Jap ASW forces

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel
In any case, I cannot see how the issue of whether Japanese ships were proceeding in convoy or not when attacked has anything more than an incidental connection with the degree of danger to which US submarine crews were exposed. Surely the degree of such danger depended more on whether or not any accompanying Japanese escorts were effective ASW practitioners?

From context, it appears that your sources implicitly assume a more ETO-centric definition of "convoying." Formations with 15 or more merchants were small in that theater, but pretty large in Japan's context. My main objection in this thread when posters claim "Japan didn't convoy in 1942" is the assumption that Allied attacks were then risk-free, or, said another way, that there were no ASW assets present and merchants were waddling ducks. I would prefer the issue to be framed that way, rather than to, as some have done here, hide behind a "no convoy" argument. ASW assets were demonstrably present in Japanese formations in 1942. How do I know this? Because ASW assets were sunk by USN submarines in 1942.

The question then becomes, how many or what ratio of Japanese formations were escort-free in 1942? IOW, what percentage of formations should be considered in any debate over Japanese ASW effectiveness? As you suggest, those figures are difficult to procure. But those are more appropriate figures to consider than simply claiming that Japan did not convoy its merchants.

That said, I also must at least address the also implicit assumption here that convoyed (true ETO-style convoyed) ships were somehow safer than merchants in small formations with fewer ASW assets, but a higher ASW-to-merchant ratio. Convoy theory so far as I've been taught and read was not instituted to support merchants' needs. Rather, it was to leverage too-small ASW asset inventories, giving each merchant at least some protection, protection not available if more numerous but smaller and more frequent formations had been employed. Even the Allies' ETO postures in 1944-1945 did not provide sufficient ASW assets so as to allow daily departures of, say, 10-merchant formations from North America. And they were sailing to only several, high-visibility continental ports with superior stevedoring services. As I said in another post, the Japanese problem was orders of magnitude more difficult vis a vis raw material and finished goods consolidation and subsequent re-distribution. The Japanese used small (3-5 merchant, 2-3 escort) formations in 1942-1944 because they had to, driven by geographical realities.

But was attacking one of these formations safer or easier for Allied submarines than would be attacking a 75-merchant, 12-15 escort formation? A different question. More is not necessarily better. Not only quesitons of ASW coordination, but also sheer miles of open ocean to consider. An escort 10-12 miles away on the other side of the convoy might be "in" the convoy, but was usually worthless in prosecution of an attacker on the opposite side. The sub was either dead, or gone, by the time it could engage. In a 6-9 vessel formation, the escorts were closer and each could be counted on to engage, at least from the sub's POV and risk assessment.

I believe that only after dimensional questions such as these are considered (and I have no illusions that the game code fully considers them, nor do I expect it to), that one should then consider the internal, organic ASW functioning of each ASW asset in turn.

[mike scholl 1]

One of the key failings of WITP and WITP-AE is the failure to include the "targeting software"
in assessing ASW effectiveness.   Just rating ASW attack by the number of depth charges or
other weaponry is like rating a computer without an operating system.   It's a nice piece of
hardware..., but pretty worthless.

Virtually all Allied ASW vessels of any size had ASDIC or it's equivalent.  This was most certainly
not the case with the Japanese, where many of their non-fleet vessels had nothing at all, while
most others had only hydrophones.  Only fleet destroyers were generally equipped with more
modern ASW Electronics.   Even a well-trained rifleman has trouble hitting anything with no "sights"
on his rifle...

[Local Yokel]

Japanese ASW-capable ships were undoubtedly sunk by US submarines in 1942, but it's necessary to take care when extrapolating from that a conclusion that ASW ships were being used to escort merchant ships in 1942. I thumbed through those JANAC records you posted and ended up being surprised by the small number of submarine attacks made upon any kind of warship in 1942.

Only two sinkings stood out as being of ASW ships unequivocally involved in an escort role: DD Natsushio's sinking by S-37 in Feb. 42 whilst escorting the Makassar invasion force, and DD Nenohi's sinking by Triton whilst escorting seaplane tender Kamikawa Maru whilst thye latter was reinforcing Attu in July 42. One other possible sinking of a ship functioning as an escort is Growler's sinking of DD Arare off Kiska close to the time of Nenohi's loss, but whether Arare was actively engaged in escort work at the time I don't know. She had accompanied Chiyoda to Kiska, arrving there the day before her loss. In all of these cases, the sunk ASW ship was either engaged in an amphibious operation or escort of a naval ship or auxiliary; none are attacks upon escorts of routine merchant sailings.

Apart from these, what sinkings of ASW ships have you got in 1942? Grunion sinks 2 out of 3 subchasers off Kiska, but this looks like a deliberate attack on what was taken to be a group of destroyers that were not, IIRC, operating in an escort role. Shortly after Midway, Nautilus sinks DD Yamakaze off Boso Hanto. Yamakaze was sailing independently from Ominato to the Inland Sea at the time, so not an attack on a ship engaged in escort duty. I may well have missed others, so am open to correction, but it does appear that a few submarine attacks were made on ASW ships in 1942 simply because those ships made good targets in their own right, and were made at a time when they were not engaged on escort duty.

Consequently I'm reluctant to take the fact that Japanese ASW ships were sunk in 1942 as evidence that the Japanese were escorting their merchant ships during that year. It wouldn't suprise me in the least to find that some merchant shipping movements other than invasion forces received an escort, but that's a long way from saying that 50% or greater of such movements were accompanied by an escort. Rather than looking at sinkings, a more productive approach might be to look at the submarines' patrol logs, many (most?) of which are now online, and assess the frequency of attacks made on merchant ships where some form of escort vessel is noted as being present. It won't necessarily be reliable because such attacks may only involve a minute fraction of total Japanese merchant shipping movements, but it might give a somewhat better indication than counting sinkings of ASW ships.

You hit the nail firmly on the head with what you said about better stevedoring services! Parillo clearly identifies lack of adequate cargo handling facilities as a big problem the Japanese had to overcome, pointing out that despatch of ships from ports in penny packets made for better and more even throughput than giving ports with inadequate/insufficient cargo facilities major indigestion by stuffing them with large convoys. In that respect AE's port limitations are a big advance on the ability in WitP classic to ram a North Atlantic size convoy down the throat of any size 1 port with a pier and a small derrick.

[Local Yokel]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

Virtually all Allied ASW vessels of any size had ASDIC or it's equivalent.  This was most certainly
not the case with the Japanese, where many of their non-fleet vessels had nothing at all, while
most others had only hydrophones.  Only fleet destroyers were generally equipped with more
modern ASW Electronics.   Even a well-trained rifleman has trouble hitting anything with no "sights"
on his rifle...

The figures I have indicate 140 x Type 93 and 321 x Type 3 active ASDIC sets fitted to Japanese surface warships. For passive listening equipment fitted to surface warships I have the following figures:

Type 93: 500
Type 0: 60
Type 4: 20

That looks to me like enough equipment fitted to cover a large proportion of the Japanese ASW-capable vessels.

[Mark Weston]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

From context, it appears that your sources implicitly assume a more ETO-centric definition of "convoying." Formations with 15 or more merchants were small in that theater, but pretty large in Japan's context. My main objection in this thread when posters claim "Japan didn't convoy in 1942" is the assumption that Allied attacks were then risk-free, or, said another way, that there were no ASW assets present and merchants were waddling ducks. I would prefer the issue to be framed that way, rather than to, as some have done here, hide behind a "no convoy" argument. ASW assets were demonstrably present in Japanese formations in 1942. How do I know this? Because ASW assets were sunk by USN submarines in 1942.

The question then becomes, how many or what ratio of Japanese formations were escort-free in 1942? IOW, what percentage of formations should be considered in any debate over Japanese ASW effectiveness? As you suggest, those figures are difficult to procure. But those are more appropriate figures to consider than simply claiming that Japan did not convoy its merchants.

That said, I also must at least address the also implicit assumption here that convoyed (true ETO-style convoyed) ships were somehow safer than merchants in small formations with fewer ASW assets, but a higher ASW-to-merchant ratio. Convoy theory so far as I've been taught and read was not instituted to support merchants' needs. Rather, it was to leverage too-small ASW asset inventories, giving each merchant at least some protection, protection not available if more numerous but smaller and more frequent formations had been employed. Even the Allies' ETO postures in 1944-1945 did not provide sufficient ASW assets so as to allow daily departures of, say, 10-merchant formations from North America. And they were sailing to only several, high-visibility continental ports with superior stevedoring services. As I said in another post, the Japanese problem was orders of magnitude more difficult vis a vis raw material and finished goods consolidation and subsequent re-distribution. The Japanese used small (3-5 merchant, 2-3 escort) formations in 1942-1944 because they had to, driven by geographical realities.

But was attacking one of these formations safer or easier for Allied submarines than would be attacking a 75-merchant, 12-15 escort formation? A different question. More is not necessarily better. Not only quesitons of ASW coordination, but also sheer miles of open ocean to consider. An escort 10-12 miles away on the other side of the convoy might be "in" the convoy, but was usually worthless in prosecution of an attacker on the opposite side. The sub was either dead, or gone, by the time it could engage. In a 6-9 vessel formation, the escorts were closer and each could be counted on to engage, at least from the sub's POV and risk assessment.

I believe that only after dimensional questions such as these are considered (and I have no illusions that the game code fully considers them, nor do I expect it to), that one should then consider the internal, organic ASW functioning of each ASW asset in turn.

As I mentioned before, the purpose of large-scale convoys isn't just to increase escort strength for each convoy, it's a protective measure in and of itself. One fewer "unit" at sea is one fewer interception opportunity for the submarines. And generally speaking a submarine interception means a single attack followed by the need to break contact, reload, and re-intercept the next day (if possible).

Bigger was better and decidedly so; at least based on analysis of the Atlantic experience. Average ship losses per submarine attack were the same whatever the convoy size given equal sized escorts. Or in other words the bigger the convoy, the smaller the risk to each individual cargo or ship. Increased escort size also increased convoy protection in a more-or-less linear way; the more escorts, the fewer sinkings. If there was a point of diminishing returns the allies didn't have enough escorts to ever hit it. Another calculation - taking into account both increased safety from convoy size and increased escorts made available by consolidating convoys - estimated that each ship in a 90-ship convoy was ten times safer than each ship in a 30-ship convoy.

And I really don't think Japan's shipping needs were fundamentally different to Britain's. It's not as if everything ever needed in Britain was conveniently available on the docks at Halifax. The Atlantic convoys travelled between two or three major ports on each side. Shipping and cargoes were consolidated at these ports via smaller local coastal convoys and the occasional independent sailing. Coordinating and consolidating feeder convoys from around the DEI might seem difficult and complex, but no more so than from a couple of dozen ports in North and South America. Whatever the geographical specifics, there's no reason the basic model couldn't have worked for the Japanese had they been willing to make the effort.

I've read far far more about the ETO than the PTO, but my impression is that the Japanese simply suffered the same failure of decision-making as the British admiralty in WWI. The crucial difference being that when they recognised reality they didn't have the resources to recover the situation. IMO they also had far less excuse, given that history was offering such recent examples to learn from.

[jeffs]

The crucial difference being that when they recognised reality they didn't have the resources to recover the situation. IMO they also had far less excuse, given that history was offering such recent examples to learn from.

The Japanese did send a small group of destroyers to Mediterranian help the Brits with ASW in WW1. The Brits gave them high marks..
However, the IJN never really learned institutionally from the experience and it was virtually forgotten by the time the war started.

I have IJN ASW (in my one game) to be more effective than historical..I have lost about 5-6 subs (Dutch and S Boats) in coastal hexes...Not thrilled.

That said...It seems the IJN might have lost 2 subs to mines

It should be also said that
A. For S boats I have put in good commanders.
B. Run supply runs from DEI to Manila with virtually all my modern US boats....Brings in 1100-1200 supply every 10 days or so..

And clearly, this is only because I know that I am shoot duds...

So while I am not thrilled about my higher than real life losses.....I have to admit I freely use knowledge of the system to my advantage as well....

I also find repair of small boats much quicker in AE....At least if you still have Singapore!

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

One of the key failings of WITP and WITP-AE is the failure to include the "targeting software"
in assessing ASW effectiveness.   Just rating ASW attack by the number of depth charges or
other weaponry is like rating a computer without an operating system.   It's a nice piece of
hardware..., but pretty worthless.

Virtually all Allied ASW vessels of any size had ASDIC or it's equivalent.  This was most certainly
not the case with the Japanese, where many of their non-fleet vessels had nothing at all, while
most others had only hydrophones.  Only fleet destroyers were generally equipped with more
modern ASW Electronics.   Even a well-trained rifleman has trouble hitting anything with no "sights"
on his rifle...

Both true, excellent points. In any future WITP2 we all hope for more fire-control code and more granular attack logic.

Many of the smaller IJN ASW vessels depended on the datum of the steam torpedo track bubbles to drop DCs, but that circle-of-probable-error got big fast. One reason why the game's single-drop-and-quit we see after this patch is pretty historic for a lot of the small boys.

Once the electric fish became wide-spread even this datum was gone.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Local Yokel


Consequently I'm reluctant to take the fact that Japanese ASW ships were sunk in 1942 as evidence that the Japanese were escorting their merchant ships during that year. It wouldn't suprise me in the least to find that some merchant shipping movements other than invasion forces received an escort, but that's a long way from saying that 50% or greater of such movements were accompanied by an escort. Rather than looking at sinkings, a more productive approach might be to look at the submarines' patrol logs, many (most?) of which are now online, and assess the frequency of attacks made on merchant ships where some form of escort vessel is noted as being present. It won't necessarily be reliable because such attacks may only involve a minute fraction of total Japanese merchant shipping movements, but it might give a somewhat better indication than counting sinkings of ASW ships.

I got out my copy of Blair and skimmed 1942, Jan-April. He details most attacks of most boats, PH and Brisbane. It's easy to see that many formations (he calls most "convoys") had escorts, and there were several vicious depth-chargings in this period. He also details just how few patrols were able to be mounted in these early months, the crippling torpedo problems, the hesitant COs, the Corrigedor deliveries that boosted morale but did nothing for the war effort, the misuse of Ultra to send boats after combatants rather than merchants, and all the rest. I don't have time to go patrol by patrol, but they're in Blair, and the book is available in trade paperback as well as many public libraries. I think it's a basic book for anyone wanting to understand the submarine war.

In fairness, on some, maybe a third or more, attacks he doesn't mention escorts either way. It's possible the CO didn't know due to visibility, or Blair may have left them out for style purposes in his narrative. But there were escorts in many attacks, from fleet destroyers to trawler-sized flyweights.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

One of the key failings of WITP and WITP-AE is the failure to include the "targeting software"
in assessing ASW effectiveness.   Just rating ASW attack by the number of depth charges or
other weaponry is like rating a computer without an operating system.   It's a nice piece of
hardware..., but pretty worthless.

Virtually all Allied ASW vessels of any size had ASDIC or it's equivalent.  This was most certainly
not the case with the Japanese, where many of their non-fleet vessels had nothing at all, while
most others had only hydrophones.  Only fleet destroyers were generally equipped with more
modern ASW Electronics.   Even a well-trained rifleman has trouble hitting anything with no "sights"
on his rifle...

Both true, excellent points. In any future WITP2 we all hope for more fire-control code and more granular attack logic.

Many of the smaller IJN ASW vessels depended on the datum of the steam torpedo track bubbles to drop DCs, but that circle-of-probable-error got big fast. One reason why the game's single-drop-and-quit we see after this patch is pretty historic for a lot of the small boys.

Once the electric fish became wide-spread even this datum was gone.

You want an actual sonar model similar to what we have in Harpoon. And here are a few points. Keep in mind I'm going from memory here, not looking up actual stats.

1. While active sonar will have a near 100% detection rate inside its range, it is very limited by range. Most active sets are good only out to 5 nm. Most subs (even in WWII) could attack from a ranges of 2-8 miles. Do the math. [;)]

2. Passive sonar and hydrophones were and still are the preferred method for locating subs. There are several factors to consider though, such as organics, thermal layers, convergence zones, etc. Overall, a surface vessel with hydrophones or passive sonar still stands a chance of making the detection.

3. Passive sonar has a greater range than active. Active sonar is for ranging and localizing, not the best method for search and detection. Also, active sonar tells every submarine within hundreds of miles that you are out there looking...the active sonar pings can be heard with passive sonar at far greater distances than would be regular engine noise. Active sonar is basically just broadcasting your position.

4. Submarines still manage to get away. Deisel Electric boats in particular. They are very hard to hear when running on batteries. If this were not so, then navies would have quit using submarines years ago.

Overall, with a realistic sonar model there will be times when you can get passive detections of up to 3 CZ (convergence zones) with modern warships and sonars. But WiTP is WWII, so detection ranges won't be as great or as accurate. Even the Allies probably should not be getting to ASW counter-attack every time a submarine launches a torpedo. Many times the escorts would be completely unaware of a submarines presence until 'torpedoes in the water'.

The point I'm making here is that you can have an accurate model, but even the Allied Players might not like the end results so much. With a more realistic model, you could very well end up more vulnerable than you are now.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Mark Weston

As I mentioned before, the purpose of large-scale convoys isn't just to increase escort strength for each convoy, it's a protective measure in and of itself. One fewer "unit" at sea is one fewer interception opportunity for the submarines. And generally speaking a submarine interception means a single attack followed by the need to break contact, reload, and re-intercept the next day (if possible).

Except it doesn't mean this when there is wolfpacking. If the IJN had somehow run huge convoys we would have adopted those tactics as well.
If escort numbers had not been a constraint in every other way smaller, more frequent Atlantic formations would have been preferrable to the ground forces being served. Port operations, trucking, loss-risk on the ground in Europe or the USSR from Nazi air would all have been lower risk with daily arrivals rather than the Halifax behemouths. Those were used because there WEREN'T enough ASW assets to allow them.

Bigger was better and decidedly so; at least based on analysis of the Atlantic experience. Average ship losses per submarine attack were the same whatever the convoy size given equal sized escorts. Or in other words the bigger the convoy, the smaller the risk to each individual cargo or ship. Increased escort size also increased convoy protection in a more-or-less linear way; the more escorts, the fewer sinkings. If there was a point of diminishing returns the allies didn't have enough escorts to ever hit it. Another calculation - taking into account both increased safety from convoy size and increased escorts made available by consolidating convoys - estimated that each ship in a 90-ship convoy was ten times safer than each ship in a 30-ship convoy.

When you say "equal-sized" do you mean actual tonnage of the escorts, or escort numbers? Very different conclusion depending.
Also, the Atlantic experience is very dificult statistically because, over the years, many of the dependent varioables changed, in particular the surface-air ASW mix. It's impossible to hold 1942 conditions steady and compare 1944 results, and then attreibute the change to escort number or size in the convoys alone. The tactical environments were night and day.

The number of available excorts also runs with increase in air cover, both LBA and jeep carriers. As escort numbers increased with production so did air cover. A multiple regression doesn't work without a whole lot more dependent variables than escort and escortee numbers.

And the Halifax to Europe/USSR WAS fundamentally differnt than the Japanese problem. Halifax convoys were carrying finished goods for direct consumption in the ETO. They weren't carrying rubber and iron ore. There was no need to re-risk those finished oods at sea once they hit Europe. The Janaese had a 3-node problem; the Atlantic Allies only a 2-node.

I'd like ot know the ratios of Japanese sinkings of raw material haulers versus ships distributing out to garrisons, but again, lots of number crunching. I suspect that in 1942 and most of 1943 the re-distributing sinkings were higher, simply because Truk, Tarawa, and the Jimas were easier to patrol from Pearl than Sumatra was.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

You want an actual sonar model similar to what we have in Harpoon.

No, not at all. Harpoon's assumes digital signal processing in a narrow-band environment. WWII was Mark I ears. Still very difficult, but less range, no Doppler analysis, etc.

And here are a few points. Keep in mind I'm going from memory here, not looking up actual stats.

1. While active sonar will have a near 100% detection rate inside its range, it is very limited by range. Most active sets are good only out to 5 nm. Most subs (even in WWII) could attack from a ranges of 2-8 miles. Do the math. [;)]

The range a torpedo will run before exhausting fuel may be 2-8 miles, but that was NOT any sort of feasible attack envelope.
Neither is ear-driven active sonar good to 5 nm, at least the 1950s era models I've used on 1960s-designed subs. High-freq, multiple-freq. modern active sonar with digital help might go out to 10,000 yards, but I'd be in show me mode there. And, as I've said here before, I have actual experience with dipping active sonar not detecting us inside sandwich-viewing range of the helo. Sea water is a bear sometimes.

At 8 miles, through a periscope, a DD looks like a grain of rice at arm's length. Nothing you can get a good bearing on, let alone an angle-on-the-bow.

2. Passive sonar and hydrophones were and still are the preferred method for locating subs. There are several factors to consider though, such as organics, thermal layers, convergence zones, etc. Overall, a surface vessel with hydrophones or passive sonar still stands a chance of making the detection.

Now, yes, with digital signal processors. In WWII, at transit speeds, sonarmen were esentially blind. Sprint and drift could work, if there was enough fuel, time, training, and hulls to allow one esocrt to go ahead, day after day. It's very tiring though. Mostly, the ASW escort's first clue a sub was about was a huge explosion off the beam, followed by flames and sinking. THEN they went passive (and active.)

3. Passive sonar has a greater range than active. Active sonar is for ranging and localizing, not the best method for search and detection. Also, active sonar tells every submarine within hundreds of miles that you are out there looking...the active sonar pings can be heard with passive sonar at far greater distances than would be regular engine noise. Active sonar is basically just broadcasting your position.

Well, a bit embellished to say hundreds of miles. Dozens yes.
Passive sonar in WWII might have greater range, and it might not. A lot was organic to the operator, and design and QC of the gear. Passive systems are much harder to design and build. Hydrophones are fragile and need maintenance. Active sonar also gives a VITAL piece of tactical data--range. It never ceases to amaze me how submarine movies let the boat know--on some radar-like PPI screen--the exact range of the target within seconds of passive detection. It took us many minutes, and some fancy maneuvering, to get a range sufficient to launch homing torpedoes. DCs are stupid. You may have a bearing, but without a range to dozens of yards you're not going to really hurt that sub.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Shark7

You want an actual sonar model similar to what we have in Harpoon.

No, not at all. Harpoon's assumes digital signal processing in a narrow-band environment. WWII was Mark I ears. Still very difficult, but less range, no Doppler analysis, etc.

And here are a few points. Keep in mind I'm going from memory here, not looking up actual stats.

1. While active sonar will have a near 100% detection rate inside its range, it is very limited by range. Most active sets are good only out to 5 nm. Most subs (even in WWII) could attack from a ranges of 2-8 miles. Do the math. [;)]

The range a torpedo will run before exhausting fuel may be 2-8 miles, but that was NOT any sort of feasible attack envelope.
Neither is ear-driven active sonar good to 5 nm, at least the 1950s era models I've used on 1960s-designed subs. High-freq, multiple-freq. modern active sonar with digital help might go out to 10,000 yards, but I'd be in show me mode there. And, as I've said here before, I have actual experience with dipping active sonar not detecting us inside sandwich-viewing range of the helo. Sea water is a bear sometimes.

At 8 miles, through a periscope, a DD looks like a grain of rice at arm's length. Nothing you can get a good bearing on, let alone an angle-on-the-bow.

2. Passive sonar and hydrophones were and still are the preferred method for locating subs. There are several factors to consider though, such as organics, thermal layers, convergence zones, etc. Overall, a surface vessel with hydrophones or passive sonar still stands a chance of making the detection.

Now, yes, with digital signal processors. In WWII, at transit speeds, sonarmen were esentially blind. Sprint and drift could work, if there was enough fuel, time, training, and hulls to allow one esocrt to go ahead, day after day. It's very tiring though. Mostly, the ASW escort's first clue a sub was about was a huge explosion off the beam, followed by flames and sinking. THEN they went passive (and active.)

3. Passive sonar has a greater range than active. Active sonar is for ranging and localizing, not the best method for search and detection. Also, active sonar tells every submarine within hundreds of miles that you are out there looking...the active sonar pings can be heard with passive sonar at far greater distances than would be regular engine noise. Active sonar is basically just broadcasting your position.

Well, a bit embellished to say hundreds of miles. Dozens yes.
Passive sonar in WWII might have greater range, and it might not. A lot was organic to the operator, and design and QC of the gear. Passive systems are much harder to design and build. Hydrophones are fragile and need maintenance. Active sonar also gives a VITAL piece of tactical data--range. It never ceases to amaze me how submarine movies let the boat know--on some radar-like PPI screen--the exact range of the target within seconds of passive detection. It took us many minutes, and some fancy maneuvering, to get a range sufficient to launch homing torpedoes. DCs are stupid. You may have a bearing, but without a range to dozens of yards you're not going to really hurt that sub.

And I think you very well proved my point. Rather than having both the Allies and Japanese getting lots of ASW attacks, neither side should. ASW was a lot more luck and finding the sub after the fact than anything else...it wasn't until later in the war when sonar, radar and MAD gear improved that the Allies finally started getting the upper hand in the ASW war. And to this day the subs still have a huge advantage...even more so with the Nuclear Attack boats, since they are not forced to surface every night to recharge batteries.

As I said, we can institute a more realistic sonar model...neither side is going to like it when their merchants get shot out from under them and they have very little ability to fight back. May be best to leave things be.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

And I think you very well proved my point. Rather than having both the Allies and Japanese getting lots of ASW attacks, neither side should. ASW was a lot more luck and finding the sub after the fact than anything else...it wasn't until later in the war when sonar, radar and MAD gear improved that the Allies finally started getting the upper hand in the ASW war. And to this day the subs still have a huge advantage...even more so with the Nuclear Attack boats, since they are not forced to surface every night to recharge batteries.

As I said, we can institute a more realistic sonar model...neither side is going to like it when their merchants get shot out from under them and they have very little ability to fight back. May be best to leave things be.

To start at the end, I'm happy now![:)] This whole thread for me has been theoretical and historical. I'm happy enough with the game because, as I've said several times in this forum, I consider the test to be whether the game is balanced, not whether some micro-piece is "historical". After Patch 3 my ASW ships are being missed more than 3 times in 4, and attacked less often in the first place. They deal out counter-attacks more frequently after they're missed too (although I'm in 1944 and my DEs are terrors.) If anything I thnk IJN ASW is a bit light on damage per DC; I haven't lost anything like historical number of boats despite using them in a piratical manner. I certainly don't think it's overpowered.

From my reading, electronics were far more important to the Allies. Many/most IJN attacks were on a diving sub finishing a night surface attack, or from the bubble stream back to the launch point. Except with fleet DDs and well trained small boys, there was often one or two vicious DC runs, and that was it. Eight, ten, twelve-hour work-overs happened, and sunk boats, but weren't the norm. Sub COs feared surprise air attack and mines as much or more than ASW ships.

I like that AE has finally made WITP players sit up and take notice that, no, airplanes didn't sink the Japanese economy. USN subs sank over 1100 ships. I have a ways to go in my game to get to that figure. But I'm not asking for any changes. It plays fine for me.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Shark7

And I think you very well proved my point. Rather than having both the Allies and Japanese getting lots of ASW attacks, neither side should. ASW was a lot more luck and finding the sub after the fact than anything else...it wasn't until later in the war when sonar, radar and MAD gear improved that the Allies finally started getting the upper hand in the ASW war. And to this day the subs still have a huge advantage...even more so with the Nuclear Attack boats, since they are not forced to surface every night to recharge batteries.

As I said, we can institute a more realistic sonar model...neither side is going to like it when their merchants get shot out from under them and they have very little ability to fight back. May be best to leave things be.

To start at the end, I'm happy now![:)] This whole thread for me has been theoretical and historical. I'm happy enough with the game because, as I've said several times in this forum, I consider the test to be whether the game is balanced, not whether some micro-piece is "historical". After Patch 3 my ASW ships are being missed more than 3 times in 4, and attacked less often in the first place. They deal out counter-attacks more frequently after they're missed too (although I'm in 1944 and my DEs are terrors.) If anything I thnk IJN ASW is a bit light on damage per DC; I haven't lost anything like historical number of boats despite using them in a piratical manner. I certainly don't think it's overpowered.

From my reading, electronics were far more important to the Allies. Many/most IJN attacks were on a diving sub finishing a night surface attack, or from the bubble stream back to the launch point. Except with fleet DDs and well trained small boys, there was often one or two vicious DC runs, and that was it. Eight, ten, twelve-hour work-overs happened, and sunk boats, but weren't the norm. Sub COs feared surprise air attack and mines as much or more than ASW ships.

I like that AE has finally made WITP players sit up and take notice that, no, airplanes didn't sink the Japanese economy. USN subs sank over 1100 ships. I have a ways to go in my game to get to that figure. But I'm not asking for any changes. It plays fine for me.

I've been saying to leave it be the whole time. Usually when you start nerfing things it just makes it worse, especially when there is zero comparison between 2 players playing a game in 2010 versus what the commanders in WWII knew/thought to be true. So yes, Japanese players will do everything in their power to negate the sub threat, with some success, we aren't bound by making the same stupid mistakes, nor should we be.

The game will never give you a historical result 60 years after the fact, and no one should expect it to. [:)]