Ship sinking (She's going down sir!)

[gimpli]

Hi,

Thanks in advance for help!

I am trying to understand the game mechanics - if I torpedo a boat (with a hit) and I don't get the message "She's going down sir!" from my officer, does that mean this ship will not sink, or does it mean she may sink, but its not yet certain, you should wait and see...?

If she may sink, what is a reasonable amount of time to wait and see if she sinks, and what would be silly, and a second torpedo would definitely be the answer (assuming any non-dud torps left)

if it makes any difference am playing TMO 2.5.

Thanks again!

[Soviet Creeper]

Sometimes it takes time for the message to appear. If you dont get the sunk message, you might have to wait some time, or send another torp to finish the job. Im not sure how TMO works with flooding, but I know in RFB it can take hours to sink, sometimes even more. If TMO is like stock, if its going to sink, it will sink in like, 10 ingame minutes.

[Platapus]

In real life ships took hours/days to sink. Hence an interesting problem for the Captain. Should I wait or should I use another torpedo?

One school of thought is that anything worth shooting once is worth shooting again. Others like to be stingy with their torpedoes.

What I do is zoom in and try to find some feature on the hull I can line up with the current water line. If I see it go under in about 10 minutes of real time, I am pretty confident the ship will sink on its own.

Just remember that you need to stick around until it does sink if you want credit.

If the ship is motionless, you can always use this opportunity to try different approaches before you launch another torpedo. I use these situations for practicing my stern Cromwell approach.

[Vaux]

@Platapus: I'm of that school that, if something's good enough to shoot, it's good enough to shoot again (or even a third time). I usually fire a minimum of 2 torps at a target, more if it's larger. The majority of the time, I'll see the "she's going down, sir" message while still at the scope.

The other times usually involve situations where I've launched a couple of fish at a target, had to dive deep to avoid DDs before impact, but got the "going down" message while running deep and quiet, getting the credit as well. Obviously, this means you don't need a visual, but just how far away can you be and still get credit? Is that distance affected by weather conditions?

[USS Drum]

If she is sinking she should be heavily listing and all you have to do is speed up the TC if she is still making speed she will probably need one or two more fish to finish off.

[donna52522]

Sometimes a ship with four torpedoes holes down it's side should go down quickly, in RFB that doesn't happen....I play TMO not because it's more realistic, but because I don't have all day to wait for a ship to sink.

[donna52522]

Originally Posted by Platapus

In real life ships took hours/days to sink. Hence an interesting problem for the Captain. Should I wait or should I use another torpedo?

One school of thought is that anything worth shooting once is worth shooting again. Others like to be stingy with their torpedoes.

What I do is zoom in and try to find some feature on the hull I can line up with the current water line. If I see it go under in about 10 minutes of real time, I am pretty confident the ship will sink on its own.

Just remember that you need to stick around until it does sink if you want credit.

If the ship is motionless, you can always use this opportunity to try different approaches before you launch another torpedo. I use these situations for practicing my stern Cromwell approach.

Sometimes ships just disintegrated, depending on it's cargo.

[Bubblehead1980]

As you play more and more you will be able to tell.How a ship takes damage and sinks really does depend on the cargo.Some ships carry fuel and ammo others have just freight.Also depends where you hit them.Engines, under the stack really does a ship in.

Last patrol in 1944 in Yellow Sea, I fired four Mark 18's in a night surface attackat a 8500 ton Hakusika Maru in TMO 2.5(part of a convoy) two hit bother forward(speed dropped slightly after i fired, caused two to run forward) , this caused heavy forward flooding and slowed the ship to 3.5 knots.Daylight came and forced me to pull away to reload bow tubes and avoid the escorts.I stayed about 8 miles off but on radar could see convoy was leaving the wounded ship behind but a pesky escort kept hanging out in 4-5000 yards away while other escorted the rest of the convoy.Would not have been a problem except only had 100 feet of water to play in and seas were calm, so waited it out, eventually(7 hours later) the escort was 6 miles away, I dove, closed in and put two more into the wounded ship, which sank bow first.I then snuck away.

Other time's I have had one or two fish cause a massive explosion so all depends on cargo type and where you hit them.Sometimes you have to wait a few minutes for the flooding to overwhelm the ships.

[donna52522]

As you were pulling away, you should have had your aft tubes on it....why didn't you fire?

[Bubblehead1980]

Originally Posted by donna52522

As you were pulling away, you should have had your aft tubes on it....why didn't you fire?

I had already expended my stern torpedos and would not have fired anyway bc they would have prob missed since the freighter was zigging and didnt have time to track for a good speed while opening the distance, which also put the ship out of range quickly(Mark 18's only have a range of 4000 yardS)

[WernherVonTrapp]

[mido]

Once you get the message "She is going down..." she definitely goes down, you can check your captain's record.
One of the reasons why I prefer RFB is the more realistic sinking mechanics/physics.

[gimpli]

Thanks all for the help in understanding this.