Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Buckrock

As the Allies in stock, I've never seen a noticeable improvement until '43 comes around, particularly late '43. Prior to that, there's a few good days and many, many frustrating days.

The starting dud rate for the Mark 14 in stock is 80.

quote:

ORIGINAL: apbarog

In my game against OPilot, I've been tracking my submarine activities, specifically my torpedo hits and torpedo duds. We're in October 1942. In the past week, I got a string of 3 non-dud torpedo hits in a row. I commented that the odds of this happening in 1942 are 1 in a 1000.

OPilot said that he had heard a theory, from either a previous opponent or someone on the forum, that the first reduction in dud torpedo percentage actually occurs in October 1942, not January 1943 as the manual states on page 130.

My game statistics show that prior to October 1942, I had 51 dud torpedo hits out of 58 hits for the applicable US torpedoes. That's a 87.9% dud percentage, which is close to the 90% percentage that I believe is applicable early in the war.

This month, October 1942, however, I've had 9 dud hits out of 15 torpedo hits, which is a 64.2% dud percentage.

This is too small of a sample size to be definitive, but it shows a rate significantly lower than 90%. OPilot's theory may be correct.

I'd be interested in hearing about other observations.

quote:

ORIGINAL: apbarog

The three consecutive non-dud hits were from two separate encounters. The first fired two torpedoes. The first missed, the second hit and was not a dud. The separate encounter, two days later, had two torpedoes fired and neither were duds.

I've had the rare streaks of luck before. I had four non-dud hits out of six fired on a Japanese carrier in early '43, sinking it outright. I'm not saying that the manual is wrong. Just that there is a theory being discussed that the change in dud percentage for January '43 may occur in October '42 instead.

By the way, since my original post, I've had two more dud hits, raising the October '42 count to 11 duds out of 17, for a percentage of 64.7%.

quote:

ORIGINAL: apbarog

My point was only that the last 3 torpedo hits were not duds, and that this is unusual in 1942.

The other statistics from my game are that from the beginning of the war to the end of September 1942, there were 51 duds out of 58 hits, which is 87.9%.

In October 1942 there were 12 duds out of 18 hits, which is 66.7%.

I list these stats because there was an ongoing theory about when the dud rate starts to go down. These stats neither prove or disprove that theory, but it is interesting to discuss. With more game observations, we can learn more.