Duds... so many duds!

[Ian_L]

Ok, first patrol out with TMO and RSRDC that I installed last month. Haven't played SH4 in 1+ year.

July 1942:

First ship I encounter is a fast moving cruiser, and it's alone. Its speed throws me off a bit, but I still manage to fire a salvo of 4 torps from a longer range than I would have liked if I had planned my approach correctly. All 4 miss. Since these are the first torps I fired since a long time, I blame it on plain bad aiming. It's going too fast to try to pursue or a second salvo, so I abandon chase.

Second ship a few days later: a small merchant doing 5 knots, should be just the training I need to get back in the game... Fire a salvo of 4 torps (I know, but I needed to get on the board, if only for my own morale!). All 4 miss..................... What?

Slightly pissed off, I reload to my last save and sail to the area again. Sure enough, a merchant's there. I fire a salvo of 4 (3 set to contact, and one to contact influence), but this time I cheat: I go look at the external cam to see what's up (I like the eye candy at times):

*thump* "Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
...
*thump* "Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
...
*thump* "Torpedo is a dud, sir!"
...
*the last one sails right under... no explosion*



Pissed off (again), I sail ahead flank underwater, overtake, and let loose all 4 from the rear tubes. I finally get 2 hits out of 4, with another two duds that hit the ship.

6 duds out of 8!! If I need 8 torps to sink a 4000 tons freighter, I sure won't sink a carrier!

Are you guys getting the same ratios? When does it improve, 1943?

Ian

[Ducimus]

"…the unhappy saga of the Mark 14 torpedo and its Mark VI magnetic exploder is, perhaps, a perfect example of the mayhem that can be created when experts bury their heads in the sand and steadfastly refuse to face facts."

"America entered the war with torpedoes far inferior to those of the enemy, and the fault lay squarely with the United States Bureau of Ordnance. It was ineffectual in research and development, inept in testing. It was inadequate in manufacturing, and feeble in its supervision of Newport. It was wanting in collegiality with the rest of the Navy, and it failed to trust those fighting under the Pacific surface."

"That…desk-bound staffers refused to listen to suggestions and criticisms from those they had sent into combat with this weapon seems, in retrospect, incomprehensibly stubborn and stupid…. The torpedo scandal of the U.S. submarine force in World War II was one of the worst in the history of any kind of warfare."

[Laconic]

Set the pistol to contact and shoot them on the lower speed setting; that should improve reliability. Or, better yet, use Mk 10 torpedoes...duds are rare, though you'll have to get close enough to start a knife fight. I'll generally skip Mk 14's all together and move on to the electric fish once they're available.

[Admiral8Q]

In SS2, I played with historical torpedoes at the very start of the war. In a training I fired my entire stock of torps and still the merchie refused to sink. Early on you'll have to rely more on your deck gun than those faulty Mk 14's.

But these are the things that were wrong with them:

-They would go too deep. I set them as shallow as possible.

-The magnetic exploder will explode too early or not at all. Use the contact exploder.

-If you hit with the contact exploder on a perpendicular (90 degree) angle, then it will most likely dud. Try for a 45 degree hit.

-Run them on slow speed!

I hope that helps. I've always hated the historical torpedoes, but now I'm using that factor to enhance my gameplay.

P.S. Get the Narwhal mod, those two 6" guns are alot of fun!

[TwistedFemur]

When they tested the MK14 during trials it had a 70% failure rate

Tests were carried out by COMSUBPAC's gunnery and torpedo officer, Art Taylor (ex-Haddock). Taylor, Swede Momsen, and others fired warshots from Muskallunge[37] into the cliffs of Kahoolawe, beginning 31 August. Their third test shot was a dud.[38] This revealed the firing pin had not been able to contact the detonator hard enough to fire the warhead.[38]
To avoid "shaking hands with St. Peter" (as Lockwood put it),[38] E.A. Johnson, USNR, supervised by Taylor, dropped dummy warheads filled with sand from a cherry picker from 90 feet (27 m). In 7 out of 10 of these trials, firing mechanisms bent, jammed, and failed with the high inertia of a straight-on hit (the prewar ideal).[39] A quick fix was to encourage "glancing" shots[40] (which cut the number of duds in half),[39] until a permanent solution could be found

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo

[Ian_L]

Originally Posted by Admiral8Q

Early on you'll have to rely more on your deck gun than those faulty Mk 14's.

But these are the things that were wrong with them:

-They would go too deep. I set them as shallow as possible.

-The magnetic exploder will explode too early or not at all. Use the contact exploder.

-If you hit with the contact exploder on a perpendicular (90 degree) angle, then it will most likely dud. Try for a 45 degree hit.

-Run them on slow speed!

I hope that helps. I've always hated the historical torpedoes, but now I'm using that factor to enhance my gameplay.

P.S. Get the Narwhal mod, those two 6" guns are alot of fun!

Thanks for the tips!

However, I rarely surface to fight it out with the deck gun. I just seems to me that, especially with those armed merchants, a submarine captain wouldn't risk his ship so often in real life. It's easier for us to risk a bit of damage...

Ian

[Ian_L]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

"…The torpedo scandal of the U.S. submarine force in World War II was one of the worst in the history of any kind of warfare."

Does this mean that it never really gets solved all through the war? I should pick up some books on WWII subs. I think I'll go peruse the Subsim book review section... Thanks for the info, Ducimus.

Originally Posted by Laconic

Set the pistol to contact and shoot them on the lower speed setting; that should improve reliability.

Is it the same range at lower speed? I'll try the Mk10.

Originally Posted by TwistedFemur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_14_torpedo

Thanks for the link!

Ian

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Ian_L

I should pick up some books on WWII subs.

You could start with this sticky thread on the subject. But personally, id skip all that boring 3rd hand reading, and go straight to a 45 minute documentary as a primer.

[Ian_L]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

You could start with this sticky thread on the subject. But personally, id skip all that boring 3rd hand reading, and go straight to a 45 minute documentary as a primer.

Thanks for these links (and obviously the extensive work you did on that sticky thread). I will get to the books though.

This is one of the only area of WWII that I haven't read on, so I'm overdue (+ a long train commute!).

Ian

[ShadowWolf Kell]

Originally Posted by Laconic

Set the pistol to contact and shoot them on the lower speed setting; that should improve reliability. Or, better yet, use Mk 10 torpedoes...duds are rare, though you'll have to get close enough to start a knife fight. I'll generally skip Mk 14's all together and move on to the electric fish once they're available.

My current run with a Porpoise, that's pretty much what I've been doing. Using Mk10s over Mk14s. Haven't gotten to electrics yet. My first patrol was exceptionally painful. 2/3rds of the torpedos were duds. I watched 8 torpedos literally bounce off 2 different Kongos in the same convoy and just sail off. The only thing that made it bearable is knowing that things like that really happened.

On another patrol (with a Gato) later on in the same career, I actually had TWO circular runners back to back. I've made a habit of zooming the scope out after firing just in case and it's the only thing that saved me when I saw their paths change in the wrong direction.

As has been said, slow setting with very shallow depth, and trying to make as near 90 degree AOB shots is about as good as you can do. If it doesn't detonate, you could always mail the warhead back to BuOrd and hope it detonates there.

[Steiger]

Using TMO, I started my career in Dec. '41, and I turned in 3 dry patrols before I was able to start scoring. Between prematures, deep-runners, and just plain old-fashioned duds, I had not sunk a single ship in 10 months.

[Ducimus]

Where TMO and duds are concerned, Your best bet is to pay attention to the weather. If it's calm, use magnetic; if its rough, use impact. Just realize that in rough weather, your chances of a proper torpedo is very low.

[RodBorza]

That's why I love this game!

Nothing more frustrating than searching a long time WITHOUT radar then, out of luck, finding a target, shadowing it, overtaking it, intercepting its track, firing and then... two duds, one pass under, one miss astern...

Before I read the stories about the torpedoes failures and all, I would reload the game and try again. But now I'm a bit more experienced skipper, so if I don't sink my target, I live with it. Good to learn to be a better captain and set things right next time.

Also, I can only imagine the frustration of a captain and his responsability before his crew after shouting orders, putting everybody to work to no avail in the end.

That's why I love this game. Let's talk about realistic settings? So let's get the same (simulated) amount of problems those guys had to endure. Much better than a "realistic" FPS where you are shot over and over before dying. In this game, no dice. And duds, well it is just part of the game.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by Ian_L

Does this mean that it never really gets solved all through the war? I should pick up some books on WWII subs. I think I'll go peruse the Subsim book review section... Thanks for the info, Ducimus.

Long story short:

• The deep-running problem was finally admitted to by BuOrd in August 1942, and fixes for this problem were issued to the fleet not long afterwards.
• Submarines under Lockwood's command began firing Mark 14's with the magnetic exploder (officially) deactivated in late June 1943. There never was a fix for getting the magnetic exploder to work properly.
• Mark 14s with a properly-functioning impact detonator first left for patrol at the very end of September 1943.

[Ian_L]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Where TMO and duds are concerned, Your best bet is to pay attention to the weather. If it's calm, use magnetic; if its rough, use impact. Just realize that in rough weather, your chances of a proper torpedo is very low.

How does the rough sea influence the magnetic detonator? Just because the target will move up and down, hence having a possibility that the torpedo-ship distance will be too great (not widthstanding the deep-running problem early war)?

Originally Posted by LukeFF

Long story short:

• The deep-running problem was finally admitted to by BuOrd in August 1942, and fixes for this problem were issued to the fleet not long afterwards.
• Submarines under Lockwood's command began firing Mark 14's with the magnetic exploder (officially) deactivated in late June 1943. There never was a fix for getting the magnetic exploder to work properly.
• Mark 14s with a properly-functioning impact detonator first left for patrol at the very end of September 1943.

Is this what is roughly modeled in TMO, or do we get pretty much the same duds ratio throughout the war?

Ian