Did someone pork the CHS data?

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

CA Tone (009)- in stock her main turrets protected by armour 150. In CHS lowered to 100... but its 2nd upgrade (class 631) back to stock value 150.

Which is completely wrong in all cases. No one is looking this up!!! Joe did - in Conways - and he found it is right there for all to see. NO JAPANESE CA has more than 25mm of turret armor - ever - period.
In fact, only one modern Japanese ship has 50mm of turret armor - if turret is the right word - the otherwise UNARMORED Kitori class. See Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War. See also Naval Weapons of World War Two. Japan standardized on a concept of splinter protection only and stuck with it. [WE decided this was right - long after the war - just in case you think they were wrong]. But right or wrong, HISTORICAL DATA is 25 mm for ALL IJN ships as gun armor, except in some wierd cases where it is 5mm, and Katori, which is 50 mm.

The only armor errors worse than turret armor errors are these:

1) Conning tower armor is almost universally fictional. It is great when it should be zero, zero when it should exist, and wrong when it is not zero more than 9 times in 10.

2) Merchant ships are armored!

3) Submarines are armored!

These latter on purpose by CHS too, not stock. CT armore and turret armor (and deck armor and side armor) errors mostly come from stock.

I began by pointing all this out. I intend to fix it all too - probably starting today - whenever I stop getting CHS assignments. I have no clue why this is tolerated - and I have no intention of playing while ships have fictional armor.

Cid. You came in late and sometimes I think you have little understanding of what was done prior to your arrival. The concept of armour is merely that. It is not face hardened steel armour plate etc in all cases, merely steel hull plating or what have you. CHS put "armour" (5mm max) on ships to simulate the fact that they were not made of paper mache. I can't remember the number of times I've had DDs explode when MG ammo penetrates in stock unarmoured format. Since any non penetrating weapon hit can cause fires and system damage MGs can cause damage without causing massive critical hits which armour penetrations allow. Please don't go screwing around with this. Lower it to 1-2 mm but don't remove it. As for submarines, again, done before you came for basically the same reasons as ships plus was an aspect of the alterations made in an effort to alleviate the uber effectiveness of the DCs/ASW model. I suggest that some minimal amount of armour is left on subs to prevent MG penetrations and don't worry, all DCs penetrate the 1-4 mm of armour placed on subs.

As for conning tower armour I suggest it be reduced or even removed to the point of splinter protection to simulate the less well to unprotected areas of a ship seeing as conning tower hits are redundant in the model. Leaders don't get wounded or killed if CTA is penetrated, ships don't suffer reduced effectivenss if there is a fire on the bridge or damage to electricals...all of this is just literal eye candy. Unfortunately CTA hits are possible only in surface actions, bombs can't hit this area so it is not 100% affective but is better than having yet another area which is impenetrable.

I have no clue why this is tolerated - and I have no intention of playing while ships have fictional armor.

Perhaps if you played it you would realise why it was added. It's called play testing. I frankly can't play the game if ships are made of cloth or paper.

[el cid again]

Erm, about Japanese CA turret armour, which CHS are you looking at? In the 1.06 I have, all IJN CA main battery turrets have an armour rating of 25.

Both CHS 155 - and the not yet released CHS 177 - have values like 82mm for turret armor - and Katori - the only one with 50mm - has only 25!!!

[el cid again]

Cid. You came in late and sometimes I think you have little understanding of what was done prior to your arrival. The concept of armour is merely that. It is not face hardened steel armour plate etc in all cases, merely steel hull plating or what have you. CHS put "armour" (5mm max) on ships to simulate the fact that they were not made of paper mache. I can't remember the number of times I've had DDs explode when MG ammo penetrates in stock unarmoured format. Since any non penetrating weapon hit can cause fires and system damage MGs can cause damage without causing massive critical hits which armour penetrations allow. Please don't go screwing around with this

If someone adds armor that was not there - in violation of the definition in the manual - and in contradiction of all Matrix official scenarios - it is THEY who are "screwing around with this" - not I. Further, it is quite true that a destroyer can blow up from a MG hit - a Congressional Budget Office study concluded that a single rifleman with a .30 caliber weapon was a deadly threat - and that is how we got to put kevlar armor on modern ships. I once had to fight a firefight on a US destroyer - and I intensely briefed the team about what happens if they hit an ASROC warhead, torpedo warhead, etc. Odds are long you blow up the ship! In WWII they had DCs on deck, and except IJN, torpedoes were not armored. [Reload mountings in IJN had armor]. Submarines are very vulnerable - one hole in any critical place and they cannot submerge safely. This is a fact - I don't care how inconvenient it may be. The game is designed to deal with armor - not armor plus hull - or some other concept.

[el cid again]

As for submarines, again, done before you came for basically the same reasons as ships plus was an aspect of the alterations made in an effort to alleviate the uber effectiveness of the DCs/ASW model.

Lieing is the wrong answer to a software problem. In the medium term I expect to fix all these issues in code. But in the short term I expect to build honest and accurate databases. When someone looks at data, I don't want to mislead them with falsehoods. IF I mess with data - I am going to post loud and clear "We are using EFFECTIVE ceilings, not maximum ceilings for AAA" or "we are using optimum operating altitude plus 1000 meters, not service ceiling for aircraft." Both of which I advocate. But it is a clear standard, and works with the code better than the present standard.

IF you think armor should be armor plus hull thickness, I could go for that. But then ALL ships need it- not just a few pet ones. A standard is a standard.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Cid. You came in late and sometimes I think you have little understanding of what was done prior to your arrival. The concept of armour is merely that. It is not face hardened steel armour plate etc in all cases, merely steel hull plating or what have you. CHS put "armour" (5mm max) on ships to simulate the fact that they were not made of paper mache. I can't remember the number of times I've had DDs explode when MG ammo penetrates in stock unarmoured format. Since any non penetrating weapon hit can cause fires and system damage MGs can cause damage without causing massive critical hits which armour penetrations allow. Please don't go screwing around with this

If someone adds armor that was not there - in violation of the definition in the manual - and in contradiction of all Matrix official scenarios - it is THEY who are "screwing around with this" - not I. Further, it is quite true that a destroyer can blow up from a MG hit - a Congressional Budget Office study concluded that a single rifleman with a .30 caliber weapon was a deadly threat - and that is how we got to put kevlar armor on modern ships. I once had to fight a firefight on a US destroyer - and I intensely briefed the team about what happens if they hit an ASROC warhead, torpedo warhead, etc. Odds are long you blow up the ship! In WWII they had DCs on deck, and except IJN, torpedoes were not armored. [Reload mountings in IJN had armor]. Submarines are very vulnerable - one hole in any critical place and they cannot submerge safely. This is a fact - I don't care how inconvenient it may be. The game is designed to deal with armor - not armor plus hull - or some other concept.

Working for Matrix now? Sounds like it![:D] Seriously, I don't give a hoot what the definition of anything is in the manual because the manual is poorly written and the mechanics of the game are not exactly a well ouiled machine. Have you not learned that reality and WITP don't mix? Do this for the RHS but please leave the CHS alone on this. It is there for a reason.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

As for submarines, again, done before you came for basically the same reasons as ships plus was an aspect of the alterations made in an effort to alleviate the uber effectiveness of the DCs/ASW model.

Lieing is the wrong answer to a software problem. In the medium term I expect to fix all these issues in code. But in the short term I expect to build honest and accurate databases. When someone looks at data, I don't want to mislead them with falsehoods. IF I mess with data - I am going to post loud and clear "We are using EFFECTIVE ceilings, not maximum ceilings for AAA" or "we are using optimum operating altitude plus 1000 meters, not service ceiling for aircraft." Both of which I advocate. But it is a clear standard, and works with the code better than the present standard.

IF you think armor should be armor plus hull thickness, I could go for that. But then ALL ships need it- not just a few pet ones. A standard is a standard.

They all do, or should have some...exceptions being PT boats etc.

[el cid again]

Have you not learned that reality and WITP don't mix? Do this for the RHS but please leave the CHS alone on this. It is there for a reason.

Nope! I think the system has potential. I would not think so if it had no relationship to anything real.

And I have an agreement in principle to fix the armor - just not until it is time to review the ships - which is apparently not now. There is no way it is right for a few classes to get it and most not to. And frankly the idea that armor is right on subs and merchants is nonsense in my view: MG are standard on patrol craft - then and now - because I can SINK an unarmored ship with them IF I can't set them afire or blow them up - both of which I can do to a destroyer. I would rather have a .50, but a good .30 will do. I myself used both - and they are fine weapons. There is this wierd concept out there that naval battle is safe! It is not.

[el cid again]

How one might do armor would be to consider several factors:

the Manual definition of Maximum Thickness could be interpreted as at the angle of the armor - rather than at a normal angle - unless the armor is perpendicular.

and hull thickness might count - sometimes it really IS armor so you don't discount it - the rest of the time divide by 5 or something like that
and add to any real armor

Finally, in some wierd case one might reduce the armor for poor quality - divide by 2/3 or something like that.

But there would have to be a consensus and the same standard applied to ALL vessels. And yes, a plywood boat, or a wood patrol craft based on a fishing trawler, should rate zero, in such a system.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Have you not learned that reality and WITP don't mix? Do this for the RHS but please leave the CHS alone on this. It is there for a reason.

Nope! I think the system has potential. I would not think so if it had no relationship to anything real.

And I have an agreement in principle to fix the armor - just not until it is time to review the ships - which is apparently not now. There is no way it is right for a few classes to get it and most not to. And frankly the idea that armor is right on subs and merchants is nonsense in my view: MG are standard on patrol craft - then and now - because I can SINK an unarmored ship with them IF I can't set them afire or blow them up - both of which I can do to a destroyer. I would rather have a .50, but a good .30 will do. I myself used both - and they are fine weapons. There is this wierd concept out there that naval battle is safe! It is not.

Problem with armour penetration in the game, regardless of weapon size, type and yield, is that it causes catastrophic damage a high percentage of the time and critical hits leading to destruction a seemingly disproportionate amount of time. Adding a few millimeters of armour in lieu of hull plating (the hull thicknesses today and 80 years ago are no way in the same league either) and a dedicated unarmoured hit location was a work around. It works given the games mechanics.

[akdreemer]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

considering that the Japanese fleet cruising speed was 18kts.

Almost nothing Japanese military is ever simple! Complex is the very essense of the Japanese culture!

The old light cruisers had a cruising speed of 16 knots for example. And some later ships had cruising speeds of 20 knots. And slower ships that don't make 18 knots had lower cruising speeds - as they must.

Okay, got me there, not all task forces traveled at 18, but surface action and carrier TFs have been documented in several published sources that this was the proscribed wartime ruising speed. However, this will never happen if a vessel's cruising speed is 12kts in the database. Another problem is that most of the endurance data used in the game was based on designed endurance at some proscribed speed. Reality is that very few vessels built ever met this endurance under any kind of operational condition, especially war time conditions. Just a glance through Friedmans volumes on US Warships. Although I have been unable to discover what the US naval wartime cruising speeds were some simple math by calculating distance traveled by time traveled gives an average of ~19kts. One calculation a US Battleship traveling from Panama Canal to Espritu Santo averaged 19.2 kts at slowest time. The BB refueled the escorting DD's several times.

Now where am I going with this. In my humble opinion all the major naval combatants in the stock version have too high of an endurance and to slow of a cruising speed. The current data doesnot reflect the realities of the need to cover vast distances in a timely manner, enefficient engineering/steaming practices, need to evade submarines, and failure to accout for the effect of marine growth on hulls, to name a few. Thus my solution was to set major naval combatants cruising speeds higher than the stock and like wise decreasing endurance. I used reputable published figures for the speeds selected on vessels I could find data for then extrapolated for the rest. Maybe not 100% perfect, which I beleive is beyond the scope of any simulation, but it goes a long way towards simulating the fuel problems experienced by both sides.

Oh, by the way, war is complex, and cannot not be perfectly simulated. All the combatants were complex culturally, politically, and militarilly, not just the Japanese.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Problem with armour penetration in the game, regardless of weapon size, type and yield, is that it causes catastrophic damage a high percentage of the time and critical hits leading to destruction a seemingly disproportionate amount of time.

No it doesn't. It was never as high as you say, but it probably was too high and it was reduced a great deal in a patch quite a while ago.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Problem with armour penetration in the game, regardless of weapon size, type and yield, is that it causes catastrophic damage a high percentage of the time and critical hits leading to destruction a seemingly disproportionate amount of time.

No it doesn't. It was never as high as you say, but it probably was too high and it was reduced a great deal in a patch quite a while ago.

This is more a matter of opinion and playing the latest beta version and watching surface combats where every second penetration or so is followed by a critical hit message I must submit that in my opinion penetrations lead to a high percentage of critical hits. The magazine explosions we have been told have been reduced in some manner but the critical hits have not (ie...massive explosive damage message). I have not seen any documentation stating otherwise. Don't confuse critical hits and magazine explosions with regard to my statements.

[el cid again]

Problem with armour penetration in the game, regardless of weapon size, type and yield, is that it causes catastrophic damage a high percentage of the time and critical hits leading to destruction a seemingly disproportionate amount of time. Adding a few millimeters of armour in lieu of hull plating (the hull thicknesses today and 80 years ago are no way in the same league either) and a dedicated unarmoured hit location was a work around. It works given the games mechanics.

First of all, you need to understand, it simply CANNOT be working. It is a complete distortion of any sense of fair play to armor some classes of submarines - but not all. Same for merchant vessels. And that is what you have got. So it is not working. Better to be equal at zero than protected for some and not for others.

Second, I have not seen, in either UV or WITP, any evidence there is a problem. Battle outcomes seem reasonable compared with history. They also seem reasonable compared with real life. I may have witnessed the last time the line of battle was ever used (or will ever be used) by warships. It was a strange battle, one we don't talk about because it was a STRATEGIC DEFEAT for the USN - in 1968! Most people have no idea there were ANY naval battles in the Viet Nam war, much less battles we lost. And, indeed, it was not a naval war in the WWII sense, where enemy fleets might take control of the sea. Nevertheless, we did have actions of various kinds: we had several ships hit by mines, we had several instances of air attack (by both the real enemy and by USAF, and for some years our air defenses didn't work: SAM hit rates were 60 fired per kill overall!) and missile attack (which, fortunately, we defeated, every time), and we had actual surface battle. While we did have USS New Jersey eventually (from Aug 1968) and some old cruisers with armor, as far as I know all surface actions occurred with unarmored vessels (and/or shore batteries): warships, patrol craft, merchants and small craft. So this sort of fight is exactly what you should be interested in - re the effects of small caliber guns. We tended to use 76mm, 127mm, 152mm and 203mm guns, while the enemy used 122mm, 130mm and 152 mm guns (and maybe 100 mm and 76mm, but we don't know that). All of these weapons are dreadful if they hit an unarmored vessel of any kind. Just as in the Falklands decades later, we tended to arm everything with machine guns, every one we could get, and mount them almost every logical place. Because we believed, and experience showed, that these weapons were most germane even in the modern era. I remember once a US battalion got pushed off high ground into the sea, and we were called upon to support with direct fire (instead of the normal indirect fire). All assets assigned to I corps support were otherwise committed, so we (the flagship) went in close, and I mounted our .50s and .30s on the side, and even committed two BARs (in 7.62 NATO caliber, a conversion from their orignal), supplimenting 2 five inch 54s. Our action was almost reckless because (1) we might well have run aground; (2) we might well have taken mission kill damage from mgs and rpgs; (3) we might have been blown out of the water by our own ordnance if something set it off. But the really scary action was that battle to cut the line of supply from Malaya to Cambodia. We failed so badly we didn't do it again, and the army eventually had to cut the line by the "incursion" into Cambodia. That line was significant: more tonnage went into the Delta of Viet Nam by sea than came down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. A division of real warships engaged a fleet (hundreds) of wooden civil vessels on a military mission. We felt our advantages in things like radar would insure victory - and we were wrong. They only had army guns on wheels - impossible to hit with on the deck of a rolling ship - and mgs - yet they were way too dangerous to close with. They didn't honor the rules - run when out gunned - and I am not sure they knew they were outgunned? They kept on course, took their losses, and delivered the goods anyway! The situation was so obviously dangerous the Navy didn't try that again. I don't think it is wrong to make mg's dangerous - and I have to admit that in thousands of hours of playing I have never seen mg's sink any warship in this game or its predecessor.

[el cid again]

Okay, got me there, not all task forces traveled at 18, but surface action and carrier TFs have been documented in several published sources that this was the proscribed wartime ruising speed. However, this will never happen if a vessel's cruising speed is 12kts in the database. Another problem is that most of the endurance data used in the game was based on designed endurance at some proscribed speed. Reality is that very few vessels built ever met this endurance under any kind of operational condition, especially war time conditions. Just a glance through Friedmans volumes on US Warships. Although I have been unable to discover what the US naval wartime cruising speeds were some simple math by calculating distance traveled by time traveled gives an average of ~19kts. One calculation a US Battleship traveling from Panama Canal to Espritu Santo averaged 19.2 kts at slowest time. The BB refueled the escorting DD's several times.

That could not have been an older battleship. The old ships had a full speed of 21 knots, and operationally could not achieve that speed except right after a yard period. Further, your real speed over the planet is not the same as your speed through the water: you must overcome adverse wind and current. For a nominally 21 knot ship, really 20 knots, to average 19 knots, takes favorable wind and current, and inefficient full speed fuel consumption.

Now a "fast battleship" could achieve this speed - but it would not do so normally. Ranges for US heavy warships were calculated at a speed of only 10 knots!!!! Yep. And if they went too fast, there would be trouble with the boiler feed water on destroyers. As far as I know, the ONLY ships in ANY navy to routinely travel at high speed were the Queens (Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary). They made unescorted runs (no warship could keep up) from UK to Austrailia - carrying a brigade each - about 30 times!

Actually, there are several technical problems with cruising long distances at all. You have to have set it up ahead of time - months ahead of time - so there is fuel where you need it - or you are restricted to going where fuel is going to be anyway. Oilers were often more valuable than carriers, because of their influence on operations. Games (other than games I design) rarely make players do the real tasks right - and WITP has almost nuclear powered ships. They are rated to go farther than they could really go, but need less fuel than they really needed, at a speed faster than they could achieve their actual cruising range. Thus, most warships are rated with a cruising speed of 15 knots, but given the range they would have if they only went 10 knots (or even more!), and then they only need 2/3 of the fuel to achieve that range at the slower speed!
I took the entire Kiddo Butai to San Francisco, for a month, and then went to Tokyo, and arrived home with 1/3 of the fuel still in the tankers! In real life, this was not possible: Hiryu and Soryu could barely make it to Pearl at all- and both carried extra fuel in 50 gal drums to do it!

I am uninterested in playing with ships that are not restricted in range. I don't know what players think they are doing, but they are not simulating WWII if they can cruise vast distances with too little fuel cost.

[el cid again]

Thus my solution was to set major naval combatants cruising speeds higher than the stock and like wise decreasing endurance.

Nary a word about fuel! Since stock let them go too far on too little fuel, letting them go faster makes this worse!

The game is not too bad in working with ships. The cruising speed of a task force is the cruising speed of the slowest ship. Similarly, the max speed is the max speed of the slowest ship - as it should be. You CAN order max speed - faster than cruising - if you want to. The real world has DIFFERENT crusing speeds for different ships, and you really have to escort that tanker - no matter how fast you can go! It really is more efficient to assign fast ships to the same group!

The big problem is the corrupt data. Ships get a 'free ride' because they have too small a fuel requirement (mostly). And frankly - your idea about great distances fast is an illusion - on the average it is much worse than in the game. It takes two weeks to cross the Pacific in a fast warship! And to do that you have to stop at Hawaii for fuel if you are a destroyer. If you tried to go faster, you would run out of fuel! And fuel use is NOT proportional to speed. As speed increases, power increases by an exponential function, and fuel goes up directly with the power increase. A high speed passage is possible for some ships - if unescorted or if traveling with too few escorts refueled by the big ship. This appears way too easy - and it is misleading. To make it easier is actually a distortion of real operations.

Now IF you make an honest system (fuel/speed/range wise), I will STILL do what YOU want to do - because I am a log wizzard. And that is exactly what I want - a game that rewards a log oriented player. That is the real genius of Americans in war in general and in naval war in particular. Just saying "go there fast" is not enough. You have to have said "three months from now we may want to go there fast, so lets set it up."

[el cid again]

Oh, by the way, war is complex, and cannot not be perfectly simulated. All the combatants were complex culturally, politically, and militarilly, not just the Japanese.

True, but Japan sets olympic records for complexity. It is a problem in a strategic sense. If you study Japan, in any area, after a while you will find yourself saying "this is simply amazing." Japan had many more kinds of ammunition than we did, for example. When it should have had fewer.

[el cid again]

This is more a matter of opinion and playing the latest beta version and watching surface combats where every second penetration or so is followed by a critical hit message I must submit that in my opinion penetrations lead to a high percentage of critical hits. The magazine explosions we have been told have been reduced in some manner but the critical hits have not (ie...massive explosive damage message). I have not seen any documentation stating otherwise. Don't confuse critical hits and magazine explosions with regard to my statements.

I do not think you understand what a critical hit is. It is any hit on any critical system. On all ships, some systems are not protected by armor. So a critical hit on one of those systems is NEVER prevented even if the ship is armored. On unarmored ships, NO system is EVER protected by armor (except reload torpedos on IJN destroyers, because their magazines are armored). So to see critical hits is SOP, normal and right. One of the several theories about HMS Hood is that a shell set off a torpedo mounting, the explosion of which caused sympathetic detonation of main magazines. While I don't regard that as the most likely theory, it is a plausable one. And it illustrates perfectly that a critical hit can occur even in spite of armor - with NO need to penetrate armor.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

This is more a matter of opinion and playing the latest beta version and watching surface combats where every second penetration or so is followed by a critical hit message I must submit that in my opinion penetrations lead to a high percentage of critical hits. The magazine explosions we have been told have been reduced in some manner but the critical hits have not (ie...massive explosive damage message). I have not seen any documentation stating otherwise. Don't confuse critical hits and magazine explosions with regard to my statements.

I do not think you understand what a critical hit is. It is any hit on any critical system. On all ships, some systems are not protected by armor. So a critical hit on one of those systems is NEVER prevented even if the ship is armored. On unarmored ships, NO system is EVER protected by armor (except reload torpedos on IJN destroyers, because their magazines are armored). So to see critical hits is SOP, normal and right. One of the several theories about HMS Hood is that a shell set off a torpedo mounting, the explosion of which caused sympathetic detonation of main magazines. While I don't regard that as the most likely theory, it is a plausable one. And it illustrates perfectly that a critical hit can occur even in spite of armor - with NO need to penetrate armor.

I totally agree but I adamantly believe the mechanics cause these critical hits overly often. Just my opinion, but during surface combat at close range (another thing which is laughable are the endless 2000 yard blast fests between BBs LOL!) MGs hit so often that if the penetrate they get more whacks at the criticals and basically become more effective than larger shells. This is a result of the mechanics and this is why Lemurs initially did this to DDs (5mm max armour) and CHS applied it univesally...exception non stell hulled vessels.

[Nikademus]

There are three "critical" hits in WitP.

1. Magazine explosion
2. Fuel storage explosion
3. Ammo storage explosion

#1 will sink your ship every time

Numbers 2 and 3 add additional SYS and FIRE levels to the normal damage/fire/flt roll. The "damage messages" displayed after a penetration are just descriptors.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: el cid again

... I am a log wizzard.

What's a 'log wizzard'?