Mark 14/18/23 Preferences

[Schnee]

Mainly I'm loading out on the 14's although current mission I spent some renown to try out the Mark 18 (electrics). Tried some 23's last mission but am uncertain as to whether they are worth the extra renown to have an edge over the 14's.

Any advice? Whats a good mix (if any) of torps now that these 3 are available? Any compelling reason favoring one brand over the other? Yeah I suppose a daylight attack on a convoy calls for the 18's to minimize the risk of the DD from walking down your torp tracks to rough you up, but at this juncture I still prefer the speed of the 14's overall.

[daft]

I'm trying to sort this out myself. I really like the XIV's in -43, and haven'y had a chance to try out the XVIII's yet. Any input in this matter would be appreciated.

[Taurolas]

Personally i'd use any torp that doesnt leave tracks, i swear the mechants see em comming (i once switched to external cam and zoomed up to the merchant and could even hear a klaxon going off) and they tried dodging it...

as for DD's and torps... is it true that they now follow the tracks back or is it due to the "new modded AI" that they hear the launch?

Just curious but would a DD follow a torp? or is it just the sub they follow?

Answers on a postcard please

[STEED]

The explosion on the ship points to your general direction and if they see your torp tacks that's another clue. I'm new to SH4 so I can not say for sure, the only thing I can say from SH3/GWX is select the best target fire a spread of torps and get the heck out of there.

Never sit there to watch the firework show.

[U-Bones]

I have never seen any evidence (in SH4) that they can "see" torpedo wakes without already being in "alert" state.

I have never seen any evidence (in SH4) that they use torpedo wakes to vector the sub location.

In SH3 both occured in spades.

Sh4 escorts seem to use torp hits to vector, but seem to assume VERY short ranges.

[-Pv-]

My experience (as far as non-scientific observation) is similar to Bones. I fire at max range as far away from the search patturn of the closest escort and go deeper and quiet. I've not seen them chase down my tracks. The go quiet tactic of the DDs though I'm sure catches those players who use too much power moving away.
-Pv-

[peckens]

I never have a problem with merchants OR destroyers spoting my torpedos not even my scope sticking way out of the water when they are only 20ft away from crashing into me. They seem to be practicly blind to me.

[GTHammer]

I'm with Peckens here. Perhaps its because I'm playing on Normal or haven't modded to a more realistic version of the game(Just 1.02 patch), but unless I surface destroyers usually are clueless. At first I tried being very silent, but on a wild hair I eventually was running flank at 'scope depth right through 'em with my my scope up, just blasting away and they seemed to be trying to find me but never did, that is until I surfaced and blasted the last lingering merchant with my deck gun. Then I just crash dived, turned hard to port and released the decoys, then slowed to 1/3 and crept away. They dropped depth charges but were way off and gave up shortly thereafter. So does this AI just suck or am I missing something?

[PepsiCan]

Having torpedoes that do not leave a trace is better. Historically, Japanese DD did use the wakes to trace back from where the torpedoes were launched.

As far as the game is concerned, I would assume that escorts in the early years were not as good as in the latter years. So, tracing of wakes will probably not occur in the early years.

Secondly, skippers historically avoided the MK 18s due to their bad experiences with faulty ammo in the previous years. The MK 14s finally worked, so they were unwilling to use new ammo, that they were told worked, by the same people who said the same thing about the MK 14s.