Dissapointed in IJN Night Combat

[Pawlock]

Originally posted by Sonny
Pawlock,

Was you example v2.0?

No my example was v1.4, but really as this debate has been ongoing on more than 1 thread for quite a long time now, well before 2.0 was out,I though it relevant.

[mogami]

Hi, I see nothing in this latest batch of battles I consider extra ordinary (esp since allied player claims exp rating over 70 at night battles. The Mustsu battles were her being engaged at long range (before she could even see the enemy) The non IJN BB groups simply ran after finding a USN BB arrayed against them (sensible course of action) What UV does not have is a routine that reports events after a battle except for a ships sinking. Mutsu might have absorbed an early hit and between battles had explosions onboard from fires. She was engaged twice. The other battles allied firecontrol and the IJN not having anything that could respond (I am aware of the torpedo range but you must have a target) they simply turned around. I have fought so many night battles from each side in PBEM games without finding a reason to find fault with the program. (I have not been happy every time just when I feel like I have been robbed in one engagement another where my forces out preform my expections happens. The combat display in UV is an abstraction. The results are what matter (not the results of specfic battles but the results from a series of engagements) the ships are not arrayed as displayed. They do not actually fire one ship at a time. And even the little messages should not be taken too verbatim.

You never know what damage you have actually inflicted on the enemy. I recall one battle with U2 where in his e-mail he sounded almost dispondent after a battle (he did not realize the extent of damage he had inflicted on my force).

I do feel there is a trap Japanese players fall into. Thinking the IJN can walk over the USN at any period under any conditions.

Even when this does occur the Japanese players fail to recoginize it as such because they recieve damage in return (always more then they expect)

It is my opinion the IJN does in the long run inflict more then it takes. The problem is the IJN can not afford anything short of overwhelming victories. These are not easy to achive. In the process the USN evens up in skill and possess the advantage of Radar and being at their base. (I usally clobber USN TF's that venture to my bases when I have a suitable TF defending)

[Sonny]

Originally posted by denisonh


Question Sonny: What was the mission and starting system damage of the TF?

If they were on a bombardment mission, and had high sys damage (you have been using them boys pretty heavy), they would be outperformed. Ships with higher system damage going into combat become more suseptable to serious damage.

The USN leader was 59/74 cautious, and they all had night experience 73+(Salt Lake City is 80 at night ), and on a surface combat mission.

Also remember that FOW can mask damage that the enemy sustains that you do not necessarily see.

Overall, the surface actions in our PBEM match have varied, with each of us experiencing some successes and failures.

Agreed, I would expect the results to show more hits on the both sides. But if the bombardment group broke contact, and a cautious commander did not pursue, the results would be light.

The system damage was 10 or under for the Mutsu, not as good for some of the DDs.
And you are right, we have had a variety of battles in our game and they all seemed reasonable in the results. Not complaining about losing the battles because win or lose there were reasonable number of shots and hit on both sides - before v2.0 came out.

In addition to the AAR posted above, the battle we had yesterday was another example where the Japanese were mauled with only light damage to the US group. I did not post the AAR because it is not quite as strong an argument (since you had a BB and I didn't) but the hits were 30+ to 10 in the first round and approx 25 to 10 in the second round. Maybe radar makes that much difference but it was not the case before 2.0 arrived.

There may be another factor which I have not really thought about - v1.? data with v2.0 game. Don't remember under which version we started the game but we are still using the data from that version.

[Diealtekoenig]

I am having a similar experience under v 2.00 (game restarted). This is the Hard Road Ahead Scenario early on (about 8/8).

What I noticed (I ran the turn over and over from the saved game) and what I note on the results listed here is that the IJN are not getting torpedo hits.

In my multiple runs the IJN with all their starting Rabaul DDs CLs and CAs vs a fair sized UNS force had a total of 3 torpedo hits in 9 battles (the USN had many more than that).

The battles opened at 6000 yards usually, once at 9000 yards.

Is there a problem with the IJN not using their torpedoes? Or a problem with the torpedoes not being as accurate as they should be?

There was a big difference in gunfire damage (many more USN hits than IJN hits overall) but why aren't the IJN torpedoes having more effect?

(Savegame file can be emailed on request)

[Wilhammer]

After much experience:

1. Japanese ships don't use their torpedoes enough. the game fails to follow the correct doctrine. The Japanese developed long range torpedoes, heavily armed with many tubes their light ships, and trained to use every battle opening to start with them.

2. American torpedoes are TOO reliable. Where are the duds? Evrey book you read on the subject shows them to be dud ridden weapons at this stage of the war.

I also think Radar is overrated, especially in 1942. Just because it is on board does not mean they knew how to use it, and certainly weather seems to have little effect on it.

The problem might also be magnified by the "All or Northing" spotting of enemy TFs. It would seem that the ships in a TF are alittle bit too much able in inter-ship communications.

[Art_Ozols]

Originally posted by SoulBlazer
In my case, yes, they were. I know the fleets that clashed the first two times were the same fleets and the first time they ahd been in combat. I'll check with the Allied player, but I don't even think his ships had left port.

Actually I routinely take all ships on shakedown cruises to gain some experience prior to combat. So it was their first engagement but they had been on missions as soon as they arrived

Art

[denisonh]

In addition to the AAR posted above, the battle we had yesterday was another example where the Japanese were mauled with only light damage to the US group. I did not post the AAR because it is not quite as strong an argument (since you had a BB and I didn't) but the hits were 30+ to 10 in the first round and approx 25 to 10 in the second round. Maybe radar makes that much difference but it was not the case before 2.0 arrived.

Sonny,

You may not have sunk too many ships in that last engagement, but there will be some ships moving to Pearl.

Once again, there may be damage effects that you are not aware of.

And Mogami you are right. I was referring to the capital ships in the TF, here are the Night Experience levels for the ships listed in the above AAR:

BB Washington 72
CA Salt Lake City 81
CL Nashville 74
CL Boise 67
DD Grayson 69
DD Blue 70
DD Helm 68
DD Mugford 68
DD Jarvis 67
DD Cummings 72
DD Smith 64
DD Preston 65

In our game, there have been a large number of surface actions, and it is November.(I do love surface actions )

[CapAndGown]

USN night experience is definitely going up really fast. I noticed this is a game against the AI. I went in with a surface TF to break up a IJN landing. Going in the ships were in the 30s. After beating up on a bunch of jap APs, they were all the sudden in the 60s. This strikes me as fairly unrealistic. I guess this is something that should be added to the Area 51 files. (I am a little burned out on testing at the moment, but hopefully I can get back to it soon.)

Anyway, it would seem that ship experience should not be the only determinatant of how good a ship performs at night, but "fleet" experience. It took a long time for the USN to shake its habit of tying the DDs to the Cruisers. They also had a lot to learn about proper use of radar, how to report bearings (true vs relative), even how to say "commence firing" (was that "interagatory roger" a yes? Or did you mean open fire?) Even when the USN won, as at Cape Esperance, their were all sorts of foul ups.

Does pilot experience go up as fast as ship experience? Not from what I have seen. Pilots, even when they fly several combat missions, do not see jumps of 30 experience points.

It seems to me their should be a fleet experience level that goes up by some variable amount every time you have an engagement. This would allow even ships that have not yet seen action to benefit from the experience gained by others. It could be used to represent the learning curve the USN went through from Savo to Cape Augusta.

I think that Jap torp doctrine needs to be added in to make their DDs more deadly as well. When the IJN won battles it was because of the Long Lance. Perhaps a fleet experience level could be used to determine if an opening torp salvo, or any torp salvo for that matter, is employed. Hit or miss, these salvos should be in there and not an afterthought.

[CapAndGown]

Originally posted by Wilhammer
After much experience:

1. Japanese ships don't use their torpedoes enough. the game fails to follow the correct doctrine. The Japanese developed long range torpedoes, heavily armed with many tubes their light ships, and trained to use every battle opening to start with them.

Agreed.

2. American torpedoes are TOO reliable. Where are the duds? Evrey book you read on the subject shows them to be dud ridden weapons at this stage of the war.

Disagree: Please read the thread "Reports from Area 51". After much testing it has become apparent that Jap torps are much more likely to hit than USN torps. Whether this is modeling the greater range and speed of the Long Lance, or the poor quality (i.e. duds) of the US, I don't know. But the IJN consistently does better in hitting with its torps than the USN.

I also think Radar is overrated, especially in 1942. Just because it is on board does not mean they knew how to use it, and certainly weather seems to have little effect on it.

What radar are you talking about? And what is too much?

For SC radar I have found that it has no statistically significant impact on the outcome of a battle. Perhaps I have not yet run enough tests to narrow down just what the impact is. But after 120 tests, 60 with SC radar and 60 without, a regression analysis pointed to the fact that whatever effect SC radar was having, it was not statisticaly significant.

For SG radar, I found that it was worth the equivalent of 70 experience points. In other words, a USN task force with an experience level of 20 and SG radar would be as effective as a USN task force without SG radar and an experience level of 90.
Is this too much? I think it is. But perhaps the crew at Matrix can explain why they chose to make SG radar as effective as they did.

[Diealtekoenig]

Well, it is not a case of USN experience going up quickly because my experience (above) was the first combat for either side on Aug 8 1942 in the Hard Road game.

And you may say that the IJN Torpedoes are used more often or are more accurate than the USN torpedoes, but again, in running the battle 9 times the IJN got 3 hits in one battle and no hits at all in the other 8. That is way too low on an absolute scale.

For the IJN to get zero torpedo hits in a night action at range 6000 yards in 1942 8 engagements out of 9 seems way out of line and (since as was pointed out above their ships are built for torpedo combat) is making it impossible for me at least to put up any sort of contest for control of the seas off Lunga.

Something needs looking at here.

[denisonh]

As a footnote about this particular example of USN experience, let me say I saw no "jump" of 30 exp.

These ships have been in steady combat since their committment into theater.

This particular PBEM has been blessed with a great number of surface actions. I have sunk something over 40 IJN shipd due to surface action, not including cripples picked off by follow up air strikes. My opponent has sank even more (that includes the 19 PT boats Sonny).

Over 6 months of combat with steady surface actions, I would expect the experience to increase. It is still not where the IJN starts the game.

The ability ot learn and adapt was one of the strengths of the USN. The wargaming done at the US Naval War College as part of the curriculum between the wars emphasized asessing the situation and adapting to it.

[Chiteng]

I see no material difference between the Pacwar night combat model and the UV combat model. Especially with regards to
outcome. I still argue that it is the sequencing.

The Jap DD should always start out with a torpedoe spread.
At night this should be invisible. Not just one or two DD
I mean if there are 10 DD they ALL fire torps.

[Diealtekoenig]

Here, here!

I concur completely with Chiteng.

[mdiehl]

The Jap DD should always start out with a torpedoe spread. At night this should be invisible. Not just one or two DD
I mean if there are 10 DD they ALL fire torps.

Considering that an initial IJN torp salvo was the exception rather than the rule, your demand for always and all ships seems excessive. Should happen roughly 25% of the time, and should tend to happen only at long range where the likelihood of scoring a hit is around 3%.

Nothing wrong with the PW surface combat engine.

[Chiteng]

Except of course that you cant get historical results.

[SoulBlazer]

And I still say there are problems, espeicly with the torpeados and with the assigning of targets for guns.

[mdiehl]

No. But a previous user did note roughly 12% hits in battles of all types. This would be historically accurate including the few engagements where the IJN did launch an all torp salvo attack and was *quite* successful (on the order of 16% as at Tfrnga). So, adding a "torp first" subroutine with modal hit rates of 3-6% and occasional hit rates of about 16% would necessarily mean reducing the accuracy for "non initial torp salvo" shots, to preserve the 12% mean that the sim seems to generate reasonably well.

In short: like it the way it is, or accept lower overall hit rates with the very uncommon (about 10%) occurrence where the IJN launches an all torp initial attack *and* many (about 16%) of the torps hit. Understand that these will only occur until US ships carry SG radar. After that the likelihood is that the US will launch the torp sally first.

[Chiteng]

Savo Island happened and Tass. Point

For that matter, North Carolina and Wasp all in one day.

The only way now to pound the USN is to catch some element
out of air support range.

You can quote statistics all you want mdiehl. I will keep
point out the historical outcomes.

How can the USN DD launch torps without closing?
The Japs CAN launch torps, w/o closing.

[Sonny]

Originally posted by denisonh
........(that includes the 19 PT boats Sonny).

....

Those little bastards got a torp hit on my BB!:mad:

[denisonh]

Those little bastards got a torp hit on my BB!

Well, **** Sonny! How many times did you visit Irau with my PT boats sitting there? Enough times to kill 19 of the little suckers.

Give them enough chances, and they will hit something that big!