Question about Dud Torpedoes and detonation

[oche]

I've always played my campaigns on 92% realism, the only unrealistic feature i took the liberty of having was using the external camera. I've wasted several campaigns returning to base with no tonnage sunk, and basically most of the torpedoes do not hit the target's hull on angle between 45 and 90 degrees, either that or the torpedoes get trampled on the target's propeller when i attack from behind while chasing target. I don't how far this did this happened in the war, but in comparison to the allied torpedoes, specially the US torpedoes, how was the detonation efficiency of the german torpedoes?

What i have decided to do now is set the dud torpedoes off on the realism setting and turning off the external camera feature, having the realism settings at 96% instead of 92%. It's now my 12th patrol, July 1943, patrol zone is just a few hundred miles of the portuguese coast, been enjoying it so far, but haven't had the chance to fire torpedoes yet. Would it make a difference when attacking with torpedoes now, will it make a difference or will torpedoes fail to explode if it hits a target at a lesser angle of 45%?.

[Keelbuster]

Impact triggers need ~90 degrees - i always go for the 90 abeam shots. When the target is swerving, or when you're chasing it (which is not recommended), you basically have to use the keel shot with mag pistol - the angle's always bad from behind (cept maybe a straight stern shot with 0 depth). With shallow impact at 90 abeam i get very very few duds, despite having duds 'on'. NYGM 2

Kb

[bigboywooly]

You will still have to hit the targets as close to the 90 degree angle as possible
What depth settings are your torps?
If you are trying impact and hit too low on the ship the torpedo will bounce off due to the curve of the hull
I.......... I
I.......... I <------- Aim for here
I ..........I
I ..........I
.\ ......../
..\ ....../ <-------- Will bounce off here
...\ .../
.....\/

Magnetic torpedos are terrible for exploding prematurely in bad weather so I always try to use impact settings in rough seas at about 4 m depth
With event window turned on you will be able to see what your torpedos are doing at moment of impact so you will get a better idea of whats happening
Of course once you know what you are doing you can go back to having the event window turned off

[cobalt]

and try not to fire shots at your targets bow with either torpedoes, they will prematurely detonate in the ships wake a lot of the time

[tycho102]

It's something like a 30 degree cone for the impact dets. Your mag needs under 5m, but you really want 3m or under to increase the probability.

One thing that isn't modeled in the game is that the mag and impact detonators were independent. If the impact pin was crushed, the mag detonator could still trigger the charge. At least it worked that way on Mark 14's and 18's; I'm not sure about the Jerries, but I just assume they constructed their charges in the same manner out of sheer prudence.

On a related note, I don't consider a oblique shot as a "dud". That is a targeting failure; not a mechanical failure. A mech failure (i.e. dud) is when you put that sucker in there 1 degree off perpendicular, and it didn't blow. And if you slide it under at 2m and the mag det don't go, either. As far as my experience has been, the "historic dud probability" option models true mechanical duds, as opposed to targeting failures.

[oche]

Thank you for the replies. I will have in mind all your suggestions and observations. I will set the torpedo depth to 2 meters instead of 5 but still will turn off the dud torpedoes option on the realism settings to counter the dud and detonation issue.