Historically the mangetic detonator was NOT present on the Mark 18 only contact, unfortunately it was left in the game, so its up to you to try for a keel shot with Mark 18.Honestly, blowing a hole in the side of a ship works just as well as the often sought keel shot.
Mark 18 is good if you know how to con your boat in close, because due to the small batteries of the day they have a range of 4,000 yards.Also, they travel slow so need to fire the torpedo so that it meets the target ....so if target is at bearing 350 and you are more than 1,000 yards away, best to fire then for the angle shot instead of waiting until bearing 0 stye shot, so the torpedo will intercept and not end up chasing the target.
The electric propulsion means there is no torpedo wake for the Mark 18, so it means targets, esp warships like DD's, carriers etc never know whats coming until it hits them.
One other con is the Mark 18 does not pack as much of a punch, often it takes 3 Mark 18's to do what two Mark 14's can do.
So as you can tell, there are trade offs.I prefer a mixed bag of Mark 14 and Mark 18's with eight Mark 18's in stern tubes(as most fleet boats carried them unless embarking with a full load) and four in the bow torpedo reserves.
I know the Mark 18 is buggy when first introduced as they were in RL in 43.They have a nasty tendency to circle run as well as run deep as the 14's did.Around begining of 44 the bugs are worked out.I assume this is still true for TMO, it is in stock.I have played TMO for a long time but dont recall using Mark 18's when they are first introduced, only in stock.I remember them running deep in late 43 and then fine in 44.Good luck.
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