Subs Balance

[janh]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
SSBN. But I have had some contact with DBs.

I always wondered what life was like on an SSBN when off on patrol for months at a time. I imagine it has little in common with that on WW2 era boats?

[janh]

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury
Silent Hunter IV with manual targetting, 100% realism and mods: "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "TMO" is what brought me to WitP-AE [:)]

They really managed to mod a good game of the vanilla version? I kept lurking over at the SHV forum at subsim for a while, hoping for some of these talented modders over there to achieve some sort of breakthru adding in missing boats, campaign years, targets etc. They seem to have gotten rid of the ridiculous campaign goals and fixed a lot of things, but for me the things SHIII/GW had are by far more important than the addition of the moving commander character in SHV. Too bad, from what it seems SHV had had a pretty good developer team with the Romanian studio and already a lot of modding potential built in, but they or their distributor must have run short of patience for a niche product.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: janh

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
SSBN. But I have had some contact with DBs.

I always wondered what life was like on an SSBN when off on patrol for months at a time. I imagine it has little in common with that on WW2 era boats?

Some the same, a lot different. They couldn't destroy all life on Earth in 30 minutes for example. [:)]

This hasn't been posted in awhile. So, now it is.

"Life Aboard A Submarine�

If you have never served aboard a submarine or do not know anyone who is or was a submariner, then this list may help you understand what life aboard a submarine is all about (Well..sort of anyway.) If you are a submarine veteran, you will probably find much to laugh about in the unique world of submarine life. These are but a few of the ways to experience (on the lighter side) life aboard a submarine. These are but examples, used for reference only, not for actual demonstration purposes. Read at your own risk.

Spend as much time as you can indoors during the daytime, stay out of direct sunlight. Go to work only before sunrise and come home after sunset.


Paint everything around you Sea Foam Green (Navy NSN Green, no substitutions) or Off-White to be sure you are living in a clean, happy environment. Every Friday, set an alarm on loud for a short, but hated, drill sound. Then get up and manned only with a bucket, sponge and a greeny. Clean one area over and over, even if it is already spotless.


Eat food that you can only get out of a can and requires water in order to eat it. Empty out your refrigerator and turn the temperature control down, turning the refrigerator into a freezer. Get rid of all fresh fruits and vegetables.


Repeat back everything spoken to you. Repeat back everything spoken to you.


Sit in your car for six hours at a time with the motor running. Keep hands on the wheel. But don�t leave your driveway. Log readings of your oil pressure, water temperature, speedometer and odometer every 15 minutes.


Put Lube Oil in your humidifier instead of water. Set it on high.


Buy a trash compactor; use it only once a week. Store the rest of the garbage in your bathroom.


Don�t watch movies except in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.


Have the paperboy give you a standard Navy haircut.


Take hourly readings on your water and your electric meters. But only for a six hour period.


Sleep with your dirty laundry.


For you old mechanics, set your lawn mower in the middle of the living room while it is running. Only for six hours a day.


Invite guests but don�t prepare enough food for everyone. Serve food cold. Limit the time they sit at the table to 10 minutes.


Wake up at midnight every night and make a peanut butter sandwich, use stale bread. Better yet, make your own bread but cut 3 inch thick slices and use these. Optional: warm up some canned Ravioli or soup.


Make your family a menu for the week without knowing what food is in the cabinets.


Set your alarm clock for various times at night; adjust the volume to the maximum. When it goes off, jump out of bed, get your clothes on as fast as you can, run outside and grab the garden hose. Then go back to bed and do it all again when the alarm goes off.


Once a month take apart every appliance completely and then put them back together.


Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 to six hours before drinking it.


Invite at least 85 people you really don�t like and have them stay for a couple of months.


Store your eggs in the garbage for two months and then cook a dozen each morning.


Have a fluorescent lamp installed under your coffee table and lie underneath it to read books.


Put a complicated lock on your basement door and wear the key around your neck on a special chain.


When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan when cooking. Use extra icing to level it off.


Every so often, yell "EMERGENCY DEEP!" run into the kitchen and sweep all pots, pans and dishes off of the counters onto the floor, and then yell at your wife for not having the kitchen area "Stowed for Sea!"


Put on the stereo headphones (don�t plug them in), go to the stove and stand in front of it. Say (to no one in particular) "Stove manned and ready" stay there for 3 to 4 hours. Say (once again and to no one in particular) "Stove secured", then role up your headphone cord and put them away.


Pull out your refrigerator and clean behind it for 4 hours and then put it back when you are done. Have your wife come and check every 10 minutes with a flashlight to see how you are doing.


When doing your laundry fill it only 1/3 full, sit in front of your washing machine in your underwear and read a book or magazine you�ve read at least 5 times before in the last week. When the wash is done, only run the dryer for half the normal time.


Fix-up a shelf in your closet that will serve as your bunk for the next six months. Take the door off of the hinges and replace them with curtains. While asleep, have family members shine a flashlight in your eyes at random intervals and say either "Sign this!" or "Sorry, wrong rack!"


If you can do these. You can do just about anything!"

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship ... imlife.htm

[Bullwinkle58]

If anyone is interested this site has a lot of photos of the old Stoney J taken by a Blue crew guy from my era.

http://www.ssbn634.com/StoneyJ/index.htm

Edit: There are a couple there from my Gold crew too. My second CO, my XO, some missile techs, one of my cooks, etc.

[guino272]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna




I like that you appear to have registered just to post that... welcome, lurking brother!

Is all of that (mission planning/building to mission, radar, etc.) modeled, even indirectly, in the games?

The games focus pretty tightly on allowing you the decisions that the sub fleet commander would make. So things like production and most tech decisions are above your pay grade (but are modeled). The system does focus distinctly on mission planning (although for 100+ boats), so you choose the patrol areas, each of which are rated for potential targets and ASW risk. It even models the crappy US torpedoes and developments in ASW countermeasures. They are good systems, although a bit dry.

Getting back to the original point of this, the German boats at the start of the war spent too much of their total patrol time in transit to and from their patrol zones, especially once Allied ASW closed off the British home waters. Even with great successes, they couldn't sink enough fast enough. By the time the larger boats came online, the underlying trends meant the commerce war was unwinnable.

PS I was a bit fan of Grigsby's work back in the 80s. Work meant I didn't have time, but found WitP recently and am trying to get into it. With a better UI and some reduction of micromanagement, a WitP could totally change the genre, IMHO.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

ORIGINAL: janh

ORIGINAL: Jorge_Stanbury
Silent Hunter IV with manual targetting, 100% realism and mods: "Run Silent, Run Deep" and "TMO" is what brought me to WitP-AE [:)]

They really managed to mod a good game of the vanilla version? I kept lurking over at the SHV forum at subsim for a while, hoping for some of these talented modders over there to achieve some sort of breakthru adding in missing boats, campaign years, targets etc. They seem to have gotten rid of the ridiculous campaign goals and fixed a lot of things, but for me the things SHIII/GW had are by far more important than the addition of the moving commander character in SHV. Too bad, from what it seems SHV had had a pretty good developer team with the Romanian studio and already a lot of modding potential built in, but they or their distributor must have run short of patience for a niche product.

You need to add mod combos to make SHIV a good game
RSRD is a campaign mod; with it you 'll get the full japanese campaign, so that means "almost empty oceans" instead of the "thousands of convoys in stock", typically fighting against lone merchants early war, sub-chasers instead of latest generation DDs as a rule. But, notice the fact that these are "scripted" task forces, you will get the same invasions happening the same dates every game. So go to Vigan in early December, you will see the historical Kanno detachment landing task force. Each and every time you will get the same historical task force composition. So, by having an history book at your side, you can guarantee good hunting grounds, this is for surface task force.
Convoys are not historical since there were too many; they are historically accurate, so no convoys early war, small 5 to 10 ships later on.

TMO and Real fleet boat are gameplay mods: these 2 are the main mods created, you need to pick either one of it (or any other gameplay mod); gameplay mods can't be mixed. These will take care of game balance issues, add different units, add realistic sinking mechanics (for example it is hard to sink a ship only with guns, impossible to do with AA, etc) eliminate the stupid arcade abilities, etc.

You should also add "Operation Monson" to play the German side as a separate game (it is a full Atlantic mod)

Finally, graphics, sounds mods: You can change uniforms/ graphics, I uploaded many radio stations; you can get the BBC, hear FDRs firechat speeches, wartime propaganda, or even Radio Tokyo.

[uncivil_servant]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I can see where good play would allow the Japanese player to reduce the effect of Allied submarines to an extent, but we should not cross over into the realm of fantasy.

I say again this is a game and not a documentary who is to say what would have happened if the Japanese had focused more on ASW training. Whose to say what would have happened if the Japanese were the lucky ones at Midway or the Japanese realized there codes had been broken. Whose to say what would have happened if the bomb wasn't dropped or the US was ready and waiting in PH. What I will concede is the detection levels should perhaps be reduced, particularly at night and/or in bad weather.

The way the heavy bombers can be used in the game is also verging on the realms of fantasy as is Japanese research for that matter.

It doesn't matter how much you train. If your planes do not have the range, proper detection equipment, etc., all you have done is raised your skill on a substandard piece of equipment. Considering Carrier Actions never repeat in the game like IRL talking about anything else being on the verge of fantasy is humorous because they also were lucky at Midway when many the attack planes guessed that the attack fleet had sailed towards midway instead of away from it and that all the land bombers barely missed ( that they came so close to hitting so many times is what caused the ordinance change). In the game non-torpedo LB's seem to have a snowballs chance in heck of hitting. I haven't seen an AAR yet where a huge allied CV fleet wins vs a huge IJN carrier fleet yet. IRL the IJN never won an CV engagement. Never. Subs caused both the Lady Lex and Yorktown to go under as they both were going to survive their respective engagements.

The entire model of choosing to build what kind of frames and engines for the Japanese is complete fiction as many of their advanced designs depended upon rare materials like aluminum which was extremely rare for them forcing them to design and make other types of equipment, often lesser quality.

The IJN did change their codes... they were just broken again. They Allies got VERY good at breaking codes, even when modifications were implemented.

And if the US didn't have the bomb they would have had an additional 2.2 Billion (not adjusted) dollars to spend. A WWII carrier of the time cost around a million.

For IJ, to have built better planes or better escorts they would have had to build less of other things in the 41-43 range. So, what wouldn't they build?

[topeverest]

I am playing allied PBEM in a mod that is stock from a sub perspective against a seasoned empire playeer. It is march 43, and since subs started turning on, I have been getting 2 to 3 hits on average per day. probably 1/2 of those are kills. He is on top of all the empire tricks, but there are only so many places the empire can funnel the booty. He has to come through one of the choke points, and they cant all be heavily guarded. it is a math equation for the most part once you figure out the large allied tricks. The closer the allies can push sub bases, the longer the patrol, and the more likely that even escorted merchants with air support get tagged. Personally, I spend about half my plot on subs early in the game, when there arent enough to cover the various important places.

I try to get as close to historical results as possible when playing allies, but i lose quite a few more subs in the long haul. Add in the surface raiding, and the allies can deliver major damage to the merchant capacity relatively early in the game. i think it works out pretty nicely. I try not to be McLellan and overly covet naval resources. They are to be consumed in the pursuit of objectives.

I dont feel that subs are out of balance on either side. if anything, i think ASW is too effective before mid 43. Rather, IMHO, I think that repeated playing of the game has allowed more seasoned players to maximize the effectiveness of these assets to a better than historical result by immediately implementing tactics that are very effective, whereas IRL, the parties had to figutre it out over months or years.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
"Life Aboard A Submarine� [...]

Very good! [:D]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
"Life Aboard A Submarine� [...]

Very good! [:D]

There are certain ones that just make me laugh out loud. Like the "stove manned" one. Or the garbage in the bathroom. You guys have no idea . . .