ORIGINAL: Mogami
Hi, Sometimes things get lost in the translation. I'm not against changing formula I am against changing them just to get them to produce a set result no matter the cirumstance.
Were' not asking that the same result attain for every combat. We're asking that a screwball result of the kind I just posted represent no more than a statistical outlier, not a kind of game norm as is the case at present.
Just because 38 USN subs were lost in the Pacific does not mean the USN has to lose 38 in WITP. It certainly does not mean he has to lose 76 either.
Submarines are not supposed to engage enemy ASW. (sinking the DD before it spots you is fine but a submarine should not make an attack when it is clear that if it does it will under go DC attacks)
Attacking minimally-escorted convoys ought to be possible for the IJN submarines, at least early in the war against relatively inexperienced crews handling relatively unsophisticated ASW gear and munitions. At present it is not in my PBEM game. That tells me the model wasn't constructed right.
In WITP I find it is 33 perecnt in a ASW action. (roughly) 33 percent of the time my sub gets away unharmed. 33 percent it gets hit but survives (now it depends on how close the nearest size 3 port is) and 33 percent of the time my sub is lost. This is only when an actual ASW attack takes place. Quite often there is no attack but if I leave the sub in the hex the following turn the odds get worse.
If in my PBEM games there was a steady result that for each submarine lost a set number of enemy ships were sunk in return it would be easier to make an informed judgement however in some games enemy submarines are sunk for no return while in others fewer subs are lost but they are sinking escorted Japanese ships.
I have a game where 14 USN boats have been lost for 11 sinkings and another where 5 USN boats have been sunk but have accounted for 21 Japanese ships sunk. (there are of course damaged USn boats and damaged Japanese ships as well)
The point here is that 1 player got 2x the results with 1/3 the cost when compared to the other. (I seem to be pretty steady at 3 enemy ships sunk for each sub I lose) My farthest games are Brady and Ron. (Aug 42) Brady has lost about the same number of boats as Ron but has done 10x the damage. (Brady has sunk a large number of Japanese ships with his boats often by laying mines) Brady has also operated in "no mans land" while Ron stays inside Japanese ASW. Japanese results are almost exactly alike. (I've lost less then half their number while sinking about the same number of enemy ships in both games. But then it was the same starting file and Japanese submarine Ops were the same in both games)
There is no denying it that WITP kills submarines. So the questions that need answers are
1. Are there circumstance where a submarine will almost always be detected and attacked
Yes. If an IJN boat attacks an Allied convoy with three or four destroyers in 1942 it is most likely to 1) not sink anything but 2) itself.
2. Are there circumstance when a submarine will almost always evade detection.
I haven't seen that.
3. By what degree are these circumstance different (how do you go from never being detected to almost certain detection)
Because if submarines are detected they will be attacked and if they are attacked they will be hit. If a submarine is attacked and hit often enough it will be sunk.
From what I've seen the hit rate is too high for Japanese ASW assets. I'm not sure, as the only game I've studied is my own, but it seems, based on that small sample, that USN ASW early-war assets are too efficient as well. By how much is hard to say, as the Japanese didn't attack our convoys often.
If there are more attacks in WITP compared to the actual war, WHY? Never mind DC ratings the first step is detecting the submarine. Why are so many players having boats found in the first place?
What are players who lose fewer boats while sinking as many (or more) enemy ships doing differently? Why do these players get these results all the time?
For one thing, the game system allows the Japanese to play ahistorically, and most Japanese players are happy to do so. Why are the Japanese allowed to form ASW packs in 1942? That was unknown. Why isn't there some system restraint?
In my particular case, the biggest reason I've lost so few boats (no doubt) is that the Allied Sub Doctrine rule was toggled on. This makes my boats totally useless until the late summer of 1943, so all they do now is mine and ferry cadres. And I'll ask again, who's bright idea was that? What is the rationale for this Allied Sub Doctrine? Is there any rationale? Did someone just go poll some thread written in block letters one day that screamed for some such thing? What? How can such ridiculous features make it into a game of this kind? Wouldn't it make more sense instead to try to fix some of the stuff that's known to be broken?
