One shot kills
 

Hi all.

Reading the SHIV manual, and noticing the estimated number of torps required to sink ships of various categories.

I remember back in SHIII that a well placed impact torp under the first mast of merchants would in the majority of cases sink the ship over a period of time through slow flooding. It may take hours, or even a day.

Will I get the same result in SHIV, or has the damage model changed.

Also, does anyone have any guidelines for sinking more tonnage with less torps?

Thanks,

Short answer, kind of. if you're using stock, you get big booms and it can be possible. With some of the Natural Sinking Mods and such, that's not as true. You've got to find the sweet spot, but generally right under the stack (not the mast, the stack) tends to sink them fairly effectively.

It also depends on the game setting. If you have duds historically selected, "one shot- one kill" is a bit risky.

Please remember that the objective is to sink ships, not conserve torpedoes.

I tend to use one torpedo for every 3000-5000 tons with a minimum of 2 (I play with duds on).

However, if it has been an empty patrol, and I come across my first juicy cargo ship, I will gladly launch four torpedoes.

The only time I get stingy with my torps is the few times I am against a convoy. Then I will choose to shoot three ships with two torps each (dud rate). I figure out that time is on my side. If I get a slow-sinker, I still get credit, and if I only wound one, I stand a good chance of catching up with it later.

But if it is only a single ship? 3-4 torps for the kill.

As for where to aim? doulos05 had it right. If you want to shoot only one torp, aim for center of mass. Helps with targeting errors and most ships don't like taking one there.

I usually do quarters, myself - half way between middle and bow (first and second quarter), middle (second and third quarter), and halfway between middle and stern(third and fourth quarter). That seems to work best for me under most circumstances.

Contact pistol at minimum depth.

As Platapus said, it does depend on torpedo dud settings. Also, it "does" depend on where you hit the ship. I have found, the big 10k tankers, if I aim for the forward mast, and one for the aft mast, the fish that hits the forward area can sometimes cause the boat to break in two.

The large troop ships, I have found over time, if you hit them in the area of the aft engine room / boiler room, will usually end up sinking them with one hit.

Regular freighters, it depends on their cargo. If they carry munitions, they go up in a huge erecption of smoke and flames. If they carry non-volital cargo, it can take 2 to 4 torpedoes to sink them for sure.

The worst one I had, took 6 or 7 fish to finally make it go under. Waited 2 days in the area, but because it was armed both bow and stern, I couldn't surface to use the deckgun on it.

Also, I use mostly the TMO Supermod, and swith to FORTS for a different change of pace. And RFB that I tweak for personal use.

But in the end, yes, you can get a one shot one kill from time to time.

One is to learn the different cargo types, so you can tell what's loaded on deck. You really have to play with ME and load cargo to learn the different types from munitions to just basic freight. Many ships have internal and external cargo, fuel, oil and ammo will cause a ship to blow. Many ships carry no cargo. It's hard to sink those with one.

One tactic that helps, if you see some ships loaded and some not, shoot those, but if you get one torp in a ship and it doesn't sink, often another ship will come near it that may be loaded, it you time it right you can hit a loaded ship and it's blast explosion will take out nearby ships, but your sub must do damage to the ship before you get credit. If you get in big convoys and attack and they start milling around and many ships are loaded, time it you can hit one ship and the explosions domino as ships blow up each other. I once sunk 8 ships with one torp this way, but you only get credit for the one you did damage too.

If you get ships slow or dead in the water, wait for the escorts to leave and finish them off with the deckgun, just know how your mod works and gun ranges, sometimes best to do it at night.

Something I have noticed is that it is impossible to hit immediately below the stack. The targeting routine contained within the game seems to have all your torps hit abaft the stack- sometimes nearly at the screws. Is there anything that corrects that problem?

I've hit ships directly under the funnel many times. Are you playing auto or manual targeting? Back when I played auto targeting I noticed that the torpedoes fall a bit short on moving targets, you can compensate by adjusting the torpedo angle by a degree or so, depending on the range.

Auto targeting- and that effect is precisely what you are talking about.
I'm wanting to get into manual targeting... but I haven't gotten the time together to teach myself how to do it.

You can still change the torpedo angle on the dial while using auto targeting. :DL

Also make sure you open the torpedo doors ahead of time. Not doing that delays the firing procedure and causes your hits to be aft, or miss aft entirely.

Good point :DL

The main thing to remember is you're not going to get many one torp kills, unless the ship happens to be loaded with ammo or fuel, depending on stock or mods, I would say only 30% of ships carry such cargo.

The other issue is because of ships being able to go into turbo speed or stops, they often can dodge one torp, spreads are used to fix the ships speed, simply if you aim at the bow, he can slow quickly to make it miss forward, so more torps to cover the length of the ship will get some hits.

Also, even if one torp hits, the ship may not lose speed, you'll be evading why it takes off, escaping or requiring you to end around and attack again, risk getting killed...If you can pull off an attack without the escorts catching you, it's better to finish ships off quickly with one attack.

If you're wanting high tonnage scores, don't waste torps on small merchants, sink only big ones, go after capital ships, BB's, Carriers, etc., Learn to damage ships and make them blow up near each other, to take each other out. Use the DG, 40bofars do great damage.

My highest tonnage on one patrol, no refits using TMO/RSRD in 1944 with a very hard tweak AI was 278K tons...., Maybe one day I'll try and break the 300K ton mark.

Yes Ma'am!
I have already been doing that to a limited extent... generally for a spread effect. I guess I'm going to have to figure out the 'speed error' that my crew is making when launching torpedoes and have a pre-prepared offset to compensate. Gotta hit those boiler/engine rooms- big rooms mean faster flooding and faster sinking!

I shoot spreads by aiming by the wire. I use the stad, etc., just when I get ready to shoot, I unlock target, place the wire where I want to aim, set a new bearing and fire. You need to set a new bearing for each aiming point right before you shoot.....

Actually, I think the bit about opening doors is likely your problem, particularly if you're hitting as far aft of MoT as the screws. Opening the torpedo doors takes 2-3 seconds. That's definitely enough to make you miss MoT all the way back to the screws. As soon as I ID the target, I decide which fish I'm firing, set them up (speed, pistol, depth), and open their respective doors (press Q while the tube is selected).

Additionally, if the target notices your torpedo, they will take evasive action. This almost certainly includes a radical change in speed (either Ahead Flank or Back Emergency, depending on what the captain thinks will avoid the fish). That also explains misses astern of aiming point.