Torpedo Availability and recommendations
 

Playing RFB and I'm really starting to hate the Mark 14s. The last attack I made I had two misses, the misses were probably my fault as I set the gyro angle too far to the right on my first shot. The other pair of torps I fired were duds and the 14s also cost me my last target on my first patrol since the lot of them were duds.

Now being late 43' I figure there's got to be a better torp available to me in RFB for my next war patrol.

I share you pain with the Mk-14s. Now I know why they are designated Mk-14. That is the rough percentage of torpedoes that won't be a dud [14%]

I hear that is you shoot at slow speed that it helps but frankly I have not found that to be true. I am also in 1943 and I find that I have to shoot 6 fish to get two booms (contact only shallow depth).

I get about 50-60% dud rate.

It is very very frustrating.:wah:

No big secret there, early war MK14s are pos. They do improve quite a bit as the war progresses though, but there won't be anything radically more reliable available.

You can however greatly, really almost a night and day difference, improve their reliability by remembering a few things when firing. These are especially important early in the war:

• Always use the slow speed setting
• Make sure the torpedo track angle is as shallow as possible(early war). No kidding here, early war MK14s have a 100% failure rate at TTA of 90 in RFB.
• Use the shallowest depth setting possible

Yep those are the best ways to get "booms" with the Mk.14s they had 3 problems
1. ran deep sometimes by 10 feet so you set to 10ft it really goes to 20ft so set them to 5ft or lower (in feet not depth)
2. The magnetic detanaotrs often failed best cure for this is to not use them this is what was done in the real war and in the end they removed that system compeletly
3. at certain strike angles the contact detnators crushed themselves failing to set of the torpex best way to solve this have dont have them hit at a dead 90 or even close to it.

That is why it took so long to fix the Mk.14s they had 3 problems and the running too deep helped hide the failure of the magnetic dets as they ran so deep how could you know that that also was crap?:hmmm:

Another cure is to use Mk.18s they dont have as many issues but they can still run deep sometimes and they have less range and less torpex 575lbs vs. 660lbs in a Mk14/23 and that makes a diffrence in RFB with its awsome ship damage system.:rock:

I am playing stock game w/ RSRD and the dang things keep turning back on me. I'm thinking of switching out my entire load until late '43 to Mark Xs.

If I remember right the only circular I had was with a Mk 10. It was scary as heck - I was creeping along when I fired it and I had to instantly ring up flank speed to avoid my own torpedo!

All of the bugs in the Mark 14 are fixed by the end of September 1943 in RFB. So, it's really a choice between it and the Mark 18 from that point onwards.

Using Mk.10s in anything besides an S-boat is not very accurate I have not read a book about WWII US Navy subs or by any skippers that ever mentions them being used in anything but S-boats. And in real life S-boats where in very poor shape they had been bulit between 1918-1925 or so and the mk.10s where just about as old of stock. But I am 99% sure that only S-boats used the mk.10s in real life in fact i dont think that there was enough mk.10s to go around they only had enough ofr the S-boats and i dont think any Mk.10s where bulit after the mid 30's there must have been some reason they did not use them as obviously if they where better than early mk.14s they would have so this should tell you something if they did not.:hmmm:

thankfully our navys' weapons today are much better and dont dud like they did in WWII or circle run and kill the vessel that launched it. The circle runner make me think of the Roman Legions' pila which where made so that when they either hit a body or the ground they bent out of shape so that a foe could not use them again.

We can only hope. Before WWII everybody in the US Navy thought that the Mk. 14 was the best thing since sliced bread, which was one of the big reasons the problems took so long to fix. The brass simply couldn't believe that their wonder weapon had so many serious problems. For all we know there might be some unknown flaws in some of the Navy's current weapons.

Just as recently as the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars our troops found out the hard way that a lot of Army and Marine Corps equipment wasn't as good as they thought (Humvee armor springs to mind).

Try again. ;) Lots of fleet subs used Mark 10s in the first year of the war, especially those boats based out of Australia. There was a chronic torpedo shortage in the Navy until about mid-1943, so a lot of obsolete torpedoes, including the Mark 10, were pressed into use.

Well thats news to me. Not to trying argue but what is your source for this information as I am rather suprised that in the many books by skippers many of whom went into great detail on the enitre torpedo issue during the war none of them have said this.

There's a clue on wiki:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo

Even older Mark 7, 8 and 9 torpedoes were still used during WWII;

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTUS_PreWWII.htm

Sure Mk10's ;)

I always carry a couple on all my patrols.

Yep sorry but wikipediea is not trustworthly for me I have found other things on wiki that I knew were not correct. Once I was looking up a japanese flyingboat they had incorrect information and they even refrenced a book that I own and the page they got the information form and they where wrong. The page they have about the m-16 is very incorrect at many points it is total assumption and I read on it that the M-16a2/A4s 3 round burst only works if you press the trigger for the right amout of time they cliam if you dont it only fires one round haha I used this weapon in Iraq and sorry to say the burst mode does not do that it works as long as you press the trigger then to fire 3 more you have to let go and press again you can do this very fast if you want to no problem. For me Wikipedia anyone can put anything on there and there is no way to be sure that they are correct use wiki for a refrence on a college level paper and you are going to fail:rotfl: . I will trust that they used mk.10s as much as you guys are saying when I see that information come out of the US Navy historial records the ones they publish at the pentagon and Annapilos other wise Im not going to agree that that is 100% accurte information:D

I know what you mean. :)

I'm not saying that source is reliable, it doesn't even specifically say fleet-boats used them. It's just the best I could do. :lol:

I don't know any good source(s) on that bit of info, but I'm pretty sure LukeFF does. And I'm definetly sure he's a more reliable source then Wiki.

Here would be a good place to ask this question:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147577

If Davey says it's a fact, it's a fact. :yep:

Yep just a rule of thumb for me if something comes off the internet anyone could have made it up or make something to thier point of view or even put info that they may not know is wrong. And even military books arent always 100% trust worthy either you can pretty easily find conflicting information for me when it comes to WWII I take something to be reliable info when it can be found in several sources with lillte on no changes to the nomenclature this is a good rule of thumb for popular subjects like US Navy submarines. And dont get me started on some military history related shows like on military and history channel they makes tons of mistakes of those sometimes though one show that seems pretty good and that i have not seen any glaring mistakes is that one show Great Planes on the military channel pretty good but I only wish it would feature aircraft from other nations rather than just US designed planes Id love to see some Soviet planes on there admit it or not they did make some very good fighters the nay sayers just dont like the soviet designs and alot of war is what side has the will to win not always who has the best weapons. My dad who was an intel man in the Air Force and later flew on AC-130s told me how impressed he was with North Vietnamese when he got to look at all this soviet material that Isreal captured in the 1967 war those Fan Song radars where very crappy by our standards but they where very dangerous in hands of North Vietnam.

Problem with military history is that it's usually written by the winners, presenting a very one-sided view.

“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.”
- Bertrand Russel

Not always you just have to know where to look to find unbaised views and Japan lost the war yet youd be suprised what they teach kids over there about WWII but it is not true. There is more than one version of any event you just have to have the wisdom to get the whole picture;). Im not sure if you are being general with your statment or if you are refering to what my oldman saw when he was in Vietnam a good example of something that goes aginst your staement we did not win Vietnam and you can find many books out there that have diffrent views as to why we did not win there are many diffrent opnions history is to be read and the reader is the one that is supposed to take from what they read what they may hopefuly that reader will know that most things written are goi9ng to have some view or another.“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.” and who is left is the one that is right if that is they way they want it be known. Take a look at Rome we still use their terminology to this day "barbarians" though many of the tribes they fought gave their citizens more freedoms than Rome did and often they had equal techonolgy and of course defeated them in the long run anyway.

I guess the statement doesn't apply to this day and age anymore, where information is abundant in both printed and electronic form. But it holds more water the further back you go in history, like you noted about Roman times. In more ancient times it wasn't too uncommon to see a civilization pretty much wiped out, with historic and religious records that didn't agree with the victors point of view being destroyed (at least to the best of their ability). I agree that a "wise" reader considers all points of view, and their context, before drawing a conclusion.

By the way; I posted the question about the Mark 10 being used by fleet-boats in another thread, and perhaps Luke can shed some light on the matter as well. I'm eager to see some more substantial information about that as well. :hmmm:

I have the entire set of WWII patrol reports, scanned onto microfilm and converted to PDF. They're now up at the HNSA's website for online viewing, BTW.