Talk:U-511/@comment-172.97.201.147-20170222011350/@comment-93.33.144.174-20170314171409

Try playing the good old Silent Hunter 3 and you will find out. :)

Just evade the SH5.

The torpedoes are not just for shooting straight in front, they have to be set up for turning after launch, if you are interested you can learn the formula used by crews in the past... Anyway torps still have limitations, plus subs were very slow when submerged, not very agile and against escorted targets you will rarely have time to reload and launch again from the same tubes, being able to shoot from both sides and have 1 or 2 more tubes is useful.

German subs also had fancy pattern courses to use against convoys, with "ladder" patterns, zig zag or sort of circling. They also developed acoustic torps later in the war, at a first look that would seem to make older torps and those special modes obsolete, but not really. You often don't want all your torps going after the same target or the closest/most noisy target.