like one which says she completely surfaced then sank, i doubt either seeing as she would have briefly been picked up on radar.

However the offical report only notes three possible happenings to kursk.

[kage]

If I were going to randomize damage, I would do it as follows:

1) Reduce damage of each and every weapon in the game by, say, 15%, or 25%, or somthing similar. Call that number X. (the actual number, mind you, not the %)
2) each time a weapon explodes, add to the damage a random number ranging from 0 to 2X.

That seems that it wouldn't require too much editing. Each weapon would need an additional constant assosaited with it (the number 2X, for that particular weapon) and a RAND function. To save time, you might call the RAND function on launch, or even on weapon load. Whenever the CPU load is lowest.

X, being a database variable, would (presuming it's available to doctrines) make 2X an easy value to calculate.

However, we cannot adjust how much damage a weapon does on the fly in that fashion. The only workable solution is to rely on proximity detonation.

Your suggestion may be workable as a "lethality distribution", however; up the damage value by 2.5 times its current value, and have it detonate up to Y meters away, where Y would give about 0.8X of damage or something.

As such, it may even be a way to uniformly calculate what distance it should detonate at.


As for "whenever cpu load is lowest" I'd say screw that - the ideal impact will be negligible to begin with, not that we really know when it's at its least. Selecting the distance randomly at firing time is by far the most convenient from a scripting perspective, though.