Torps - Premature explosions?
 

Hi,

Yesterday I lined up to shoot at a convoy at a distance of around 2500 yards; after all the needed calculations I fired 4 torps at one of the merchants. However, after 5-10 seconds they blew up, one by one - as if they hit some invisible barrier.

I reloaded the game, thinking that maybe there was too narrow a gap between the torps, so I gave each 5 seconds before I fired another.. with the same effect. They just exploded after 100 meters.

Is it a bug or, lets say, first torp exploded prematurely and caused another explosions?

mk 14s prematured a lot in RL. I gather the weather was bad during your attack? Rough seas make them do this more than calmer seas.

Question: does the running depth of the torpedo have any impact on the chance to cause premature explosions?

You are right, the weather wasn't good.. but all 4 of the torpedoes exploding in a similar spot? Is it possible that it was some kind of a chain reaction after the first explosion?

If the weather is bad, there are big chances they will premature right at the arming distance.

elanaiba - yeah, seems that that is what has happened.. then switch.dota's question becomes even more important: does the set running depth changes anything?

I went ahead & added your question as #13 in my Q&A thread:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...858#post592858

I'd already talked about premature detonations a bit in the answers to questions #2 and #9, and as a side-effect of my testing so far I'm 90% certain that weather is the only thing that has an effect on premature detonation chances in the game. Weather does have a huge effect though, as well as distance-to-target, in a sense. Also "wave-state" (weather) is the only factor mentioned in the "torpedoes_us.sim" for premature detonation chances.

I'll try to do some more specific testing to confirm that torpedo running depth doesn't affect prematures, and I'll post my findings there once I'm done.

nomad_delta

Yeah, the deeper they go, the lower the chance for a premature.

I stand corrected, then. I think I'll still run some tests just to be sure. I should join the Ubi QA department or something... :D

nomad_delta

No, actually I have to stand corrected myself, checked the code and we didn't get around to have depth influence the prematures rate :( Bad memory :( :(

No worries, mate. I'm honestly amazed you guys got as many things working as you did during the short period of time you had to work with. There are a million things SH4 does exactly right, but we don't tend to think about those since they just work and we're so immersed in the game. ;)

nomad_delta

They have one ?

Keep it under 1000 meters and you'll get *much* better results.

On top of that, if you were in the middle of the convoy, loosing both stern and bow tubes, you're going to get better tonnage per patrol. In the middle of the convoy, you're never more than 1km from the nearest ship -- usually arming distance is the problem because boats are usually closing on you when you start firing. And you're safer in the middle of the convoy because the escorts are usually are the perimeter, giving you time to get some depth before the convoy moves much.

In real life it was the magnetic exploder that caused prematures, not the sea state. Torpedoes are not generally suseptable to unwanted explosions due to rough handling... :damn:

Magnetic detonators may be triggered by movement caused by rough seas.