The Long Lance and Night Surface Action

[vonTirpitz]

At the start of the war I would have expected a slightly higher "hit" rate with nighttime IJN gunnery with spotlight illumination than I am seeing. A recent engagement between two fairly evenly matched TFs resulted in only one or two hits on either side. It was a fairly long engagement with both sides firing many shells and torpedoes (no torp hits). Visibility was reduced with moonlight at only 10%. I think we closed to only 7000 at the closest. What is the maximum range that the Japanese surface spotlights would come into play?

I am curious if others have seen a unexpectedly low hit rate with the Type 93 Long Lance? My observations are subjective at the moment but I am not getting that "feeling" of IJN superiority (particularly during nighttime surface combat) early in the war.

Anybody else have any thoughts on this? (Bear in mind I am not saying anything is broken, just curious as to what others are thinking). I did see a thread awhile back discussing the Type 93 and similar observations. I don't know if much as changed since then or not.

Thanks for the feedback.

T

[PaxMondo]

I'm seeing pretty much what I expect: highly variable outcomes.  You outcome is extremely plausible (friction of war) as a one time result.  If you have 20 battles ending the same, that would be different.
 
I've had engagements where the IJN clobbered the USN and vice versa.  In the early war, MAYBE the IJN has a slight edge ... but truthfully, I don't want to get into any surface action unless I have a clear +50% advantage and that matches up with historical.  So, I'm pretty good.

[vonTirpitz]

Do you happen to know if the gunnery improves at closer ranges? I am curious if a more aggressive TF commander would try to close or if it would even make much difference.

[ckk]

last night I had 1 IJN DD Shimakaze? by itself take non 2 SCTF's and sink a CA, 2CLs and a DD in exchange for a few shell hits Its 2/42 but[X(] Talk about IJN gunnery at night[8|] I had to make the Austrailian Navy stay in port and hide!

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: vonTirpitz

Do you happen to know if the gunnery improves at closer ranges? I am curious if a more aggressive TF commander would try to close or if it would even make much difference.

I do not know, but there are so many variables in the combat that its not that easy. Surprise, luck, first hit, luck, relative location, luck, accurate ranging, luck, local visibility, luck, .... Oh, and being lucky with the first couple of salvos helps a lot. [;)] Particularly at night. All this pretty much matches up to the records of the time....


So, what I have seen is that if you get in the first hit or two, then yes it seems as if closing does improve accuracy, particularly on ships that are on fire, but also other ships as well (neighboring illuminated by the buring ship?). OTOH, if you are closing once you get hit, you tend to get creamed pretty quick. I tend to be pretty picky about where I place aggressive leaders and JAP has a lot of them.

Aggression seems to have a big impact upon the affect of the reaction of TF's. In terms of isolated effect, that appears to be the biggest to me. Everything else is too convoluted.

[xj900uk]

BTW don't have your TF even attempt to 'cross the 'T''... For Long Lances to be affective, you need to get the Allies broadside on & fire before they even get a chance to react/turn

[vonTirpitz]

ORIGINAL: xj900uk

BTW don't have your TF even attempt to 'cross the 'T''... For Long Lances to be affective, you need to get the Allies broadside on & fire before they even get a chance to react/turn

Isn't 'crossing the T' is just a random chance or do other factors contribute? I agree with Pax, it seems that there are so many possible variables it gets hard to gauge what effect leadership and crew experience plays in combat. I started another thread asking about weather effects but I do not know if that plays into ship to ship fights (I think it should). Surface engagements in high seas were all but impossible historically.

Thanks for the input folks.

[findmeifyoucan]

Yes, that is what I have found in this game that Surface Engagements are much more likely. Much more fun as a game but historically there were very few naval surface engagements. Unless we as players are doing things that the historical chief commanders did not to make it much more likely to have a surface engagement like allocating much more air craft to air searches to spot these nasty pesky enemy surface fleets?