Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Dili

Just asking if this two cruiser with their huge torpedo battery version have been useful in game, i haven't keep up with AARs

As Termy and others state, the IJ CL's are uniformly pretty useless and are just VP's for the allies. They are too undergunned, lack armor ... yeah, pretty useless. [8|]

Give them different prey. They'll do a number on most supply/fuel/oil task forces. Send them out hunting. Think of them as school yard bullies. They're not gunna go toe-to-toe against an opponent that's their equal.

Merchants are their prey - don't use the CLs in defense or against other warships. At least that's my 2-cents.

ORIGINAL: 1EyedJacks

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Dili

Just asking if this two cruiser with their huge torpedo battery version have been useful in game, i haven't keep up with AARs

As Termy and others state, the IJ CL's are uniformly pretty useless and are just VP's for the allies. They are too undergunned, lack armor ... yeah, pretty useless. [8|]

Give them different prey. They'll do a number on most supply/fuel/oil task forces. Send them out hunting. Think of them as school yard bullies. They're not gunna go toe-to-toe against an opponent that's their equal.

Merchants are their prey - don't use the CLs in defense or against other warships. At least that's my 2-cents.

I've had great success using them as 1Eyed states, as LOC raiders. Their shelf life is limited if they run into anything, but they can do a real number on under-escorted TF's. I would never try to use them in a support role where heavy naval action is expected. They're raiders in my opinion and should be used as such even with the low endurance. If an AO is handy to keep them out they can be quite valuable.

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf


in the absence of airpower, the type 93 torpedo probably would have been the weapon that won
the war for japan, or at least rendered a stalemate / less awful defeat

Hello.....radar.[8|]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island

absence of CV + LBA (let's say CIWS AA and invented ahead of time, and ac engines lag behind, leaving 1920s type ac in the 40s, thus obsolete)

type 93 would have meant some type of tsushima torpedo barrage
before yamato + the 6 old battleships finished off the remainder of the prewar battleline
4 kongos + cruisers would perform flanking and pursuit, reducing the warplan orange fleet to rust

then if populuar support for the war remained, the 10+ modern battleships and the rest of the fleet would be making another attempt, this time a lot more successful, probably leading to the
sinking of the majority of both fleets, and some type of armistice

as it was, the torpedoes were rather superfluous unless they could be brought to bear on capital ships (though it did happen. hornet at santa cruz? if that counts..)

In honor of so many IJN FBs in here, I would humbly submit that HYPO was the key for allied success. I'm quite sure the Allied powers would have won regardless, however the duration and cost would have been far higher. There was no weapon system by either side that equaled the magnitude of Hypo's contribution to halting Japan's aggression sooner. I believe both the Port Moresby invasion and Midway would have succeeded without it. I think it shortened the war by 12-18 months, at the very least.

ps No one ever seems to bring Hypo up in regards to Signet?

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf

absence of CV + LBA (let's say CIWS AA and invented ahead of time, and ac engines lag behind, leaving 1920s type ac in the 40s, thus obsolete)

type 93 would have meant some type of tsushima torpedo barrage
before yamato + the 6 old battleships finished off the remainder of the prewar battleline
4 kongos + cruisers would perform flanking and pursuit, reducing the warplan orange fleet to rust

then if populuar support for the war remained, the 10+ modern battleships and the rest of the fleet would be making another attempt, this time a lot more successful, probably leading to the
sinking of the majority of both fleets, and some type of armistice

as it was, the torpedoes were rather superfluous unless they could be brought to bear on capital ships (though it did happen. hornet at santa cruz? if that counts..)

Where do you come up with this stuff? Everything you always try to say or argue is complete make believe. Your entire point is moot, there were CV's and commanders willing to use them. So to try and say the Japanese would have won a decisive naval battle because of the Type 93 torpedo which would have resulted in an armistice is complete bunk. Aren't you forgetting it's the Emily that would have won the war for Japan as you usually like to point out ad nauseum?

Go back to modding and leave the historic analysis to the people that have a clue. [:-]

historical analysis is typically hindsight

"of course building yamato was a waster of resources"
"of course CV would be the main naval weapon.. it was obvious since the days of Mitchell"

all with full knowledge of how events unfolded since 1920-1940

engine technology at a different pace? - probably surface vessels are the ultimate weapon

sonar not invented? - submarines


what actually happened? all the major combatants were developing all conceivable weapon systems
(carriers, battleships, surface torpedoes, submarines, LBA)

until it was demonstrated that one was superior over the other, then alter production
towards that type

the Japanese war strategy was based on 3 principles

1) destroying the main allied concentration of naval power in a pre-emptive strike on pearl harbor
2) mopping up the remnants of allied forces in the SRA quickly while the territories were captured
3) intercepting reinforcements and any counter-offensives


the main blow to the Japanese empire was the inability to stop allied movements with their LBA,
no matter how badly the USN tried to lose its carriers with the gilberts/rabaul/dolittle raid,
the Japanese LBA was simply too disorganized
the most serious being the battle of the marianas, that meant the effective end to the war
(may as well have surrendered in the middle of 1944 and spared themselves)

but if all the betty/nell/kate elite torpedo crews were not wasted
in the ridiculous 1942/1943 campaigns with total co-operation by the army

configured their fighers properly

and stockpiled some numbers of Emilies

then perhaps the marianas has a different ending

winning the war? no
not losing as badly? possible

ORIGINAL: Commander Stormwolf


historical analysis is typically hindsight

Wow I never knew. That stuff makes you think. It might even be that looking down shows stuff below you?

Once again Commander Stormwolf you do what you do best, completely derail an Op's thread with your nonsense. You just don't get it do you?

original poster asking about whether oi/kitikami are useful in WITP AE

1) explained why not useful in WITP AE (difficulty of obtaining firing position on capital ships)
2) explained why they were built (lack of hindsight about supremacy of airpower)
3) explained under what circumstances they could be useful (night surface battle like savo island)
4) off-topic about Emily, only since someone else brought it up

as the saying goes

"I might disagree with what you say, but I will fight to defend your right to say it"

Voltaire was, thankfully for him, never confronted with the ammount of compressed BS which is nowerdays sold as "complete truth" on internet forums by some... [;)]

Back to the subject of thread. . .

I've had some decent success with them. They are always good against light targets like other DD's or merchants. While a far cry from a normal CL, they were a lot more stout than destroyers. If you look at their both their real and in game stats you will see 3x the durability of a destroyer and equipped with armor which no DD had.

My recommendations to get the most out of them: Just treat them as they were intended to be - destroyer leaders. Do not use them as escorts unless it can't be avoided. Far better to use them with a group of DD's looking for night engagements in shallow water. Just a theory, but give them a skipper and TF commander of very high naval skill and low aggression. You don't want the ship to unload on any target. The lower the aggression might translate into more of a target (bigger, closer, etc) before the ship pulls the trigger.

That aside, like most torpedo equipped ships in all stock and publicly available scenarios, they give me doubts as to whether they are modeled correctly. Their most potent armament is modeled into just two 20x4 devices. Per the editor manual this should work fine - as it would read the entry as 10 "turrets" and allocate firing and damage to each. However, the issue I'm concerned with is ammo. It seems every time you see the device fire it losses 1 ammo unit and then all the turrets are empty. I first noticed this on a couple of Fletcher class DD's that seem to fire only once. Then it happened again with a Kitikami class and it seemed something might be a amiss. Modders can fix the issue if they opt for breaking torpedo devices up into launchers and giving them the appropriate ammo. Many ships are already modeled this way. But like I said many are not and with the Kitakami it would be a huge issue. Then again maybe the game engine keeps track of fractional units of ammo, and I'm just screwed up. Would not be the first time [8|]. Anyway, I feel more comfortable modeling as separate devices.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

This is correct. The Type 93 torpedo was meant to be salvo fired against the US battleline at extreme range to soften it up for the Decisive Battle. The Kitty and Oi were a bad idea; they loaded too many tubes onto too few ships. Even the Jap admirals who were meant to execute Decisive Battle didn't want them.

Like I said, a cul-de-sac.

I think if you look a little deeper there is more to the story. Where were the USN battleships that were going to eat all these torps? Looks like the Pacific version of Jutland was at postponed a couple years thanks to the carrier guys. Also what lessons learned could the IJN take away from those first 8 months of war before they converted them to fast transports? Every time they face off with allied surface combatants they emerged victorious. It wasn't even close most of the time. But instead of 1 big engagement with battle lines, they were fighting little engagements all over the south Pacific which usually resembled total chaos. In every engagement during this period, these two old cruisers with their 40 torpedoes would have been over kill.

What's worse is that the carrier guys just got their asses handed to them at Midway and now even the surface warfare fans in the IJN knew the score. There was very little hope of waltzing into glorious surface engagements without first fighting off swarms of killer bees. Do the Oi and Kitakami look like they are up to that task? The IJN made the right decision but it wasn't because the ships were not viable. They need fast transports, the Solomons were waiting. Putting so much fire power on two overgrown destroyers didn't seem too smart given the last 8 months and what the future was bound to bring.

The ships in a real naval engagement simulator are lethal. One of my worst days of gaming ever was watching the one of them take out two battleships. All it took was a little screen behind the Kirishima which was getting mauled by the South Dakota and Washington. All the escorts were busy trading blows when out of the darkness (actually we used construction paper for stuff outside the visual/los range) comes this thing and the next thing I know is that the Washington is sunk even before all the damage rolls were completed. I think she took six hits in one 1 minute - range was about 2 miles or so. And while I did manage get SD trained on the little bastard and wreck her with a few hits, it was too late. She ended up eating 3 from a range of about 4 miles. The point had been made very clear to me at least. These ships could easily ruin your day if you can get them into a knife fight untouched behind other heavier or faster ships. They truly were the proverbial glass cannon.

ORIGINAL: sandman455

Back to the subject of thread. . .

That aside, like most torpedo equipped ships in all stock and publicly available scenarios, they give me doubts as to whether they are modeled correctly. Their most potent armament is modeled into just two 20x4 devices. Per the editor manual this should work fine - as it would read the entry as 10 "turrets" and allocate firing and damage to each. However, the issue I'm concerned with is ammo. It seems every time you see the device fire it losses 1 ammo unit and then all the turrets are empty. I first noticed this on a couple of Fletcher class DD's that seem to fire only once. Then it happened again with a Kitikami class and it seemed something might be a amiss. Modders can fix the issue if they opt for breaking torpedo devices up into launchers and giving them the appropriate ammo. Many ships are already modeled this way. But like I said many are not and with the Kitakami it would be a huge issue. Then again maybe the game engine keeps track of fractional units of ammo, and I'm just screwed up. Would not be the first time [8|]. Anyway, I feel more comfortable modeling as separate devices.

The ammo load for the torpedo tubes is correct. Both the Kitakami and Fletcher (and all US destroyers for that matter) had only the fish in the tubes without reloads. This made the torpedoes a one shot weapon. The Kitakami had the quad tubes devided between the port and stbd sides, and this explains the two batteries. Each side had five quad mounts for a total of twenty tubes. The Fletcher had two quintiple mount on the centerline that could fire to either side for a total of ten tubes.

I know, a lot of explanation just to answer the bit about ammo = 1.

ORIGINAL: MateDow
The ammo load for the torpedo tubes is correct. Both the Kitakami and Fletcher (and all US destroyers for that matter) had only the fish in the tubes without reloads. This made the torpedoes a one shot weapon. The Kitakami had the quad tubes devided between the port and stbd sides, and this explains the two batteries. Each side had five quad mounts for a total of twenty tubes. The Fletcher had two quintiple mount on the centerline that could fire to either side for a total of ten tubes.

I know, a lot of explanation just to answer the bit about ammo = 1.

But of course, I'm completely on board with the load outs on the ships as most modders are.
My concern is the game engine. Let me recall the episodes that got me thinking this way.


#1: Couple of Fletchers intercept the remnants of a convoy. All that is left is a solitary damaged PB. It is quickly engaged and sunk by just one of the Fletchers doing all of the firing. Couple of rounds of gunfire and then the Fletcher fires torpedoes. There is a hit and it is done. I play the game solitaire with no FOG or war so I quickly look at my Fletchers and notice now both are empty of torps. The first used theirs up on the convoy while the second was fully loaded because it wasn't even part of the convoy assault. I ponder and read the editor manual again to reassure myself that the whole turret thing is really working. Ok, sounds good, it is merely a very crude naval combat routine and we have some DD launching 10xMk14's on a wounded PB.

#2: Much later in the same stock game we have a IJN TF fully loaded with the Oi as its flagship. They stumble on to some solitary target - I think the Langley but whatever. The Oi engages and sure enough unloads 1 turret of torpedoes. The first set miss but not the second. Again I'm hopeful she still has some 8 turrets of torps and correspondingly some combat capability. But nope, there it is again - a big fat zero on the torpedo load out. Ok I can rationalize away some 10xMk14's on a PB but not 40xType 93's on a solitary ship. To me at least it appears the Oi fired one side (20 torps) and then turned and fired the other side (20 torps). The ship appears to be empty of torpedoes in the game.


Again, maybe the code is only showing 1's and 0's for load out. But the issue is a player seeing a goose egg has no choice but to go and rearm. If you break them up into devices you will at least see the ammo next to each device. But really I think the code is not working correctly when it comes to the torpedo loadout. It sees a 1 but there are multiple turrets. The first turret fires and then the 1 goes to 0. No more firing is what I have observed in limited game play.

Japanese were more liberal with their use of torpedoes

torpedoes took a lot more man hours to make than an artillery shell or aerial ordnance

BUT in terms of materials they are pretty similar


Japanese had a large population (similar to US) with vastly fewer resources
so having fine craftsmanship to optimize the use of materials was logical

similar to the Japanese aviation industry, spending 25,000+ man hours per 1.7 ton zero
while US was putting only a few thousand man hours into their P-47s (or even more extreme
pumping out expensive B-24s at a remarkable rate)

like chemistry - production affected by what is the limiting reagent (labour or materials)


so what does this have to do with Japanese torpedo use?

use them while you can was the main doctrine, with stunning success once the Type 93 could be brought to bear

no thought given to cost, more damaging to the japanaese war effeort was the fuel expened by their warships on a sortie

so would kitikami be firing all it's 40 torpedoes at Langley? If the first salvo misses, then yes definitely.

Honestly was is more irritating is when all torpedoes are NOT expended.. that is a massive headache (since carrier strike days actually)

remember UV (Japanese task force launches co-ordinated long lance attack) hehehe..[:D]

Go away and never come back.

These ships are of use depends on the time in my scn 2 I have used as follows.

early 42 - surface raiders and with DD based surface units. Tend to be hard to hit( even from air) do not get damaged much by light DD shells that do a lot to DD.
Mid - Late 42 with surface units could be with BB if you expect to meet BB esp. the slow US ones where TT are more use.
May 43 convert/ upgrade for 444AA and air radar then they go with the CV until the end of days. This means less need ( pressure) to adding any CA to AC TF.
From May 43 all CA I will have in my AIR TF are Mogami (converted) Tone and Chickuma
( scn 2)
Same goes for Agano class actually and they have less AA initailly- BUT if you are playing RA the Agano class are excellent on the surface.

I find the Agano class to be more garbage than the Kitakamis, because as you say the Kitakamis can convert to fill an AA duty role. The Aganos...ugh. At least the Oyodos are somewhat useful in AC TFs as well.