Modeling of Carrier Battles

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: spence

Question

Ordinarily in a carrier battle the Japanese would launch a combined hi-lo attack from their carriers. At the Battle of the Eastern Solomons the Japanese didn't launch their torpedo bombers at all after locating the Enterprise at 1425. The two carriers (Shokaku and Zuikaku) appear to have launched their dive bombers separately approx an hour apart (1450 and 1600). Very peculiar. Anybody know why?

Nagumo was instituting a new 3rd Fleet policy of holding back the torpedo bombers until after the dive bombers had softened up the targets. A crucial error that cost them potential victory. It did not sit well with Lt. Cdr Murata, the carrier attack hikotaicho Policy was instituted after the heavy losses of carrier attack planes at Midway. (including the attack on Midway base itself)

In WitP terms.....its the act of standing down your torpedo bombers. So it's already built into the game. yuk yuk. [:D]

[spence]

Nagumo was instituting a new 3rd Fleet policy of holding back the torpedo bombers until after the dive bombers had softened up the targets. A crucial error that cost them potential victory. It did not sit well with Lt. Cdr Murata, the carrier attack hikotaicho Policy was instituted after the heavy losses of carrier attack planes at Midway. (including the attack on Midway base itself)

In WitP terms.....its the act of standing down your torpedo bombers. So it's already built into the game. yuk yuk.

Apparently a short-lived policy since they went back to the previous doctrine at Santa Cruz.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: spence

Apparently a short-lived policy since they went back to the previous doctrine at Santa Cruz.

well yeah!.....They might have won the battle otherwise. I imagine some personal up in 3rd Fleet slapping his hand to his forehead and going... "Aieeeee" in Japanese. [:D]

stupid policy vs. a naval target. A land target I could understand. The level bombers took hell from the defenders on Midway.

[el cid again]

Director control of AAA is so vital to modeling it reasonably that I was unable to get it out of my subconscious mind:

finally ideas have started popping up about how to get there from here?

1) Directors could be separate devices - but only if code would look at them as such; IF they were separate devices, they could be like he Allied Sound Detector and Japanese Sound Detector devices - fairly generic; Candidates coming to mind would be LA Director (for non -AA), HA Director (for heavy AAA) and LAA Director (for light AAA). The presence of a director would simply be a line in the routine, a branch that multiplies the basic value being manipulated: a good starting point would be doubling it.

2) If there is really no chance of taking this seriously and considering doing something along these lines, it is so important we should do it anyway (as modders). Instead of including directors as separate devices which would multiply the base value, we include them as combined devices - as AA guns themselves.

2A) The first approach was brute force and crude - and would apply to AE or WITP II where there are so many more devices possible: just have two or three entries for each weapon: 5 inch 25 plain (for a submarine or any vessel that lacks directors); 5 inch 25 /director (for a vessel with an optical director); and maybe 5 inch 25 /fire control (for a vessel with a director associated with a fire control radar). A first pass crude solution - we could apply operations theory to get better values if we wanted to - would be the director value would double the accuracy - and the radar director would triple it.

2B) Then it occurred to me - the AA model is so simple - maybe we should NOT be modeling the guns as such - individually. Indeed, we DO have some combined weapons (double and even triple mountings) - and I at least don't treat them as a pure multiple. [A twin has 1.44 times the accuracy as a single; a quad has 2 times the accuracy of a single - these being square root functions]. Since the game is NOT considering facing right now - we COULD be doing AAA for the entire ship (or - my preference - light and heavy AAA as separate values). If the game WILL consider facing in AE - we could do devices that were the sum for the port side, starboard side, forward or aft (sorry - old habit - I mean left side, right side, front and rear). Here the methodology would be to assign values to the AAA - including range (for surface targets unless we get range applies to AAA), ceiling, accuracy and effect - such that

2B1) range = effective range

2B2) ceiling = effective ceiling

2B3) effect = the value of a hit which is

2B3a) weight of shell for heavy AA
2B3b) weight of shell times ROF or some other value similar to what Matrix does for light AAA

2B4) accuracy = a variation on the Matrix system in two flavors

2B4a) for heavy AAA (and maybe surface gunnery)

instead of 10 times ROF - we use a base of 5 times ROF for no directors, 10 times ROF for optical directors and 15 or 20 times ROF for radar directors - perhaps even this latter value depending on the particular fire control system

2B4b) for light AAA

the complimentary function including 2B4a above and whever value we did in 2B3b above - similar to Matrix where the light gun values effect is increased and the accuracy is decreased by the same proportion

This concept is so simple that we might be able to implement it right now - in WITP I - as modders. It would not be as nice as in AE with more devices - but since in WITP I there is no actual facing being used anyway - we could "pre face" the batteries - and figure out the maximum battery that could ever bear. Thus - instead of getting 20 5 inch guns on a USS New Jersey - you would get 10 - and it would be called something like 5in/38 HAA RD (x10). In contrast, a Yamato (as built) would have a 5in/40 HAA OD (x6). [Where RD = Radar Director and OD = Optical Director]

IF a ship has MORE THAN ONE director which bears on the broadside, the total number of directors should be the number of batteries you get - instead of one for the default case.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: el cid again
A principle taught in USN is that "no carrier escorted by a battleship was ever lost." This applies to Japanese carriers and others, not just our own. The heavy AA guns of an escort should apply to the defense - even if not the light ones - and it is very likely you will get MORE THAN ONE escort firing if the number of escorts is large enough - in any navy.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
You sure Cid? I thought KB had a couple of battleships along for Midway... Of course, comparing the AAA of a Kirishima to a South Dakota is a pretty one-sided contest.

At Leyte, Ozawa's decoy force (with the carriers) had the Hyuga and Ise in his force and the IJN lost what was left of their carrier fleet that day.

Bill

Are semi-carriers considered to be battleships now?

I don't think they consider the decoy force a carrier force - because of course it was not really a carrier force at all.
It was bait - and bait without the ability to produce a proper CAP. They knew (from Marianas) what to expect in air combat. They knew they lacked the pilots (they had planes) to fight a carrier air battle - and the force was truly hollow. The POINT of Leyte Gulf - which more or less was achieved (if without the hoped for decisive effect) was to get SAGs into the light US forces. [Two failed to penetrate Suragao Strait - but the big one did get into the TAFFYs East of Samar - a truly strange battle] The battle fleet was being sacrificed that day - and the "carriers" were sacrificed deliverately to give it a shot. They sailed intended to be spottend and interpreted as a threat - and indeed it worked out that way. [I love the fictional Russian captain in Hunt for Red October saying, of that day, "Halsey was a fool" - which IS one school of thought, particularly outside USN. It isn't the only time the Japanese tricked us - they did it at Marianas - and achieved the best you can ask for of a carrier force - in range undetected in time to launch a cohesive maximum strike; their defeat was tactical - the force could not score - well almost could not score - a couple of hits on a battleship or something like that not being what was needed.]

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

ORIGINAL: el cid again

OK - look - Midway "prooves USN CAP was incapable of defending and inflicting even small scale losses on the enemy" - else we would not have lost Yorktown. And that WITH radar on the ships and radios in the fighters.

CAP should fatigue - I thought it did - and it should be weather dependent - even if there is radar. You cannot shoot a target you cannot see. Radar should give a better CHANCE of getting on the right vector. And it should always only be a chance - you can play games with enemy radar - sucking his CAP in the wrong direction. That is too tactical for us - but it does mean there is a chance of failure to intercept.

I think Shattered Sword shows how effective American CAP was at Midway. The Yorktown didn't have many fighters in position to engage the Hiryu's dive bombers, but the unit was ripped apart by the F4Fs. The fact that the unit was extremely high experience allowed them to complete the strike.

Direction of fighters from the surface was still in its infancy, but the embryo of what would become uberCAP can be seen in US fighter direction at Midway. The USN lacked training of operators, had more primitive radar equipment, and was overall fairly green and they still put up a modestly decent CAP effort, IMO.

Bill

Take a look again - the tiny size of the strike that hit Yorktown the second time should never have delivered at all. In any later battle it would not have done. But at that time the fighters were probably less effective than AA guns in USN.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: wdolson


As far as uberCAP goes, I think it is fairly realistic for late war vs. the US. The only time in the real world the US was had to defend Pacific bases from any major attacks late in the war (1944 and later), were in carrier battles. That's why the Hellcat guys ran up such a staggering kill to loss ratio and such a high total.


Bill

This isn't actually so. The abandoned units at Rabaul build a whole air group out of wreaks - and healed fliers which had not been evacuated. They made planes we never hear about - a bomber mod of the Zero for example - and flew long range air strikes that were effective - twice. If we had done it there would be a movie about it. There is an English book about it (From Ashes to Caraval or something like that). But the point is, us bases were not effective vs obsolete aircraft.

[spence]

ORIGINAL: el cid again
A principle taught in USN is that "no carrier escorted by a battleship was ever lost." This applies to Japanese carriers and others, not just our own. The heavy AA guns of an escort should apply to the defense - even if not the light ones - and it is very likely you will get MORE THAN ONE escort firing if the number of escorts is large enough - in any navy.

The KB at Midway was escorted by 2 battleships - the 4 KB carriers were all rendered into flaming wrecks by air attack and scuttled. The Japanese battleships in the escort contributed nothing of note (that is to say, shot down any attacking aircraft) to KB's anemic AAA defense.

The BB Nagato was in the screen of CV Hiyo at Philippine Sea. The Nagato may have contributed somewhat to the AAA defense of Cardiv 2 but by then the IJN had adopted a much more compact formation for AAA defense (copying the basic formation used by the USN from the beginning of the war).

The IJN's carrier decoy force included two old BBs converted to semi-carriers. By that point in the war they possessed a substantial number of AAA and again the IJN employed a defensive formation similar to the USN one however all four CV/CVLs were either sunk or crippled by air attack.

The USS Princeton was screened by two BBs. A lone bomber was able to penetrate the screen and score a critical hit on the Princeton which ultimately caused the ship to sink.

The number of exceptions to this "principle" seems excessive to the number required "to prove the rule" to me.

Take a look again - the tiny size of the strike that hit Yorktown the second time should never have delivered at all. In any later battle it would not have done. But at that time the fighters were probably less effective than AA guns in USN.

It's my impression that 16 (IJN a/c shot down by CV CAP at Midway) is a larger number than 4 (IJN a/c shot down by AAA at Midway). Of course I attended school before the 'new math' came into educational vogue[;)]. However, you are right that strikes such as the ones Hiryu launched at the Yorktwon would most likely have never made it through the CAP in 1944.

[tsimmonds]

ORIGINAL: spence

ORIGINAL: el cid again
.....
Take a look again - the tiny size of the strike that hit Yorktown the second time should never have delivered at all. In any later battle it would not have done. But at that time the fighters were probably less effective than AA guns in USN.

It's my impression that 16 (IJN a/c shot down by CV CAP at Midway) is a larger number than 4 (IJN a/c shot down by AAA at Midway). ....

I think he's referring to the second strike, composed of 6VF and 9VT, which appears to have pretty much entirely evaded CAP, dropped 6 torpedoes, and scored two hits.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
At Leyte, Ozawa's decoy force (with the carriers) had the Hyuga and Ise in his force and the IJN lost what was left of their carrier fleet that day.

ORIGINAL: el cid again
Are semi-carriers considered to be battleships now?

I don't think they consider the decoy force a carrier force - because of course it was not really a carrier force at all.
It was bait - and bait without the ability to produce a proper CAP. They knew (from Marianas) what to expect in air combat. They knew they lacked the pilots (they had planes) to fight a carrier air battle - and the force was truly hollow. The POINT of Leyte Gulf - which more or less was achieved (if without the hoped for decisive effect) was to get SAGs into the light US forces. [Two failed to penetrate Suragao Strait - but the big one did get into the TAFFYs East of Samar - a truly strange battle] The battle fleet was being sacrificed that day - and the "carriers" were sacrificed deliverately to give it a shot. They sailed intended to be spottend and interpreted as a threat - and indeed it worked out that way. [I love the fictional Russian captain in Hunt for Red October saying, of that day, "Halsey was a fool" - which IS one school of thought, particularly outside USN. It isn't the only time the Japanese tricked us - they did it at Marianas - and achieved the best you can ask for of a carrier force - in range undetected in time to launch a cohesive maximum strike; their defeat was tactical - the force could not score - well almost could not score - a couple of hits on a battleship or something like that not being what was needed.]

It is true that Ozawa's force lacked the aircraft to defend itself. I do think the Ise and Hyuga still qualified as battleships since they still retained 2/3 of their turrets. The Ise and Hyuga also had among the best AA suites in the IJN at the time.

This part of the discussion came from the assertion that carriers escorted by battleships were never sunk. People have provided a number of examples where battleship escorts did lose their carriers, whether you want to count Cape Engano or not.

Battleships fast enough to keep up with the carriers did provide helpful extra flak. The fast battleships with the US carriers did a pretty good job of protecting their flatops, but no weapon system is perfect and Japanese did slip through. Until late in the war, Japanese battleships on escort duty were not close enough to the carriers to give effective support. They were technically escorts, but in name only as far as air defense went.

Bill

[el cid again]

So do you like the idea that we get NO escorts contributing to AA defense at all?

[spence]

So do you like the idea that we get NO escorts contributing to AA defense at all?

Doctrine is what sailors practice. Doctrine is what they know. Doctrine is how they fight. The ships of the IJN did not know and did not practice closely matching the wild manuevers of major warships with minor ones while under air attack. The major ships were free to manuever in whatever manner the CO thought best to avoid attack and the other ships gave him the room to do so. This placed them beyond the range where their AAA could contribute to the defense of his ship.

Even after Midway when the Japanese committed themselves to the proposition that the CV was the instrument of decision in naval battle they did not adopt a close escort of the CVs for AAA defense. Instead they put the CVs' "screen" out in front of the CVs by 100 miles or so along the most likely threat axis to give early warning of air attacks and possibly absorb some of the attacks meant for the CVs. But even the ships of "the screen" operated at the limits of visibility from one another. Basically each IJN warship defended itself from air attack throughout 1942 and 1943.

You say "If you're in command, command!" It's harder than that. In 1942, the USN had FDCs and a much better air defense doctrine than the IJN. Nimitz could not however order the FDO's to "get it right" and have any expectation that it would happen right away. He could not order DD skippers to get in close, attack with torpedos at night and score hits. Nobody knew how to fight that way and CINCPAC couldn't fix it with an order.

So the answer is YES. Each ship in the IJN should fight air attack off with its own AAA an no other in 1941-43.

[Mike Scholl]

Spence...., I think you're on to something. But I can't see that it will ever fly here.

[spence]

The Topic of the Thread is "Modeling of Carrier Battles". I took that to mean that the 5 battles that actually occurred would provide the basis of that modeling.

Historically the Japanese conceived and developed a very proficient naval air arm in the years leading up to WWII. The force was structured and doctrine was developed to maximize offensive airpower in an environment where the mobile base (the carriers) was never under any threat from the opposing force. Thus development of a defensive doctrine was not a priority and received relatively little attention.

First Air Fleet was not a long standing institution on Dec 7th, 1941. It was essentially brand new as were two of the carriers in it. It had never practised "a carrier battle" within itself to test its doctrines of offense and defense. So Japan began the war with a flawed doctrine of fleet defense against air attack. And that doctrine stood relatively unchanged for 2 full years of war in spite of ample evidence that it was flawed. In fact, it never did get around to embracing the full potential offered (spelled FIGHTER DIRECTION CENTER) by technical advances (spelled RADAR) since its inception.

[spence]

There were 2 CAs and 6 or so DDs in Shokaku's and Zuikaku's screen at Coral Sea. A picture is worth a 1000 words. Where are the screening ships?

[spence]

And by way of contrast: Japanese carriers under air attack at Philippine Sea, 1944

[okami]

ORIGINAL: spence

And by way of contrast: Japanese carriers under air attack at Philippine Sea, 1944

So what are you trying to say? That because Allied escorts are closer they get better AA? Ok but they should also be more vulnerable to the bombs and torpedoes that get through do to less maneuvering room. A picture only paints the story you want it to tell. How many torpedo hits on Japanese carriers during the war? How many on Allied? I could use those stats to prove whatever point I choose to make. Don't generalize or make arguements based on history if your navy does not engage the enemy to learn the lessons of history. Why should the allies gain all of the advantages they historically did in say 1944, if in the game they never fight in 1942-43? Everything in the game should be modified by experience. If your carrier group never does anything, it would never learn anything. And thus no flak bonus, no coordination bonus, no cap bonus. All these things were learned and if you as the allies never put your ships in harms way, how are you supposed to learn? That is how the carrier vs carrier should be modelled. The potential for all these improvements should be there, but they should be earned not just handed out.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
As far as uberCAP goes, I think it is fairly realistic for late war vs. the US. The only time in the real world the US was had to defend Pacific bases from any major attacks late in the war (1944 and later), were in carrier battles. That's why the Hellcat guys ran up such a staggering kill to loss ratio and such a high total.

ORIGINAL: el cid again
This isn't actually so. The abandoned units at Rabaul build a whole air group out of wreaks - and healed fliers which had not been evacuated. They made planes we never hear about - a bomber mod of the Zero for example - and flew long range air strikes that were effective - twice. If we had done it there would be a movie about it. There is an English book about it (From Ashes to Caraval or something like that). But the point is, us bases were not effective vs obsolete aircraft.

I am unfamiliar with this effort. What time frame did it happen and how big an air fleet did they cobble together? Did this renewed force make massed, daylight air attacks on US bases in the Solomons? You said they were effective twice. When and against what Allied bases? How big were these raids, how effective were they, and what losses did the Japanese encur?

If it was late enough in the Solomons campaign, any success they did have was due to the Allies getting lax on defense because they hadn't had to do it in a long time. The game does not have any mechanism to model this.

Bill

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

So do you like the idea that we get NO escorts contributing to AA defense at all?

As Spence has pointed out, the original question was about how to model carrier battles accurately. The dicussion got a bit side tracked into issues about battleship escort, but I am in favor of an accurate model.

Historically, the Japanese did not adopt close defense for their carriers until 1944. By 20/20 hindsight, we can see that was a poor decision. If we want to model this correctly, Japan doesn't get much mutual support for AA from escorts until 1944.

If we wanted to play 20/20 hindsight, we could allow both sides to use their 1945 doctrines from the start (where possible), but it would mean carrier battles would be very different.

Bill

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: okami
So what are you trying to say? That because Allied escorts are closer they get better AA? Ok but they should also be more vulnerable to the bombs and torpedoes that get through do to less maneuvering room. A picture only paints the story you want it to tell. How many torpedo hits on Japanese carriers during the war? How many on Allied? I could use those stats to prove whatever point I choose to make. Don't generalize or make arguements based on history if your navy does not engage the enemy to learn the lessons of history. Why should the allies gain all of the advantages they historically did in say 1944, if in the game they never fight in 1942-43? Everything in the game should be modified by experience. If your carrier group never does anything, it would never learn anything. And thus no flak bonus, no coordination bonus, no cap bonus. All these things were learned and if you as the allies never put your ships in harms way, how are you supposed to learn? That is how the carrier vs carrier should be modelled. The potential for all these improvements should be there, but they should be earned not just handed out.

And just WHAT had Kido Butai done before 7 December, 1941? Seriously, the Allied "flak bonuses" come mainly from the addition of improved light AAA (20mm and 40mm), radar fire control (for the 40mm and the 5") and proximity fuzes (for the 5")..., all physical improvements.

Japanese "upgrades" consisted of adding on a few more of their relatively inneffective 25mm's. Fire direction was still manual (take a good look at their movie about the death of the Yamato---light AAA fire control consists of a guy pointing with a stick! And that's from a Japanese film, not US propaganda).