damagelethality of depth charges

[Drex]

Has anyone ever sunk a sub with one depth charge hit? It seems to me that if a DC "hit" a sub the explosion would damage the shell bad enough to cause massive flooding but in WitP it seems to take 2 or more "hits" or a series of a hit and near misses to sink the sub. So how close does the DC have to be for it to effective to sink? or is that possible in this game?

[pauk]

I as Japan player didn't sink a single one sub after the last patch (to be honest, there wasn't many sub actions, but ....)

on the other hand, Allies can sink japs subs but they need more attacks then before. I guess that die roll is important - one of my sub was hit with 6 DC i think (all of them were "fire" hits shown on CR) but flooding stopped at 67 and my sub survived....)

[aletoledo]

I think I've sunk a sub with a single hit. however I don't remember if it was previously damaged or not.

[Drex]

Well that would make a big difference. I mean sink a sub with little or no damage. I don't think you can in this game or if so it is very rare. I think it would take two or more "hits" in this game.

damagelethality of depth charges

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Logged in as: Drex

[spence]

I think a single hedgehog projectile was 24 lbs of explosive...a hit by one of those was very often lethal. I think the 300 lb depth charge the Allies started the war with had about the same lethality as a hedgehog if it exploded within 10 feet of the hull of a sub.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Drex

Has anyone ever sunk a sub with one depth charge hit? It seems to me that if a DC "hit" a sub the explosion would damage the shell bad enough to cause massive flooding but in WitP it seems to take 2 or more "hits" or a series of a hit and near misses to sink the sub. So how close does the DC have to be for it to effective to sink? or is that possible in this game?

I just LOST a sub to 1 depth charge hit.

On the other hand, I taken 25 hits and survived.

Note that in the new 1.7.9.5 system, and "hit" is not necessarily a "hit" .. some "hits" (most?) are "rattles". The 25 were probably all "rattles" .. the one that sank with one hit .. was clearly a "real" hit. One "real hit" should be enough if it is the right hit ... though many misses ... should be quite normal.

In my current "test" game against the AI ... I'm in Feb 44 and I've lost 24 US subs (tracking pretty darn close to historical rate) ... 14 to air and 10 to surface ... and I am using them "very" aggresively ( i.e. historically ) they are camping all over the home islands and the SRA.

[Drex]

It must be rare to get a real hit then. All I can go by is the animation showing a "hit", "near miss" ,"rattle" or whatever. I've gottne a lot of "hits" but no single hit ever led to a sinking. good to know it can happen though. BTW was your ASW platform Japanese or Allied?

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Drex

It must be rare to get a real hit then. All I can go by is the animation showing a "hit", "near miss" ,"rattle" or whatever. I've gottne a lot of "hits" but no single hit ever led to a sinking. good to know it can happen though. BTW was your ASW platform Japanese or Allied?

In this game, I'm Allies against the AI .. so the ASW platform would have been Japanese ! IIRC it was one of those Entorofu class guys ...

[Nikademus]

You know its a real hit because they display exactly as the old ASW routine used to display it....."Sub hit by DC.....Belt armor penetration...followed by damage description msg (which is usually severe flooding)"

One good DC can do it....i've lost a couple S-boats to it.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: spence

I think a single hedgehog projectile was 24 lbs of explosive...a hit by one of those was very often lethal. I think the 300 lb depth charge the Allies started the war with had about the same lethality as a hedgehog if it exploded within 10 feet of the hull of a sub.

Actually a single Hedgehog projectile weighed 65 pounds and contained a 35 pound charge of Torpex. The genius of the Hedgehog was that it did NOT detonate UNLESS it hit something hard. It was designed to cause the pressure hull of a German submarine to breach IF it exploded IN CONTACT with that hull. It was a minimalist weapon - and it is not effective against submarines with thicker hulls (in the sense it won't breach them).

A depth charge is a much earlier concept - and it does NOT have any relationship to distance from the target. That is, it goes off at a pre set time, based on an estimate - which given the horrible detectors and concepts of the era is barely more than a guess. There is no typical range to target - and the idea was to lay down a pattern centered on the guess such that, whatever the target did, some charges might be near it.

Note that in the 1981 Falklands war the NATO ASW specialists expended almost every ASW weapon in inventory to conduct about 200 attacks - only ONE of which was a genuine attack on a submarine - and that one did NO damage. Further, that enemy submarine closed and attacked on two DIFFERENT occasions - one of them entirely undetected! [That subs wire guided torpedos failed for technical reasons on both occasions. The RN didn't trust its modern torpedoes either - sinking Belgrano with ancient strait runners.]

A single depth charge "hit" is virtually never a hit. Instead, it is a near miss. It is much more impressive to see than it is in its value vs a submarine. Sub hulls are round - and are able to survive even a nuclear shockwave at remarkably short ranges! They simply reflect the wave.
What hurts the sub is generally a sprung plate or a weak point in a line. Only if a DC actually is very close is there the slightest chance to breach the hull. WITP values may not be properly calibrated, but odds are long they OVERSTATE the value of DCs - not understate them.

[DuckofTindalos]

That's funny... I always thought the Falklands War was in 1982...

[spence]

Sub hulls are round - and are able to survive even a nuclear shockwave at remarkably short ranges! They simply reflect the wave

 
750 dead UBoats must be wrong!!!

[Nomad]

I have seen one "real" hit sink an IJN sub. You do have to watch the replay and catch the message. Generally, if you get a number of hits but the combat report just says "I-121, 12 hits", then they were probably all near misses that rattled the sub. If the combat report has things like "heavy damage" or "on fire" in it, you got at least one "real" hit. [:)]

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: spence

Sub hulls are round - and are able to survive even a nuclear shockwave at remarkably short ranges! They simply reflect the wave

750 dead UBoats must be wrong!!!

Yeah, obviously... Apparently, none of them were sunk...

[ChezDaJez]

Actually El Cid isn't far wrong this time. The outer hull was whatever shape the designers decided on but the pressure hull (inner hull) of most WWII submarines was round or oval shaped. Basically all the ballast piping and fuel cells were located between the hulls. Most designers did create somewhat oval outer hulls for improved seakeeping abilities when on the surface.

As far as the concussive effects of a depthcharge on a submerged hull, the effect was deflected not reflected by the hull shape. But the biggest factor in depth charge effectiveness was depth The deeper the sub, the greater the concussive force of the charge and the further the DC could be from the sub and still inflict damage.

It was very rare for a single DC to breach a sub's hull. Normally it was the cumulative effect of charge after charge pounding the hull until something failed. And that something generally wasn't the hull itself but one of the many openings in the hull for pipes, hatches, various shafts and cabling. If it was a big enough opening such as a main induction valve for the engines, the flooding would be severe and the boat would be lost.

BTW, the submarine credited with surviving the most depth charges during one attack is the U-427 in April, 1945. She survived 678 charges. She was scuttled at Kiel when the war ended.

As far as the Falklands war goes, the Brits made a deliberate decision to attack any suspected submarine contact whether it was verified or not. They simply weren't going to take any chances. We (US Navy) called it the Sherwin Williams tactic... paint the ocean with torpedoes and other assorted ASW weps. They expended so many that Maggie approached Ronnie for more Mk-46 torps and we gave/sold/lent 150 of them from our war reserve supplies. The US Navy imposed a 90 day moratorium on the P-3 community on dropping live torpedoes until the Falklands conflict ended.

Chez

[Speedysteve]

My chip in here is that I like the current ASW routines VERY MUCH. I feel they reflect the situation much much better than before. Thumbs up from me

[Sneer]

if you want one hit to kill sub  use torps [8D]


Sub attack at 35,74
 
Japanese Ships
PG Seiko Maru
DD Yunagi
DD Asanagi
DD Matsukaze
DD Hatsushima
DD Murasame
 
Allied Ships
SS Scamp, Torpedo hits 1,  on fire,  heavy damage

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

Actually El Cid isn't far wrong this time. The outer hull was whatever shape the designers decided on but the pressure hull (inner hull) of most WWII submarines was round or oval shaped. Basically all the ballast piping and fuel cells were located between the hulls. Most designers did create somewhat oval outer hulls for improved seakeeping abilities when on the surface.
Chez

My problem is the "a submarine can withstand a nuclear pressure wave" claim...

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

Actually El Cid isn't far wrong this time. The outer hull was whatever shape the designers decided on but the pressure hull (inner hull) of most WWII submarines was round or oval shaped. Basically all the ballast piping and fuel cells were located between the hulls. Most designers did create somewhat oval outer hulls for improved seakeeping abilities when on the surface.
Chez

My problem is the "a submarine can withstand a nuclear pressure wave" claim...

Depends how big the nuclear charge is, and how far away. Obviously, they will have little problem with a 1 kt. explosion 100 km away... [:'(]

There were some DVDs released a few years ago about the effects of nuclear weapons, with a lot of high-speed footage from the Bikini tests. At one point, they had 2 simulated submerged subs (just pressure vessels with test equipment floating beneath the surface, moored by cables) to test the effect of an explosion on a submerged sub. They had cameras in them as well. One frame - all is well. Next frame - sub sunk!![X(] [X(]

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: spence

I think a single hedgehog projectile was 24 lbs of explosive...a hit by one of those was very often lethal. I think the 300 lb depth charge the Allies started the war with had about the same lethality as a hedgehog if it exploded within 10 feet of the hull of a sub.

(Source: Morse and Kimball) A bomb hit on a sub was rarely lethal as most of the blast was vented to the atmosphere. Depth charges were fused to explode at a specific depth, so they had higher lethality and could kill the sub at a distance, but their lethality wasn't that high. During 1944, the ASW escorts used about 700 ahead-thrown charges and 614 depth charges to kill 1.25 subs a month in the Atlantic. The hedgehogs were contact-fused, which meant that they wouldn't explode during the attack unless they contacted something. Since depth charges were guaranteed to explode and disturb the track on the sub, battle damage assessment was very hard to do.

Basically, the value of ASW weapons was in keeping the subs occupied, not in killing them except by rare accident.