Hello All
An Idea for WITP
Team Experience.
Pleas allow us to assign ships to semi-permenant sub formations.
and these formations have a experience rating, reflecting how well the components can co-operate.
Scratch formations should have a penalty, to reflect that the Individual ship commanders don't know one another, and neither does the admiral in charge know his subordinates very well either.
After 2 weeks of exercises and on shore meeting/planning sessions, there should be no pelalties, or bonuses.
With a geometric increase for further at-sea training and actuall combat experience for the group of ships that stay togeather.
So after say 6 months of at sea exercised, or a month of combat ops., the maximum group co-operation bonus is acheived.
The group bonus would have a large affect on ASW effectivness, and Surface combat effectivness, only a small effect on Anti-air warfare, and a minimal effect on shore bombardment.
Adding new ships into a well trained formation, should cause it to suffer a drop in experience.
Team Experience
Moderators: Joel Billings, wdolson, Don Bowen, mogami
Team Experience
"We're having a war, and we want you to come!"
So the pig began to whistle and to pound on a drum.
"We'll give you a gun, and we'll give you a hat!"
And the pig began to whistle when they told the piggies that.
So the pig began to whistle and to pound on a drum.
"We'll give you a gun, and we'll give you a hat!"
And the pig began to whistle when they told the piggies that.
Re: Team Experience
I second the request. I think it can be obtained by tweeking the current UV engine. Giving a TF leaders bonus points the longer he stays with a particular TF and taking a hit when he leaves for another. Ships would also recieve increased exp.levels the longer it stay within a TF and correspondingly take a hit if it transfers out to another. All ships in a TF take an expirence hit if a new ship is. Not as elegant as your suggestions but maybe fairly easily implemented within the expected release of the game.Originally posted by Possum
Hello All
An Idea for WITP
Team Experience.
Pleas allow us to assign ships to semi-permenant sub formations.
and these formations have a experience rating, reflecting how well the components can co-operate.
Scratch formations should have a penalty, to reflect that the Individual ship commanders don't know one another, and neither does the admiral in charge know his subordinates very well either.
After 2 weeks of exercises and on shore meeting/planning sessions, there should be no pelalties, or bonuses.
With a geometric increase for further at-sea training and actuall combat experience for the group of ships that stay togeather.
So after say 6 months of at sea exercised, or a month of combat ops., the maximum group co-operation bonus is acheived.
The group bonus would have a large affect on ASW effectivness, and Surface combat effectivness, only a small effect on Anti-air warfare, and a minimal effect on shore bombardment.
Adding new ships into a well trained formation, should cause it to suffer a drop in experience.
One suggestion regarding your idea. I think that the time it takes for bonuses and penelties should be variable rather than fixed to a constant period of time for each and every TF. Some people learn faster than others.
This obviously get my vote as well.
I also think certain permanent TF's should start WitP scenarios with existing TF experience ratings (rather than having to start from scratch) to represent pre-war training or previous experience. What the TF's starting ratings are will depend on the scenario.
I also think certain permanent TF's should start WitP scenarios with existing TF experience ratings (rather than having to start from scratch) to represent pre-war training or previous experience. What the TF's starting ratings are will depend on the scenario.
Have no fear,
drink more beer.
drink more beer.
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Jeremy Pritchard
- Posts: 575
- Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2001 8:00 am
- Location: Ontario Canada
Adding on to this, there should be major problems in coordinating mixed nationality TF's. This is really only a hamper for the Allies (unless you consider IJN and IJA different 'nationalities'). However, during the ABDA operation, the allies did not have time to work up as a fleet before they went into action. The result was that their fleet was never up to the potential that it should have been at. Given time, the fleet could have worked up (traded codes and communications liasons) that it would have been more effective (like the USN and RAN). The game should start with most groups working well together [some better than others] (especially DD flottilas and established Cruiser, Battleship and Carrier Squadrons). Also, RAN, RNZN and RN ships should work very well together, as they have had 3 years of previous coordination.
This should hopefully eliminate any powerful last minute TF from ruling the seas as was allowed in PacWar.
This should hopefully eliminate any powerful last minute TF from ruling the seas as was allowed in PacWar.
Ship-group-experience seems like an interesting idea. It would cause players to duplicate the principles of the hierarchical organization of the navies of the repsective combatants. *But* I think the range of variation in EXP should be pretty small, so that EXP does not dominate combat results over other considerations like tactical surprise. Frankly, Grigsby's EXP ratings in the past have been very arbitrary and very deterministic, and both are bad things.
Why the 6-months training equals 1 month combat? These just drawn from the blue? I'm for 1:1 unless someone can prove otherwise.
I see no reason for it. The IJA was not particularly good at night assaults; in the SOPAC and CenPac they were largely unccoordinated efforts, replete with poor timing, men losing their way, and concentration against the strongest points of defensive positions, that for the most part substantially destroyed the units that attempted them. Night assaults were desperation tactics used in an effort to give some measure of cover to IJA troops assaulting Allied defensive positions -- after daylight assaults demonstrated that Allied firepower was several orders of magnitude more nasty than anything in their previous experience.
But, if you're gonna allow it, then *anyone* should be allowed to try it. And EXP ratings for units attempting to assault at night (as opposed to defend at night) ought to be halved.
I agree but think this should only affect commands that include mixed Dutch and other nationality groups. The one action where we can see this in play historically is the daylight engagement in the Java Sea led by Doorman. You could institute a similar policy for transports and merchant ships assigned to the IJA in the company of ships (of any kind) assigned to the IJN. Likewise, penalities for air bases that operate both Japanese army LBA and Japanese navy LBA, and readiness/supply penalties when pilots from one Japanese service are given a/c types that belong to the other service.
So after say 6 months of at sea exercised, or a month of combat ops., the maximum group co-operation bonus is acheived.
Why the 6-months training equals 1 month combat? These just drawn from the blue? I'm for 1:1 unless someone can prove otherwise.
And while we are at it, there should be an allowance for the Japanese troops to conduct night operations/assaults.
I see no reason for it. The IJA was not particularly good at night assaults; in the SOPAC and CenPac they were largely unccoordinated efforts, replete with poor timing, men losing their way, and concentration against the strongest points of defensive positions, that for the most part substantially destroyed the units that attempted them. Night assaults were desperation tactics used in an effort to give some measure of cover to IJA troops assaulting Allied defensive positions -- after daylight assaults demonstrated that Allied firepower was several orders of magnitude more nasty than anything in their previous experience.
But, if you're gonna allow it, then *anyone* should be allowed to try it. And EXP ratings for units attempting to assault at night (as opposed to defend at night) ought to be halved.
Adding on to this, there should be major problems in coordinating mixed nationality TF's.
I agree but think this should only affect commands that include mixed Dutch and other nationality groups. The one action where we can see this in play historically is the daylight engagement in the Java Sea led by Doorman. You could institute a similar policy for transports and merchant ships assigned to the IJA in the company of ships (of any kind) assigned to the IJN. Likewise, penalities for air bases that operate both Japanese army LBA and Japanese navy LBA, and readiness/supply penalties when pilots from one Japanese service are given a/c types that belong to the other service.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Didn't we have this conversation already?
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Jeremy Pritchard
- Posts: 575
- Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2001 8:00 am
- Location: Ontario Canada
Actually, the Japanese had some good night training, mainly in spotting and knowing what to do in the first few moments of battle. Firing torpedos instead of guns (like toossing grenades vs. firing your rifle) was done by the Japanese a lot more effectively then the allies (primarily because the only torpedos on USN ships were on DD's). More IJN torpedos could be fired, because they had more, so chances of hits are better.
The main reason that IJN night attacks 'failed' is because they lost the initiative and failed to break through. The worst Japanese night attacks were done with the Hiei and K (****, I forgot the 2nd BB name!!!), where the IJN had poor coordination. However, other actions were fairly successful with very few casualties incomparison to their opponents. It was not until radar was accepted and fully understood by the USN when they became potent nightfighters. However, without radar I believe that the IJN do have an advantage over the allies, but NOT something that should result in no losses for the IJN and habitual massacres of the USN.
The IJN was not the God of night fighting, but they also were not quite as incompetent as you state.
Night coordination, not necessarily individual ship experience, will be different then day coordination. However, this works for both sides (attacker and defender). Defending vessels are never just sitting there, but usually on patrol. The USN, on defense, has been just as uncoordinated (sinking some of their own vessels) as the Japanese attack. Radar was the principal method of the US becoming powerful at night attacks. But since the US were defeated in just about every Japanese night attack before the effective use of Radar, then there has to be some reason for it. While the IJN was not exactly perfect during night combat, they were better then the pre-radar USN, as on the attack they were able to better inflict casualties then their opponent.
Coordination does not necessarily require battle experience. Coordination basically gets the group to know how to work together as a force, sort of like a Football team preparing a set of plays before the game. Knowing what to do in certain situations with only the simplest of commands is what makes a coordinated TF good. This does not require battle experience. Battle experience will teach the TF what tactics work, and which don't, but it won't make them drastically better (but it will still teach them).
A TF that fought together for 1 month will not have greater coordination then one that worked up for 6 months. TF's with greater experience will fight better, but their coordination will not necesarily be better. Indeed, a TF that worked up for months will fight better then one that was just put together. This might be the reason why the IJN was so powerful during the first few months of war, because even in the South Pacific, most USN TF's (even without RAN) had not worked together as such a force (most pre-war USN Crusier squadrons were eliminated and formed new groups). The IJN kept their pre-war TF's working together throughout the first part of the war, which increase their efficiency.
So in a way I agree with bits and peices from all of the above.
#1. ALL night combat (attacker or defender) will have reduced coordination.
#2. Working up and combat coordination are basically the same.
#3. Coordination can increase the effectiveness of TF's beyond their experience level (a very coordinated TF should be better or equal, or slightly less to a higher experienced but uncoordinated TF).
The main reason that IJN night attacks 'failed' is because they lost the initiative and failed to break through. The worst Japanese night attacks were done with the Hiei and K (****, I forgot the 2nd BB name!!!), where the IJN had poor coordination. However, other actions were fairly successful with very few casualties incomparison to their opponents. It was not until radar was accepted and fully understood by the USN when they became potent nightfighters. However, without radar I believe that the IJN do have an advantage over the allies, but NOT something that should result in no losses for the IJN and habitual massacres of the USN.
The IJN was not the God of night fighting, but they also were not quite as incompetent as you state.
Night coordination, not necessarily individual ship experience, will be different then day coordination. However, this works for both sides (attacker and defender). Defending vessels are never just sitting there, but usually on patrol. The USN, on defense, has been just as uncoordinated (sinking some of their own vessels) as the Japanese attack. Radar was the principal method of the US becoming powerful at night attacks. But since the US were defeated in just about every Japanese night attack before the effective use of Radar, then there has to be some reason for it. While the IJN was not exactly perfect during night combat, they were better then the pre-radar USN, as on the attack they were able to better inflict casualties then their opponent.
Coordination does not necessarily require battle experience. Coordination basically gets the group to know how to work together as a force, sort of like a Football team preparing a set of plays before the game. Knowing what to do in certain situations with only the simplest of commands is what makes a coordinated TF good. This does not require battle experience. Battle experience will teach the TF what tactics work, and which don't, but it won't make them drastically better (but it will still teach them).
A TF that fought together for 1 month will not have greater coordination then one that worked up for 6 months. TF's with greater experience will fight better, but their coordination will not necesarily be better. Indeed, a TF that worked up for months will fight better then one that was just put together. This might be the reason why the IJN was so powerful during the first few months of war, because even in the South Pacific, most USN TF's (even without RAN) had not worked together as such a force (most pre-war USN Crusier squadrons were eliminated and formed new groups). The IJN kept their pre-war TF's working together throughout the first part of the war, which increase their efficiency.
So in a way I agree with bits and peices from all of the above.
#1. ALL night combat (attacker or defender) will have reduced coordination.
#2. Working up and combat coordination are basically the same.
#3. Coordination can increase the effectiveness of TF's beyond their experience level (a very coordinated TF should be better or equal, or slightly less to a higher experienced but uncoordinated TF).
I am strongly against this sort of ‘task force experience’ rating. What happens if you add just 1 DD to a task force? Technically, it’s a whole new task force so its experience should drop to zero again. What happens if I disband a task force and create a new one with mostly the same ships? Again, experience would drop to zero. I think having ship experience and individual captains is enough. I don’t think we need this. It would discourage players from moving ships around as needed.
Yamamoto
Yamamoto
Actually, [1] the Japanese had some good night training, mainly in spotting and [2] knowing what to do in the first few moments of battle.
Err, in my post I was referring to *land unit combat* because I was responding to the following:
And while we are at it, there should be an allowance for the Japanese troops to conduct night operations/assaults.
The ship stuff is entirely a different kettle of fish. I agree with your [1] above but not with [2]. But I'm feeling rather talked out right now about the importance of standing orders, readiness, command structure and so forth, with respect to surface naval actions.
Yamomoto says:
I am strongly against this sort of ‘task force experience’ rating. What happens if you add just 1 DD to a task force? Technically, it’s a whole new task force so its experience should drop to zero again. What happens if I disband a task force and create a new one with mostly the same ships? Again, experience would drop to zero. I think having ship experience and individual captains is enough. I don’t think we need this. It would discourage players from moving ships around as needed.
Group exp does not *have* to be modeled that way. One could have a group, say a USN Desron ##, with an EXP of X and four ships. USS Whatever hits a mine and is detached for repairs. Your choice is that Desron ## operates with the same EXP and 3 ships or takes a temporary EXP hit when USS Strangelove, another DD is attached to Desron ##. The transfer need not reduce TF## group exp rating to zero. It could be any number of effects. A fixed amount -- say 25% of current EXP, or some random fraction of 25% of EXP (so that in some exceptional circumstances the penalty incurred would be delightfully minor).
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Didn't we have this conversation already?
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Jeremy Pritchard
- Posts: 575
- Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2001 8:00 am
- Location: Ontario Canada
It is not necessarily a TF experience, persay, but the realistic realization that ships were not individual entities, but rather operated in groups.
If you look at the IJN and mid-late war USN you will see that mainly the same ships operated together. Since destroyers will be represented as single vessels, it is especially important for them. They tended to operate as a single group, and for the IJN, had an attached CL for a destroyer leader. Should you add/remove a ship, the experience would not drop to zero like you say, it would drop, but not to zero. Like for a football team (using my old analogy) adding a new player will not wreck the coordination of the entire team, but it will not be as good had they used the same players.
Ships increased or lost effectiveness due to coordination or lack there of. Having no representation for this is just like having no experience for ships, you lose out on some important aspect. This might be getting too complicated, but leaving this out will further detract from an important historical aspect. It is details like this that I think are more important in adding to the game instead of non-requirements like R&D and Production.
If it should discourage players, then all the best. You simply could not ask for a new TF to perform as well as one that has had months of working as a group. This will encourage poorly thought TF's fighting better, or just as good, than those who prepare for battle. It would give someone a chance to use ships with poor experience to good effect, as training for coordination should be a lot faster then training for experience.
If you look at the IJN and mid-late war USN you will see that mainly the same ships operated together. Since destroyers will be represented as single vessels, it is especially important for them. They tended to operate as a single group, and for the IJN, had an attached CL for a destroyer leader. Should you add/remove a ship, the experience would not drop to zero like you say, it would drop, but not to zero. Like for a football team (using my old analogy) adding a new player will not wreck the coordination of the entire team, but it will not be as good had they used the same players.
Ships increased or lost effectiveness due to coordination or lack there of. Having no representation for this is just like having no experience for ships, you lose out on some important aspect. This might be getting too complicated, but leaving this out will further detract from an important historical aspect. It is details like this that I think are more important in adding to the game instead of non-requirements like R&D and Production.
If it should discourage players, then all the best. You simply could not ask for a new TF to perform as well as one that has had months of working as a group. This will encourage poorly thought TF's fighting better, or just as good, than those who prepare for battle. It would give someone a chance to use ships with poor experience to good effect, as training for coordination should be a lot faster then training for experience.
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Jeremy Pritchard
- Posts: 575
- Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2001 8:00 am
- Location: Ontario Canada
OH, ok. I didn't really see that, nor would I really agree that the Japanese were good at night land attacks.Originally posted by mdiehl
Err, in my post I was referring to *land unit combat* because I was responding to the following:
The ship stuff is entirely a different kettle of fish. I agree with your [1] above but not with [2]. But I'm feeling rather talked out right now about the importance of standing orders, readiness, command structure and so forth, with respect to surface naval actions.
The effectiveness of IJN torpedos is in doubt, but since they had so many of them, the chance of the Japanese hitting with a torpedo is greater then the US hitting with one. They did tend to fire torpedos instead of deck guns for the first strike (can site a few Soloman Island battles) but they did suffer substantial losses during night combat. The US could really screw up night combat, but so could the Japanese, plus both did have good moments, possibly relying on a lot of chance.
At Tarasgaforma (or whatever the real name of the battle is!) the Japanese were detected by USN radar before the USN were spotted, but the poor USN command held fire until well after the IJN managed to spot the USN fleet (as well as having the radar ship at the rear of the fleet) before the US opened fire (causing the loss of 1 IJN DD vs. 1 USN CA sunk and a bunch heavily damaged). However this too was chance, and that the Japanese had a good commander who effectively reacted to the suprise USN TF.
Well, the torp-doctrine thing has me talked out and would essentially replay the stuff I went through in the UV long-lance thread.
I hope though that I've not given any impression of adverse sentiments about IJN torps. I'd say that IJN torps were the most effective as far as torps go. I imagine by now I've talked their hit rates to death as well. Roughly 12% in night actions where other circumstances combined to work in their favor, and in some cases a bit higher. The beauty of the Type 93 is that it's 12% hit rate range extends out to roughly 8000 yards, whereas the Allied torp 12% hit rate is probably 1/2 to 1/3rd that range .. at least until SG radar became commonplace on DDs. Probably with some algebra one could go over the record books and find out what sort of "time to target" window gave very good results. [Note to data hawks: yeah, both the Type 93 and the Mark XV had longer ranges at different speed settings. In practice, though, all of them were pretty abysmal at ranges in excess of 10K yards.]
The G'canal battles are quite interesting. Again, I'm talked out though. IMO there's much more to the initial conditions in these battles and the command decisions that were made that decided the outcome of the battles, rather than night-training, EXP, doctrine or anything else. Like you said, both navies had their good nights and their bad nights. To me it seems like the bad nights always came about because of something at the command level.
I hope though that I've not given any impression of adverse sentiments about IJN torps. I'd say that IJN torps were the most effective as far as torps go. I imagine by now I've talked their hit rates to death as well. Roughly 12% in night actions where other circumstances combined to work in their favor, and in some cases a bit higher. The beauty of the Type 93 is that it's 12% hit rate range extends out to roughly 8000 yards, whereas the Allied torp 12% hit rate is probably 1/2 to 1/3rd that range .. at least until SG radar became commonplace on DDs. Probably with some algebra one could go over the record books and find out what sort of "time to target" window gave very good results. [Note to data hawks: yeah, both the Type 93 and the Mark XV had longer ranges at different speed settings. In practice, though, all of them were pretty abysmal at ranges in excess of 10K yards.]
The G'canal battles are quite interesting. Again, I'm talked out though. IMO there's much more to the initial conditions in these battles and the command decisions that were made that decided the outcome of the battles, rather than night-training, EXP, doctrine or anything else. Like you said, both navies had their good nights and their bad nights. To me it seems like the bad nights always came about because of something at the command level.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Yamamoto hits the problem squarely on the head. By the time you calculate all of the various permutations, you would come out with a system that would be very similar to the existing individual ship experience method. I understand what is being requested and why, but it would be too difficult to program for the minimal effect on the game.Originally posted by Yamamoto
I am strongly against this sort of ‘task force experience’ rating. What happens if you add just 1 DD to a task force? Technically, it’s a whole new task force so its experience should drop to zero again. What happens if I disband a task force and create a new one with mostly the same ships? Again, experience would drop to zero. I think having ship experience and individual captains is enough. I don’t think we need this. It would discourage players from moving ships around as needed.
Yamamoto
For another thing, this will most likely require too much reprogramming for too little gain. Gary has already been nice enough to program in experience on an individual ship and pilot basis. He's not going to conduct a major rewrite of the software to provide for group experience. This would require some kind of memory wherein each ship would "remember" how long it operated in the same TF with every other ship in the fleet for the past six months. It might also require memory of which ships it served with in the same TF and in the same capacity. So if the Sims and the Aaron Ward work in the same TF as ASW, they get points, but if they acting as transports they get group transport experience and not ASW experience. By the time you figure out all of the possible permutations - forget it.
I think Jeremy's idea about reducing the effectiveness of multinational task forces would be easier to implement. While I haven't checked the editor, each ship is probably already identified by nationality. In each combat, the computer would check the nationality of each ship in the TF; if there are multiple nationalities, there is, say, a temporary 10% reduction in experience or whatever other effect you wanted.
As for mdiehl, I say six months (or three months) equals one month of combat experience. This makes more sense that saying training equals combat experience. If that were true, then the phenomenon that most fighter pilots shot down are newbies wouldn't hold true (or most grunts killed were in their first several patrols in 'Nam). Heck, just give the guy ten extra hops in his bird over Pensacola and suddenly he's no more likely to be lost than the veterans. The learning curve is steep in combat unless you have received much more intense and realistic training that is reserved, usually, for elite forces. Certainly the shake-and-bake forces mass produced during WWII wouldn't have received this quality of training. There should be a higher experience gain in combat than rear-area training unless *you* prove otherwise.
IJA night attack
Read with inetrest comments on night fighting ability of the Japanese Army. Please look at that campaign, almost nightly they attacked there, and almost nightly they broke through and won. True, later on in the war they werent so good, but in particular 18th and 5th division were very good.
In this game , if the advantage doesnt reflect the ones japan had in the early days, you could find this game being not war in the pacific but war in the Phillipines and malaya:(
Anyway , cant wait to see how it pans out next year, planning and conducting the first 6 months of operations is going to be very interesting
Ps Beer is good::D
In this game , if the advantage doesnt reflect the ones japan had in the early days, you could find this game being not war in the pacific but war in the Phillipines and malaya:(
Anyway , cant wait to see how it pans out next year, planning and conducting the first 6 months of operations is going to be very interesting
Ps Beer is good::D
Big seas, Fast ships, life tastes better with salt
Posted by Raverdave
I'll just have to wait for the great Matrix Hero to turn up and clarify it.
Posted by Mdiehl
I'm not sure that Dave means the IJN should be superior at night. It might just mean that they tended to do it against allied troops (as mdiehl said - to give themselves a chance against allied firepower) and therefore should be in the game.And while we are at it, there should be an allowance for the Japanese troops to conduct night operations/assaults.
I'll just have to wait for the great Matrix Hero to turn up and clarify it.
Posted by Mdiehl
I suppose long hours spent bashing the heads of ignorant fools against the wall of reason must take some toll.But I'm feeling rather talked out right now about the importance of standing orders, readiness, command structure and so forth, with respect to surface naval actions.
Have no fear,
drink more beer.
drink more beer.
Ok just to set things strait. The Japanese army/ground unitsshould be able to launch attacks at night, and these should carry a bonus of some sort for say the first 6 months of the war to refelect a) how effective these types of attacks were, and b) how poorly trained the allied troops were at night fighting.
It was believed by some allied troops that the Japanese ability to "see" in the dark was a "race" ability that had something to do with the er...excuse the term...slanty eyes. But the truth of the matter is that the Japanese troops were just better trained. This is effectivly seen in the Malay campaign when the Japanese army conducted night attacks against the allied troops. Interestingly the same night attacks were not as effective in GC, against the Marines, indeed it could be said that the night attacks on Guadalcanal weaked the Japanese units to the point where they were unable to effectivly carry out further offensive operations.
The Australian army carried out extensive studies to try to determine how the Japanese solider was able to operate so well at night. It was found that the answer was a simple one, and that the Japanaese were no better at "seeing" in the dark than anyone else was. The human eye is made up of cones and rods (IIRC) cones are the part of the eye that "sees" colour, and rods see black and white. The cones are found at the back of the eye, while the rods are all around the edge. IIRC, and it was
some years ago that I learnt all this, there are more rods than there are cones. The rods also work better in low light, while conversly the cones work better in strong light.
Now to prove this, spend at least 20 minutes one night well away from any light (best tried out in the bush). Then once your eyes have been accustomed to the dark ( and it WILL take about 20 minutes) start looking at objects, not directly but at 15 degrees off center. You will find that on and moonless night you will be able to see the object better by not looking directly at it but "out of the corner of your eyes" so to speak. This is because the rods in your eyes are arranged around the edge of your eyeball not directly at the back.
And this is what the Australian army started to teach it's troops in '43. If fact they still teach it today. Once you train yourself in how to "look" in the dark, it is amazing how much you can indeed see.
So back to the point..........the Japanese Army used night fighting assaults as part and parcel of it's offensive and defensive tactics. Allied troops were NOT trained to fight at night until at least mid to late '43. There are lots of examples of both the effective use and ineffective use of this tactic, but generally it was successful in the early part of the war, and as such should be modelled.
It was believed by some allied troops that the Japanese ability to "see" in the dark was a "race" ability that had something to do with the er...excuse the term...slanty eyes. But the truth of the matter is that the Japanese troops were just better trained. This is effectivly seen in the Malay campaign when the Japanese army conducted night attacks against the allied troops. Interestingly the same night attacks were not as effective in GC, against the Marines, indeed it could be said that the night attacks on Guadalcanal weaked the Japanese units to the point where they were unable to effectivly carry out further offensive operations.
The Australian army carried out extensive studies to try to determine how the Japanese solider was able to operate so well at night. It was found that the answer was a simple one, and that the Japanaese were no better at "seeing" in the dark than anyone else was. The human eye is made up of cones and rods (IIRC) cones are the part of the eye that "sees" colour, and rods see black and white. The cones are found at the back of the eye, while the rods are all around the edge. IIRC, and it was
some years ago that I learnt all this, there are more rods than there are cones. The rods also work better in low light, while conversly the cones work better in strong light.
Now to prove this, spend at least 20 minutes one night well away from any light (best tried out in the bush). Then once your eyes have been accustomed to the dark ( and it WILL take about 20 minutes) start looking at objects, not directly but at 15 degrees off center. You will find that on and moonless night you will be able to see the object better by not looking directly at it but "out of the corner of your eyes" so to speak. This is because the rods in your eyes are arranged around the edge of your eyeball not directly at the back.
And this is what the Australian army started to teach it's troops in '43. If fact they still teach it today. Once you train yourself in how to "look" in the dark, it is amazing how much you can indeed see.
So back to the point..........the Japanese Army used night fighting assaults as part and parcel of it's offensive and defensive tactics. Allied troops were NOT trained to fight at night until at least mid to late '43. There are lots of examples of both the effective use and ineffective use of this tactic, but generally it was successful in the early part of the war, and as such should be modelled.
Never argue with an idiot, he will only drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
Originally posted by Yamamoto
I am strongly against this sort of ‘task force experience’ rating. What happens if you add just 1 DD to a task force? Technically, it’s a whole new task force so its experience should drop to zero again. What happens if I disband a task force and create a new one with mostly the same ships? Again, experience would drop to zero. I think having ship experience and individual captains is enough. I don’t think we need this. It would discourage players from moving ships around as needed.
Yamamoto
Thats the point, Yamamoto, a player *should* be discouraged to arbitarirly move ships around as he pleased. There is a realworld consequence of doing so as the historical record would attest. A player wont be prohibited to shuffle his ships as he pleases but he would have to weigh flexibilty against efficiency. This is entirely historic. Besides I think most of us are advocating thata TF adding ships would take a hit not go back to zero. The more ships you add and subtrac the more hits you would take.
I Agree disbanding a TF and reforming it with the same ships might be probmatic. Perhaps the program could have some sort of built in memory of ships previously working together.
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Jeremy Pritchard
- Posts: 575
- Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2001 8:00 am
- Location: Ontario Canada
This type of memory and detailed micro-bits will improve the game, much better so then adding flashy unecessary bits. Something else along this memory that I would like to see is different penalties to reflect reality as well. For example, air combat experience loss when changing aircraft types. Plane types that are similar (i.e., P-38G and P-38J) should not have the same experience loss as changing the air group to have a completely different type (i.e., P-39 to P-38G).Originally posted by TIMJOT
Thats the point, Yamamoto, a player *should* be discouraged to arbitarirly move ships around as he pleased. There is a realworld consequence of doing so as the historical record would attest. A player wont be prohibited to shuffle his ships as he pleases but he would have to weigh flexibilty against efficiency. This is entirely historic. Besides I think most of us are advocating thata TF adding ships would take a hit not go back to zero. The more ships you add and subtrac the more hits you would take.
I Agree disbanding a TF and reforming it with the same ships might be probmatic. Perhaps the program could have some sort of built in memory of ships previously working together.
Maybe instead of figuring out a TF experience, there should just be a TF penalty? When you form a new TF, you might get certain negative and positive group factors.
(+/-) National Differences/Similarities
(-) Language Differences
(+/-) Theatre of Operation Differences (i.e., a ship that spent a lot of its time in the North Pacific will have a lower chance in working with a ship that operated in the South Pacific)
(+) Served in the same TF at a previous engagement
(+) Have been in the current TF for X amount of time
(+) A part of a pre-war unit
(+/-) TF Commander organization factor (possibly a new experience level to be included for all TF commanders)
I dont think it would be too hard for a program to be included to determine wether or not a certain ship has been in the same TF as another friendly vessel.
These positive and negative factors will be added up and averaged to determine the TF experience factor (could be negative or positive, but a base level of 0). Should you want a higher TF experience factor, there should be an option to 'work up a task force' so it would perform certain non-combat operations to bring up the TF experience factor.
Sp, a TF with high experience, but a -2 TF experience level will have a tougher time against a medium experienced level 1 TF experienced TF.
This was one of the main things that the Japanese had for them for the first few months of the war. They tended to use pre-war formations, which would have their high experience combined with high TF experience. When up against Allied vessels (many of which would have high experience, notably the RAN and RN) the hodgepodge Allied TF's that never worked together suffered. However, when you look purely at experience level they are not that different (the only navy with actual war experience was the RN and RAN, the USN and IJN should have similar daytime experience).
However it is done, however simple they can make it (simpler the better), I feel that it would be an important aspect to add, especially when you add the British and the Dutch into the equation. Otherwize, you will end up with mixed nationality TF's either being too powerful, or too underrepresented in ship experience to compensate.
The Japanese army/ground unitsshould be able to launch attacks at night, and these should carry a bonus of some sort for say the first 6 months of the war to refelect a) how effective these types of attacks were, and b) how poorly trained the allied troops were at night fighting.
Raver -- The vastly overwhelming majority of Malay actions were daylight actions. Most of the night actions, night landings in and night river crossings in particular, were *largely* unopposed. If you look closely at the Malay night actions that did occur, I'm sure you will find a litany of interesting open flanks, undefended fords, crying needs for machine guns, and so forth. If you throw enough troops at a weakly defended objective at night, you will succeed despite the inevitable ill-timing, lost units, friendly fire casualties and so forth.
Night movement was during WW2 just horrid on unit cohesion, and on CAC, which is the reason why the US/UK nations and Japan (prior to the G'canal campaign) did not *routinely* use it. It was only really suitable for squad-sized units (infiltration, saboteurs and so forth, as with USN Seals and the interesting RN canoe-raiders in Singapore harbor). IJN troops were not better at night combat than anyone else, and when they tried it in the PI after their initial landings they got wupped. The attempts to infiltrate Corregidor -- disasters. At the 'Canal -- disasters. At New Georgia -- disaseters. At Buna -- disasters. At Saipan, Iwo, Guam -- same.
Even now, most modern armies are not particularly night combat capable. The mainstream 1st world armies (UK, US, and to a limited extent Russia) have worked at this, and are aided by GPS, personal radios, IR instrumentation, UV optics, laser targeting and so forth. Yet it still can easily become FUBAR in a fast and horrid way, according to some pals of mine from Ft. Knox. There was this storey of some Bradleys driving off a bluff in NM or TX. For the most part, good night observtaion tools still give the advantage to the defender in night combat -- at least until artillery or something forces him to move from his position.
Byron13 says:
There should be a higher experience gain in combat than rear-area training unless *you* prove otherwise
I agree as to the relative difference. I sort of considered the GGPW "experience gain through training" to reflect *advanced training* (beyond basic and weapons specialization) that included some sort-of-realistic combat exercises. So if you said "2 months training = 1 month combat experience" I'd be much more comfortable, in the area of land combat.
With ships and a/c I'd say the rate would be closer to 1:1. Fly a couple of advanced tactical training dogfights that conclude with gun camera footage of your plane in another's sights at close range, and the instructor says "You just died," and a pilot trainee will rapidly change his behavior or get sent to bomber pilot school.
Show me a fellow who rejects statistical analysis a priori and I'll show you a fellow who has no knowledge of statistics.
Didn't we have this conversation already?
Didn't we have this conversation already?
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Toro
- Posts: 577
- Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2002 6:33 pm
- Location: 16 miles southeast of Hell (Michigan, i.e.), US
From my experience, a task force can, after a few weeks (three or four) begin to work much better together, anticipate movements, and generally function as a combined unit. I don't think the problem exists between US-UK-Aussie units (I've worked with them, too), but the "experience factor" becomes more problematic with language barriers (ala someone's mention of ABDA).
My personal view (again, taken from surface experience) is that the longer a TF is together (and by TF, I mean a group of ships that are "deployed" together), the more successful they'll work together. Once that TF is broken up (ie, not meaning putting into port for light maintenance, but actually breaking that TF up), that experience level is lost. It doesn't matter if two or more of the ships work together sometime in the future, as "lessons learned" in this way are very short-lived. Let me try to explain: when my ship deployed with such-such CV, after a few weeks we knew how she moved, where, and what we needed to do to accomodate that and still provide AAW coverage. But, that training is very specific to that ship and for that time period. On the next deployment, with another CV, we had to relearn all we had learned previously, as we're working with a new TF. But, when we went back to the original CV sometime in the later future, we had to relearn those lessons/co-ops again, as if we hadn't worked together previously. This makes sense, as there are new COs, new crews, even new threats, weapons, etc. But note: all experience is almost always focused around the main element of the TF, not just any ship. The escorts learn how to protect the CVs, or the BBs, or the APs, etc. That's why TFs are formed, after all, to learn how to be a CV _TF_ or a convoy _TF_, etc.
My suggestion: TFs should have a "main element/body" unit(s). As long as a TF remains together (meaning, as long as that main element is not sunk or put-in for major repairs), there should be an experience bonus for all ships. If a new ship comes in (a DD or CA has to be replaced), then experience drops by a certain percentage, but then rises again. BUT, if the main element is sent to drydock (in UV terms, that would mean Jap or PH, even BB/Nou/Truk for extended periods) or sunk, then experience is gone. The next CV will do things differently, after all, despite who the TF commander may be.
Just my thoughts.
My personal view (again, taken from surface experience) is that the longer a TF is together (and by TF, I mean a group of ships that are "deployed" together), the more successful they'll work together. Once that TF is broken up (ie, not meaning putting into port for light maintenance, but actually breaking that TF up), that experience level is lost. It doesn't matter if two or more of the ships work together sometime in the future, as "lessons learned" in this way are very short-lived. Let me try to explain: when my ship deployed with such-such CV, after a few weeks we knew how she moved, where, and what we needed to do to accomodate that and still provide AAW coverage. But, that training is very specific to that ship and for that time period. On the next deployment, with another CV, we had to relearn all we had learned previously, as we're working with a new TF. But, when we went back to the original CV sometime in the later future, we had to relearn those lessons/co-ops again, as if we hadn't worked together previously. This makes sense, as there are new COs, new crews, even new threats, weapons, etc. But note: all experience is almost always focused around the main element of the TF, not just any ship. The escorts learn how to protect the CVs, or the BBs, or the APs, etc. That's why TFs are formed, after all, to learn how to be a CV _TF_ or a convoy _TF_, etc.
My suggestion: TFs should have a "main element/body" unit(s). As long as a TF remains together (meaning, as long as that main element is not sunk or put-in for major repairs), there should be an experience bonus for all ships. If a new ship comes in (a DD or CA has to be replaced), then experience drops by a certain percentage, but then rises again. BUT, if the main element is sent to drydock (in UV terms, that would mean Jap or PH, even BB/Nou/Truk for extended periods) or sunk, then experience is gone. The next CV will do things differently, after all, despite who the TF commander may be.
Just my thoughts.