Small TF and ship bombard reults

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

One thing that makes big difference in results is Recon & Detection Level. You can for example set your cruiser float planes to recon the target base and you see results getting lot better.

+1. Huge difference.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Well i don't know what you do was expecting when you put BB's in invasion forces like that and task forces with that composition.And not even a minesweeper in the force. BB's shouldn't be put in a place where they loose the range advantage. Of course land guns have all advantage they are covered many can only be destroyed by direct hit, they don't move around so their accuracy is better and they are a tiny target compared to a ship. If defenses are strong you do have to suppress them with BB bombardments and air attacks. Only after that you can go in. You make a carrier Tf and a BB/CA/CL Tf to bombard, your invasion forces should be PG's, MW and DD's the more guns the better covering directly transports . The results you got are to be expected.

First, the AI mine warfare code isn't anything to worry about. I don't sweep against the AI, and it hasn't mattered. For years.

Second, if you'd read what I posted, you'd know that I DID supress Saipan--for many days, with EIGHT modern CV airwings. After I knocked the LBA away I even had some of the Hellcats and Corsairs at 100 feet, strafing. Day after day.

Third, perhaps putting capital ships into landing forces isn't a good idea, but those 150 hits West Virginia absorbed would then instead have taken out 10-15 MORE landing ships holding my precious 2nd Mar Div. What I expect, as I lose my BBs (West Virginia and Maryland, with New Mexico taking 85 hits and living, barely), close in (11,000--17,000 yards), is that they will blow the everlasting hell out of shore guns they can SEE with the naked eye. As I said, I've BEEN to Saipan. I KNOW what the terrain looks like. I know where the CD guns were--I've stood there. I've been in the command bunker of General Saito, up top of the mountain he shortly thereafter exited in a downward vertical. It has a huge, gaping hole blown in its reinforced concrete wall, by, you guessed it, a direct hit from a battleship gun. (I have a photo, but it's unscanned. Also one from Diego Garcia's CD installation.) This idea that CD installations are, in some James Bondish manner, hidden deep inside volcanic mountains, unreachable by mortal man, is absurd. CD guns shoot, and soon, they die. Especially with spotters already ashore.

Fourth, my point, again, is not to say the game is "broken" or anything like that. It's what it is, and this portion hasn't changed much from WITP. I accept there will be losses in amphib ops, but 70 ships to take Saipan and Wake is unreasonable. It's unreasonable that CD installations, visible from sea, would still be firing, daily, two weeks after the Marines go ashore. The engine doesn't allow targtting them, specifically, but sort of munges them into Port attacks and some into LCU attacks, but you can't specify targets. The code disperses attacks between the 153rd Box Loading Battalion and the 30 14" monsters sinking battleships. If even one BB had been sunk at Saipan, the ground commander woudl have recieved orders to silence those guns at any cost. And he would have, supported, again, by EIGHT freakin' CV airwings with nothing else to do after the LBA was underwater.

So, I'm not whining. I'm observing, in case anyone else is contemplating a Marianas campaign. And, for me, next game, I'll crank up to one of the "harder" AI scenarios, so the KB will have the escorts it needs to remain a factor in the game, and I'll also go into the editor and reduce the number of CD tubes at some of the island fortresses so I don't get results like this from code that can't handle this area of the war very well. Some day, in a WITP2, we might get separate land models for islands and contintinental battles. For now, the editor is there. To each his own with it.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Nomad

Bullwinkle, what target(s) did you concentrate on with your air strikes? Ground, airfield, or port? I am trying to find answers before I have a TF get blasted. [8D]

Heavy CAP first, to attrit the LBA. They came in their hundreds, and died. Then the airfields, a bit, including Guam and Tinian, but mostly Port attacks on Saipan. The resutls mostly showed supply losses and 1-2 point port stat reductions per day. No CD gun losses though. At most maybe 1 gun per attack disabled, not destroyed. I started Ground attacks--probably 50-50 with continuing Port attacks to continue to eat at the AIs supplies--after my first wave was ashore. I did some strafing with fighters, but mostly used both DBs and TBs at 15,000 feet in Ground attack roles.

Saipan in harder because of location. There's no real good LBA source for it. The carriers have to carry the load. Once you have Saipan, you can quickly build the airfield to 7, and bring in lots of LBA to help with the other islands and set up LBA CAP. But Saipan has to be "self-funding."

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

One thing that makes big difference in results is Recon & Detection Level. You can for example set your cruiser float planes to recon the target base and you see results getting lot better.

+1. Huge difference.

I did not do that. I relied on LBA recon from Eniwetok. I will do what you suggest next time.

[Dili]

Second, if you'd read what I posted, you'd know that I DID supress Saipan--for many days, with EIGHT modern CV airwings. After I knocked the LBA away I even had some of the Hellcats and Corsairs at 100 feet, strafing. Day after day.

You are right i missed the "massive airpower effort".

CD guns shoot, and soon, they die

That is not true, even less for those in reverse slope. Read reports of bombardments. The most common word about naval bombardment is disappointment.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Dili

CD guns shoot, and soon, they die

That is not true, even less for those in reverse slope. Read reports of bombardments. The most common word about naval bombardment is disappointment.

Saipan doesn't have "reverse slope." You can sail 360 degrees around the island in a few hours. It has really no mountains except where the General's bunker was. It's mostly farmland. In the RL invasion, there was extensicve mosaic aerial recon done. The positions of the CD emplacemnts were well-known and pre-briefed.

Put it this way--was there any way the USN could lose even ten prime landing ships, let alone my 50 or so, at Saipan? No. Nor battleships, even if they'd sailed up to the reef line.

That said, there were successful bombardments in the PTO. The bombardments in the game, as has been observed many times, are NOT the type that the USN engaged in pre-invsion. They are in&out, night time affairs with no spotters. Pre-invasion, the USN camped and pounded, and yes, significantly suppressed CD fire from all but the most dug-in big guns. And, once troops were ashore the CD effort stopped pretty quickly, with, again, Iwo Jima being an exception. On Saipan, there's no good place to hide. CAS with white phosphorus and napalm make even dug-in positions pretty unhealthy, and organic LCU artillery the same. In my invasion the CDs fired daily until the hex fell. That's the engine; I understand. The problem is when you use an historic OOB and combine it with code that doesn't allow an historic response to CD fire.

So, I'll just take the number of tubes down in the editor. There will still be CD, and losses, and randoms of course, but it won't be enough to make the forward momentum of the Allies on 1944 come to a rude, code-driven halt.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Dili

That is not true, even less for those in reverse slope. Read reports of bombardments. The most common word about naval bombardment is disappointment.

Did a quick Google and found this

http://www.history.navy.mil/ac/amphib/88159ao.jpg

It's from the USN official site, and is a drawing of:

Enemy Gun Emplacement (Nafutan Point at Saipan)
Robert Benney #10
Watercolor, 1944
Gift of Abbott Laboratories

It looks like at least a 5-in emplacement. Do you think CAS couldn't take it out?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Dili

That is not true, even less for those in reverse slope. Read reports of bombardments. The most common word about naval bombardment is disappointment.

Continuing to Google, found this fascinating oral history about D-Day at Saipan, by a Seabee who went in with the Marines as an ammo unloader in an LST.

http://www.battleofsaipan.com/seabee.htm

Well worth a read.

However, he has this to say about shore fire (and other things) that day (excerpts):

"On the top deck in the moonlight, the eye could pick out an occasional flash showing silhouettes of battleships firing salvo after salvo into the coastline ahead. For two days prior to the invasion, some 2,400 16-inch shells had 'softened-up' the enemy. These salvos gave an awesome sound. Something like a boxcar swishing around overhead. Possible mining of the area limited the firing line to six miles offshore, and because of this distance, spotters had difficulty in pinpointing dug-in gun pits.

At sunrise our massive fleet became visible extending as far as the eye could see. Someone said there were 600 ships. The record would show Admiral Spruance had amassed for his vengeance 14 battleships, 25 carriers and carrier escorts, 26 cruisers, 144 destroyers and countless transports, truly a fleet that meant business.

When the Japanese officers, including Admiral Nagumo, the villain of Pearl Harbor, looked through their binoculars,they must have firmly believed American ghosts of Pearl Harbor had returned to haunt them. And they had."

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

"Admiral Turner, rough tongued, astute and experienced in Marine assaults, was in charge, and he knew it. At 05:42 (Navy time) his orders came - 'Land the landing force.' Into position about 1,250 yards from the line of departure, 34 LSTs moved into line. Two huge doors on the bow of each ship opened, and dropped their ramps into the water.

Then, out of the front of these LSTs, one by one, the AMTRAKs loaded with toughened Marines clanked down the ramps and into the ocean. A massive total of 719 AMTRAKs separated into special circles at the line of departure. The American Manufacturer's Association would have been very proud of their fine products being displayed to the Japanese that day.

This line of departure was some 4,000 yards from the beach. Before the Marines moved onto the beach, 24 light gun boats made the first sweep of the beach firing 4.5 inch rockets and 40mm canon. They turned aside at the reef. For good measure, Turner had 7 fighters strafe and 12 bombers hit the area with 1,200 one-hundred pound bombs. All of this strafing and heavy shelling from naval gunfire did not silence the dug in enemy. But this action did destroy vital communication links with their commanders."

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

"The Japanese were not deeply concerned with Saipan's defenses. Big 8-inch guns were on box cars awaiting emplacement and many trench works, lacked concrete covers. A captured Japanese document told part of the story. "The current freight shortage which is caused by shipping losses has deprived the area of much needed material. One ship out of three is sunk and the second damaged by enemy action." Our submarines took their pound of flesh. For additional credit they sunk two large carriers in attacks on the Japanese fleet, which took on elements of Admiral Spruance's fleet. It was truly an all American effort."

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

"With, this assault came a strange irony. On the ends of the long assault line were stationed two old battleships, the California and the Tennessee. Fire power from these battleships was directed by the landing party on various trouble spots. On this assault, each ship fired 100 shells from their 14-inch guns. During the day before the invasion and on 'D' Day, they took some non-critical hits because they were so close to enemy guns. They did not mind. Admiral Nagumo's planes had destroyed these ships at Pearl Harbor. There, the California lost 98 and the Tennessee lost 5 sailors. On these ships, both the living and ghosts of the dead had come to even an old score with the admiral hiding in his bunker."

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

"In the distance, only Mt Tapochau stood out in this menagerie of war. High up on this mountain were bunkers for General Saito, Japanese Army Commander, and his naval counterpart, Admiral Nagumo. They held a ringside view of the fighting. But unknown to the American side, our big naval guns had cut communications with their units to pieces. So much so that the Japanese could not mount a large scale counterattack that day. They depended upon the powerful Japanese fleet with its air power to save the island."

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

"We received orders on the evening of 'D' Day from CDR Dallas, commander of 302 NCB, to launch the causeway floating piers from the LSTs. When the causeways were in the water, the Seabee crews took them through the narrow channel in the darkness to the Charan Kanoa beachhead. The pier was operational by daybreak, unloading supplies from landing craft.

Orders came the next day to launch all barges carried on 7 LSTs. These LSTs pulled off-shore. As the rigging was being released on one of the LSTs, quick as a snap shot, there were four water spouts off the bow. The enemy gunners missed. The LST moved. The launching continued."

[Alfred]

Bullwinkle58,

I generally agree with your posts which are well argued and based on in situ factual analysis, but I thought I should just remind you of a couple of issues for your next game in which I understand you plan to use the editor to make a few changes and play the AI at a higher difficulty level.

(1) At higher difficulty levels, the AI is never out of supply (IIRC this occurs at the highest difficulty level). Hence your idea of modifying the number of local gun tubes may not quite achieve your desired result because the level of available supply does play a substantial role in maintaining the weight of fire of CD guns. Reducing the number of tubes will reduce the weight of shot each round, but not necessarily their staying power if they still have supply. This is why maintaining a high DL in your pre invasion suppression operations is so important.

(2) With your avatar, I am certain you recall what always happened when Bullwinkle would tell Rocky, "Hey watch me pull a rabbit out of the hat".[:D] If the enemy remains in supply, I suspect Rocky's response "That trick never works" may still be apropos even after you adjust the number of tubes via the editor.

Anyway keep up the good fight against slipshod/superficial analysis.

Alfred

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

Bullwinkle58,

I generally agree with your posts which are well argued and based on in situ factual analysis, but I thought I should just remind you of a couple of issues for your next game in which I understand you plan to use the editor to make a few changes and play the AI at a higher difficulty level.

(1) At higher difficulty levels, the AI is never out of supply (IIRC this occurs at the highest difficulty level). Hence your idea of modifying the number of local gun tubes may not quite achieve your desired result because the level of available supply does play a substantial role in maintaining the weight of fire of CD guns. Reducing the number of tubes will reduce the weight of shot each round, but not necessarily their staying power if they still have supply. This is why maintaining a high DL in your pre invasion suppression operations is so important.

(2) With your avatar, I am certain you recall what always happened when Bullwinkle would tell Rocky, "Hey watch me pull a rabbit out of the hat".[:D] If the enemy remains in supply, I suspect Rocky's response "That trick never works" may still be apropos even after you adjust the number of tubes via the editor.

Anyway keep up the good fight against slipshod/superficial analysis.

Alfred

Thanks, Alfred. Bullwinkle also said, in response to "Are they friendly spirits?", "Friendly? Just listen!" [:)]

I should be more precise in my terms. I meant I would play Scenario 2 or the Ironman, so the AI has more escorts and can form more combat STFs and KB TFs and still have enough escorts for supply convoys. In my Scenario 1 game now, the KB remained in port for almost two years (I peeked--Tokyo and Kobe only), due to me sinking so many escorts I think. I'm playing on Historical difficulty, which is fine with me. I don't want to face uber-supply. Denial of Japanese supply is/was the core of the Allied game plan. The AI already gets enough bonuses with prep points, etc.

I "may" let the reinforcement timetable do the vary-by-60-days thing for both of us. That averages out about the same, but introduces some unknowns.

I'm also going to turn off auto-subs. Every turn I curse having left it on. The AI does some really odd things with patrol zones. Mostly it's good, but I don't need fleet boats patrolling off San Diego in 1944.

In the editor, I'm going to reduce some base CD tube #s (not all). I believe, without really studying it yet, that the bigger guns themselves are mostly dual-purpose with the IJN BBs, and I don't want to nerf those, so I won't play with device stats themselves. Just tube numbers, which should give more manageable shots-per-phase numbers at some major historical islands.

I'm also going to up the Allied PPs per turn a bit, maybe to 70. I want to be forced to budget, but I think some of the command-shift costs are too high for the accumulation rates, and don't leave enough, even with reasonable management, to buy out West Coast LCUs in 1943 when the drive starts. I still haven't managed to get NZ into the war in any real way, and I can't save enough to get the infantry I need either. Might be just me, but that's what the editor is for. It'll give ME a better game.

I may, if I can figure out how, also try to make the sub torpedo tube code work. If I have to hand-change every sub hull by bumping the device list down I don't thnk I'm up for that. If I can do it by class, I would be. Or I might just do it for the later war boats.

And, finally, I'm going to put my father in command of USS Bluegill. He was a chief sonarman in her, and I think it would be a kick to order him around. Captain Barr won't mind being replaced; I'll give him a new boat to play with.

In general, in my second game, I'm going to use what I've learned, adjust as I want, and have more fun now that the patching has calmed down. I hope to make fewer early, dumb mistakes, especially with off-map movement, and losing tankers. Also I'll try a completley different strategic focus. I got really bogged down in Burma in this one, and I'd like to try maybe a northern route game through the Aleutians (I did one in WITP and the AI couldn't begin to handle it; it was a cakewalk), combined with a move through Timor and Java rather than messing with the Solomons again.

But first I have to finish the one I'm in now.

[John Lansford]

IIRC, Tennessee took one or two 6" hits off of Saipan that disabled a twin 5" secondary mount and killed some sailors.  The ship pulled out of the firing line for an hour or so to fight a fire, and then returned to provide fire support for the men ashore.  

[Dili]

Your points about Saipan i have nothing to say since i didn't researched the Saipan Islands defense, but when i said reverse slope it is enough a hole in the ground also for example there is no way a ship can detect a flashless gun at night if everyone is firing.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

IIRC, Tennessee took one or two 6" hits off of Saipan that disabled a twin 5" secondary mount and killed some sailors.  The ship pulled out of the firing line for an hour or so to fight a fire, and then returned to provide fire support for the men ashore.  

I didn't know that. Good info.

I don't doubt that, especially on D-Day, there is shore fire and some of it should be directed at landing ships/craft. We've discussed it in other threads, especially the PH one. But there's a difference between an "old", large, integrated-FC CD establishment like PH, Corrigedor, or Singapore, and the various smaller islands the Japanese tried to build up during the war. Losing 2.5 BBs, and scores of landing ships, is a code artifact, not something that was possible in RL. As the oral history I posted says, 30+ LSTs unlaoded about 5000 yds. off the beach at Saipan, and none were sunk, let alone dozens.

In any future CD coding in a new game, we need several shore bombarment models to handle the various CD dispersal zones, defender prep-times, degrees of elevation ashore, size of the landing beaches, etc. We also need to be able to more finely control the bombardment ships, at least as much as we can STFs. Setting the acceptable risks as we can for moving TFs would help a lot. Right now, I'm not sure as a player how offshore range fits in, or even if it does. As an example.

I think bombardment as a general case was an afterthought by GG and the original design team, who were much more into airplanes. While it wasn't definitive in many PTO battles, it was a big contributor to attack results at islands like Kwajalein, where it was very effective at suppressing defenses and shell-shocking defenders. On the flip side, most CD units on islands were directed at landing craft and the beach itself, not offshore BBs. This almost calls for special CD beachhead attack phases separate from the approach and landing of the assault craft, in the land resolution model.

Maybe someday.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Your points about Saipan i have nothing to say since i didn't researched the Saipan Islands defense, but when i said reverse slope it is enough a hole in the ground also for example there is no way a ship can detect a flashless gun at night if everyone is firing.

Well, a hole in the ground is easy pickings for CAS, right? As I said, a lot of Saipan is pretty flat. There were defenses in caves, some with steel doors, but they weren't high up in mountains, a la Iwo Jima. Most were in what could charitablly be called hills or small ridges.

I agree night spotting was nigh on impossible in WWII. That's one reason the current bombardment model is so ahistoric--USN bombardments generally weren't at night, and weren't a few hours long. Saipan's intense prep was over two days, and there had been harassment raids and mini-bombardments as long previously as February 1944. Invasion bombardments weren't in&out dashes as in the game. And they used previous aerial recon a great deal to pre-register targets.

[Whisper]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
I may, if I can figure out how, also try to make the sub torpedo tube code work. If I have to hand-change every sub hull by bumping the device list down I don't thnk I'm up for that. If I can do it by class, I would be. Or I might just do it for the later war boats.

Already been done. download is posted at tm.asp?m=2347573&mpage=1?

Mod is now available for all scenarios s01, s02, s06, s07, s08, s09 if you follow the step-by-step instructions contained in the zip file.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Whisper

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
I may, if I can figure out how, also try to make the sub torpedo tube code work. If I have to hand-change every sub hull by bumping the device list down I don't thnk I'm up for that. If I can do it by class, I would be. Or I might just do it for the later war boats.

Already been done. download is posted at tm.asp?m=2347573&mpage=1?

Mod is now available for all scenarios s01, s02, s06, s07, s08, s09 if you follow the step-by-step instructions contained in the zip file.

I "think" I can follow all that. Thanks.

So me, being a novice with the editor, can do what these instrucitons say, and the resulting new submarine devices will, by hull number, all shift so the tubes are split? And that config will then "talk to" the changes in the executable inserted into Patch 3 so the turn logic won't fire full salvoes when they're not needed?

And, finally, I can make these changes to subs in a new re-numbered scenario, and THEN do whatever further surgery to that re-numbered scenario I want to do re PP point accumulaiton rates, CD gun tube numbers, etc, and play with the old AI scripts?

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
I "think" I can follow all that. Thanks.

So me, being a novice with the editor, can do what these instrucitons say, and the resulting new submarine devices will, by hull number, all shift so the tubes are split? And that config will then "talk to" the changes in the executable inserted into Patch 3 so the turn logic won't fire full salvoes when they're not needed?

And, finally, I can make these changes to subs in a new re-numbered scenario, and THEN do whatever further surgery to that re-numbered scenario I want to do re PP point accumulaiton rates, CD gun tube numbers, etc, and play with the old AI scripts?

Realize some folks aren't as facile with the editor as others, so ... just this once, Moose.

Please say which scen you are starting with, 01, 02 or 06, and what your new, re-numbered scenario number is. I'll pm you with a zip that has the corresponding class and ship files with all the magic done and with your numbers. Just unzip and let them replace what's there.

And no, you don't have to do this first. The PP acc rates, CD guns, AI scripts are in different files. Sub tubes only occur in Class (wpc) and Ship (wps) files. Just don't mess with classes or ships till you get the new files.

Ciao. J

[Bullwinkle58]

PM sent.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
PM sent.

Hi Moose. Got it, understand it, and it's all done. You have your pm turned off, so I can't get them to you. Please either pm me with your email address (to be kept confidential), or say that I can post it here. Would rather have your email since there are a couple 'teensy' errata instructions that come with it re interfacing that won't be included in an open post.

J