Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

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tsimmonds
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by tsimmonds »

BTW, IJN ain't the only ones who can get slammajamma bombardments:
Naval bombardment of Tinian, at 63,65

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
L1N1 Thora: 1 destroyed

Allied Ships
CA Wichita
CA San Francisco
CA Minneapolis
CA New Orleans
BB New Jersey
BB Iowa
BB Alabama
BB Indiana
BB South Dakota
BB Washington
BB North Carolina

Japanese ground losses:
6875 casualties reported
Guns lost 29

Airbase hits 49
Airbase supply hits 3
Runway hits 231
Port hits 5
Port fuel hits 6
Port supply hits 9

This TF began the turn in an adjacent hex. In addition to combat units, there are a number of IJ support-type units present (presumably most of the casualties came from these). The ships fired 2/3s of their main battery ammo. The bombardment TF was set to patrol, escorts do not bombard. The bombardment took place entirely in one phase, at night.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by Ron Saueracker »

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, I bet if anyone cared to they could go to our AAR forum and collect several hundred examples of Transport with escorts losing transports to enemy surface attack. escorts do not make the transports immune to attack. (just a little bit harder)
Also BOMBARDMENT TF that encounter an enemy TF other then a surface combat TF do not pursue or remain in engagment long. They are conducting another mission.
Surface Combat TF that encounter Transport TF eat them up. when you make a TF make up your mind on what mssion you want it to complete. Much of the complaints resulting from encounters are players wanting to accomplish everything. They want their Bombardment TF to sink every enemy ship in the target hex and then clobber the base as well.
In the game with Tom H my SURFACE COMBAT TF wiped out entire TF escorts and all on more then one occasion at more then one location.

"Surface Combat TF that encounter Transport TF eat them up."Unfortunately, no they don't. I have four examples in my AAR alone, and three of those examples are of a cruiser/destroyer TF making a mid ocean intercept on the same transport TF three days in a row. Guess what happenned. The escorts were heroic like at Samar each time, and the only transports that were hit repeatedly were hit on the third day after all the escorts were sunk. Must have been a female vegan surface combat TF. The other was one, same situation really, with Doorman, high aggression etc, he did not even sink an escort because basically no shots were fired and the TFs broke off!

"Much of the complaints resulting from encounters are players wanting to accomplish everything"Again, I can't agree. Most of the compalints come because extreme results are usually the norm, when one expects the opposite.

'In the game with Tom H my SURFACE COMBAT TF wiped out entire TF escorts and all on more then one occasion at more then one location.
'
I'm looking for these examples now.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by tsimmonds »

Just dredge up my Trincomalee disaster from last May or so if you want to see some smokin' hot SCTFs[:D]
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by spence »

"Surface Combat TF that encounter Transport TF eat them up."Unfortunately, no they don't. I have four examples in my AAR alone, and three of those examples are of a cruiser/destroyer TF making a mid ocean intercept on the same transport TF three days in a row. Guess what happenned. The escorts were heroic like at Samar each time, and the only transports that were hit repeatedly were hit on the third day after all the escorts were sunk. Must have been a female vegan surface combat TF. The other was one, same situation really, with Doorman, high aggression etc, he did not even sink an escort because basically no shots were fired and the TFs broke off!

I had identical results. 3 successive intercepts by a cruiser/destroyer TF of a transport TF escorted by minesweeps and PCs (1 in their intended landing hex, Davao and then 2 more in mid-ocean on subsequent turns - my ships got to replenish in between too whereas the Transports didn't). Sank most of the escorts and 3-4 transports but out of 15 that seems awfully poor - most of the 56th Brigade got away. And then to top it off Ryujo shows up and cripples all my cruisers. I mentioned the first two fights earlier in this thread...the third indecisive intercept followed by the crushing air attack just completely disgusted me.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by Big B »

ORIGINAL: spence
"Surface Combat TF that encounter Transport TF eat them up."Unfortunately, no they don't. I have four examples in my AAR alone, and three of those examples are of a cruiser/destroyer TF making a mid ocean intercept on the same transport TF three days in a row. Guess what happenned. The escorts were heroic like at Samar each time, and the only transports that were hit repeatedly were hit on the third day after all the escorts were sunk. Must have been a female vegan surface combat TF. The other was one, same situation really, with Doorman, high aggression etc, he did not even sink an escort because basically no shots were fired and the TFs broke off!

I had identical results. 3 successive intercepts by a cruiser/destroyer TF of a transport TF escorted by minesweeps and PCs (1 in their intended landing hex, Davao and then 2 more in mid-ocean on subsequent turns - my ships got to replenish in between too whereas the Transports didn't). Sank most of the escorts and 3-4 transports but out of 15 that seems awfully poor - most of the 56th Brigade got away. And then to top it off Ryujo shows up and cripples all my cruisers. I mentioned the first two fights earlier in this thread...the third indecisive intercept followed by the crushing air attack just completely disgusted me.
Spence,
Do you think it would have gone better had your ships had a higher experience rating?
Just curious.

B
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by treespider »

ORIGINAL: spence
"Surface Combat TF that encounter Transport TF eat them up."Unfortunately, no they don't. I have four examples in my AAR alone, and three of those examples are of a cruiser/destroyer TF making a mid ocean intercept on the same transport TF three days in a row. Guess what happenned. The escorts were heroic like at Samar each time, and the only transports that were hit repeatedly were hit on the third day after all the escorts were sunk. Must have been a female vegan surface combat TF. The other was one, same situation really, with Doorman, high aggression etc, he did not even sink an escort because basically no shots were fired and the TFs broke off!

I had identical results. 3 successive intercepts by a cruiser/destroyer TF of a transport TF escorted by minesweeps and PCs (1 in their intended landing hex, Davao and then 2 more in mid-ocean on subsequent turns - my ships got to replenish in between too whereas the Transports didn't). Sank most of the escorts and 3-4 transports but out of 15 that seems awfully poor - most of the 56th Brigade got away. And then to top it off Ryujo shows up and cripples all my cruisers. I mentioned the first two fights earlier in this thread...the third indecisive intercept followed by the crushing air attack just completely disgusted me.


Perhaps your cruiser TF commander had intel the Ryujo was in the area and was unsure of its location and was hesitant about pressing his attack on the transports...see the Feb 22 attack described above.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by mogami »

Hi, If you ever play Oznoyng be warned. He has a great abilty to detect transport TF in open ocean and get his surface combat TF in the right hex. I lost many AP/AK/AO/TK in surface actions in open ocean and after I moved my transit lanes 20 hexes further away from his bases I still suffered several mid ocean intercepts. I don't think he would agree that SCTF cannot sink escorted transports (but he might say he wished he got more of them) He always wiped out my escorts and clobbered the TF. (big fat transport TF and always the loaded ones even when an equally large empty TF was going the other direction in an ajacent hex)
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by mogami »


ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Nov 5, 1940: After the sinking of the refrigerator ship Mopan (5389 t) the Admiral Scheer attacks the convoy HX 84 at 52°45'N, 32°13'W. consisting of 37 merchants. While the auxiliary cruiser Jervis Bay defends the convoy and is sunk, the main body can escape. The total loss of HX 84 are:

Jervis Bay (14164 t)
Maidan (7908 t)
Trewellard (5201 t)
Kenbame Head (5225 t)
Beaverford (10042 t)
Fresno City (4955 t)
Three other merchants with 27844 t are damaged.

That's the point...one warship is capable of doing this level of damage despite an AMC sacrificing itself so the merchies can scatter. In WITP a TF can't do this even with one or no escorts.
Hi, Ron this is you doing it to me. Or did you forget this one? A 3 ship TF hammers the escorts and gets many of the transports as well. (this was the 2nd attack by your TF)

Japanese Ships
PC Showa Maru #5, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
PC Ch 6, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
AP Kashiwa Maru
AP Keizan Maru
AP Kenshin Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Kensho Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Kidokawa Maru
AP Kiri Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Kisaragi Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Meisho Maru, Shell hits 22, and is sunk
AP Mikage Maru #2
AP Mikage Maru #20, Shell hits 1, on fire
AP Minowa Maru
AP Minryo Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Minto Maru
AP Mitsu Maru #3
AP Montoiru Maru
AP Shirogane Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Sumanoura Maru, Shell hits 16, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
AP Syoryu Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Tafuku Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Taihei Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Takayo Maru
AP Tanba Maru
AP Tasmania Maru, on fire
AP Tatsuho Maru, Shell hits 2, on fire
AP Yamakuni Maru, on fire
AP Yubae Maru
AP Zenyo Maru, on fire
AP Palao Maru
AP Senkai Maru
AP Niitaka Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Meizan Maru, on fire
AP Yamato Maru, on fire

Allied Ships
CL Dragon, Shell hits 1
CL Durban
DD Isis, Shell hits 2

Japanese ground losses:
876 casualties reported
Guns lost 3
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by Ron Saueracker »

ORIGINAL: Mogami


ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Nov 5, 1940: After the sinking of the refrigerator ship Mopan (5389 t) the Admiral Scheer attacks the convoy HX 84 at 52°45'N, 32°13'W. consisting of 37 merchants. While the auxiliary cruiser Jervis Bay defends the convoy and is sunk, the main body can escape. The total loss of HX 84 are:

Jervis Bay (14164 t)
Maidan (7908 t)
Trewellard (5201 t)
Kenbame Head (5225 t)
Beaverford (10042 t)
Fresno City (4955 t)
Three other merchants with 27844 t are damaged.

That's the point...one warship is capable of doing this level of damage despite an AMC sacrificing itself so the merchies can scatter. In WITP a TF can't do this even with one or no escorts.
Hi, Ron this is you doing it to me. Or did you forget this one? A 3 ship TF hammers the escorts and gets many of the transports as well. (this was the 2nd attack by your TF)

Japanese Ships
PC Showa Maru #5, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
PC Ch 6, Shell hits 5, and is sunk
AP Kashiwa Maru
AP Keizan Maru
AP Kenshin Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Kensho Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Kidokawa Maru
AP Kiri Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Kisaragi Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Meisho Maru, Shell hits 22, and is sunk
AP Mikage Maru #2
AP Mikage Maru #20, Shell hits 1, on fire
AP Minowa Maru
AP Minryo Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Minto Maru
AP Mitsu Maru #3
AP Montoiru Maru
AP Shirogane Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Sumanoura Maru, Shell hits 16, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
AP Syoryu Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Tafuku Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Taihei Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Takayo Maru
AP Tanba Maru
AP Tasmania Maru, on fire
AP Tatsuho Maru, Shell hits 2, on fire
AP Yamakuni Maru, on fire
AP Yubae Maru
AP Zenyo Maru, on fire
AP Palao Maru
AP Senkai Maru
AP Niitaka Maru, on fire, heavy damage
AP Meizan Maru, on fire
AP Yamato Maru, on fire

Allied Ships
CL Dragon, Shell hits 1
CL Durban
DD Isis, Shell hits 2

Japanese ground losses:
876 casualties reported
Guns lost 3

Two important aspects of this.

1) Only 2 escorts, both of which do their job as always and take it in the chin for the convoy. (I rarely, if ever, see any transports engaged aside from a shot or two, until all escorts are destroyed, even when one or more of the escorts are "off doing something else"). Once the escorts are sunk, only 4 ships of the 32 get any attention.

2) I've always believed that smaller TFs outperform larger TFs in WITP because the model is flawed and does not consider operational maximums. So, a small TF usually dishes out equal amounts of fire as a larger TF because all the model does is trade fire. Kung Fu!

In this example, a three ship TF does worse than a single slower ship (Scheer).
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by mogami »

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Nov 5, 1940: After the sinking of the refrigerator ship Mopan (5389 t) the Admiral Scheer attacks the convoy HX 84 at 52°45'N, 32°13'W. consisting of 37 merchants. While the auxiliary cruiser Jervis Bay defends the convoy and is sunk, the main body can escape. The total loss of HX 84 are:

Jervis Bay (14164 t)
Maidan (7908 t)
Trewellard (5201 t)
Kenbame Head (5225 t)
Beaverford (10042 t)
Fresno City (4955 t)
Three other merchants with 27844 t are damaged.

That's the point...one warship is capable of doing this level of damage despite an AMC sacrificing itself so the merchies can scatter. In WITP a TF can't do this even with one or no escorts.

Hi, I bet in WITP terms these actions required more then 1 combat phase. The action from our game I posted was the second round of combat for your TF. In the one report above you posted the 2 german ships were sinking ships for over 12 hours and sank 5 ships. Thats 2 combat phases in WITP (they started in day combat phase 1100 and finished in night combat phase 2300 so you would have to allow WITP TF 2 combats against a single TF to get a comparison.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by Tom Hunter »

In the case you two are discussing above the merchant TF was very large, and I bet if you watched the combat replay you would see that the merchant ships that fired were the ones that got hit the hardest.

In the case above I think the combat system worked reasonably well, at least within the realm of the possible. Where it breaks down is when you have either:

A few warships and a few transports
or
Many warships and many transports

Ron's 3 ships did close to the same damage that my 11 ships did, and the 11 ships shot at only 30% more ships than HMS Warspite did, and actaully sunk fewer of them.

I am not saying that the combat model is wrong all the time. It runs mixed forces of like types pretty well, but falls apart if there are unlike types, or if one side has very few ships and the other very many, or in various combinations of warships and merchant ships.

The examples from the Med are illustrative of a combat result that happened many times in the war, but will never happen in WitP.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by mogami »

Hi, In those examples I see German warships sailing right into Allied convoys and then requiring over 12 hours to sink 2 or 3 ships. Really I think if those are our examples then WITP might be giving to much away. Rons 3 ship TF fought 2 or 3 rounds of combat and in each one sank at least 4 Japanese ships. It did better then every posted example of actual warship versus convoy posted so far. If you have 2 or 3 BB in the hex with enemy transport TF for 2 or 3 combat phases you will do much more damage then the 5 ships sunk in over 12 hours posted above.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by VladViscious »

Hey guys,

I just looked up in the WitP Editors manual what Maneuver is all about. 3.2.1 Maneuver represents the ship's ability to avoid bombs and torpedoes, and is directly related to the length of the ship; the longer it is, the harder it is for the ship to avoid these attacks. This I beleive is why even un-escorted transports are hit so little in SC engagements. The maneuver ratings of transports are often higher than DD's. Sorry but a ship that is 30,000 tonnes and can only manage 12 knots is not a nimble little craft that dodges torpedoes and DB's well. I think this is also a check for Naval Gunfire because they are treated like BOmbs. I wonder if anyone would have time today to change the value of some Transports to a reasonable number, say 20 manuver, and run some tests.

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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by jwilkerson »

We've noticed this on WPO side as well ... Tankers with maneuver ratings of 60-70 ... the gears are churning to test some changes !

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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by Tom Hunter »

Hi, In those examples I see German warships sailing right into Allied convoys and then requiring over 12 hours to sink 2 or 3 ships.
-Mogami

Hello,

I am not aware of any examples of major German surface combatants sinking any Italian shipping in the Med. The examples I am refering to are the small numbers of British warships working out of Malata. Those regularly sunk a large % of the ships in Italian convoys heading to Lybia, and are documented on this thread. My point is that the WitP engine will not allow those kinds of results.

The German surface raider results are interesting, and argue that a single BB should not sink terribly many ships in a large convoy. Though I would like to study the case more, there might be an argument that the model is broken in another dimesion, because a solo BB does too much damage.
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RE: Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

Post by treespider »

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter
Hi, In those examples I see German warships sailing right into Allied convoys and then requiring over 12 hours to sink 2 or 3 ships.
-Mogami

Hello,

I am not aware of any examples of major German surface combatants sinking any Italian shipping in the Med. The examples I am refering to are the small numbers of British warships working out of Malata. Those regularly sunk a large % of the ships in Italian convoys heading to Lybia, and are documented on this thread. My point is that the WitP engine will not allow those kinds of results.

The German surface raider results are interesting, and argue that a single BB should not sink terribly many ships in a large convoy. Though I would like to study the case more, there might be an argument that the model is broken in another dimesion, because a solo BB does too much damage.


I think the problem is that there are two entirely seperate types of actions and how to simulate them operationally with one system.

1st type of action - Standup naval fight or one side trying to force its way through an area
2nd type of action - One side is trying to escape.

I would think the dynamics - operationally- are quite different.
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