"'Of course we had a lot of ships in here that had been torpedoed,' said (Galveston shipyard worker H.A. Suhler). 'We had one that was hit by three Japanese torpedoes: two on one side, then another on the other side, that straightened the ship back up. We put it in working shape again.'" - pg. 80 of Torpedoes in the Gulf - Galveston and the U-boats, 1942-1943 by Melanie Wiggins

:know::up:

I saw people mentioning that torps can be duds while still looking like a good hit and I just wanted to say that that is actually "realistic". Mark 14's had a problem with their magnetic triggers where they would often explode as soon as the entered the target's magnetic field... a few meters before the hull... leading to only scratches. The Tunny and Scamp at the very least reported what appeared to be solid hits where the ship motored on undamaged.

Here is a relevant paragraph from an article about the Mark 14 difficulties:
Obviously 50 feet is further out than we see, but try doing full damage modeling and compare Mark 10's to Mark 14's and it's a pretty stark difference. While small, Mark 10's always leave at least a little hole in the target... where a very large percentage of the time you get nothing with a Mark 14.

When Mark 14's do contact correctly, they do great, sink a large freighter right down with one good hit under the stacks... but personally, I just go with the Mark 10's.

The torpedo damage has random power and radius in the files. You can have a low power and low radius as random explosion, plus the magnetic range by stock is 2m, it may be the cause of low damage, but, if torpedo is adjusted to contact, then the magnetic range must be not a factor.

In the files, the torps has failure chnaces according impact angles, are 3 diferent settings.

Using the external camera to watch each hit, i was able to see, when the torp fails by bad angle, it do not explode, and falls to the sea bottom. If you are in shallow waters, you can hear some extrange explosion, after some time, i assume it is the torp hitting the sea bottom.

But... if i adjust NON DUD torpedoes option, i think... not sure, this failure by bad angle must to be ridoff, not sure, may be non dud setting, not switch off these bad angle failure probabilities. :hmm::hmm:

I've definitely had torps explode prematurely just before reaching the target, so this form of malfunction is modelled. Viewed from the periscope they look like hits, but they aren't doing any damage.

Well, actually they would slow them down, because of the excess drag caused by a mangled bow. But I assume you are speaking figuratively. A properly compartmentalized ship wouldn't sink from it. If the Titanic had rammed the iceberg head-on she probably wouldn't have sunk.

Yeah, I've had no improved luck with switching the detonators to contact with the Mark 14... I still get detonations with little to no damage. I currently suspect that it doesn't affect that type of dud, which doesn't seem right.

All I know is that when I use Mark 10's I sink just as many ships, if not more, and I don't have to deal with the frustration of a bad run where 4 out of 6 torpedoes do nothing but set some rigging on fire.

Yeah. I should have said that ten hits to the bow wouldn't have caused the ship much problems. You could probably tear the bow off without the ship sinking. I've seen websites showing parts of ships in WW2 being towed back to port because they were fully afloat after being cut in two.

i have this all the time a great many ships have happily sailed away from me despite throwing everything aside from tactical nukes at them.

freighters crossing enitre oceans despite having no props and rows of ruddy great holes on there sides.

Yeah, I concede that if the props come off the ships should at least stop, and if the rudder comes off they should at least not be able to manoeuvre.

Which reminds me - it would be nice if SH4 had propellers that rotated the right way.

That might explain why I put 6 or so torps into a Small Passenger Carrier that was docked on the north side of Japan. All torps came in from the port rear quarter at 45 degrees, impacting from under the cabin back to the props. The stern was fully under water, but it didin't sink. I came in close, and a gunner on the fore deck pinged me with his AA, so I scarpered as I was out of torps and main gun.

There was no visible damage at all, but the stern sank...

What is being seen is a function of how the torps are programmed. When they are hitting the theoretical arc of the magnetic field - they go boom. Since every torp has a damage radius that is variable - what is often seen is the following pattern:

#1 Torp detects magnetic field - causing explosion. Leading to...
#2 Explosion damage radius determined and applied. If radius is on the lower end....
#3 Hull of target vessel may be outside of (or barely inside of) damage radius

Result - minimal or no damage to the target ship - although the torp did not "malfunction" - its damage radius was insufficient to cause noticable damage to the target.

The theory on the mark 6 was that it would detect and monitor the magnetic field - when it began to weaken, this was a sign the torp had passed under the target and was starting to head away - and detonate. Close enough to be considered an under the keel shot. The problem was the sensativity of the Mark 6 - it was hypersensative - a extremely minor, random fluctuation on the way to the target could trigger the warhead - resulting in the large number of "prematures" seen in the war.

As for the game - your seeing that magnetic field detection coming into play - it detects and BOOM - instead of modelling a growth and then reduction of the mag field.

hmmmmmm


only in the Silent Hunter series can u expect to hear complaints about ships that look liek swiss cheeese but dont oblige ya by goin to Davy Jones locker

SH2
SH3

and now SH4

arent game makers learning anything?:o:doh::rotfl:

Correct...but seems to not be the responsible. :up:

because, the problem is still present even if you swith all shoots at contact, eliminating the magnetic range for detonation.

Another problem is, the size of the damage hole, seems to be in concordance with the torpedo damage radius, if you increase the radius too much, amazing holes appears.... and ships still sailing.

I tweaked the files to kill large ships filled with ammo and fuel, with a single torp, or ocasionally two, filled with freight i can kill them with 2, ocasionally 3 torps, and those problematic "empty" ships causing this topic, with 3 torps, ocasionally 4.

Yamato needs 6 or more, small battleships about 4, and havy cruisers almost 2, instead of 1

Thats is good for me... to spend 10 torps on a cargo ship was too much. :up:

My initial explanation was for magnetics only. We are seeing some damage weirdness for contact exploders as well, but it looks like what was described above - impact angle has alot to do with damage being applied. A 90 degree hit will do more than a glancing blow - as well as have a different chance of exploding if duds are turned on. Even with duds off, the angle does have an impact on the damage - and I am beginning to thing that the game measures "angle" based on AOB. If so - this would explain why some down the throat shots that explode on contact still do little or no damage.

I agree - increasing the damage radius does wonders - not only on the visual - but I have found its effective as well. The key is that you have to also increase the damage as well - because the game models decreasing damage as the "explosion" expands - so while you may have damage 10 meters out - its only a fraction of the damage inflicted at the impact point.

If you increase only the radius - you end up with graphical damage that is visual only, instead of actually being "true" damage.

In this case - anything that works is fine - its all about making the game more "realisitic" only in so much as it increases each players fun or immersion level.

After all - thats why the "nuclear torpedo" mod is still out there and being enjoyed.

Apparently they've already learned a lot - apparently some players have a lot to learn. Check this out:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._collision.jpg

Ships can take an awful lot of damage - this is the aft half of a destroyer that was cut in two by an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam war. There were similar examples during WWII. Players shouldn't assume that a hole (or even many holes) are guaranteed to sink a ship. You have to hit the ship in the right place.

The most I've spent on a tanker was 6 torps. Got me PO'd, so I surfaced astern of it and took it out with the deck gun.

What has worked lately for me has been 2 torps to slow them and deck gun shells to hole them. Puts them down nicely:arrgh!:

Uh, these have been tankers that weren't in a escorted convoy though.

Just scope them out, literally, and make sure they don't have guns aft. The ones I've seen so far only have a bow mounted gun, so I surface and attack from their stern.