Manual torpedo solutions are one of the keys here in my opinion.
While with the US TDC (nifty piece of equipment if you ask me) and some experience (specially narrowing down the speed) it's not *that* difficult to hit something at close ranges, things start going the way of the pear beyond the 1000 / 1500 yards, specially when you're facing fast-moving targets (warships) at inconvenient angles.
In other words, with fully manual TDC and without the magic stop watch (I'm actually beginning to like the fact that it's not there) you can feel proud if you hit a destroyer at 1500 yards with an AoB different from 90 and with a single torpedo (salvo of 3 seems the minimum to be even remotely sure of hitting).
That crosses out all encounters that don't occur at near-perfect approaches (distance of 1000 yards, perpendicular to ship's course and engine stopped, slipping through the destroyer screen of convoys and task forces. What we could call a "textbook" approach). Ruling those out, getting 40k tons in a single patrol is certainly not easy.
My last patrol with a S-18 saw four ships down, but I was very lucky with the positioning in three cases and VERY lucky with the torpedo solution in one (I couldn't believe I managed to hit that). That was an average of three fish per ship, and two of them had to be finished with deck gun (thankfully, they didn't have deck guns of their own).
Not ulra-challenging? Ok. Arcadeish? Never.
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