Fire control (revisited)

[Mynok]

And don't quote the troll people. Come on. [:@]

If you haven't picked up on that fact by now LST I fear for your sanity.

[mdiehl]

n other words, the USN got very spotty results from the use of radar in 1942.

"Spotty" is such a subjective term. It lacks the sort of quantitative precision required to be held accountable to any standard. For example, I could say that Japanese surface battle torpedo doctrine and skill was "spotty" in 1942. But it means alot more to say that the IJN Type 93a "long lance" torpedo had a mean hit rate of 6%, a modal hit rate of 0% and a median hit rate of 0%. It puts a reality to subjective terms like "spotty" that make an argument much less ignorable.

One way to judge whether or not radar was effective for the USN in 1942 is to wonder whether or not the USN had a propensity to register hits early on. I can't put alot of quantification to that, although it is my perception that the USN did register hits, in night surface gunnery, on the whole, faster than did the IJN.

In any case, to say that it had no role in the three battles that I mentioned, Cape Esperence, and the battles of Friday the 13th and Nov 14-15, would be glaringly inaccurate.

"In the aborning age of radar, the stately traditional method of firing ranging salvos first, then walking shells into their target by progressive correction was a thing of the past. In Mikawa's blitz against Riefkohl [at Savo Island, my comment], the Japanese performed the old ritual well. Four salvos were fired short of the Vincennes and Quincy before blood was finally drawn. Now, with microwave radar laying the guns, fire controlmen tapped the power of Newtonian physics. With electron beams cleansing their equations of errant human perception, opening salvos usually yielded immediate straddles and hits. Several outlying shells from Boise's first broadside were seen to hit the heavy cruiser [IJN Aoba, my comment]. After a correction of "up one hundred" was dialed into the rangekeeper, extending the reach of the guns by a football field's reach, the next salvo registered more heavily and the Japanese ship was soon buckling and burning under a radar-controlled barrage. It happened so fast, the Japanese never knew what hit them." (Hornfischer, 2011:173, writing about the Battle of Cape Esperence)

Hornfischer, James D.
2011 Neptune's Inferno. Bantam Books, New York.

There is, of course, more of the same in other instances.

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Mynok


And don't quote the troll people. Come on. [:@]

If you haven't picked up on that fact by now LST I fear for your sanity.

I already regret that I have started this thread - after all those years on this forum I should have known better what can of worms I was going to open...

Working in customer support and as forum moderator as secondary task, I have this reflex to reply more or less politely even to "difficult customers"...

mdiehl, let's agree to disagree on the historic issues. The original purpose of the thread was just to ask whether fire control improvements (i.e. gunnery radar) is modeled in the game. It is, although naturally not to everybody's satisfaction. 'nough said.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

IMHO threads like this are good - and we all can still try to have proper and good mannered discussion! [:)]


BTW, for long time I though about asking the following (and it is quite connected to this thread):


Are there any books with statistical analysis of gunnery performance (day and night) in WWII Pacific for both sides?


For example we know that Japanese fleet did rather poor at the daylight "Battle off Samar" and did rather good at night "Battle of Savo Island".

But were those exceptions to the rule or the norm?

Any thoughts gentleman?


Leo "Apollo11"

[YankeeAirRat]

Actually, take a look at this book; "Fleet Tactics" by Captain Wayne P. Hughes (USN Ret.) he doesn't offer stats on the differences. Rather looking at the problems tactically and specifically the various engagements during the Solomon/Guadalcanal campagin. If you look at chapter 5 of the book, he talks about how Radar as a fire control device was just starting to arrive in the fleet in 1940. Only on a few units and even then those units were unreliable, so that most commanders and task force leaders didn't trust them. He then dives into doctrinal differences between the USN and the IJN. That the USN was use to bring broadsides to bear since they out weighed and could out shoot the Japanese. The Japanese developed counters to that via the Long Lance. So it wasn't until the late 1943 battles that commanders took a different look at how to use radar and brought doctrinal changes to bear with the US Navy. The Solomon's region prevented battle lines (even Crusier and Destroyer Squadrons) from steaming back and forth amongst some fixed points in the open ocean looking to bring thier broadside to bear. Rather it was made more for the types of tactics that men like Burke developed later on, where you go racing in at high speed depending on knowing exactly where your friends are via the radar plot, shooting the place up like a bunch of cowboys and then zooming out. This prevents the long lances from being brought to bear and in turn prevents the IJN from bring thier superior weapons to bear and via the usage of radar to not only shoot but navigate greatly improves the capability of the force.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl


A similar thing happened to the Japanese at Balikpapan in 1942, with USN DDs delivering torpedoes against a surprised force with a defense in disarray. In both instances, the problem was primarily one of lack of information and battle readiness on the part of the defender.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... %281942%29

If you are referring to this battle it was not warships vs. warship battle Japanese only had 3 patrol boats and 12 transport ships against 4 allied destroyers. Shooting of an unarmed Japanese convoy protected only with 3 patrol boats with warships is hardly even a naval battle.
Night time surface battle of Battle of Savo Island

USA had:
6 heavy cruisers,
2 light cruisers,
15 destroyers

Japanese had:
5 heavy cruisers,
2 light cruisers,
1 destroyer

I fail to see how sinking 6 transport ships compere to sinking 5 heavy cruisers and damaging 2 destroyers. I hardly see it as example of skill that USA navy destroyers missed most of their torpedoes against slow moving sitting duck transport targets that could not effectively return fire at battle of Balikpapan.

[sandman455]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11


Are there any books with statistical analysis of gunnery performance (day and night) in WWII Pacific for both sides?


For example we know that Japanese fleet did rather poor at the daylight "Battle off Samar" and did rather good at night "Battle of Savo Island".

But were those exceptions to the rule or the norm?

Any thoughts gentleman?


Leo "Apollo11"

Naval gunnery is a little more complex than just looking a historical performance. The biggest problem with using history is that you
need the targets and firing ships to do exactly the same thing for it to be indicative of what would likely occur again. This is a huge
variable that directly effects performance.

Straight up - you could empty the magazine of a battleship and never hit a destroyer at 30000 yards unless you got incredibly lucky.
Such is the problem of hitting a moving target, from a moving target, when your unguided shells take over a minute to get to their
destinations. Fire control radar won't help. It all depends on the skill and luck of your gunnery officer as he lays down projected
plots of the target. Who cares where the target is now - it all depends on where he is going and radar is little better than two
eyeballs when you are at ranges over 20000 yards due to the plotting involved. Your target can see you fire and if he doesn't want to
get hit he will adjust his course and speed. Over the next 60 seconds with speeds of 18-30 knot variation, course changes of 90 degrees
or more - it would be utterly miraculous to score a hit from using just 8-9 different firing solutions which would be 2x too many if you
were doing your best to catch him.


Example:

Battle of Samar - Japanese gunnery wasn't bad but most everyone would conclude that a handful of tin cans performed amazing well. Why? I
know the answer but if you want to understand what happens you really need to study this fight and find out why the USN did so well and
why the IJN couldn't hit more targets and took incredible losses. Couple of hints: How many aircraft were launched during the fight?
Several IJN ships were hit by DD torpedoes in broad daylight when you can clearly see the things from launch to impact. Banzai!

If you study perhaps the finest example of radar controlled naval gunnery - Battle of Barent Sea - you will see other revealing
characteristics that allowed radar controlled fire to do incredible stuff and led many to think radar FC was the end all. Again you need
to look deeper. In conditions so bad that even the optical gear didn't work and without working search radar you had no clue if anyone
was firing . . . well lets just say targets will be targets.

Battle of Surigao Strait was little more than a classic gunnery exercise that would have gone the same way if you had put 4 Yamato BB's
in the IJN TF. Geography speaks louder than any gunnery skill. I remember back in high school we simulated this fight using the tourney
level of Avalon Hill's Bismark game. We did it once the usual way and got even better results since we had all the BB's firing (the
Pennsylvania never even fired, why?). Not surprisingly, when we reversed the positions placing the Japanese fleet at the end of the
strait and having their DD's making torpedo runs while the USN made their way up, the results were much the same. All of the USN BB's
and cruisers were sunk - but if I recall there were a few collisions as the USN fleet tried to manuever. And this pretty much sums up
the battle - you have targets behaving absolutely perfectly because of geography. Radar FC is just icing on the cake at that point.

I will say that from my few conversations from the surface warfare guys I met during my 8 years in the USN - today's fire control is a
lot more automated and consequently sometimes more accurate if targets behave. AS one LCDR told me, gunnery crew skill was the biggest
controllable component of the issue back then and he made it clear that luck trumps skill every time and twice on Sunday.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Well, justice demands to put things in perspective. At Balikpapan the IJN had 1 CL and 10 DDs tasked with protecting the transports. They did not interfere with the USN attack among the transports because a submarine scare (a dutch submarine was present) diverted them away from the transport area at the wrong time. Apparently some IJN warships did spot the USN tincans, but assumed they were friendly vessels since they did not expect opposition. Hence the reference to "defense in disarray" etc. Nevertheless, the results of the high-speed run among the essentially defenseless and anchored or slow-moving transports were less than could be expected - only 6 out of 48 torpedoes fired at close range found their mark. This was blamed on the hasty approach, faulty torpedoes and lack of experience.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: sandman455

Naval gunnery is a little more complex than just looking a historical performance. ...

I tend to agree with most of your points and observations. Unguided munitions are exactly that: unguided. Perfect targetting only ensures that they will hit what you aimed at. This works great on stationary targets (ports/airbases, etc). If the target can move, then aiming is not the key driver, targetting is. As you say, more than a little luck.

This is the difference between a target shooter and a hunter. Good hunters are not necessarily the best shots. What they can do though is best predict how the target will move in reaction to their shot and aim accordingly.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

Thanks for info Gary... will re-read about those battles much appreciated! [:)]


BTW, it seems that in almost all crucial battles Japanese lost their courage / determination...


Leo "Apollo11"

[mdiehl]

If you are referring to this battle it was not warships vs. warship battle Japanese only had 3 patrol boats and 12 transport ships against 4 allied destroyers. Shooting of an unarmed Japanese convoy protected only with 3 patrol boats with warships is hardly even a naval battle.

That is the correct battle but you seem unfamiliar with the circumstances. The Japanese CL+10xDD TF tasked with guarding the transports was IN THE HARBOR at the time the USN DDs began shooting. They sortied, the nearest one passing a US DD at a range of 700 meters, and proceeded to open water in order to find a submarine that they presumed to be doing the shooting. Earlier that evening a Dutch submarine DID make an attack and sink a transport. So it was certainly an understandable guess, not a wild axxed guess. That said, I can only note that in THIS discussion forum, if it had been the USN who had gone off on a goose chase under similar circumstances, the usual people would be claiming that it was typical USN inexperience at night combat or some such nonsensical twitter.

The point is, as I noted before, that the circumstances at Balikpapan and Savo Island were such that the outcomes were heavily slanted in the favor of the USN in the first, and the IJN in the second. In both instances the defending TFs were quite fatigued, having been at action stations multiple times and more or less continually in the preceding day. In both instances, the defending TF commodore incorrectly assessed the nature of the threat, despite the evidence available to the eyes and ears that would seem obvious from the comfort of modern armchairs. In both instances, the attacker employed a torpedo first doctrine, only using gunfire when the fish were well on their way. In both instances, air recon earlier in the day identified hostile surface combat TFs within striking distance of the invasion force. And in both instances, the commodores assumed that there was no imminent threat, and that they were therefore "safe for at least that night."

Savo would have turned out essentially the same way had it been the USN attacking Japanese ships disposed around Tulagi under the same circumstances, except it would have been the Japanese cruisers sinking and burning.

[mdiehl]

only 6 out of 48 torpedoes fired at close range found their mark.

That's a 12.5% hit rate. Virtually identical to the Japanese torpedo hit rate (13.1%) at the Battle of Savo Island. Far better than the Japanese hit rate at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal (0%. Zero hits for 48 shots).

This was blamed on the hasty approach, faulty torpedoes and lack of experience.

The blame was an inaccurate assessment. To be fair, at the time that particular author crafted that assessment, he was operating in an information vacuum about real Japanese capabilities. Much of what is now known about the actual number of torpedoes fired by the Japanese under various circumstances only began to emerge from the vaults during the late 1980s. S.E.M. was also operating under a few other constraints as well. But that is a different discussion.

[mdiehl]

But were those exceptions to the rule or the norm?

I guess the point I have repeatedly tried to make is that it was less about "who was innately good or inexperienced at night combat" and instead more about information. That is why I think the comparison between Savo and Balikpapan is so interesting. Neither of these results, in my view, represents "typical performance" of either the USN or the IJN. Instead, in my view, they represent what you can expect when a defender operating under a particular set of constraints (dispersed somewhat, fatigued, operating in an information cloud, and not at all prepared for an imminent batttle) can expect when attacked by a compact, alerted, attacking TF.

In my view, "typical" results have to be judged by the other battles. Cape Esperence, Nov 13-15, and Tassafaronga. In my view, Tassafaronga was the IJN's "finest hour." It really shows how good the Type 93a torpedo could be, and how USN radar could be squandered in the hands of a commodore who did not know how useful radar was.

Cape Esperence to some degree represents the USN's finest hour in terms of showing off night surface gunnery doctrine. The USN *clobbered* the Japanse that night and it happened very quickly. The "Battle of Friday the 13th" shows that in a bar fight, any damb thing can happen. The Atlanta ... unscratched until San Francisco mistook her for a hostile and blasted the hell out of her... the Salt Lake City clobbering a Japanese BB at short range, hitting with half the first salvo and all of the second and third salvos, and setting Hiei alight from stem to stern. Etc.

"Experience" and "night training" were really not part of the equation. Both navies tried to play to their strengths. In 1942, in 3 out of 5 night surface engagements, the outcome favored the USN. I'd call that a "draw" with respect to assessing the relative merits of the two navies.

As others before me everywhere and in this thread have noted, beginning in early 1943, the USN simply outclassed the Japanese at surface combat. Day or night, it really did not matter.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
I already regret that I have started this thread - after all those years on this forum I should have known better what can of worms I was going to open...

It was a legitimate game related question. Not your fault the board is patrolled by a troll who's only here to troll just as Mynok described.

[Mynok]

Correct...and my apparently poorly made point is that we can have these discussions if we all agree to ignore the troll. If you respond to it however, troubles will ensue almost assuredly.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11
BTW, it seems that in almost all crucial battles Japanese lost their courage / determination...
Leo "Apollo11"

[&:] Eh? Say what?

[mdiehl]

BTW, it seems that in almost all crucial battles Japanese lost their courage / determination...

With respect, I cannot agree that the Japanese ever really lost courage or determination. But I do think that in a couple of major battles (Samar, Savo Isl) Japanese commodores were faced with deteriorating command and control, and a growing information fog, that under the circumstances made withdrawal seem like the best option. After all, they weren't explicitly ordered into suicide missions until 1945.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
The original purpose of the thread was just to ask whether fire control improvements (i.e. gunnery radar) is modeled in the game. It is, although naturally not to everybody's satisfaction. 'nough said.

LST,

I would venture that radar-guided or radar-assisted gunnery improvements on the Allied side haven't made it into too many games yet, just because most PBEMers (or even most AI-players) aren't in late 1944 or early 1945 yet. I wouldn't expect much of a noticeable change until late in the war for the Allies vis a vis radar-assisted firing solutions.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Hi all,

IMHO threads like this are good - and we all can still try to have proper and good mannered discussion! [:)]

Leo "Apollo11"

Leo....sometimes i honestly think you deliberately egg on flame threads. Perhaps you find them amusing. Certainly a good number do which is part of the problem but thats the Internet for you, and why tight moderation is required for a serious historial discussion. You've been here long enough to know better.

[Apollo11]

Hi all,

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

IMHO threads like this are good - and we all can still try to have proper and good mannered discussion! [:)]

Leo....sometimes i honestly think you deliberately egg on flame threads. Perhaps you find them amusing. Certainly a good number do which is part of the problem but thats the Internet for you, and why tight moderation is required for a serious historial discussion. You've been here long enough to know better.

Nik, but what do you suggest instead Nik?

No discussing of such matters at all?

Where else would we talk about this?


For example I thought about asking about gunnery statistical analysis for about 10 days now - I posted it here today when this thread was alredy opened with similar agenda...



Leo "Apollo11"