Sinking Times

[Wijbrandus]

I am using Sub Hunter III 1.4b with Grey Wolves 1.1a installed - all the latest versions. I am also using Sub Commander, also the latest version.

I notice that ships take a long time to sink. I very rarely get a ship going down fast. I ofted have to place the time compression on max, and sit and wait for the ship to sink, sometimes for 20 or thirty minutes of real time at 32x speed, or I have to put more torpedos into the target.

How do I know if a ship is going to sink? If it hits a speed of zero, is it going to go down? If I continue my patrol, and a ship sinks where no one can see it, did it really sink? Will I get credit for it?

Last night, I caught a larget cargo and a large tanker running together. I fired a spread that put a torp half a meter under the keel on each one, almost simultaneously impacting. The tanker stopped dead. The cargo limped on, and I had to chase it down and hit it three more times before it stopped. Then I had to hit it again for it to heel over and sink. This took quite a while, as it was dodging all over the place, and the conditions were pretty rough - night, rough seas, rain, and wind.

Almost 12 hours had passed by now, and when I went back to the tanker, it was still afloat, decks awash, and not moving. My last torpedo was used, and it finally went down.

Is there a way I can speed up the speed at which ships will sink so that I can get on with the game? I'd love to sit and circle the target for a few hours watching it slowly ease into the depths, but I only get a little game time anymore, and I feel I'm wasting it in observation time. I feel like I'm "wasting" torpedos on targets that will sink eventually, if given enough time, but that my outside concerns are impacting the way I have to play the game.

[Respenus]

Sink times are OK. Don't question them, they are correct in GW. It's more realistic!

[AVGWarhawk]

If you do not see it sink you do not get credit for it.

Sink times are dead on. A lot of vessels made port while smoking and full of torpedo holes.

The only way to know it the ship will sink is sit and wait or come back if she is dead in the water. I stopped a c2 and chased a small coast that was travelling with the c2. I sunk it and returned to finish the job on the c2.

I do not know how to change this time to sink. GW has made a mod to compartmentalize the ship like in life. These were air tight via bulk heads. You must not keep hitting the same spot over and over, you must hit in two to three spots. Sometimes you do get that lucky on one torpedo and she sinks quickly. Sometimes you have to fight for the sinking!

Oh yeah, if the ship is in bad shape use the cannon to finish it off. Save a torp or two.

[hyperion2206]

I think it's realistic that bigger and newer vessels don't think so fast, but most of the ships were really old ones dating back to WWI and most of them went down after only one torpedo. I think that should be modeled as well, don't you think? However, don't get me wrong: I love TGW!!!!!!

[KevinB]

I have just finished reading a book about the 7th U-Boat Flottilla which states that "some ships went down very quickly, but others remained stubbornly afloat and it was not too uncommon to encounter empty wrecks refusing to sink".

So I shouldn't worry too much about them going down as TGW creates the realism, unless you want to use most of your torps and gun ammo.
I also think hanging around will have brought back pretty soon as no doubt the merchants would have sent a message.

[Wijbrandus]

I'm all for realism, that's why I downloaded TGW yesterday.

My issue is I don't want to spend my one or two hours of game time an evening waiting for a ship to sink, and using multiple torpedos to sink it is bad for my score.

I read in another thread that to make them flood faster you need to poke holes in other parts of the ship. I'll try that tonight. Center shot to stop the ship, and a shot in the bow or stern to help it along, see if that helps.

If it works, great. If not, I'll have to consider going back to Vanilla.

[Wijbrandus]

Originally Posted by KevinB

I have just finished reading a book about the 7th U-Boat Flottilla which states that "some ships went down very quickly, but others remained stubbornly afloat and it was not too uncommon to encounter empty wrecks refusing to sink".

What book was that? I'm interested in reading all sorts of U-boat histories. Was it worth the price?

[KevinB]

The publisher is Spearhead and the title is 7th U-Boat Flottilla Doenitz's Atlantic Wolves by Angus Konstam & Jak Mallman Showell. It's only 96 pages but got loads of photos.
The website for the publisher is www.ianallansuperstore.com

Yes it was worth it but it was in the sale at a third of the price!

Actually I've just seen it on Amazon.

[Herr Russ]

I have hit a few C3's with my last 2 torpedoes and had it sit with zero speed and decks awash for over an hour (Real Time) with TC on 32. The weather was bad so I couldn't finish it with the deck gun. I finally gave up and continued back to base or to my grid for the renown..

Hate it when that happens..

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by hyperion2206

I think it's realistic that bigger and newer vessels don't think so fast, but most of the ships were really old ones dating back to WWI and most of them went down after only one torpedo. I think that should be modeled as well, don't you think? However, don't get me wrong: I love TGW!!!!!!

Just because they were old does not mean a thing. In fact they usually survived better then the newer vessels. What usually would happen is the older vessels would make port but usually scrapped out because of the torpedo hit. I read this in 'twilight of the U-boat".

[TarJak]

You can always try aiming for weak points like just to the rear of the fuel bunkers or on warships in the ammo magazines. This tends to blow the ship apart with one shot. The community wiki has some screenshots with the weakpoints marked.

[Wijbrandus]

Originally Posted by TarJak

You can always try aiming for weak points like just to the rear of the fuel bunkers or on warships in the ammo magazines. This tends to blow the ship apart with one shot. The community wiki has some screenshots with the weakpoints marked.

Do these apply with the TGW mod?

Also, does TGW use the same, or similar, sinking rules that NYGM uses? I've done some reading and think I understand what's happening, if it's similar.

Maybe I'll just have to unlock the deck gun and see about putting a few rounds at the waterline. I wonder how many it will take in the same spot to make a new "flood zone"?

At least they don't seem to be radioing for help. Yet. Oh happy times, do not fail me...

You can rest assured that ships will call for help. Whether or not there's anyone close enough to assist is another matter.

If you want realism you definitely want to use TWG or NYGM. The sinking times seem to be very realistic with both. If you just want ships to explode and sink within two minutes stick with the vanilla box-stock game, but don't try to fool yourself into thinking it's realistic.

Just the other night I encountered a convoy. My first torp was a perfect ammo bunker hit on an Auxillary Cruiser. It blew up and sunk within 5 minutes or so. My second torp hit the engine room of a T3 tanker, starboard side. It stopped dead but did not sink. My third fish was a starboard hit on a troop transport about 1/3 way from the bow. It slowed to about 2kts but also did not sink. I didn't see the last two of three because I was diving and fighting for my life against the escorts. I managed to sneak away and recharge my batteries, then returned to finish off the tanker and troop transport. One torpedo to the fuel tank (starboard side) split the tanker in half and she sunk immediately. I closed on the port side of the troop transport and setup a shot about a third of the way down the hull. As I was readying my shot I spotted one of the convoy escorts coming back to assist. I was able to get off my shot (she now had two hits 1/3 of the way back, one starboard and one port) and dive before the excort arrived. The transport sunk shortly after. So, it's easy to see that ships, even the big 10,000 ton ones, CAN sink from just one or two shots if you hit them in the right spots.

Compare this with my last patrol. I hit a C2 cargo about 1/3rd back on the starboard side. The ship continued to creep along at just a couple knots while I dealt with other ships in the convoy, escaped destroyers, recharged batteries, etc. I made my way back to the ship about 3 hours later (game time) and she was decks awash in the front and the props were half out of the water in the back. I lined up another shot, this time to the port side. Again, i tried to hit about 1/3rd of the way back for two reasons; 1) the back of the ship was riding so high that I doubt a torpedo would have detonated and 2) since she was already nose down i figured it wouldn't take much to tip her all the way down. My shot hit perfectly with a 3m depth and impact trigger. Still the ship kept creeping along, nose all the way in the water, props making foam on the surface. My deck gun was damaged and I was now out of fish, with the last shot using up my final one. I stuck around for 4 hours and the ship never did sink. I finally set sail for home and resigned myself to the fact that it might take 6 months, but that ship would probably eventually make it to England.

If you want realism and uncertainty, TGW fits the bill. If you want shoot-and-they-die gaming, stick with vanilla.

[LeafsFan]

I remember reading a book when I was a kid about convoy SC-7. many ships were torpedoed with a cargo of lumber. In some cases the ships were nigh on unsinkable. On the other hand ships crews hated loading iron ore. If you were hit....

HB

[MRV]

I just need to vent now!!!!

Just torpedoed that damn King George V, she ate 8 (!!!!) eels (no duds) the first got her engines and so she stopped.....I then waited till the flooding took the Rest of her NOTHING!!!!

OK, I blasted my last 4 Torps right under her 2. forward Turret, where the Ammo Bunker should be which I hoped would blow up, NOTHING. No explosion and the flooding STILL wasn't enough.

I'm using GW......Guys PLEASE ADJUST THAT DAMAGE MODEL!!!! I know that was a Battleship...but.....c'mon......8 TORPEDOES!!!!


Even though I edited the Zones.cfg and decreased the critical flooding of almost all ships and increased the critical hit probability, this seems to have no effect at the game. I still need 2 Torps for a 2000-ton coastal merchant everytime! (10. Patrol now).
(Its OK for ships to survive more then they should SOMETIMES, but not everytime)

I dont mind long sinking times, I mean ships not sinking at all! If you look close enough with the external camera, you'll notice that there is a moment when the ship stops to take flooding and just stays at the surface, I once waited 2 days for a ship to sink, while she hung in the Water about 30 Degrees to starbord with 3/4 of the Deck in the Water....I once ended up having crippled 4 ships like this, no one sunk -> 0 renown.

No one would in reality consider this ship NOT destroyed! This simply cant be realistic.

So please, tweak this if you can, this is the urgent call for help of a guy who stayed awake longer then planned to sink that damn bucket!! (Cant save and load when a ship is damaged.....you all know why....)