Ship experience

[spence]

There weren't that many surface actions in 1941-42 to compare the two navies with. A few comments.
The first action I am aware of was between 2 British DDs and a larger Japanese force on the coast of Malaya. One Brit got sunk; the other got away. I don't really remember the details on this one but I'm pretty sure the Brits were significantly outgunned. Thanet got sunk I think.
#2 Battle of Makassar Strait (night) - both sides had no previous battle experience. The 4 US DDs nailed three AP/AKs and a ML or MS. The Japanese covering force which included at least one CL and half a dozen DDs launched itself out of the battle pursuing phantom submarines. Not a distinguished action for the IJN.
#3 Battle of Badung Strait - Divided forces of mixed nationality CLs and DDs engaged divided Japanese transport forces totalling 4 DDs and 2 AP/AKs. The Allies got one CL (Tromp) shot to pieces along with one DD sunk (Piet Hein) and one DD shot up (Stewart). The IJN had a DD shot up pretty badly and minor damage to a couple of other ships. Given the relative throw weights of the antagonists it was really a bad showing for the Allies. One or more of the US DDs may have been at Makassar Strait - if so it didn't seem to help much.
#4 Battle of the Java Sea - Mixed nationality Allied force fought roughly equal IJN force in long range daylight/twilight action. Adm Doorman failed to close the gap between the forces to allow Allied CLs to effectively engage IJN CAs. CA Exeter damaged by 8" fire from IJN CAs but withdraws from battle safely. IJN sinks with torpedos a Dutch DD and 2 Dutch CLs. DD HMS Electra is sunk but effectively holds off 2 Japanese Destroyer Divisions from closing on damaged Exeter. Exeter had surface battle experience (Battle of the River Platte-1939). Perth had battle experience in the Med though I don't think it involved surface action. Some of the the Brit or American DDs may have had some surface battle experience. I don't believe any of the IJN ships had any.
IMO the experience or lack thereof didn't seem to effect the battle much but the leadership did. Clear cut IJN victory with better IJN performance all around.
#5 Battle of the Sunda Strait - CA Houston (damaged and not rearmed since Java Sea) and CL Perth vs a veritable horde of IJN surface ships. Overwhelmed and sunk. Of note though is that IJN torpedos claimed 4 JAPANESE transports unloading near the scene of the battle. Don't believe any IJN ship had surface combat experience - probably contributed to the SNAFU with the transports.
#6 Sinking of Exeter, Pope and Yarra (I think) by combined surface forces and a/c. If any of the Allied ships had gotten away from this situation it would have been a disgrace for the IJN. They didn't.
#7 Battle of Savo Island - Allies SNAFUed big time get surprised and creamed. Mikawa went the wrong way after he'd won though.
#8 IJN Cruiser/DD force sails in harm's way with their collective heads up and locked. Gets surprised and lose a DD and a CA. Allies get confused and remainder of IJN force escapes while US DD gets pounded by both IJN and US ships and eventually sinks. Not a brilliant performance by US but a pretty poor performance by IJN
#9 1st Night - Naval Battle of Guadalcanal - leadership on both sides is pretty poor. The fight begins at such short range that ship survival/damage is almost/mostly a matter of good/bad luck.
#10 3rd Night- Naval Battle of Guadalcanal - good IJN torpedo attack followed by single US modern BB effectively destroying Kirishima, and then damaging the rest of the IJN big gun ships and driving the IJN off. USS Washington had no previous experience in surface action. Many of the IJN ships, Kirishima included, were in action two nights previously (but were rearmed). Of note is that the IJN had extensively practiced knocking out US BBs in night action. Though they scored some gun hits
on South Dakota that ship was taken out of the fight by a general power failure of its own making, not IJN action.
#11 - Tassafaronga - US cruisers destroy one IJN DD with gunfire and reveal their position. The remaining IJN DDs launch a devastating torpedo attack and haul @ss. IJN displays excellent execution of tactical doctrine.

IMO the experience of individual ships played a much more minor role than leadership and balance of forces in these actions. Further, there is little evidence to suggest that the IJN enjoyed a significant generalized advantage in this type of fight.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: spence

IMO the experience of individual ships played a much more minor role than leadership and balance of forces in these actions. Further, there is little evidence to suggest that the IJN enjoyed a significant generalized advantage in this type of fight.

Spence, a nice summation and I agree with you whole heartedly.
If you had extended the list through 43 it looks generally worse for the IJN (though Helena was lost at -what , Kolobangara or Kula Gulf?).

It also backs up what my earlier point was - almost NO ship in WWII saw 5+ surface actions. It's
1) Balance of forces
2) Leadership
3) Training
and ...Luck that decided these things...not much to do with previous night battle experience.

B

[Tankerace]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Several points:

"That, and the Allies (Britain and America) didn't put in much night training at the time. Their theory (as far as I can tell) was that ngiht actions should be avoided if possible." - Tankerace

This is factually incorrect. The British were well aware of the importance of night training and worked at it constantly. The Japanese emphasis on night training came in part from analysis of the RN's fighting of Jutland. The British and Japanese were Allies at that time, and their navies traded a great deal of information.

True. That comment was mainly directed at the US Navy, which especially at Guadalcanal had its ass handed to it. While the British did train effectively for it, the few early war British night actions wouldn't justify equal to or better than Japanese actions (in my opinion). However, you have to admit that British actions at Jutland were poor, to say the least. (Then again, so were German actions)

I threw the British in because I have been pouring over so many reports of Jutland for so long doing research for WPO its ingrained into my head that Brits and night actions don't go together[:D]

[tanksone]

Hi, not to butt into this damn interesting conversation but perhaps it would be interesting to see which captains have been assigned to certain ships by others in this forum to see what results others have had. I realize it's not scientific but it might give a wider viewing of the game. For instance, Repulse in 12/41 starts out as a 61/77 and is as of 10/44 at 78/76 for experience. Unfortunately, I have not kept track of how many battles or sunken ships that Repulse participated in to make more factors available. On a side note, she has seen extensive naval bombardments and carrier escort duties. Her captain is the same since the start of the game. Also my game is 1.4 vanilla yet because I didn't update yet.[&:]

[doktorblood]

Bombardment missions .... lots of them.

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Big B
But Tanker,
How do you account for high Japanese experience when - especially at the beginning - they saw no naval action and had no NAVAL combat experience?
Clearly they got their high (65-70) expierience from mere training. A human is a human, if the Japanese could train hard and get those ratings without naval action - why not the Allies?

B

Lifes were cheaper in the IJN. Not minding losing men or damaging ships by accidents or the elements, the IJN trained in rough conditions (almost round the year in northern waters, bad weather, night) in order to toughen the men and train as realistically as possible - knowing they would need an edge in quality against numerically superior enemies.

But in the USN, sailors and perhaps even more so the ships were considered more valuable ('the captain who runs his ship aground shall suffer a fate worse than death'). Training took place under more convenient conditions (one fleet problem per year in Caribean or Hawaii waters). Gunnery practice took place mostly in daylight and calm seas, so to give no ship any disadvanatges for comparison purposes.

No wonder the IJN had an edge in the early night surface battles.

[Captain Cruft]

The whole experience gaining thing is strange. Why do LCUs go from 80 to 99 after a weeks fighting for example? Or pilots gain from "attacking" empty bases?

Trying to relate the game's integer arithmetic to reality is not a profitable exercise IMHO. All we can say for certain is that in the long term ship experience will go up ...

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

ORIGINAL: Big B
But Tanker,
How do you account for high Japanese experience when - especially at the beginning - they saw no naval action and had no NAVAL combat experience?
Clearly they got their high (65-70) expierience from mere training. A human is a human, if the Japanese could train hard and get those ratings without naval action - why not the Allies?

B

Lifes were cheaper in the IJN. Not minding losing men or damaging ships by accidents or the elements, the IJN trained in rough conditions (almost round the year in northern waters, bad weather, night) in order to toughen the men and train as realistically as possible - knowing they would need an edge in quality against numerically superior enemies.

But in the USN, sailors and perhaps even more so the ships were considered more valuable ('the captain who runs his ship aground shall suffer a fate worse than death'). Training took place under more convenient conditions (one fleet problem per year in Caribean or Hawaii waters). Gunnery practice took place mostly in daylight and calm seas, so to give no ship any disadvanatges for comparison purposes.

No wonder the IJN had an edge in the early night surface battles.

Hello LargeSlowTarget,

I'm not really disagreeing with you about Japanese training - that was my point really ...what ever skill the Japanese may have enjoyed early in night fighting could only be due to training - not combat experience, because they had no more of that than the Allies (especially the British who had vastly more recent combat experience by Jan 1942 than the Japanese - considering WWI and the first 2 years of WWII).

I would still submit however that Spence, who listed all of the actions of 1942 above, was correct. I don't see any broad superior skill in surface actions displayed by the Japanese particularly.
What does stand out is superior force #1.

Consider the list above, the only two actions which the Japanese won convincingly (near annihilation of an enemy force) were Savo and Java Sea. But in each of those many different factors came into play - and in action the Japanese were able to apply vastly superior force (which IMO was what was decisive).

Java Sea, Doorman was not out for a surface showdown with the Japanese - he was after the Invasion Convoy. Doorman kept trying to find a way around the Japanese surface squadron and locate the transports - with the result that the range remained open. That brought into play a gunnery duel where only the 8" guns employed by each side were effective - and the Japanese enjoyed a 40 to 12 advantage there. The result was predictable.

Even at Savo, in action the Japanese fought two separate surface actions where the odds in firepower and ships were 2 to 1 and 3 to 1 in their favor. Along with all the other elements of the battle ...it came down to weight of numbers again that was decisive.

Pulling these two battles out of context and using them as the benchmark of typical IJN superiority in surface action is akin to measuring all carrier battles by Midway.

I think if the broad range of battles is taken into account, and understood in their own circumstances, The Japanese historically come out no more particularly skillful than the Allies in gunnery, etc. even back to early 1942.

B

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
No wonder the IJN had an edge in the early night surface battles.

Right, but from what Tom has noticed, this early advantage lasts the entire war. In 1942, the USN lost a little over half of it's night battles. (edge IJN). In 1943, 44 and 45 the USN won almost every night and day surface battle. Huge edge to USN. However, you can't train your ships up to the level that is required to get this advantage. Japanese ships all have 70 night exp. USN all have 40.

Tom, from what Tankerace posted, you can train your ships up to minimum of 55/55 by just putting them in a TF and steaming them across the map. I'd form a TF in San Diego and have it steam to Anchorage and return. Keep doing that until they have 55/55.

Then do what everyone else does. Find a backwater Japanese base (you'll have to wait until you go on the offensive), that you have bypassed. Then just keep sending ships to bombard the backwater base. Eventually, you should have ships in the 80's. I haven't tested exp gain from bombardments, but I assume you'll get some. This is horribly a-historical, but if you want to be able to successfully defend your invasion of the Marianas or PI from Yamato and co., you need USN ships that can tell which direction is up. The game doesn't allow this unless you do a-historical training methods.

[rtrapasso]

The Japanese historically come out no more particularly skillful than the Allies in gunnery, etc. even back to early 1942.

Actually, in all fairness, the IJN had much better torpedo doctrine (and torpedoes) than the Allies, at least in the first part of the war. Java Sea and Savo were largely decided by the Long Lance (and maybe other IJN torps), as well as most (maybe all) of their other nighttime surface victories.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

The Japanese historically come out no more particularly skillful than the Allies in gunnery, etc. even back to early 1942.

Actually, in all fairness, the IJN had much better torpedo doctrine (and torpedoes) than the Allies, at least in the first part of the war. Java Sea and Savo were largely decided by the Long Lance (and maybe other IJN torps), as well as most (maybe all) of their other nighttime surface victories.

I agree with you - I was amazed some years ago to read that almost every American ship sunk in surface action was listed as 'Sunk by Gunfire and Torpedoes' while almost all Japanese ships sunk were listed as 'Sunk by Gunfire'.

I would however submit that it was more the Long Lance than the doctrine...in other words, sound as their doctrine was - it wouldn't have been near as effective without the Long Lance.

I'll go one further, had the Japanese NOT had the Long Lance - their list of surface action sinkings would have been no more than 1/3 of what they historically got.

B

[ChezDaJez]

I think if the broad range of battles is taken into account, and understood in their own circumstances, The Japanese historically come out no more particularly skillful than the Allies in gunnery, etc. even back to early 1942.

The Japanese superiority early in the war came from their tactics and torpedo doctrines that relied heavily on surprise. And they were successful at it because the allies hadn't yet learned to incorporate the use of search radar effectively in their tactics. Savo was a wake-up call for the allies and one of the best lessons we learned was how to use radar in an effective, tactical manner. Once we did that, it took away the element of surprise from the Japanese and when combined with fire control radar, our ability to fight at night or in poor weather increased expotentially. (One other problem that hurt the Japanes was their commanding officers strict adherence to "going down with the ship" in atonement. This cost the Japanese many fine, highly skilled and experienced leaders.)

Chez

[MkXIV]

And we all saw what happends when the IJN doesn't have surprise and the US uses RADAR at Surigao Strait.

[Captain Cruft]

Talking about torpedoes, the main thing about Mr Tanaka was not that he was some kind of super-Admiral, he had simply worked out a way of reliably delivering more torpedoes on target by using innovative "spreads". This was all worked out using "floating point" vector mathematics.

Which I suppose is modelled in the game as the high "Accuracy" value assigned to the Long Lance torpedo device and the high "Surface Combat" value assigned to the Adm Tanaka leader entry, which may or may not result in a good result depending no what random numbers get thrown up. Like I said, it's a long way from integer arithmetic to reality ...

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Talking about torpedoes, the main thing about Mr Tanaka was not that he was some kind of super-Admiral, he had simply worked out a way of reliably delivering more torpedoes on target by using innovative "spreads". This was all worked out using "floating point" vector mathematics.

Which I suppose is modelled in the game as the high "Accuracy" value assigned to the Long Lance torpedo device and the high "Surface Combat" value assigned to the Adm Tanaka leader entry, which may or may not result in a good result depending no what random numbers get thrown up. Like I said, it's a long way from integer arithmetic to reality ...

Yikes - come back to the discussion from a year ago.

Actually, 'twas not Tanaka that developed this, but Capt. Hara (author of "Japanese Destroyer Captain", which is a really interesting book (but unfortunately out of print)). Tanaka keeps getting the credit for it though.

I still keep bringing up "what ever happened to Capt. Hara". I know that he went into the salt shipping business (by shipping, i mean naval shipping) after the war. He is presumed to have died (would be over 100 now if alive) but no one could find an obit. He appealed to our Japanese speaking community without result so far...

[Captain Cruft]

Ah OK, I stand corrected

My basic point remains though. The game is what it is (a huge over-simplification) and it is not going to change in any significant manner.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Ah OK, I stand corrected

My basic point remains though. The game is what it is (a huge over-simplification) and it is not going to change in any significant manner.

I agree wholeheartedly!!!

[steveh11Matrix]

If you twist your head sideways and squint a bit you can view those bombardment missions vs empty bases as training sorties...yes it's a bit desperate but I can usually manage to live with things like that provided I can come up with some sort of fig lea...er...justification. [:)]

Steve.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Actually experience is just that, experience. You can read all about it in textbooks, but you don't get better until you do it. Keep in mind, the rating is not "ability of learning tactics", it is ship experience. At Cape Esperance the USN performed better than at Savo. But green ships, with green crews, wouldn't fair as well. And experience should take a long time to acheive. If it didn't, then you'd have several ships at 100 by 1943, and that sounds pretty stupid.

Lessons should be spread throughout the battle, but experience is gained through actually doing (which this represents). Ships can train and train and learn, but until they do it under fire they won't actually gain combat experience.

Example: The US army by the Battle of the Bulge had fought in Africa, Italy, France, etc. Yet there were still green divisions. They knew the tatics, but they hadn't yet been under fire. There were disparities in troop experience, and there should (as there are) be dispareties between ship experience.

Personally, I think the model is accurate. (And Im not saying that as a fanboy. A DD at San Fran shouldn't get higher crew experience because of a DD fighting in the Java Sea).

So are you saying all crew members stay on one ship for the entire war? Model is totally off. Crew got transfered and diluted to help man the ever expanding fleet, especially in the Allied case. Crews did not get better over long haul on a per ship basis, in fact they probably got worse throughout the war.

This does not even invokve crew deaths and injuries. Point is there should have been crew factors modelled into the game to help deal with the myriad of influences on crew quality, naval doctrine etc. We have individual pilots, leaders, squads etc but the ships are all robots![8|]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: spence

#4 Battle of the Java Sea - Mixed nationality Allied force fought roughly equal IJN force in long range daylight/twilight action. Adm Doorman failed to close the gap between the forces to allow Allied CLs to effectively engage IJN CAs. CA Exeter damaged by 8" fire from IJN CAs but withdraws from battle safely. IJN sinks with torpedos a Dutch DD and 2 Dutch CLs. DD HMS Electra is sunk but effectively holds off 2 Japanese Destroyer Divisions from closing on damaged Exeter. Exeter had surface battle experience (Battle of the River Platte-1939). Perth had battle experience in the Med though I don't think it involved surface action. Some of the the Brit or American DDs may have had some surface battle experience. I don't believe any of the IJN ships had any.
IMO the experience or lack thereof didn't seem to effect the battle much but the leadership did. Clear cut IJN victory with better IJN performance all around.

FYI, also in this one the Allies had anticipated a night surface action (the night before I believe), and had left their float planes. They were concerned that the float planes on deck at night would catch fire too easily and give away their ships' positions. The IJN had float planes up reporting fall of shot during the long range battle, the Allies had none. An (unrelated) Allied air raid on its way elsewhere passed close by enroute, but the fighter escort did not divert to shoot down the IJN spotter planes. Coordination in the real world stinks, eh?