I now played a full game and a two material issues I haven't seen mentioned

[siRkid]

Does anyone have any real world data?

[freeboy]

I have real world data

[doomonyou]

This just happened this morning in the way of data, The Tatsujin Maru was damaged PRIOR to this combat by dutch submarine 0-19. Range at the time was reported as 4000 yards, these ships WERE DISEMBARKING TROOPS AND SUPPLIES to take the unstaffed Allied base a Jolo.

This battle should have been a godawful total massacre with perhaps four to six ships surviving and slinking away in various states of damage.

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 12/22/41

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Jolo at 38,59

Japanese Ships
ML Ikitsushima, on fire
MSW Tomozono Maru #3, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
AP Igasa Maru, Shell hits 27, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AP Kembu Maru, heavy damage
AP Kiko Maru, Shell hits 6, heavy damage
AP Tarushima Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Tatsujin Maru, on fire
AP Teiryu Maru
AP Tenryu Maru
AP Toyo Maru #2
AP Ujigawa Maru
AP Yamafuku Maru
AP Zyuyo Maru
AP Chinko Maru
AP Daitei Maru
AK Tokiwasan Maru

Allied Ships
CL Marblehead, Shell hits 3
CL Boise
DD Barker
DD Bulmer
DD Paul Jones
DD Parrott
DD Stewart

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: doomonyou

Surface ships vs. Transports.

Due to the AI on several occasions I caught nearly unescorted tranports with surface ships. I can't seem to really kill them.

Example I caught eleven Japanese AP's and AK's with Two PCs near borneo with the Prince of Wales, the repulse and four DD's in daylight, fair weather at 22000 yards. Killed one PC and three Transports.

Since the transports are at least 10 knots slower and its daylight, how the hell do ANY of them manage to escape? It seems like the surface ai pounds the hell out of a few guys and lets the rest go. Have had cruisers to this too. Any competent captain at this time would in my estimation know that if he's spotted say four 8" or larger direct shell hits on a unarmored Transport to switch to a new target to cripple that one.

Also why does the hex speed seem not to match the ship speed. A ship going say 25 knots set to full speed should cover in a 24 hour period more hexes then I typcially seem them cover. Are the hexes much bigger than the 60 miles suggested in the manual?

I'm with you that this is a problem. I caught a group of 16 Japanese Transports unloading
troops at Davao with 12 DD's and 4 Cruisers. Davao is in a Gulf, so there wasn't any-
place for them to run..., they were pinned against the beach. I had a full load of Ammo
and Torpedoes. Net result was 2 Jap AK's sunk, 4 damaged, and 10 untouched. It's a
game "flaw" or "decision" you probably are going to have to learn to live with. I chased
this force for 2 more turns and 5 of them are still untouched (5 sunk and 6 damaged) and
I'm running out of ammo. On the bright side, it works both ways, so you may be saved
from your own follies on occasion as well. But it is annoying.

[McNaughton]

Lets look at some criteria here.

There are many things not being looked at here. If you had a surface combat TF, geared for battlefleet action, would you want to split it up in a chase in a region of 100 square kilometers in hostile territory against transports, when you could be jumped by enemy surface TFs at any moment? So, if you were with the Prince of Wales, Repulse, and 4 destroyers, chances are you wouldn't sent each ship on its own to chase after a transport. Imagine explaining to your commander why you sent off the Prince of Wales UNESCORTED into a sub infested seazone!

ALL raiding TFs mentioned had one thing, they were SMALL. Between 1-4 vessels. Also, in virtually all of these instances (Balikpapan especially) they got almost total surprise. Also, even these actions didn't result in total annihalation. Also, the Pacific War was NOT known for its raider tactics. All that have been mentioned were the SUCCESSFUL raider attacks. The number of transport vessels sunk by surface warships is completely neglegable when you compare the numbers sunk by aircraft.

When a Transport TF is unloading it is indeed stationary, BUT ships are not all neatly lined up for you to go and batter with your fleet. Ships are scattered about the port, some close to land (so you cannot see them shiloetted against the shore), while others are further out. Imagine going INTO a port, and trying to manoever around blasting transports. The only time this has EVER happened was when the Warspite ventured in to Narvik, which was VERY risky. Chances are, if you attack a TF that is unloading you are only ever going to SEE and be able to ENGAGE the ships on the outer end of the port, with those on the inner rings protected by the geography of the port, as well as the smoking wreckage of the ships further out. Take a look at pictures of ships in port and you will understand what I am talking about. Ships can continue to unload because they were in the inner ring of transports, and it would be better to unload then to try and exit the port by going through the enemy TF.

The 4 destroyers attacking Balikpapan was as much a fluke as Midway was. They achieved total surprise because the IJN escorts were out hunting a Dutch submarine that just fired on them moments before the American destroyers entered. The US destroyers were not spotted by the Japanese merchants, as they were assumed to be IJN escorts. This was a one and a million situation, and even here only 6 transports were sunk, and these were empty. Remember, these are FULL day turns, a lot can happen in a day, while battles only last a few minutes.

[McNaughton]

ORIGINAL: doomonyou

I see a lot of people have experienced this too.

In response to those who claim the "scatter" issue, I agree to a limited extent but in my example it would have been hideously easy for TF commander to send even just two DD rushing in to check it out while he hangs back and lands 12 and 14" shells on the ships he can see. Those two close in DD's would (being probably 20 knots faster than any transport) be able to run quite wild in there.

I would certainly in any 10+ ship convoy be surprsied by a total wipeout but my example should have resulted in 7+ ships sunk and the rest damaged with perhaps one unscathed survivor.

If this was SO easy, then why have very few convoys ever been wiped out? Most of the situations of wiped out convoys was when you had a few transports (2-4) escorted by one escort, against an equal number of enemies (2-6 Cruisers and Destroyers). The IJN was able to do this late in the NEI campaign as they had numeric equality, and total ship numbers were low (it is easier to escape a battle of 10 vs 10 ships than it is 4 vs 4).

Battles are NEVER perfect, and NEVER end up with such an accurate set of ordering and successful engagements as you proposed, especially with high numbers of ships. INVARIABLY, in large engagements, there tend to be ships that draw the focus of the fleet, which EVERYONE tends to go after. This happened more than what you propose happen. It happened at Dogger Bank, virtually all of the Savo Island battles, the Gambier Bay, etc. Why? Because in raider attacks, ships become autonomous, and the chain of command desinigrates, with attacks being that of opportunity rather than of a planned fireplan.

Most of the successful anti-transport engagments were flukes of luck (Balikpapan), or were small numbers of raiders engaging small numbers of transports. Increasing the numbers of BOTH sides will not mean that the rate of kills will increase as well, but actually decrease due to the chaos of battle. Raider tactics are VERY chaotic, and in large ship battles it would degenerate and the TF commander would soon lose control of the situation, resulting in ships attacking the wrong targets, and others slipping away. It is just plain and simple.

[Black Cat]

I agree that the lack of major sinkings when you surprise a undefended Transport TF can be very disappointing, it`s happened to me as the US in the early going in the Campaign Game, however when I learned to handle my SC TF`s better I did better. Understanding the Game phases and how the AI moves it`s ships , and yours, as well as the time factors envolved, and how to use the ships speeds are important in hex -hex movement IMO.


I now leave 2- 4 DD`s in the hex the Transport TF will likely flee to after the surface combat phase, set the the attacking TF on retire in the base direction that will place it next phase in the other or same liklely hex the Transports will flee to.

Since there are usually only 3 hexs that the Transports can exit too, you have good odds that you will catch them on the next turn. Using this method I wiped out a 12 ship Japanese Transport TF over 3 turns at Davo in 1/42.

[Black Cat]

ORIGINAL: Kid

Does anyone have any real world data?

Yes The famous US Night Action off Balikpapan on Jan 24 1942.

Four old Destroyers, Pope, Ford, Paul Jones and Parrott achived total surprise vs 12 unloading Transports and 3 PC`s silhouetted by shore fires, steaming at high speed, at point blank range they engaged with all torps and gunfire.

Only 4 transports and one PC were sunk under what can only be called ideal conditions for the US Forces.

The details are here and worth reading before the Matrix team starts tinkering with that part of the game.

The History of US Naval Operations in WW II. by Samuel Eliot Morison. Vol III, Pages 285 - 91.

Morison`s comments on this action are well worth reading as well.

[JohnK]

ORIGINAL: McNaughton


If this was SO easy, then why have very few convoys ever been wiped out?

You're arguing against a strawman.

Exactly ZERO people are demanding the game be changed so weakly defended convoys are always "wiped out."

It's just in the range of possible results large forces ALL firing at a lone PC or MSW escort with NO or almost no shots fired at the transports seems to be an exceedingly common result.

[doomonyou]

ORIGINAL: JohnK

ORIGINAL: McNaughton


If this was SO easy, then why have very few convoys ever been wiped out?

You're arguing against a strawman.

Exactly ZERO people are demanding the game be changed so weakly defended convoys are always "wiped out."

It's just in the range of possible results large forces ALL firing at a lone PC or MSW escort with NO or almost no shots fired at the transports seems to be an exceedingly common result.

This is precisely my point...I have no issue with historical accuracy. I don't even mind the explanation that Japanese escorts even small ones, when placed in a situation of that type, would charge wildly into the enemy forcing an unusual concentration of fire...but, as the above post states, I have NEVER seen in about 15 or so of these situations where a reasonably powerful force catches an enemy "non-combat" TF anything other then a beating on a few ships of the dozen or so. In most of these cases these ships also have seaplanes and could quite easily launch one and have it zero them in on larger groups etc as most warships can litterally double the speed of a transport.

Perhaps historically this didn't happen alot, agreed. But many things in my games did not happen historically (for example I have NEVER seen the island of wake stand for ANYTHING close to its historically resistance time, typically by a factor of 10) nor are the dutch remembered as creating the vicious Death fortress of Kendari where Japanese invasion task forces and even the CVL Rujyo went ot die...

BTW if these Jap AK/AP convoys are so spread out that I can never encounter them in bulk in my zone of fire, why can't my SS's slaughter the hell out of them since thier escorts must be thirty miles away? If twelve ships are so spread out that a Surface TF consisting of a ship capable of firing effectively at 22000 yards in daylight cannot catch more than say three ships at a time together when its 12 knots faster than them, then they cannot be in effective anti-submarine formations for mutual support by the escorts.

Lastly, The ships don't scatter. I would have no problem if thier was an "overpower" option, where a "non-combat" TF encounters the Yamamoto and a Cruiser and Five DD's adn just F'ing blows hell for leather in 360 degrees with smoke and screaming and wild drunking dancing....Appearing the next day in six hexes all seperated and headed automatically in one direction or another to escape. But the next morning these enemy task forces are always just crusing along all reformed and happy. They like flow around your ships, its like trying to punch your way to victory against a swarm of bees.