Torpedo Depth in Relation to Draft

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by NoGoodLandLubber

I finally swam out to it myself and planted a Limpet mine onto the hull!

It can be a lot easier if you ride out to it

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith

I do have a question about magnetics though, I always thought that in rough weather, they had the chance of early detonation because of the waves (Popping out of one and through another or something like that) Well I had a ship with a 10 m draft in slightly rough weather and I fired a magnetic any ways at 11 meters and both prematured. So do the waves cause a magnetic interference or what???

The game "rolls dice" when you fire a magnetic & whether it goes off prematurely apparently has nothing to do with what happens during its run. For example, it might broach the surface several times and still hit, or it might run true and blow up early.

Whether the game rolls dice once or several times during the run, I don't know (or want to know). In my experience, they seem to be more unreliable over longer runs.

[sub2]

Well there is a 'not so perfect' situation with the game where on one scenario I hit the ship with 4 torpedoes at more or less the same spot at a depth of 10 meters (draft being 9.5m) right under the hull and split the ship in two and she went under in 30 seconds. Reloading the game (Naval academy-Torpedoes) i did exactly the same thing, everything the same, 4 detonations at exactly the same spot and....NADA! Ship just listing slightly to port and sinking VERY slowly. Chaos theory I suppose.

[Mouftic]

I just use impact now.

Magnetic either miss under, detonate early or hit and take hours to sink.

With an impact setting you know whats happening within 10 minutes after the hit most of the time.

Hint: when attacking tankers, 1 meter setting in between islands or on the lowest part of the ship gives you an instant kill.

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by Mouftic

Magnetic either miss under, detonate early or hit and take hours to sink.

With an impact setting you know whats happening within 10 minutes after the hit most of the time.

A huge and inaccurate generalization, though perhaps that has been your experience to date.

Yes, in many situations (pitching seas, rough seas at distance, sharp AOBs), impacts are a better bet. They give you almost certain, though not always fatal, damage.

Drawbacks: you need to be at a sharp AOB angle, which severely limits your tactical options. You often have to hit the merchant again, which often sucks new players into choosing the "salvo" option from the start, which is a waste of torpedoes.

A magnetic, put under a hull at a long angle, at the proper depth, is glorious to behold. You can crack large merchants in half with one, send Hood or Nelson to the bottom with two -- in under a minute. They open up 360 degrees of tactical space, letting you fire now, rather than waiting for 90AOB while escorts swirl about.

Those advantages outweigh the reliability problems.

Remember: You have five tools in the box in the early war: deck gun, T1 impact, T1 magnetic/impact, TII impact, TII magnetic/impact. Each one of them is "best" in certain situations. To write any of them off means you come home short on tonnage.

[Mouftic]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

A huge and inaccurate generalization, though perhaps that has been your experience to date.

Yeah, it's been my experience so far. I sunk Nelson with 2 impacts 3 meters below water line, 1 foward and 1 aft.

Tankers as a general rule (for me at least) sink almost immediately after a 1m impact torpedo well placed.

Escorts and most military vessels, same thing, 1m impact.
I sink Bogue with 1 impact most of the time (I actually find them too easy to sink)

The tough ones I find are large merchants (cargo, whale factory....), one fish almost never (takes a long time) but after 2 they go down.

I have been frustrated too many times by magnetics to use them anymore.
It took the German 3 years to fix the problem.

I agree with you that you need a good AOB to get the hit, but i'm getting rather good now at setting up inside a convoy.
Depending of the contacts, I usually get 2 to 3 kills forward and 1 or rarely 2 aft on my first run, then reload and do the same on the second run with maybe more kills because the large vessels are sunk on the first run.

After 1943, you get the nice torpedoes (Acoustics) with magnetic fixed, but I still use impact.

I'm a stuburn Commander...

Actually some real German Commanders swore only by impacts after the Norway invasion where they got robbed of so many kills.

[Hondo314]

1 meter under keel is a good rule of thumb to balance risk of bouncing off curved part of hull while being close enough to do damage. I think you can go up to 2 m below keel in rough weather and still do damage. It will be up to you to decide on impact vs. magnetic in a storm.