Torpedo detonator switch is not realistic
 

In SH3, on the TDC, there is a switch allowing you to change the torpedo detonator in a single click. However this seems to be grossly unrealistic. Here is what I found in Doenitz's memoirs (chapter 7, p.88, translated by R.H. Stevens):

Above, p.86, he tells he issued the following order, during the Norwegian campaign:

So, it seems that to change this setting, you need to unload and reload the torpedo. Could it be modded into SH3?

Another box to check or uncheck at the difficulty-setting, definitely. :D

I also miss the ability to program torpedoes seperately in SH3 - especially when lining up for a convoy attack - so I guess this is related.

On another note, I got quite desperate last night. For some reason I couldn't reload 2 of the 6 front tubes on my XXI. It turned out that the torpedo hatches were open. As soon as I closed them using 'W' I could reload. So at least this is simulated...

The thing that bugs me about the torpedoes is at impact setting it requires almost an exact 90 degree hit. Any kind of angle and the fish bounces off.
Often wondered if there is a way to expand or increase the angle to allow detonation.

Amen. :nope:

I'm in 1944 now, and I've been pleasantly surprised sometimes of how wide the angle can be of impact torpedoes. Not too wide, but maybe like 20 degrees. So maybe this is adjustable somewhere, and can be edited? Because if I remember correctly these would bounce off earlier in the war.

BUT, I've noticed that if I line up the torpedo to hit at exactly 90 degrees - and hit straight on on a moving target - it bounces off. I think I've read somewhere that this was realistic as well...? It had to have a few degrees off-angle to detonate?

Well
 

Apparantly early in the war there were complaints that hitting exactly 90 degrees (amazing as it sounds) would cause the pistol not to trigger, so there may be something to that. But I'd think it would be cleared up by later in the war.

If the torpedo is set to trigger when the whiskers are pushed sufficiently, then the defect might not be so amazing after all. While I don't know a thing about how the eel is really triggered, I can imagine a 90 deg hit will ensure that the whiskers aren't pushed hard enough.

asdf
 

You want to see a frustrated man? Read the BdU Diaries of Admiral Donitz at http://www.uboatarchive.net/BDUKTB.htm, especially the first months of the war. The torpedo problem was a very annoying and in many cases dangerous one...some of the premature detonations damaged subs, and may have even been responsible for the loss of some boats. it was certainly accounting for much frustration from the crews. They were talking about one commander that fired four torpedos at a ship at dock in a port and all four were duds. It was responsible for a lot more trouble than was necessary in invading Denmark and Norway in March of 1940.

Who knows how the war would have come to pass if they had not had so many technical glitches and an over-controlling dictator running everything?

Re: asdf
 

Well then I might not be speaking Norwegian on a daily basis I guess... :o Thanks for the info!

Re: asdf
 

Actually this probably refers to Gunther Priens U-47 attack on the Royal Oak in Scapa Flow. If you read the account of the attack at U-boat.net I think he fired at least 6 torpedoes with absolutely no effect. The first salvo of 3 were all duds except 1 that exploded against an anchor chain! The he fired 3 more a few minutes later with no results either. Its actually quite amusing they were able to get away with this (on the surface too!). But another problem I think they had was torpedoes running deeper than they were set to run. Therefore the torps might have been scraping the bottom and got stuck in the mud.

Later in the war, during the Norwegian campaing, the same Prien found six transports anchored in a fjord. He was at less than 1000m, with a perfect 90° shot. The targets where overlapping. It couldn't be missed. Prien was one of the most successful U-boat commander of the war.

He launched 8 torpedoes in two consecutive attacks. All 8 missed because of faulty detonators or poor depth-keeping. It happened to a lot of U-boat during this campaign. Doenitz says his commanders were demoralized at the end of this campaign.

At his return to base, Prien said to Doenitz that he could "hardly be expected to fight with a dummy rifle".

Hello,
changing of the pistols (magnetic/impact) was only possible with the torpedo unloaded.
However this alone was not too complicated as long as the tube had not yet been flooded - you had to open the inner hatch, pull the torpedo out (hanging it to the rail above), and change the pistol rotating the old one out and new one in, and pushing the torpedo into the tube again, closing the hatch. This took around three minutes with a trained crew as far as i heard, certainly more than simply switching.

Mostly the pistol was mounted long before an attack, not being changed again in the last minutes. The weapons officer knew which torpedo used which pistol, so he just adapted the order of firing at several targets to it.

Depth setting was really done in a second via the "Torpedovorhalterechner" (german TDC). But setting the depth proved to be troublesome: The torpedo's depth setting was controlled with an atmospheric tank or chamber inside the torp. filled with more or less pressured air. Measuring and adjusting could only be done comparing the U-boat's interior pressure against the one in the torpedo levelling tank. While this was ok as long as it was done during a surface attack, the boat's interior pressure was subject to changes when submerged. Air vented into the boat, which lead to higher pressure and would ruin a torpedo's depth setting - in the early years.

Torpedo impact pistols did not trigger in the early war as soon as it would not hit a target at roughly 90 degrees, this is modelled correctly. Only after the capturing of the HMS "Seal" the pistols were changed and allowed lower angles of impact.

So it is quite easy: In the early war
1. do not use magnetic pistols,
2. fire from an angle that allows the torpedo to hit at roughly 90 degrees,
3. set the depth to one metre - at least it will not underrun the target.

Knowing this certainly gives you an advantage the U-boat commanders did not have ...

Greetings,
Catfish

I was reading where the detonaters became active after 90 meters once fired. Seems I should be able to hit someting at 200 meters.

...being within 200m of a target when a torpedo detonated could cause the shock wave to damage the sub.