Torpedo damage?

[kevinsue]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Of course it is, but you expressed the opinion that one torpedo should sink a ship. Often it is, but if you have a look through here http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/listing.php you'll see that many times they had to give them the coup-de-grace, and sometimes more than one. some ships sank in minutes and others took hours, or even days. There were ships that didn't sink at all, and were salvaged by the crew and managed to reach shore.

I could have just said that you shouldn't expect to sink a ship with one torpedo, but I prefer to give facts and examples.

Next time anyone has a spare moment during a patrol, pull out the SOAN and have a read about Silent Otto's duel with three British merchants, H.M.S Patroclus, S.S. Casanare and H.M.S Laurentic.

Kapitänleutnant Kretschmer was quite astounded how these ships managed to stay afloat after so many torpedoes were expended at them. He later realised that the Brits had been filling up any spare space on board with empty oil drums to act as anti-torpedo countermeasures.

You can find the story in the SOAN additional info under Troop Transports ~ Patroclus Armed Merchant Cruiser.