[vatek]

It's not unbalancing or "ruining the experience" so much as a technological advancement...the whole point of using them is that even if your targeting solution was off, the torpedo would correct for it.

The Mk27s were designed as an anti-escort torpedo. Keep in mind that they were also designed to be quiet-running, and they used a swim-out mode when launched as opposed to standard compressed air. They would be MUCH harder for a destroyer to detect. It's no surprise that they make easy meat out of DD escorts, because that's what they were historically designed to do. I believe the success rate was around 33% (24 escorts destroyed and 9 damaged) for a total of 106 Mk27s fired. Instead of having to launch a salvo of four to six (depending on the sub) torpedos at different spread angles and praying that the DD maneuvers into one, you could launch one torpedo that would seek out the target.

The torpedo still had to be plotted so that it would get NEAR the target, but once it got into acoustic homing range, the torpedo did the rest. Instead of missing a fast-moving DD because you got the spread angle 1 degree off, or because it turned out of the path at the last second, the torpedo would alter its course during the last legs of its path.

Maybe the game does it differently, but historically they were far from "fire and forget" weapons that you just had to point in the general direction of a ship. You still had to plot a good enough solution to get the torpedo close to the target.

I enjoy having them because it gives you other options than running away and hiding if a DD escort detects you, and you can't get a perfect solution because the target is maneuvering all over the place.