Oi and Kitikami

Gary Grigsby's strategic level wargame covering the entire War in the Pacific from 1941 to 1945 or beyond.

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TIMJOT
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by TIMJOT »

ORIGINAL: Armorer

I I'd be interested if anyone could tell me which, if any, of the Allied ships sunk by LL's would NOT have been sunk by Type 90's. Certainly ( in my opinion, anyway ), the physical constraints of the Solomons area generally negated the advantage the LL's extreme long range, didn't it?

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Randy

Well I tend to think the type 93's speed and wakeless runs may have had something to do with its effectiveness too. Its hard to say how many USN ships may have avoided a slower, more visable, less powerful torpedo
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by AmiralLaurent »


I think the debate is not "are torpedoes useful ?" but "are torpedoes useful on cruisers ?" or "are they useful enough to take the risk of their explosion?"

As for Oi and Kitakami, they were useless in RL, as the excepted big BB battle in the center of the Pacific they were designed for never took place. And in RL they were useful for training Japanese sailors than on the frontline.

In the game, I wonder if someone has a proof that their radar is useful for KB. Japanese radars were never to US or British standards anyway.
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by tsimmonds »

In the game, I wonder if someone has a proof that their radar is useful for KB. Japanese radars were never to US or British standards anyway

These Brits were not detected until they opened fire, so I guess surface search ain't their forte.

OTOH, they did soak up a lot of fire!

-----------------------------------------------------------
Day Time Surface Combat at 16,26

Japanese Ships
CV Akagi
CV Kaga
CVL Ryujo, Shell hits 1
CVL Zuiho, Shell hits 4, on fire
CS Mizuho, Shell hits 1
CS Nisshin, Shell hits 1, on fire
CL Kitakami, Shell hits 29, and is sunk
CL Oi, Shell hits 16, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk

DD Akatsuki, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD Hibiki, Shell hits 2
DD Kisaragi, Shell hits 3, on fire
DD Yayoi, Shell hits 3, on fire
DD Kikuzuki, Shell hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
DD Nagatsuki, Shell hits 4, on fire
DD Sawakaze, Shell hits 3, on fire
DD Okikaze

Allied Ships
BB Prince of Wales, Shell hits 4
BC Repulse, Shell hits 4
CA Exeter, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
CL Birmingham, Shell hits 1
CL Newcastle
DD Van Nes, Shell hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
DD Kortenaer, Shell hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DD Van Ghent, Shell hits 1
DD Tenedos, Shell hits 2
DD Thanet, Shell hits 1
DD Thracian, Shell hits 2, on fire

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Nikademus
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by Nikademus »

ORIGINAL: Tiornu

Just off the top of my head, I believe tha following were all brutalized by their own torpedoes: Furutaka, Aoba (twice, I think), Chokai, Suzuya, Mikuma, and Mogami.

Does 'brutalized' mean they were sunk or crippled exclusively the presence of these weapons? Suzuya i've commented on. Mikuma was 'brutilized' quite thorougly all over by air attack of which the presence or absence of LL's would have made little difference.
This was mentioned facetiously, and it hardly makes a serious point. No one would suggest building a heavy cruiser without guns, but there were plenty of them that did fine without torpedoes. Furthermore, gun ammunition can be protected by heavy armor, while torpedoes are out there on their own.

I never said that a CA without the torps couldn't do fine. I've said that the LL's aboard the CA's gave them a greater flexability and made them a more potential threat. Gun ammo can be protected though in an early or mid generation CA thats not saying much. Ammo explosions (not full mag explosions) could still occur.
Urk..retaining a system that accomplishes nothing but the destruction of your own units--that's a good design move?

Well in the first place I dont agree that the LL acomplished or could acomplish nothing and neither you nor I can say whether or not the presence of these weapons systems wouldn't have made a signifigant contribution had the more traditional type battle both sides expected to fight had occured. Even in the closer ranged night battles that occured, the Type 93's qualities would still be evident vs. the older models.

As for late-war. Yes an argument can be made that they'd have better been off removed since the opportunity to use them in the manner expected was all but nill. Had Japan the shipyard capacity the US did, maybe they could have arranged it.
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by cassius44 »

Somewhat irrelevant to the game, but the Jan 2003 issue of Journal of Military History has an interesting article on British tactical doctrine preparations for the Great War. According to this historian, the big threat to the RN main battle line was perceived as the German torpedoes from their main battle line, and RN tactics revolved around changing course after 6 minutes to avoid the oncoming salvo. Belief was that torpedoes were both more effective (underwater blast damage) and more accurate - a two-dimensional problem vs. the three dimensional problem of naval gunfire. To counter this, the RN planned to shorten the range to 8,000 yards for accurate gunfire, and then maneuver the battle line in divisions to avoid the German response.

Only when the war came, everyone started shooting at long range - which no one had planned for - which not only lead to horrible accuracy, but then also demonstrated the unrealized effect of shells plunging from on high. (A problem still not fixed for the Hood!)

Guess it just proves that very few plans turn out as expected - especially for weapons systems!

*Jon Tetsuro Sumida, "A Matter of Timing: The Royal Navy and the Tactics of Decisive Battle, 1912-1916," The Journal of Military History 67 (January 2003): 85-137.*

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Nikademus
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by Nikademus »

Given what almost happend to the UK at Jutland there's a point to such fears, though i'm not sure if the UK was aware at the time when they forumated their doctrine. I've read it in both Cambell and Masse that on several occasions German torpedoes under ran UK BB's and in Revenge's case was hit by a dud torpedo. Had the German torpeodes operated correctly it might have added to the UK material losses. At the very least it would have led to substantial damage to a couple more BB's.

Regardless...Jellicoe greatly feared the potential threat posed by German torpedoes. To go even more OT....i think he got a bum rap for choosing to turn away vs pursue Scheer. Better safe than sorry IMO.

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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by Tiornu »

"Does 'brutalized' mean they were sunk or crippled exclusively the presence of these weapons?"
No, none of these ships spontaneously combusted.

"Mikuma was 'brutilized' quite thorougly all over by air attack of which the presence or absence of LL's would have made little difference."
Tell that to Mogami.

"I've said that the LL's aboard the CA's gave them a greater flexability and made them a more potential threat."
Certainly--but to whom?

"neither you nor I can say whether or not the presence of these weapons systems wouldn't have made a signifigant contribution had the more traditional type battle both sides expected to fight had occured."
Agreed, but that's another topic.

"Even in the closer ranged night battles that occured, the Type 93's qualities would still be evident vs. the older models."
And I'm still waiting for you to point out when that was the case.
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by Tiornu »

"Somewhat irrelevant to the game, but the Jan 2003 issue of Journal of Military History has an interesting article on British tactical doctrine preparations for the Great War."
Unfortunately, Sumida has gone off the deep end. His fundamental thesis in "A Matter of Timing" is entirely without foundation and flawed in the areas where it actually does interact with available documentation. If you get past the cloak of Sumida's considerable scholarship, what we're left with is a good old conspiracy theory in which the lack of supporting evidence is claimed as support for the theory.
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Nikademus
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by Nikademus »

No, none of these ships spontaneously combusted.

My point.
Tell that to Mogami

Are you saying Mikuma would have survived had she not had LL's?

[And I'm still waiting for you to point out when that was the case.

If you dont believe that having a better torpedo is advantagous, then there's little point.
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PeteG662
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by PeteG662 »

I have seen no evidence in the game where K&O radars do anything for any purpose.
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by jwilkerson »

ORIGINAL: Tallyman662

I have seen no evidence in the game where K&O radars do anything for any purpose.


I hope you're right. I did look in the database. K&O have device #139 Type 13 radar, which shows as a surface radar not normally available until 4401. So presumably these radars do whatever type 13 radars do. But, this would seem to rule them out from assisting as air search radar platforms for KB in the early war. If these radars do anything, the ships would be better placed with a Surface Action Group.

( 1st edit - went and checked database some more - several BB, CA, CL and CV have type 13 radars available in later war upgrades - so it is likely that they do SOMETHING - I still haven't found a source indicating the K&O actually had radars pre-war - Conway and Jentschura are the two I've checked ).

( 2nd edit - here is a link which discusses Japanese ship borne radar ! IJN Radar Link )

( 3rd edit - the above link indicates type 13 was air search radar with ability to detect air groups out to 100km and singles out to 50km - if true - this would indicate that these radars SHOULD have the ability to be used as air warning ships for KB - oh well - not the answer I wanted to find - but data is data. Now of course the game seems to have implemented these as surface search radars - so in the game as delievered it appears we cannot get any advantage in using these two K&O as air warning vessels. That is until someone updates the database. )

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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by PeteG662 »

I would be glad to hear if anyone finds that the radar really does work on these ships in the game and what the effect is.....it has been shown you cannot trust the little messages saying the enemy SCTF was detected by radar or lookouts as they seem to be "pat" messages generated for display purposes.
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by jwilkerson »

Well - I just ran some tests.

This is a standard test scenario I cooked up a while back to test carrier tactics ... it pits one KB near death star with 4 CV and 2 CVL in 1 task force ( 312 carrier planes ) versus 4 USN task forces containing 1 CV each [ note the USN task forces have the slowest one leading and the other three set to follow - so almost all the time, even when reacting, they wind up in the same hex - this seems to be the best way of getting the largest possible strikes for the USN in 1942 given the "CV Coordination Penalty" the USN suffer ]. The IJN TF has 25 ships, the USN TFs have 15 each. The USN has 294 carrier planes. The test is based off the Scenario 13 start and the hypothetical carrier battle happens about halfway between Kwajalein and Johnson Is. so that no bases have any effect.

So I ran 2 groups of tests ... 6 tests in each group ... first group the IJN TF had both Kitikami and Oi ... in the second group of tests, the IJN TF had neither of these ships. I was looking for any difference in CAP over the IJN TF.

The average CAP over the IJN TF with K&O was 37.0 the average CAP over the IJN TF without K&O was 39.3 ... so at least in this group of tests K&O presence did not improve the CAP over the IJN TF. The variation in results averages at 2.6 hence the difference in the results is "within the margin of error" so it is not significant that in this group of tests K&O not present seemed to have improved the CAP.

So, it looks like the type 13 radar on K&O doesn't help KB.

But does anyone know what the numbers on the radar devices mean ? There seem to be 3 that might be meaningful.

Range,
Effect,
Penetration

I'm guessing range is the range in kilometers and I'm guessing the effect is the percent chance of detecting something, as these numbers run from about 45 up to about 70 ... but I'm clueless as to what the "penetration" number would be ... some radars have a 500 here ( including the type 13 radar in question ) others have 0 ... at first I thought the ones with 500 here might be the air search radars, but alas there doesn't seem to be any coorelation between which radars have the 500 and which don't along air search versus surface search lines. So any insite on these parameters would be appreciated !

But as it stands now - I can't detect any effect of the Type 13 on K&O in carrier battles.

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rtrapasso
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by rtrapasso »

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Well - I just ran some tests.

This is a standard test scenario I cooked up a while back to test carrier tactics ... it pits one KB near death star with 4 CV and 2 CVL in 1 task force ( 312 carrier planes ) versus 4 USN task forces containing 1 CV each [ note the USN task forces have the slowest one leading and the other three set to follow - so almost all the time, even when reacting, they wind up in the same hex - this seems to be the best way of getting the largest possible strikes for the USN in 1942 given the "CV Coordination Penalty" the USN suffer ]. The IJN TF has 25 ships, the USN TFs have 15 each. The USN has 294 carrier planes. The test is based off the Scenario 13 start and the hypothetical carrier battle happens about halfway between Kwajalein and Johnson Is. so that no bases have any effect.

So I ran 2 groups of tests ... 6 tests in each group ... first group the IJN TF had both Kitikami and Oi ... in the second group of tests, the IJN TF had neither of these ships. I was looking for any difference in CAP over the IJN TF.

The average CAP over the IJN TF with K&O was 37.0 the average CAP over the IJN TF without K&O was 39.3 ... so at least in this group of tests K&O presence did not improve the CAP over the IJN TF. The variation in results averages at 2.6 hence the difference in the results is "within the margin of error" so it is not significant that in this group of tests K&O not present seemed to have improved the CAP.

So, it looks like the type 13 radar on K&O doesn't help KB.

But does anyone know what the numbers on the radar devices mean ? There seem to be 3 that might be meaningful.

Range,
Effect,
Penetration

I'm guessing range is the range in kilometers and I'm guessing the effect is the percent chance of detecting something, as these numbers run from about 45 up to about 70 ... but I'm clueless as to what the "penetration" number would be ... some radars have a 500 here ( including the type 13 radar in question ) others have 0 ... at first I thought the ones with 500 here might be the air search radars, but alas there doesn't seem to be any coorelation between which radars have the 500 and which don't along air search versus surface search lines. So any insite on these parameters would be appreciated !

But as it stands now - I can't detect any effect of the Type 13 on K&O in carrier battles.



Thank you jwilkerson!! Maybe this argument can be finally put to rest.

Just out of curiousity, when in game time did battle take place? 1942? 1945?
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by jwilkerson »

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

Thank you jwilkerson!! Maybe this argument can be finally put to rest.

Just out of curiousity, when in game time did battle take place? 1942? 1945?

These tests are based on Scenario 13 ... it takes a while to drive all the boats to the starting gate [ when I execute a series of saves to enable repeatability ] ... so it is late May 1942.

Note that this test may not be definitive. I'd say it is pretty much so as far as affecting CAP over KB ... but could the presence of the Type 13 radar have other effects - I don't know. Finding out what the "penetration = 500" means ... and running some tests for effects on surface action would both be next steps down the the road of investigating the Type 13 radar.

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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by rtrapasso »

There was another thread some months back discussing what the numbers from the editor meant for radar. I disremember right now what the conclusions were. [8|]
If i remember i'll try to look for it this weekend...
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by sadja »

From the combinedfleet web site show the type 13 is an air search radar spotting groups of planes at 100km, single at 50km(54/27miles)
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RE: Oi and Kitakami

Post by Marc »

Some remarks. Source for all comments is this

1. The Kitakami and Oi shouldn't have radar at the beginning of the war.
Only Kitakami received No.13 radar but as late as 1944/45 during conversion to a kaiten carrier.
Attached is a page from the book showing some details about the radar types stating that No.13 radar was developed in 1943/1944.

2. During the Battle of the Java Sea 27 Feb - 1Mar 1942 Haguro fired twenty Torpedos and the Nachi sixteen. One hit the Kortenaer, one sank De Ruyter (Haguro) and one sank the Java (Nachi). These three hits were the only hits of 153 type 93 torpedoes fired by the Japanese forces.

3. During the Battle of Cape Esperance the Furutaka was hit at the port torpedo mount. The torpedos ignited and started heavy fires, which attracted the gunfire of the U.S. ships. No word of explosions or further damage.
Aoba was not hit at the torpedo mounts.

4. Aoba was hit on 3 April 1943 by skip-bombing B17. Two Type 93 torpedos exploded starting fires in No.2 engine room and blowing a 3-m hole in the aft part of the starboard bulge, which flooded. The fire was extinguished by about 1520. She had to be beached to prevent sinking.

5. The Suzuya sustained a near miss from a bomb on the 25 Oct 1944. It ignited the torpedos in the starboard tubes. Torpedos exploded and the fire couldn't be extinguished. Finally the ship became unmaneuverable und the explosion of the HA-gun mounts amunition set the whole ship ablaze.

6. Mogami was also hit at the torpedo mounts but damage wasn't lethal.


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Marc
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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by Marc »

ORIGINAL: Tiornu

At Samar, I believe both Chokai and Suzuya were done in by their own torpedo weaponry. Suzuya did not even suffer any direct hit, but a bomb frgament touched off a reaction in the torpedoes.
There are several other CA that were severely damaged by their Long Lances during the war.

Chokai was most probably not hit at the torpedo mounts. But it isn't certain because no one survived since the rescueing destroyer was sunk later.

I'd say in the early war the torpedo served the japanese cruiser quite good. Later they did only damage to them. But there were not too many surface engagements with japanese heavy cruisers during the whole war.

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RE: Oi and Kitikami

Post by Tiornu »

"At 0859, a secondary explosion, probably caused by the CHOKAI's armed torpedoes on deck, knocks out her engines and rudder. She shears out of formation to port and moves eastward."
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