I think the whole shoot-at-the-waterline thing is overrated anyway. Recently I scored a hit on the port side of a ship and after the obligatory 2-hour follow I came up on the opposite side of the ship. My deck crew are on orders to only fire at short range–they just miss too much at medium or long–and to aim for the waterline. Assuming that the ship had maybe 8 holds, and that the torpedo hit had flooded two, I waited until the deck gun crew had scored no less than four waterline hits before ordering them to hold their fire. I figured with two holds flooded on the port side and 2-4 holds flooding on the starboard side, the ship would slowly but surely sink. I had planned to wait another hour to see how long it would take, but after no more than 15 minutes of tagging along with it I heard:
SHIP SPOTTED and there was a nice destroyer that had come along to hassle me in 46m water. Ugh! Thank God it was early in the war and I managed to sneak away at 1 knot without damage. Since the cargo ship was far ahead now, it took me another 15-20 minutes to catch up to find the ship still burning merrily, going along at 4 knots, and showing no signs of sinking. I gave the deck gun crew the green light and they fired at the waterline until the ship exploded.

It is, because you actually should shoot "below the waterline"... about a meter... for maximum effect. Ideally, you will see a splash when your shell hits the water, then a brief flash of light when the shell hits the hull. If you are close and in calm conditions, you may hear a muffled "thump." If you see any hint of fireworks, it is probably a bad shot.

If you are playing stock, not GWX, you have some leeway. The stock shells are waaay overpowered and the hitpoints are not as realistic.


Holds traverse the ships. If a ship has five holds A B C D E, and you put a fish deep into C, you have flooded C across the beam. Going around the other side and poking more holes into C won't help.

(By the way, one tip for aiming torpedos: if you can hit just under a dual crane on a merchant ship, you will generally crack two holds, since cranes use bulkheads as foundations).

This is really one job on your boat where it pays great dividends to learn to do it yourself. No matter how good your crew is (and much of the crew "skill" goes to reload speed, not accuracy, though there is some), you will always be a better shot.

True, but I no longer have the patience for it.

I now race up to ships (1939, early 1940) and park my u-boat 1000 meters away and let my gun crew do the work at 4-8X time compression.

pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip pip "She's going down!"

Move on to the next target.

Yeah, when I say an at-the-waterline shot, that's what I mean. I saw the shell hit the water first and then explode against the hull.

I'm playing not stock but GWX.

I disagree because there are many times I show up 2 hours after impact to see the ship listing badly to port, but it hasn't sunk yet. That surely cannot be because of a hold flooded all the way through. The port side must be heavily filling with water whereas the starboard side is holding it up.