Realistic attacks!

[Keelbuster]

Originally Posted by siber

If I may ask one more question: When firing two or four torp salvos, how do you decide the spread angle? Three in a salvo means one straight down the middle, but two/four means that there's not a 'centre' shot...

Here's my take on it. Don't worry about firing an official 'spread' a la TDC. Use your Periscope/UZO to do the angle for you. If your range is right or close, then by aiming at the very bow of the ship, and the very stern, counts as a spread. If you're really unsure about the target's speed, aim even ahead of it (or behind it). I almost never do this. For ships travelling slow and medium speeds, the length of the ship makes it cover a good spread angle. Thus, sending a shot to the bow and a shot to the stern counts as an effective spread - as I said earlier, you may get both, you may get one (if you pegged it as too slow or too fast). Don't worry about having one 'straight down the middle'. Technically, the one straight down the middle is your best estimate of the target speed. For a small merchant, who's length is relatively short, it's wise just to fire a single torp straight down the middle - this is your best chance of hitting it.

There is an advanced method that i've started using. I'll get a minimum estimate - like - I _know_ for sure, that the ship is going faster than 6kts, but I don't have time to get a better estimate. So I'll set her for 6 kts, then aim a center shot, and a bow shot. That way, if he's doing 7 or 8, the center will hit stern and the bow will hit center. If i'm really unsure, i'll put a third shot in front of the ship, just for the weird chance he's actually doing 10. This kind of uncertaintly rarely happens for slow and medium ships because the speeds are so tightly bounded (like, your sonar man will tell you if it's slow or medium, giving you a 2-3 kt margin on the actual speed). If it's a fast ship, then it gets tricky because fast is everything > 12 (i think). So, you set it to your guess, then fire shots ahead of the ship to cover the different possibilities. Another way to do this is to keep the aim centerred, then change the speed in your TDC for each shot, to account for each possibility. I do this sometimes if one misses completely - jack the speed up by at least two knots and fire another - it usually hits.

The main message is, you don't need to use the TDC spread. It's not faster, and you don't really have to compute the angle because the UZO/peri does it for you. Now if you want to, for realism reasons etc, then, well, someone will have to walk you through the trig problem you can solve on your map.

[harzfeld]

For me, it depends on targets, how many torps to sink following;
Medium cargo - 2 torps typically
Empire type frieghter - 2 torps typically
Large Merchant - 1 torp typically, rarely takes 2
C3 - 2 torps typically
Large tanker - 1 torp if it load with fuel, if not, it may take 2 if it not sinking
Modern tanker - same as large tanker
Whale factory ship - same as large tanker
Troop ship - 2 torps typically
Large troop ship - 1 torp if its stationary, fire another one if it doesn't sink, but if its sailing on sea, then 2 would be better
Ammo ship - 1 torp if hit right and it blows up, so 2 would probably be safer.
destroyers or escorts - 1 torp always
battleships - depends if it stationary or sailing and its hull protections. Few days ago, there were 3 battleships at high speed NE of Ireland, Hood, Nelson, & Revenge. I fired only 3 torps, one for each battleships, they all hit their bows near fronts. Both Revenge and Nelson's bows went into water and sank, but Hood slowed down to 7 knots and getting away while their escorts were after me. So I should have fire 2 at Hood in first place. After the escorts lost me and went away, I chased that Hood, the escorts went off somewhere else. I was around 16,000m away before Hood disappeared at Firth of Clyde. Oh well, there will be next time anyway.

For small ships like small/coastal merchants, I use deck gun on them or I don't bother with them if they have guns or there are planes & warships nearby. I prefer 1 torp per 4,500t minimum. I know in real life Kaluens used torps on any ships regardless of their tonnages. I would do the same if in real life cuz no TC. I probably would be tempted to use a spread of 4 torps at a 2,000t merchant to deplete torps sooner so I can return back to port to get breaks from stress, dangers at sea, the reeks of all men in a tight ship, and to enjoy fresh food and women. Or I could go flank speed all way to patrol zone using up fuel giving me excuse to return back to port. They probably would demote my rank then. Of course this game is fun, but not for real life.

[Grayson02sept1980]

to get the spread angle for the TDC - if you want to use it; I do both, TDC and manual aiming -

Just unlock the target move the scope left and right and watch the degrees covered by the ship... do not "read" them just of but move your scope..

e.g. start at the bow at lets say 270 and move it towards the stern and your are now rougly between 270 and 275 in the middle... so I say set the angle to 2°

But I usually aim for masts...chimneys... etc and just firw off two torps by hand