Torpedo effectiveness

[Obersteuermann]

Last night I sneaked into a nice large convoy just west of Ireland. I sneaked past all the escorts, got right amongst the columns and started firing my eels.

Out of 7 fired (all bow tubes plus an extra couple, and the stern tube) I scored five hits - but only one ship sunk. Each of my targets were 8k-10k tons and received two torpedoes: one fused for impact and running at about 1.5m - 2m depth and one magnetic eel set to run about a metre under the ship's keel.

I didn't hang around near the surface to see what hit what (learned that lesson the hard way!) but I did immobilise a Liberty ship. When the escorts had safely passed by I surfaced and had a good look - seemed that the surface runner had holed his engine room just below the waterline.

Later on, while running back to Bergen, I came across a lone tramp steamer and put a magnetic torpedo under his keel. It was a perfect shot, straight under his funnel, but it had no effect at all. If anything, it sped him up!

What am I doing wrong with the magnetic torpedoes? They don't seem to be inflicting any real damage...

[CherryHarbey]

could be a number of things.
1 magnetic pistol were unreliable early in the war, if you have dud torps as possibility in your realism settings it may be that.
2 you could be setting them to run too deep, again early war according the radio messages, the torps had a fault making them run deeper than set, add that to your deliberate clearance of the keel and you may be too deep to trigger.
3 the swell of the sea in high winds could be affecting the depth of your torps causing either them to run too deep (as above) or too shallow and strike the curved bottom of the ship.

for the reasons above I tend to avoid using magnetic pistols unless the ship I'm aiming at is too far off the 90 degree angle on bow to make a impact detonate. hope this helps or at least give you possibilites as to what is causing your problems
cheers,

[BulSoldier]

The radio massages are just for immersion.Torpedoes run at desired depth.However you said that you havent observed any hits, so there is a chance of premature detonation, it is frequent in torps with magnetic pistols in early war.

Also there is the possibility the torpedoes werent enough.I had cases of 4-5k ships surviving 2 torps in diffrent areas and continue going (slower but still).Unless you aim very precise at weak points there is always the chance the ships wont sink.

[K-61]

During a recent early war patrol I fired two torpedoes, under calm conditions at two auxilliary cruisers. Three were steaming in line and thoughts of Otto Weddigen flashed through my head, but they were too far off when I first spotted them to make an attack on all three feasible. I had two electrics and two steamers loaded; the range was too great for the electrics, so I fired one steamer at each of the two trailing cruisers. The first magnetic prematured and the second one passed just aft of the second. In the meantime, I swung my stern and fired another steamer at the last one; it hit but the cruiser kept on sailing. I lost sight of them. The last I saw the trailing cruiser had fallen behind, but she was still too fast for me to catch submerged and there's no way I was going to risk surfacing in daylight for a high speed end-around. She may have sunk beyond my visible range, but I never did get any notification.

C'est le guerre!

[Jimbuna]

If the torpedoes are detonating whilst under the keel and not prematurely....your doing nothing wrong, simply experiencing a large bout of bad luck.

[Obersteuermann]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

If the torpedoes are detonating whilst under the keel and not prematurely....your doing nothing wrong, simply experiencing a large bout of bad luck.

I'm thinking bad luck. Just fired a 3-tube spread at USS Nevada (if I could get close enough I'd have USS Brooklyn and HMS Southampton as well...) but forgot to check the depth before loosing them. That'll be 3 impact torpedoes running at 4m against a battleship with a draft of 6m.

for the reasons above I tend to avoid using magnetic pistols unless the ship I'm aiming at is too far off the 90 degree angle on bow to make a impact detonate.

OK, so conventional wisdom is to go for impact whenever possible?

[CherryHarbey]

Originally Posted by BulSoldier

The radio massages are just for immersion.Torpedoes run at desired depth.

Are all of the radio messages eye candy (or ear candy) ?
I realised most (ships in distress etc) were just for show, but as the issues with the torps actually happened I thought that this was also modelled in the game. is this not the case?
maybe the reason I hate magnetic pistols so much is that I'm aiming too shallow and assuming the torp fault is correcting.... and it isn't.......

[maillemaker]

Unless the radio message corresponds to an actual map contact, it's just for show.

As for the torpedoes, if they are hitting and exploding, then you are just getting back luck, like Jim said.

If they aren't exploding, then they are either duds or you set your depth too low.

Steve