G7a's running too deep?
 

I was passing north of the Orkneys when I found and attacked a lone C3. I fired two G7a's at her, but both passed underneath the hull and continued on until they ran out of fuel. Both were set to run at 10m, two less than the C3's draft of 12m. What happened here? Does SH3 model torps running too deep? My only other guess is bad weather and high waves - winds were something like 15m/s at the time.

The setup was otherwise pretty close to perfect - both torpedos would have hit amidships at 90 degrees. Grr! :damn: Fortunately I ended up chasing the C3 down again and sinking it with two G7a's, set to 5m. :up:

The game features faulty torpedoes. ;) These are well known problems to most of us. The solution is to aim higher, and only rely on magnetic detonation if the weather is good.

I guess I should have pointed out that these torpedos were set to impact, not magnetic, and should have been running shallow enough to hit the target.

I've seen the problems of magnetic torpedos too - I had one explode prematurely only a couple of seconds after leaving the tube! :o

could it be the C3 had no cargo and was light :hmm:

Your depth was set too low for the sea conditions. It would have been better to have it closer to the default (5m ?). With just 2m between the target point and the keel it is likely that the boat just heaved up and over it. In general it is better to try to aim for the flatter portion of the hull (about halfway down the waterline to the keel). In this case about 6m. It is not unheard of for a fish to hit the rounded portion (even with a good AOB around 90) near the keel and just bounce off.

Remember how your sub bounces between the waves, and apply the same dynamics, in larger scale, for a tanker. :D

Reading..
 

Apparantly this was a real problem early in the war, many torpedos were running as much as 2m deeper than they were set, it was one of Donitz's headaches.

I think the storm was more your issue. Why were you aiming for 10m down on a c3? I'd think aiming high would be better..that far down and your risk the torp bouncing off anyway.

Ummm, check your draft figures.
 

Ummmmmmm, I think you'll find that the basic problem is that your torps were set too deep in the first place.

You stated the C3 Cargo has a draft of 12 meters, according to my game the C3 Cargo has a draft of 9 meters. So with your torps set for 10 meters you were already below her draft by 1 meter to start with. Let alone taking into consideration the sea conditions.

The only merchant that has a draft of 12 meters is the Passenger Liner with a draft of 12.6 meters, with the T3 Tanker next in line with a draft of 10.7 meters and the T2 Tanker with 9.5 meters. All the other merchants have drafts of 9 meters or less.

In general I've found the C3 Cargo goes down 75-80% of the time with my torp set to 6 meters depth and aimed just below the Bridge Deck (same spot the scope puts the triangle when you lock on). This is also the intersection of the Engine Room and Fuel Bunkers. If I'm shooting in Heavy Seas (winds of 15 meters per second) I'll set my torp depth for 5 meters and have never missed a C3 Cargo yet with my torp going under her.

I think if you double check the draft for the C3 Cargo you'll be hitting them a lot more often. :up:

Wait... what is the difference between "draft" and "beam"!? :stare:

Ula Jolly,

Draft is the "Depth" of the boat IE: how deep the boat sets in the water.

The Beam of the boat is how "wide" it is. :up:

Oooooohdamn. That explains one or five things. :88)

Yep - so you use the "draft" number to set your torpedos when shooting normally from the side - you only use the "beam" number to set your torpedos when firing from directly below your target :)

10m may be too deep anyways.

My experience is that if you hit the part of the hull that curves down towards the keel, you have a much lower probability of detonation.

On a side note........ what is the draft of a C3? I don't think its 10m. 9?

Do you mean when you're directly behind or in front of the target? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I just wanna get better at this game.

Thanks for the replies. Good points about the heavy seas and the curvature of the hull. I hadn't realized that the game took hull curvature into account when determining whether a torpedo goes off or not. I'll remember that next time.

For a moment, you had me thinking I was going crazy - too long at sea, perhaps. So I checked again and found this:

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/7...44192712zi.jpg

Yup, according to my recognition book, a C3 has a draft of 12.0 meters. Yet according to the museum, it has a draft of 9.0m. :doh: I have no idea what's going on here. I haven't done any tweaking to the game, other than RuB and SH3 Commander. Perhaps it's time for a reinstall?