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Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.
but say you DID make a keel shot, and the entire engine Deck/Space/whatever was flooded.
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As USNSRCaseySmith said, you're overthinking it. Nothing is that precise, and they didn't think that way.
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But, lets say this wasnt enough. Youd then have to fire another torpedo or beat it up with your deck gun. BUT, say a torpedo fired higher up slammed into a deck that was slightly below the waterline. Now what i was thinking that would contribute to more effective flooding was 3 things
1) that the suction created by the fact that the hole was half-half in terms of the waterline, and that the suction created by that kind of hole when it was very close to being engulfed in water would make flooding faster, leaving less time for the crew to react.
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First, to hit "half-half" the torpedo would have to be on the surface, which is impossible. If the torpedo is too shallow you run the risk of a breach and the torpedo is lost. Second, the flooding is not going to be faster. If the hole is half out of the water, then only half as much water is going to come in, until the ship settles enough and the hole is entirely underwater, which is what you wanted in the first place.
It seems to me you're thinking that the higher hole would let water wash down, whereas a lower hole would not. As I said, the point of hitting under the keel is to break the keel, not let more water in. Any hole in the side is going to allow water to go in every direction, and lateral is as good as down.
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2) with less time, the deck members would have less time and a greater risk of isolation from the water spilling in to that one deck and then going down through the decks /engine space to close of a theoretically "seal-able" deck.
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A torpedo hole is not tiny. Bulkheads for many yards around are ruptured. At best any crew not incapacitated by the blast are going to be busy making what repairs they can. There is no such thing as 'Theoretically "seal-able". All doors are watertight, and in a war zone are already sealed. The torpedo is designed to cause a big enough blast to rupture everything around it, and the damage done is the damage done. No water is going to "wash down" to the lower decks. Ever.
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3) IF the flooding of roughly most of the decks at/below the hole werent enough to sink it, it was drag the ship down to the point where the deck and/or decks below it would flood because they were then underwater after being dragged down.
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It doesn't work that way. See my answer to (2).
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But you DID shine some light.. I didnt take into account the fact that the shockwave from the torpedo alone would being enough to rupture the relatively thin in comparison bulkheads.
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Not thin at all. The bulkheads are the same thickness as the hull. They hold the ship together. Also, the shockwave is what does all the damage, since water doesn't compress. The explosion itself just sets off the shock.