Nah, he was commenting on the BR comment that it would take as few as 2 torps to down a BB, with 6+ for the Yamato.

As to your comment about variable sinking times, fear not!: the BR has done a great job, particularly if taken together with TDW's fire damage mod, in ensuring SOME ships take a long time to sink, by virtue of flooding and/or fire eventually overwhelming the floatation. This means, as my poor understanding has it, that it's no longer just a matter of accumulating enough Hit Points and 'Boom' down you go. So, that's great.

On the other hand, to address your implicit concern about not having enough variety in sinking styles, I have been re-running an attack scenario all morning to check out various criteria. I have a nice Furutaka Heavy (which, fellows, as an aside, is incorrectly weight listed in the game at 7100 tons - at this stage, with the upgrades done {way before the war - to accommodate planes etc}, it should be north of 9,000 - I think :hmm2:) running on a straight line at 1500@18 knots. I was experimenting with a SINGLE torpedo take-down, playing with depth settings and spread angles. I have run the scenario a dozen times (I saved about thirty seconds before the initial attack, so its quick to run!).

At just shy of 25' depth (which, on the face of it, would seem to be too much!!), I am getting a lovely explosion and fire, a slow down, but no sink (even after following him with external camera for a couple of hours) WITH ONE EXCEPTION! With a spread angle setting of '3' toward the bow, I get a hit just below the main forward turret, a LOVELY, ginormous explosion (Magazine, obviously) and she pretends to be a submarine on Crash Dive and goes down in about a minute, still doing about 15 knots, I'd guess. She salutes the sky with the back quarter at about 70 degrees and slides under with no fuss. So, worry not, randomisation is alive and well, as are sinkings from hitting hyper-vulnerable spots.

Regards

Gryff :arrgh!:

Experimenting with LST, patience for higher tonnage?
 

Something occurs to me that is obvious when I finally thought about it, and that is the possibility of much higher tonnages from patrols FROM the DECK GUN, when the LST (and TDW's fire damage?) mod/s are used.

I use the gun. A lot. I shoot until the Engineer informs me, "We hit him! He is going down!" Now that this mod is in the mix, I will have to try using, say, half the expected number of shots, then withdraw and observe the effects of fire and flood. If things go as they might, I may end up nearly doubling the tonnage. What do you skippers think? :hmm2:

Gryff

I have found LST behavior to be very realistic, all depends on where and how you hit your target and of course, the target.


One example is the Nippon Maru Tanker-10000 tons. Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 Mark 14/23 , sometimes one, depends on where and what the tanker is loaded with.If loaded with fuel, they light up like a zippo lighter. Mark 18's pack less of a punch, but if they hit the ship right, they will sink her. Sometimes, one well placed fish will cause flooding and ship will sink hours later, just depends. Crew rating also has an effect on how they sunk, vet and elite crews handle damage better and can keep a ship from sinking, where as those set to competent, novice or poor have a more difficult time.

One torpedo will usually do in the smaller merchants and warships, although the small Haruna Maru tanker is way too tough, one fish should take it out, took 4 to finish one off.

I hit the Yamato with 3 Mark 18's, did nothing.I hit a Late War Ise BB with six, it crippled her, left her dead in water and listing but would not sink, needed more fish.Unfortunately my torpedo tubes were all wiped out by her escorts, so never was able to sink her before I left the area.

I once had to hit Yamato with 12 torpedoes to get a sinking. Sink the Yamato with 6? You got lucky, they hit just right and caused catastrophic damage.Crew rating matters as I said, noticed in some years in RSRD Yamato is set to veteran or elite, in later years, its set to competent.I hit her with three fish and she sailed on like nothing, set to competent in 1945.

usually takes 3-4 for heavy cruisers, which is accurate. So many variables which makes it fun.but I stand by, from what ive see LST is realistic as can probably get in SH 4.Carriers were pretty fragile in WW II, large but they were not armored mostly.Taiho for example was sunk by a single Mark 14 hit, caused damage to avgas storage tanks, vapors built up, kaboom.


My general rule is for a Large tanker or merchant...3-4 fish. Medium, 2-3. Smaller 1-2. Warships such as a carrier, BB, worth all six.

Well, once you start a fire, it does help.I rarely waste torpedos on small merchants such as the Taihosan, sea conditions permitting use deck gun on them.Once start a fire and score a few solid hits around the stack, its a matter of time.Few hits in the waterline helps as well.

Well, BH, you must be getting to know me a bit by now. Having thought of the technique, I couldn't help myself: had to test the hypothesis.

While waiting around south of Truck to go in by night (and take out some surface merchants by gun while I'm at it), a co-operative Akita Maru happened along doing 11 knots. Instead of banging away at a round every ten seconds or so, I slowed right down to maybe one every 30 to 60 seconds.

I ran off 10 or so HE rounds at above 70% accuracy (lumpy seas @ 4,500), then wandered over on camera to inspect damage. He had dropped from 11 to 4 knots, and I saw 4 nice holes in the hull, low enough to be getting some flooding. I watched for 15 or so minutes and two things happened:
1- I had a thought about the rate of damage vs the rate of repair from Damage Control teams - an issue with this technique (you beat me to it, BH, without knowing what the crew levels are on my target (or how to look them up yet,) this factor will play a significant role); and,
2- I watched as her speed increased to 8 knots. "Ah, well", I thought, "one experiment doesn't make a scientific study", but then, with no fanfare (and no fire observed at any stage), she started to list. Within 3 minutes it was all over. I wonder what would have happened if I had only put 5 rounds into her? More testing....

Of course, if the consideration is accumulating tonnage, being confident that an over-the-horizon sinking an hour or a day later will be credited to your 'kill' list is essential. Of this, I am not sure.

So, as a further experiment "tonight", instead of blasting away till they are sunk, I will lob, say, ten rounds into each merchant anchored in Truck that I can safely access, then move on to attack the Task Force. I can give them 8, or maybe 24 hours (depending if I run out of dark-hours and have to lay low for the day), before I come back out and finish off the survivors.

I'll let you know how it goes (if I survive).:salute:

Gryff

Can find out their crew level by going to the proper file in the campaign files, open up with the ME.If raiding Truk, open the japharbortraffic file. Find the location and see what the ship(s) are set to.

Sounds like crew repaired some damage, started moving but the flooding from the waterline hits overtook them and ship was lost.I would guess crew setting was "competent" as much merchants in RSRD are set at. I've attacked a tanker set to elite before, expertly avoided 2 of 4 torpedoes at night(given the moon was out, could see very well) , but while escorts kept me at 350 feet dodging depth charges, crew made repairs to get 6 knots out of the tanker, she sailed on a bit until i slipped away, surfaced, and moved in while escorts were depth charging whales etc. I dove again, closed to 800 yards, fired two more, both hit, left her a flaming wreck, crew kept her afloat until a final torpedo caused a catastrophic explosion, she split in two and sank quickly.

Tanker with a "normal" crew wouldve prob been finished after the first two.

Great story, BH. :up: I can see it all. (Though HOW any tanker, full of volatiles, survives any explosive hit, I can't fathom - pumped-in CO2 notwithstanding.) Your last image puts me in mind of a great final scene (where the evil slime-ball gets his come-uppence) in that oldy, but goody by Wilbur Smith, 'Hungry as the Sea'. Must re-read that.
Gryff

Well tanker I spoke of was loaded with "Freight" not fuel or ammo.The big boom came from exploding the boilers. When they have fuel, they explode quite nicely when hit them just right.During night surface attack, fired 3 fish each at two big tankers, they both exploded after one torpedo.They were 500 yards apart, it looked like one massive fireball, it took out the poor Type A CD as well as a small taihosan maru freighter, so four ships went down.Always fun when that happens.

Hoorah! :arrgh!:

G

Just wondering.. is it up yet?

I find this mod is one of the essential ones actually, otherwise ships just sink too fast.Some ships do sink incredibly fast(as some did in rl) with this mod, just depends how the torpedoes hit and how many. Looking forward to the update.

Just spent an hour and a half composing some observations re sink times and kill credits based on the testing from last night's escapades, and teaching myself to resize and upload a screenshot and I accidentally closed the webpage and lost the lot. :/\\!! I'll go and sulk for a while and try again later...

Gryff with the Grumps :har:

Defiantly dow loading when updated. :D sounds like a very immersive mod. Thanks guys for the hard work.

OK, I've had an Adequate Sulk, so here is the outcome of my test/mission.

Snuck into Truck via south channel under cover of darkness and over 3 hours or so hit 6 merchants with gun using a limited number of rounds (10 each) (at 2 x Nippon; 2 x Monuyama; Akita; Buzyun) at two locations. (And, just for laughs, I took out a Small Subchaser with a 'cutie'. Quite liked that!) One merchant went down immediately, and another half an hour later. I got credit for these. The others went down throughout the night.

I set up in the channel north of Truck by 06:00 to wait out the day prior to going after the at-anchor Fleet undercover of darkness - at 52', you are too visible in daylight! So, at dawn I used the camera and 'flew' back and was flukey enough to see the last 5 minutes of the life of my second Nippon. At just after 7:30, I was able to watch as she slid under, heavily on fire. But, no credit.

This behaviour was confirmed later with the Fleet. I put on the bottom 2 x HCs; an ASW CV; an FC; and, the piece de resistance, the Yamato. The only one that I got 'credit' for was one of the HC's, because, courtesy of a previous mission, I knew just where to hit her with a single shot to take out the magazine. Huge multiple explosions, and almost instant announcement that she was going down. I'll see if I can show you an image of the other HC that I 'failed' to sink.

http://imageshack.us/a/img17/2843/ipcb.jpg
:nope: If the lights are on - it can't be sunk!

(As an aside, what's with the impossibly tough Small Subchasers? I had to put 10 HE and 3 APs into one and got the one last night with a perfect 'cutie' shot, but even so, they both subsequently took over 15 mins to sink!! Then, neither got marked on the map - but I did get Captain's Log credit for one).

So, in summary, without understanding the code for 'credits', it would seem that to get a red map marker and credit, you need to be within line-of-sight/hydrophone range AND garner enough Hit Points OR sufficient Fire and Flood PROVIDED it is in deep enough water to count as 'sunk'.

If you are after tonnage, and have the patience, limiting the ammo or torps you expend, then allowing time for the fire & flood to do their thing could get you a lot more tonnage. BUT, if you want credit (and, therefore, renown), you need to hang around. That can be bothersome (boring &/or dangerous!)

On the other hand, submariners and airmen would hit and run, often not knowing their results - hence JANAC and equivalents in other services...

Your choice - strategy vs realism. So there! :salute:

Gryff