Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, No I am saying there is nothing in the model to tell you why a ship does not fire it's main guns. The ship is checked to fire. It checks it's main guns they fire or they don't, it checks it's secondary they fire or they don't it checks the next slot of weapons and so on.
Now TF commander, ship CO and crew ratings are used in these checks.
The only problem I have is when people use poor crews and leaders and then post their ships don't perform to perfection. Tom is saying he used good crews (and the RN always does well for me in combat) But I don't match his recollections because I saw Atago take 2 back to back 15in hits. And she was hit by other large guns (14in) The IJN TF moved 2 hexes and parts moved 3 and other parts moved 4. Undamaged they would all have moved 6 hexes (the max a TF can move in a single phase)
Air attacks finished them off but I think most of them would have sunk without any further damage being inflicted. Tom wondered why they did not sink outright which is another issue that I have explained many times before. (damage is resolved slower then in actual time. )
But the model does not explain combat in enough detail for anyone to say why Ship A does not fire a set of guns in a certain round. You don't watch the battle your seeing it on the radio. For all you know every gun fires every round but you only see those shots that are reported. Just like in air attacks not every group of aircraft shows a splash (but they all drop bombs you just will never get a hit without a splash)
If a ship expended ammo then it fired it's guns. If a ship expended ammo from one slot and not another then the reason was when it was checked it failed to pass the check to aquire a target. while the animation shows one ship at a time firing in realty there are many ships firing at once and you see part of the action. (the highlights so to speak it does not show you when a ship fires at shadows or wildly off target it just subtracts ammo and since you didn't see the guns firing you assume the ship did not fire. )

In fact Tom look on the sunk ships list. CA Atago is listed as sunk by a 15in
The combat report lists 67 hits on Japanese

Other IJN ships sunk by gunfire to date
CA Chokai 14in
CA Mogami 15in
BB Mutsu 16in
Somebody is firing mainguns

Sounds like the replay bug to me...

[mogami]

Hi, There are also 3xIJN DD listed as sunk by 14in (and a 4th sunk by a 14in CD gun)

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: treespider


Sounds like the replay bug to me...

If so, then the IJN player replay is the valid one.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: treespider


Sounds like the replay bug to me...

If so, then the IJN player replay is the valid one.

Which would mean that Tom's hardwork was for naught...oh and what else is present those damn PT boats. [8|]

[mogami]

Hi, I send the combat.txt along with replay and turn file

[spence]

Hi, Marblehead has a night experiance rating of 36 Boise 39 Houston 52.
who was TF commander? which DD?
You can't send these untrained units into action and then complain they don't fight at 100 percent perfection.

Sorry folks, duty called for a bit. Back to the story. TF Commander was Adm Train who has a pretty fair Naval Skill and Aggressiveness rating. Boise didn't engage in the first engagement at all. Houston didn't fire in the first round but did engage in the second. The DDs were all US 4 pipers. Two transports were sunk in the action and another one damaged. Both sides broke off (gotta watch out for those killer minesweepers Adm).
Not to get off topic but the bombers in Davao, with an invasion force on their doorstep (gee, what are all those flashes and explosions out there Major [Egan, I think]?), launch airstrikes that day at a TF off Aparri (???).
Some PTs happened to be heading for Davao but they ran out of fuel one hex out, got run over by the Japanese invasion force,...and torpedoed two APs in the daylight surface combat phase.
The next night Adm Train decided to brave the killer minesweepers, guessed correctly and with the same surface TF intercepted the convoy again. Excepting Boise and the DDs that got lost the night before (3 of them) the night experience levels of all ships were in the high 50s/low 60s. The Marblehead (exp 62) engages a minesweep. Boise engages a minesweep. Houston takes a shot at a transport and the DDs fire off a few shots each at the minesweeps. The two minesweepers get sunk in round 1. Both (???) sides break off (???). In this engagement all ships had restocked ammo except torpedos (Marblehead and 2 of the DDs fired torps in the first engagement). The APs some of which are damaged outrun the USN crusiers and destroyers I guess cause the convoy didn't scatter.
There weren't that many cases in history where a Surf TF got a chance to take on an invasion fleet. Only 2 come to mind: Battle of Makassar Strait and Savo Island.
At Savo Adm Mikawa apparently got cold feet and left the transports alone. At Balikpapan (Makassar Strait) the 4 USN DDs fired off all their torpedos (I believe) opened up with their guns once the torps were in the water and then retired. With only 4" guns they weren't going to accomplish much more than they did anyway and I'm pretty sure they faced the possibility of air attack once the sun came up...under those circumstances withdrawal at the time they did is understandable. Mikawa also thought he was in for a rough day from air attack unless he got out of Dodge even though it turned out that was not the case.
This invasion TF had practically no escort, no CAP, and was not supported by LBA closer than Palau and Aparri. It was intercepted 3 times by surface forces: twice by a crusier/destroyer force and once by PTs. Including the bombing over the course of 3 days by B-17s (on the first day) and Dutch Martins (from Menado) thereafter. It lost 2 minesweepers and 4 APs. It should have been a case of shooting fish in a barrel but it wasn't.
Now this is just an AI game. I've saved and will restart as many times as necessary to see if I can bring on a 3rd surface action between those cruisers/destroyers and that TF. There's some kind of IJN surf TF that might be heading to reinforce the convoy about 6-7 hexes away (that would be a surprise if the AI actually did that) but there's no possibility of IJN air power intervening (the Ryujo's North of Luzon). It seems to me that given enough chances the USN ought to be able to annihilate the convoy and the 56th Bde along with it (unless it's coded that the USN can't win in the early going-I really don't wanna think that but sometimes I wonder).


And, to beat a dead horse, the B-17s at Davao again flew missions against Aparri even though a CAP of 42 Nates was present there (agreed that's not that formidable). The invasion TF was 3 hexes away from Davao and had no CAP at all.

[mogami]

Hi, Heavy bombers do not have to make the escort versus CAP check. But the gist of all this is your not happy because your forces in Dec 1941 are not fighting to 100 percent perfection. Your doing something right if you got those night rating up that high in less then 2 weeks of war.

[Tom Hunter]

"In fact Tom look on the sunk ships list. CA Atago is listed as sunk by a 15in
The combat report lists 67 hits on Japanese

Other IJN ships sunk by gunfire to date
CA Chokai 14in
CA Mogami 15in
BB Mutsu 16in
Somebody is firing mainguns

In fact Tom look on the sunk ships list. CA Atago is listed as sunk by a 15in
The combat report lists 67 hits on Japanese

Other IJN ships sunk by gunfire to date
CA Chokai 14in
CA Mogami 15in
BB Mutsu 16in
Somebody is firing mainguns

"

Some ships are firing main guns some of the time. I think I understand when and why, and I promise I will get there in time, but I want to build that argument with facts, not personal impressions, so it will take a while. Please bear with me.

I watched the combat replay 4-6 times with an excel spreadsheet on my laptop recording everything and then verifying it against the combat report that Mogami sent me. There was only 1 15" hit on Atago, but there was a secondary hit by Warspite right after that. I am absolutely certain of this, I watched very closely after Mogami said he remembered 2 15" hits. He also said that he did not pay very close attention. I did pay VERY close attention many times.

There was no combat replay bug, all the hits shown in the replay ended up on the Japanese report.

I believe I will also be able to explain what happened to Spence and put it in historical Vs. game combat model perspective, but it will be a while before that happens.

[spence]

Mostly my complaint is the criterion used to break off the battle. A convoy of 15 10 kt ships that scatters to the four winds might escape but these guys stopped to pick up survivors. "The Law of the Sea" might induce the cruisers and destroyers to pick up the survivors (soldiers) but the transports doing it implies that they owned the battlefield when the action concluded. That is surely BS.
And flying 500 miles to bomb enemy ships when there is another spotted enemy force less than 150 miles away that clearly meant to attack your base of operations seems a bit out of whack as well.

[spence]

And another incident...this in PBEM...so a bit more in the "I care" category.

In this incident I watched as a force of IJN BBs bombarded Davao, bombarded Menado and bombarded Amboina. The force also engaged some MTBs and got attacked a few times by a/c....THE NIPS ARE OUT OF AMMO!!! I've been watching the progress of this TF as they merrily proceed from bombardment to bombardment even considering after two that I might even get away with engaging with some CLs and DDs...but also bringing up Prince of Wales and Repulse and a couple of RN CLs/DDs under Adm Spooner (65 NavSkill, 40 aggressiveness - essentially the best the RN can do (which is also BS)).

So PoW/Repulse engage...BANG! Nagato is hit...no return fire...BANG! Ise is hit...no return fire...BANG! Hyuga is hit...no return fire...BANG!...Sendai is hit...no return fire...BANG!..IJN DD is hit...DD returns fire with guns (no hits)...BANG!...IJN DD is hit...DD returns fire with guns(no hits). Task Forces break off!!!

"Run for your life Admiral...those Japs are trying to kill you!"

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: spence

Mostly my complaint is the criterion used to break off the battle. A convoy of 15 10 kt ships that scatters to the four winds might escape but these guys stopped to pick up survivors. "The Law of the Sea" might induce the cruisers and destroyers to pick up the survivors (soldiers) but the transports doing it implies that they owned the battlefield when the action concluded. That is surely BS.
And flying 500 miles to bomb enemy ships when there is another spotted enemy force less than 150 miles away that clearly meant to attack your base of operations seems a bit out of whack as well.

Gotta agree with SPENCE here. Though what has to be THE most annoying thing in the entire game is naval strikes. You finally interpret the intelligence correctly and set up an air attack to meet the incoming threat in time. Then the moment arrives, and your A/C totally ignore the CV TF three hexes away, the incoming Bombardment TF 4 hexes away, and rush to attack a flock of his "barges" 5 hexes away in another direction. You can set the "altitude" of an airstrike, but you can't even give it "priority target", or a direction to attack in, or any worthwhile input at all. What is the use of being "in command" if your forces can tell you to "shove it..., we ain't flying today!"

[treespider]

Is this all just a problem with the Animation?

It is my understanding that the animation was cobbled together after the actual model was developed. IIRC the animation itself is only a representation of the battle and not the "actual" battle that was fought within the model.

Would we find reasonable results if there was no animation to look at?


Edit: found it

On 11/22/2001 Mike Wood said in the UV forum:

We have also added several new artists to the project and new art has been added; we have recoded some of the executable to include this new and improved art. Not part of the original design, we have added and are adding a significant amount of animation for your viewing pleasure. These animation sequences hit and burning ships and aircraft hit by anti-aircraft artillery, flak bursts and exploding land based targets. Each takes 81 to 222 frames of art. Our artists are also working many long hours.

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: spence

Mostly my complaint is the criterion used to break off the battle. A convoy of 15 10 kt ships that scatters to the four winds might escape but these guys stopped to pick up survivors. "The Law of the Sea" might induce the cruisers and destroyers to pick up the survivors (soldiers) but the transports doing it implies that they owned the battlefield when the action concluded. That is surely BS.
And flying 500 miles to bomb enemy ships when there is another spotted enemy force less than 150 miles away that clearly meant to attack your base of operations seems a bit out of whack as well.

Gotta agree with SPENCE here. Though what has to be THE most annoying thing in the entire game is naval strikes. You finally interpret the intelligence correctly and set up an air attack to meet the incoming threat in time. Then the moment arrives, and your A/C totally ignore the CV TF three hexes away, the incoming Bombardment TF 4 hexes away, and rush to attack a flock of his "barges" 5 hexes away in another direction. You can set the "altitude" of an airstrike, but you can't even give it "priority target", or a direction to attack in, or any worthwhile input at all. What is the use of being "in command" if your forces can tell you to "shove it..., we ain't flying today!"

But this has been true since UV day 1 ... so not recent news, correct ?

And while it is certainly sometimes not hitting the target we would want, I don't find it as frustrating as I did 4 years ago. Maybe I'm just desensitized ! And there are real life examples ( Japanese attack on Neosho and Sims at Coral Sea ) where the task force struck was not optimal.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: spence

Mostly my complaint is the criterion used to break off the battle. A convoy of 15 10 kt ships that scatters to the four winds might escape but these guys stopped to pick up survivors. "The Law of the Sea" might induce the cruisers and destroyers to pick up the survivors (soldiers) but the transports doing it implies that they owned the battlefield when the action concluded. That is surely BS.
And flying 500 miles to bomb enemy ships when there is another spotted enemy force less than 150 miles away that clearly meant to attack your base of operations seems a bit out of whack as well.

Gotta agree with SPENCE here. Though what has to be THE most annoying thing in the entire game is naval strikes. You finally interpret the intelligence correctly and set up an air attack to meet the incoming threat in time. Then the moment arrives, and your A/C totally ignore the CV TF three hexes away, the incoming Bombardment TF 4 hexes away, and rush to attack a flock of his "barges" 5 hexes away in another direction. You can set the "altitude" of an airstrike, but you can't even give it "priority target", or a direction to attack in, or any worthwhile input at all. What is the use of being "in command" if your forces can tell you to "shove it..., we ain't flying today!"

But this has been true since UV day 1 ... so not recent news, correct ?

And while it is certainly sometimes not hitting the target we would want, I don't find it as frustrating as I did 4 years ago. Maybe I'm just desensitized ! And there are real life examples ( Japanese attack on Neosho and Sims at Coral Sea ) where the task force struck was not optimal.

And I wouldn't have any trouble with it if it made "intellegent mistakes". Most of the Hornet's airgroup flew past Kido Butai at Midway and didn't contribute. But at least they flew in the right general direction.
And they were LOOKING for the Japanese CV's. In the game you can't even tell them what thye are supposed to be looking for! Or what direction to look in. And they DO fly 180 degrees opposite to the direction of the target in the game, and attack targets like barges ( even a total novice pilot should be able to tell a 14-ft Daihatsu Landing Craft from a 850-foot Aircraft Carrier )

[Tom Hunter]

Treespider

In an earlier post I wrote about what was in the combat animations, and my conclusion is that we can trust them.

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Treespider

In an earlier post I wrote about what was in the combat animations, and my conclusion is that we can trust them.

What I think I was trying to suggest is that the game may be using two entirely seperate models to arrive at the same end result. So yes the animation you are watching is accurate and can be trusted for the model being used within the animation if animations are on. And the game uses a seperate model when the animations are off that would provide the same if not similar end result but a uses a different way to get there.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: treespider

What I think I was trying to suggest is that the game may be using two entirely seperate models to arrive at the same end result. So yes the animation you are watching is accurate and can be trusted for the model being used within the animation if animations are on. And the game uses a seperate model when the animations are off that would provide the same if not similar end result but a uses a different way to get there.

I think you are right about this - I remember a comment by Matrix staff that the animations routine was written long after the combat engine because of players' requests for it.

[Tom Hunter]

Now a look at the DDs in the Prince of Wales TF

Electra targeted Kuroshio hitting in round 1 of the first engagement, and rounds 1 and 2 of the second. Kuroshio fired back hitting her once in round one. She fired 88 shells total hit with 3.4% of them, a respectable rate. It takes electra 3 minutes 7 seconds to fire this many shells.

Fortune Fired 110 shells in rounds 1 and 2 of the first enegement and round 3 of the second, all aimed at Hatsukazi. She hit once for a rate of .9% she was fired on by Hatuskaze but never hit.

Hotspur fired 88 shells iat Natsushio in rounds 1 and 2 of the first engagement and round 2 of the second. She hit her target twice once at 6000 and once at 10000 yards for a 2.2% hit rate. It takes Hotspur 1 minute 12 seconds to fire this many shells.

Pakenham opened fire on Hayashio in round 1 and 2 of the first combat firing 22 shells and hitting once, and scoring a torpedo hit in round 2. She did not fire in the second engagement and was not hit at all. Her one hit is a 3.1% hit rate it takes her 30 seconds to fire this many shells

Paladin fired on Asagumo in round one and two of the first engagement and hit once, she then checked fire. She fired 44 rounds and scored a 2.2% hit rate, it takes her just over a minute to fire this many shells.

Panther fired on Kurishio in round two of the first engagment, then switched to Nachi in round one of the second hitting twice and then to Yugumo in the second round of the second engagement but missed. She used 44 shells, hitting 4.5% of the time it takes her just over a minute to fire this many shells.
During round two of the second engagement she was hit by a torpedo from Nachi.


What do we know so far?

Well we know that BBs are less likely to fire their main armament than any other type of ship. I believe that the composition of the Japanese TF had a lot to do with this, but for now all we know is that only 50% of the BBs fired their main guns. BBs were no less likely to fire than other ships, they are only less likely to fire main guns. This is an important distinction, and it is also a real problem.

We know that the bigger the gun the less accurate it is. Guns of 14" and larger hit 0% .07% and 1.3% of the time and averaged .07% hit rates.

Cruiser guns ranged from .07% up to 5.5% but averaged a little bit lower than DD guns that ranged from .09% up to 4.5%. DDs seem somewhat more likely to fire and are absolutely more likely to hit than larger warships.

This brings up the first important question raised by the analysis. Why are big guns less accurate on a shell per shell basis than small ones? Personally I have no clue, and my understanding is that the combination of stable firing platform, better range finders and flatter shell trajectory (at least in the 4000 and 6000 yard brackets) make the bigger gun more accurate. Anyone care to guess?

Next we look at who shot at who, and then see the Oklahoma exploit a flaw in the model to massively out perform the other BBs in terms of the amount of damage she dishes out.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter


This brings up the first important question raised by the analysis. Why are big guns less accurate on a shell per shell basis than small ones? Personally I have no clue, and my understanding is that the combination of stable firing platform, better range finders and flatter shell trajectory (at least in the 4000 and 6000 yard brackets) make the bigger gun more accurate. Anyone care to guess?

Just a guess, as you said. Maybe the larger guns are intrinsically modelled as the same or better accuracy but they are firing at longer ranges, thereby hiding their true accuracy versus smaller guns.

As treespider pointed out, the replay might be giving us false data as to details about the battle, so judging this will be difficult (and possibly error-prone).

[Tom Hunter]

witpqs,

I realize your trying to be helpful, but I doubt that the combat report is lying about the ranges, or splitting them. One of the reasons that I doubt this is: what for? most TFs tried to stay together, rather than split into smaller units fighting at different ranges. Now I know that a torpedo attack could be ordered and that would bring the DDs in closer under some circumstances, but they don't need to get any closer if the range is 4000 yards or 6000 yards.

Aside from that I have a question for the group. Does anyone have examples where they can prove that the combat report was wrong about either the range or a penetrating shell hit? That would be interesting.