ORIGINAL: vettim89
ORIGINAL: JWE
Perhaps one of the reasons you don’t see hedgehogs or mousetraps in the stock game, is their peculiar characteristics, and the inability of the game code to adequately account for them.
The general hedgehog fired maybe 20 projectiles, each with about 65 lbs of torpex. This is compared to a Mk-6 DC with 300 lbs of explosive charge, or a Mk-7 with 600 lbs. The issue is how to portray this in terms of the game code.
The present editor ‘effect’ values do indeed show the Mk-7 DC with ‘effect’ of 600 (and the Mk-6 with ‘effect’ of 300), but the various hedgehogs are shown with ‘effect’ of 35. This should likely be adjusted to 65, in accord with IRL. But this still doesn’t help in determining patterning.
The code looks at ‘salvos’, so if you have a single hedgehog launcher, with ammo of 20 or 25, you will get a single attack, with a “chance to kill” based on an ‘effect’ of 35 or 65. Since ammo is 20 or 25. You ‘could’ get 20 to 25 ‘salvos’, but the game code doesn’t go that long, so your hedgehog is “practically” ineffective; you might get 6 or 7 shots (out of 20 or 25) at a kill numeric of 35 or 65 for each shot.
There are a couple ways (lots actually) that modders can accommodate these seemingly disparate elements. The one I found most effective is to have 1 hedgehog device with “Num” of 20; maybe ammo of 2 or more if you have reloads on your mind. This gives you 1 ‘salvo’ of 20 ‘rounds’, with 20 “chances to hit”, each with a ‘chance to kill’ based on the device ‘effect’ of 35 (or 65). This takes up lots of time if you have ‘combat screens’ turned on, but – what the hey – it’s your nickel.
Editor values and detailed support are available upon request. Ciao.
John
But the problem is while Mousetrap and Hedgehog had relativelive small warheads, they were direct contact weapons as opposed to the area of effect DC's. So while out of a salvo of 20 only one weapon "hit", that hit was often more devastating than a the larger warhead of a DC that exploded nearby. They were essentially shells that hit the sub. So if an ahead thrown weapon hit damage was assumed. One or two hits was considered enough to sink most subs. The USN went from a 6% kill rate initially up to 10% by war's end. That means 10% of all shots by these weapons killed their targets.
The devices are in the stock game. There are no less than four slots dedicated to them - and at least the two HH slots should be combined - since there is no difference in the way they would be treated by us - unless you think the shift to ellipitical from circular changed the accuracy - which does not appear to be the case.
I am not sure what the per centage rates above are related to - but they cannot be per cent per round nor per cent per salvo. It is true that at first HH was not effective at all - that it became more effective in later years as operational techniques changed - and I supppse we could have two slots (early HH and late HH?) to reflect that change. But if you get into the technical details - you learn that it was decided never to even shoot vs a deep submarine - and our code won't let us do that - it is always going to shoot with the weapon if the submarine is detected. Further - it isn't probably known if the sub is deep or not even if code wante to look - this is semi-abstract - subs are really treated like surface ships except momentarily in some cases - and then it is anything but likely the sub is really maneuvering tactically - changing depth - changing speed - changing heading. Whatever value a modder selects must (and will) cover ALL cases - including those where the AS ship woult not even fire - and would not hit if it did fire. The only way I see to get at that is to use a statistical averaging technique:
if effectiveness = n at periscope depth
then the value we use = n divided by k - where k is the number of possible depths in our semi-abstract model we want to assume the average submarine might be at
I think the original device value was 60 - and I think a reasonable k might be 5 - so that might yield an accuracy of 12 - IF there was any reason to believe in the original value of 60. Real world data suggests this is may be entirely too high - that the chance of a hit is very low indeed per projectile, salvo or total attack. And one real world veriable IS in the code - an experienced ship should do better - and does.
The way to simulate the contact projectiles is give them full value of their charge - where as a DC should use a fraction - for the moment I recommend half of charge - and that may well be too high. But the "range" of damage for a DC is low - 6 to 9 meters (small and large) - so I don't think the charge will be divided by a really big k in spite on not actually hitting
FYI - when I studied DC design history once - I learned they assumed that there was a space between the sub deck and the pressure hull - and designed the charge to crack a German Type VII hull if it hit a German Type VII deck - that is 22 mm at a distance of about 1 meter.
