Surface Combat Sux

[mogami]

Hi, Every time one of my surface TF catch enemy transport TF I sink or damage most of the enemy force. I wonder why it only happens for me? PT boats have never hurt me. I wonder why it only happens to me?

As a tester I am bound to report only what I see and when I see something I do not understand I post it for the designers to see. It is up to them to decide. I do not select only what I consider good for my point of view results to post there or here in the public forum. I have 10 PBEM games and the other guy is free to post the results from those games. To date nothing I could say was a result of poor design or progaming has occured.
(It's hard to suggest changes when everything is going exactly as planned)

A Ship captain might be a good officer and fight his ship well but not command a TF as well as he might. Just like finding a Ltjg With super numbers and placing him in command of a Fighter Squadron might result in the Squadron performance declining even though the previous officer was a Commander with lower numbers. Or placing a Lt in charge of a Divison. A ship officer (Cpt) is not a flag officer.



Why do players keep claiming every result that is not in their favor is in error? or a bug? or some kind of mistake. We are sometimes at the mercy of those we place in command of our forces. As time passes players will avoid one leader and use another when they feel the result is important enough to place someone they trust in command.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

I don't understand Ron - aren't you one of the beta testers for WITP? Didn't you raise those issues on the beta board? What was the consensus among the betas then, and how did the developers respond?

O.

Can't speak for either the other betas or the developers. Thats for the dev forums. I had repeated differences of opinion so am no longer a beta. I'm a zebra or something.[:)] I still believe the game has no equal and tend to be passionate about it as this is the only group of guys to have the will and pure wargaming pedigree to make a game of this scale and as such, I think it important that people try to make sure problems are pointed out. No other game in town. As a naval enthusiast (zealot?[8D]) I think this is paramount.

[mogami]

You did mention that Force "Z" was set to retire so as to be away from the area to avoid LBA right?
You did say that Force "Z" moved during the turn before arriving and finding the enemy TF right?

The TF commander was aggresive or cautious?

The other ship CO were aggresive or cautious?

I might be misunderstanding the situation but I am interpting this as
"Go and damage what you can but be gone before sunrise and be very carefull"

But you expect results like

"Go, come back with your shield or on it. Leave no enemy left alive and fight to the last round and then commence ramming attacks."
Night Time Surface Combat, near Legaspi

From PBEM with Dadman. His 4 DD hit every ship in my TF.
Japanese Ships
PG Busho Maru, Shell hits 3
PG Chohakusan Maru, Shell hits 1
AP Biyo Maru, Shell hits 10, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
AK Hukko Maru, Shell hits 1
AK Indus Maru, Shell hits 19, on fire, heavy damage
AK Natisan Maru, Shell hits 5, on fire, heavy damage
AK Hiyama Maru, Shell hits 2, on fire

Allied Ships
DD John D. Ford
DD Peary, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Pillsbury, Shell hits 1
DD Pope

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

I don't understand Ron - aren't you one of the beta testers for WITP? Didn't you raise those issues on the beta board? What was the consensus among the betas then, and how did the developers respond?

O.

Surface TF vs Transport TF issues have been discussed. A current wish list item is to improve this aspect of the naval model by increasing aggressiveness vs ill defended or undefended merchants.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

You did mention that Force "Z" was set to retire so as to be away from the area to avoid LBA right?
You did say that Force "Z" moved during the turn before arriving and finding the enemy TF right?

The TF commander was aggresive or cautious?

The other ship CO were aggresive or cautious?

I might be misunderstanding the situation but I am interpting this as
"Go and damage what you can but be gone before sunrise and be very carefull"

But you expect results like

"Go, come back with your shield or on it. Leave no enemy left alive and fight to the last round and then commence ramming attacks."

The model allows the player to despatch his ships as he sees fit, correct? It is up to the player to decide if LBA threat or any other is serious enough or not to risk putting ships into harms way. Player decideds that risk is warranted and the TF does as it is ordered and goes into harms way because morale, fatigue, aggressiveness etc is not modelled at this point. There is no "not allowed" message like in land combat regarding movement.

Sooo, we are now at the point of engagement. Suddenly LBA becomes a threat? Makes no sense to allow a TF to operate in LBA range with no game restriction, but have this same threat instigate a completely brief sorry excuse for a naval engagement, only to have the TF expose itself to LBA on the way out.

I'm not saying this could not happen in real terms, I'm saying that it should probably be the exception, not the rule.

The main problem I find is the sighted ships rule, and this leads to many of the bizarre results. Ships that sail together in a TF should fight together, they should not suddenly become unavailable when 500 yards away from a ship which it is leading is engaged. Especially if it is radar equipped.

[mogami]

Hi, I suspect (and issue orders to my leaders accordingly) That when you select retire after battle you are in fact telling him to get in and get out.
If you want him to stay and fight you select do not retire.

Retire means "save some movement to use after you fight"
Retire means "stay away during the day, fight at night, be gone again at sunrise"

Depending on the amount of movement a retire TF expends getting to a hex detirmines how much movement time it can spend fighting before following orders to be gone it breaks contact.

Now I am seeing players using this order wanting to know why their TF did not pursue 20 ships that scattered like the wind. Those transports did not just sit there like so many ducks waiting for the POW and Repulse to blow them out of the water.
POW and Repluse would not just (under a cautious leader who was watching the clock) allow their escorting ships to slip the leash and run off in hot pursuit.

There is a reverse side of this coin where by selecting too aggresive a commander and not defining your desire to retire a TF will engage in multiple battles and then be sitting exposed to enemy air attack the following day.

[Nikademus]

Do Not Retire's primary function is for the TF to fight at night....a situation that is often preferable for reasons that have nothing to do with the fear of reprisal. An example of such would be for Japanese TF's to better employ their torpedoes, or British TF's to utilize superior night training and radar. It is also useful to enhance gunnery via shorter ranged combat.

TF's set to Do Not Retire tend to engage TF's by day which often minimizes hits as well as leaves the TF within range of strike aircraft.

The risk of reprisal is indeed one that would weigh on a commander's mind but if the decision is taken to strike at a vital convoy/transport TF and contact is made...then more often than not the result should be a serious brew up. The exception, would be a timidly led or confused battle...dependant in a large part on the size and proficiency of the escort forces.

[Ron Saueracker]

A TF engaging another, and during which the range changes three times, IS spending time. It is A) not firing to any real degree (in fact, the TRs fired as much as the highly trained warships) and B) half the attacking ships were not "available/sighted/in the same dimension" as the other half. If they were not in formation with the remainder, where were they? And where were the missing IJ ships?

At Savo, a roughly equal force managed to brutalize two separate surface combat forces in a very short time before retiring due to LBA threat. But in my example, Force Z could not more than damage one AP vs a most likely achored, unloading, unsuspecting and undefended transport TF. Does not add up.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Do Not Retire's primary function is for the TF to fight at night....a situation that is often preferable for reasons that have nothing to do with the fear of reprisal. An example of such would be for Japanese TF's to better employ their torpedoes, or British TF's to utilize superior night training and radar. It is also useful to enhance gunnery via shorter ranged combat.

TF's set to Do Not Retire tend to engage TF's by day which often minimizes hits as well as leaves the TF within range of strike aircraft.

The risk of reprisal is indeed one that would weigh on a commander's mind but if the decision is taken to strike at a vital convoy/transport TF and contact is made...then more often than not the result should be a serious brew up. The exception, would be a timidly led or confused battle...dependant in a large part on the size and proficiency of the escort forces.

Thank you, Steve.[;)]

[Adnan Meshuggi]

I do not say that everything is a bug or an error....
mostly it will be MY fault... [:D] but...
i just say if a bad commander will not sink the AP-Convoy, it should be really understandable... such things could happen, but under such conditions, it should happen once or twice in all games... or something is "wrong".

I wrote, that myself does not saw any pt-boat-fightings with such results... but i play the may42-scenario, so i have nil such fights. I have tested the ASW/SUB-thing, and here i belive it should be fixed. For the lone cruiser-thing, here this could happen - esp. in the night...

but a tf with the order to stop any invasion should take more risks to destroy such convoys... that is my opinion. So i suggest that we get these different options (orders from the hq)... like
"be careful, your ships are the only one we have here for a year (so the captain IS careful) to "desperate times need desperate methods, the HQ know about the situation - if you loose your ships but cause damage to the enemy, it was well done"...[:D]
this would be multiplied with the capabilities of the comander... voila... sound this goof or bad for you... i am not interestet in a flame war or in bashing you... i just want to "improve" the situation. nothing else... at last you are not mdiehl (hehe...) but mr. godfather of witp (my opinion) and if one can help to improve situations, i think you are the one... [&o]

[Captain Cruft]

Nells/Betties:

ORIGINAL: 2ndACR
I know that I could set a percentage to naval search, I just keep forgeting to do it. But it is fixed now.

As far as I'm concerned these planes' primary purpose is search. That they can also sometimes torpedo ships early on in the game is just icing on the cake.

JMHO of course.

[SpitfireIX]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, I don't concur that so-so leaders will do the right thing. Often they see a mouse and believe they are seeing a Tiger.

MacClellan Had Lees Operations order in Sept 1862 and still failed to defeat Lee. He knew where all the scattered parts of Lee's Army were and never was able to hit any one of them because of HOW HE CONDUCTED his movements. With over a 2-1 force he failed to drive Lee from the battlefield because of HOW HE CONDUCTED the battle (which he called a masterpiece) The French collapse in WWII is almost the entire fault of their Supreme Commander. Examples in history of leaders failing in situations that greatly favored them is so numerous it would require decades to compile.

And examples of commanders who totally routed the enemy in such a situation abound as well (though I concede they are less frequent).

As for McClellan, he is a special case. After Confederate General John McGruder was able to fool McClellan into believing that many more rebel troops blocked the Union path to Richmond than there actually were, Confederate General Joe Johnston commented, "no one but McClellan could have failed to act."

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

You are really pushing the envelope here in your defense of this obviously "crippled" combat model. This happens 99% of the time. Why is it so hard for anyone to admit that maybe the model is sadly short of passable? For a naval game, this is inexcusable if left as is. Even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile, Force Z would not have behaved like this even with Iachino in command...the mouse vs tiger analogy does not wash in light of repeated examples of this routine. Captain Leatch is supposed to be a very seasoned combat veteran. While I realize the surface combat routines involving transport TFs are being looked at, the random vessel sighted/not sighted feature should be allowed to crawl away and die. It stretches plausability more than it invites it.

There are a zillion great things about this product. Don't leave a few glaring issues like this to soil an otherwise good project.

I'm with Ron on this one. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the fact that these situations occur _sometimes_ does not bother me--that is realistic. The fact that they occur virtually _all_ the time is very unrealistic. Also, even poor or mediocre commanders have good days once in a while, especially when facing other poor or mediocre leaders.

Although I agree with the rationale for the target with the highest detection level being attacked, I think that should only happen up to a point. Once detection is above a certain level, other target-priority factors should take precedence. I've had almost the same thing happen with Force Z that Ron did--alone in a hex with lightly guarded enemy transports, and no damage done. [&:]

[mogami]

fact that they occur virtually _all_ the time is very unrealistic

Hi, Not so, scroll up a bit in this thread and see where I posted 4 USN DD beating the crap out of Japanese. (rascals died next day from LBA) (Post #706108)

[Nikademus]

myself...i've lost track of the # of engagements in which a strong surface TF broke through or just plain intercepted a lightly or undefended transport TF only to bag 1-2 merchants after 1-2 rounds of fire and a mutual break-off.

Have i mentioned lately that this is a wish list item already added? [8|]

(we now return to your regularily scheduled argument.....)

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

Welcome to the aggrivating world of "surface combat". Wait until you get the
"explanations" of how those two staggering six-knot wrecks "shielded" the rest
of the 7-11 knot targets from the attack of a group of 20-35 knot warships in-
tent on their destruction. On a clear day with good visibility......

It's a bug in the surface action system that arose from the desire to reflect the
rather common occurance of a few blazing (and very visable) targets to attract
a lot of fire during a night action. Unfortunately, it also shows up during daytime
actions when it produces rediculous results such as you experianced. Keep your
fingers crossed that the next patch will offer a fix.

Haven't seen this yet in WitP but it would seemm to be a large problem as described. I know that in UV IJN TFs had the ability to cut through any and all Allied unescorted merchant shipping at given ports, sinking everything in sight--never have seen a surface action in that game in a hex other than a port, though.

As for the "explanations": yes, these are aggravating to no end. [:)]

I don't remember if I finally got back to you on this but I finally did read Frank's Guadacanal. Good book, though I found nothing new in it to suggest that Morison was off in his numbers any meaningful way. Indeed, Frank and Lundstrom both agree with Morison with re to the larger picture as well as most specifics pertaining to the air war vis-a-vis Zeros and Wildcats and so on. So what all the argument was about months ago I couldn't say.

[Montrose]

It's a shame that all kinds of excuses are being put forward to muddy the water when the core issue is very clear. It's also not suprising that beta testers are the ones being most inventive. Please forget about the US Civil War and any other strawmen you might be thinking of putting into this thread, and help us with the actual issue if possible. If people can't be bothered to read my waffle, then please at least focus on the headings.

Core issue: Ships are programmed to fire on targets with the highest Detection Level.

This can be read in the manual page 170. "The higher a ship's DL during surface combat, the more likely it is to become the target of an enemy ships weapons". It can again be confirmed by simply watching surface combat replays. The only time a ship will not fire at the highest DL target is when it returns one burst of defensive fire at any ship which fires at it.

It leads to: Massive over-concentration on the most visible target.

Any ship which is ablaze has a higher DL during day or night, and therefore attracts more and more shell fire until the AI declares it as sunk. When combat ends, very few of the enemy ships have been seriously damaged, and the unlucky few have often been overkilled many times over.

It is wrong because: 1) Detection Levels are not the right criteria for target selection. 2) The results make no sense.

Detection levels should do just that, enable ships to be detected. Deciding which ship to fire at would never be done on the basis of which was the most visible. Ship commanders were not ordered to empty their magazines into the most visible wreck afloat and ignore everything else. Target threat, mission, firer capability etc. were what mattered in RL. For some other madness, I put forward an example of the Iowa v's Yamato and burning minesweeper. If the Iowa was faced with both in WitP, it would ignore the Yamato and fire everything it had against the burning minesweeper.

For those that try to argue that surface ships were rubbish even against slow harmless transports, and that somehow this bizarre targetting is an abstract way of representing that, IMHO you are dead wrong. If warships really were this useless against all other ships, why would all major powers persist in building them at great expense. I would also say that I have a hard time believing anyone who says they do not see these kinds of results, because they are the norm in the umpteen dozen surface actions I have seen. This isn't suprising because it is programmed to be like this.

It could be solved by: 1) Dropping DLs as a targetting determinant. Or 2) Checking for sunk ships more often.

Ideally other criteria could be programmed in to give a realistic targetting routine. Target threat, mission, firer capabilities, and probably much more could be included. However, that would be a major (impossible?) effort, so in the end just anything other than Detection Levels will be a massive improvement. Random targetting from amongst visible ships would be fine.

An alternative is for the AI to check for sunk ships more often in surface combat, which will force the targetting routine to move on to another target rather than continually atomising the debris of whichever unfortunate has been picked upon.

As other have said, we all like this game, don't want to kick up a fuss, but as we'll be stuck for anything like WitP for the forseeable future, let's get this flawed aspect working properly. Also please note that this is not specifically a transport problem, not specifically a TF or a convoy problem, it is specifically a targetting problem. From that error of judgement does all the other silliness flow. It is the targetting routine specifically which needs to be fixed, and tinkering with transports or anything else is completely the wrong direction to take.

I'm convinced that we'll see some silly turret facing alterations on some obscure Dutch cruiser, and a 100th increase in the fuel consumed by a Wildcat on patrol in Outer Mongolia in the next patch, rather than concrete action on this most fundamental game issue. I sincerely hope that I'm proved wrong though [:)] [&o]

[Edit] Typos.

[RAM]

good post, Montrose. I agree with everything you said.

I think we all are in agreement that WitP is an incredible game with or without this problem. The fact that some of us are pointing it out doesn't mean we think the game is $h1t...just that we want some rules that end in unrealistic results tweaked for a more historical outcome of the battles.

There's no need to try and defend by any means outcomes that, should they happen once in a while, would be understandable, but being as they are more the common rule than the exception, are quite unrealistic. I'm amused to see the ammount of explanations given to explain such outcomes. They would be OK if this issue happened sporadically, but not when they happen time after time.
However, one learns a lot of history reading them .




I, myself, are glad to know that Matrix is looking at least at the convoy battles to make them more realistic. This is a step towards more realistic results, so it's a step to improve an already extraordinary game .


(and yes, I've had yet another surface action in my game with most of the enemy trasports leaving unscathed ...)

[Ron Saueracker]

Thank you for that succinct post, Montrose.

[steveh11Matrix]

As other have said, we all like this game, don't want to kicvk up a fuss, but as we'll be stuck for anything like WitP for the forseeable future, let's get this flawed aspect working properly. Also please note that this is not specifically a transport problem, not specifcally a TF or a convoy problem, it is specifically a targetting problem. From that error of judgement does all the other silliness flow. It is the targetting routine specifically which needs to be fixed, and tinkering with transports or anything else is completely the wrong direction to take.

My italics.

I've already seen a number of examples of this. I can rationalise away this happening sometimes, but it seems to happen far too frequently.

Like classes should prioritise similar classes, but with due attention being paid to 'distribution of fire', meaning that everyone doesn't pile in on the same hapless target. Aside from anything else, all those shell splashes hamper fire solutions. Secondary weapons are for the small stuff (DD's, CL's sometimes, or in their absence any nice juicy merchies [:)]). Poor fire distribution could be a factor of the training/experience of the crew modified by the TF commander, perhaps. But a simple flat distribution 'pure random' target allocation would appear to be better.

What are the routines for air->surface fire allocation?

Steve.

[tsimmonds]

The whole "High-DL-Ship-becomes-Shell-Magnet" phenomenon is not entirely without merit. In thinking of the various night actions during the war, some facts stand out:

• a ship will never become a target, if it is not spotted.
• a ship which is afire is a much better target than one that is not.
• in the early days of radar fire control systems, there were several actions in which one Japanese ship (the one that produced the largest or the nearest radar return--Takanami at Tassafaronga, Niizuki at Second Kula Gulf, Jintsu at Kolombangara, Sendai at Empress Augusta Bay) became the target of the entire American formation, while the rest of the ships launched torpedoes and then evaded, or at least escaped immediate attention.
  
  DL is not entirely bogus, not in low visibility anyway. Just worth noting.