Yamato Sweetspot?

[zylark]

Is it just me that have never encountered the Yamato?

I find the BBs I actually have sunk to be hard as nails. I need at least 5 torps in an even spread to take one down. From stern to aft in one strike.

As opposed to CVs that happily go into a ball of flame after 1-3 torps. Hmmm. Methinks some damage models need to be refined. Thus far the toughest object I've ever "had" to sink was a large tanker that absolutely refused to go down with grace. Well, upto a point, but details really.

[PepsiCan]

Originally Posted by Steel_Tomb

Yeah torps are underpowered I put 6 fish into a yamato BB once and it still refused to sink, only went down on the 7th fish...crazy!

They are not underpowered. It took the US Navy way more than 7 torpedoes to sink the Yamato. Don't forget you're talking about the biggest warship in the world at that time. Even the Iowa class did not come close to the tonnage of the Yamato. And most of that tonnage was made up of its big, thick armour belt.

Secondly, what year did you sink her in? At the start of the war, torpedoes used TNT, not the more powerful torpex.

7 torpedoes sounds to me like you managed to sink it efficiently.

[PepsiCan]

Originally Posted by TheSatyr

Sadly,I consider SH4 to be the most unrealistic of the series. Having decoys in the game,which the US Navy NEVER had during WW2. Lancaster bombers which don't belong in the game. Easy to kill capitol ships. Too many task forces and convoys running around.

SH4 just comes accross as being poorly researched unfortunately.

Nope, not poorly researched. Apparently, there were issues with copyrights. The manufacturers of the aircrafts didn't allow for the planes to be used in the game. Try a search to find the links.

The decoy thingy is however a leftover from SH3 I think.

[tater]

I'm certainly not one to defend the accuracy/research of SH4, which is lacking in so many ways, but the US subs did have countermeasures towards the end of the war,and they were used in combat (there's a patrol report from Barb where they use both swim-out decoy beacons, and bubblers.

Obviously such devices should only become available when they were actually available (late '44 or early '45?).

tater

[SteamWake]

Pffffttt....

The developers were under the gun to get a 'mostly' finished product on the shelves by the producers.

Now you want historical accuracy as well ?

[vatek]

I'm sure the devs wanted it to be historically accurate, but when you've got a publisher squeezing you to get the game out by "x" quarter to increase profits, the "polish" period of development is usually the first thing to get thrown out the window.

I think the best approach to SH4 would have been to release it with the SDK bundled in, or at least to have documented a lot of the CFG files better. The ship draft issues come to mind.

[bookworm_020]

Originally Posted by PepsiCan

They are not underpowered. It took the US Navy way more than 7 torpedoes to sink the Yamato. Don't forget you're talking about the biggest warship in the world at that time. Even the Iowa class did not come close to the tonnage of the Yamato. And most of that tonnage was made up of its big, thick armour belt.

Secondly, what year did you sink her in? At the start of the war, torpedoes used TNT, not the more powerful torpex.

7 torpedoes sounds to me like you managed to sink it efficiently.

Please remember that aircraft Torpedos were smaller than sub torpedoes (18' to 21'). Torpedos from the begining of the war had torpex warheads, this caused some of the depth problems due to torpex being heavier than TNT.

Going on with what salior steve said, the Shinano also hadn't being fitted out when she went to sea. Many of the watertight doors hadn't been fitted, not all bulkheads had been sealed where pipeing and wireing pass through. Pumps had not been installed as well.

It took very little damage to sink her, despite the best effots of the damage control crews.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by bookworm_020

Please remember that aircraft Torpedos were smaller than sub torpedoes (18' to 21'). Torpedos from the begining of the war had torpex warheads, this caused some of the depth problems due to torpex being heavier than TNT.

That and the fact they used 'dummy' warheads for testing

[tater]

The Mark 13 torpedos dropped by TBF/TBMs at Yamato had 600lb torpex warheads.

Very slightly lower than the Mk14's 643lbs.

tater

[TriskettheKid]

But if I remember correctly, the Yamato's armor did not extend all the way to her bow or her stern.

I find this to be the case in-game, too. I find it much easier to get her to keel over just by hitting her at her bow and stern. When she tilts but does not go down, I usually just send a single torp into her now exposed deck by a turret to finish her off.

I don't know how realistic THAT is, per se, but I know it works. You get enough flooding in any of the BBs in the game, and they will list to a side until it gets to a point that part of their deck is underwater (even if that part is no more than 2m under). Once that happens, it seems that there is no armor on the deck, making for easy pickings. If you can't get a lucky shot once it's at that point, just fire a few more at her deck at different points. It may not blow the ship up, but it WILL cause a list so bad that it goes under.

[tater]

^^^^ correct, that's why she's so beamy. The packed the machiney spaces is as little length as possible to minimize the armor.

[TheSatyr]

The odd thing is that even after all those Torp hits the Mushashi would have survived long enough to be beached if the Captain had slowed down a little. She had a torp hit right in the bow,and the flooding was made worse due to the Captain going too fast for a ship in that condition.( approx 20 torp hits and one on the stem...not a good thing) Not only did it cause unnecessary flooding,but the flooding from the bow weakened undamaged bulkheads and collapsed previously damaged ones. The Captain was almost as responsible for losing his ship as the American planes that bombed it were. Good thing he chose to go down with his ship,because I'm sure High Command would have been rather displeased with his decisions.

As for the Shinano,most of her water tight doors hadn't even been installed yet and the ones that were installed weren't sealed correctly yet. The Shinano put to sea in an incomplete state with a large shipyard contingent aboard and with an untrained damage control team and was just being moved from what was considered an unsafe shipyard,(Because of fear of allied bombing),to what the Japanese considered to be a safer shipyard for completion. While they were concerned about US Subs it was a fairly short trip and they thought she could make it without being detected.

Comparing the Shinano to the Yamato and Mushashi is frankly ridiculous. The Yamato and Musashi were veteran warships with well trained damage control teams,while the Shinano wasn't even a "finished product" yet and had an untrained and inexperienced crew aboard. Bottom line,the Shinano shouldn't have been sent out in the condition she was in. Even one torp might have been able to sink her,though it would have taken quite a while to flood enough to go down.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by TriskettheKid

But if I remember correctly, the Yamato's armor did not extend all the way to her bow or her stern.

No modern (read "WW2") battleship had completely armored bows or sterns. It was called "all or nothing" armor, and the idea was that the ship could lose the bow or stern and suffer no serious consequenses. Yes, losing the propellers could be considered "serious", but in fact more than one ship, from cruisers right down to destroyers, survived losing the entire bow to a torpedo or a heavy storm.

[DirtyHarry3033]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

As for autotargetting - the torp is going to hit wherever the scope it pointed at when you fire. Most who use autotargetting will "Lock" the target - which the game does midships. If you want to hit specific points while autotargetting - just dont lock the target. Open your outer door individually, no spread angle - and point your scope at whatever point of impact you want. Fire when the point is in the crosshairs, and you will get your hits as desired.

CaptainHaplo, are you sure about that???

Tried your tip tonight, locked up a Large Old Split, turned on TDC then unlocked and fired 2 Mk 14's at high speed from about 1900 yds. Both tubes opened before I fired.

1st torp I aimed at the stern hoping to take out a prop or rudder.

2nd torp aimed midships right under the funnel for an engine room hit.

Tracked the torps on the attack map, the 1st hit, well, dead amidships, not anywhere near the stern. 2nd, which was aimed amidships also hit amidships. In other words, was as if I'd fired with the lock turned on

If there's a trick to get that to work, what is it? Actually I was under impression that you couldn't send bearing only with the scope to aim for different parts of the target...

FWIW, yep I'm using auto-targetting, just never had any luck doing solutions manually

DH

[Yanaran]

Originally Posted by DirtyHarry3033

If there's a trick to get that to work, what is it? Actually I was under impression that you couldn't send bearing only with the scope to aim for different parts of the target...

FWIW, yep I'm using auto-targetting, just never had any luck doing solutions manually

DH

Don't turn on the TDC when using auto-targetting.