You said That's pretty definitive as a statement, you didn't say they might past 2000, and it clearly refered to RL, not your in game technique. In fact they usually fired salvoes, and frequently enough did so past 2000 yards.

Blair is a readable book, and I reread it recently so specific examples of long range attacks were fresh in my mind. As I said, I could also look up patrols in Roscoe (or various books of about the exploits of particular boats) to find the same information. Actually, Alden might also list fish expended vs hits, I'd have to check.

I think it's fair to say US submarines typically fired spreads of torpedos, not single fish, regardless of the range.

tater

welcome back neco-man. I said may. It is not very diffinitive if there is still room for opposition. It is simple English.

And Blair will always remain a 2nd-rate historian.

Blair isn't at issue, it was mentioned in passing regarding accounts of specific long range torpedo shoots by specific boats, not as Blair's opinion regarding tactics/doctrine. Your post suggested that such shoots (beyond 2000 yards) never happened, though perhaps you misspoke. In fact they frequently happened.

BTW, a quick scan of Alden (US Submarine Attacks During World War II, NIP, 1989) of a couple months in 1942 shows fewer than 5% of attacks were single fish. May '44 it was 9 out of 120 attacks (7.5%).

<EDIT> Jan 43 (pulling random months here) 5 attacks out of 65 (7.6%) were single fish. 19 were 2 fish, 21 attacks were three fish. 20 were 4 or more fish.

Clearly salvoes were the norm. Even at longer ranges the rate of multiple fish fired per attack would have to be vastly lower than normal for it to be any less than "frequent" at long ranges (since the average looks to be 90% or more in salvoes).

So they USUALLY fired salvoes, possibly just as much or more over 2000 yards as under 2000 yards.

(neco-man?)

tater

Perhaps the US Navy would be a credible source?

The following is from the document...

Current Doctrine
Submarines, USF 25(A)
Prepared By: COMMANDER SUBMARINE FORCE, PACIFIC FLEET
FEBRUARY, 1944

Quote:

"The volume of fire will depend upon the importance of the target, its life in torpedo hits, whether a spread is necessary, the type of torpedo fire, the number of tubes installed, the supply of torpedoes on hand or available at the base, and whether reduction in strength BB, CC: 10 (all tubes) Large CV: 10 (all tubes) Small CV: 6 CA, Large CL: 6 AV, Large Aux., Med. CL, Merchant, Small CL, Small Aux.: 3 or 4 DL, DD: 3 The above table is simply a guide and is in no way mandatory. It is the opinion of most submarine officers that any combatant ship is worth a full nest torpedo salvo. It is also a known fact that in areas normally low in ship contacts, a submarine is justified in firing sufficient torpedoes regardless of target to cause a sinking. In like manner, in an area where targets are known to be numerous Commanding Officers must use their torpedoes with discretion and care in order to inflict the utmost damage to the enemy."

Thanks,

JCC

necro-man is what you typically call someone who revived a thread that had already been through closure.

Tutorial: How to attack many ships in a convoy.
 

What i've done is create a table for firing angles for 90 degree attacks.

The gist of it is that if you are 90 degrees ofcourse of a target and you know his speed... you dont need to ID him, nor do you need to know his range. This allows you to do rapid attacks vs. multiple ships in a convoy... to the extent that you can have multiple ships being hit almost simultaneously.

as seen in this SH3 video i made a long time ago:
http://jg52.com/gutted/sh3/Convoy.wmv

this is basically what is happening in that video (NOTE: Shooting 1 torpedo per ship is not recommended):
http://jg52.com/gutted/sh3/Animation2.gif


To pull this feat off.. all you need to do is be 90 degrees ofcourse and know his speed. The propertes of the right triangle are such that if you know both legs of it (your torpedo's speed and the ships speed).. you can easily determine any angle inside of it with a simple formula.

I've gone ahead and done the gruntwork for you (rounded to the nearest half degree):
http://jg52.com/gutted/SH4/90_FiringAngles.png

to see it in action:


vs. a 24knot destroyer:
http://jg52.com/gutted/SH4/DD_Attack.wmv


and vs. a Convoy (also shows how to approach without being detected by the lead escort and how to escape):
http://jg52.com/gutted/SH4/ConvoyAttack_90AOB.wmv


enjoy!

Absolutely BRILLIANT!!!! Thanks so much for this and taking the time to make very clear tutorial videos.... I've always wanted to take on convoys & DD's and now you've given me a tool that might finally work for me.

Thanks so much.

Elphaba

So this literally boils down to knowing the target's course and speed, right?


The angle in the table is the one between the green and blue lines, correct? AKA the relative bearing of the ship at the moment the torp is fired.

Bad strategy
 

This is a great way to hit multiple ships and watch them blithely sail over the horizon after you've wasted six torpedoes for no gain. Well, not exactly no gain. You'll be able to tell stories to your pals behind other desks after Admiral Lockwood reams you a new orfice. He has told you once that we attack ships, not convoys. Those who don't learn end up skippering a desk or cleaning out submarines as part of a turnaround crew in Pearl. One thing for sure: they never sail again. Too many skippers will listen and succeed to put up with those who take shortcuts and try to do business the easy way.

"We sink ships in this Navy. We don't damage them. We get in close and hit each ship individually with multiple torpedoes using a proper spread. Don't even shoot if you're not targeting a single ship with intent to kill it. If you have time to target another single ship and kill it too, good. Otherwise pull out, do another end around and resume carnage. Look me in the eye and tell me this is understood. One more chance. Dismissed!"

Damn, that Lockwood sure isn't flexible.

U-Boats?
 

Let me run down my sources: Thunder Below, Admiral Eugene Fluckey of USS Barb, most successful boat in history,
Torpedoman, Ron Smith, American torpedoman on several subs
War Patrols of the USS Flasher, Capt William McCants
Silent Running, My Years on a World War II Attack Submarine by Vice Admiral James F Calvert
Sub Duty, by Grover S McLeod, various US subs
Freshwater Submarines, the Manitowoc Story, Rear Admiral William T Nelson
Shinano! by Capt Joseph F Enright

That's a portion of my library. Most of these are personally signed by the Captains. Also I have first hand data from years of conversations with my wife's grandfather, Warren Watkins of USS Kraken.

Yup. all U-Boat sources. Yup, I have no idea what I'm talking about. I agree totally with what Tater has said, and my sources back him up. We sank ships, not convoys. We did it the way Tater and I have outlined. The goal is to get in damn close and fire a spread at a single ship. If the target is particularly juicy and the positioning such that plan A isn't attainable a spread from 2000 yards is a worthwhile gamble.

No historians in my group, but Blair's conclusions agree with these and other original primary sources.

Edit: And you sure had MY AOB figured. Hit me right in the head with that grail. You'll get a bill for fixing that in the morning! :nope:

In TM + NSM this is actually quite plausible if you fire 1/2/3 torps per small/med/large merchant. It's unlikely for the said vessel class to take more. Remember that if you get the angle right, this is almost like automatic targetting in that you hit EXACTLY where the periscope is pointing.

In the same TM + NSM combination it's unlikely that anyone will be able to end-around an escorted convoy without wasting a lot of fuel.

what are you talking about? The guy has written 20+ books and only two about U-boats. And it was really just a single piece of work with two volumes. not to mention the fact that he wrote Silent Victory in 1975, 20 years before his U-boat book(s).


apparantly you don't or you wouldn't say:

which is decidedly untrue. Considering he only has two works on WWII submarines out of his entire body of work, I don't see how you could even begin to argue this point let alone make a such a definitive statement.

show us criticism of Silent Victory in that regard. The worst things I have read about this book is that it contains too many details and not enough commentary. It seems like half the book is quotes from patrol reports.

Even if he is a "2nd-rate historian", Silent Victory is sourced almost entirely from patrol reports, which is what people in this discussion are basing their statements on. It's not that Blair said that skippers routinely made shots from 2000+ yards, it's that Blair quotes the patrol reports of the skippers themselves.

Clarification
 

Yes, let me make clear that this is a great tactic for attacking a single ship, an analog to how destroyers use their torpedo tubes. I'm not saying the technique doesn't work, I'm saying that its application is wrong here according to the Admiral, who is contradicted at your peril. It also solves the problem of multiple setups. So long as the convoy doesn't go haywire on you, you leave all settings the same (correcting for any new course by you) and fire away on the next ship! I hate to make it more complicated, but here goes (and it's really not all that bad). This will allow you to use this technique with gutted's tables from any heading!

Destroyers typically shot from a roughly parallel course. They set up their gauge on a pivot so the first step was to aim the gauge itself 90º to the target's course. Then they read the angle to the target based on the chart through the sight tube. That way it wasn't necessary for the attacking boat to actually have to take a perpendicular course.

You can do the same thing mathematically. Lets say the target is going straight east like the animation in the first post. But your path is more than 90º from the target's, like you're on course 45º. You just take the angle from the chart corresponding to the target's speed and add 45º to it to get your periscope offset angle. Set up the TDC ahead of time and when the target lines up, shoot. Just make sure the position keeper is off. You can fire a spread just by timing the shots.

Because you set up once, before you're embroiled in the action, this can eliminate errors in a complicated situation. I know I'm going to load up gutted's chart and go hunting!

Well, the most definitive (quick) reality check is Alden. A scan of months throughout the war shows that typically under 8% of attacks were made with single fish.

I think to be realistic, unless you have unescorted merchants where you can make a good setup in a target rich patrol area, firing a spread would have been the norm.

Before the war, they determined that the best chances was a 3 fish spread. Because of torpedo shortages, they were encouraged to be miserly with the fish. Nevermind that the fish were failing a majority of the time they were employed. Many skippers seem to have split the difference according to what I have read and fired 2 (just ahead and astern of MOT). They quickly learned that sparing the fish meant sparing jap shipping, and they fired spreads anyway.

So the original point I made stands, you should fire a spread even if you know you can sink them with one fish if you want to be realistic. I know for example, that all CVs in SH4 can be sunk almost every time by a single fish. Doing so in game would be well within the game's "rules" to get tonnage, but it feels wrong, so I always fire the entire nest at any large warship.

tater

+1

I make it a point to fire at least 2 fish at all but the smallest targets, usually 3, and never fire less than three at high-value merchants such as tankers and troop ships. DD's get one, just because those shots are usually last second "uh oh" kinds of shots, while other warships usually get 4+ depending on size.