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Originally Posted by Albrecht Von Hesse
One of the things they showed were film clips and still photos of quite a few merchants that had been torpedoed and had made it back to port. My GOD!!
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These were the odd cases that the Allied media loved to show in order to raise the morale. E.g. that merchant withstanded 4 torpedos, or that tanker that was burning for some days and the survivors in the life raft found her drifting and re-boarded.
These were
the exception that verified the rule. The average WII merchant ship, especially the smaller ones was virtually a rust bucket, mostly old and if it wasn't old made in a hurry with the cheapest materials available. A good example were the Liberty ships. Due to the fast production rate, many had structural problems.
The average Uboat captain used a salvo of two for a merchant in case of a miss or a dud torpedo. The vast majority of the small and medium merchants needed only one torpedo.