PT Boats are awesome

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

So I will forever be known as the player who got PT boats nerfed [:(]

Naw, far too many other JFB fanboys out there with this particular bone to pick to finger you, Fallschirmjager.

[Fishbed]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

So I will forever be known as the player who got PT boats nerfed [:(]

Naw, far too many other JFB fanboys out there with this particular bone to pick to finger you, Fallschirmjager.

I hardly see what makes one a JFB by wanting to nerf the PTs. If the average "AFB" feels comfortable (and fair) with the perspective of sinking a carrier or a BB in early 1942 200 miles from the coast in the middle of nowhere, nice for him. Personally, I'd feel cheated and completely frustrated by some kind of game loophole which would have allowed me to do so.

I didn't put Daks in my signature for nothing: most of the time I play the Allies.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

So I will forever be known as the player who got PT boats nerfed [:(]

Naw, far too many other JFB fanboys out there with this particular bone to pick to finger you, Fallschirmjager.

I hardly see what makes one a JFB by wanting to nerf the PTs. If the average "AFB" feels comfortable (and fair) with the perspective of sinking a carrier or a BB in early 1942 200 miles from the coast in the middle of nowhere, nice for him. Personally, I'd feel cheated and completely frustrated by some kind of game loophole which would have allowed me to do so.

I didn't put Daks in my signature for nothing: most of the time I play the Allies.

I didn't say that I agreed with the 200nm offshore intercept, Fishbed. I'm talking about the immediate attack on the platform rather than the use that inherently favors the JFB side of things. It's the same argument used from WiTP (the squeeky wheel gets the oil) for any number of things that got Nerfed unnecessarily.

My opinion is that HRs should be a first approach before recoding and drastically changing any platform. Also, unilaterally nerfing offensive platforms for any one side is unfair. If PTs are inherently skewed now and they're nerfed, then the IJN should lose any functionality for their midget subs to keep the game in balance. Quid pro quo (sorry Brady).

You don't like waves of Uber B17s pounding your airfields into rubble? Then give up Uber torpedo-spewing Bettys flying from level 2-3 AF aplenty.

Changing one platform on a game this balanced changes the play significantly. I'm just saying that all FBs need to keep that in mind when they ask for any particular platform to be changed in hard coding.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

So I will forever be known as the player who got PT boats nerfed [:(]

Naw, far too many other JFB fanboys out there with this particular bone to pick to finger you, Fallschirmjager.

Too bad. Right up until that post you were sticking to the facts. If I'm a "JFB", please go read my Aleutians AAR. The Allied ASW is utterly annihilating the Japanese subs. But am I demanding that Allied ASW be nerfed? In that thread or elsewhere? No. The facts are that Allied ASW WAS extremely successful in the Pacific. If the AE results in that scenario appear extreme, I'm confident there's a reason, and it just needs to be explored. But there is nothing ahistorical about successful Allied ASW.

But PT Boats, at least of the US variety, are NOT the same. (And those are the only ones I'm now studying - I will not speak to the others as I haven't looked at ALL the facts.) Search the archives of the entire Pacific War, and you'll see that there were some things they did well, and some they did not. Intercepting and damaging or destroying enemy surface combat task forces was not one of their strengths. Neither was "blue water" combat of any variety. Even their success against large merchant ships is open to debate, simply because they didn't sink very many.

I am NOT making this stuff up. The facts are there for anybody openminded enough to see for themselves.

PT Boats were ridiculously overpowered in the original version of AE. Fortunately it sounds like the patch has dialled them back significantly, and if so, kudos to the developers who listened to facts instead of the all-too-lame "JFB versus AFB" accusations which are explicitly intended to move the debate away from facts and rest it on the shifting sands of emotion. They won't play that game and neither will I.

[Scott_USN]

They are useless now about all I have to say about them. Irrelevant really

[Fishbed]

Well can something try out a PT Boat vs Barges encounter for a change, so we can see how they behave against sea trucks and all?

[Dili]

I missed that one. That's laughable: the strike against HMS Eridge happened something like one or two clicks away from the Egyptian shore - the pilot of the craft even came back to the coast SWIMMING - and we're talking about a Decima MAS ops btw, wow that's so representative.

There is something called crew quality in this game. This is a game that has Torpedos, crew quality, ship quality. You do have a game with stagerring detail of WITP-AE and use it as broad brush.
Are you saying that Raizo Tanaka and other elite commanders and pilots have no place in this game? or an Elite PT commander?

that was probably the very main reason why the HQ was never keen on having them crossing large distances by themselves.

The main reason is that PT's have no staying time. It is necessary very accurate targeting to intercept at limit of range. That is what is unrealistic with PT range.
That is also the problem with all ranges in WITP-AE ships and aircrafts. They allow go to the limit. The problem is that if a PT(or any other ship) goes to an hex at limit of their range it means it is just a small amout of minutes there of a 12 hours game pulse and as such a very small chance of intecept the enemy unless there is stagering precision.

but I will certainly not allow for mid-ocean intercepts 300km away from the coast, especially if the PTs have to come back paddling.

I agree with that. Mission only with return ability.

If the average "AFB" feels comfortable (and fair) with the perspective of sinking a carrier or a BB in early 1942 200 miles from the coast in the middle of nowhere, nice for him.

Let's suppose that US PT's had 500miles range, had gret crews, very good torpedos and were very well trained and that Japanese had a badly protected task force. Why not? That should be tweaked by Editor tools. They are there for that.

Using the editor tools to the limit is the best way to find issues with Game engine. Painting a broad brush in a game that as detail like WITP is a waste of resources, turns heavier the game executable and increases the odds of bugs.

------------

The list i posted seems to be incomplete there is one more DD sunk by German PT at least: Quintino Sella Italian DD after both countries broke alliance.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

So I will forever be known as the player who got PT boats nerfed [:(]

Naw, far too many other JFB fanboys out there with this particular bone to pick to finger you, Fallschirmjager.

Too bad. Right up until that post you were sticking to the facts. If I'm a "JFB", please go read my Aleutians AAR. The Allied ASW is utterly annihilating the Japanese subs. But am I demanding that Allied ASW be nerfed? In that thread or elsewhere? No. The facts are that Allied ASW WAS extremely successful in the Pacific. If the AE results in that scenario appear extreme, I'm confident there's a reason, and it just needs to be explored. But there is nothing ahistorical about successful Allied ASW.

But PT Boats, at least of the US variety, are NOT the same. (And those are the only ones I'm now studying - I will not speak to the others as I haven't looked at ALL the facts.) Search the archives of the entire Pacific War, and you'll see that there were some things they did well, and some they did not. Intercepting and damaging or destroying enemy surface combat task forces was not one of their strengths. Neither was "blue water" combat of any variety. Even their success against large merchant ships is open to debate, simply because they didn't sink very many.

I am NOT making this stuff up. The facts are there for anybody openminded enough to see for themselves.

PT Boats were ridiculously overpowered in the original version of AE. Fortunately it sounds like the patch has dialled them back significantly, and if so, kudos to the developers who listened to facts instead of the all-too-lame "JFB versus AFB" accusations which are explicitly intended to move the debate away from facts and rest it on the shifting sands of emotion. They won't play that game and neither will I.

Kull,

Sorry for the JFB crack, that was unwarranted.

Your 'shifting sands of emotion' are my game playability issues. Without knowing the coding of how PT boats were 'dialed back' for the patch, the designers attempts to improve playability issues may have resulted in effectively destroying this platform for gameplay purposes.

Witness the chronic back and forth re: naval bombardment efficacy, Betty torpedo attacks, B-17 effect on airfields, the Corsair effect, fleets of ahistorical Tonys, mining, and Uber-cap from the WiTP boards. Many of these issues, because of the heated back and forth on the forums were tinkered with time and time again in WiTP in innumerable patches. For some issues, 'they' didn't ever get them right. The whole effect was an exhausting finger pointing exchange between different fanboy camps at one point or another. The act of 'nerfing' game platforms for playability often has unintended gameplay consequences.

You are consistently bringing up historical fact-that PT boats were not that relevant as surface combatants on larger ships. AND YOU'RE RIGHT from the historical perspective.

My point is that AE is inherently ahistorical from the get go. For those players that select a December 7 start, it's ahistorical beginning December 7, for those that select December 8 as a start date it's ahistorical thereafter. Everything you do as theater commander will be, by definition, ahistorical in this game. Therefore, the 'it didn't happen in history' argument becomes specious after a point. Capability, possibility and potential factors into my decisions every bit as much as history and historical doctrine.

Let's leave aside the 200nm offshore intercept for the time being...that's a little far-fetched and I see your point. But most of the 'Uber PT' complaints that we're hearing are not from 200nm offshore intercepts, so much as intercepts around the shore in the littorals of the PI and DEI.

I've pointed out that I believe that the historical poor performance of PTs against surface combatants was due as much to doctrine, leadership and training as anything else. As theater commander in AE, *I* set doctrine and I can work around training. If these issues are important in the performance of PTs, then I should have no reason to expect that my PT boats should be held to historic constraints on their employ, nor should they be held to historic successes as a benchmark for what they COULD do.

The fact is that no Allied PT flotilla attempted to break up the historic IJ landings in the PIs. My attempts to do so in AE were the first in my AE WWII history. Kind of left me with a sense of 'why didn't the PI commanders give this a try?' versus a 'this never happened therefore it can't happen'. Since no Taiho-class IJN CV ever succumbed to air attack, what does that say about the air vulnerabilities of this class? Since she (Taiho) was built with the carriage of up to 130 aircraft modern aircraft in mind, why should we 'Nerf' her capabilities by restricting her to her historical 56-65 plane carriage of outmoded airframes? Isn't that why we play the game-to find out what we can do differently?

If you have some suggestions for how you'd like the specific performance of the PT 'dialed back', I'm all ears. You think the default crew naval experience of PT 111-123 should be 35 instead of 55? I'm open to hearing your arguement. Too little systems damage by blue water transit-OK, I get you. Penetration of the 0.50 round versus ship hulls? OK-let's look into that further.

"Rediculously overpowered"-come again? I require something more substantive than that in order to base any further product redesigns, knowing the propensity for unintended consequences. Other than the historic, I haven't heard any specific recommendations from you regarding what changes you think warranted that will resolve the perceived issue.

Anyways, I'll wind up here: my experience from WiTP is that these arguments, when they are replete with lack of specifics, are the slippery slope to fanboyism, finger pointing and unintentional consequences. The PTs are my 'straw man' for this. Frankly, I don't give a rip about them, but I don't like the idea of starting to Nerf whole platforms within 30 days of the game release without an eye towards what that will mean for playability and the trend that sets to responding to pleas of woe from a select vocal audience. If WiTP is any barometer, this portends ill for the AE experience.

Alright, 'nuff said already.

[John Lansford]

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

They are useless now about all I have to say about them. Irrelevant really

Really? Not in my campaign they aren't. While they aren't quite the uber-boats they were before the patch, a squadron of PT boats torpedoed two invasion freighters, at night, in the Philippines and escaped with no damage. When the RN MTB's showed up in the daytime, though, the invasion force turned and ran away.

So far they've been performing about how I'd expect rather than sinking everything in sight.

[m10bob]

PT's can't be useless, especially against ak's and barges. The weapons on the PT's use their own device switcxhes, (does not matter what they are attached to), therefore an Oldsmobile 37mm auto-cannon or a Colt .50MG will still cause the same damage as if they were mounted on a tank. Besides, PT's are still great at detecting night passages of the enemy..

[Mike Scholl]

CHICKENBOY.   Very well stated..., especially the portion concerning "historical comparisons" to strategies and tactics that were never tried historically.

[denisonh]

+1

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy


Naw, far too many other JFB fanboys out there with this particular bone to pick to finger you, Fallschirmjager.

Too bad. Right up until that post you were sticking to the facts. If I'm a "JFB", please go read my Aleutians AAR. The Allied ASW is utterly annihilating the Japanese subs. But am I demanding that Allied ASW be nerfed? In that thread or elsewhere? No. The facts are that Allied ASW WAS extremely successful in the Pacific. If the AE results in that scenario appear extreme, I'm confident there's a reason, and it just needs to be explored. But there is nothing ahistorical about successful Allied ASW.

But PT Boats, at least of the US variety, are NOT the same. (And those are the only ones I'm now studying - I will not speak to the others as I haven't looked at ALL the facts.) Search the archives of the entire Pacific War, and you'll see that there were some things they did well, and some they did not. Intercepting and damaging or destroying enemy surface combat task forces was not one of their strengths. Neither was "blue water" combat of any variety. Even their success against large merchant ships is open to debate, simply because they didn't sink very many.

I am NOT making this stuff up. The facts are there for anybody openminded enough to see for themselves.

PT Boats were ridiculously overpowered in the original version of AE. Fortunately it sounds like the patch has dialled them back significantly, and if so, kudos to the developers who listened to facts instead of the all-too-lame "JFB versus AFB" accusations which are explicitly intended to move the debate away from facts and rest it on the shifting sands of emotion. They won't play that game and neither will I.

Kull,

Sorry for the JFB crack, that was unwarranted.

Your 'shifting sands of emotion' are my game playability issues. Without knowing the coding of how PT boats were 'dialed back' for the patch, the designers attempts to improve playability issues may have resulted in effectively destroying this platform for gameplay purposes.

Witness the chronic back and forth re: naval bombardment efficacy, Betty torpedo attacks, B-17 effect on airfields, the Corsair effect, fleets of ahistorical Tonys, mining, and Uber-cap from the WiTP boards. Many of these issues, because of the heated back and forth on the forums were tinkered with time and time again in WiTP in innumerable patches. For some issues, 'they' didn't ever get them right. The whole effect was an exhausting finger pointing exchange between different fanboy camps at one point or another. The act of 'nerfing' game platforms for playability often has unintended gameplay consequences.

You are consistently bringing up historical fact-that PT boats were not that relevant as surface combatants on larger ships. AND YOU'RE RIGHT from the historical perspective.

My point is that AE is inherently ahistorical from the get go. For those players that select a December 7 start, it's ahistorical beginning December 7, for those that select December 8 as a start date it's ahistorical thereafter. Everything you do as theater commander will be, by definition, ahistorical in this game. Therefore, the 'it didn't happen in history' argument becomes specious after a point. Capability, possibility and potential factors into my decisions every bit as much as history and historical doctrine.

Let's leave aside the 200nm offshore intercept for the time being...that's a little far-fetched and I see your point. But most of the 'Uber PT' complaints that we're hearing are not from 200nm offshore intercepts, so much as intercepts around the shore in the littorals of the PI and DEI.

I've pointed out that I believe that the historical poor performance of PTs against surface combatants was due as much to doctrine, leadership and training as anything else. As theater commander in AE, *I* set doctrine and I can work around training. If these issues are important in the performance of PTs, then I should have no reason to expect that my PT boats should be held to historic constraints on their employ, nor should they be held to historic successes as a benchmark for what they COULD do.

The fact is that no Allied PT flotilla attempted to break up the historic IJ landings in the PIs. My attempts to do so in AE were the first in my AE WWII history. Kind of left me with a sense of 'why didn't the PI commanders give this a try?' versus a 'this never happened therefore it can't happen'. Since no Taiho-class IJN CV ever succumbed to air attack, what does that say about the air vulnerabilities of this class? Since she (Taiho) was built with the carriage of up to 130 aircraft modern aircraft in mind, why should we 'Nerf' her capabilities by restricting her to her historical 56-65 plane carriage of outmoded airframes? Isn't that why we play the game-to find out what we can do differently?

If you have some suggestions for how you'd like the specific performance of the PT 'dialed back', I'm all ears. You think the default crew naval experience of PT 111-123 should be 35 instead of 55? I'm open to hearing your arguement. Too little systems damage by blue water transit-OK, I get you. Penetration of the 0.50 round versus ship hulls? OK-let's look into that further.

"Rediculously overpowered"-come again? I require something more substantive than that in order to base any further product redesigns, knowing the propensity for unintended consequences. Other than the historic, I haven't heard any specific recommendations from you regarding what changes you think warranted that will resolve the perceived issue.

Anyways, I'll wind up here: my experience from WiTP is that these arguments, when they are replete with lack of specifics, are the slippery slope to fanboyism, finger pointing and unintentional consequences. The PTs are my 'straw man' for this. Frankly, I don't give a rip about them, but I don't like the idea of starting to Nerf whole platforms within 30 days of the game release without an eye towards what that will mean for playability and the trend that sets to responding to pleas of woe from a select vocal audience. If WiTP is any barometer, this portends ill for the AE experience.

Alright, 'nuff said already.

[Sheytan]

Bravo, well said. All too often its nerf this or that because it didnt happen historically without consideration to what the platform potentially could accomplish, yet retrospectively the "possible" isnt a issue for various "other" platforms. Honestly, if PT boats are the main beef for some people im thinking this is getting a bit overboard.

I like what AE have accomplished vis ve WITP, its so much more playable. I just dont have any other words to describe it. IF this ends up being a tug of war between camps I will likely not even patch because I will be afraid of unbalancing the enjoyable experience I have vs someone elses desire to "mold" the game according to thier vision.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy


Naw, far too many other JFB fanboys out there with this particular bone to pick to finger you, Fallschirmjager.

Too bad. Right up until that post you were sticking to the facts. If I'm a "JFB", please go read my Aleutians AAR. The Allied ASW is utterly annihilating the Japanese subs. But am I demanding that Allied ASW be nerfed? In that thread or elsewhere? No. The facts are that Allied ASW WAS extremely successful in the Pacific. If the AE results in that scenario appear extreme, I'm confident there's a reason, and it just needs to be explored. But there is nothing ahistorical about successful Allied ASW.

But PT Boats, at least of the US variety, are NOT the same. (And those are the only ones I'm now studying - I will not speak to the others as I haven't looked at ALL the facts.) Search the archives of the entire Pacific War, and you'll see that there were some things they did well, and some they did not. Intercepting and damaging or destroying enemy surface combat task forces was not one of their strengths. Neither was "blue water" combat of any variety. Even their success against large merchant ships is open to debate, simply because they didn't sink very many.

I am NOT making this stuff up. The facts are there for anybody openminded enough to see for themselves.

PT Boats were ridiculously overpowered in the original version of AE. Fortunately it sounds like the patch has dialled them back significantly, and if so, kudos to the developers who listened to facts instead of the all-too-lame "JFB versus AFB" accusations which are explicitly intended to move the debate away from facts and rest it on the shifting sands of emotion. They won't play that game and neither will I.

Kull,

Sorry for the JFB crack, that was unwarranted.

Your 'shifting sands of emotion' are my game playability issues. Without knowing the coding of how PT boats were 'dialed back' for the patch, the designers attempts to improve playability issues may have resulted in effectively destroying this platform for gameplay purposes.

Witness the chronic back and forth re: naval bombardment efficacy, Betty torpedo attacks, B-17 effect on airfields, the Corsair effect, fleets of ahistorical Tonys, mining, and Uber-cap from the WiTP boards. Many of these issues, because of the heated back and forth on the forums were tinkered with time and time again in WiTP in innumerable patches. For some issues, 'they' didn't ever get them right. The whole effect was an exhausting finger pointing exchange between different fanboy camps at one point or another. The act of 'nerfing' game platforms for playability often has unintended gameplay consequences.

You are consistently bringing up historical fact-that PT boats were not that relevant as surface combatants on larger ships. AND YOU'RE RIGHT from the historical perspective.

My point is that AE is inherently ahistorical from the get go. For those players that select a December 7 start, it's ahistorical beginning December 7, for those that select December 8 as a start date it's ahistorical thereafter. Everything you do as theater commander will be, by definition, ahistorical in this game. Therefore, the 'it didn't happen in history' argument becomes specious after a point. Capability, possibility and potential factors into my decisions every bit as much as history and historical doctrine.

Let's leave aside the 200nm offshore intercept for the time being...that's a little far-fetched and I see your point. But most of the 'Uber PT' complaints that we're hearing are not from 200nm offshore intercepts, so much as intercepts around the shore in the littorals of the PI and DEI.

I've pointed out that I believe that the historical poor performance of PTs against surface combatants was due as much to doctrine, leadership and training as anything else. As theater commander in AE, *I* set doctrine and I can work around training. If these issues are important in the performance of PTs, then I should have no reason to expect that my PT boats should be held to historic constraints on their employ, nor should they be held to historic successes as a benchmark for what they COULD do.

The fact is that no Allied PT flotilla attempted to break up the historic IJ landings in the PIs. My attempts to do so in AE were the first in my AE WWII history. Kind of left me with a sense of 'why didn't the PI commanders give this a try?' versus a 'this never happened therefore it can't happen'. Since no Taiho-class IJN CV ever succumbed to air attack, what does that say about the air vulnerabilities of this class? Since she (Taiho) was built with the carriage of up to 130 aircraft modern aircraft in mind, why should we 'Nerf' her capabilities by restricting her to her historical 56-65 plane carriage of outmoded airframes? Isn't that why we play the game-to find out what we can do differently?

If you have some suggestions for how you'd like the specific performance of the PT 'dialed back', I'm all ears. You think the default crew naval experience of PT 111-123 should be 35 instead of 55? I'm open to hearing your arguement. Too little systems damage by blue water transit-OK, I get you. Penetration of the 0.50 round versus ship hulls? OK-let's look into that further.

"Rediculously overpowered"-come again? I require something more substantive than that in order to base any further product redesigns, knowing the propensity for unintended consequences. Other than the historic, I haven't heard any specific recommendations from you regarding what changes you think warranted that will resolve the perceived issue.

Anyways, I'll wind up here: my experience from WiTP is that these arguments, when they are replete with lack of specifics, are the slippery slope to fanboyism, finger pointing and unintentional consequences. The PTs are my 'straw man' for this. Frankly, I don't give a rip about them, but I don't like the idea of starting to Nerf whole platforms within 30 days of the game release without an eye towards what that will mean for playability and the trend that sets to responding to pleas of woe from a select vocal audience. If WiTP is any barometer, this portends ill for the AE experience.

Alright, 'nuff said already.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

Bravo, well said. All too often its nerf this or that because it didnt happen historically without consideration to what the platform potentially could accomplish, yet retrospectively the "possible" isnt a issue for various "other" platforms. Honestly, if PT boats are the main beef for some people im thinking this is getting a bit overboard.

I like what AE have accomplished vis ve WITP, its so much more playable. I just dont have any other words to describe it. IF this ends up being a tug of war between camps I will likely not even patch because I will be afraid of unbalancing the enjoyable experience I have vs someone elses desire to "mold" the game according to thier vision.

Aye, that was the rub for me as well with WiTP. I stopped patching when the attempts to balance 4EB and naval bombardment resulted in these becoming platforms that just weren't worth the time any more.

[Buck Beach]

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

IF this ends up being a tug of war between camps I will likely not even patch because I will be afraid of unbalancing the enjoyable experience I have vs someone elses desire to "mold" the game according to thier vision.

Excuse me for butting in here, but, if you would give up the benefits of the corrected data base and other non-argued changes in patches,as a result of "tug of war between camps", I feel you would definitely be giving up much of the "enjoyable experience" you have for the game. Let's all just hope that a realistic level of play through any tweaks including any not yet identified will be achieved.

[Scott_USN]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

ORIGINAL: Scott_USN

They are useless now about all I have to say about them. Irrelevant really

Really? Not in my campaign they aren't. While they aren't quite the uber-boats they were before the patch, a squadron of PT boats torpedoed two invasion freighters, at night, in the Philippines and escaped with no damage. When the RN MTB's showed up in the daytime, though, the invasion force turned and ran away.

So far they've been performing about how I'd expect rather than sinking everything in sight.

Well that would be your game in mine they can't even hit unescorted transports. They are not even historically accurate now and regardless of the thoughts that they should be useless. Many feared the PT boat.

I agree they were overpowered in release but now they are not worth wasting the energy on.

It is like saying 36 knot DD's can't do something because it didn't happen often in the war. Well maybe if they had insane leaders they would have done it over and over. If you want absolutely historical script I am sure that would be easier than letting people explore.

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

Also the Fubuki DDs by WW2 were not state of the art. The 12.7 cm/50 Type 3 naval gun had a low rate of fire at 3-7 rounds a minute and since it was a heavy dual mount could only traverse at 6 degrees per second.

I have it as 5-10 rounds , and ballistically more accurate than the US 5"/38 ( and outranged them by 4000 yards) ; thats still 10-20 rounds per mount or 30-60 per minute for 1 Fubuki DD. 6 DD as above would be sending out 180-360 per minute or 3-6 127mm rounds PER SECOND. Traversal is no issue after the first round ( 4-6 degrees) , first round would be 18 seconds or so after spotting. Also note that initially while shells are stockpiled you would be running at the higher fire rate.

However that is not the real issue these destroyers also carried up to 14 Type 96 25 mm guns ; These auto cannons would shred a PT boat at 2000-3000 yards hence i think most PTs just shot there torps at long range and got out of there. As they can hit a plane going 400 mph a boat going 36 knots aint going to make much difference.

I think this is where the problem is the AA guns are not firing at small targets and they should. Maybe people should run some simulations with the AA guns set as DP.

I don't think the patch solution is appropriate either
1) interecpt range should be more than 1 hex. ( 2-3 ?)
2) PT boats will evade. PT boats should make a morale check to launch an attack then make another morale check to get close if they fail they launch torps at long range. Torps should have a much higher than normal chance of missing but almost no chance for long range. If they pass the morale survive the Cannon fire and get close enough they should have a chance to land a torp. Especially against unescorted merchants. Weather should also affect torp performance.

[Dili]

These auto cannons would shred a PT boat at 2000-3000 yards

More like 1-2yds after that trajectory is much less tense.

I think this is where the problem is the AA guns are not firing at small targets and they should.

I don't think they were allowed to fire much unless in real danger. They need amno for AA.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Sorry for the JFB crack, that was unwarranted.

Your 'shifting sands of emotion' are my game playability issues. Without knowing the coding of how PT boats were 'dialed back' for the patch, the designers attempts to improve playability issues may have resulted in effectively destroying this platform for gameplay purposes.

Witness the chronic back and forth re: naval bombardment efficacy, Betty torpedo attacks, B-17 effect on airfields, the Corsair effect, fleets of ahistorical Tonys, mining, and Uber-cap from the WiTP boards. Many of these issues, because of the heated back and forth on the forums were tinkered with time and time again in WiTP in innumerable patches. For some issues, 'they' didn't ever get them right. The whole effect was an exhausting finger pointing exchange between different fanboy camps at one point or another. The act of 'nerfing' game platforms for playability often has unintended gameplay consequences.

You are consistently bringing up historical fact-that PT boats were not that relevant as surface combatants on larger ships. AND YOU'RE RIGHT from the historical perspective.

My point is that AE is inherently ahistorical from the get go. For those players that select a December 7 start, it's ahistorical beginning December 7, for those that select December 8 as a start date it's ahistorical thereafter. Everything you do as theater commander will be, by definition, ahistorical in this game. Therefore, the 'it didn't happen in history' argument becomes specious after a point. Capability, possibility and potential factors into my decisions every bit as much as history and historical doctrine.

Let's leave aside the 200nm offshore intercept for the time being...that's a little far-fetched and I see your point. But most of the 'Uber PT' complaints that we're hearing are not from 200nm offshore intercepts, so much as intercepts around the shore in the littorals of the PI and DEI.

I've pointed out that I believe that the historical poor performance of PTs against surface combatants was due as much to doctrine, leadership and training as anything else. As theater commander in AE, *I* set doctrine and I can work around training. If these issues are important in the performance of PTs, then I should have no reason to expect that my PT boats should be held to historic constraints on their employ, nor should they be held to historic successes as a benchmark for what they COULD do.

The fact is that no Allied PT flotilla attempted to break up the historic IJ landings in the PIs. My attempts to do so in AE were the first in my AE WWII history. Kind of left me with a sense of 'why didn't the PI commanders give this a try?' versus a 'this never happened therefore it can't happen'. Since no Taiho-class IJN CV ever succumbed to air attack, what does that say about the air vulnerabilities of this class? Since she (Taiho) was built with the carriage of up to 130 aircraft modern aircraft in mind, why should we 'Nerf' her capabilities by restricting her to her historical 56-65 plane carriage of outmoded airframes? Isn't that why we play the game-to find out what we can do differently?

If you have some suggestions for how you'd like the specific performance of the PT 'dialed back', I'm all ears. You think the default crew naval experience of PT 111-123 should be 35 instead of 55? I'm open to hearing your arguement. Too little systems damage by blue water transit-OK, I get you. Penetration of the 0.50 round versus ship hulls? OK-let's look into that further.

"Rediculously overpowered"-come again? I require something more substantive than that in order to base any further product redesigns, knowing the propensity for unintended consequences. Other than the historic, I haven't heard any specific recommendations from you regarding what changes you think warranted that will resolve the perceived issue.

Anyways, I'll wind up here: my experience from WiTP is that these arguments, when they are replete with lack of specifics, are the slippery slope to fanboyism, finger pointing and unintentional consequences. The PTs are my 'straw man' for this. Frankly, I don't give a rip about them, but I don't like the idea of starting to Nerf whole platforms within 30 days of the game release without an eye towards what that will mean for playability and the trend that sets to responding to pleas of woe from a select vocal audience. If WiTP is any barometer, this portends ill for the AE experience.

Alright, 'nuff said already.

Good post. I agree, that one needs to be careful about the "slippery slope" of nerfing entire weapons platforms. But you overstate your case here, since the platform being "nerfed" was never a significant contributor. How can the designers "nerf" something that WAS "nerfed" in real life? What we know for a fact is there were many hundreds of US PT boats deployed in the Pacific, and they fired off many hundreds more torpedos. And for all that, the number of confirmed kills (or even hits) against large surface targets was very small. Now I can't say with certainty WHY that is, but it is. To many here, it's simply a matter of "better training or better leaders or different doctrine and PT Boats would have been serious ship killers". And for me (and others) it's, "they never did it over the course of 3 solid years, because there was something about the PT Boat design that made it a lousy torpedo platform, at least in the Pacific Ocean".

Can we prove your theory? No. Can we prove mine? Equally no. So like you, I'll end the discussion here, as neither proposition is "provable", absent time machines.

[Scott_USN]

The fact remains they were capable as the Japanese soldiers on barges knew well and the German's showed their potiental very well.

It is almost like saying Japanese Submarines should be nerfed into oblivion because they were poorly used.