Jap ASW forces

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

I'd like to pose a question, and please don't think I'm trying to be confrontational or a jerk.

Is it possible that due to the years we all played Vanilla WiTP that we got used to the Japanese sub doctrine switch being on and having Japanese subs that weren't as effective as they could be? Allied subs as well for that matter, since in the early war neither side attacked much in Vanilla.

I was personally surprised by just how well my subs have been doing. But in vanilla, I would usually play with the sub doctrine switches on. It is a big difference between the sub effectiveness in the two games. And you know that I do think that the subs have been too aggressive in AE at times.

Maybe its the fact that its two different games, but we have some expectations that AE would be more like Vanilla in this area?

Just trying to find a optional explanations on the issue. [:)]

Shark-you've hit the nail on the head. I completely agree.

[Canoerebel]

I only played WitP with Japanese sub doctrine off.  I didn't see anything in WitP close to what I'm seeing in my AE game.  Surely there are a mixture of factors in play:  random chance, a healthy dose of bad luck, good strategy by my opponent, and game design.  The designers have tweaked several aspects of submarine/ASW warfare in the patches and hotfixes in a commendable effort to address problems and get the game right.  I think things are wacky based upon my game, but in reading other AARs like that between Cuttlefish and Q-Ball submarines don't seem particulary noteworthy.  It's a lonely feeling to think few if anyone is encountering the kinds of things I'm seeing.

[Dili]

If ship captains had an ASW competence field it could be simulated(and edited) the japanese deficiencies without a penalty for surface combat. Obviously for AE as is, the tweak can be made in ASW weapons

[spence]

In the game the Japanese Player is free to operate his submarines in a an ahistorical manner near major Allied ports because he knows that air ASW has been nerfed until pilot experience reaches some magic threshold that only Japanese flyers can attain for a year or two. Taking the slowest diving boats of any belligerent into an area patrolled by enemy air just should result in heavy losses. If an IJN Player wants to do it he should suffer accordingly. Aircraft equiped with surface search radar should be allowed to fly the ASW mission AT NIGHT as well as in the day: a capability the Allies developed long before the Japanese which resulted in many German U-boats sunk at night by aircraft in areas where aircraft could reach.

In addition he is free to employ the GLEN seaplane in a completely ahistorical and technically impossible manner flying continuous air search missions deep in the enemy rear areas with practically no likelihood of an operational mishap resulting from two high seas takeoffs and landings each day. What an amazing aircraft that must have been. From reading through the TROMs of the IJN subs at Combinedfleet.com mention seems to be made of every single time any of the aviation capable subs carried a plane at all and each and every flight flown when they did.

ASW got short shrift in the budgets of the IJN. With absolutely no actual battle experience from WWI the IJN entered the Second World War equiped for the First World War with a theoretical doctrine that wasn't practiced much (because it didn't fit into the "Decisive Battle Tsushima Scenario" held so dear by the leadership of the IJN. For the most part the losses incurred by Allied submarines in the first six months of the war were the result of groundings, mines and bombs in port. IJN ASW was pretty ineffective.

Strangely the fact that Japanese doctrine, which was adhered to rigidly by IJN skippers, called for setting no depth charge any deeper than 150 ft (because Japanese boats couldn't go much deeper than this) hasn't been mentioned. This was not corrected until some time in mid=1943 when some loud mouthed self important moron of a United States Senator put out a press release announcing how smart U.S. sub skippers were by diving deeper than that when under attack and the info got back to the IJN via neutrals and diplomatic channels. Maybe the game needs an Honorable Senator from the State of Idiot rule to simulate this. Try this: the effectiveness of all IJN ASW weapons is halved from April 1942 (allow time for the word to get out) to some randomly generated date in mid-1943. Should be fun. The game is flawed by letting the Japanese Player discard all the doctrines developed pre-war (along with any and all cultural factors that impaired Japanese performance in any sphere of warfare) while locking the Allied Player into those very same foibles of doctrine and culture. Just a suggestion to help redress the balance.

[PzB74]

Many historical correct comments and observations but remember that it's impossible to re-create the FOW, strengths and weaknesses that existed in the different camps when war broke out in 42. Indeed I also got a long list of things I'd love to see changed;

I think to much info is revealed in general!

A sub is attacked by asw vessels and lots of info is immediately given to the player - in real life it would be very hard for the sub to spot much while diving deep, not to talk about transmitting something that will be received and copied.

Same with land combat, a clear cut picture of the opponent is immediately visible if you perform a bombardment mission and a very handy odds indicator helps the player to know what it will take to capture the base.

Japanese culture and infighting in Navy - Army was something that deeply affected the outcome of the war...same as the poor coordination and cooperation between ABDA forces in 42 did. But how to simulate this?

Also players have access to all possible info and hindsight related to WWII, units and leaders.

And so we can go on and on and my 2c is that we have to use house rules to maximise realism or play AE more as a game simulation. It's certainly a limit on how much Matrix can spend on AE and we have already gotten a lot of bang for the few buck we spent on this game - no matter how good it becomes it will never be good enough for everyone. So either we stick with it, enjoy the ride and come with constructive criticism or simply go and do something else!

[bklooste]

Agree air based ASW esp by float planes should be a bit better in 41 though mines around ports are probably a bigger deterent historically , eg plenty of subs operated close to PH and Singapore with no problems due to air based ASW.

Remember we cannot re-create WWII because

1) Players have 20/20 hindsight
2) Midway was a fluke based on a lucky code break and even luckier timing  ( the way as the Japanese got lucky on Clarke on day 1) which is very hard to recreate thogh AE does it very well.

Because of this the game not simulation will NEVER be a re-creation it will always be a game based in history with the exception of maybe an AI vs AI game.

Japanese players ( though maybe not the AI) will convoy which means US sub sucesses should will be at least half and probably a quarter of  historical and their losses higher. Though a LOT of  US  sub successes were in finishing ships cripled by air especially after 43.  The massive air recon also helps .


re surface based planes do you know how they were used ?  British sources state surface radar based planes increased daytime attacks by 20%  which is significant  so if you get 2 subs per month you get 2.4  however it was of little use at night since the radar guided them to within a mile but no closer and since they couldnt see it , that didnt help. Much later in the war they started dropping flares though any sub can see these flares being dropped and often have radar detectors so they would dive.  Fast day light sweeps were much more effective.

[Mark Weston]

You can't abolish hindsight in AE and it's unreasonable to try.  Almost every strategic and tactical decision is tainted by it.  Yes, yes, yes, we all know that historically the Japanese didn't attach any importance to ASW until far too late.  That was a decision that they made, and it was entirely possible for them to make a different one.  The whole point of this game is that it puts the player in a position to make different decisions.  In fact, making unhistorical decisions is what the game is all about; it wouldn't be one if we weren't allowed to do it.

If you want to audit your Japanese opponent's decision-making and disallow anything that you feel is too unhistorical or too hindsighty, expect a similar audit in return.  Fact is, most standard Allied play in AE is just as full of unhistorical and hindsight-dominated decision-making.

[Local Yokel]

ORIGINAL: spence

ASW got short shrift in the budgets of the IJN. With absolutely no actual battle experience from WWI the IJN entered the Second World War equiped for the First World War with a theoretical doctrine that wasn't practiced much (because it didn't fit into the "Decisive Battle Tsushima Scenario" held so dear by the leadership of the IJN.

In fact, Japan did have ASW battle experience from WW1 to draw upon. In April 1917 the Japanese 10th and 11th Destroyer Flotillas commenced escort operations in the Mediterranean under command of R Adm Kato Sozo. There they earned glowing testimonials for their operational efficiency. At its peak strength the Japanese Mediterranean squadron comprised 17 vessels.

Kato was promoted Vice Admiral in 1920 and went into the reserve in 1923, finally retiring in 1938. However, he survived the 2nd World War, thus his experience was there to be drawn upon had the IJN seen fit to do so.

If they were aware of it, the CNO's signal "Execute against Japan unrestricted air and submarine warfare" may have taken the Japanese completely by surprise, given that the order was one that was directly contrary to international treaty obligations in the form of the 1936 Submarine Protocol, to which the United States was a signatory. There are certainly indications that the Japanese assumed that the US would only employ its submarines in support of the battle fleet, as was implied by the name 'fleet submarine' given to the US vessels. Of course, this is no excuse for the absence of precautionary measures taken by the IJN pre-war - they had only to look at what the Germans had done in WW1 to see that international law could be given equally short shrift if expediency demanded it.

However, the fact the the US was waging an anti-commerce campaign really didn't register as a threat until improvement in Mark 14 performance saw Japanese loss rates exceeding pre-war staff predictions. Furthermore, the cure for the Mark 14's woes in 1943 came relatively shortly before the allied counter-offensives harvested bases so much closer to Japanese traffic arteries as to yield shorter transit times and longer loiter times on station. Add to this the arrival of substantially increased numbers of submarines and you have a coincidence of factors that combined to overwhelm the Japanese defences. Arguably things might have gone better for the Japanese if the Mark 14 had worked as intended, as one might then suppose that they would have woken up to the threat in sufficient time to do something about it. Contrast the way in which Britain was able to adapt to and overcome the U-boat through having a three year period between 1940 and 1942 in which to do so before the showdown of Spring 1943 took place.

Even when the Japanese set about dealing with the threat they did themselves no favours, e.g. by treating their 901st Ku, specially trained for ASW work, as an adjunct to Combined Fleet's operations with the consequence that the laboriously accumulated ASW expertise of the airmen was frittered away.

I suspect that, if any details of them ever filtered down to old man Kato in his retirement, he must have been shaking his head in wonderment and despair at the shortcomings of his navy in ASW matters.

[sprior]

Aircraft equiped with surface search radar should be allowed to fly the ASW mission AT NIGHT as well as in the day: a capability the Allies developed long before the Japanese which resulted in many German U-boats sunk at night by aircraft in areas where aircraft could reach.

No, the night attacks were carried out by Leigh Light equipped Wellingtons. The standard VLR bombers, even with PPI centemetric length radar only operated during the day.

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: spence

In addition he is free to employ the GLEN seaplane in a completely ahistorical and technically impossible manner flying continuous air search missions deep in the enemy rear areas with practically no likelihood of an operational mishap resulting from two high seas takeoffs and landings each day. What an amazing aircraft that must have been. From reading through the TROMs of the IJN subs at Combinedfleet.com mention seems to be made of every single time any of the aviation capable subs carried a plane at all and each and every flight flown when they did.

Spence is right - this is another skewed feature in the game. But I bet it's such a useful and cool feature of the game - maybe the only decent way for the Japanese player to gather intel - that those who play IJN would cut off their right arms before they'd agree to restoring the Glen to its historical role.

[Canoerebel]

ORIGINAL: spence

Strangely the fact that Japanese doctrine, which was adhered to rigidly by IJN skippers, called for setting no depth charge any deeper than 150 ft (because Japanese boats couldn't go much deeper than this) hasn't been mentioned. This was not corrected until some time in mid=1943 when some loud mouthed self important moron of a United States Senator put out a press release announcing how smart U.S. sub skippers were by diving deeper than that when under attack and the info got back to the IJN via neutrals and diplomatic channels. Maybe the game needs an Honorable Senator from the State of Idiot rule to simulate this. Try this: the effectiveness of all IJN ASW weapons is halved from April 1942 (allow time for the word to get out) to some randomly generated date in mid-1943. Should be fun. The game is flawed by letting the Japanese Player discard all the doctrines developed pre-war (along with any and all cultural factors that impaired Japanese performance in any sphere of warfare) while locking the Allied Player into those very same foibles of doctrine and culture. Just a suggestion to help redress the balance.

Wow, I've never heard of this before. Can you give us the name of the Senator, Spence, so that we can look this up.

Fortunately, in the world today our politicians and media would NEVER disclose matters that could affect national security.

[Mynok]

The only thing the Allies are locked into is 'Germany first'.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: spence

Strangely the fact that Japanese doctrine, which was adhered to rigidly by IJN skippers, called for setting no depth charge any deeper than 150 ft (because Japanese boats couldn't go much deeper than this) hasn't been mentioned. This was not corrected until some time in mid=1943 when some loud mouthed self important moron of a United States Senator put out a press release announcing how smart U.S. sub skippers were by diving deeper than that when under attack and the info got back to the IJN via neutrals and diplomatic channels. Maybe the game needs an Honorable Senator from the State of Idiot rule to simulate this. Try this: the effectiveness of all IJN ASW weapons is halved from April 1942 (allow time for the word to get out) to some randomly generated date in mid-1943. Should be fun. The game is flawed by letting the Japanese Player discard all the doctrines developed pre-war (along with any and all cultural factors that impaired Japanese performance in any sphere of warfare) while locking the Allied Player into those very same foibles of doctrine and culture. Just a suggestion to help redress the balance.

Wow, I've never heard of this before. Can you give us the name of the Senator, Spence, so that we can look this up.

Fortunately, in the world today our politicians and media would NEVER disclose matters that could affect national security.

This was a pretty well known security breach...the guy should have been impeached and imprisoned.

The deficiencies of Japanese depth-charge tactics were revealed in a press conference held by U.S. Congressman Andrew J. May. Andrew Jackson May was a Kentucky attorney and influential New Deal-era politician, best known for his chairmanship of the House Military Affairs Committee during World War II, and his subsequent conviction for bribery who had visited the Pacific theater and received many intelligence and operational briefings. Incredibly, May mentioned the highly sensitive fact that American submarines had a high survivability rate because Japanese depth charges were fuzed to explode at too shallow a depth.

Various press associations sent this leaked news story over their wires, compounding the danger, and many newspapers (including one in Honolulu, Hawaii) carried the story.

Soon, Japanese forces were resetting their depth charges to explode at a more effective average depth of 75 m (250 feet), to the detriment of American submariners. Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood commander of the U.S. submarine fleet in the Pacific, later estimated that May's revelation cost the United States Navy as many as ten submarines and 800 seamen killed in action.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

ORIGINAL: spence

Strangely the fact that Japanese doctrine, which was adhered to rigidly by IJN skippers, called for setting no depth charge any deeper than 150 ft (because Japanese boats couldn't go much deeper than this) hasn't been mentioned. This was not corrected until some time in mid=1943 when some loud mouthed self important moron of a United States Senator put out a press release announcing how smart U.S. sub skippers were by diving deeper than that when under attack and the info got back to the IJN via neutrals and diplomatic channels. Maybe the game needs an Honorable Senator from the State of Idiot rule to simulate this. Try this: the effectiveness of all IJN ASW weapons is halved from April 1942 (allow time for the word to get out) to some randomly generated date in mid-1943. Should be fun. The game is flawed by letting the Japanese Player discard all the doctrines developed pre-war (along with any and all cultural factors that impaired Japanese performance in any sphere of warfare) while locking the Allied Player into those very same foibles of doctrine and culture. Just a suggestion to help redress the balance.

Fortunately, in the world today our politicians and media would NEVER disclose matters that could affect national security.

Oh, yeah. Especially if there were political gain from such disclosure...[8|]

[Canoerebel]

Wow, this is a fascinating story.

This reminds me of the Civil War general (it might have been Sherman) who noted that the Northern press was largely to blame for the Union debacle at First Bull Run.  The press had created so much pressure "to do something" that U.S. politicans leaned on the military to get moving.  The military wasn't ready and the ill-conceived plan...well, you know the rest of the story.

This kind of thing happened pretty often in the Civil War.  I imagine it has happened frequently in the years since.  I am frequently appalled at the things I read in our newspapers, and at our willingness to discuss publicly things that would be better left behind closed doors.

Thanks for the info, Spence and Chickenboy.  I'm going to read more about the ol' Kentucky Senator.  There may be an article there....

P.S. Sorry for going astray on the ASW thread.

[herwin]

The most effective default setting for depth charges was fairly shallow.

[Shark7]

Here is some more food for thought...

There is also the point that you can make the game so realistic that it becomes comepletely unfun for one player or the other, and sometimes both. The ASW portion of the game is one of these areas.

If you make the Japanese ASW as weak as it historically was and combine it with the increased effectiveness of the submarines you really make the game unfun for a Japanese player...and the game likely won't last past 1943 since all the Japanese merchants would be sunk. The increased ASW makes up for the fact (as others have pointed out) that Allied subs can remain on patrol at least 75% of the time, which is also historically incorrect.

If you weaken the ASW portion of the game, then you need to increase the amount of system damage a submarine takes while on patrol to balance it. That way submarines do end up spending half their time in port and the other half at sea which is a much more realistic.

The ASW portion for Japan probably needs a slight tweak, I won't disagree there, though I will point out that contacts and attacks in my experience have very rarely resulted in hits. Some people just have good luck or dismal luck, and every game is going to be different.

[mdiehl]

There’s really no way to build training and doctrinal impedimenta into the system – not unless you want to tack a few zeros onto the cost, so it has to be open ended, in game terms, to work at all.

Well, that's not exactly true though. You've hardcoded USN torpedo failures. You've hardcoded strike coordination difficulties for the USN (which, after all, was purely a doctrinal thing in 1942). And you've halfcoded some very strange (IMO) experience assumptions-- changeable using the editor of course. It's not a matter of changing the cost by allowing all manner of microcontrol over doctrine. It's a matter of making the consim a better sim by accounting for the doctrine in your basic model.

And yes, American submarines operated pretty aggressively against the Japanese from the outset. It was one of the consequences of sinking most of the BBs in Pearl. The only tools left to the USN, historically, were CVs and Subs, with respect to taking the fight to the enemy. The Japanese never saw successes like the ones documented in this thread. Not even at the end of the war when US submarines operated within sight of Japan's shores.

[Nikademus]

May's departure from common sense may or may not have helped Japanese ASW efforts. (Blair wrote about the incident but did not conclude that the Japanese made concrete changes directly tied to the breech....it was a situation similar to the near breech of Ultra after the Midway battle. Had the Japanese seriously considered that their codes were being broken they might have taken more notice but in fact continued blithely forward)

It did compel an astonished Lookwood to write the comment already cited after the war. The key point being that he "considered" that indescretion to have cost 10 subs and 800 men.

[mdiehl]

2) Midway was a fluke based on a lucky code break and even luckier timing ( the way as the Japanese got lucky on Clarke on day 1) which is very hard to recreate thogh AE does it very well.

Baloney. American codebreaking was no lucky break. It was the product of years of emphasis on reading the enemy's mail. And the timing was not lucky either. Were it not for bad luck at Midway, the USN would have had no luck at all. The Japanese defeat at Midway was the predictable and most likely outcome of a truly incompetent Japanese operational plan pitted against a robust, competent, error-tolerant USN plan. If Midway were fought a hundred times, the Japanese would lose 99 of them by CV_sunk count, and in more than half of them they'd lose four carriers, four cruisers, two destroyers, and the USN would walk away without loss.