Extreme torpedo spam by AI- realistic?

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

Greetings!

Something that has come to my attention is that, in the Campaign, enemy AIs spam torpedos on every single ship class they have.

I thought it was a 1890s thing, but yesterday I tried 1940, and same thing; every single enemy ship, from destroyers (to be expected) to light and heavy cruisers, battlecruisers and even battleships, have 8-16 torpedo launchers, which they fire simultaneously as soon as they are in range.

In no time, my fleet spots a mass of 48-60 torpedos approaching to my ships, which are pretty much impossible to avoid given how they cover the entirety of my screen. Even if I try to stay as far as 20km away, this still happens.

Both in 1890s and 1940s, the common denominator remains; I can't get to viable gun firing ranges (below 20,000m in 1940, and below 1,000m in 1890) because these masses of torpedos happen every time.

Is this a realistic thing? I know torpedos were widely used, but launching 60 torpedos at once from 20km away?

[Littorio]

I have not noticed this is 1890 myself. If anything, I find many AI ships without sufficient torpedoes. I have only heard of what you are describing happening in later years. Truly odd.

[Vanhal]

Yes it's happening. In 1890 - 1910 it's not much of a problem, even battleships could have two launchers, no big deal, and the torps aren't very dangerous by then.

This hoever chage drastically in 1920, AI build ships which have absolutely enourmous amount of lauchers, especially cruisers routinely have 20+ and often 40+ launchers. In later dates it's equally bad, but 1920 is especially painful since guns still can;'t hit a thing on ranges where such cruisers can send a real wave of death. Especially that there are now battles with many of them and in that chaos you will get heinous losses even if you micro everything. It's no fun at all.

Can we please have one or preferably all three:

1. More realistic amounts of torps on cruisers

2. More realistic torpedoes. There was historical reason why jeune ecole failed and why ships did not mount such huge amount of launchers - torpedoes were complicated and expensive weapons which were absolutely crappy unless specific conditions, and before 1940 game era they were simply way too unreliable for mass use. You can read the desription of the Battle of Java Sea which is the most similar example of open battle big scale torp lanuch and how that went. Instead in game torps are magic wands that are 100% reliable and mostly unaffected by crew level (except reload time i think), unlike guns.

3. Maybe some no-torp at all optional toggle pretty please?

[Lastreaumont]

I noticed the same passion of the AI for torpedo cruisers. So I use small (i.e. easier to manage) fleets of BC, optimised to kill cruisers at moderate range. And because you'll do the torpedo swarm dodge dance all the battle, you'll need BC with quick rotating turrets, capable of 360° rotation. 
If I start the battle with too many ships, I leave a part of them doing circles in water until they stop, far away from the ennemy, and go to the battle with the others. When my 1st wave is too damaged or run out of ammunition, I order a retreat and continue the battle with my 2nd wave.