I think he means that some dude on an escort notices a torpedo, he shouts it to the bridge, there some guy grabs a mike and shouts it to the merchants.
The merchant captain hears the message, goes like "what the heck", is momentarily stunned and then shouts an order to the conn man, who is now shaking with fear and chooses the wrong side of "Fight or freeze". The captain takes over the conn and starts evasive manoevers.

So there should be like a 25 second lag between spotting and responding. Is what I think he means.

But of course, it is OK for your weapons to be launched point and click without any time lag, right? :03:

Of course our submarine crew is an example to our Navy and those of others ;) :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

Liberty ship convoys were a completely different thing. 50-100 ships.

We seem to be thinking that we are dealing with civilian ships here.

But we are mistaken then. The Boris Chilikin for instance, which you will encounter in a tender interdiction mission, is a replenishment ship operated by the Soviet navy.
Yes the crew voice will say it is classified as merchant, but by no means does this mean that we are dealing with civilian ships.

Developer already confirmed this:
"The dive rates are realistic. It is the torpedoes that are artificially nerfed, because we wanted that cinematic aspect of Hunt for the Red October. "

it is the torpedoes not capable to follow you what got into fantasy waters realm.
That said, I am not complaining here, as this is a trigger happy game, and clearly it won't be fun if torpedoes were impossible to avoid

But on that same spirit, I will work on tweaking the sensors, and maneuver of the ships/ weapons until I find some setting that makes it less "almost impossible" to play. I mean the realistic setting of this game goes from "too easy" if you play in 1984, to "medium difficulty" in 1968 using Mk37 to way "too difficult" with Mk16 only

No, depending on the type of weapon, there should be some lag. More for missiles, less for torpedoes
2 to 3 seconds maybe?

The developer already confirmed that drag is not modeled yet, which makes it more agile that it should.
And my example was ARA General Belgrano, a former USN Brooklyn class, I bet it was following a typical zig-zag formation, and not doing the snake pattern seen in the game

Yes, 25 seconds seems reasonable

I initially thought Mk16's were useless when I started playing the '68 campaign but after a while I kind of began wishing I could fire those things under 100m because when you get the hang of them they are a LOT more reliable than the 37's.

(They're fast, they always go where you point them, they never come back after you and they always sink anything they hit.)

Get in close and fire a spread, or use them in a stern chase.

Yes, after getting into much closer I am definitively getting hits. But actually my last Sverdlov took 2 Mk16s to sink, that said, its speed was only 1 knot after the 1st so it was really easy to finish it off

But all those hits were against "running away" ships; because once the enemy decides to retreat, they would go in a straight line/ no longer change heading. So as long as I have the speed advantage, I will eventually get into a good firing solution

A bit regrettably that this straight line behaviour rewards "messy" battles when you already get detected, while it is a lot more difficult to aim in an ambush scenario because of the constant heading changes

Try not being detected.

What he means is the moment a weapon is detected, everyone should immediately sh*t their pants, and stand around for a few seconds cleaning themselves up before initiating evasive action.

Actually, you yourself already addressed this point:

The Belgrano was taken by surprise. An ideal target for a spread of three Mark VIII dumbfire torpedoes.

Truth is, you're just not thinking correctly. The 1968 campaign requires weapon use very similar to a late WW2 scenario, the only difference is your submarine is nuclear powered, and very fast.
You still need to sneak past the escorts, put yourself into a favorable position, then attack a convoy with a spread of torpedoes from close ranges.

If you've played Silent Hunter, then you should have all the skills you need.

Exactly, my post was agreeing with you.

I have played both SHIII and IV at max realism. I am actually playing SH5 with Wolves of Steel at the moment... I was not aware of it until I came back to Subsim a few days ago for Cold Waters; having a lot of fun with realistic navigation (you need to calculate positions manually, including your own)

With regards to the range and maneuver behaviour, I was actually wrong. And it is correct that at 1.5 to 2K yards, there won't be a lot of chances to escape a spread. Getting back to Gen Belgrano, it was sunk at around 800 yards, but it was attacked under very heavy seas conditions, so the Argentinian Navy didn't have a chance at ASW against a nuclear submarine. So I am not contesting this anymore

Back the pattern of ship convoy movement (I am not talking the screening escorts which naturally will need to do more random movement), it is not realist to change, like Olympic synchronized swimmers, heading and speed every few minutes, when you are in a weeks or month long patrol, not possible. instead you have a zig-zag pattern of movement as it is in Silent Hunter.. just imagine trying to plot manually speed and course SH style..

You compare too much with SH.
In ColdWaters there are no convoys. There isnt an HX225 from Halifax to Liverpool. There is an invasion force from Murmansk to Bergen. Or replenishing ships to the Greenland Sea. These will be "merchants" operated by the Russian Navy and thus professional soldiers. The Boris Chiliken is classified as a "merchant" but was always a Navy vessel. And that invasion force is out there for a few days, not a patrol that lasts weeks or months.
Its not WW2 and not Silent Hunter.