"Unwanted behavior" regarding submarine ammo keeping

[Barb]

Hello,

I had noticed something, that could be "Working as designed" and is well within part of how other ships/Task Forces behave, yet it is not so desirable to submarines.

I am playing DBB-C scenario, Scen-28, and I am keeping records of every allied sub combat taking place. So far I have noticed the same behavior rather constantly and I can easily provide some statistics and examples from the data gathered.

So the situation is this: Within game if a ship or Task Force is low on ammo it is reluctant to engage (avoids combat), or the ship refrains from firing much. Also a Naval bombardment mission usually results in at least some ammo is being kept for self defense purpose (e.g. battleship firing 6 of its 9 ammo points, keeping 3, cruisers firing 8 of 12 ammo points, etc...) - so far so good - an expected and probably correct behavior.

Now come to submarines. Take Gato/Balao class as a basis. They have 3 pairs of forward torpedo tubes (each with 3 ammo) and 2 pairs of aft torpedo tubes (each with 3 ammo) for a total of 30 torpedoes (6+4 in tubes and 12+8 reloads). While they have enough ammo, they blaze away with torpedoes as targets present themselves. Yet once it comes down to the last 10 torpedoes (1 ammo for each pair of tubes), the submarines are still seeking combat, yet they do not fire at all. They are just becoming a targets - being sighted, located, spotted.

E.g. a sub on patrol - 20 engagements in total - in the first 12 engagements it had fired about 20 torpedoes - but the last 8 engagements are without firing any torpedoes and just ASW attacks.

Exception to this can be:
- Attack on the surface - when sub can fire away all its remaining torpedoes without regard to keeping any in reserve
- Having say 12 torpedoes aboard and firing 4-6 on a "fat" target - as at the start of the attack they are still above the threshold.

Thus in fact, instead of sub firing 30 torpedoes in a target rich environment, they will fire just 20 and then it becomes a target - and could be sent home. So subs are about 2/3 as effective as they could be.

Can anyone look at this? Or someone else had noticed similar behavior?

[geofflambert]

Sounds like a head to head playtest where you play both sides to ensure plenty of targets is called for, both with and without escorts, with and without aerial ASW. Keeping track of aggressive captains vs. conservative captains. You likely only choose aggressive ones so you'd have to force yourself to choose otherwise. It does seem that the usual reason to return to base is because of damage rather than a fuel or ammo shortage if we're talking long range subs. The short range ones run out of fuel before anything else happens.

[LargeSlowTarget]

I also have the impression that subs low on ammo are more reluctant to fire the remaining torpedoes, but a few times I have seen subs with 0 torpedoes remaining.

Btw, the "2/3 as effective" is counterbalanced by the fact that in the game the Gato class carries 30 torps, while IRL they carried 24.

Three of the five sets of tubes should be reduced to 2 ammo points instead of 3.

There are similar errors for other sub classes, for example the Salmons and Sargos which carry 24 in AE and 20 IRL.

[MakeeLearn]

Iam playing BabesLite with updated AI and Ive had several subs fire all ammo while on patrol.
The captain may play a role in ammo control.

[Lokasenna]

I would assume the more aggressive commanders would be more likely to fire torpedoes when "low" on torpedo ammo.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

I would assume the more aggressive commanders would be more likely to fire torpedoes when "low" on torpedo ammo.

Aggressiveness would be seem to be on top of the list, I was wondering about the Administrative skill, would a high admin level Captain be more conservative of torpedoes when ammo is low. Or a influence of a combination of several skills.

[Lokasenna]

Admin does nothing for ship commanders.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Admin does nothing for ship commanders.

AHH I'd forgot about the chart

[Barb]

To put things right:
1. This is no head2head play, but pure PBEM - there are places on map where the targets simply has to present themselves and my opponent has introduced ASW Patrols and Air cover over the area while ago (but not much of effect so far)

2. I am using a mix of skippers - either those that arrived with the boat (if they are good), but changing them to the IRL skippers when available (e.g. using uboat.net to search for names - lately Mush Morton assigned to Wahoo instead of Kennedy - who wasn't bad either). Behavior noticed on all subs, aggressive skippers may be part of "Exception" - because they are more likely to target better/bigger ships, or attack on the surface.

3. I usually swarm the area with a submarine division or two - 6-12 subs at the same time so it can be quite rough till subs have ammo

[Barb]

USS Gar (SS-206), Skipper LCDR Moore, R.J. (for his stats check game/database, he is commanding the boat from 8.12.1941) - her last patrol in game:

[Barb]

USS Grayling (SS-209), Skipper LCDR Olsen, E. - he is skipper from 7th December 1941.
Current patrol:

[Barb]

USS Grenadier (SS-210) - Skipper LCDR Ginder, J. - onboard since 24.12.1942
Last patrol - same area as the previous subs:

[Barb]

USS Salmon (SS-182), Skipper: LCDR McKinney, E.B. - from the start of war
Last patrol at Makassar Strait:

[Barb]

USS Skipjack (SS-184), Skipper LCDR Coe, J.W. - new for this patrol.
Last patrol:

[Barb]

USS Stingray (SS-186), Skipper LCDR Gregor, O. - skipper since 22.7.1942
Last patrol, when she has gone bingo - thanks to the surface engagement:

[Barb]

As you can notice, that while there is enough ammo the subs are taking shots even at escorts quite regularly. Once the threshold is reached (around 1 ammo per tube), the subs are reluctant to fire even at convoys (and merchants).

The examples are picked up from the recent patrols in the same general area (around La Perouse Strait and Makassar Strait) with rather high frequency of shipping/naval patrols. Of course some subs are less lucky and turned for home after damage, or were not able to fire enough torpedoes per patrol.

[cardas]

I've posted about the same thing last year and have also tested it in a custom scenario in head to head mode ( fb.asp?m=4077802 ). From that it doesn't seem to be a matter of the overall torpedo ammo level. What's critical is instead the ammo level on the individual torpedo weapon slots, as once any any of a submarines torpedo weapon slots have zero ammo the submarine will simply cease making attacks.

So yeah, there's definitely a bug with the submarine behaviour