If you watch the history channel show Dogfights and the episode about the Taffy 3 escort group that was attacked by the Japanese navy you will see how a single torpedo launched from (I forget the details) a destroyer escort broke the bow completely off a Japanese Heavy Cruiser. One torp and its done.

Thats not to say one torp can kill a ship. Its possible but it all depends on how you hit it. Sometimes a ship can absorb multiple torps because they hit and explode without doing any real serious damage (hull breaches but thats about it).

Ive saved many torps by just shooting 2 or 3 fish then wait a while to see if the deck is slowly sinking. If so itll go under eventually. I think the ship damage model is quite accurate.

Oh and on a side note, if you use the deck gun and aim for just below the base of the smoke stack you can blow the stack out and have it collapse into the ship. Very funny :) And I think it also really reduces the ships speed.

Cheers

According to the citation awarded to the Archerfish all 6 hit. According to the book Shinano, interviews with survivers and post war eval deducted the torpedo blisters did their job and the other torps hit and exploded without penetrating the hull.
I stand by the claim I made that best information indicates the ship was taken down by a lucky torp hitting in just the right place to explode the boiler which stopped power and a cascade of destruction which caused unstoppable flooding. Maybe it wasn't quite so much luck as skill since the sub commanders purposely set their torps to try and hit in such a way as to get past the blister defence and one actually made it. Regardless of how long it takes to sink, the result is the same.
It's possible to use the same skill in the game by knowing the weaknessess of the ships and taking advantage. Those who throw 6 torps at a ship and complain it's not realistic when the ship fails to sink in 5 minutes or less fail to take into account that's not how it HAS to be in the game which is capable of realistic damage and sinking depending on skill and patience of the player. It's equally faulty to claim that every large ship has to be taken down with 6 or more torps. I have sunk every ship I have targeted and not used that many torps on any of them. The game is rich enough in execution that one gamer's experience is not the rule for everyone all the time.

-Pv-

The Java sunk within 15 minutes after one japanese torpedohit.


February 27 1942Doorman leaves port in the evening of the 27th to intercept several convoys heading for Java. Unfortunately, he was spotted and engaged by the Japanese covering force, consisting of 2 heavy cruisers (Nachi and Haguro), 2 light cruisers and 14 destroyers. The effectiveness of the CSF was hampered by difficulties in communication. In addition, the Japanese had a 2 to 1 advantage in 8"-guns. The Java was hit by a Japanese "Long Lance" torpedo from the Nachi at about 23.32 hours near the aft ammunitionstack, which exploded. The AA-deck with the 40 mm-guns caught fire and the stern broke off near the longroom, causing flooding in the aft engineroom and a heavy list to port. All electrical equipment shut down and the only thing the crew could do, was to abandon ship as soon as possible. No boats could be lowered without electricity, so all possible livesavers were thrown overboard, such as rafts, bamboosticks etc. The Java sank in about fifteen minutes, taking 512 crewmembers (including Captain Ph.B.M. van Straelen) with her. She sank in position 06.00 S, 112.05 E.

Here is she:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...sting/java.jpg

It makes no sense to specify this thread on Battleship tecnics and where a torp would cause a support beam to flip over, break through the decks, destroy the main toilettes and then fall down killing the chef or something. ;)

As far as I know on both ends of the world battleships had thick armor in the area around their waterline, where they COULD but not HAD TO survive around 4 Torp hits. (there can always be a weak spot in the material and its giving in).
To sink a battleship, I recommend several torps at where the magazines are to cause an explosion with brute force ("explode, dammit!") or to check the draft of the target to hit it below its armor platings (which is hard without magnetic fuse because you risk a dud.)

Sinking BBs and CVs with one torp is possible, but not common as you have to be very lucky for this.....who would try and fire just one torp at such a big bucket???

I never try to save torpedoes when encountering a BB or CV ("Oh this one is nice, but I'll fire just to fishes because the other two are for the next one.") because -like steed said- if you just cause damage, you'll earn nothing.....and by the way I think no Commander in real life would have thought that way -you have what you have. ;-)

I've done a lot of research on ship sinkings over the years, and this is one of the things about capital warships which is confusing to most people. Battleships did have a lot of armor at the waterline, but that armor is pretty much useless against torpedoes. It is designed to resist a high-speed projectile, and since a torpedo is relatively slow, and basically a great big HE shell, the armor should keep torpedoes out with no problem. Unfortunately, water doesn't compress, and the torpedo's explosion is fully directed at the armor. No matter how thick or how strong, the armor cracks. Also, armor weighs a lot, so the thickest main armor cannont be extended too far above or below the waterline, meaning there's a good chance the torpedo will go right under it.

The attempt to counter this was begun toward the end of World War One with the development of the Torpedo Defense System. This consists of a large underwater area being 'bulged', or having a secondary hull several meters outside of the main hull, and comprised of inner chambers, some filled with oil or some other light liquid, and some being empty. The idea is that when the torpedo hits this outer bulged area will be destroyed, but the main hull will not be compromised. Since this system is so complex, and by nature has to be very wide to work, it is usually only seen on battleships.

Yamato, Musashi, and of course Shinano, all had a bulge 3.5 meters wide (if I recall correctly), and it was twice as high, the upper and lower sections butting together. As I remember from Joe Enright's book Shinano, one of the main things that made that ship an easier kill was the fact that she was running light, and the torpedoes hit right on the seam between the two bulges, rendering them practically useless.

In the case of Yamato, one aerial observer noted that several torpedoes were stopped by her bulges, but once a bulge is hit it is no longer any good, and at least one torpedo was seen to pass right through a hole left by an earlier one, and explode in an engine or boiler room.

Java was a cruiser, and I don't remember if she was bulged at all. If so, it was much poorer protection than that carried by battleships. The Long Lance was the most powerful torpedo used, so I'm not surprised it only took one to sink her. Also, they weren't carried by submarines.

There is always something new to learn here, thx :up:

Japanese torpedos had considerably larger warheads than the mk14. In '41 it was probably 900 lbs, but by 1942 they had 1200 lb warheads.

tater

Okay, I looked in my library's copy of Conway's, and found that Java was a Dutch light cruiser in the 7000-ton range (designed displacement 6700, normal displacement about 7010), laid down in 1916, launched in 1921 and finished in 1923 (they weren't in much of a hurry!). Java`s revenge obviously knows much more about the ship's career and sinking than I do, but I now know that her armor belt was the usual 75mm (3"), and she carried no torpedo protection. Also, given her design and construction dates, she was probably not as well compartmentized as newer ships. I'm not surprised at all she sank in 15 minutes.

Thanks mate for the explanation. But the cause was that she had
mines under the deck. So now comes the point that everybody looks to
the (target)ship but not at the cargo she carries if you know what i mean.
I always ask myself 3 to 4 torps for a tanker, how is that possilbe?

That always helps.:rotfl:

If you drop a match into a full gas tank on a car, the match will go out. If you drop a match into an empty gas tank, there will be a blast that will shoot flames out of the filler tube. Cars in movies are rigged with explosives that make them go boom. Cars in real-life wrecks occassionally burst into flames, but it is rare.

Sinking ships usually spill fuel into the water, and sometimes it burns. Sailors die from the flames, or they drown in the fuel oil. Tankers are more likely to spill oil everywhere than to burn, or sink quickly.

you mean this:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=119981
:|\\

I remember a history channel show some years back about the war. While I can't remember any of the details, they mentioned an incident where a US sub put no less then 6 torpedoes into a relatively small coaster tramp steamer. She settled, on an even keel, until the decks were nearly awash. But, she did not sink. Upon seeing the crew abondon the completely disabled ship, the sub surfaced and pumped a fair number of deck gun rounds into her from (effectively) point blank range.

Turned out the ship was full of bails of raw rubber. As far as anyone knows, she never sank, and was, in fact, efffectively unsinkable - at least until her cargo could be gotten out of the way somehow. Since she was so full of water, they couldn't even get the raw latex to ignite and burn off. The sub just gave up and went back to patroling.

"Java"'s completion was significantly delayed by WW1- much material and equipment had to come from Germany and Germany gave her own needs priority. Financial restrictions didn't help either; the planned third ship of the class, "Celebes" ("Sumatra" being the second), was cancelled due to lack of money.
By the way, none of my sources lists mines as part of "Java"'s armament- and why would she be carrying mines anyway since minelaying was never intended to be one of her duties? I would be very interested in the source for that information.

No one seems to take into account the fact that for true realism, once the war ends, half of the ships and tonnage claimed during the war should be removed from your record anyway.

^^^ if instead of a handful of merchant types, we had literally hundreds of mostly 1 or 2 off merchant types, plus a few built in somewhat large (for the japanese) numbers, but slightly different from every shipyard. Then if a large % of the information in our rec manuals was flatly wrong into the bargain. We'd also need a sinking model as standard for comparison more like NSM, but with damage control for the targets, and the ability to be towed away, too. Also if we got no bogus "Ship Destroyed" message, but only got to claim it as sunk based on seeing it go down, burn, breaking up noises, etc.---then I think you would see overclaiming by SH4 players as well.

Actually, I would love to see something along these lines implemented. Somehow, though, I think that this may be beyond even the greatest modders.

Maybe in Silent Hunter X.

Me too, lol. The ships are possible. The rec manual... is possible after a fashion---you could make several very similar ships, and make the rec manual pictures be wrong (just like RL). You'd then be picking almost randomly from a group opf simialr ships. I've also figured out how to prevent ships from being in the rec manual, so some not in there at all, pick whatever looks most similar, etc.

Will make shooting harder, at least.

It would be nice if the game created a "claims" file based upon the ship you THOUGHT it was, then it corrects it after the war...

A real claims system vs 100% perfect kill counts is something I've wanted for ages in flight sims as well. Like at some point you enter a log or debriefing screen, and you select the number of targets engaged, the type, hits, and damaged or sunk status.

tater

Just asking, but wasnt there a post somewhere in the dust files saying A/C carriers had the damadge modelling of merchants? **Might need clarifying**

With Regards,

Krauter

In the stock game, yes, they do. That's why you have to be a pretty terrible shot to take more than 1, or at most 2 fish to sink a CV in stock SH4.

tater

What really urks me is when I blow the propeller (s) off and the ship continues steaming ahead at flank speed.

I put 10 torpedoes into an ocean liner, after blowing its propellers off. It kept up with the convoy and kept on going,

Problem with both SH3 and SH4 is that you have to keep the ship sensor range in order to get the credit for its sinking if it sinks. But in order to keep up, you make noise, or have to surface far off. This does not work all that well with the eagle eyed escorts.

Sh4 seems to suffer more from the ships that can take a lickin and keep on tickin syndrome than sh3.

If a ship is reduced to damage graphics, the damn thing should sink. IMHO.