Small/quick/simple idea how to restrict land based bomber torpedo attacks...

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: spence

Well I'm with you. Now let's see, that would make two of us in favor of the same thing.
Isn't there a rule against that?

[:D][:D][:D]

[ChezDaJez]

What's up with the near total lack of historical anti-shipping strikes around PM by the Japanese anyway?

I think it had more to do with the lack of aerial patrolling of the approaches to PM. By the time Rabaul was fully operational and had sufficient forces on hand, the The US and Aussies had bolstered the fighter defense enough to deter the Japanese from patrolling south of PM.

Before the Japanese found a solution to that problem, the US invaded Guadalcanal and presented a whole new set of problems for them to reckon with. So the IJN put PM of the back burner and tried to counter our moves at Guadalcanal. The Japanese high command simply could not respond well enough to 2 separate threats and the IJN thought PM should have been an army operation in the first place and were probably glad to dump it into the IJA's lap.

Chez

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo
Co-moderated by Pasternaski.

I don't understand how you could possibly use a derivative of the word "moderate" and my online moniker in the same sentence...

It would be used in the same sense that one might say, "Hurricane force winds have moderated to gale strength....."[;)]

[Belce]

Brad I understand the current requirement for airbase size and LB's, what I suggested was that for LB torpedo attacks that it would need to be a base similiar to the requirement for ports to arm subs with torpedos or to have a special support unit present to do so. If you are at a lvl 4 airbase, any and all LB's would be able to conduct bomb attacks, if you are at larger airfield then they could conduct a torpedo attack, if you are a torpedo attack plane at a size 4 airfield and a large 200+ aviation support unit you can conduct a torpedo attack. The large aviation support unit would be the same as having an AS at a port for your subs rearming there.

I think that as the size of a base increases that there is alot of stuff being modeled beyond the size of airfield and dispersion area. A lvl 1 airfield is a large grassy field, a lvl 9 airfield has a few paved runways and built hangers.

I think that Mogami is correct in saying that the best defense against LB torpedo attack is careful play. One of the reasons for few historical torpedo plane kills was avoidance. One of the things that happens within wargames is creating situations for losses that would not have been historically accepatable. Commanders did not send people into harms way looking at their replacement schedule and seeing that in a reasonable time that any loss would be replaced. Those same gamers play and come back to a forum and complain about ahistorical losses when they have not followed historical considerations for losses and consequences.

[bradfordkay]

Belce, I understand what you are saying about a further increase in base size requirement, but don't completely agree with it. Torpedoes could have been loaded at smaller bases (were loaded?). It's the amount of torpedoes available that is skewed.

"One of the reasons for few historical torpedo plane kills was avoidance. One of the things that happens within wargames is creating situations for losses that would not have been historically accepatable. Commanders did not send people into harms way looking at their replacement schedule and seeing that in a reasonable time that any loss would be replaced. Those same gamers play and come back to a forum and complain about ahistorical losses when they have not followed historical considerations for losses and consequences."

I completely disagree. As already mentioned in this thread, Port Moresby and Lunga were both within torpedo carrying Betty range of Rabaul and yet there is on record only a very few torpedo attacks against the shipping that regularly supported these bases. Compare that record versus what you see in most WITP games. And I will wager that most WITP games have those bases carrying considerable CAP, probably more than was there historically (since nearly all aircraft in the game seem to be operating in higher numbers than IRL). I know that mine certainly do (but I do not exceed the air support level or size restrictions at my bases, with very rare exceptions).

Nearly every amphibious landing by US and Australian troops in the pacific theatre were within torpedo range of bases with Betties and how many ships were sunk? What was it, about 25 US transports? For the whole war? If our transports did not sail into Betty range, then how did we land on all those beaches?


In other words, "Homey don't play that game."

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant
It would be used in the same sense that one might say, "Hurricane force winds have moderated to gale strength....."[;)]

Really? I was thinking more in terms of "what once were vices are now habits."

[el cid again]

It obviously wasn't "all torps, all the time".

Oh no - and anyone who thinks so has not read about Pearl Harbor in detail. We have torpedo bombers with BOMBS - and a major effort to make them effective. Torpedoes COULD NOT hit a battleship moored inside another - so they wanted to hit them with bombs - and see USS Arizona for the effect. Fujida worked this problem - he was a Kate boss - and came up with a new formation of 5 planes - each with a single 800 kg bomb - which could score almost exactly 5 times in 6 on a test range target. [That is, a vic of 5 planes had an 86% chance of scoring a hit, from its combat altitude, making a run on a target of the right size, which was not moving.]

Japan was big on combined attacks, and torpedoes were always only one element of the system. But - repeating for the sake of Spence - we don't know very much about air operations. We DO know that later in the war - midwar - the ARMY adopted the torpedo weapon, and formed up a unit to work with the navy in joint operations - which in fact was feasible since the Navy flew the same Army torpedo bomber - which in fact was better performing than a Kate or a Nell. [The official name of the JAAF unit is "the Torpedo Sentai" - see The Ki-61 in Japanese Army Air Force Service]. As always, these bombers were NOT exclusively torpedo bombers - although they were designed for that role - they were always also true bombers. When attacking B-29 bases, they didn't use torpedoes!

If you attempt to understand Japanese wartime equipment, weapons, tactics, and operational practice, you will run into some major problems:
there are problems getting any information at all - most of the time there are no documents to look at; if you do get documents they are very hard to read with comprehension. Japanese is structurally very logical - much more so than English (a compound language based on Germanic Anglo-Saxon with French grammer imposed on top of it) - but it has the most complicated set of writing systems of all time (Chinese pictograms - called Kanji; Japanese syllable alphabets - two of them - Hiragana and Katakana - which BOTH are used together in the same sentence; Western Roman letters - called Romanji) and it is normal NOT to state the subject of a sentence - only to imply it - so a reader must guess. Any time there is a problem with space (on a billboard, in an account book, on an engineering diagram) they use Chinese pictograms - which take up little space. These never have fewer than four common translations - and can have up to 8 more (according to my two thousand dollar ex CIA software). Add to this mix the problem that jargon - terms of technical art - for these fields has not been used for over half a century: no one knows what they mean or imply with confidence. IF you can translate Japanese to English for a business, you can get up to $3000 a page - and that without any issues of old usage to deal with. IF it were easy - if even spending $2000 for software like I did - would be enough - it would cost less per page. I put a child in Japanese immersion school, consult with native speakers who are linguists at one of only seven places you can do that in North America, and still have a very hard time coming to terms with what was meant. I used to have a neighbor - a retired admiral who interrogated Japanese sailors for the USSBS - when he was a captain. He said they didn't even believe what they were told - so they didn't report it. Later documents indicated to him that maybe they should have listened - but at the time it seemed preposterous to believe Japan might have been working on an SSN - or other esoteric things. Yet US Army interrogators in GERMANY found passengers who made the round trip to Japan in two months in 1945 - what kind of diesel submarine can do that? And other US Army guys - a beach patrol - found a Kaiten in Panama in July 1945. Not a suicide craft - a recon craft NOT in any reference. [This craft was long at the museum in Hawaii, and now is in a museum in Japan, so you can see it: not a warship, it has no warhead.] How did a Kaiten get to Panama in July 1945???? Not one submarine in the official lists could have been within thousands of miles of the place. There are lots of things we do not know. [This story was first published by Burl Burlingame in Advance Force Pearl Harbor. He is/was the curator of the aviation museum in Hawaii and had custody of the submarine. He wrote for USNI - but was too controversial to publish - due to a picture that seems to show a midget firing on a battleship - something we "know" didn't happen. Yet USNI has now twice funded forinsic exams of that picture, has three times pulished articles on it, and has decided to distribute Burl's book after all - he self published it.] I am not telling you what to believe. I am telling you there are big holes in what we know.

[mogami]

Hi. Since this is about WITP II I think everything should be tracked. I think the people who worry about torpedo attacks also don't mind micro managing if that provides a more accurate result.
I would ether build specific munitions factories or have the Japanese player allot his munitions production per month to specfic building.

Assign a cost for each type of munitions and on the first of every month he assigns production and on the last day of each month the new production arrives on map.

So for example we give Japan 100 points of munitions production.

Costs for
18in AP ammo 25 points per 100 rounds
18in Air torpedo cost 25 points per 10 torpedos
20mm AA ammo 10 points per 1000 rounds
infantry small arms ammo 25 points per 10,000 rounds

Japanese player allots
50 points to air torpedo
25 points for infantry ammo
25 points for AA ammo

At end of month he gets
20 torpedos
10,000 infantry
2500 AA

He then has to load and ship these points for use in combat.

This type system will also mean we need more accurate ship data since in actual event there were specific missions for which ships were designed that WITP lumps into AK class.
(food storage, preparation. Ammo carriers, Whalers,cannery )

[bradfordkay]

Russ, I'd still like to see WITP get a "torpedo check" in the same manner as the 1000lb bomb check. I'm not wanting to eliminate torpedo attacks, just bring them back within a more reasonable level. Even two thirds of the present number of attacks would be an improvement...

[juliet7bravo]

I certainly won't argue that more thought needs to go into the production process. But, as you yourself have pointed out...we know what Japanese production was, and where it peaked out. We know, in broad terms, what they needed and how much. We know how much shipping tonnage was in use, of what type, and how it was allocated, for each month of the entire war. Modelling this wouldn't be rocket science. Once you know where production peaked, prior to be choked off/starved by shipping losses and bomb damage you can extrapolate their industrial performance when ahistoric factors come into play. Then you can allocate production.

Torpedo production is slightly different. It required specialized precision equipment and workers, and you couldn't just snap your fingers and change output. We know what actual production was, and where, for the Japanese. Why allocate or swag the numbers when we know the real deal? Use the real numbers to the point their production levels peak out, then after that base production on resources/damage.

We've (none of us) talked about anything but putting realistic and historical limitations on torpedoes, for both sides. No one has talked about playing historically, we've talked about "historic capabilities". A game such as this should be based on using "historic capabilities" in "ahistoric" yet realistic ways. The question is; "How can I, using what was historically available, change history?". When you inject ahistoric capabilities or unrealistic types or quantities of weapons, it becomes a fantasy game loosely based on reality. You might as well be playing MOO. It's like Honor Harrington space opera based on Horratio Hornblower...instead of sailing ships you've got star ships. But it still isn't the Napoleonic Wars.

To use your PM example, you're killing off more Allied ships than they lost in the entire war in this one extended battle, with a weapons system for which the projectile didn't even exist in those quantities. Using a method of attack in which the attacking AC's historically got slaughtered in droves with few survivors against even moderate flak or CAP. At a place which the Japanese never launched a single torpedo attack against, in spite of having numerous airfields in range.

- We talk about the Dutch "Uber-Floatplanes" using torps.

- We talk about the RAAF Beaufort (launched a grand total of 19 torp attacks IRL) and the Beaufighters (never launched a single torp attack IRL). The reality is that the Australians had a grand total of 50 torpedoes in storage (1942/43, and were forced to use the totally worthless USN MkXIII's. Yet in the game they have an endless supply of the excellent Brit Mk XII's.

- How about the RAF? While I know little of the RAF in the Pacific, the indications are they couldn't organize a Chinese Fire Drill in '42/43, let alone torp attacks or torp maintenance. From comments here, they (suprise) failed to deliver torp attacks in any meaningful numbers.

- Or the USAF/USAAC which apparently launched a single torp attack (Midway) in the Pacific using light/medium bombers. Yet we apparently can't using the PBY, which actually did, both day and night.

- Or the IJA/IJN who switched to (Nell/Betty) night intruder flights often using torps in the latter part of 1943 with some success, and I don't recall ever seeing a single successful night torp attack in game using the Nell/Betty.

- I can't find a single historical example of LB USN/USMC TB's (other than Midway) using torps, though I'm sure they did.

- No torp maintenance units, in-spite of convincing evidence these were vital to using torpedoes. Along with that is the inability in-game to cycle/stage air strikes through forward airbases.

To summarize, the air-dropped torpedo was not a "wunder-weapon" for either side. Understanding why they weren't, and how they could/should be is vital to a "simulation" such as this. With proper management, I think they COULD be a decisive weapon if the units were trained properly, employed correctly, and if you husbanded your limited supply of torps.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

- We talk about the Dutch "Uber-Floatplanes" using torps.

- We talk about the RAAF Beaufort (launched a grand total of 19 torp attacks IRL) and the Beaufighters (never launched a single torp attack IRL). The reality is that the Australians had a grand total of 50 torpedoes in storage (1942/43, and were forced to use the totally worthless USN MkXIII's. Yet in the game they have an endless supply of the excellent Brit Mk XII's.

- How about the RAF? While I know little of the RAF in the Pacific, the indications are they couldn't organize a Chinese Fire Drill in '42/43, let alone torp attacks or torp maintenance. From comments here, they (suprise) failed to deliver torp attacks in any meaningful numbers.

- Or the USAF/USAAC which apparently launched a single torp attack (Midway) in the Pacific using light/medium bombers. Yet we apparently can't using the PBY, which actually did, both day and night.

- Or the IJA/IJN who switched to (Nell/Betty) night intruder flights often using torps in the latter part of 1943 with some success, and I don't recall ever seeing a single successful night torp attack in game using the Nell/Betty.

- I can't find a single historical example of LB USN/USMC TB's (other than Midway) using torps, though I'm sure they did.

- No torp maintenance units, in-spite of convincing evidence these were vital to using torpedoes. Along with that is the inability in-game to cycle/stage air strikes through forward airbases.

To summarize, the air-dropped torpedo was not a "wunder-weapon" for either side. Understanding why they weren't, and how they could/should be is vital to a "simulation" such as this. With proper management, I think they COULD be a decisive weapon if the units were trained properly, employed correctly, and if you husbanded your limited supply of torps.

When I started this thread I didn't think that I "created a monster"... [:)]


Joking aside we must remind ourselves that this is _NOT_ some anti-Japanese WitP idea - this is something that affects both sides just like "juliet7bravo" wrote above!


Also let us not forget the biggest "exploit" I alreday mentioned - players from both sides can off-load their CV/CVE/CVL onto land base and create instant unsinkable torpedo death star (I have seen AAR's where hundreads of such off-loaded torpedo carrying bombers went to torpedo misison)...


Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
Just typos fixed.

[juliet7bravo]

Almost invariably, when someone points something out that may effect one side or the other predominently, they're accused of "fanboy-ism"...sometimes it's even true.

The real problem is that whenever you talk about this or that inconsistency, it usually does impact one side or the other inordinately. Without a corresponding shift someplace else, the entire "house of cards" would come tumbling down. Mogami really does have a point about how limiting torp use would pork the Japanese at Rabaul I suspect. But that's because so many other things are imbalanced that they've reached a point of equilibrium. Kinda, sorta. But that wasn't how it was, and I don't think that's the game they set out to make. It's an unfortunate by-product of making an enormously complicated game and juggling all the various factors over a 2 year period (Not to mention so truly poor game design decisions at the start).

This is something that needs to be addressed if a WitP2 is to become a reality...without fanboy-ism, but as a basis for a realistic "simulation". Most of the pieces are already here.

[ChezDaJez]

Snip... which in fact was feasible since the Navy flew the same Army torpedo bomber - which in fact was better performing than a Kate or a Nell. The official name of the JAAF unit is "the Torpedo Sentai" - see The Ki-61 in Japanese Army Air Force Service

You're saying that the Army loaded torpedoes on the Tony and that the Navy used this aircraft also? Do you have a numerical unit designation for this "Torpedo Sentai?" How about where it was based and what torpedo attacks were conducted by it? I don't doubt the army adapted a torpedo for use on some aircraft but I doubt that it was any single engine fighter, let alone a Tony.

but at the time it seemed preposterous to believe Japan might have been working on an SSN - or other esoteric things. Yet US Army interrogators in GERMANY found passengers who made the round trip to Japan in two months in 1945 - what kind of diesel submarine can do that?

Are you seriously expecting us to believe that Japan not only harnessed the atom but also built a production facility for enriched uranium? And that they then built a fast attack NUCLEAR submarine? One that they actually put to sea and was used to transport passengers to Germany and back? Doesn't that seem a little incredulous to you? Don't you think that some evidence of this would have surfaced over the years? It's preposterous to think that Japan could have done all this and got it right the first time. And that they were then able to cover up every bit of evidence pertaining to it? I don't suppose that you are willing to divulge the source of this information?

Come on, give us a little credit! We may be stupid but we ain't fools!

[ChezDaJez]

This is something that needs to be addressed if a WitP2 is to become a reality...without fanboy-ism, but as a basis for a realistic "simulation". Most of the pieces are already here.

Absolutely.

Chez

[mogami]

Hi, what is so amazing about going from Japan to Germany and back in 2 months? You'd need to be able to move at 8kts to do that.

Back to torpedos. Prior to may 1942 most Japanese long range attack planes were based inside the SRA. The available targets here were beyond the range of torpedo attacks but it is in the Indian Ocean you find the Japanese making long range naval attacks.
(The Japanese CV attacked Ceylon in Apr 1942. The land based groups were all assigned to support this effort)

The Japanese began the Pacific war in an attempt to isolate China. Before the Allies landed in Solomons this mission remained their number one priority and most of their assets (land sea and air) were devoted to that aim.

Rabaul was attempting to close the Allied airfields around PM (and winning) It was not before the Solomons that anti shipping became an issue.

If we can find AAR from games where Japan attempts to devote all her energy to India and compare these to games where Japan ignores India and goes after South pacific we will see a difference in Allied ships loss around PM. (because the Betty/Nell are at rangoon and not Rabaul.

Now if we can get figures on Allied loss from efforts to supply Chanpur we can see what Japan was up to. (however range should limit Japanese attacks to bomb loads)

[juliet7bravo]

Having to stop and replace your little nuclear hamsters when they dropped from radiation sickness...

[mogami]

Hi, An I-400 class could go to germany and back 3 times without refueling.

The WITP examples we should examine are games where Japanese does not capture Rabaul before late Jan 1942. (They won't be able to begin attacks against PM with Torpedos before mid Feb. ) By the time Rabaul is able to begin PM should have a lot of CAP.

[ChezDaJez]

Hi, what is so amazing about going from Japan to Germany and back in 2 months? You'd need to be able to move at 8kts to do that.

I was replying to el Cid's contention that would have us believe that only a nuclear submarine could do that. The only problem a diesel sub would have is getting fuel, a feat not all that hard to accomplish with the right planning.

Chez

[mogami]

Hi, I was replying to the same contention.

[ChezDaJez]

Oops, thought it was directed at me. [:D]

Chez