Hit right, they will and do.


Two normally works for a battleship if you are lined up right. You can go up to Norway in April 1940 and practice over and over and over and over again if you want to learn how.


No, just hit it in a different compartment. This is detailed in the GWX manual and has been discussed here at length for years.

The all-weather mod is an arcarde and unrealistic mod -- fine if you want to play that way, of course, as are all mods.

The deck gun is a "nice to have" early in the war. Saves using a torpedo on some low life, or finishes someone off. But making tactical decisions based on whether you can use the gun is just... odd.

No offense... seriously. But you are feeling yourself forward into the game, and talking about it, which I respect. But a lot of what you are putting out as truth, rather than questions, is just wrong -- and, worse -- has been put out 1000 times before. Even by me when I first discovered the game.

Trust me when I say every bit of what you question or encounter has been covered at length. Use the search function and you will, for example, find 50-60 pages on approach theories, intercepts, convoy attack strategies, pros and cons of mag/impact, etc etc.

Not trying to shut you down, but this game is so thoroughly analyzed that one could write a 500-page manual on how to play it correctly.

If you hit a ship and it goes down on one torpedo you should consider yourself lucky. I remember torpedoing a cargo ship, waiting 2 hours hoping it would sink, and then coming up on the other side and hitting it with about 10 shots, four of which were definitely below the waterline. I then called a cease fire and started waiting to see how long the ship would take to sink. Instead I got jumped by a destroyer and spent several hours at the bottom of a shallow section running along at 1 knot before shaking him off and catching up to the ship to find it burning merrily and steaming straight on.

By way of comparison the Kattegat was sunk during the battles of Narvik by four shots at the waterline and the ship was a 6,128 ton tanker–a ship designed to carry fluids.

So I don't care if you designed the mod. Ships do NOT usually sink with just one torpedo in the game, and a reasonable number of shots at the waterline is similarly no guarantee that the ship will go under.

In my other campaign, at home, I started in Lorient 1940 and sailed out with a IXB to do battle for Deutchland. I found a convoy with a light cruiser in the middle. With a two-torpedo salvo at 1º I hit that baby and, since I was still at periscope depth, I had the joy of watching the two torpedoes slam into the ship on the F6 screen. One hit it in the stern and the other hit it in the bow. Did it sink? No, the ship not only did not sink, but it also did not even slow down. So true to style, I have circled around to the other side of the convoy where I hope that a third torpedo, midships, will finish it. I won't know how that works out until the weekend. Remember that this is a LIGHT cruiser. I can only assume that it will take 4 to kill a normal cruiser, 5 for a battleship, and a thermonuclear device for an aircraft carrier. Enemy subs, as far as I understand, require Armageddon to sink. I've never engaged one.

I seriously doubt that.

As it's difficult or perhaps impossible to control the compartment you're hitting it in, the simplest solution is to circle around to the other side of the ship. This doesn't eliminate the possibility that you'll hit the same hold, but it does allow for new damage to the ship and it's easy. You just follow the ship submerged for a couple of hours, then pop to the surface, find the ship in the Uzi, tell your helmsman to go to heading and you magically end up on the other side of the ship when you overtake it. If it's listing, it'll be easier to shoot it below the waterline. What's the problem?
Yesterday I hit a coastal tanker with a torpedo. The ship immediately stopped and listed so hard to port that I was sure it was a goner. I waited for the patrol craft to leave and then I popped to the surface to finish it off with the deck gun only to find 13 m/s winds. Five hours later when the ship was still showing no signs of sinking, I finally modded my submarine specs to permit the deck gun to be manned. My expert deck gunner finally fired the first shot off after two minutes because it took him that long to get out of water long enough to draw a bead and fire. Even then, he missed and that against a stationary ship at 500 meters. After his 5th shot he managed to get two of them into the bottom of the boat, which was clearly showing because of the extreme list, and the tanker finally went under. As such I do not consider the mod to be arcadish or unrealistic in the slightest. It stays.

Well it's 1940 bud. We haven't even invaded Paris yet. Give me some torpedoes that don't have depth keeping problems and acoustically guide themselves and I'll happily give up my deck gun. Until then, it's a valuable part of my arsenal and my deck gunner is the most valued member of my team. For his extreme bravery in getting down there under 10 meters of water and manning that deck gun while tied with a rope to make sure he didn't get blown overboard for good, he will be decorated when I get back to Wilhelmshaven.

You can talk all you want, but you'll never convince me that black is white, that up is down, or that most ships sink with one torpedo using GWX. I have eyes, and they can see.

You are. I find that about 20% of the time if I hit a ship in convoy it will explode violently and sink with one shot. Luck I guess. I do not know where they "magic spots" are on the ships, nor am I able to land shots with that kind of precision with map updates off, anyway.

I have, on several occasions, sunk Fiji class cruisers with 2 hits. I find them to be weaker than most merchants. The few times I have found battleships I engaged with all 4 torpedoes so I don't know if less would have done the trick or not.

I have one-shotted every S-class sub I have torpedoed, though they take forever to actually sink underwater. I took a bunch of screen shots once of my boat parked next to a "sunk" S-class as I posed for pictures with our "captured British sub". :)

There's no problem, but you haven't done anything that you could not have done without sailing around the target.

Also, you make me twitch calling the UZO an Uzi. :D

You can play with whatever mods you like, and I sometimes resort to anachronistic play styles also, like routinely killing escorts. But historically, my understanding is they didn't try to operate the deck gun in heavy seas. The historical solution would have been to use another torpedo or just leave the ship to its fate. I was just watching an interview with Reinhard Hardegen where they did just that - he did not want to waste another torpedo on a small damaged ship.

Gotta agree, I totally rely on my deck gun for tonnage early war.

He never claimed that they do. He just said if you hit them right, they can.

Steve

I think the key to this arguement is a tweak in the explosive yields of the torpedoes. The general consensus is that the ships damage models are too robust but i wouldnt fancy editing each of the ships damage models. It would take a lifetime to do and another to perfect it. There are so many variables involved when a hit is scored that its no wonder it takes a random number of torpedoes to sink a given target. I have sank BBs with 1 and small merchants with 3; It all depends on the environmental conditions, ships cargo, course relative to weather, speed, shot placement. Its a long list but a torpdeo that has a bigger bang reduces the effect of these variables sonewhat. As for the deck gun mod I use it as it would be more realistic using a gun up to 12ms rather than the stock 5ms. Anything over that would be an act of bravery but still possible therefore allowing me to make the judgement call required of a real commander

I can say with GWX I have sunk small merchants with one torp. Admittedly not often - I think 3 all told in 15 patrols. Others, if weather permitting and we are not too close to shore (don't want them radioing for help from shore base) I will surface and use the deck gun.

What I have noticed is that after the torp has hit them their speed will drop. It is those that are unable to get their speed back up to 6 or 7 knots that flounder and eventually go under. So I am assuming some repair work is going on and some are successful others not.

After reading the below link on freighters and tankers that did not sink - one, "Imperial Transport", can you believe, with only its stern left, still managed to survive after been smacked by one torpedo!!!!! I don't have a problem with not finishing off a freighter with one torp.

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1471.html


What brought me to this link is that my present boat is U-53 and I was interested to find out what happened to her. She was lost with all hands by depth charges in 1940 in the North Sea off Orkney

I can attest to the invincible Passenger/Cargo's. I hit one amidships with a torpedo and subsequently surfaced and began shooting it with the deck gun. After expending a considerable amount of ammunition, the ship broke in two just fore of the pilothouse from an explosion, and I received the "She's going down!" message. I steamed away at 10 knots and watched the ship with the free camera. I gave up after watching the ship for three in-game hours and seeing it not drop an inch lower in the water. Tough little buggers...

An important factor. After a while, you just "know" where to (try to) hit.

Just have to brag,

Last night, southwest of Gibraltar I intercepted a task force with an Illustrious-class carrier in it. It was doing 17 knots.

I hit it with 4 T1 torpedoes running medium speed from 4km out. Impact pistols, 5m depth.

All 4 hit and exploded.

She went down in about 5 minutes. :)

Steve

Heh! Sure makes up for all those coastal freighters and tramp steamers, doesn't it! :rock: