[WIP] - The TM Torpedo mod
 

One thing that im sure has been noticeably absent from TMaru, was any sort of torpeod modifications. I think everyone can agree, they are entirely too reliable. I havent included any torpedo mods, not because i dont think they important, but because i havent had the time to dedicate to creating one that gave me the results i desire. Its been a case of "do it right, or don't do it at all".

My definition of "doing it right":
In short, im looking for a happy medium where it would be borerline acceptable to even the most contentious rivet counter, and yet not at a level of frustration that would push the "not quite so hardcore" user over the edge. I realize this is entirely subjective. But to give a rough idea of what im looking for, i think:

- 1 out of every 3 torpedos fired should be a dud.

- Every 2 out of 5 should explode prematurely, even in a calm sea.

- even with a depth of 5 feet, a fish should have a chance of being a deep runner and go under the target argubly every 2 out of 5 torpedos.


The file im using is a bit more robust then stock, as im sure you'll notice:
http://www.ducimus.net/sh4/torp_properties_01.jpg
http://www.ducimus.net/sh4/torp_properties_02.jpg

I do have a question, anyone know dud reduction speed, and dud reduction rate do?

Dunno about those 2 values.

A few observations. The arming distance should be 450 yards for mk14s. Mk10s can be shorter.

As for duds... Can dud chances be pistol specific? Contact fuses broke except on shallow angle hits in RL. Ideally, if there was an angle range for contact duds, it would be a fairly high %, but only at certain angles.

The magnetic prematures... tough call on a number.

Depth errors: instead of them being all over the place, they simply need to run 10-12 feet deep 100% of the time for early mk 14s. If you want to be mean, up the max from 12 to a value guaranteed to put them well below a merchant hull. That would take into account that SH4 skippers will likely always set the fish as shallow as possible—unlike RL where they set the fish 10 feet below the hull as they read the draft from ONI 208-J. I'd be willing to bet that a very large % of the mk14 failures were probably in part due to doctrine. They looked up the target, saw the draft was 15 feet, and had the fish set for 25 feet. The fish then ran at 35-37 feet due to the miscalibrated depth keeping. Even if they aimed the fish 1 ft below the hill, it would run 11-13 feet below. Since players know this, you'd need to do something "nasty" to make them run deep even set shallow.

tater

tater did you say contact fuses used to break on early mk14s unless they were at a shallow angle? So a 90deg shot should be impossible for contacts? Wow that's rubbish. Those engineers should have been shot or something. I'm all for it if its what they had to deal with (because ill stick with the sugar boats :). Is it possible to simulate the angle thing?

In regards to the +10 foot that they gave for magnetic shots, is there any way of reflecting that this is still an effective (when the torpedo works) shot, because (ive heard) its not the explosion but the cavity in the water which causes a ship to buckle etc. Currently I would imagine a torpedo does less damage in game depending on how far i explodes from the ship.

Yes, the contact pistol broke at 90 degree impacts, only grazing angles were unlikely to break the contact exploder. They never live fired any mk14s to test them, they didn't want to waste the money, lol.

The faster torpedo speed smashed the pin. On slow speed, they should actually be OK.

For a while there was a standing order to set up shots so the fish would impact at an angle.

I see we've both been reading "Silent Running".

Ironically, when they discovered that they needed a different metal to make the firing pins out of, they had right there at Pearl Harbor. They used the propellers from the Japanese aircraft that had been shot down as it was a strong alloy.

Prematures: One of the big reasons magnetic pistols prematured was because the torpedo moving at 46 knots created it's own magnetic field. If a skipper was lucky and in the right area, all the factors cancelled each other out and he sank ships. But that was by far the exception...

Also--if it's possible to model--the submarines opertating out of Pearl were the first to deactivate the magnetic exploder. Adm Christie in Australia refused to do so. Why? He had helped develope the Mark VI Exploder. :shifty:

Is it possible to change values based on date? Some of the problems were debugged a bit over time.

Well ya, in short, theres two types of catagories here, "torpedo problem era" and "post torpedo problem era". The sim file has specifics for both. I plan on making the torpedo problem era, and then making *some* failures occur after that era, but not many. Right now they'll run flawelessly after, i think 19430601, nevermind the pracitcaly run flawlessly before that date.

Great. I've played with the NSM harcore torpedo mod, and it drives me crazy...bring all those fish all that way for *nothin'*. The torpedo problems were such a big part of the Pacific sub war.

I have to say this is frustrating, because consistant results are near impossible to obtain.

I hope this will be an option and not forced into the mod. Even though your data is accurate, I don't believe the US sub Captains assumed that one out of every three torpedos they fired would be a dud.....nor that two out of every five would explode prematurely. Was it a possibility? Sure, but they could equally fire ten torps with no problems at all and then fire five and have two duds.

This is a can of worms not worth opening in my view.

Well, if there is a 3:5 failure rate (60%), then there is no reason why you might not fire 30 in a row with no problems. just like you can flip a coin 100 times and get the same result. The last result has no bearing on the next.

I'll bet there are sub captains who never had a dud torpedo, or at least were not aware of it because they may have classified a dud as a miss in the heat of battle. Other captains may have had many duds.

The real point to me is that you can't create a mathematical formula within the game to represent a historical perception regarding dud torpedoes. We know there were duds, and we can estimate approximately how many.....but the key word is approximately.

If this is to be included in TM, please make it an Add On. :D

The dud chances for contact pistols on mk14s at the right angles (right angles, basically, lol) were very very high.

Run depth errors should also be 100%. Their run depth was calibrated wrong, so they always ran deep. The only way they'd run at the right depth was if they had a mistake and ran shallow as an error. Because player know this, I'd make the magnitude higher than RL. I bet the majority of mk14 "duds" were deep runners since they ALL ran 10-12 feet deep. The skippers used pre-war doctrine and set the depth below the keel, then you subtract another 10-12 feet and every fish misses unless it fails and runs SHALLOW, lol.

One thing regarding the mag pistol, ducimus: I can't recall the radius it functions at. 1.5m? USN doctrine was to put the fish 10+ feet below the keel. One way to get this in game would be to increase the radius that the detonator is effective to maybe 3.5m, then increase the failure rate. It'd be a reason to shoot them under the keel, but it would be hard given the depth errors.

tater

TDK1044, i think im looking for like a 65% so success rate on the torpedos. Im not trying to produce a hardcore torpedo mod here. I think the fish are entirely too reliable (seems like they're 90% relaible), but i dont want to drive you or i nuts with the constant thud of a dud..

Im trying to find the middle ground between what some would feel is a historically correct malfunction rate, and a rate that is not too frustrating to people who don't want a historically correct malfunction rate. Trust me, i dont want to go and find all my fish dudding on me just as much as you don't.