IJN Battleship availability chart

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: wdolson
I suggest reading this article:

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-067.htm

It examines every time the long lance was used and its effectiveness in the real world. If anything, the game overrates them.

Bill

ORIGINAL: Buckrock
Are you referring to them being over-rated due to their accuracy (in the database) or their performance in the game? Just curious as I
tend to gain few decisive results with them in surface combats during games against the Allied AI.

Performance. The USN and RN moved away from torpedoes except for subs as the war went on. TBFs dropped a heck of a lot more bombs than torpedoes, even on ships. Torpedoes were reserved for the big ships that could survive many bomb hits.

By 1944 they were being removed from DDs. Almost all Fletchers has at least one torpedo mount removed by mid-44 to provide more space for AA. Usually more 40mm mounts.

The Japanese held onto to potential torpedo long after its effectiveness was proven to be less than its potential. But even then they were moving away from torpedoes by late 44. One torpedo cruiser was sunk, but the other was converted to a kaiten carrier.

Bill

[spence]

In only one case was the long range of the Type 93 of significance: in 1943 the USS Strong was struck by a torpedo launched from some IJN ships that appeared on the edge of its radar scope at the radar's extreme range for just a few minutes. The original Navy investigation of the sinking concluded that the Strong had hit a mine since "everybody knew a torpedo couldn't go that far".

The game doesn't seem to overstate the effectiveness of the Type 93 too badly although it seems to grossly overrate the effectiveness of the IJ's aerial torpedo (in almost any given engagement the KB's Kates will score as many hits in that one engagement than they did IRL during the whole of 1942 (when they scored all of their hits excepting those scored at Pearl Harbor)).