Torpedoes
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| Torpedoes are an excellent weapon at medium to close range against large or unaware ships who have a difficult time dodging. They are usually launched by destroyers or torpedo bombers from aircraft carriers, but a fair number of cruisers also carry torpedoes as a secondary armament and even some battleships. It may be difficult to make your torpedoes hit their target every time, as they take more time to travel than shells and are a lot easier to dodge if spotted than shells. | Torpedoes are an excellent weapon at medium to close range against large or unaware ships who have a difficult time dodging. They are usually launched by destroyers or torpedo bombers from aircraft carriers, but a fair number of cruisers also carry torpedoes as a secondary armament and even some battleships. It may be difficult to make your torpedoes hit their target every time, as they take more time to travel than shells and are a lot easier to dodge if spotted than shells. | |||
| ? | == Aiming == | + | == Aiming ship-launched torpedoes == | |
| When torpedoes are selected (default key 3), the firing arcs of the torpedo launchers will be shown. The arc will be green if the corresponding launcher is loaded, or yellow if it is still reloading. Overlapping arcs are shown with a dashed line. A highlight shows the current direction of the launcher; the desired aim direction is shown with a red line. | When torpedoes are selected (default key 3), the firing arcs of the torpedo launchers will be shown. The arc will be green if the corresponding launcher is loaded, or yellow if it is still reloading. Overlapping arcs are shown with a dashed line. A highlight shows the current direction of the launcher; the desired aim direction is shown with a red line. | |||
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| Pressing the torpedo select key when they are already selected toggles between a wide spread and a narrow spread. Generally the narrow spread is more useful when attacking specific ships. | Pressing the torpedo select key when they are already selected toggles between a wide spread and a narrow spread. Generally the narrow spread is more useful when attacking specific ships. | |||
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| + | === Launcher mountings === | |||
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| + | There are roughly three types of mounting configurations: | |||
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| + | * Side: The most common configuration, these launchers can fire only to one side of the ship, and not forwards or backwards. Ships with this configuration tend to carry more total torpedoes, though they can only fire at most half in a single direction at a time. | |||
| + | * Centerline: Found on many destroyers, especially mid- and high-tier, these launchers can fire to either side of the ship, but still not forwards or backwards. This gives them more flexibility than side-mounted launchers. | |||
| + | * Forward: Found on low-tier German destroyers, these launchers can fire in a narrow forward arc. | |||
| === Reloading === | === Reloading === | |||
Revision as of 11:29, 24 December 2016
These waterborne missiles are slow to reload and slow to travel, but deliver devastating damage.
Contents
Overview
Torpedoes are an excellent weapon at medium to close range against large or unaware ships who have a difficult time dodging. They are usually launched by destroyers or torpedo bombers from aircraft carriers, but a fair number of cruisers also carry torpedoes as a secondary armament and even some battleships. It may be difficult to make your torpedoes hit their target every time, as they take more time to travel than shells and are a lot easier to dodge if spotted than shells.
Aiming ship-launched torpedoes
When torpedoes are selected (default key 3), the firing arcs of the torpedo launchers will be shown. The arc will be green if the corresponding launcher is loaded, or yellow if it is still reloading. Overlapping arcs are shown with a dashed line. A highlight shows the current direction of the launcher; the desired aim direction is shown with a red line.
If a enemy ship is targeted, a white cone shows the angle at which the torpedo spread will hit the center of the enemy ship, provided it maintains its current speed and heading. This provides a useful landmark.
Pressing the torpedo select key when they are already selected toggles between a wide spread and a narrow spread. Generally the narrow spread is more useful when attacking specific ships.
Launcher mountings
There are roughly three types of mounting configurations:
- Side: The most common configuration, these launchers can fire only to one side of the ship, and not forwards or backwards. Ships with this configuration tend to carry more total torpedoes, though they can only fire at most half in a single direction at a time.
- Centerline: Found on many destroyers, especially mid- and high-tier, these launchers can fire to either side of the ship, but still not forwards or backwards. This gives them more flexibility than side-mounted launchers.
- Forward: Found on low-tier German destroyers, these launchers can fire in a narrow forward arc.
Reloading
After a torpedo launcher has fired its torpedoes it must reload before it can fire again. Generally the more tubes in a launcher, the longer it takes to reload, though there is variation beyond this.
Royal Navy cruiser torpedo launchers fire their torpedoes one at a time. A launcher does not automatically start reloading until all of its torpedoes have been fired; the reload process can be started earlier by selecting torpedoes and pressing the reload key (default F).
Spotting
A spotted torpedo will remain spotted until it either hits something, whether it is a ship or landmass, or runs out of fuel. Aircraft and ships can spot torpedoes from a set range based on the torpedo model.
Reaction Time
Torpedo reaction times, i.e. the time it takes for the torpedo to travel across its Detectability Range, can be computed assuming a stationary target. It follows that moving towards the torpedo will reduce the reaction time, while moving away will increase the reaction time. The torpedo's Detectability Range is shown when hovering the mouse over the Torpedo Tubes heading in the port's ship specifications. To compute the reaction time, the Detectability Range must be divided by the torpedo's speed. Because the torpedo's speed is shown in knots, the value must be converted to meters per second; however, since in-game units do not correspond directly to real-world units, a unique conversion factor must be applied to convert the torpedo's speed in knots to meters-per-second. Following considerable amounts of testing by numerous users, a conversion factor of 2.6 was arrived at and is generally considered accurate. Thus, the formula is
- Drange / (Vtorp * 2.6) = Treaction
As an example, the Japanese Type F3 torpedo, acquired beginning with the Kagero, would be
- 1.9km / (76kt * 2.6) ≈ 9.6 seconds
Whereas the Japanese Type 93 torpedo would be
- 2.5km / (62kt * 2.6) ≈ 15.5 seconds
Note the above figures were calculated with the data from game version 0.5.7.0, in early July, 2016.
A chart of these reaction times was computed by reddit user "fstd" in August 2015, and shared in this reddit thread. The results are now completely obsolete, but the methodology of determining the conversion factor is discussed in the thread.
Hit effects
Arming distance
Torpedoes have a minimum arming distance. If a torpedo strikes a target before it has reached the minimum arming distance, it will not explode and will not damage the target ship. Once the torpedo is armed, it will always explode when hitting a ship; duds, non-explosions or ricochets are not planned for the game.
Damage
- Torpedo hits into bow/stern -- deals about 0.9x the listed torpedo damage, independent of ship type.
- Torpedo hits into citadel with Torpedo Protection (e.g. anti-torpedo bulge, anti-torpedo belt) -- reduced damage, coefficient determined by the Damage Reduction value for the ship. This value can be found under the Survivability dropdown of the ship's specifications in the port. Not all ships have Torpedo Protection. Torpedo Protection also decreases the chance of flooding.
- Torpedo hits the mid-section of a destroyer -- reduced damage (multiplier of 0.9x to the listed damage, as of patch 0.4.1).
Flooding
See Flooding.
When a torpedo hits a target, it has a chance to cause a flood that does between 0.67-0.43% of the enemy's health per second over two minutes. It is very hard to survive a flood from full health without any assistance (i.e. repair party or damage control), so if you catch someone as their damage control finishes, you will have a nice reward by almost certainly flooding said enemy to death or at least getting a lot of damage from flooding. Flooding can only occur in one place, unlike fires. Additional floods caused will simply reset the timer.
Flood chance does vary on torpedo size, and the hidden flood coefficient that reduces the chance to flood based on the ship hit. For example, the Japanese 610mm Type 93 Mod 3 has a guaranteed chance to cause a flood with a 406% chance. On the other hand, the air-dropped Type 91 Mod 1a from Japanese torpedo bombers has a 63% chance to flood. However, one may notice that even these high flood chances may not cause a flood immediately (in the Japanese air-dropped torpedoes they may never cause a flood). This is due to all ships having a coefficient based on its torpedo protection that reduces the flood chance. Typically destroyers have the lowest at a flat 1.00 while battleships have much lower coefficient.
