Torpedo Attack.

[Pips]

With B-24 Guy's mods I'm having a ball trying to torpedo ships with the B5N, TBD 1 and TBF.

There's just one little problem. I can't hit a lousy thing!! :banghead:

No matter how close I get the torpedo travels so slooowly that the ship is always past the intersection point by the time the torp gets there. I've tried attacks off the bow, square on and trailing and no joy at all. :bs:

Has anyone had any luck at all? And would like to share? :redf:

[OBIO]

You need to pretend you are duck hunting. Don't aim where the duck is, aim where it is going to be. You need to lead the ship when attacking from the sides. The ship is moving forward, so you need to aim at a point where the ship and torpedo will reach at the same time.

To confound things, you need to drop the torpedo far enough away from the ship for it to stabilize and reach operational depth. Torps, when dropped, sink well into the water, then come closer to the surface after they stabilize. If you drop your torps too close to the ship, the torp will be too deep and will go under the ship.

To confound things even further...you need to drop the torp close enough so that the ship does not have enough time to take evasive actions to get out of the path of the torpedo. Because torps are slow, a run of a couple hundred feet will give the ship time to turn to avoid the torp.

Torpedoing ships is not hard once you get the knack for it.

OBIO

[dhasdell]

You could try setting up a mission where you fly a fighter to escort the torpedo bombers. Use the autopilot to fly your own a/c and watch the ai formation and try to copy them yourself next time.

[jimskifs]

Try different ships, best if they are anchored and not moving. Pretty sure not all ships are modeled at all below the waterline. You can tell by watching the torpedo wake and seeing if it simply passes under the ship.

Jimski

[Shadow Wolf 07]

In CFS2 torpedoes run under the ship if released too close. Try releasing at a minimum of 500 yards.

[Pen32Win]

OK, there is a bug in CFS2.

If you are attacking from in front of the center point of the ship your torp must hit the front half of the ships DP Hull boxes.

If you attack from the front and your torp intersects the ships DP hull boxes behind the center point of the MDL and DP the torp will pass right on through.

The opposite is true if you're attacking from behind the center point of the ship.

Coming in from the side (90*) you do have a small window of about 5-10* where you can hit any of the hull boxes. If the torp intersects the DP at any angle steeper than that the rule above applies.

JFYI - Ships don't have to be modeled below the waterline for torps to work, only the DP Boxes.

Good Luck!

[sc7500]

OK, there is a bug in CFS2...
JFYI - Ships don't have to be modeled below the waterline for torps to work, only the DP Boxes...

Wow ! The info before that snippet was hitherto unknown to me ~ THANK YOU Pen !:ernae:

As for Hull DP Boxes... I make it a point to double check and mod hull depths on all ships. Going a little deep doesn't appear to affect ship speed, and makes a torpedo strke theoretically possible!

SC
:kilroy:

[bearcat241]

To gauge the precise amount of lead needed, do a run on a large target moving at 20+ knots from waypoint 1 to waypoint 2 - all set up as a new mission built in MB. Be sure not to use the 'DO NOT EVADE' choice in setting up target's waypoints. Choose 'TURN' at each waypoint. You want to have some degree of simulated evasion from the target for realism.

Start your run at 3 miles from the intercept point at 100 ft alt and about 200 mph. Turn on target ID and ranging in the views so you can drop at about 300 ft range.

Approaching from the port side of the target, keep your nose glued on the wake churn just astern as you approach from its 8 o'clock. When you get to range 500 ft., turn left sharply (watch your altitude), speed up and aim 100 ft ahead of the bow and drop at range 300 ft., pulling up over the ship at about midsection. Get to external view or "no cockpit" 360 view as soon as possible and note the speed of the fish to that of the target. You will then see in a bird's eye picture just how fast the fish runs compared to the target's speed. With this speed comparison locked into memory, you now know the best attack angle and drop distance to use for targets moving at that speed. From there its all just hand-eye coordination, like a lateral jump shot. Experiment with several target speeds -- its fun.

I was recently doing some torpedo combat training in my new MAAM TBM conversion and Wolfi's SB2C...i set up a mission like this and had some trouble with accuracy too until i worked out this routine for 100% accuracy. :ernae:

[Hern07]

That's pretty close to reality. One plane, one torpedo had a very low chance of a hit. The preferred method was the anvil attack. Ideally the squadron would atack from dead ahead or astern with half the squadron to one side and the other half on the other side. That way, no matter which way the ship turned there was some chance of one or two torps hitting home. It was almost impossible to do this with the old, slow Devestator, although I think they pulled it off at the Coral Sea against the Soho.

[Pips]

Thanks for all the tips guys. Gives me quite a bit to go on and practice. Cheers. :)

[DauntlessDriver546]

Interesting... quite...

500 yards, huh? I'll have to back off my distance then...:costumes:

[Pen32Win]

Damn The Torpedos!!! Skip Bomb the Buggers!!!:costumes:

[Pips]

Bearcat's approach works reasonably well. Ran a mission five times and managed to (on the fifth) gain a hit on a carrier. The other four times I was blown out of the sky by the AA. :)

Bloody scarey going in low to drop a torp. Sweaty palm stuff! And much more fun than dive bombing - that's kids play compared to this. :)

The only hiccup now is that the effects of a torpedo hit are quite dull. No towering column of water, ship shearing out of line or sudden loss of speed. All that shows is expanding circles on the water and an oil slick.

Anyone know if anyone has dabbled in improving torpedo hit effects?

[Pen32Win]

Pips;

Pick up my ship DP Package. The FX for the torp explosions are part of the ships DP, not the weapons. Don't Ask me because I don't know why MS did it that way!! :costumes: Follow the links at the bottom of my post.

[Pips]

Thanks Pen, appreciate it. I'll grab them now. :)

By the by, what is AF=Midway? A campaign?

[Pen32Win]

No Problem Pips;

AF=Midway is an old Campaign of mine that is very outdated. Good stuff but over the hill. I've been working on a major revision for quite some time but got a bit burned out, well, a lot burned out. I was in need of a change of scenery and events in the worst way. :banghead::isadizzy:


Right now I've gotten into an area of the PTO that I've never spent a lot of time on or in, the PNG Area. I've got one campaign in the works with a couple of other folks and I've pulled out the old Scenery tools and taking them for a drive. Working on the Wewak/Boram/But Area fields right now.

When I get tired of the PNG area I probably go back to work on AF.:ernae:

[Pips]

Is this the improved torp hits you were talking about Pen? AF=Midway Ship DP Upgrade 0307

[Shadow Wolf 07]

Pips;

Pick up my ship DP Package. The FX for the torp explosions are part of the ships DP, not the weapons. Don't Ask me because I don't know why MS did it that way!! :costumes: Follow the links at the bottom of my post.

If that's true I can't understand why either. I do know that Nanni http://web.tiscali.it/Nanni/CFS/ has enhanced effects for ship and torpedo explosions as well as torpedo wakes on his site. I like em :jump:

Here's one I did with FRAPS on a torpedo run I made with a Skyraider:

http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j220/Pechora07/?action=view&current=cfs22005-02-2205-26-10-62.flv

The pics show how low you need to be and what a good target you make.

[Pen32Win]

That's the one pips.

There are three parts to making things work with the damage FX of any object. This goes for ships, buildings, vehicles as wells as aircraft.

1. The Weapon DP's for bombs, torps or rockets. This tells the program how much damage it will do to any object it strikes. Bombs hitting the ground also cause damage to objects close to the point of impact but that is all FX driven and I won't get into that here, just direct hits.

2. The FX. These do three things.
a. The visual FX you see.
b. The sound that is generated when the FX is triggered.
c. FX can also produce damage of their own. Think Secondary Explosions.

3. The Target Object's DP. This is what calls/triggers certain FX as damage is taken. If you pop open a DP you'll see there are different FX called for each system of that object. As a certain percentage of damage is done to that sysem new FX are triggered.

I've got a new FX I've been working on which combines a torp/skip bomb hit on a ships hull which combines the Water Spray, Explosion Fireball and then a nice long burning fire. In most photos I've seen of ships that have been torpedoed they are burning as a result. Instead of trying to configure a series of FX to accomplish this I've rolled them all into one. Which also keeps the DP's smaller. You only have to have one FX call instead of several. I'm still doing some testing and each ship's DP will have to be changed to use it but it does show promise.

Here's a couple of SS's of it in action. I'm Skip Bombing a Japanese DD with the DP modified to call on the new FX. The weapon is a 500lb bomb I've turned into a torpedo class weapon. The first shot is just as it hits the hull boxes of the ship's DP. The second is the resulting fire.

[The B24 Guy]

Hi Pen,
That FX looks really good.:ernae:
I know how much work it is to create new FX's.
I tried a few times. I just don't have the patience for it.

Regards,
B24Guy

[Cowboy1968]

Standard attack would be to use two planes coming in on either side of the ship at a 45 degree angle on the bow. US planes would fly at about 120 to 150 feet ASL (above sea level), full throttle, at about 1000 to 750 yards out you release the torpedo. the torpedo travels at around 40 knots and you are at a 45 degree angle that should put your torpedo around just behind the bow to approaching midships. The attack can also be made on the stern but the posibility of a miss is much higher. This type of attack is called "the anvil" attack.

[Pen32Win]

Hi Pen,
That FX looks really good.:ernae:
I know how much work it is to create new FX's.
I tried a few times. I just don't have the patience for it.

Regards,
B24Guy


Thanks B-24;

There's not much new to this one. I just took some of the old FX I had and pulled them together in a new file. Long ago I took a bunch of my favorite FX apart one emitter at a time and tested each one individually. I just created a big box in GMax and a DP for it. Then I'd test one portion of the FX at a time. Then I labled all of the ones that weren't ID'ed already. Now I just have to go in and pick and choose which Emitters I want and drop them in a new file. Do a bit of renumbering and adjusting and bingo... A new FX is born.....

[Pips]

Wow Pen, those effects are brilliant. :)

[Hals und Bein Bruch]

..makes you wonder about that Bismarck hit...:medals:

[bearcat241]

..makes you wonder about that Bismarck hit...:medals:

Actually it doesn't... The sheer difficulty of it all under heavy fire in the sim lends more credibility to that account of sooooo many aircraft attacking, actually releasing and only one scoring a hit that was almost a miss, just glancing the stern and disabling the rudders. No doubt, the Bismarck was moving at flank speed and doing some hard evasion under that thick defensive umbrella of steel. And reducing their own chances of success, it would appear from accounts that the Swordfish attackers didn't deploy the hammer/anvil tactics. But with so many trained aircrew attacking one ship, somebody had to score something no matter what tactics were used.

Now if you want to wonder about something in that story, ask yourself why not one of those antiquated, slow-moving biplanes were shot down by the Bismarck's heavily-armed AAA crew at such slow speeds and low altitude, many passing right over the ship. Although they had excellent ship2ship gunnery, that air defence crew sucked!

[Cowboy1968]

Also with us having working dive bombers for the US and so on....

The standard attack with US dive bombers was to approach the target from the stern at an Altitude of 10 to 12 thousand, cut you throttle to zero, while prop rpm is full, open dive brakes and flaps invert and then dive on the target at a 70 degree angle. Release your bomb in between 1500 to 2000 feet, pull out of the dive slam the throttle to full, close flaps and dive brakes and get the hell out of the target area as fast as you can.

Also what made US attacks effective when done right was the ability to co-ordinate the attack. The carriers would try to launch the slower planes first and then time the other ships to take off at a time when they all would appear over the target area. The torpedo planes would be coming in low from the bows of the targets. the dive bombers coming in high from the stern. Then fighters would be covering both high and low to protect the bombers, when done right it was a masterful attack, but when the co-ordination broke down the attacks could be desasters like the loss of the torpedo squadrons at Midway.

[hewman100]

Bismarck not moving at flank speed or being overly evasive because earlier Stringbag attack caused oil tank leak.

The fact that the attack was carried out by antiquated biplanes is part of the reason so few were lost. Most were actually below the minimum depression angle of AAA, which by design, mostly are high-angle guns.

Conversely due to the mess made of the co-ordination of air power during 'The Channel Dash' all the Swordfish of 825 Sqn IIRC were lost and Lt. Cmdr Esmonde received the VC

[bearcat241]

Bismarck not moving at flank speed or being overly evasive because earlier Stringbag attack caused oil tank leak.

What about the first attack? No pre-damage, full flank speed available with maneuvering, but still my point is no attacking aircraft shot down.


The fact that the attack was carried out by antiquated biplanes is part of the reason so few were lost. Most were actually below the minimum depression angle of AAA, which by design, mostly are high-angle guns.:bs:...not true...WW2 era battleships on all sides had their AA guns between 50 cal and 40mm designed to repel torpedo attacks - that includes depression angle - check the specs on the Biz first. Battleship AAA armament design accounted for torpedo attacks first, glide and dive bombers second. And think about what you're saying here: you and 49 other guys are manning separate 20mm and 40mm guns, 40 ft to 80 ft above the waterline with max ranges between 2 to 4 miles. Twenty attacking torpedo planes are approaching straight at you in line abreast formations of 5 from 3 miles away at 50-100 ft above the surface moving at only 150 mph max - that's a long time for such slow targets to stay in your sights. Why can't any of you take down just one as they traverse that distance from one side? Plus they all have to do the same 3 mile distance on the other side of the ship as they pass your position and egress the area, which puts them in the crosshairs of your gunners on the opposite side of the ship.

Finally, a good number - if not all - of the attackers actually passed over the ship after releasing. What's that got to do with minimum depression?

[The B24 Guy]

I thought it had something to do with the early primitave gun control computers. They were not calabrated for such slow aircraft.

Regards,
B24Guy

[bearcat241]

Only larger armament like 5 inch AAA guns used gun control comps...smaller calibers relied on Mark II eyeballing, hence the purpose of gun sights on the mounts.

[hewman100]

Conceded.

Weather played a major factor too though, the Bismarck almost didn't get the air attack because of this. In fact there was a serious case of mistaken identity and British cruiser Sheffield almost copped it earlier in the same day.

Can you pick a small moving target (approx.40 ft span and height 10 ft) travelling at 150kts flying at low level over the sea, in a storm, towards you from 3-5 miles out? This target being prinicipally made of canvas?

[bearcat241]

And i concede as well...i think this account adds a bit more detail to the picture for all arguments...draw your own conclusions:

The chase

Determined to avenge the sinking of Hood, the British committed every possible unit to hunting down Bismarck. During the early evening of 24 May an attack was made by a small group of Swordfish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish) biplane torpedo bombers from 825 Naval Air Squadron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/825_Naval_Air_Squadron) of the aircraft carrier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_carrier) Victorious (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victorious_(R38)). One hit was scored resulting in a single fatality (Bismarck's first); however, the blast caused only superficial damage to Bismarck's armoured belt.

The effect of the attack reopened the Bismarck's earlier "wounds". The collision mats which had been used to block further flooding in the bow region had come loose due to constant jarring from evasive action and the firing of the anti-aircraft guns. The packing of the damaged bulkheads was also loosened leading to the complete forward flooding of the forward port boiler room, which was abandoned. This caused the bow to go down further, Lütjens thus ordered speed to be reduced to 16 knots (30 km/h) while the mats were repaired.

For some time Bismarck remained under long-distance observation by the British. At about 03:00 on 25 May, the ship took advantage of her opponents' zig-zagging and performed an almost three-quarter clockwise turn behind her pursuers to escape towards the east and then south-east. Contact was lost for four hours; however, perhaps in awe of British radar capabilities, it appears that the Germans did not realise their good fortune. Lütjens, for reasons that are unclear but possibly believing that Bismarck was still being tracked (despite a communication sent by Group West telling him the opposite),[20] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck#cite_note-19) transmitted a half-hour radio message to HQ, which was intercepted thereby giving the British time to work out roughly where he was heading. However, a plotting error made onboard King George V, now in pursuit of the Germans, incorrectly calculated Bismarck's position and caused the chase to veer too far north. Bismarck was therefore able to make good time on 25/26 May in her unhindered passage towards France and protective air cover and destroyer escort. By now, though, fuel was becoming a major concern to both sides.

The British had a stroke of luck on 26 May. In mid-morning a Royal Air Force (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force) Coastal Command (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Coastal_Command) Catalina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBY_Catalina) reconnaissance aircraft from 209 Squadron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._209_Squadron_RAF), which had flown over the Atlantic from its base on Lough Erne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lough_Erne) in Northern Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland) across Donegal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Donegal) through a small corridor secretly provided by the Éire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eire) government,[21] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck#cite_note-20) spotted Bismarck (via her oil slick) and reported her position to the Admiralty. From then on, the German ship's position was known to the British, although the enemy would have to be slowed significantly if heavy units hoped to engage it out of range of German aircraft protection. All British hopes were now pinned on Force H (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_H), whose main units were the aircraft-carrier Ark Royal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91))Template:WP Ships HMS instances (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:WP_Ships_HMS_instances&action=edit&redlink=1), the old battlecruiser Renown (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HMS_Renown_(1916))&action=edit&redlink=1)Template:WP Ships HMS instances (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:WP_Ships_HMS_instances&action=edit&redlink=1) and the cruiser Sheffield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sheffield_(C24))Template:WP Ships HMS instances (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:WP_Ships_HMS_instances&action=edit&redlink=1). This battle-group, commanded by Admiral James Somerville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Somerville_(admiral)), had been diverted north from Gibraltar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar).

At dusk that evening, and in atrocious weather conditions, Ark Royal launched its Fairey Swordfish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish) for another attack at 19:25. The first wave mistakenly targeted the Sheffield that was by now shadowing the quarry. Although precious time was lost by this incident, it proved beneficial to the British in that the magnetic detonators on the torpedoes used against Sheffield were seen to be defective and for the following attack on Bismarck were replaced by those designed to explode on contact. In a final attack, almost in darkness at 21:05, a hit by a single torpedo (launched by Sub-Lieutenant John Moffat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moffat_(pilot))) jammed Bismarck's rudder and steering gear. This rendered Bismarck virtually unmanoeuvrable, increased her list to port and she was able only to steam in a large circle in the general direction of King George V and Rodney (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Rodney_(1925)), two frontline battleships that had been in pursuit from the west. After extensive efforts to free the jammed rudders, the fleet command finally acknowledged their by-now impossible position in several messages to naval headquarters. Lütjens promised that the ship would fight until the last shell was spent. The cost to the attacking British had been four Swordfish damaged, and another damaged beyond repair.[22] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck#cite_note-21)

[Blue Devil]

Fairey Swordfish - torpedo doctrine (from Wiki)

...The primary weapon was the torpedo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo), but the low speed of the biplane and the need for a long straight approach made it difficult to deliver against well-defended targets. Swordfish torpedo doctrine called for an approach at 5000 feet (1500 meters) followed by a dive to torpedo release altitude of 18 feet (5.5 meters).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish#cite_note-Proceedings-0) Maximum range of the early Mark XII torpedo was 1500 yards (1400 meters).[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish#cite_note-Campbell-1) The torpedo traveled 200 yards (180 meters) forward from release to water impact, and required another 300 yards (270 meters) to stabilise at preset depth and arm itself.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish#cite_note-Proceedings-0) Ideal release distance was 1000 yards (900 meters) from target if the Swordfish survived to that distance....


of BISMARCK:

...In May 1941 a Swordfish strike from HMS Ark Royal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_%2891%29) was vital in damaging the German battleship Bismarck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck), preventing it from escaping back to France. The low speed of the attacking aircraft may have acted in their favour, as the planes were too slow for the fire-control predictors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-control_system) of the German gunners, whose shells exploded so far in front of the aircraft that the threat of shrapnel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrapnel) damage was greatly diminished.[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)] The Swordfish also flew sufficiently low that most of the Bismarck's flak (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aircraft_warfare) was unable to hit them.[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)] (These two points are disputed and may be an urban myth.) The Swordfish aircraft scored two hits, one which did little damage but another which disabled the Bismarck's rudder, preventing it from maneuvering and thus sealing its fate. The Bismarck was destroyed less than 13 hours later....


Also found this...

U.S. Navy Dive and Torpedo Bombers of WWII
(http://books.google.com/books?id=LtfQSaWBCCwC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=aerial+torpedo+doctrine&source=web&ots=r2KyIUVHL9&sig=TU1P14HmVQDD2VjA8CD3q3wHlCY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA59,M1)
By Barrett Tillman, Robert L. Lawson

Page 59-60


and this...

dreadnoughtproject.org - Japanese Aerial Tactics 2 (http://dreadnoughtproject.org/friends/dickson/Japanese%20Aerial%20Tactics%202.pdf)

[Pips]

According to the Flight Deck officer on board Ark Royal, the weather was so bad that the pitch of the deck on the first strike mission was approximately 35 feet. By the time the second strike left the deck was pitchng almost fifty feet! In his opinion (he later served on the Illustrious in the Pacific) only the Swordfish could have taken off from the carrier on that second strike. More importantly only the Swordfish could have landed on after the mission - the aircraft being so stable at almost stall speed.

Either way it would have been quite hair-raising for the pilots and crews. :isadizzy:

Those are excellent links Blue Devil, thanks. :)