Regarding the OP issue concerning the medium cargo in the torpedoes training mission.

I just sunk one with one torpedo. Took two hours to sink. Nothing is wrong with it in GWX.

Please refer to the GWX manual regarding damage model methodology in GWX.

One torpedo will not always do the job... but usually it will.

I just sunk that exact ship about 10 minutes ago off the coast of Spain. GWX 2.0 dark in a horrible storm. I got seasick almost. 2 torpedos right in the ass at minimum depth contact pistol at abot 900 meters. She sunk in 5 minutes ass first. This is my 2nd patrol, October 1939. I was so scared because I am still bad with torpedos and could not use my deck gun in the storm. BDU sent down a ban on magnetics so I went with contact and they both detonated.

I play 92% realism also (I like the free outside camera) and it was all me. What a GREAT feeling to manually hit targets. :arrgh!:

Congratulations....another satisfied customer http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...ies/pirate.gif

I agree too: medium cargos are the toughest ships in the game. It takes less to sink a battleship, literally. They may occasionally sink with just one hit, but most need two and quite a few three.

But hell, five I've never heard of...

Gute Jagd

Buhring

That is why if I am in a Type II on the English Coast early in the War, I hate spotting a C2 Medium. I could end up wasting all my torpedoes on her with nothing to show for it.

Morning my fellow Kaleuns.

Just hit a medium cargo heading east from Halifax on 13/4/42. Aimed shot from 600m in the fuel bunker running at 4m. AOB was 90 deg. Solid hit amidships.
It just zigzagged off, lost no speed and two hours later no sign of foundering. :confused:

Seriously tough ships.
I only needed two to sink the Ark Royal last year.... ;)

It was in an Atlantic gale so mag keel shot was a no no.

Any tips or just better to hit them forward and let them drive themselves under? :)

Riccardo U-501

In rough weather, a shot directly under one of the forward cranes is very effective. By hitting there, you crack two compartments and the ship's momentum pushes it into the water.

It's been a long time since I needed more than one torpedo on a merchant of any size in rough weather. They almost always go down if you hit that sweet spot.

You'd think they would be Passenger/Cargo's instead. Those are notorious to stay afloat, no matter where or how you hit them. Often suspected of carrying shipments of ping-pong-balls.

I have no other suggestions either. Aiming at the forward mast usually does the trick. Unless you have mods that changed this particular unit class.

Agree, the passenger/cargo ships seem to be the worst.

I believe if you are within detection range of the ship you will get notification when it sinks. This may be within hydrophone range but beyond visual range. If you are within game-rendering distance of the ship (which may be beyond visual range), and you have map contacts on, you may see a grey icon appear when it sinks, but I believe there is no "She's going down!" notification.

I'm using GWX3. Generally speaking, I put 2 fish in every ship I want to be sure sinks. I do this especially in bad weather where I cannot use the deck gun to finish them off, or later in the war when everyone is armed.

During convoy attacks, I'd say that about 25% of the time a single torpedo will cause the ship to explode and sink. It's both fun and sad to see a ship explode on the first hit and then see your second torpedo also plow into it. Fun for the bonus explosions, sad for the wasted torpedo.

See my comment above. It depends on how far away you get from it before it sinks.

Rumor has it that shooting below the water line is the best way to destroy ships by gunfire. I'm not really sure.

In GWX (and possibly stock, I cannot remember), magnetic torpedoes are prone to pre-detonation to simulate the historical problems with magnetic pistols. However, in game, they never malfunction inside 1000m, even early war. So you may use magnetic pistols with impunity to attack targets within 1000 meters.

If you are intentionally using magnetic pistols, you should aim about .5 meters under the target draft so that it passes closely under the target's hull.

My understanding is that if you achieve a standard impact hit with the magnetic pistol on the impact pistol is what does the detonating.

I believe I have read people say you can make high-angle impact shots with the magnetic pistol and it will detonate on impact anyway even though the impact pistol would not work at such glancing angles. I don't know if that is true or not.

I only use the magnetic pistol when purposefully shooting under targets.

I mostly use them for killing pursuing escorts with down-the-throat shots.

Steve

That was a theory of mine.
Some ships seemed to be more or less "indestructible".
They are put there so as to make you waste your ammo by firing more shots than are strictly necessary. If you take the bait, then it's the same net effect as if you had dud torpedos (or other failures) enabled.
If I have to put 3-4 torps into 1 merchant, then I conclude I was being baited and I hit "alt-f4" to quit and get my weapons back, then go off looking for an easier target.
If I set 6m depth against a small/coastal merch. I can usually get 1 shot, 1 kill if aiming at the 'midships' mark. I know it's bait if that same ship can take 3 hits before sinking or blowing in half.
It also seems that if you do a lot of damage in a short space of time, 2 torpedo strikes within seconds of each other, vs 3-4 separate hits over 10-15 minutes, you are more likely to sink it quickly, than let the damage control teams try to repair and restore. That is, the longer it takes you to sink it, the more likely it will be that you will have to fire another shot. ...and another...

My two cents. First of all, I never use magnetic torpedoes. They premature too often. I use T1s 3-4m depth and set for impact.

Just recently I found out that you can zoom in on the periscope. If you're aiming for a specific spot on the ship, that zoom feature definitely helps.

I am running GWX and most ships do not go down with 1 torpedo. I follow them for 3 hours to make sure and then I surface and use the deck gun. I refuse to use a second torpedo unless I know that either A) the ship is at least 10k tons or B) it's a cruiser. Even then, on light cruisers, you normally need at least 3 torpedoes to put them down. I can't imagine how many you might need to do in a battleship.

If you're going to use a second torpedo on a ship, use it on the opposite side. Then even if you hit the same midships location, at least you're doing new damage to the ship.

Since you're probably going to have to use the deck gun anyway either make sure the weather's good enough or use the all weather deck gun mod. I've tried ramming–it's ineffective.

:sign_yeah: Silent Otto Kretschmer: "one ship one 'eel' " and who can argue with 'the man"! Since the U-boot is not a true submarine but rather a temporarily submersible torpedo boat until the XXIII's are developed, waiting and finishing off cripples with the deck gun is the way to go. Know the draft depths of each merchant type and use impact only-Magnetic never works for me either. Properly rationed, the deck gun ammo and eels should be gone simultaneously by the patrol's end and the tonnage count is amazing. Anything under 3000 tons is strictly cannon fodder- Kanonenfutter- those 'eels' are expensive! Too bad about the ramming.:wah::D

I will admit, I do not use realistic torpedos. Reload times, yes, duds, no. I didn't come all this way to sink something only to be betrayed by my own equipment. It's a game that I am trying to have fun at, I don't like getting cheated by bad fish. If I fire and miss, or I get a premie I will accept that in due course. If I hit and the angle was bad and it results in a "knock" and not a "blast", I will accept that too. I just like to be able to trust my torpedoes. I get the odd 'deep-runner' but by and large the depth gear can hold my settings.
I settle for running the torpedo under the target and break its back/keel. I save two for each potential target, one, and one to be sure. I rarely use 3 or 4 on one ship. If I am forced to use 5 torpedos on one ship that I can normally sink in 1-2 hits, I get suspicious...
In any case, you can sink an aircraft carrier or a battleship with one well placed shot under the keel. Even so large a ship cannot survive against that kind of structural damage. If you set your torpedoes to 2-3 meters against a battleship, then you should be sending them against the armor belt. Set them to run under and that same armor belt is now useless. Ships can also degauss to lower their magnetic profiles. Originally intended for use against coastal mines but also worked against magnetic pistols, so the impact fuse was often still used.
It looks like you're going with the 'punch a hole in the side and let nature do the work', while I am trying to break the keel. I will vary shots as the situation changes, that's one of the things that is fun about this game, there are so many different ways to play it.

Deck gun is great pre 1942 but after that everywhere bar Cape Hatteras ships are armed and one good hit destroys any hope of keeping 100% hull integrity for 220+ metres crah dive depth to avoid HK groups. Even shooting at night at crippled ships with a crack gun crew from 2500+ metres plus is risky. Dido class take 1 torpedo. Revenge class take 3. The Ark Royal took 2. HMS Nelson off Norway took 7. A 4000 tonne merchant should need one and then founder and sink over the following hour. Not 2+ gunfire. Think I'll just miss em out. Passenger cargoes are no problem at all. One torp and gone within 30 minutes. :)

Riccardo. U-501

Recently I used my last internal torpedo in heavy weather which stopped a merchant. It shipped water for hours as I waited for the weather to abate so I could load the externals and use the deck gun.

It took 37 hours for the "She's going down!" to be reported. I sailed away and never did see the hulk sink.

Another time I hit the RODNEY with two torpedoes as she sailed inside a convoy. This slowed her so that she dropped behind and after the escorting destroyers gave up on me I moved off so as to keep her just at extreme range so I could end around and finish her off.

After a few hours RODNEY increased speed and her port list was gone. Looks like the RN damage control teams are pretty good !! (Yes, I got her after all...)

I don't believe I have ever had a merchant repair damage, but the Naval ships seem to.
Salute!!
AD

Mechants also can repair damage (probalby).
Few days ago during convoy attack I hit large tanker in bow area and it started to burn. Initially small fire, but after half an hour she was completely consumed by fire and left a trail of burning (!) oil on the water. Was quite a sight at night.

So, while evading escorts, I left convoy alone for few hours and intercepted it again next day. Tanker was fine and shiny, without visible damage.

About thinking ships - normally I use salvo of 2 torpedoes with small spread angle for anything larger than small cargo/merchant, just like BdU instructed me. Probably not a way to score 100.000 tons patrol but failsafe - if both torpedoes hit the target you can forget about it and start evading/reloading/whatever else you like.

All mechant types I've met and light/auxilary cruisers confirmed to sink after 2 hits.
If I ever meet a battleship or carrier exposed for attack, I would use salvo of 4 without a second thought.

As for magnetic pistols - yes, they premature a lot, but they have their uses. Impact just literally always fail, if it hits target at say 30 degrees, but magnetic will (unless it explode prematurely, yes).

By the way does relation between magnetic premature explosions and weather exists? At the beginning I thought that it does, so I used magnetics only at good weather. But I see that they still premature 30-50% of time, confused now.

Yes, I think bad weather makes magnetic more susceptible to premature detonation, but I have never seen a mag torpedo prematurely detonate inside 1000 meters.

Steve

Well, to each his or her own, but I don't fire anything from less than 2000 meters. If you fire closer by the time you can get some distance the escorts have followed the bubbles back to your location.

I have never had an impact torpedo fail when I do my own targeting solution. If you're 90º and firing from 350 to 010 gyroangle they go off like clockwork at any range. When I just fired at any old angle and trusted the game's perfect firing solution (range, speed, etc.) they bounced off all the time.

I usually fire impacts and more rarely mags, but at least in 2 occasions when I fired mags I experienced what looked like misses but with the eels detonating. I'm not sure if before or after the estimated runnig time and they both where fired well inside the 1000 m. range (I usually fire between 700-400 m. and so I do not think they runned out of fuel).

Could I have experienced premature detonators? Or they simply bounced against the keel and then exploded while going down?

Some torpedo tips to remember if you are trying to play realistically, rather than "arcade":

1) The choice is not mag vs imp, but mag/imp vs imp. In other words, all mag pistols work as impact pistols, too.

2) In real life, you could not switch pistol settings instantly. You had to haul the torpedo out of the tube to do it. I believe I have read in this forum that you could only do one at a time and that it took upwards of an hour.

3) As in real life, magnetic pistols sometimes fail. But if you let that keep you from using them, you are going to miss a *lot* of tonnage: used correctly, the damage they do far outweighs the occasional dud. You can easily ruin Hood's day with one.

4) When you use magnetic, try to use a slow speed setting. Give your torpedo as much time as possible under the hull of your target (which is why you also try for a "long" AOB angle, too).

5) Don't be a slave to gyroangle (the orange, yellow and green triangle). The green triangle does NOT mean a perfect shot -- only that the torpedo will run straight out of the tube on launch, perhaps on the way to a hopelessly miscalculated shot. Sure, all things equal, you want a low gyroangle, but it is perfectly possible to set up a perfect impact shot when your sub is not at a 90 degree angle to the target.