Tristanjohn vs ChezDaJez: Lemur's Scen 15

[mogami]

Hi, Well in a system where everything is comparing one rating against another I think the ship ratings matter a lot.
We know a ship (combat ship) is trained when it reaches 55. That means any ship with a rating below 55 is not yet fully trained.
Expecting units to achive results when they are not fully trained that you would expect from fully trained is unfair to the unit and to the system that advised you at the start what fully trained was.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Well in a system where everything is comparing one rating against another I think the ship ratings matter a lot.
We know a ship (combat ship) is trained when it reaches 55. That means any ship with a rating below 55 is not yet fully trained.
Expecting units to achive results when they are not fully trained that you would expect from fully trained is unfair to the unit and to the system that advised you at the start what fully trained was.

Just because a kid isn't potty trained does not mean he/she does not soil the diaper.[:-][:D] Ratings are all well and good when determining effectiveness of performance but it should not have any bearing on how the framework of combat is structured. Ships in opposing TFs should be pretty much trading salvoes, the accuracy, rate of fire, target selection etc of which is affected by their skill. One must assume that the ships are competent enough to stay in some sort of formation, or at least in the general area of the action in the odd case of night combat. Ratings should only affect performance, not physical presence.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Well in a system where everything is comparing one rating against another I think the ship ratings matter a lot.
We know a ship (combat ship) is trained when it reaches 55. That means any ship with a rating below 55 is not yet fully trained.
Expecting units to achive results when they are not fully trained that you would expect from fully trained is unfair to the unit and to the system that advised you at the start what fully trained was.

I'm not necessarily expecting "results" (whatever that means--you neglected to define it exactly, or at all) but I would rather expect ships in this instance to 1) be there and 2) fire their guns. If that's too much for the system to handle then the system hasn't a clue.

[mogami]

Hi, Well you formed a TF and assigned it a mission and set it to a new hex. You must have expected something.
Now you have untrained ships in a night battle to fire their guns they have to properly execute orders pertaining to movements and targets and their place in the formation.

It is like back when ground troops had to fight in line and be able to move to line from column. Untrained troops could fall apart just changing formation. Untrained troops had trouble telling who was the enemy.

The game is not about that but instead it uses numbers (ratings) to decide what a force does when in contact with the enemy.
That TF was 33 percent trained. It obtained a 33 percent result. Since you formed the TF and selected the ships and the mission you must have felt a 33 percent was enough.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Well you formed a TF and assigned it a mission and set it to a new hex. You must have expected something.
Now you have untrained ships in a night battle to fire their guns they have to properly execute orders pertaining to movements and targets and their place in the formation.

It is like back when ground troops had to fight in line and be able to move to line from column. Untrained troops could fall apart just changing formation. Untrained troops had trouble telling who was the enemy.

The game is not about that but instead it uses numbers (ratings) to decide what a force does when in contact with the enemy.
That TF was 33 percent trained. It obtained a 33 percent result. Since you formed the TF and selected the ships and the mission you must have felt a 33 percent was enough.

Whatever. [:D]

[mogami]

Hi, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be difficult. I really don't understand what you and Ron expect. I think WITP would work fine if there werre no combat animations at all.
You just get a report the next turn that explains what your forces did the prior turn. (turns would also run faster)

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be difficult. I really don't understand what you and Ron expect. I think WITP would work fine if there werre no combat animations at all.
You just get a report the next turn that explains what your forces did the prior turn. (turns would also run faster)

It might SEEM to work fine only because it would be hiding the obvious random ship involvement within a TF. That still would result is some very common bizarre and inexplicable results. A hidden battle between 6 DD and 4 CA on one side vs 16 AP and 1 MSW would still look stupid if the result was MSW Fish Head Soup, shell hits 108, sunk; AP Rice Ball, shell hits 4, on fire, and nothing else.

[ChezDaJez]

Well, I'm not against going on the recod by saying this result is ridiculous. Most of the crusiers never fired a shot, while the action closed to 3000 yards with several APs sighted yet never targeted. What is that? In my mind it's clearly. . . .

One of the first messages that came up (at least on my side) during that battle was, "Transports flee." That probably explains why your ships didn't engage many of them. I assume the battle went something along the lines of:

1. TFs sight each other
2. IJN Admiral tells transports to scatter and escorts to engage.
3. IJN escorts engage your ships (and quite well, I might add- TF commander had rating of 72,79)
4. Allied ships sink or damage IJN escorts but escorts score torp on a CL (maybe giving Allies something to think about)
5. Allied ships close the range only to find most of the transports gone but manage to catch a couple, sinking one, damaging others.
6. Allied commander gives up the chase.

Anyways, those results weren't atypical for night battles at sea. I can think off many occasions where commanders broke of the battle because of the tenacity of the defense or damage to own ships or because they just got spooked.

What is atypical, as an example, our latest sea battle at Port Moresby. Yamato and Mutsu with supporting CAs engage 1 Ak at a time within a port hex because you divided them into 15 (or more) single ship TFs. The resulting bombardment was pathetic. IRL, the IJN would have just seen a bunch of ships and engaged them with secondary armament while bombarding with main guns and accomplished both missions simultaneously. But the game won't let me do that. Instead, it treats each TF in port as a roadblock that must be overcome prior to performing the main mission. Next time I bombard, I will have 2 or 3 small DD groups set to SC to pave the wave for the battlewagons. That way I should be able to have the whole cake and eat it too.

Chez

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

Well, I'm not against going on the recod by saying this result is ridiculous. Most of the crusiers never fired a shot, while the action closed to 3000 yards with several APs sighted yet never targeted. What is that? In my mind it's clearly. . . .

One of the first messages that came up (at least on my side) during that battle was, "Transports flee." That probably explains why your ships didn't engage many of them. I assume the battle went something along the lines of:

1. TFs sight each other
2. IJN Admiral tells transports to scatter and escorts to engage.
3. IJN escorts engage your ships (and quite well, I might add- TF commander had rating of 72,79)
4. Allied ships sink or damage IJN escorts but escorts score torp on a CL (maybe giving Allies something to think about)
5. Allied ships close the range only to find most of the transports gone but manage to catch a couple, sinking one, damaging others.
6. Allied commander gives up the chase.

Anyways, those results weren't atypical for night battles at sea. I can think off many occasions where commanders broke of the battle because of the tenacity of the defense or damage to own ships or because they just got spooked.

What is atypical, as an example, our latest sea battle at Port Moresby. Yamato and Mutsu with supporting CAs engage 1 Ak at a time within a port hex because you divided them into 15 (or more) single ship TFs. The resulting bombardment was pathetic. IRL, the IJN would have just seen a bunch of ships and engaged them with secondary armament while bombarding with main guns and accomplished both missions simultaneously. But the game won't let me do that. Instead, it treats each TF in port as a roadblock that must be overcome prior to performing the main mission. Next time I bombard, I will have 2 or 3 small DD groups set to SC to pave the wave for the battlewagons. That way I should be able to have the whole cake and eat it too.

Chez

Well that's fine, but don't you see that it just gets more and more unrealistic? The reason I divide my TFs up is because the air model's whacky in the first place . . . and so on.

I thought when TFs scattered they actually left the hex. I know several of my transports did last night at PM. I thought they would (if attacked--I didn't expect that one) at Andaman but they did not.

Anyway, the "numbers" in this game are fine to an extent, to model Japanese superiority at night actions, which they rightfully deserve. But the results from the Allied side all too often bear little relation to history. It's way too unbalanced, almost as if all Allied ships in the war were simply being run by utterly incompetent commanders directing goofball crews. And even if you happen to buy into that, and as long as you mention examples from history, I, for one, cannot recall a single instance where an Allied TF in the Pacific sailed into a harbor filled with an enemy TF unloading, virtually undefended, and 1) failed to sink much, 2) failed to even spot much, 3) indeed, failed to manage to get a single shot off from well over half its force. If you can point to such an example, please enlighten me. Always willing to learn here.

Closest I can come to that scenario would be the Japanese failure to press on at Savo Island, but in that case we'd really be talking about something different as the Japanese were faced with real opposition, not one lone destroyer and a leaky mine layer.

As for the battle itself at Koepang, I can deal with a loss or even a heavy loss. But a TF like that one ought at least to have had all or most of the ships firing away--hell, you might suppose when one opened up they all would, if only to fire at their own people! The action did place, afterall, "inside the harbor" as you mentioned above, not on the high sea where it might be construed (however improbably) that all those enemy ships were at the outside edges of the hex and so were, in game terms at least, untouchable.

This problem was argued to death over on the UV forum long ago, along with Zero superiority over the Wildcat and super Bettys with incredible hit rates and whatnot, and I'm afraid, in spite of much detailed analysis, not much good has come of it. The models within WitP remain basically the same, still with all too often funny combat results.

And the result at Koepang was just that. "Funny."

[Tristanjohn]

I've already posted this to the support forum, but I thought it was appropriate here as well.

What we have are bombers flying a successful air mission to Koepang even though that base is socked in.

[Tristanjohn]

Here's the result.

[ChezDaJez]

As for the battle itself at Koepang, I can deal with a loss or even a heavy loss. But a TF like that one ought at least to have had all or most of the ships firing away--hell, you might suppose when one opened up they all would, if only to fire at their own people! The action did place, afterall, "inside the harbor" as you mentioned above, not on the high sea where it might be construed (however improbably) that all those enemy ships were at the outside edges of the hex and so were, in game terms at least, untouchable.

Actually, I agree with you on most parts. All ships that have sighted the enemy should fire. I think it was Ron that said something about reduced effectiveness at night should not be a factor in not firing.

Also, take a look at the Battle of the Java Sea. A situation fairly similar to our battle occured between a Japanese transport force and an Allied surface force with similar results. There was aanother incident a little further south with Allied transports. Here's a quote from the that battle:

Meanwhile one allied convoy consisting of the merchant vessels Anking, Francol and a small minesweeper MMS51, departed the coast of Java escorted by the Australian built sloop HMAS Yarra, was located by a superior Japanese squadron of three cruisers and two destroyers in the Sunda Straits of the Java Sea. At 6.30am, 2 March, the Yarra's alarm sound rang out as the lookouts sighted the enemy line of battle on a heading of North-North East. Lieutenant-Commander R.W. Rankin swung the Yarra to face the enemy warships and laid down a protective smoke screen while the other allied vessels scattered and steamed on relentlessly. The out-gunned RAN sloop had three 4inch guns opposed to the multiple barrels of 8inch Japanese firepower. The Japanese ships stood hull up above the horizon at 11miles range and let the RAN sloop have it.

The Yarra guns had a range of 6miles and was being targeted with thirty 8inch projectiles per minute. Australian sailors lay dead at their action stations, yet one gunner, Leading Seaman Ronald (Buck) Taylor, continued to operate the gun at his post as the Japanese salvos of steel kept hurtling in. One after the other the two merchant vessels armed with 4inch and Bofor guns were smashed and the machine-gun armed minesweeper sunk by the Japanese advantage of range, speed, armament, and thicker armour plating plus the ariel bombing and observations by the two enemy aircraft from the Japanese cruisers. And there was eighteen year old Buck, named after his comic book hero Buck Rogers, on his own still loading, laying, training and firing those Australian-made 4inch shells back at them as Lt-Com Rankin closed the sloop Yarra with the enemy guns to point blank range. In half an hour it was over, the many calibre shells of seven enemy warships splintered the decks of the Yarra. The gunnery control tower was hit, and blown to pieces, next was the Bridge as the call to abandon ship was broadcast by the bosun's mate blowing a whistle. Then the Yarra, the last to go down, seemed to crack in half, slid under the sea and taking the lone dogged gunner too. The Yarra compliment of 151 officers and crew gallantly defended the tiny convoy till the end and of the 34 survivors who scrambled off the shell struck sunken warship, only 13 ratings were alive five days later when the Dutch submarine K-XI, escaping from Surabaya the week before, spotted the drifting rafts and picked up the lucky and desperate men. The approaching submarine could have been Japanese and one Aussie sailor croaking his voice remarked - "let's sing Roll out the Barrel".

The IJN managed to catch these transports but at night I think it might have had a different outcome, especially if the ships split up.

BTW, I didn't mean to imply anything about using single ship TFs tactics. That's up to you how you use them. I think its much easier to sink them one at a time and I'm itching to find out if a DD TF will punch a hole for the BBs to get through.

Chez

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez

As for the battle itself at Koepang, I can deal with a loss or even a heavy loss. But a TF like that one ought at least to have had all or most of the ships firing away--hell, you might suppose when one opened up they all would, if only to fire at their own people! The action did place, afterall, "inside the harbor" as you mentioned above, not on the high sea where it might be construed (however improbably) that all those enemy ships were at the outside edges of the hex and so were, in game terms at least, untouchable.

Actually, I agree with you on most parts. All ships that have sighted the enemy should fire. I think it was Ron that said something about reduced effectiveness at night should not be a factor in not firing.

Also, take a look at the Battle of the Java Sea. A situation fairly similar to our battle occured between a Japanese surface force and an Allied transport force with similar results. Here's a quote from that battle:

Meanwhile one allied convoy consisting of the merchant vessels Anking, Francol and a small minesweeper MMS51, departed the coast of Java escorted by the Australian built sloop HMAS Yarra, was located by a superior Japanese squadron of three cruisers and two destroyers in the Sunda Straits of the Java Sea. At 6.30am, 2 March, the Yarra's alarm sound rang out as the lookouts sighted the enemy line of battle on a heading of North-North East. Lieutenant-Commander R.W. Rankin swung the Yarra to face the enemy warships and laid down a protective smoke screen while the other allied vessels scattered and steamed on relentlessly. The out-gunned RAN sloop had three 4inch guns opposed to the multiple barrels of 8inch Japanese firepower. The Japanese ships stood hull up above the horizon at 11miles range and let the RAN sloop have it.

The Yarra guns had a range of 6miles and was being targeted with thirty 8inch projectiles per minute. Australian sailors lay dead at their action stations, yet one gunner, Leading Seaman Ronald (Buck) Taylor, continued to operate the gun at his post as the Japanese salvos of steel kept hurtling in. One after the other the two merchant vessels armed with 4inch and Bofor guns were smashed and the machine-gun armed minesweeper sunk by the Japanese advantage of range, speed, armament, and thicker armour plating plus the ariel bombing and observations by the two enemy aircraft from the Japanese cruisers. And there was eighteen year old Buck, named after his comic book hero Buck Rogers, on his own still loading, laying, training and firing those Australian-made 4inch shells back at them as Lt-Com Rankin closed the sloop Yarra with the enemy guns to point blank range. In half an hour it was over, the many calibre shells of seven enemy warships splintered the decks of the Yarra. The gunnery control tower was hit, and blown to pieces, next was the Bridge as the call to abandon ship was broadcast by the bosun's mate blowing a whistle. Then the Yarra, the last to go down, seemed to crack in half, slid under the sea and taking the lone dogged gunner too. The Yarra compliment of 151 officers and crew gallantly defended the tiny convoy till the end and of the 34 survivors who scrambled off the shell struck sunken warship, only 13 ratings were alive five days later when the Dutch submarine K-XI, escaping from Surabaya the week before, spotted the drifting rafts and picked up the lucky and desperate men. The approaching submarine could have been Japanese and one Aussie sailor croaking his voice remarked - "let's sing Roll out the Barrel".

BTW, I didn't mean to imply anything about using single ship TFs tactics. That's up to you how you use them. I think its much easier to sink them one at a time and I'm itching to find out if a DD TF will punch a hole for the BBs to get through.

Chez

I really don't think that was a similar action at all. Ships at sea many miles apart at full steam versus ships at anchor or at dock unloading in a port--where's the similarity?

Your suggested tactic might well work. In fact, at Koepang I toyed with the idea of sending two separate TFs in for the raid. Probably should have at that. Maybe one of them would have been "lucky." [:)]

[Ron Saueracker]

It really irks me that the designers have included the arbitrary random factor within a TF to such a common place occurance claiming that many ships would sometimes fail to even see each other. I personnally think it's way overdone, but what REALLY pulls my chain is that the SEPERATE individual TFs within a hex, in your case 15!, are all engaged despite the fact they could be 60 miles apart. This makes the contention that ships in a TF, perhaps 500 yards apart from ships hotly engaged, fail to involve themselves in combat but widely seperate TFs all do because of poorly thought through game mechanics.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

It really irks me that the designers have included the arbitrary random factor within a TF to such a common place occurance claiming that many ships would sometimes fail to even see each other. I personnally think it's way overdone, but what REALLY pulls my chain is that the SEPERATE individual TFs within a hex, in your case 15!, are all engaged despite the fact they could be 60 miles apart. This makes the contention that ships in a TF, perhaps 500 yards apart from ships hotly engaged, fail to involve themselves in combat but widely seperate TFs all do because of poorly thought through game mechanics.

There's plenty of inconsistency there to go around, no doubt. Another problem is that the game doesn't seem to make any distinction between "high seas" (where it's rare to have a battle due to game mechanics) and "ports" (where one might suppose ships unloading would be a captured audience for raiding parties). In my case (three times I've screwed up now! [:D]) the ships were docked and unloading and so I don't feel as though much randomness ought to be applied. But if not, then why was so much applied at Koepang? Because of crew ratings? That's nuts. If all hexes are considered to be 60 miles across for game mechanic purposes (even more nuts when considering ports, much less ports with ships at anchor unloading) you'd think masacres like the one at PM last turn (and the other two the Japanese have handily pulled off on me, poor sailor that I am) would be rare regardless of ratings. What the hell does a night rating have to do with a ship that's sixty miles away? So what, you roll the dice in spite of whether it's at sea where a 60-mile mentality might make a smidgeon of sense or in a port where it's just plain silly on its face and if you get lucky you laugh and if not cry? What's that? Another lame attempt at "realism"? We can do no better than this? Is that a definition of "fun"?

It's all BS to me. Really, I hate to go on and on about this stuff. I don't like to whine or complain all the time. I enjoy the game in certain ways. It is a fascinating play experience for me, especially in this game, as it's my first with the system and so there's always the joy of discovery if nothing else. But. It could be so much more with just a little common sense applied. And maybe a book or two read for understanding. You know?

As long as you're around, Ron, can you fill me in on the history of how the Allied sub doctrine routine was placed in this game? What was the rationale there? That the Allies didn't have enough penalties/the Japanese didn't have enough bonuses already? Is that, by the way, documented anywhere, or is it just one more of those "features" one needs to learn about . . . the hard way?

[Ron Saueracker]

I think the Allied doctrine was added last minute during one of the beta builds. More of a treat. It was added with all good intent but was not properly thought through before implemented. No real biggie for the most part as it can simply be ignored, unless of course someone started a game with it on and is now screwed, like yourself.[:D]

As for surface combat, I realize, as do others, that nothing major can or will be done because it is too late (and why would they now if they were adamantly against change two years ago) but I still believe that a few minor adjustments to the abstract model would do wonders.

[Tristanjohn]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

I think the Allied doctrine was added last minute during one of the beta builds. More of a treat. It was added with all good intent but was not properly thought through before implemented. No real biggie for the most part as it can simply be ignored, unless of course someone started a game with it on and is now screwed, like yourself.[:D]

Don't laugh so loud. I'm getting my rear end kicked here. (Say, what's going on, anyway?)

As for surface combat, I realize, as do others, that nothing major can or will be done because it is too late (and why would they now if they were adamantly against change two years ago) but I still believe that a few minor adjustments to the abstract model would do wonders.

Almost any change might help--it's FUBAR now.

[Tristanjohn]

Koepang was still socked in yesterday, but that didn't keep my super bombers from penetrating, this time from three different airfields. Here's the attack driven home by B-17s out of Darwin.

[ChezDaJez]

I personnally think it's way overdone, but what REALLY pulls my chain is that the SEPERATE individual TFs within a hex, in your case 15!, are all engaged despite the fact they could be 60 miles apart.

Unfortunately, the game assumes everything is at the center of the hex except in land movement where it is assumed you are on the opposite side of the hex no matter where you came from. As long as there are hexes, this will always be a problem.

Of course with Yamato in the center of a hex, about 90% of it is covered by her guns[;)].

Chez

[ChezDaJez]

That the Allies didn't have enough penalties/the Japanese didn't have enough bonuses already?

i think the sub doctrines were an attempt to make sub ops more historical. They hurt us both equally because IJN subs are far less likely to engage anything other than a major warship. Can't tell you how many convoys went by between SF and PH and my subs wouldn't shoot. Just like yours with my units steaming by.

Chez