How many torps to use on big merchants?
 

I'm in the habit now of using two torps to sink anything that's Large Merchant size or bigger, as they seem to often take two hits. How many do you use? To the people that use just one: do you find that it sinks more than 50% of the time? Doesn't it grate on your nerves when the other X% get away? (I hate watching 10,000+ tons of injured merchant limp away after spending hours/days of game time getting into position to fire on a convoy)

I am in the habbit now of using a two fish spread towards any high tonnage.

this choice has come from too often experiencing the frustration of sending one torpedo that turned out to be a dud, prematurely detonated, or hit the ship and appeard to do little or no damage and resulted on NO sinkings. :shifty:

so no more games, i play SH3 by the motto "its better to sink little than to damage much". damaged ships still reach port, and therfore still deliver oil, machine parts, fuel, and armament to the enemy... sunken ships do not complete deliveries nearly as well as floating ships do :arrgh!:

If i have only one torpedo available i try to hit the forward bow of the ship, this seems to be a lethal area, but you cant count on it 100% of the time.

my strategy over time has become one of pecking away at the convoy piece by piece. I'll set up an attack, dend two torpedoes at the two biggest tubs i can see and get out of dodge. Then i'll follow the convoy, and set up another attack later. If you succeed at repeating this process for 3 or 4 days in a row you have pretty much taken out every large ship they had.

Yeah, normally I try to aim at the bow. I was with one torpedo left and heading home when I came across a large merchant. That one torpedo hitting it's bow was enough. But be careful, on pleasant days and seas, the ship will have ample room to avoid your warshot. So try using higher torpedo speeds.
Generally I use two shots at bigger game, and if I swing to use my stern tube, well, that's one shot and that's when I aim towards the bow. Maybe it has something to do with the bow flooding and the engines driving it to the bottom, like the physics of a submarine diving.
Capital ships, on the other hand, fire away with everything you got.

one note about capital ships, if you slam several torps into her and she doesnt sink, but goes dead in the water or even if it just slows to 2 knots... just wait it out and reload down deep because over time the escorts will leave the BB behind. :rotfl:

i could see the destroyer flashing a message to the BB

BB watchman:"Sir we are receiving morse coded signals from the escorts"

BB captain: "Very well, whats the message say"

BB watchamn: "The message reads... 'It's a hard knock life for you -break- tough titty -break- we are out of here you're on your own!"

LMAO :rotfl:

I just had a patrol in Oct. of 39 where I returned with the lip-smacking total of a decisive, war-altering 14000 grt. Every single *******ing little pissant wanted two torpedoes to sink.

So instead I got the crew up topside and we threw moldy bread at them, instead.

OK cool I'll stick with the two torps method :)

I got wondering about this after reading about Otto_Kretschmer and his "one ship, one torpedo" motto. :o 250k in 1 year IRL - f!ckadoodledoo.

LMAO

About BB's... both of the times I've fired at one I've used a full 4-torp spread just to make sure. Somehow, it doesn't feel like a waste of torpedos. :up:

Did it work? :rotfl:

One time after running out of torps I tried ramming. It worked, but I got home and found out that my HI was only 42% :doh: and I know it was 100% before I started ramming. *gulp*

I won't be trying that again.

I think that Kretschmer was an unique genius. The common players like me must fire two torpedoes to guarantee (?) a kill. I remember Adolf Galland when Mölders said that the inferior armamant of the BF109F compared with the 109E would force pilots to aim better and not to shower enemy aircrafts with bullets: as Galland said, not every pilot in the Luftwaffe was a marksman like Mölders...

By the way, its true that a bow hit can be lethal. Even large tankers went to the bottom in my experience with such a shot... normally they received it when I missed another target in a convoy...:rotfl: :88)

I found one torp per ship quite satisfactory. Only large tankers will sink 50% of the time. So, if in convoy, I'll let them have 2 or one in the engine room, which later require some assistance to sink.

Once, I had only one torpedo in front. Let it go at a Nelson (I think) , the BB sank. :88)

I try to use the One fish apiece rule. Aiming for the bow helps. Most of the time if my solution is off it's run slow. I also tend to run them as deep as I think I can. If nothing else, I can spread my eel-love around to even more of our Allied Friends. I just wouldn't feel right if I didn't send as many of them tokens of my affection as possible. The rest might get jealous.

Bow shots, eh? Will give it a try...

If it's worth shooting, it's worth shooting twice!

It usually depends on the weather for me. In calm seas I'll use two torpedos for a large target partially because they have a better chance of seeing it and evading. In rough seas I usually just use one and aim towards the bow. Ships really struggle in the bad seas and sometimes the rough weather will finish them off after one hit.