With regards to weak torpedoes

[wetwarev7]

I haven't yet made contact with the enemy except for the tutorial so I haven't been able to test it but I was thinking, are the people who are reporting that it takes too many torpedoes to sink a ship aware that one torpedo can sink a ship if it causes said ship to take on water, or catches fire?

What I mean is, In SH3 and SH4 (which also had weak torpedoes), I would only fire one or two well aimed torps at a target then wait to see if it was going to sink. Most of the time (if not immediately) it sank anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours later, so i wonder if people are just being too impatient?

[mookiemookie]

I hit a ~4000 ton Hog Island freighter with 2 torpedoes, one bow, one stern. It was on fire from bow to stern but yet sailed on unaffected. I think that's the problem that people are complaining about - it shows no signs of damage like slowing speed or listing even after being decimated by torpedoes.

[wetwarev7]

But did you wait around to see if it sank? or did you go ahead and use another torpedo?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by wetwarev7

But did you wait around to see if it sank? or did you go ahead and use another torpedo?

I wasn't in position to use another torp, so I watched it for a couple of game-hours to see what would happen. Sailed on in convoy like nothing happened.

[wetwarev7]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

I wasn't in position to use another torp, so I watched it for a couple of game-hours to see what would happen. Sailed on in convoy like nothing happened.

ok, thanks!

[tater]

This came up in SH4 in the context of modding the fish.

I was surprised to find that the number of torpedoes it took in RL was—contrary to anecdote—more with german torpedoes than American fish. The caveat being actual hits, when you include failures to detonate, prematures, etc, then the US fish suffer greatly.

The average number of hits to sink an allied ship was more than one fish. That means that many, but not all took 2. I checked all the Hog Islander attacks (and similar targets attacked by fleet boats in the PTO), and I checked all the Liberty Ship sinkings, along with ships of similar tonnage in the PTO.

The US fish were grossly more likely to sink the target with 1 fish, BTW.

For the PTO data I did not use US claims of tonnage, since they were so often wrong. I only used attacks where the specific, named ship was confirmed by japanese records (along with the actual tonnage). It's interesting to not that my records use claimed hits (the notes sometimes even correct these from japanese records). This means that likely I overestimated the number of hits to sink, since it's entirely possible that some claimed hits in a spread were prematures. This would mean that RL mk14s were even more effective.

When I checked for warship attacks, I found US and German fish t be effectively identical in terms of hits per sinking of a given tonnage.

From a post I made on the subject (Hog Islander attacks up to 1943):

Actually, the hog island stats he posted earlier are telling. I checked (as I posted above), and 88% of the ~5k ships hit with 1 fish by US subs sank with just the 1 hit. When I picked ships in the US stats, I took them from 4800 to 5500 tons, too, so bigger ships, and STILL more effective.

I just broke the 32 hog island attacks on uboat.net into individual attacks by reading the accounts.

LOL.

50% of the Hog Islanders sank after 1 hit. 73% after 2 hits (I counted coup de grâce here in the 2 fish hits, including the couple that were finished off with 30 and 60 DG rounds respectively treated as a single added torp (the only alternative to the DG)). 83% of them hit with 3 sank (one not sinking out of 6 attacked).

For Liberty ships:

BTW, I just checked the Liberty ships. I got bored after doing all of 1944, but for every attack in 1944, 18.18% of attacks where 1 torp hit resulted in a sinking.

81.82% with 2 or more hits sank.

As a reality check, 79.17% of USN attacks on ~7k AKs with 1 fish resulted in a sinking. For the 7K data I used ships between ~6800 and 7800 tons (I had to flip through a book, and hand enter all the data, so I decided to err on larger rather than smaller shipping—I entered data for over 80 attacks). 83.64% hit with 2+ sank.

So, for super clarity:

Liberty (~7k t) vs U-Boats, 18.18% sunk after hitting with 1 torp (1944)
7k t jap vs Fleet Boats, 79.17% sunk after hitting with 1 torp. (entire war)

(edit, that last "entire war" should read " '44 to end of war," my bad).

tater

[Blue-Casket]

well i took a merchant in its stern pretty deep and it stopped dead in the water after a while.
And it looked like it was taking water.
The second torpedo didn't do a thing
but the third in the bow did the rest
I really hate the torpedo's come on
i had one right in the middle and that ship should have been blown up because it was a tanker !
Pretty crappy job they did there but oh well i guess it will be fixed soon.

[deknegt90]

Well i didnt have any problems when i sank 3 warships trying to ping me.

I shot one next to the engine and it was declared dead immediatly.

But when i shoot merchantile vessels i need to shoot atleast 2 at them =\

[walsh2509]

As I have said in other posts , I think this was a ploy by the devs, not only are Torps weak when you set up so are your crew.

I think they have done this as part of the Role Play part of the game, while I can see why they might have a point with the crew being raw and learning as they go, its still a bit much to think that your sonar guy can't hear nearly anything setting out.

I read in horror , along with others about the Boosts to players like the torp man when you use Renown points and this can boost the explosive power of torps. But that was us , me , thinking that the torps in the game would have the same power as in SH3 / SH4 Uboat addon, but they are weaker and you only get them BACK to what they should have been by using Renown points.

I thought we would be starting out with SH3/SH4 torps and these boosts would make them SUPER torps , but so far that is not the case.

Pre using my points on the torp officer , it would take 4 torps to get the Bar down on a ship , but with add of point to that section of the officers ability it took 3 and now its down to 2.

As i said I think , they thought this would give us some sort of Role play add to building your crew.

[wetwarev7]

Originally Posted by walsh2509

As I have said in other posts , I think this was a ploy by the devs, not only are Torps weak when you set up so are your crew.

........


As i said I think , they thought this would give us some sort of Role play add to building your crew.

Well, I think that was the intention of the crew gaining experience and ratings in SH3 and SH4 as well.

My question is, has anyone actually waited to see if the ships take on water or fire damage and sink on their own?

[walsh2509]

Originally Posted by wetwarev7

Well, I think that was the intention of the crew gaining experience and ratings in SH3 and SH4 as well.

My question is, has anyone actually waited to see if the ships take on water or fire damage and sink on their own?

With some Merchants moving at 7 to 13knts , you can't wait to see if one torp does it. Even with 3 torps in and ablaze from stern to bow they go sail on, I have yet to see one slow down or be dead in the water I hit one in the stern up went the explosion and sparks and firework and then stern section on fire and its just kept sailing on.

[EAF274 Johan]

Funny, because I was just thinking of posting a question if people thought torpedos are too strong

I sank a 16000 ton transport with just one torp. It went down in less than a minute (my crew have no special abilities to increase the torp effectiveness). Maybe it was a lucky shot, I hit the transport more or less amidships at a depth of 2m, but at the time I found it a little suspicious.

[Dowly]

I struck a large steamer with two torpedos. One to midship and another to the bow. Huge fires and the bow was .5 meters underwater, yet it kept going at 8 knots.

Also, on my first raid on Scapa, I struck HMS Malaya with 4 torpedos, all spread around the ship, the whole ship was on water and listing. Only after the 5th torpedo did it sink.

[wetwarev7]

After reading some of these posts, I'm starting to also wonder how many torpedoes are "too many torpedoes".

Just from what I've read so far, it seems like there might be a few situations where it takes 3-4+ torps to sink a ship, but a lot of the time it takes 1-2, which is really what I've come to expect from the Silent Hunter series.

I'm not saying the torpedo strength is correct, I'm just mulling all this over because I have nothing better to do 'til my first encounter. (Running real time, still some 220km from the UK)

[Gammelpreusse]

I have played my campaign well into 1940 now and attacked quite a few merchants. And something is really fishy about the damage model.

I do not know why, maybe it is because I have map updates on, I get to see a white and a blue damage bar above ships that get attacked.

When shooting, this bar slowly decreases. Sometimes the blue bar is affected as well, but if at all, then only once. That is, as long any white is left. Only after that blue decreases.

I suspect white is structural integrity, blue is the level of water penetration. (if that is in the manual, mea culpa, I didn't bother to read it )


Topedos kinda do the same, just here the blue bar is effected the most. As a general thumb of rule, each ship will stay afloat as long this blue bar is not decreased below at least 2 thirds, which is not affected by where the fish hits.

That aside ships are highly resistant to topedo. Tankers and Liberty ships will definitily require 3 torps at least, Big steamers and the likes 2 and so on. Sometimes more, almost never less. I also never saw any progress in either flooding or fire caused damage despite beeing forced to wait quite a bit of time on several occasions.

That does appear a bit exxessive to me