Tinkering with Treaties...Again

[el cid again]

I am glad to hear it.

What about their cousins = Kaiten?

What about land based midgets?

What about ship based midgets? [Several ships carried a dozen and could launch four at a time at full speed. Modern analysts think they might have been effective in their intended role if present at a naval battle at sea]

[DuckofTindalos]

Kaiten are in, as oversized torpedoes (which they were), and the convert-to routines have been used to give players the option to convert the historically converted fleet boats to Kaiten carriers. The other two were unresolved when I left the team.

Anyway, Sid, wasn't there an RHS scenario with a large proportion of IJN medium boats?

[DuckofTindalos]

BTW, when I say "midgets work just fine in port", I have to emphasize that I mean the program routines for executing a midget attack against ships in port work. The midgets won't do much...

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

BTW, when I say "midgets work just fine in port", I have to emphasize that I mean the program routines for executing a midget attack against ships in port work. The midgets won't do much...

Will midgets do anything at all?

[DuckofTindalos]

Sometimes... If the moon, sun and stars are all perfectly aligned...[;)]

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Sometimes... If the moon, sun and stars are all perfectly aligned...[;)]

Cool! You mean moon phases and star alignment will be in AE!? [:D]

[DuckofTindalos]

Well, moon state is...[:D]

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Kaiten are in, as oversized torpedoes (which they were), and the convert-to routines have been used to give players the option to convert the historically converted fleet boats to Kaiten carriers. The other two were unresolved when I left the team.

Anyway, Sid, wasn't there an RHS scenario with a large proportion of IJN medium boats?

Oh yes - good memory Mr T. In fact, both BBO family and EOS family scenarios curtail the production of large boats in favor of smaller ones - to a greater or lesser degree. However, due to slot limits, and also interestingly due to engine production issues in Japan - you never actually get more submarines - just different submarines. It appears you get more attack boats because transport subs are replaced by more warlike counterparts. And it appears you get a lot of smaller boats because many larger ones appear in a smaller form.

There are really two broad categories of "medium boats" in IJN: the second class Ro series everyone thinks about - but also the "Kaidai" seagoing vessels (with only 4 forward tubes and 12 torpedoes - while an RO usually had 4 tubes and 8 torpedoes). These Kaidai have slightly more range than an RO (typically 10,000 miles vs 8,000 miles) - and they were historically very successful. RHS gives you numbers of both categories in most scenarios. In the BBO family, there is also implementation of Admiral Hart's preferred medium subs for the USN - for which only prototypes (and export models post war) were actually built. Once again - this time for reasons of yard capacity - you still do not get more submarines - but the steel (and hp) saved are used to build other things. [BBO lets you have DEs with twice the HP - and a few knots more speed - as well - the way they were designed].

But it is quite true that in most RHS scenarios (other than CVO family) the PROPORTION of medium boats in IJN is larger. This is because I believe that Adm Donitz had it right - and because in WITP submarines do not survive well enough (so why waste production points on building big ones which will sink just about as easily as small ones?). Medium boats IRL are more maneuverable and for that reason more likely both to achieve firing position and less likely to be hit. They also place fewer demands on engine production facilities. Wartime large boats in IJN actually used engines from smaller vessels: but if they were actually driving smaller subs with the same engines they would have better performance. Varous historical, opeational and game technical factors conspire to make it more effective to field less than the gigantic boats -
particularly later in the war. Very long range large boats are of considerable value when the war begins - because Allied air and surface ASW does not yet preclude their being fairly effective near enemy ports/points of entry.

[el cid again]

What about Kaiten carriers OTHER than submarines? There were many of these - more than subs in fact.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Sometimes... If the moon, sun and stars are all perfectly aligned...[;)]

This is also true in RHS in WITP. I had to test with exaggerated settings to know the device can work. But I have seen the single
midget on a single sub score (at Christmas Island vs a ship not in port - but probably entering or leaving port) - in a non test bed setting -
so it can work in the one off situation. Since only 5 subs start the war with them - and only one of these really scored a hit -
one score is right. And then the hit is only an 18 inch warhead - not nice - but not fatal either.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

What about Kaiten carriers OTHER than submarines? There were many of these - more than subs in fact.

Not my area of the OOB. Before I left the team, I was concerned with carriers and submarines. However, surface ship Kaiten carriers would be relatively easy to create.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Kaiten are in, as oversized torpedoes (which they were), and the convert-to routines have been used to give players the option to convert the historically converted fleet boats to Kaiten carriers. The other two were unresolved when I left the team.

Anyway, Sid, wasn't there an RHS scenario with a large proportion of IJN medium boats?

Oh yes - good memory Mr T. In fact, both BBO family and EOS family scenarios curtail the production of large boats in favor of smaller ones - to a greater or lesser degree. However, due to slot limits, and also interestingly due to engine production issues in Japan - you never actually get more submarines - just different submarines. It appears you get more attack boats because transport subs are replaced by more warlike counterparts. And it appears you get a lot of smaller boats because many larger ones appear in a smaller form.

There are really two broad categories of "medium boats" in IJN: the second class Ro series everyone thinks about - but also the "Kaidai" seagoing vessels (with only 4 forward tubes and 12 torpedoes - while an RO usually had 4 tubes and 8 torpedoes). These Kaidai have slightly more range than an RO (typically 10,000 miles vs 8,000 miles) - and they were historically very successful. RHS gives you numbers of both categories in most scenarios. In the BBO family, there is also implementation of Admiral Hart's preferred medium subs for the USN - for which only prototypes (and export models post war) were actually built. Once again - this time for reasons of yard capacity - you still do not get more submarines - but the steel (and hp) saved are used to build other things. [BBO lets you have DEs with twice the HP - and a few knots more speed - as well - the way they were designed].

I would make the claim that the Kaidais were not medium boats, and the IJN didn't classify them as such.

[DuckofTindalos]

Here's my take on a more or less realistic dispersal of Japanese and German sub types:



The Type KRK is a more modern minelaying type; I'm assuming that the elderly KRS boats have been relegated to training duties.

[GaryChildress]

Question for you Terminus, how do you come up with 187 subs in your scenario when it looks like Alt_naval only has 100 total (judging from the picture below). Are you getting your numbers from the Alt_Naval site or are you working with your own estimates here? [&:]

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

ORIGINAL: el cid again

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Kaiten are in, as oversized torpedoes (which they were), and the convert-to routines have been used to give players the option to convert the historically converted fleet boats to Kaiten carriers. The other two were unresolved when I left the team.

Anyway, Sid, wasn't there an RHS scenario with a large proportion of IJN medium boats?

Oh yes - good memory Mr T. In fact, both BBO family and EOS family scenarios curtail the production of large boats in favor of smaller ones - to a greater or lesser degree. However, due to slot limits, and also interestingly due to engine production issues in Japan - you never actually get more submarines - just different submarines. It appears you get more attack boats because transport subs are replaced by more warlike counterparts. And it appears you get a lot of smaller boats because many larger ones appear in a smaller form.

There are really two broad categories of "medium boats" in IJN: the second class Ro series everyone thinks about - but also the "Kaidai" seagoing vessels (with only 4 forward tubes and 12 torpedoes - while an RO usually had 4 tubes and 8 torpedoes). These Kaidai have slightly more range than an RO (typically 10,000 miles vs 8,000 miles) - and they were historically very successful. RHS gives you numbers of both categories in most scenarios. In the BBO family, there is also implementation of Admiral Hart's preferred medium subs for the USN - for which only prototypes (and export models post war) were actually built. Once again - this time for reasons of yard capacity - you still do not get more submarines - but the steel (and hp) saved are used to build other things. [BBO lets you have DEs with twice the HP - and a few knots more speed - as well - the way they were designed].

I would make the claim that the Kaidais were not medium boats, and the IJN didn't classify them as such.

Well - in a structural sense - many of the larger vessels were actually based on the Kaidai hulls. But in the practical sense, these vessels
were much more like medium boats than large ones. They had about half the weapons of a USN fleet boat, they had 1/3 to 1/2 the range of a Japanese A, B, C or I-400 type submarine, and they were far more maneuverable than the big ones were. But they were considered to be fleet submarines, and what they had the second class submarines lacked was a high surface speed.

It is even more complicated than that - because there is a great difference between medium boats - some of which were only coastal - while others were seagoing. Then there were the nominally first class guppys. So you end up with four different species of attack boats all of which are much smaller than the giants: the Kaidais, the seagoing Ro-33/35 (K5 and K6) type, the green water RO-100 (KS) type, and the equally green water I type guppies. There were also true coastal boats - 4 were in RTN service of the conventional type - and an RO guppy series was completing when the war ended. The main difference between all these classes is range - almost all have 4 bow tubes - whereas the true coastal boats have only two tubes - and the long range big boats usually had 6 or 8 tubes. It is hard to consider the Kaidais as functionally the same as the big boats. Certainly they represent a more reasonable design compromise - and fewer eggs in each basket.

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Here's my take on a more or less realistic dispersal of Japanese and German sub types:



The Type KRK is a more modern minelaying type; I'm assuming that the elderly KRS boats have been relegated to training duties.

Is that fictional?

[DuckofTindalos]

Yes.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Question for you Terminus, how do you come up with 187 subs in your scenario when it looks like Alt_naval only has 100 total (judging from the picture below). Are you getting your numbers from the Alt_Naval site or are you working with your own estimates here? [&:]

Estimates is probably too fancy-schmanzy a word here. My mod has never been super-realistic.

However, note in your screenshot the words "Submarine Program 1930-1941". The numbers there are the state of the IJN submarine force on 12/7/41. My 187 boats covers that, AND the whole war construction program.

[DuckofTindalos]

To change the subject, have you considered eliminating the worst light cruiser class in USN history, the Atlantas?

[Dixie]

In another changing the subject post [:D] what would you replace the Royal Navy's Hawkins cruisers with?  The three cancelled York class?  The two cancelled Counties?