Suicide surface attacks by sub....

[jleknes]

Over the last 14 days my Japanese subs have attacked allied AP and AK's on the surface. This has led to disastrous results! One sub damaged and retreating to Truk for withdrawal and one sub sunk!! The last took multiple 3in and 40mm hits from an AP.

The subs had torpedoes left and had even put 1 or 2 into one of the ships before engaging with their 5.5in gun.

Anyone else experiencing the same?
Is this just bad luck or is something not 100% here....

[Feinder]

"The subs had torpedoes left and had even put 1 or 2 into one of the ships before engaging with their 5.5in gun."

I guess I'm not quite understanding your situation.

I have seen subs engage targets with their surface guns if you put them on Patrol/No Retire and they've run out of torps.

Also, be advised that subs will engage BARGES (AG) with surface weapons, because the barges have too shallow a draft for the torps. If you're IJN tho, it depends on when and what scenario you're playing for USN to have barges tho, I don't think they get them until '43.

I don't know what you mean by having torps left, taking a shot or 2, and then engaing with guns. I've never seen a sub fire more than 1 salvo of torps in a round, much less fire their surface guns after firing said salvo(s).

Whatever the case, to my knowledge your subs are probably engaging with surface weapons because
a. They're out of torps and on Patrol/No Retire. or...
b. They're engaging barges with their surface weapons because the barges have a shallow draft.

Hope this helps. Otherwise, I have no idea.
-F-

[mogami]

Hi, It was just bad judgement by the sub commander. (trying to conserve torpedos by using deck gun)
In 2.20 subs will return to homeport (and the player can not prevent this) when low on fuel, out of torpedos, or damaged.

Once the sub decides to return the only orders they will accept are a change of homeport.

[jleknes]

I'll try to be more specific:

Couldn't find the combat report, but I mean that one of the subs first torpedoed the ship and then engaged with its gun.
(Isn't this possible?) If not, the ship must have been torpedoed on the turn before and then engaged on the surface.

This happened in the Townsville hex in august 42 playing scen 17 as Japan. The ship engaged was a rather large AP with 3in & 40mm Bofors guns.

In the other case an AK was engaged with gunfire and set on fire after a lengthy duel south of Luganville.

The subs were on patrol and weren't heading towards their homebase as they always do when they're out or torps.

My point is that I think subs should be more careful with engaging surface ships with their gun. If the attacked ship got a heavier gun armament than the sub...then it should stay down where it belongs

It didn't help that the sub had a 5.5in gun vs 3in guns on the AP/AK. It shouldn't be difficult to stay out of 3in and 40mm gun range and pound the ship to rubble without any danger of getting a sound trashing back.

Hope this illuminates my point a little better

'Edited'
--------
Didn't see your post Mogami, but if you say that individual sub commander skill will decide whether the sub will engage on the surface or not...then great! I can live with that as long as not all the Jap commanders continue to get them self sunk. They can't all be that ill educated on enemy merchant armament and their ability to inflict damage!.)
-------

[Feinder]

Yep, it sounds like you were a victim of stupid sub commanders. The good part of that is that, at least they won't be contributing to the gene pool. The bad part is that, you lose the sub, and the whole gene-pool thing isn't modeled in UV.

-F-

[BigJoe417]

I've experienced the same thing with US subs! But it is usually using the deck guns to attack jap AGs with low drafts so torpedos woulndt work but it also happened with an attack against an AP who promptly clobbered the sub and sank her!
I'll have to check if I have it set to patrol or not. Still very upsetting when this happens.
Another thing is my subs seem to suck in general. They miss a lot of their shots and the IJN destroyers just have to throw a rock overboard to hit and sink them. I think I saw a combat report once, "escort captain spits overboard... belt armor penetration... massive explosion"... ss-224 sinks. lol

[mogami]

Hi, I think "Mush Morton" might have lost Yahoo by trying an early morning surface attack. He loved using his gun.
I had one of my subs try a surface battle on an AP and get clobbered (AP scored 37hits subs scored 4)
I have also recently seen a USN S-Boat attacK IJN DD on surface and get sunk by Long Lance Torpedos (2 of them hit the sub)
Another USN Sub fired at Haguro and was hit by several 8inch shells. The only thing I am still waiting to see is a sub attack on a enemy sub.

[GunRange]

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I plased a sub to IJN resupply route to Lunga. Two attacks in one day, first in surface, AP was hit by 4 or 5 shells and 5 torps! (Do they fire their torps more than once on surface, or was that fog of war?), second attack didn't fare so well. The S-boat got hit by shells 6 or 7 times. And no hits on small AP. Send her home fast.

[dpstafford]

Originally posted by Mogami
He loved using his gun.

What sort of man doesn't like using his gun?

[Cap Mandrake]

As IJN, I sent in my AG's unescorted to Tassaforonga out of desperation (four weeks of hell scenario) One convoy was atacked by a US sub on the surface, one AG was lost but put up quite a good fight with it's MG's, seriously damaging the sub and setting her afire. It was a brief highlight in a generally disastrous game.

[Admiral Scott]

Originally posted by dpstafford
What sort of man doesn't like using his gun?

Answer: LIBERALS!!!

[dpstafford]

Originally posted by Admiral Scott
Answer: LIBERALS!!!

I wasn't talking about that gun. I'm talking about the one that comes attached with 2 salty satelites. But now that you mention it, there are a lot of conservatives that want to limit a person's freedom to discharge that little fellow.

[Snigbert]

Hey now, I'm a liberal and I like guns just fine

[BigJoe417]

Hahahaha Funny guys! But maybe we should leave politics out of this. Afterall, that kinda thing has been known to start wars!

[GunRange]

Start wars? Politics? Never....

[pasternakski]

I like guns, too ...

[PBYPilot]

Originally posted by jleknes

It didn't help that the sub had a 5.5in gun vs 3in guns on the AP/AK. It shouldn't be difficult to stay out of 3in and 40mm gun range and pound the ship to rubble without any danger of getting a sound trashing back.

Though I agree with the concerns about Sub AI (at least the decision to surface and use deck gun) may need a little tweaking, the diference in maximum range of the guns should play no role.

Both guns had a max range of more than 12,000 yards (14k for the 3", probably more for the 5.5"). But the issue is fire control, not max range. We're not talking great fire control systems here for either ship. Probably optical sights, even "iron" ones, a hand held range finder maybe. And the AP/AK would be a more stable gun platofrm in most sea conditions.

So no gyro stabilization, fire direction computers on anything that helps long range gunnery. Basically Tsushima era ranges. Just point, shoot, and hope.

Heck, the max range of from a merchant gun position to the horizon was probably only about 12,000 - 14,000 yards anyway, even in perfect visibility.

So the idea of a "sweet range" where the sub could hit the AP but not vice versa probably isn't credible.

And I'd bet that gunfire between merchants ships and subs during the war was conducted at 5000 yards or less. Anybody know of any accounts of combat beyond that?

PBYPilot
"Slow airplanes and fast women"

[entemedor]

Under v2.20 my IJN subs are getting quite good at last.
Last turn I-3 attacked an (apparently) unescorted convoy as it entered Moresby, torpedoing two different ships in succession; to my surprise, she even surfaced to finish-off one of them with gunfire (so this actually happens in UV):
AK CASSIOPEA 2 torpedo hits
AK DRACO 2 torpedo hits, 3 shell hits
The second ship was reported sunk immediately, the other appeared in the list of sunken ships some days later.

Cheers,

Entemedor

[Califvol]

I have not had this problem with IJN sub's.

But, have had simaliar issues with USN subs getting beat up by IJ merchants when doing a surface attack. However, this has not happened enough to be an issue and within the confines of this game's reality I don't have a problem with it.

I have had a problem that I-23 attempted a Banzi Charge from 100'. The result was that all the men drowned when they opened the torpedo tubes to get out of the sub.

On an intersting note, I did have a PBY pick up a Capt "Wild Bill" Kelso that a IJN sub had dropped off in 1941, evidently he was really annoying the sub crew.

[RevRick]

"This is my rifle, this is my gun.
This is for fighting. This is for fun"

And he always told me that the gun was only for use on the home shooting range. He had a funny way of putting it - KYPIYP! Anyone remember that one. He also had a unique way of reminding me of those instructions - at an incredible decibel level and with some punctuation I can't use here about what would happen to certain portions of my anatomy should I fail to remember that lesson.