Mk37 sluggish?
 

Tried in single missions and when fired they hardly seem to move at all..
Am I missing something?

Top speed of 26 knots. Yes they are sluggish. Very different fighting in 1968 than 1984.

yeah it seemed like they stand still when fired...

Had no luck against warships with thrm..

Maybe we should be anachronistic and give the player Mk37C instead which is faster.

This was a thought I had as well. From what I've read (found a manual for the 37C on line from one of the sub museums), the 37C program (which eventually lead to the NT37 with later variants including improved electronics ect) was intended as a quick fix for the Mk37 once it became apparent that it was of marginal capability (and probably couldn't catch some of the newer Soviet nuke-boats). One thing that I took particular interest in is that they always intended to produce the 37C in kit form so that the upgrades could be done pier-side or even on a tender, and while it did have a number of its own unique parts, it used as much from the Mk46 as possible.

I may be incorrect here but my understanding is that the 37C underwent testing from 1968 onward into the early 70s, but somewhere early in the navy decided that they were much more interested in the "super-torpedo" Mk 48 and the capabilities it would bring vs. upgrading the Mk37s so they would be less marginal.

While hypothetical, I would propose that given the right circumstances in 1968, on an emergency basis these 37C kits could have been fielded to tenders and bases to fairly quickly convert some of the mk 37s then in service to Cs. It would be pretty cool to see the 37C as a kind of "golden bullet" which, if you're lucky, you'll only manage to get one or two due to limited supply. Not sure if this can be done in the game though but just a thought.

Edit: Said Mk 37C manual https://maritime.org/doc/torpedomk37/index.htm

Were there simmilar programs to replace mk16?

Not specifically but it was eventually replaced by the Mk 48 as well. For the most part all of the acoustic homing torpedoes developed after the war were for ASW, although they did briefly have a Mk 28 which was basically a homing version of the electric Mk 18 from WW2, retired in 1952 and the Mk 35 which was an electric homing ASW torpedo and predecessor to the Mk 37 (I want to say this one was either active only or passive only but I may be wrong).

The only other thing that you could rate as an anti-ship homing torpedo in that time was the cutie Mk 27 mod 4 and Mk 39 (same but with wire-guidance), which was used until 1960. About the only thing I can think of for the Mk 16 is that it might be nice to have pattern-running options for it (I think they could run in a snake pattern, not sure about circling).

All this kind of does put things into perspective for the Mk 48 though, it was seen as nearly the one-size-fits-all solution for submarine weapons. Its warhead was big enough to replace the old non-guided WW2 torps for anti-ship use, and it was faster, could dive deeper, and had better electronics than the Mk 37s then in use, and meant that the Mk 45 ASTOR nuclear torpedo could be retired as well.

I was just wondering why USN did not deploy a guided anti-ship torpedo like the Soviets did.

The advent of multirole heavyweight torpedoes (mk48 later USET80 and others) is understandable, but I dont yet get why USN did not deploy a dedicated anti ship torpedo to suppliment the mk37.

I'm sure had war broken out there replacement programs would have been in full swing as the US would have found themselves completely out matched.

When the Mk 37 was developed and really until the mid-1960's, there wasn't much in the Soviet Navy that warranted a heavy torpedo. The Soviets needed something to sink US/UK carriers, battleships, and heavy cruisers. The Soviet navy was mostly frigates, smallish destroyers, and some leftovers from WW2.

That starts to change in the '60s when modern, larger destroyers and cruisers start to show up in the Soviet navy, as well as the beginning of aircraft/helicopter carriers. Those and larger/faster submarines were what prompted the development of the more capable Mk37s and the Mk48.

I just wanted to throw this out there as something helpful for the Mk 37. As slow and somewhat useless as it is against anything not a diesel sub, you can still employ it very effectively. I use the Mk 37 to impose my will on enemy escorts. While almost always slower than the escort, the major thing that the Mk 37 has on its side is closing speed. Even though he is ultimately faster than the torpedo, the escort must take evasive action and head away from the torpedo, otherwise as slow as it is it would still hit him. They key to this is, if you are fairly close to the escort, line it up on manual guidance and then have the torpedo go active, hopefully it will trail him on his exact bearing (so directly behind him) for its entire 10,000+ yard run, forcing him to evade and more often than not leaving whatever he was escorting there as low hanging fruit for the picking. Probability of kill, 0%, probability of Boris Badinoff taking you a lot more seriously, 100%.


The flip side is, you've most likely just attracted a lot of attention and ASW Aircraft are likely on their way....

Slow, but still a bit more useful than Mk 16 for me. Control & sensors rule. Decided to keep ~6 16's stored for big stuff, like, if I accidentally meet a Kiev class ship or something, and the rest of the storage fill with 37s. Smaller warhead works fine on smaller warships and auxs like AP/AK/AE/AS/AO etc. The speed is OK for getting the latter. Otherwise requires good positioning.

Managed to sink 3 amphib ships with Mk 16s tho. On a direct pursuit course. Had to chase each one @ deep depth & high speed, then get up to 100 ft, slow down, and fire from their baffles, exactly on the same track & course. Did not have time to reposition... But it worked.. Managed to repel the invasion. Got a bronze medal. But I really don't want to do something like that again. Mk 37s are fast enough to do the job, and have better range.. so.. yeah.