Torps & Merchant ships...

[Arctic Fox]

Yesterday I had 2 instances where I was aiming for a dd (ordered to take out the convoy escort) and missed but got message that enemy ship was destroyed. In both instances the ships sunk were 3 000+ ton merchants.

[cohiba]

thanks for the response!

seems i've got a lot of training to do!

[daft]

Originally Posted by Arctic Fox

Yesterday I had 2 instances where I was aiming for a dd (ordered to take out the convoy escort) and missed but got message that enemy ship was destroyed. In both instances the ships sunk were 3 000+ ton merchants.

Last night I ran into a small convoy with two passenger liners escorted by 4 DD's. I managed to produce my worst TDC solution to date, and fired all six bow tubes in a spread to compensate for the poor solution at the largest passenger liner. Five torps missed aft, and I cursed myself for rushing the approach when the 6th hit in the aft part with a loud WHACK! To my amazement it sank stern first, and while it was going down, one of the torps that missed struck a DD behind the liner and sank it. I was pretty pleased with my luck I must say.

[Galanti]

What is also speculated is that many times the game will model a dud by prematurly detonating your fish a yard or two away from the hull. This will look like a solid hit, but using the event camera reveals no gaping hole in the hull. However, because the torpedo has a damage radius, you will still inflict some damage to the vessel, and it may seem to be a good hit.

I used five fish to sink a large freighter last night. No holes were evident, some fire and a slight list, but after five of these 'close misses' the seams must of opened up and her and she rolled over and sank.

Other times I'll hit with one, but it will completely impact the target, resulting in a gaping hole and immediate listing and slowdown. I've never seen a merchant of any size survive two shots like this.

My suggestion before early '43 is to always use the slow speed setting on the Mk14, and try for steep angle shots (ie signifcantly less than 90 degrees).

[AhhhFresh]

Originally Posted by Galanti

My suggestion before early '43 is to always use the slow speed setting on the Mk14, and try for steep angle shots (ie signifcantly less than 90 degrees).

Does this negate the "close premature explosions"? I know that historically, high angle shots helped with the bad firing pins, but does that do the job here as well? I assumed they were modeling that type of dud after the also faulty magnetic influence detectors.

I feel strongly that it is definitely the duds that are making people think that torpedoes are underpowered... as I can sink a large merchant reasonably reliably with two solid hits from Mark X's, which hardly dud at all, but are much much smaller.

[Jaber]

I saw somewhere in a tutorial or something that the 'Contact' and 'Influence' Torp settings were actually backwards. Does anyone know if this is still true or not?

Thanks!

[CaptainHaplo]

Magnetic settings can and do often cause prematures that look like hits. What happens is the game models "oh there is a mag field - must be a ship" and the torp goes boom. Problem is - the torp hasnt gotten real close to the target - and so when it goes boom and the damage radius is calculated - its possible and often occurs is that the ship is outside the damage area.... meaning - it did not "premature" by definition - but still wasnt close enough to do much.

Because of this - I don't think many people are using magnetics anymore. Like historical skippers, we learn to use contact only.