Admirals Edition Naval Thread

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: el cid again
It might be interesting generally though: not very different, TO&E would be 14 men - and theoretically some LTJG or so would be in charge but almost never present (as he has six other jobs). There would not have to be a chief - but if not a PO1 would be in charge - and there would be at least three PO2 - one for each team - of which there could be 3. Naval organization is task oriented - so it might act as one, two or three teams - and in my day the leader was not in any of the teams - but there would be a radioman with him - also not in any of the teams - because the radios were quite heavy - Korean era tube type radios with extra batteries - each of which weighed more than an entire radio today. If more men were required, they would be attached, either grunts from the boat division (on an APA this is about 80 strong, the biggest division on the ship) - or specialists from whatever division (say a signalman, a hospital corpsman, a gunners mate if you had to be armed and worry about supporting weapons - which ordinary sailors didn't do - the gunner's mate took care of weapons - or any other specialist of interest to the particular day's work).

Thank you. That's very informative.

Is it? Where?

[spence]

Something thats missing from this, not that I disagree mind you, is that your not taking into acount just how much time was lost arguing over how do it by all those who knew just what was neaded to be done...., something not unique to our culture either

Arguments with the applicable Chief Petty Officer were and are infrequent and usually initiated by an Ensign, in which case the CPO has a cup of coffee with the EO (or other applicable department head) and the Ensign finds ALL his time occupied by taking an emergency inventory of the ______ locker or conducting an investigation into the loss of a Hershey bar by the Ship's Store.[:D]

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: el cid again
It might be interesting generally though: not very different, TO&E would be 14 men - and theoretically some LTJG or so would be in charge but almost never present (as he has six other jobs). There would not have to be a chief - but if not a PO1 would be in charge - and there would be at least three PO2 - one for each team - of which there could be 3. Naval organization is task oriented - so it might act as one, two or three teams - and in my day the leader was not in any of the teams - but there would be a radioman with him - also not in any of the teams - because the radios were quite heavy - Korean era tube type radios with extra batteries - each of which weighed more than an entire radio today. If more men were required, they would be attached, either grunts from the boat division (on an APA this is about 80 strong, the biggest division on the ship) - or specialists from whatever division (say a signalman, a hospital corpsman, a gunners mate if you had to be armed and worry about supporting weapons - which ordinary sailors didn't do - the gunner's mate took care of weapons - or any other specialist of interest to the particular day's work).

Thank you. That's very informative.

Is it? Where?

I think JWE has very British sense of humour...[8D]

[spence]

Not sure why such information would be needed in a game of this scale but Cid's description of a Ship's Landing Party/Prize Crew meshes very well with my recollections of the Watch Quarter and Station Bills on the CGC Bibb (a DD sized ship). I still have a pretty good memory of those things since I was charged as Operations Officer to amend it to account for the decrease in crew size (308 officers/men in WW2 to 125 in 1977) when that cutter began regular boardings to enforce the Fisheries Zone and interdict drugs.

[MineSweeper]

Do not know of this has been asked....
Will the Japanese Torpedoes be modified in any way?. The Long Lance was upgraded with a heavier Warhead later in the war at the expense of range (removed an Oxygen Tank)
Thanks....

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: MineSweeper

Do not know of this has been asked....
Will the Japanese Torpedoes be modified in any way?. The Long Lance was upgraded with a heavier Warhead later in the war at the expense of range (removed an Oxygen Tank)
Thanks....

One I actually know. At this point, there is still only one flavor of T93. Wouldn't be hard to change though if our device mangler was so inclined.

[MineSweeper]

Thanks for the reply....here is some info on the subject....
The model 3 had a 1715 lb. warhead vs. 1080 that's in the model 1...

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_ ... 0-01-1.pdf

[DuckofTindalos]

Hadn't thought of actually doing that, but it would be fairly easy... New torp device, set the IJN ships to get them as an upgrade... Definitely doable. What with the editor's mass update function, it's a lot more possible than in the old days...

[MineSweeper]

Thanks T....you might also want to look at the Type 95 Submarine Torps....they were also modified from Model 1 (893 lb. warhead) to Model 2 (1210 lb. warhead)

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: MineSweeper

Thanks T....you might also want to look at the Type 95 Submarine Torps....they were also modified from Model 1 (893 lb. warhead) to Model 2 (1210 lb. warhead)

Yup... That's more my area of expertise, what with me being responsible for the IJN submarine OOB...

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: MineSweeper

Thanks T....you might also want to look at the Type 95 Submarine Torps....they were also modified from Model 1 (893 lb. warhead) to Model 2 (1210 lb. warhead)

Yup... That's more my area of expertise, what with me being responsible for the IJN submarine OOB...

Thing is this is true pretty much across the board. Just talking about Naval for the moment, directors get better, HE rounds get better, AP rounds get better, sonar gets better, depth charges get better, and on and on and much of this is NOT represented in stock. If we open the door, it is a very large room in there. And for the most part "ammunition" is not represented in the system, so we would then be trying to abstract ammunition changes into the devices. I think stock made a decision not to do this.

[DuckofTindalos]

This is true...

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: MineSweeper

Thanks for the reply....here is some info on the subject....
The model 3 had a 1715 lb. warhead vs. 1080 that's in the model 1...

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_ ... 0-01-1.pdf

Re-stated, the point is that the reason we haven't added more upgrades to the naval devices, isn't due to lack of data, it might more nearly be the opposite. I've sat here looking at some really juicey data about naval ordnance and related equipment, and tried to figure out how and whether we should integrate that stuff in to AE. But the devil is in the details and unless we are going to do this across the board I don't think we should start.

As an example, for the T93, there were a number of experimental models which could have been used but weren't and there was one model which was adoted and used, the M3, but the data I have indicates these "saw limited service on destroyers in 1944-45". So even if we included this as a device upgrade for T93, we would need to first duplicate the original T93 and only upgrade those on "some" destroyers, but not on all T93 carrying vessels. And again, we would need to perform this exercise for either all naval ordnance or some restricted subset.

[Reg]

On another topic, are there any plans to refine strafing?

Quite rightly strafing currently does little structural damage and is only a threat to small vessels. However, this does not reflect the historical results for this sort of attack.

Would it be possible to see an increase in the chance of lightly armoured weapons/devices to be disabled by strafing attacks? (Basically having the decks swept clean - see the picture below). This probably already happens but with only one or two points of damage inflicted by small caliber weapons, it doesn't seem to occur often enough to have any real effect (as far as I can see).

I know you already have a list of things you wish to include, but implementing would allow strafers to effectively conduct flak suppression (even against larger combatants) by reducing defensive firepower without inflicting ahistorical hull losses.



The picture above is from Europe (ROYAN, FRANCE. 1944-08-13. THE CARGO SHIP MAGDEBURG). You just have to feel for the wheelhouse crew.. [:(]

[JeffroK]

Such an improvement would result in more accurate use of the Beaufighter & Mitchell "gunships" as flak suppresors.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: spence

Not sure why such information would be needed in a game of this scale but Cid's description of a Ship's Landing Party/Prize Crew meshes very well with my recollections of the Watch Quarter and Station Bills on the CGC Bibb (a DD sized ship). I still have a pretty good memory of those things since I was charged as Operations Officer to amend it to account for the decrease in crew size (308 officers/men in WW2 to 125 in 1977) when that cutter began regular boardings to enforce the Fisheries Zone and interdict drugs.

I should not have been allowed to serve on such a party - as a technician - but my first captain had a (bogus) theory that he wanted "a technican instead of a radioman - so if the radio breaks he can fix it." The ship adopted the concept of "the junior technician is the most expendable, so whoever is most junior gets the task." Since it was my first ship, when I went there, I was sent to Landing Party School - and nominally was to be the Landing Party/Boarding Party/Prize Crew "radioman." [It is the same party - the name changes - but the basic people don't change - the name is related to the mission] But (a) I could not really fix a radio without parts, test equipment or electrical power - and (b) this party had too few willing to lug a heavy (26 pound) automatic rifle around - and in spite of being small I felt it was stupid to leave one behind. So I ended up in the line. This ship had boarded Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and its crew was regarded as "experienced" (never mind that no one was left from those days) - so it got most of the jobs - jobs that in the present day might go to SEALS - but then SEALS were reserved for real special ops. So we DID end up being experienced after all - since we got real missions - and for that reason we also were allowed to tag along when any troops on board went to any sort of training. I even got to go to the Jungle Warfare School in Panama - attached to 2nd Battalion 2nd Marines - and - as educated sailors - we actually broke the jungle navigation record - since reading a compass was not mysterious for us. A few things got written down, and later on - when I went to a new ship - I was required to actually train the landing party - so instead of getting out of this duty I should never have done in the first place - I ended up doing more of it. Irony is more or less SOP - and theory and practice are not always closely related. But in a way I did "fix the radios" - our Korean vintage tube radios were much heavier than a BAR (USN carried M-1s and BARs converted to .308 caliber) - and worked only 24 hours at best - I bought (quite illegally) non-mil spec transistor radios - sealed them - and obtained lightweight, portable radios more reliable than the issued ones - and we then carried more than one radio! Some years later the military went over to solid state radios - but they were much heavier - and no doubt much more rugged.

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Has any consideration been given to limiting somehow the number of AKs that can unload supply over a beach (as for an invasion)? As it is, an infinite number of AKs can all unload simultaneously.

Actually - this seems confused. OVER A BEACH the number SHOULD BE unlimited! It is in a port - at the much more efficient port loading rates - that restrictions are needed - both for number of ships - and also for size of ship. [My first ship - AKA-249 USS Francis Marion - was the last APA the US ever built. She carried 22 landing craft - and could land almost anywhere cargo as large as an M-60 tank - beach or not. So long as "anywhere" means "some suitable site near the objective" and not literally every meter of coast. If you have more ships, you do two things: spread out over more "beach" - wether or not it is actual beach; phase the landing craft: no reason you cannot have wave upon wave of them coming ashore from ships anchored out.]

Now theoretically a beach might be too small to permit an infinite number of ships to land. Normally - you just pick additional beaches. But some places there are no beaches at all - and what there are are very limited. Since we have no way to rate beaches - or even say "no landings here" (the entire west coast of Kerguelin Island - well actually most of the island except in the east - has NO suitable landing points - and we are talking over a thousand square mile island here - a wierd one I happen to know in detail). As a general rule, our hexes are so large there is a landing point. The only reason to limit landings might be for very tiny atols/islets.

Sure, within a 40-mile hex you could unload ships all up and down the coast--if you had the SPs. And if you didn't have the SPs, you could just toss the stuff over the side. But there is also the question of unloading someplace where you can then make use of what you have unloaded.

As for phasing waves of LCs between ship and shore, there is some point beyond which things become too congested, a point of diminishing return. Again, it could be a limitation of SPs, of space on the beach, of navagable approaches to the beach, etc. Your theoretical unlimited unloading capability would rarely have been realized IRL by the Allies and never by IJ. There should be some limit for unloading AKs.

[tsimmonds]

Re: ship production

Today you cannot halt construction of a ship until it begins costing you shipbuilding points. This has two downsides:

• even if you have no intention to complete a particular ship, that ship will always cost you for at least one day's construction before you can turn it off
• you must either visit the ship availability track every day or else keep a detailed list of when ships start burning points in order to minimize wastage of shipbuilding points

Has any consideration been given to making it possible to halt construction of a ship at any time? So an IJ player could go thru the ship availability list one time to turn off every one of the ships he was certain that he would never build?

[spence]

Would it be possible to see an increase in the chance of lightly armoured weapons/devices to be disabled by strafing attacks? (Basically having the decks swept clean - see the picture below). This probably already happens but with only one or two points of damage inflicted by small caliber weapons, it doesn't seem to occur often enough to have any real effect (as far as I can see).

The author of "A Glorious Way to Die" noted how strafing fighters caused great slaughter amongst the AAA gun crews on Yamato during her last battle.

[mikemike]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Norm3

Any chance you want to elaborate on that? A horrific image of exploding fleet carriers, that have just made port with some damage after a major clash with the other side, has ruined my meal and beer.

Well - Mutsu did blow up sitting in port - and it was a relatively regular feature of captial ships of all nations in all eras. It was a minority issue - but it does happen. I like it.

In 1942, the German replenishment oiler "Uckermark" (formerly known as "Altmark" - of the "Cossack" incident) blew up in Yokohama Harbor, also destroying the raider/AMC "Michel".

I'd love to have those ships in AE, especially the "Uckermark" - an AO capable of 21-22 kts would be a fine thing to have. Also, there was a German submarine base in Soerabaya that had some auxiliaries IIRC, as well as a handful of Arado 196 floatplanes.