5 torpedos to sink a medium cargo

[Zosimus]

My two cents. First of all, I never use magnetic torpedoes. They premature too often. I use T1s 3-4m depth and set for impact.

Just recently I found out that you can zoom in on the periscope. If you're aiming for a specific spot on the ship, that zoom feature definitely helps.

I am running GWX and most ships do not go down with 1 torpedo. I follow them for 3 hours to make sure and then I surface and use the deck gun. I refuse to use a second torpedo unless I know that either A) the ship is at least 10k tons or B) it's a cruiser. Even then, on light cruisers, you normally need at least 3 torpedoes to put them down. I can't imagine how many you might need to do in a battleship.

If you're going to use a second torpedo on a ship, use it on the opposite side. Then even if you hit the same midships location, at least you're doing new damage to the ship.

Since you're probably going to have to use the deck gun anyway either make sure the weather's good enough or use the all weather deck gun mod. I've tried ramming–it's ineffective.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Zosimus

My two cents. First of all, I never use magnetic torpedoes. They premature too often. I use T1s 3-4m depth and set for impact.

Just recently I found out that you can zoom in on the periscope. If you're aiming for a specific spot on the ship, that zoom feature definitely helps.

I am running GWX and most ships do not go down with 1 torpedo. I follow them for 3 hours to make sure and then I surface and use the deck gun. I refuse to use a second torpedo unless I know that either A) the ship is at least 10k tons or B) it's a cruiser. Even then, on light cruisers, you normally need at least 3 torpedoes to put them down. I can't imagine how many you might need to do in a battleship.

If you're going to use a second torpedo on a ship, use it on the opposite side. Then even if you hit the same midships location, at least you're doing new damage to the ship.

Since you're probably going to have to use the deck gun anyway either make sure the weather's good enough or use the all weather deck gun mod. I've tried ramming–it's ineffective.

Silent Otto Kretschmer: "one ship one 'eel' " and who can argue with 'the man"! Since the U-boot is not a true submarine but rather a temporarily submersible torpedo boat until the XXIII's are developed, waiting and finishing off cripples with the deck gun is the way to go. Know the draft depths of each merchant type and use impact only-Magnetic never works for me either. Properly rationed, the deck gun ammo and eels should be gone simultaneously by the patrol's end and the tonnage count is amazing. Anything under 3000 tons is strictly cannon fodder- Kanonenfutter- those 'eels' are expensive! Too bad about the ramming.

[UKönig]

I will admit, I do not use realistic torpedos. Reload times, yes, duds, no. I didn't come all this way to sink something only to be betrayed by my own equipment. It's a game that I am trying to have fun at, I don't like getting cheated by bad fish. If I fire and miss, or I get a premie I will accept that in due course. If I hit and the angle was bad and it results in a "knock" and not a "blast", I will accept that too. I just like to be able to trust my torpedoes. I get the odd 'deep-runner' but by and large the depth gear can hold my settings.
I settle for running the torpedo under the target and break its back/keel. I save two for each potential target, one, and one to be sure. I rarely use 3 or 4 on one ship. If I am forced to use 5 torpedos on one ship that I can normally sink in 1-2 hits, I get suspicious...
In any case, you can sink an aircraft carrier or a battleship with one well placed shot under the keel. Even so large a ship cannot survive against that kind of structural damage. If you set your torpedoes to 2-3 meters against a battleship, then you should be sending them against the armor belt. Set them to run under and that same armor belt is now useless. Ships can also degauss to lower their magnetic profiles. Originally intended for use against coastal mines but also worked against magnetic pistols, so the impact fuse was often still used.
It looks like you're going with the 'punch a hole in the side and let nature do the work', while I am trying to break the keel. I will vary shots as the situation changes, that's one of the things that is fun about this game, there are so many different ways to play it.

[Riccardo1975]

Deck gun is great pre 1942 but after that everywhere bar Cape Hatteras ships are armed and one good hit destroys any hope of keeping 100% hull integrity for 220+ metres crah dive depth to avoid HK groups. Even shooting at night at crippled ships with a crack gun crew from 2500+ metres plus is risky. Dido class take 1 torpedo. Revenge class take 3. The Ark Royal took 2. HMS Nelson off Norway took 7. A 4000 tonne merchant should need one and then founder and sink over the following hour. Not 2+ gunfire. Think I'll just miss em out. Passenger cargoes are no problem at all. One torp and gone within 30 minutes.

Riccardo. U-501

[Andrewsdad]

Recently I used my last internal torpedo in heavy weather which stopped a merchant. It shipped water for hours as I waited for the weather to abate so I could load the externals and use the deck gun.

It took 37 hours for the "She's going down!" to be reported. I sailed away and never did see the hulk sink.

Another time I hit the RODNEY with two torpedoes as she sailed inside a convoy. This slowed her so that she dropped behind and after the escorting destroyers gave up on me I moved off so as to keep her just at extreme range so I could end around and finish her off.

After a few hours RODNEY increased speed and her port list was gone. Looks like the RN damage control teams are pretty good !! (Yes, I got her after all...)

I don't believe I have ever had a merchant repair damage, but the Naval ships seem to.
Salute!!
AD

[Pistoliero]

Mechants also can repair damage (probalby).
Few days ago during convoy attack I hit large tanker in bow area and it started to burn. Initially small fire, but after half an hour she was completely consumed by fire and left a trail of burning (!) oil on the water. Was quite a sight at night.

So, while evading escorts, I left convoy alone for few hours and intercepted it again next day. Tanker was fine and shiny, without visible damage.

About thinking ships - normally I use salvo of 2 torpedoes with small spread angle for anything larger than small cargo/merchant, just like BdU instructed me. Probably not a way to score 100.000 tons patrol but failsafe - if both torpedoes hit the target you can forget about it and start evading/reloading/whatever else you like.

All mechant types I've met and light/auxilary cruisers confirmed to sink after 2 hits.
If I ever meet a battleship or carrier exposed for attack, I would use salvo of 4 without a second thought.

As for magnetic pistols - yes, they premature a lot, but they have their uses. Impact just literally always fail, if it hits target at say 30 degrees, but magnetic will (unless it explode prematurely, yes).

By the way does relation between magnetic premature explosions and weather exists? At the beginning I thought that it does, so I used magnetics only at good weather. But I see that they still premature 30-50% of time, confused now.

[maillemaker]

By the way does relation between magnetic premature explosions and weather exists? At the beginning I thought that it does, so I used magnetics only at good weather. But I see that they still premature 30-50% of time, confused now.

Yes, I think bad weather makes magnetic more susceptible to premature detonation, but I have never seen a mag torpedo prematurely detonate inside 1000 meters.

Steve

[Zosimus]

Well, to each his or her own, but I don't fire anything from less than 2000 meters. If you fire closer by the time you can get some distance the escorts have followed the bubbles back to your location.

I have never had an impact torpedo fail when I do my own targeting solution. If you're 90º and firing from 350 to 010 gyroangle they go off like clockwork at any range. When I just fired at any old angle and trusted the game's perfect firing solution (range, speed, etc.) they bounced off all the time.

[banryu79]

Originally Posted by maillemaker

Yes, I think bad weather makes magnetic more susceptible to premature detonation, but I have never seen a mag torpedo prematurely detonate inside 1000 meters.

I usually fire impacts and more rarely mags, but at least in 2 occasions when I fired mags I experienced what looked like misses but with the eels detonating. I'm not sure if before or after the estimated runnig time and they both where fired well inside the 1000 m. range (I usually fire between 700-400 m. and so I do not think they runned out of fuel).

Could I have experienced premature detonators? Or they simply bounced against the keel and then exploded while going down?

[desirableroasted]

Some torpedo tips to remember if you are trying to play realistically, rather than "arcade":

1) The choice is not mag vs imp, but mag/imp vs imp. In other words, all mag pistols work as impact pistols, too.

2) In real life, you could not switch pistol settings instantly. You had to haul the torpedo out of the tube to do it. I believe I have read in this forum that you could only do one at a time and that it took upwards of an hour.

3) As in real life, magnetic pistols sometimes fail. But if you let that keep you from using them, you are going to miss a *lot* of tonnage: used correctly, the damage they do far outweighs the occasional dud. You can easily ruin Hood's day with one.

4) When you use magnetic, try to use a slow speed setting. Give your torpedo as much time as possible under the hull of your target (which is why you also try for a "long" AOB angle, too).

5) Don't be a slave to gyroangle (the orange, yellow and green triangle). The green triangle does NOT mean a perfect shot -- only that the torpedo will run straight out of the tube on launch, perhaps on the way to a hopelessly miscalculated shot. Sure, all things equal, you want a low gyroangle, but it is perfectly possible to set up a perfect impact shot when your sub is not at a 90 degree angle to the target.

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by Zosimus

I am running GWX and most ships do not go down with 1 torpedo.

Hit right, they will and do.

Originally Posted by Zosimus

I follow them for 3 hours to make sure and then I surface and use the deck gun. I refuse to use a second torpedo unless I know that either A) the ship is at least 10k tons or B) it's a cruiser. Even then, on light cruisers, you normally need at least 3 torpedoes to put them down. I can't imagine how many you might need to do in a battleship.

Two normally works for a battleship if you are lined up right. You can go up to Norway in April 1940 and practice over and over and over and over again if you want to learn how.

Originally Posted by Zosimus

If you're going to use a second torpedo on a ship, use it on the opposite side. Then even if you hit the same midships location, at least you're doing new damage to the ship.

No, just hit it in a different compartment. This is detailed in the GWX manual and has been discussed here at length for years.

Originally Posted by Zosimus

Since you're probably going to have to use the deck gun anyway either make sure the weather's good enough or use the all weather deck gun mod. I've tried ramming–it's ineffective.

The all-weather mod is an arcarde and unrealistic mod -- fine if you want to play that way, of course, as are all mods.

The deck gun is a "nice to have" early in the war. Saves using a torpedo on some low life, or finishes someone off. But making tactical decisions based on whether you can use the gun is just... odd.

No offense... seriously. But you are feeling yourself forward into the game, and talking about it, which I respect. But a lot of what you are putting out as truth, rather than questions, is just wrong -- and, worse -- has been put out 1000 times before. Even by me when I first discovered the game.

Trust me when I say every bit of what you question or encounter has been covered at length. Use the search function and you will, for example, find 50-60 pages on approach theories, intercepts, convoy attack strategies, pros and cons of mag/impact, etc etc.

Not trying to shut you down, but this game is so thoroughly analyzed that one could write a 500-page manual on how to play it correctly.

[Zosimus]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

Hit right, they will and do.

If you hit a ship and it goes down on one torpedo you should consider yourself lucky. I remember torpedoing a cargo ship, waiting 2 hours hoping it would sink, and then coming up on the other side and hitting it with about 10 shots, four of which were definitely below the waterline. I then called a cease fire and started waiting to see how long the ship would take to sink. Instead I got jumped by a destroyer and spent several hours at the bottom of a shallow section running along at 1 knot before shaking him off and catching up to the ship to find it burning merrily and steaming straight on.

By way of comparison the Kattegat was sunk during the battles of Narvik by four shots at the waterline and the ship was a 6,128 ton tanker–a ship designed to carry fluids.

So I don't care if you designed the mod. Ships do NOT usually sink with just one torpedo in the game, and a reasonable number of shots at the waterline is similarly no guarantee that the ship will go under.

In my other campaign, at home, I started in Lorient 1940 and sailed out with a IXB to do battle for Deutchland. I found a convoy with a light cruiser in the middle. With a two-torpedo salvo at 1º I hit that baby and, since I was still at periscope depth, I had the joy of watching the two torpedoes slam into the ship on the F6 screen. One hit it in the stern and the other hit it in the bow. Did it sink? No, the ship not only did not sink, but it also did not even slow down. So true to style, I have circled around to the other side of the convoy where I hope that a third torpedo, midships, will finish it. I won't know how that works out until the weekend. Remember that this is a LIGHT cruiser. I can only assume that it will take 4 to kill a normal cruiser, 5 for a battleship, and a thermonuclear device for an aircraft carrier. Enemy subs, as far as I understand, require Armageddon to sink. I've never engaged one.

Two normally works for a battleship if you are lined up right. You can go up to Norway in April 1940 and practice over and over and over and over again if you want to learn how.

I seriously doubt that.

No, just hit it in a different compartment. This is detailed in the GWX manual and has been discussed here at length for years.

As it's difficult or perhaps impossible to control the compartment you're hitting it in, the simplest solution is to circle around to the other side of the ship. This doesn't eliminate the possibility that you'll hit the same hold, but it does allow for new damage to the ship and it's easy. You just follow the ship submerged for a couple of hours, then pop to the surface, find the ship in the Uzi, tell your helmsman to go to heading and you magically end up on the other side of the ship when you overtake it. If it's listing, it'll be easier to shoot it below the waterline. What's the problem?

The all-weather mod is an arcarde and unrealistic mod -- fine if you want to play that way, of course, as are all mods.

Yesterday I hit a coastal tanker with a torpedo. The ship immediately stopped and listed so hard to port that I was sure it was a goner. I waited for the patrol craft to leave and then I popped to the surface to finish it off with the deck gun only to find 13 m/s winds. Five hours later when the ship was still showing no signs of sinking, I finally modded my submarine specs to permit the deck gun to be manned. My expert deck gunner finally fired the first shot off after two minutes because it took him that long to get out of water long enough to draw a bead and fire. Even then, he missed and that against a stationary ship at 500 meters. After his 5th shot he managed to get two of them into the bottom of the boat, which was clearly showing because of the extreme list, and the tanker finally went under. As such I do not consider the mod to be arcadish or unrealistic in the slightest. It stays.

The deck gun is a "nice to have" early in the war. Saves using a torpedo on some low life, or finishes someone off. But making tactical decisions based on whether you can use the gun is just... odd.

Well it's 1940 bud. We haven't even invaded Paris yet. Give me some torpedoes that don't have depth keeping problems and acoustically guide themselves and I'll happily give up my deck gun. Until then, it's a valuable part of my arsenal and my deck gunner is the most valued member of my team. For his extreme bravery in getting down there under 10 meters of water and manning that deck gun while tied with a rope to make sure he didn't get blown overboard for good, he will be decorated when I get back to Wilhelmshaven.

No offense... seriously. But you are feeling yourself forward into the game, and talking about it, which I respect. But a lot of what you are putting out as truth, rather than questions, is just wrong -- and, worse -- has been put out 1000 times before. Even by me when I first discovered the game.

Trust me when I say every bit of what you question or encounter has been covered at length. Use the search function and you will, for example, find 50-60 pages on approach theories, intercepts, convoy attack strategies, pros and cons of mag/impact, etc etc.

Not trying to shut you down, but this game is so thoroughly analyzed that one could write a 500-page manual on how to play it correctly.

You can talk all you want, but you'll never convince me that black is white, that up is down, or that most ships sink with one torpedo using GWX. I have eyes, and they can see.

[maillemaker]

If you hit a ship and it goes down on one torpedo you should consider yourself lucky.

You are. I find that about 20% of the time if I hit a ship in convoy it will explode violently and sink with one shot. Luck I guess. I do not know where they "magic spots" are on the ships, nor am I able to land shots with that kind of precision with map updates off, anyway.

In my other campaign, at home, I started in Lorient 1940 and sailed out with a IXB to do battle for Deutchland. I found a convoy with a light cruiser in the middle. With a two-torpedo salvo at 1º I hit that baby and, since I was still at periscope depth, I had the joy of watching the two torpedoes slam into the ship on the F6 screen. One hit it in the stern and the other hit it in the bow. Did it sink? No, the ship not only did not sink, but it also did not even slow down. So true to style, I have circled around to the other side of the convoy where I hope that a third torpedo, midships, will finish it. I won't know how that works out until the weekend. Remember that this is a LIGHT cruiser. I can only assume that it will take 4 to kill a normal cruiser, 5 for a battleship, and a thermonuclear device for an aircraft carrier. Enemy subs, as far as I understand, require Armageddon to sink. I've never engaged one.

I have, on several occasions, sunk Fiji class cruisers with 2 hits. I find them to be weaker than most merchants. The few times I have found battleships I engaged with all 4 torpedoes so I don't know if less would have done the trick or not.

I have one-shotted every S-class sub I have torpedoed, though they take forever to actually sink underwater. I took a bunch of screen shots once of my boat parked next to a "sunk" S-class as I posed for pictures with our "captured British sub".

As it's difficult or perhaps impossible to control the compartment you're hitting it in, the simplest solution is to circle around to the other side of the ship. This doesn't eliminate the possibility that you'll hit the same hold, but it does allow for new damage to the ship and it's easy. You just follow the ship submerged for a couple of hours, then pop to the surface, find the ship in the Uzi, tell your helmsman to go to heading and you magically end up on the other side of the ship when you overtake it. If it's listing, it'll be easier to shoot it below the waterline. What's the problem?

There's no problem, but you haven't done anything that you could not have done without sailing around the target.

Also, you make me twitch calling the UZO an Uzi.

As such I do not consider the mod to be arcadish or unrealistic in the slightest. It stays.

You can play with whatever mods you like, and I sometimes resort to anachronistic play styles also, like routinely killing escorts. But historically, my understanding is they didn't try to operate the deck gun in heavy seas. The historical solution would have been to use another torpedo or just leave the ship to its fate. I was just watching an interview with Reinhard Hardegen where they did just that - he did not want to waste another torpedo on a small damaged ship.

Well it's 1940 bud. We haven't even invaded Paris yet. Give me some torpedoes that don't have depth keeping problems and acoustically guide themselves and I'll happily give up my deck gun. Until then, it's a valuable part of my arsenal and my deck gunner is the most valued member of my team. For his extreme bravery in getting down there under 10 meters of water and manning that deck gun while tied with a rope to make sure he didn't get blown overboard for good, he will be decorated when I get back to Wilhelmshaven.

Gotta agree, I totally rely on my deck gun for tonnage early war.

You can talk all you want, but you'll never convince me that black is white, that up is down, or that most ships sink with one torpedo using GWX. I have eyes, and they can see.

He never claimed that they do. He just said if you hit them right, they can.

Steve

[scott_c2911]

I think the key to this arguement is a tweak in the explosive yields of the torpedoes. The general consensus is that the ships damage models are too robust but i wouldnt fancy editing each of the ships damage models. It would take a lifetime to do and another to perfect it. There are so many variables involved when a hit is scored that its no wonder it takes a random number of torpedoes to sink a given target. I have sank BBs with 1 and small merchants with 3; It all depends on the environmental conditions, ships cargo, course relative to weather, speed, shot placement. Its a long list but a torpdeo that has a bigger bang reduces the effect of these variables sonewhat. As for the deck gun mod I use it as it would be more realistic using a gun up to 12ms rather than the stock 5ms. Anything over that would be an act of bravery but still possible therefore allowing me to make the judgement call required of a real commander

[Von Tonner]

I can say with GWX I have sunk small merchants with one torp. Admittedly not often - I think 3 all told in 15 patrols. Others, if weather permitting and we are not too close to shore (don't want them radioing for help from shore base) I will surface and use the deck gun.

What I have noticed is that after the torp has hit them their speed will drop. It is those that are unable to get their speed back up to 6 or 7 knots that flounder and eventually go under. So I am assuming some repair work is going on and some are successful others not.

After reading the below link on freighters and tankers that did not sink - one, "Imperial Transport", can you believe, with only its stern left, still managed to survive after been smacked by one torpedo!!!!! I don't have a problem with not finishing off a freighter with one torp.

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1471.html


What brought me to this link is that my present boat is U-53 and I was interested to find out what happened to her. She was lost with all hands by depth charges in 1940 in the North Sea off Orkney