Stealth Gunboat?
 

Only had the game for a few weeks. I have done a search on this issue, but not seen anything...

Plodding along on my first patrol, when things go strange. Sonar reports a sound contact at 061. I check it myself, but hear nothing, but I do hear a contact on 346, as clear as day. I ask sonar to follow nearest contact, he insists on tracking the silent contact on 061!!!

Then, later on the gunboat appears on the 061 bearing. I lock etc and fire a torpedo - miss! I try another - miss. I check sonar on the bearing of the gunboat, and there is not a single sound to be heard, but the gunboat is only 2500 yards away!! I use up all my torpedoes on various solutions and detonation settings etc, and follow the torpedoes using the free camera. The torps just sail on by as if the boat is not there. Most of the torps should have been hits too, according to watching them!

Anyone else had this?

PS. The WO sees the gunboat perfectly through scopes when asked to report visuals.

This is a known bug with 1.3 probably caused when the Dev's stopped sampans etc being detected by the hydrophones. It happens with other, usually small or shallow draft ships. As for the torpedoes missing their shallow draft means your torpedoes will not run shallow enough to score any hits.

Sweet, thanks for the info.

I almost lost faith and resorted to non-manual targeting. I will continue with my patrol, and hopefully get to sink something other than in the training mission :)

I've also noticed (in TM 1.5 at least) that smaller warships (from DDs downwards) are much harder to hear than merchants. What I mean is you can hear them just fine when they're up close, but while you can hear merchants from 15 nms away, warships can be "silent" as close as 5 or 10. The problem seems to be compounded in shallow waters (ground echo effect, I suppose).

As for subchasers and gunboats, yeah, torps won't harm them most of the time, what with mag. detonators being so fickle and their keel being higher than a torp's minimum depth... Then again, wasting a big ol' torp on a 300 tons boat is, well, a waste :oops:. Even DDs make me feel like I could have used my fish better most of the time...
Deckgun those cans of sardines from their 6 o'clock, a dozen shells under the waterline is usually enough, and they can't do much damage to you in that timeframe.

Thanks for the tip :D

torpedo depth
 

I am wondering could it be a torpedo depth settings problem?

I have had the similar problem when I try to sink Small Gun Boat with torpedoes. The draft of a Small Gun Boat is 3.6 feet. The MK14 torpedo depth setting can only go as low (3.5 ft Approx.), so my torpedoes missed the Small Gun Boat every single time I fire, even though the target is sitting stationary. When use the same lowest torpedo depth setting (3.5 ft Approx.), and fire at a Medium Gun Boat. The detonate and sink the target.

We should be able Torpedo depth to zero so the torpedo runs along the surface or very close to the surface.


Anyone comments?

Indeed, the draft of those kinds of target makes it hard to torpedo them. Magnectic detionation should compensate, but it usually wont, not until... is it mid-43? Anyway, later in the war.

In RL, the early Mk 14 torpedo was found to run about 10 or 11 ft. too deep. The early war Mk 10 had the same problem to a lesser degree. This effectively made such targets immune to torpedo attack. Magnetic Influence exploders could, in theory, do the job, but had severe issues of their own. Most RL skippers simply avoided these nuisanses. They are barely worth a torpedo, and, as you found out, are difficult to target.

You didn't say what mods if any you are running, but RFB does model the Mk 14 torpedo problems at issue.