Problem with mark 14 torps

badb0y · 06-02-07, 07:23 PM

Is is just me or are these torpedos not very good?

Just did a 1942 mission where i got right into a convoy undetected. Primary targets were 2 large modern tankers.

Got myself so that i could fire forward at one and backwards at the other at the same time.

So, loosed off two torps at the first tanker and two at the second one - made off slowly and managed to get off two more mark 14s at a large modern composite freighter.

The first tanker starts burning in two places, the second in one, and the freigher doesn't even register a hole in the side even though i watched the tightly grouped torps hit virtually the same place!

Ok, so revisited the first tanker and had to pump another 4 torpedos into it until it went down. That means that out of i think 14 torpedos in forward banks that you can use i've used nearly half on one ship?? I gave up on the freighter (given that it appeared totally unaffected by two torpedo hits???).

I ended up surfacing in the middle of the convoy and tried gunning the second tanker until i realised that a destroyer had come right up behind me which remarkably hadn't even started firing lol! I think it wanted to depth charge me on the surface.

Anyway, my main point is that i've noticed this low damage from these topedos a lot in the game and it's frustrating. Also i tried a couple of shots 2 metres below the hull of one ship, expecting the "influence" from the ship to set them off. Nothing, i watched as they sailed right past the ship almost scaping the hull as they went. And yes, i had the right torp setting on (ie not contract only)

?? Any comments anyone please ??

donut · 06-02-07, 07:38 PM

That is a very good description,Of the very occurrences experienced around that time during WW2. There have been many:hmm: ?*#@%, discussions,on this feature/bug.

Welcome to Subsim badB0y.

popeye · 06-02-07, 08:07 PM

i think im having the same problem. it takes too many torp's to put some ships down. i just lost a medium merchant. i hit him twice, and the second shot put a gaping hole in his belly. he sank very low in the water, but made off with the cover of 3 destroyers, at 2 knots. 2 others were immobilized, and deck gunned, after the DD's had fled the area.

so, i fired 5 torps, and bagged 2 med. merchants. not so good.

badb0y · 06-02-07, 08:08 PM

arrrghh....

I need....satisfaction!!!

The, er, topedo type.

The thing is, if they explode, given that they are packed with explosives, right next to the hull of a ship, surely some serious damage must occur? I can "understand" duds, and have that realism setting on as a result, but exploding tops that do nothing or very little?

Can i ask another question here as well - i have been looking through the forums quite a bit on damage vs sink time.

Take that first tanker i hit - it was listing to about 45 degrees, been hit multiple times, and was still driving on. Surely once water's overtopping the deck that's history for the ship? I've never known or seen footage of a ship in that state make it back to port....?

badb0y · 06-02-07, 08:09 PM

this kinda puts me off playing the game as it takes so long to get into position and sort your firing solution out just to have ships not go down..?

gah...

wstaub · 06-02-07, 08:35 PM

Welcome to the real frustration felt by Sumariners until early to mid 1943 when the Mark XIV torpedos where corrected from many various bugs.

nattydread · 06-02-07, 08:48 PM

Keep in mind, that none of the merchants have cargo load outs. So a tanker doesnt have any combustibles on board to put a "cherry on top" of your torp hits.

Oddly I see in many posts that tankers were hard to sink, but I have never seen that as a re-occuring issue in my readings...and I've read tons of WWII sub memoirs(Barnes & Nobles ran out of books for me, N. and S. California).

I totally see how an empty tanker can hold on for dear life, but the frequency of stubborn tankers in game is troublesome to me.

I was also surprised to see how much resolve the troop transports/cruise ships were. I'm not saying they shouldnt be, they are just stronger than I expected.

ATR-42 · 06-02-07, 09:04 PM

later in the war, ive had MUCH MUCH better luck with the "pink" torpedos(mk17s?), i forgot the model number, but they seem to be much more reliable and powerfull. im on my 3rd career and im stuck with the mark 14s right now and i go through the same stuff you do, especially when they explode 100yards before the target !

but i know that skippers back in the day had the same frustrations so i keep on firing and make more trips for refits....

SirMoric · 06-02-07, 09:24 PM

Hmm, a ship full of oil is not easy to sink, especially not when you take into consideration that oil is ligther than water and the hole ship is divided into compartments to store oil.

Unless you get an explosion ripping a tanker into pieces they tend to suck up a lot of damage.

A torpedo going off right beside a ship will cause damage, but not as much as it will if exploding below a ship (design flaw of ships)....... (to us submariners that is).

rgds

donut · 06-02-07, 09:25 PM

More arcade-like, but fun,try this, mod.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=110828

badb0y · 06-03-07, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ATR-42

especially when they explode 100yards before the target !

Ah, so i'm not the only one...

I can handle this though - just pi$$ed me off royally when a double hit on a freighter did nothing.....

tater · 06-03-07, 08:49 AM

Yeah, real skippers were beaten up in their patrol endorsements for wasting torpedos. At the start of the war the doctrine was supposed to be to fire ONE torpedo at a merchant ship if it was ~5000 tons. Many skippers decided on their own after seeing 50-70% of their torpedos fail to fire spreads at anything worth a torpedo at all. They'd still get bashed for wasting torpedos, but they also might actually sink something.

iccalm · 06-03-07, 10:23 AM

This community has been obsessed with an idea that ships are too vulnerable. One mod to Grey Wolves made them almost unsinkable.
I recently heard a quote from OTTO KRETSCHMER that close shot sinkings only required one torpedo.
SH4 is equally ridiculous. A mod is available to boost torpedo damage. It goes a little too far, but at least a 90 degree, close range hit on a small ship will sink it with one torpedo. I find this mod much improves the game.

tater · 06-03-07, 10:43 AM

A 90 degree hit is far LESS likely to explode at all for an early war Mk14 torpedo. The contact fuse would break unless it hit at an angle.

The range? That should make zero difference in the least. The only place the range could possibly make any difference would be at the very end of a run if it was coasting and slowing down. Seriously, how can range affect lethality of a torpedo, exactly? A faster torpedo could possibly penetrate a thin-skinned merchant before detonating, but the speed is independant of range for most of the run. Closer to the sub, it should actually be slower, but accelerating. There is no possible other physics involved in a short range attack other than ease of hitting in the first place.

A couple stories about 1 hit sinkings doesn't do it. Look at records for US submarines and the number of torpedos it took to sink a target.

The whole point of the command's obsession with the USN skippers using fewer torpedos, and requiring the skippers to use the magnetic exploder early war was twofold.

One, there was a shortage of torpedos.

Two, the USN believed that the small warhead of the Mk14 was only capable of sinking a merchant ship wth 1 shot if used "properly" with the magnetic pistol under the keel. From their testing they thought that 5000 ton ships would require 2-3 if used in contact mode.

nattydread · 06-03-07, 04:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SirMoric

Hmm, a ship full of oil is not easy to sink, especially not when you take into consideration that oil is ligther than water and the hole ship is divided into compartments to store oil.

Unless you get an explosion ripping a tanker into pieces they tend to suck up a lot of damage.

A torpedo going off right beside a ship will cause damage, but not as much as it will if exploding below a ship (design flaw of ships)....... (to us submariners that is).

rgds

Certainly a single torp into the side of a tanker with oil wouldnt garauntee a kill. But 2-3 wouldnt certainly seem to cause problems. Structural integerity for one, each hit is going to weaken the hull and its ability to hold up to the all powerful, weakest point seeking nature of liquid.

The first hit is going to case a significant amount of oil to spill out. If not tankers wouldnt care if the had gapping holes by running aground, and exxon Vladez wouldnt have been an issue. The lose of oil opens the door two things or a combination of both. Some heavier water displacing the oil and/or the creation of space or basically an air pocket. Now if the explosion is able to build enough pressure in the hold to blow the seals on doors/valves etc on the deck you get a nice little thing. The heavy water filling in and the light oil being push out the top of the tanker through the now open ports/doors/valves etc on the deck. She'll bleed oil out the top as water fills the holds.

If the seals hold, you may get an airpocket. This air pocket provides an area for gaseous expansion and atomization of the oil if hit by another torp, the atomization of the oil and the heat of the torp explosion and some due to compression by the explosion can facilitate a secondary fuel explosion.

So basically each hit should be increasing the odds of catostrophic structural failure and the odds of a secondary explosion. Each torp hit is likly weaking or breeching the various bulkheads in the holds...something tells me they werent intended to handle to internal pressures caused by an exploding torp, the shock wave the oil would transmit would likly be horrific, bending, twisting and causing bulges in the surrounding bulkheads.

A tanker's structure can take a collision or tearing along the hull pretty well, but setting off an explosion inside a closed compartment of its hold is a different story and completly different source of metal stress and fatigue.

Now as good as I hope all this sounds...its all personal speculation. And it doesnt prove a tanker "should" sink in 2, 3 or 4 torps.

Also, it seems to be accepted that tankers with more volitile contents did go up much easier...if not more dramatically

06-02-07, 07:23 PM	#1
badb0y Swabbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 14 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Problem with mark 14 torps Is is just me or are these torpedos not very good? Just did a 1942 mission where i got right into a convoy undetected. Primary targets were 2 large modern tankers. Got myself so that i could fire forward at one and backwards at the other at the same time. So, loosed off two torps at the first tanker and two at the second one - made off slowly and managed to get off two more mark 14s at a large modern composite freighter. The first tanker starts burning in two places, the second in one, and the freigher doesn't even register a hole in the side even though i watched the tightly grouped torps hit virtually the same place! Ok, so revisited the first tanker and had to pump another 4 torpedos into it until it went down. That means that out of i think 14 torpedos in forward banks that you can use i've used nearly half on one ship?? I gave up on the freighter (given that it appeared totally unaffected by two torpedo hits???). I ended up surfacing in the middle of the convoy and tried gunning the second tanker until i realised that a destroyer had come right up behind me which remarkably hadn't even started firing lol! I think it wanted to depth charge me on the surface. Anyway, my main point is that i've noticed this low damage from these topedos a lot in the game and it's frustrating. Also i tried a couple of shots 2 metres below the hull of one ship, expecting the "influence" from the ship to set them off. Nothing, i watched as they sailed right past the ship almost scaping the hull as they went. And yes, i had the right torp setting on (ie not contract only) ?? Any comments anyone please ??

06-02-07, 07:38 PM	#2
donut The Old Man Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: The Shifting, Whispering Sands, NM Posts: 1,463 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	That is a very good description,Of the very occurrences experienced around that time during WW2. There have been many:hmm: ?#@%, discussions,on this feature/bug. Welcome to Subsim badB0y. Last edited by donut; 06-02-07 at 07:53 PM.*

06-02-07, 09:04 PM	#8
ATR-42 Commodore Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Jersey Shore Posts: 606 Downloads: 20 Uploads: 6	later in the war, ive had MUCH MUCH better luck with the "pink" torpedos(mk17s?), i forgot the model number, but they seem to be much more reliable and powerfull. im on my 3rd career and im stuck with the mark 14s right now and i go through the same stuff you do, especially when they explode 100yards before the target ! but i know that skippers back in the day had the same frustrations so i keep on firing and make more trips for refits.... __________________

06-02-07, 09:25 PM	#10
donut The Old Man Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: The Shifting, Whispering Sands, NM Posts: 1,463 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	The casual gamer More arcade-like, but fun,try this, mod. http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=110828

06-03-07, 10:23 AM	#13
iccalm Watch Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 17 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Weak Torpedos and Tough Ships This community has been obsessed with an idea that ships are too vulnerable. One mod to Grey Wolves made them almost unsinkable. I recently heard a quote from OTTO KRETSCHMER that close shot sinkings only required one torpedo. SH4 is equally ridiculous. A mod is available to boost torpedo damage. It goes a little too far, but at least a 90 degree, close range hit on a small ship will sink it with one torpedo. I find this mod much improves the game.

06-02-07, 08:07 PM	#3
popeye A-ganger Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 77 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	i think im having the same problem. it takes too many torp's to put some ships down. i just lost a medium merchant. i hit him twice, and the second shot put a gaping hole in his belly. he sank very low in the water, but made off with the cover of 3 destroyers, at 2 knots. 2 others were immobilized, and deck gunned, after the DD's had fled the area. so, i fired 5 torps, and bagged 2 med. merchants. not so good.

06-02-07, 08:08 PM	#4
badb0y Swabbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 14 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	arrrghh.... I need....satisfaction!!! The, er, topedo type. The thing is, if they explode, given that they are packed with explosives, right next to the hull of a ship, surely some serious damage must occur? I can "understand" duds, and have that realism setting on as a result, but exploding tops that do nothing or very little? Can i ask another question here as well - i have been looking through the forums quite a bit on damage vs sink time. Take that first tanker i hit - it was listing to about 45 degrees, been hit multiple times, and was still driving on. Surely once water's overtopping the deck that's history for the ship? I've never known or seen footage of a ship in that state make it back to port....?

06-02-07, 08:09 PM	#5
badb0y Swabbie Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 14 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	this kinda puts me off playing the game as it takes so long to get into position and sort your firing solution out just to have ships not go down..? gah...

06-02-07, 08:35 PM	#6
wstaub Sailor man Join Date: May 2007 Location: Virginia Posts: 45 Downloads: 2 Uploads: 0	Welcome to the real frustration felt by Sumariners until early to mid 1943 when the Mark XIV torpedos where corrected from many various bugs.

06-02-07, 08:48 PM	#7
nattydread Captain Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 498 Downloads: 2 Uploads: 0	Keep in mind, that none of the merchants have cargo load outs. So a tanker doesnt have any combustibles on board to put a "cherry on top" of your torp hits. Oddly I see in many posts that tankers were hard to sink, but I have never seen that as a re-occuring issue in my readings...and I've read tons of WWII sub memoirs(Barnes & Nobles ran out of books for me, N. and S. California). I totally see how an empty tanker can hold on for dear life, but the frequency of stubborn tankers in game is troublesome to me. I was also surprised to see how much resolve the troop transports/cruise ships were. I'm not saying they shouldnt be, they are just stronger than I expected.

06-02-07, 09:24 PM	#9
SirMoric Seaman Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 33 Downloads: 32 Uploads: 0	Hmm, a ship full of oil is not easy to sink, especially not when you take into consideration that oil is ligther than water and the hole ship is divided into compartments to store oil. Unless you get an explosion ripping a tanker into pieces they tend to suck up a lot of damage. A torpedo going off right beside a ship will cause damage, but not as much as it will if exploding below a ship (design flaw of ships)....... (to us submariners that is). rgds

06-03-07, 08:49 AM	#12
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	Yeah, real skippers were beaten up in their patrol endorsements for wasting torpedos. At the start of the war the doctrine was supposed to be to fire ONE torpedo at a merchant ship if it was ~5000 tons. Many skippers decided on their own after seeing 50-70% of their torpedos fail to fire spreads at anything worth a torpedo at all. They'd still get bashed for wasting torpedos, but they also might actually sink something.

06-03-07, 10:43 AM	#14
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	A 90 degree hit is far LESS likely to explode at all for an early war Mk14 torpedo. The contact fuse would break unless it hit at an angle. The range? That should make zero difference in the least. The only place the range could possibly make any difference would be at the very end of a run if it was coasting and slowing down. Seriously, how can range affect lethality of a torpedo, exactly? A faster torpedo could possibly penetrate a thin-skinned merchant before detonating, but the speed is independant of range for most of the run. Closer to the sub, it should actually be slower, but accelerating. There is no possible other physics involved in a short range attack other than ease of hitting in the first place. A couple stories about 1 hit sinkings doesn't do it. Look at records for US submarines and the number of torpedos it took to sink a target. The whole point of the command's obsession with the USN skippers using fewer torpedos, and requiring the skippers to use the magnetic exploder early war was twofold. One, there was a shortage of torpedos. Two, the USN believed that the small warhead of the Mk14 was only capable of sinking a merchant ship wth 1 shot if used "properly" with the magnetic pistol under the keel. From their testing they thought that 5000 ton ships would require 2-3 if used in contact mode.