Naval battles are borked

[John Lansford]

I've got two Marine CD units at PM, and another at Noumea.  Both bases have had enemy surface TF's enter the hex and shoot up Allied TF's without the CD's firing at them.  The PM base was bombarded and the two CD units didn't fire at them either.  If the AI is getting some kind of advantage where they can ignore CD units for non invasion purposes (the ones I had at PM did fire at some invading transports), then that needs to change.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Is part of this that the code considers even a TF in a port as anchored?

Problem here is that any TF trying to bombard PH would have to "run the gauntlet" of CD fire long before it could ever hope to fire on a TF inside the harbor. Some of those CD batteries could fire accurately at 29 miles! That's far beyond what any bombarding TF could hope to achieve...., and why such nonsense was never attempted in real life.

Mike, I see two discussion here: the original about how the USN BB's aren't reacting and the second (highjack) about CD defenses. I was responding to the original.

As to the CD's, I'm not seeing what others are complaining about. I know in the GUA scenario, my IJN CD's are firing like crazy and getting good hits against the USN amphib on both Tulagi and Lunga. Granted, not a lot of guns, so they cannot stop the invasion, but still they are firing and hitting. As the USN in the same scenario, I was hit pretty good by Lunga CD and then again landing against Tassafaronga. So, I'm seeing the CD's work ok, at least in the GUA scenario.

[Panther Bait]

Since there is a naval battle going on, doesn't that mean that the US BB fleet has left the harbor and sortied to engage?  So that only means that the combat is happening in somewhere in the 40-mile hex and not necessarily right in front of the CD defenses. Considering that the CD defenses were arranged primarily around PH, I bet you could have approached from the north or east of Oahu (probably even north-northwest) pretty much without engaging the CD's.  Anything from about 120 to 270 on the compass would be a really bad idea though.


NON-WITP

You wouldn't be able to hit the port in a bombardment approaching from the north, of course, but you might be able to loft fire into Wheeler (in the middle of Oahu and not as many high ridges to shoot over from the north) with a good spotter or maybe Kaneohe (east coast, not sure about the CD defenses in the east though).  Oh, and yes I do realize that WitP-AE doesn't really model things like this, and any bombardment can hit both the port and the airfield.

[spence]

my IJN CD's are firing like crazy and getting good hits against the USN

Why does THAT not surprise me? The IJA/IJN can set up one broken down 37mm with 2 rounds of ammo and three blind mice to man it in 46 mile hex AND IT'LL DO BETTER THAN THE REPORTEDLY STRONGEST COASTAL DEFNSES IN THE WORLD. IMAGINE THAT.

[Streptokok]

ORIGINAL: spence

my IJN CD's are firing like crazy and getting good hits against the USN

Why does THAT not surprise me? The IJA/IJN can set up one broken down 37mm with 2 rounds of ammo and three blind mice to man it in 46 mile hex AND IT'LL DO BETTER THAN THE REPORTEDLY STRONGEST COASTAL DEFNSES IN THE WORLD. IMAGINE THAT.

Bullsh1t. Plain and simple.
My INJ TFs that enocuntered those BF's in DEI with 2 frigin 75mm CD were badly shot up. I loose couple of ships at each landings, both support (PB/E/APD) and almost all xAP/xAK that get hit never make it back to port. Only ships that survived (that were hit) the gauntlet were 1 LSD (pretty big to sink from 2x 75mm shots) and as I started using AMC's since they carry more troops than xAK/xAP's (and they have nice guns for amph. support and are bigger) one of those also survived (2 lost tough).

Any kind of bombardment does rarely get hit by CD guns, bigger the ship doing bombardment less chance it will get hit during bombardment. Disabling "Allow escorts to fire" lower the chances that any ship will get hit further in my expirinece.
And this goes for allies as well as for IJN. Not much difference noticed there trough my game.

Amph. assault is totaly different from bombardment in getting mauled by CD guns , they allways "eat" alot more compared to bombardment TFs.

And Jap 37mm guns dont fire on ships. There are couple of squads with only those 37mm AT guns, they cant even participate in ground bombardment. Only use is as defence against deliberate/shock attacks.

[John Lansford]

Well, my CD units definitely shoot at invading TF's trying to land troops, I'm not disagreeing with that. 
 
However, the rule book says that enemy TF's entering a hex with CD units present will result in them shooting at the ships, and if the TF tries to bombard a base defended by CD's I'd expect them to shoot back.  So far I've seen very little of either taking place.  If a TF enters a hex with a CD in it there should be a chance they will be fired upon, and if they bombard then they definitely should be shot at.

[erstad]

As Japan, I just had an invasion task force ripped up, mostly by one unit with 155mm guns.

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

Well, my CD units definitely shoot at invading TF's trying to land troops, I'm not disagreeing with that. 

However, the rule book says that enemy TF's entering a hex with CD units present will result in them shooting at the ships, and if the TF tries to bombard a base defended by CD's I'd expect them to shoot back.  So far I've seen very little of either taking place.  If a TF enters a hex with a CD in it there should be a chance they will be fired upon, and if they bombard then they definitely should be shot at.

While I'm not saying the Pearl situation reported isn't wrong, BB guns outranged most CD artillery. They could stand off out of range and bombard if they chose to.

Obviously the major forts had CD guns that were fully capable of engaging BBs at range and should.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Is part of this that the code considers even a TF in a port as anchored?

Problem here is that any TF trying to bombard PH would have to "run the gauntlet" of CD fire long before it could ever hope to fire on a TF inside the harbor. Some of those CD batteries could fire accurately at 29 miles! That's far beyond what any bombarding TF could hope to achieve...., and why such nonsense was never attempted in real life.

Mike, I see two discussion here: the original about how the USN BB's aren't reacting and the second (highjack) about CD defenses. I was responding to the original. Given that the game's "Bombardment Mission" seems to represent at most a nighttime 90 minute "shoot and scoot" exercise, it makes sense that a TF in port be unable to raise steam fast enough to sail out and engage.

As to the CD's, I'm not seeing what others are complaining about. I know in the GUA scenario, my IJN CD's are firing like crazy and getting good hits against the USN amphib on both Tulagi and Lunga. Granted, not a lot of guns, so they cannot stop the invasion, but still they are firing and hitting. As the USN in the same scenario, I was hit pretty good by Lunga CD and then again landing against Tassafaronga. So, I'm seeing the CD's work ok, at least in the GUA scenario. Have your "CD's" fired against anything except the amphibious TF trying to land troops? Not that the local CD guns you are refering to are really an integrated CD System like Oahu..., but given the narrowness of the waters involved, have they fired against anything that wasn't trying to land troops? Were any of your bombardment TF's engaged?

[Bradley7735]

This isn't about the CD's. Let's pretend it happend in the hex where Noumea is located. My points are:
Advanced spotting of the IJN TF two rounds before combat.
10 american BB's and 4 CA's (with ok exp because they have done this thing 2-3 times before)
2 IJN BB's plus 1-2 cruisers and 2-4 DD's

IJN BB's land 3-8 penetrating hits per round
US BB's land 0-1 penetrating hits per round (not counting the odd hit on a DD)

10 vs 2

Hand picked leaders. Prior experience (except for North Carolina).

I don't care about the CD issue. Why do I have only 2-3 ships act in any given round? Why do they not hit with their main armament? Why do 100% of the IJN ships act every round?

TF is not docked. (It's waaaay to big to dock at PH)

I play the AI, so I tend to run the turn over and over, looking for a result I like (not always, but sometimes.) I spent a while changing orders, ships and leaders to see if i would get varying results (I know the code is set for the turn once you save, so you have to make changes to orders if you want to see changes in the actual play of the round.)

I would almost always get the same result of 0-1 american BB sunk, 2-3 others damaged pretty moderately, 1 IJN support ship sunk and the BB's slightly damaged (at least they could make 8 or so hexes away after the fight.)

It's not right when it's 10vs2 and you know they're coming.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Since there is a naval battle going on, doesn't that mean that the US BB fleet has left the harbor and sortied to engage?  So that only means that the combat is happening in somewhere in the 40-mile hex and not necessarily right in front of the CD defenses. Considering that the CD defenses were arranged primarily around PH, I bet you could have approached from the north or east of Oahu (probably even north-northwest) pretty much without engaging the CD's.  Anything from about 120 to 270 on the compass would be a really bad idea though.


NON-WITP

You wouldn't be able to hit the port in a bombardment approaching from the north, of course, but you might be able to loft fire into Wheeler (in the middle of Oahu and not as many high ridges to shoot over from the north) with a good spotter or maybe Kaneohe (east coast, not sure about the CD defenses in the east though).  Oh, and yes I do realize that WitP-AE doesn't really model things like this, and any bombardment can hit both the port and the airfield.

Harbor defenses of Pearl Harbor and environs, summarised from the following link.

Fort Ruger
12 12" mortars, 2 8" rifles, 2 5" rifles

Fort DeRussy
2 14" rifles, 2 6" rifles

Other Honolulu locations
2 6" rifles, 6 9.6" howitzers

Fort Barrette
2 16" rifles, casemated

Fort Weaver
2 16" rifles

Fort Kamehameha
8 12" mortars, 4 12" rifles, 2 6" rifles, 2 4.7" rifles

Other Pearl Harbor locations
4 8" rifles, 4 6" rifles, 2 5" rifles, 6 9.6" howitzers

North Shore of Oahu
2 8" rifles, 12 8" railway guns

8 miscellaneous 9.6" howitzer positions

And a bunch of Panama Mounts.

The 12" mortars were effective against the deck armor of anything that came in too close. The 10 battleship-caliber rifles provided the long-range firepower.

[anarchyintheuk]

Couple of factors: 1) old bbs have a rof of 1, newer bbs have a rof of 2, 2) I can't imagine how hard it would have been to spot and adjust fire when you have 8-10 bbs firing at 2 major targets.

Add cls and dds to the mix, their shots don't penetrate but the do start fires making the target easier to hit (although it can end up in concentrating fire on the burning ship).

JMO

[John Lansford]

Two of the 16" guns at Pearl Harbor were built for the army, and outranged any naval gun in any navy.  IIRC they had a 42 mile range.  They were installed at Pearl Harbor in an area that commanded the entire south and western shores of Oahu, and could even reach the northwest shore.  Numerous fire control stations could feed them data on a target from over the horizon, and in at least one exercise hit the target with the first shot.  When I was on Oahu several years ago I picked up a book on Pearl Harbor fortifications and it discussed the evolution of the port defenses.

Not only were there fixed gun positions, there were fortified positions for the 155mm mobile CD guns, 8" railway guns, searchlights, shore controlled minefields and smaller gun positions covering the minefields.  Even the northern coast had sufficient positions to deter any landing where the strong waves would allow it.

[spence]

Couple of factors: 1) old bbs have a rof of 1, newer bbs have a rof of 2, 2) I can't imagine how hard it would have been to spot and adjust fire when you have 8-10 bbs firing at 2 major targets.

Combined Fleet details various rebuildings of the Kongo Class but the main armament handling equipment doesn't seem to be on the list. Armorchanges , boilers and turbine changes, AAA additions seem to have depleted the Japanese treasury enough so that the main armament was not significantly modified after the ships' initial construction at the beginning of WWI. They were not "modern".

[Iridium]

ORIGINAL: spence

Combined Fleet details various rebuildings of the Kongo Class but the main armament handling equipment doesn't seem to be on the list. Armorchanges , boilers and turbine changes, AAA additions seem to have depleted the Japanese treasury enough so that the main armament was not significantly modified after the ships' initial construction at the beginning of WWI. They were not "modern".

Not entirely correct, the Kongo Class' main guns were updated at least once during their 1931 refit (if I recall correctly). The main guns originally only elevated to 30 degrees, Kongos built in Japan had a max elevation of plus or minus 5 degrees from that. During the refit of their main guns they were all made to have a max elevation of 45 degrees. Many parts of these guns were replaced and modified.

Trying to find decent sources but am pulling blanks on searches atm...[:@]

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl



Mike, I see two discussion here: the original about how the USN BB's aren't reacting and the second (highjack) about CD defenses. I was responding to the original. Given that the game's "Bombardment Mission" seems to represent at most a nighttime 90 minute "shoot and scoot" exercise, it makes sense that a TF in port be unable to raise steam fast enough to sail out and engage.

Steam for an anchored CA or BB in 90 minutes? Battle steam at that ... I don't have data handy but IIRC the Nevada was warm at PH and she barely had steerage steam up by the time of the second wave .. so what two hours to make steerage, forget battle.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

As to the CD's, I'm not seeing what others are complaining about. I know in the GUA scenario, my IJN CD's are firing like crazy and getting good hits against the USN amphib on both Tulagi and Lunga. Granted, not a lot of guns, so they cannot stop the invasion, but still they are firing and hitting. As the USN in the same scenario, I was hit pretty good by Lunga CD and then again landing against Tassafaronga. So, I'm seeing the CD's work ok, at least in the GUA scenario. Have your "CD's" fired against anything except the amphibious TF trying to land troops? Not that the local CD guns you are refering to are really an integrated CD System like Oahu..., but given the narrowness of the waters involved, have they fired against anything that wasn't trying to land troops? Were any of your bombardment TF's engaged?

I haven't set that many bombarment missions and I don't know the size of guns in the CD's, so I cannot say.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl



Mike, I see two discussion here: the original about how the USN BB's aren't reacting and the second (highjack) about CD defenses. I was responding to the original. Given that the game's "Bombardment Mission" seems to represent at most a nighttime 90 minute "shoot and scoot" exercise, it makes sense that a TF in port be unable to raise steam fast enough to sail out and engage.

Steam for an anchored CA or BB in 90 minutes? Battle steam at that ... I don't have data handy but IIRC the Nevada was warm at PH and she barely had steerage steam up by the time of the second wave .. so what two hours to make steerage, forget battle. Isn't that EXACTLY what I said above? "It makes sense that a TF in port be UNABLE to raise steam fast enough...".

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl



Mike, I see two discussion here: the original about how the USN BB's aren't reacting and the second (highjack) about CD defenses. I was responding to the original. Given that the game's "Bombardment Mission" seems to represent at most a nighttime 90 minute "shoot and scoot" exercise, it makes sense that a TF in port be unable to raise steam fast enough to sail out and engage.

Steam for an anchored CA or BB in 90 minutes? Battle steam at that ... I don't have data handy but IIRC the Nevada was warm at PH and she barely had steerage steam up by the time of the second wave .. so what two hours to make steerage, forget battle. Isn't that EXACTLY what I said above? "It makes sense that a TF in port be UNABLE to raise steam fast enough...".

Sorry, miss-read your post.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
Sorry, miss-read your post.

It happens. Still, it would be nice if everyone struck by the urge to "respond" to a post would take just a minute minute to read it a second time before doing so.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: spence

Couple of factors: 1) old bbs have a rof of 1, newer bbs have a rof of 2, 2) I can't imagine how hard it would have been to spot and adjust fire when you have 8-10 bbs firing at 2 major targets.

Combined Fleet details various rebuildings of the Kongo Class but the main armament handling equipment doesn't seem to be on the list. Armorchanges , boilers and turbine changes, AAA additions seem to have depleted the Japanese treasury enough so that the main armament was not significantly modified after the ships' initial construction at the beginning of WWI. They were not "modern".

In particular, they were not compartmentalised to post-Jutland standards. That meant they were prone to capsizing if water made it onto their main deck. I believe the Kongo and Kirishima were lost that way. Of course, most modern RN and IJN cruisers had a nasty habit of capsizing if they took underwater damage in their engine and boiler rooms. The RN cruisers had wing compartments that facilitated the process, while the IJN cruisers had a mid-line watertight bulkhead that ensured capsizing was inevitable.