PT Boats

[Jason629]

I have noticed in previous AAR's the instances of PT boats engaging Bombardment groups and other more heavily armed and "significant" task forces. Much as we see in early versions of PacWar, these PT boats seem to function quite well...taking massive damage yet repelling missions. My question is....Is there presence over emphasized in UV? For all their publicity, PT's never did much of anything of substance. Has this been looked at?

[Paul Goodman]

I totally agree; the PT boats were much more glamorous than effective. The idea of one putting two torps into Yamato (or anything else, for that matter) is very illogical.

I think Matrix should take a very hard look at these things. They might be effective for shooting up barges, etc., but any idea of effective interception of capital ships or even destroyer transports is very ahistorical. With the imminent release, this should be given emergency status. One does wonder why the Beta testers haven't reported on this, as it is an obvious problem.

Paul

[ratster]

Oh, I don't know, they did mange to put torpedoes into destroyers and submarines (among other things), during the war.

I don't mind non-historical results, as long as they're possible. It is possible for a squadron of PT boats to hit capital ships with torpedoes. The fact that they didn't, doesn't mean they couldn't have.

[Paul Goodman]

While your statement cannot be denied (anything is possible), a game should deal with probabilities. We know that these vessels were ineffective and we know that their crews were intelligent and brave. Therefore, we must conclude that the weapon, itself, was ineffective. Yes, they did hit a couple of destroyers, but out of innumerable attacks. They did absolutely nothing against capital ships. Crummy torpedoes? Inadequately trained crews? Well, maybe. But even as late as October, 1944, their ineffectiveness was demonstrated in the Surigao Straits, where they scored no hits on the Southern Force. Destroyers delivered a very effective torpedo attack after the PT boat attack. Nowhere in the entire war do we see PT boat attacks even remotely as effective as these just reported by Mr. Billings.

Would you object to the Seventh Fleet being sunk by Kaiten attack? After all, they did succeed.....once.

Paul

[Jason629]

The thought of a Capitol Bombardment group led by Yamato being turned back by a handful of Plywood PT's is quite sickening. It just seems to me that this should not happen (outside of the one in a thousand type probability)

[Dunedain]

Paul makes a very good point. Just because something is possible,
does not mean that there is any realistic probability of it actually happening.

What are the chances that a group of pt boats could even make it into
effective torpedo range and then set up a proper attack run against
capital ships and their escorts with the torrent of shells that would
be raining down on their flimsy hulls, let alone score hits? Possible, yes,
but also a very remote chance. And this should be reflected in UV.
It seems the torpedo hit chances for pt's in UV are far far too high when
going against well armed opponents.

This is something that very much needs to be adjusted in UV

Like in Paul's example, would someone think there was a problem
if kamikaze attacks sank an entire fleet of capital ships? I mean,
theoretically I suppose it could happen, but in reality the chances
are virtually zero that anywhere near the necessary numbers of
planes could get through the wall of AA being thrown up at them.

I'm not against giving players the chance to change historical
outcomes, but the key word here is "chance". There are all sorts
of things players can try if they want to, it's just that some of them
are extremely unlikely to succeed. And such should be the case
with pt boats trying to take on heavily armed capital ships and
their escorts.

[Joel Billings]

Here is Gary's response to my note I sent him with your first comments on the PT boats. By the way, I did not turn back the Yamato groups as they went forward with their bombardment. Also, the combat was at night which would of course increase the chance that the PT boats could have gotten close to the Yamato. Also, the TF had only 4-5 ships in it as I remember so the Yamato was not well screened to deal with the 14 PT boats I through at it. Gary's note:


Joel,

The modern destroyer Teruzuki was sunk off Guadalcanal in December 1942 by a PT boat torpedo.
It was Tanaka's flag ship on a destroyer transport run.

In the Battle of Surigao Straits PT boats torpedoed CL Abukuma.
During that same battle, PTs launched numerous torpedo attacks against combat ships (BB,CA,CL,DDs).

In the naval battle off Mindoro in December 1944, PTs attacked a Japanese bombardment force (CA,CL,DDs).
The modern destroyer Kiyoshimo was torpedoed and sunk.

PT interception of Japanese combat ships IS HISTORICAL as noted above.
Having said that it still might be good to tweak down the PT effectivenss a little.

Gary


Gary makes some good points. From this I expect the PT boats will be tweaked down a bit. If you look at the AAR's you'll notice the high amount of ship activity (that's what is the most ahistorical part of the AAR in my opinion-players always commit more forces than done historically) so the PT boats certainly had plenty of opportunity to hit something.


Joel

[ratster]

My statement about PT boats was made in the light of the evidence that we have about UV in regards to PT boat effectiveness, i.e. 2 days worth of (official) combat report.

Yet several of you wish the game mechanics to be altered on this evidence alone. Rather scanty evidence that PT boats are overly effective in the game.

It's impossible to intelligently debate their effectiveness(in the game) on this evidence alone. Aberattions in combat happen all the time(Midway for example). This could very well be that, and as I did say, it is possible (unlikely yes, but possible).

As to their effectiveness in real combat, also difficult to judge. Macarthur certainly liked them,of course thats not necessarily a good thing. They did attack capital ships and even drove them off several times. They did distract capital ships arguably allowing other ships attacks to be more effective. They disrupted the tokyo express on occasion. Again, difficult to argue one way or the other.

I would note that they were built untill well after the war was over, so someone thougt they were, or could be, an effective weapon system, playing some role in combat.

edit: oh for the love of mike! every time I compose a response! :p

[Dunedain]

Joel,

Thanks for bringing that to the attention of Gary.

I have a question about naval surface combat in UV. If you have
heavy ships, CL's, CA's, BB's, etc., and you have escorts voyaging
with them, DD's, DE's, etc., and they are attacked by something
like DD's or pt boats, will the attacking DD's and or pt boats have take
the volleys of fire put out by the escorting ships before they would
even get the chance to fire torpedoes at the capital ships? Since the
top priority for the escorts would be to never let the smaller ships even
get close to the capital ships. And so you would expect the light
attacking ships to have to run the gauntlet of the escorts (and
their deadly high-volume gun fire) before they would get to the
point in the UV combat resolution where they could fire their
torpedoes. This would simulate the escorts intercepting the attacking
light ships.

This is one area where the japs would have an advantage, since
their superb Long Lance torpedo has incredible range, thus giving
them a larger window of opportunity to fire on the enemy without
having to close the range so much.

A related question, does the Long Lance pack a bigger punch if
it hits than do other torpedoes in UV? IIRC, it has a large warhead.



ratster: While I agree that you can't make definitive judgments on
the effectiveness of PT boats against capital ships in UV based on
just the combat reports we've seen so far, what are the chances that
the reports we did see were just some fluke rare result that normally
would almost never happen? Very unlikely that would be the case.
So it's reasonable to assume that this sort of combat result is not all
that unlikely to happen. Which is where the problem arises. It
should be very rare. And as long as it is very rare, then I think no
one would disagree with it.

[FAdmiral]

I think as long as they are in the game and are modeled
correctly as per their limitations, it's up to the player to
decide to use them in whatever capacity he/she deems
fitting. A very dark night and around many small islands
in fairly shallow water would be my choice....

Jim Berg, Sr.

[Paul Goodman]

Thanks, Joel, for bringing this up with Mr. Grigsby. I think that his comments proves the point we are trying to make. He references two destroyers sunk and one light cruiser torpedoed in the entire war. This must involve literally thousands of sorties by PT boats. Even then, the destroyer lost at Guadalcanal was a large anti-aircraft destroyer, recently pressed into "express" operations. As such, it was probably not suitable for night surface combat and the crew was probably not extensively trained for this type of action. Furthermore, the destroyer was not sunk by the PT boats, but was scuttled the next morning as it had no hope of escaping the Cactus Air Force.

I stand corrected re the Surigao Strait. Merely another in a long list of errors in Costello's book. I should have known better! However, 39 PT boats attacked the first group of ships (which included Fuso) without success. The light cruiser was, indeed, torpedoed by PT boats and was in the second group, including two heavy cruisers, trailing about 20 miles behind the first group. This ship was slowed to 10 knots, but within an hour, was making 26 knots and trying to get out of Dallas. Numerous PT attacks were made on this damaged ship, alone without escort on the way out, with no results. She was caught the next day by aircraft and sunk.

I know nothing of the third action referred to. However, common sense suggests that Japanese crews were not of the same quality by December, 1944. Furthermore, PT boats were now equipped with radar.

In short, Joel has had better results in one week's action than was achieved by the entire PT boat force in the entire war. I have no doubt that Mr. Billings would make Nelson seem like a one-armed stevedore; even so, I think PT boats need to be toned down more than slightly.


Paul

[Joel Billings]

First of all ships tend to fire at like ships. Second, in daytime the range starts further out so you have to survive to get closer. At night the battle can start much closer.

Gary just made a change that will reduce PT boat effectiveness a little at night. He had it set so that at night PT Boats would start very close (often at 1000 yards). He's made it a little less likely for them to be at 1000 yards at start. He believes the changes he made will reduce the PT boat effectiveness by about 50%, but he doesn't want to reduce them too much at night per his previous notes. You'll just have to play the game to see if it's to your liking.

Yes Long Lance torpedoes have greater range and a bigger punch than other torpedoes.

[Jason629]

Thanks for the proactive approach! I will hold only myself to blame when JFK puts a few holes in the Kongo.

[Paul Goodman]

Fair enough! If we don't like the way they work, a house rule will surely fix that. Maybe, like PacWar, after ten years we'll finally give up and dump 'em.

Paul

[Elvis1965]

The openess by Joel, and the measured discussion on subjects like the PT Boat effectiveness, are what make for great games.

I appreciate the "tweak" since the PT's seemed a little stout (IMHO), but, even more, I like the willingness of the designers to share info and make changes.

Well done.

[Paul Goodman]

Yes, great applause for 2X3 & Matrix. There is, by the way, what I thought to be a very good PT boat site at http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/4017/ .

Paul

[Jason629]

I cannot echo those sentiments enough. Thanks guys! BTW..............are we there yet???????????????????

[Joel Billings]

Not quite yet, but we hope to go gold this week sometime.

[Snigbert]

A couple of things about the PT boat issue:

There is a third variable on PT boats, other than competent crews and effective/ineffective boats and how that effected the number of capital ships sunk. There is also the question of doctrine. Over the course of the war, were American PT boats encouraged to engage capital ships, or was it considered so suicidal that it was only done at certain times when they had a real need for it?

There were a couple of times while playing the Japanese that I sent groups of patrol boats to try and disrupt the naval landings at Guadalcanal. Every time I did this, they would all be sunk by the American screening force.

A couple of times I changed the usual Japanese sub search patterns and sent all of my subs to Guadalcanal and Tulagi to try and disrupt the American invasion. One of the games where I did this, my subs sank 2 American cruisers and several transports in one night. They had a serious impact on the number of Marines that made it ashore on Guadalcanal. My subs also took heavy losses. But, the point is that I altered the normal doctrine and had results that might seem historically aberrant.

[panda124c]

I noticed the barge hub line in the base screen shot, is it possible to direct PT's to disrupt barge traffic and hubs??