Hello,

First i must say that Cold Waters is really remarkable game which after many years of absence returned me back to submarine simulations. Good work Killerfish Games!:up:

Now let return on the subject...
I work on improving realism(or at least increasing difficulty in gameplay) on one CW mod present in DL section of subsim. It will bring decreased submarine maneuverability, realistic TT reloading times, slower rudder responses in order to simulate crew response time on given orders and submarine inertia during sharp turns. Plus new weapons etc...

But now I have problem in determining what torpedo tube time would be realistic for US and what for USSR submarines.

shipkiller1 mentions 15 min per one torpedo tube, on the other hand in book "Cold War Submarines The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines" by Norman Polmar is stated this:

1. That Type XXI after firing first salvo can fire second salvo of 6 tubes after only 10 min.
2. That November class submarines can reload all 8 tubes in only 15 min. Because it has automated reloading system.
3. that Kilo class submarine can reload all of its 6 tubes in a matter of 5 minutes, also because it have automated reloading system.

Alfa and Sierra class submarines also have fully automated TT reloading system.

It is hard to believe for me that US submarines are so much slower in this operation than Russian ones. On other hand russians have a practice to use automation in their submarines (and main battle tanks also).

This is also clearly visible in number of crews in US and Russian subs. Despite Russian submarines are often of higher displacement they usually have 30-50% less crew members on board.

So can I get some let say "general consensus" what should be the torpedo tube reloading time for US and what for USSR subs?:hmmm:

For my mod with the same aim I'll be using 7.5 minutes for US subs. The reason for this is that it takes 15 minutes for one tube but you can reload 2 (one on each side) at the same time.

As for Soviet ones, I haven't decided yet.

A couple observations from another US Submariner on this subject:

1) I've seen numbers from a number of classes of sub pulled up as reference points. This makes little sense, as the weapons and procedures are going to vary from class to class. It may well take a very short time on a NOVEMBER or KILO... this has nothing to do with the LOS ANGELES or SEAWOLF. By country, sure... compare away, as the weapons and tech were, in essence, developed by the same people. But just because country A can reload very quickly, it does not follow that country B can.

2) That said, Shipkiller1 has given accurate times for US ships, both for in-port replenishment and at-sea tube loading.

In port, once the team hits it's stride, you can move a weapon from the pier to in-the-room in about 25 to 30 minutes... but other restrictions keep us from getting more than two down in an hour, and depending on how many you are shipping/unshipping that day, it can very well take all day, or even two in the case of a full room load.

At sea, one of the factors not talked about (although halfway mentioned) is the effect of clearing the tube before it's reload. The flex hose that Shipkiller mentioned has to be cleared, which has it's own procedure, to keep it from damaging the torpedo tube doors. The tube has to be drained, opened, inspected for damage, which takes time. The hydraulics that move the weapon are not set to "Speedy Gonzales" speeds... it's a slow and deliberate speed designed to not damage the weapon or the tube, and allow the reload team the time they need to perform other inspections as the weapon is loaded. 15 minutes is a good team on that weapon... more often, I'd say that it's closer to 20.

"Oh, but in combat, you'd go faster!" No... not if you are smart, for all the reason Shipkiller already mentioned. The mantra is, "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." Or to put it another way, "If you didn't have time to do it right the first time, what makes you think you have time to do it a second time?"

It may be slower... but in all honestly, outside of a ASUW engagement against multiple ships at once, if you need more than four ADCAPS, you have a bunch of other problems anyhow.

Seeing as a leading theory why Kursk sank was an experimental torpedo blowing up because of improper handling and loading procedures, I can see why slow and steady would be the order of the day.

:Kaleun_Applaud::Kaleun_Applaud:

But they will still say, well 60 years ago they could do it faster :oops:

Reloading vs. Refitting
 

Yes, I thought so too. The "12 hours to load a full complement of weapons" means at port, it takes 12 hours to open the loading hatch, disassemble some parts, place the 26 weapons on their racks, assemble and close the hatch. It does not mean that each torpedo takes two hours to load.

I'm sure that the loading time in CW probably matches the reality of automated loading systems.

Also, from what I can tell, most weapons are inspected well before combat begins. That being said, during combat itself, reloading a single tube is just a matter of having the system ram the selected weapon into the tube after anything inside, such as wiring, has been removed.

At the end of the day, playability and fun are the design drivers here, not realism for the sake of realism. 15-20 minutes to reload a weapon in a US nuclear sub may be realistic, but...

A: 15-20 minute reload per tube is not fun, nor does it fit the 20-30 min average engagement time we aim for.

B: Noone is going to believe it takes that long in reality, anyway.

So I've settled for a tiered system, where on easy level it takes 1 minute to load a weapon, 1½ on casual, 3 minutes on realistic, and 5 on elite. The russian boats can reload in 2-4 minutes depending on the sub, so on realistic and elite you may be at a tactical disadvantage against the enemy.

It's part of the great rebalancing patch I've been working on.

Now I have put out a bunch of info on reloading (tube loading) and shipping (loading onto the boat). This was to clear up many preconceived notions that have been floating around.

I personally do not mind that it takes 30 secs or 1 min to reload the tube. It makes the game play go that much faster and more enjoyable. Its not a bad balance.

If I was asked I could only fix two things in the game, it would be keep the torpedo's from acquiring on sunken ships/submarines and have heartier wires... Fixing these two issues would make the the game more realistic and would make for a better game. Everything else is just minutia...

Even if these two are not fixed, it just makes me work a little harder. :salute:

The steam page says that for the v1.06 beta, wreck homing will be temporarily disabled while the devs tweak it just a bit. You might be happy about that.

That sounds about right to me. It feels too fast at the moment but 15-20 minutes doesn't suit the cinematic style of the game. To really make it realistic you'd need a LOT greater control over timeskip (different speeds, smarter interruption system) because there'd be a whole lot of sneaking around with nothing much happening otherwise.

I kind of like it as a gameplay feature but it needs some tuning.

I've used sinking ships as cover in the past (even if I'm guessing in RL a sub would be staying the hell away from a sinking - potentially explosive wreck) and I've thought it might be cool to use a sunken ship as a hiding place to cover my noise (though I don't think it actually does).

But far more often I've had torpedoes become ridiculously attracted to some wreck significantly off their course, so fixing that would probably be a better idea.

Overall, I agree... and like Shipkiller, I provided information to clear up misinformation.

THIS. SO THIS. I find it interesting that even though the plot is displaying an acquisition cone, the weapons will often detect on something FAR outside of it to the left or right. It's made a few torpedo spreads I've fired all home in an ships I wasn't trying to kill at the time.

The acquisition cones aren't accurate ATM. I don't know if it's a feature or a bug but they only show half of the current angles.
Also, I don't know if it's realistic or not, but actual detection cones for torpedoes in CW are ridiculously high.
For ex. Mk48 has acquisition cone of 160 degrees.

Are you saying that a real MK-48 has 160' acquisition area or this is in the game.

In the game