Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Puhis

Apparently some people are playing ahistorical scenario 2, where Japan gets about 100(?) extra destroyers or other ASW vessels, and then they are complaining japanese ASW... [&:]

what??????????[X(]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

I'd just like to say that my ASW efforts to date have not worked at all. Allocating air assets, SC hunting groups, DD and PB escorted convoys, changing captains to more aggressive and skilled, has done squat for me on the Japanese side. I've only 5 confirmed kills of Allied submarines up to Feb. 1st, 42. On the other hand, I've lost roughly 40 ships now to Allied subs. Every game, for whatever reason, seems to have different experiences. It seems in my PBEM, the Allies have the uber subs. I can't speak for the effectiveness of the Japanese subs, because mine can't find anything. [8|]

ever heard about what the Japanese achieved in years of war? You´ve sunk 5 subs in not even 2 months and if you have sunk 5 you surely have damaged far more. And you say your ASW efforts have not worked at all? Pardon me, but your ASW efforts work far too good.

ORIGINAL: bklooste

3 facts
- they are not going to add a ASW/ Sub rating to commanders.
- With equal Naval ratings the Allied destroyers easily destroy the Japanese ones in 41. ( This is a fault but they used the Naval rating system to give the experience that the Japanese can match the allies and in 44 with equal ratings they cant)
- Japanese commanders were aggressive.

I dont see many issues unless there is wholesale changes of commanders. Best solution is probably a house rule for no Commander changes for subs /ASW task forces. Its kind of silly and much more ahistoric ( that the change in success rate ) putting your best commanders into subs and ASW anyway.

wow, that was really a bad turn for Allied ASW... IMO, it´s still too easy to hit escorts, especially destroyers. Would my MK14 torps work in my PBEM, I would have sunk a dozen more DDs with my subs.

As the Jap "Sub King" I would like to add my observations.

Yes, I cannot deny Jap subs are overated in general, I think everyone agrees to that. However, for some reason mine seem to be on steroids. If you look at the Cuttlefish vs Q-ball AAR, I dont think his subs have sunk a tenth of what mine have.

I think Dan's(Canoerebel) early tactics were faulty, he was sending out lots of little TFs that did not have any escorts....sitting ducks for my subs. I am still seeing attacks whereby I hit a transport but there is no ASW counter-attack, not even a "xx fails to locate sub" message, so I'm not sure if he is still using this strategy in quiet areas.

Re ASW......I think the Allied is realistic, and has much improved in 43, if any sub runs into a combat TF they are lucky to get away unharmed. As for mine, I do not agree that it is overated at all. As has been mentioned by a few people, unlike in real life the Jap player will not ignore ASW until its too late, so you can expect a few more attacks.

However, my game has reached May 43 and I doubt I have sunk more than 10 of Dan's subs, which I think is well within reason. I am seing a lot more taking damage, but that is due to my escorts upgrading to the Type 2 DC. The 95 is useless, the mod-95 not much better. Air ASW has been a non-event for both of us so far, I think it has sunk a couple of my cripples, and mine has done nothing, as in real life.

Having Banzai subs has come at a high cost, I have lost 40 or so fleet boats, 30 to DCs and the rest to mines in port hexes - if you dont want subs picking off targets in port then mine them......

I guess the question that I have is what capabilities did the IJN have if they had changed there doctrine at the start of the war? Is what is happening in games excedding that capability or reflecting what could be done? This game allows us to act ahistorically, but we should be constrained by the technology that was actually at hand or allow for an option for better IJN asw at the start of the game as we have for USN torpedoes.

Once we come to a conclusion as to what was possible with what the IJN had at the start of the war then we can decide if it is nerfed or not. Comparing it to what actually happened during the war is not helpful based on the fact that we are not using our asw assets, submarines and personnel as they were used in the war.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

German U-Boats sank approximately 15,000 tons of Allied Shipping per sub lost during the War.

US Subs sank approximately 122,000 tons of Japanese Shipping per sub lost during the War....,
even with lousy torpedoes.

Japanese ASW was pitifully inadequate to it's task..., and is totally overrated in the game.

Quite nice, now please tell us, how the numbers for German subs were in 1941 and 1942.
I am quite sure, you would be astonished about the uselessness of Allied ASW in these years.
Allied ASW became great in 1943. Neither the Brits nor the US were able to defend their convoys adequately before that date.



"The worst period was from the beginning of 1942 to March 1943 when 7 million tons of merchant shipping was sunk. In July 1942, 143 ships were sunk in a single month, and in November 1942, 117 ships were lost."
http://www.johndclare.net/wwii8.htm

The Germans were winning the battle for production. While new U-boats were being delivered at the rate of thirty each month by June 1942, the Allies lost 173 ships that month alone. Only twenty-one submarines were sunk in the first six months of 1942. The Germans were succeeding in slowly strangling Britain.
http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/atlantic43_45.htm

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Puhis

Apparently some people are playing ahistorical scenario 2, where Japan gets about 100(?) extra destroyers or other ASW vessels, and then they are complaining japanese ASW... [&:]

Nope! Scenario 8, and both Japanese subs and Japanese ASW are over-rated!

Didn't you realise that scenario 8 is just that ahistorical scenario??? It's like scenario 2 but quiet China...

ORIGINAL: Frank

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

German U-Boats sank approximately 15,000 tons of Allied Shipping per sub lost during the War.

US Subs sank approximately 122,000 tons of Japanese Shipping per sub lost during the War....,
even with lousy torpedoes.

Japanese ASW was pitifully inadequate to it's task..., and is totally overrated in the game.

Quite nice, now please tell us, how the numbers for German subs were in 1941 and 1942.
I am quite sure, you would be astonished about the uselessness of Allied ASW in these years.

The U-Boats had their "happy times" between 1939 and 1942 as Allied ASW was finding the technical answers to dealing with them and driving them into the mid-Atlantic "gap". In 1943 that "gap" was closed, and the U-Boat service became the German version of the Kamikazes.

The Allied subs in the Pacific had their "happy times" during 1943-45 (after the torpedo and other problems were solved), proving that Japanese ASW was ineffective throughout the entire war.

The German Happy times tended to coincide with perioids whear the Allies were not efitively escorting the Merchants, this particularly so During Operation Drumbeat, when the Germans sank some 600 ships off the US West Coast, largely because their was a compleat lack of escorts or ASW assests their.

The Reasion the US subs did so well over all was that for the most part the Japanese were not very organised espicahly early on they did not escort Ships unless they were Either an Army or Navy Convoy, finialy toward the end of the war escorts were almost always provided.

The poor preformace of Japanese ASW forces during the war had mostly to do with the fact that their were no escorts present for most US sub vs Japanese merchant men encounters. This was because the Japanese did not take the whole busisness seriously enough, untill much later in the war.

Again Ships that were operating in Navy or Army controle were escorted typicaly from the wars start, the remainder were not with any consistancy untill later in the war.

The argument being made that a Japanese player shouldn't be restricted by the historically poor performance of Japanese ASW efforts is pretty interesting.
 
At what point do we say, "Hey, this is a simulation of the War in the Pacific and we're straying too far from what was going on historically?"
 
On the one hand, everybody wants a little bit of lattitude to try new strategies and push in different directions than were done historically.
 
On the other hand, givng either side the ability to do things that really couldn't have been done - or that couldn't have been done given the entrenched mind-set of either side - detracts from the simulation objective.
 
We expand beyond history by permitting players to mass carriers together (wasn't done historically until late in the war) and to invade places that weren't invaded (Oz or NZ or New Caledonia or Suva or Pago Pago) and I think nearly everybody enjoys that aspect of the game.
 
On the other hand, giving one side weapons that they didn't have, or actual weapons that have uber capabilities, doesn't seem kosher.  I didn't like Allied 4EB lethality vs. ships in WitP and I don't like Nuclear Japanese submarines or Artillery Death Stars in AE.

ORIGINAL: Brady


The German Happy times tended to coincide with perioids whear the Allies were not efitively escorting the Merchants, this particularly so During Operation Drumbeat, when the Germans sank some 600 ships off the US West Coast, largely because their was a compleat lack of escorts or ASW assests their.

The Reasion the US subs did so well over all was that for the most part the Japanese were not very organised espicahly early on they did not escort Ships unless they were Either an Army or Navy Convoy, finialy toward the end of the war escorts were almost always provided.

The poor preformace of Japanese ASW forces during the war had mostly to do with the fact that their were no escorts present for most US sub vs Japanese merchant men encounters. This was because the Japanese did not take the whole busisness seriously enough, untill much later in the war.

Again Ships that were operating in Navy or Army controle were escorted typicaly from the wars start, the remainder were not with any consistancy untill later in the war.

So you are claiming that the IJN was manned and commanded by a bunch of incompetent buffoons who couldn't figure this out? Then please explain (and justify) the excellent ratings given to all the Japanese Naval Commanders in the game... You can't have it both ways Brady. [:D]

The real clincher in this discussion is that the period of maximum Allied submarine success in the Pacific coincides exactly with the period when the Japanese finally pulled their collective heads out and were making their maximum effort in the ASW field.  So even when they WERE trying, they were lousy at it.  [8|]

To be fair Mike they were so far behind technologically and in the number of asw assets that they could not catch up. Of course it did not help that their industry was a mess and already suffering from resource shortages.

The Brits needed from 1939 till 1943 to do their homework. Why should the Japanese be faster?
No, we gamers know what will happen to Japanese shipping, when the US subs have working torpedoes, so the subs are hunted very heavy and a lot of escorts are used. Gamers have learned from history Axis and Allies collected while WW2.
So ASW is unhistorical for both sides.

One real problem is the efficency of subs sinking DDs. This happens too often imho.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

The real clincher in this discussion is that the period of maximum Allied submarine success in the Pacific coincides exactly with the period when the Japanese finally pulled their collective heads out and were making their maximum effort in the ASW field.  So even when they WERE trying, they were lousy at it.  [8|]

And German maximum weapons construction was in 1944, when US airforce ruled the skies.
Therefore American 8th airforce was lousy in doing her job?
No, sorry, I don´t buy your logics.

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Brady
The poor preformace of Japanese ASW forces during the war had mostly to do with the fact that their were no escorts present for most US sub vs Japanese merchant men encounters. This was because the Japanese did not take the whole busisness seriously enough, untill much later in the war.

So you are claiming that the IJN was manned and commanded by a bunch of incompetent buffoons who couldn't figure this out?

I tend to agree ‘somewhat’ with both you and Brady, but tend to disagree more with both. The poor performance of Japanese ASW was because of command/strategic/psychological/doctrinal factors more than anything else. Take a look at m10bob’s Japanese Subchasers thread, and you will see that Japan had a quite reasonable “potential” ASW capability from about 1938 onward. However, their use of that capability, and their development of its future, can only be described as incompetent in the extreme. They had the basic tools: they chose neither to use them, nor even to sharpen them.

Japan had some decent SCs. The CH-1/4 was operational from about 1938; CH-13 from about 1940; and Ch-28 kicked off in mid 1942. Japan built anywhere from 58 to 61 total (depends on who’s counting). Most had a 3” on the nose, some 13mm-25mm MGs, couple DC rails, couple DC throwers, hydrophones; some (perhaps as many as one half) had T-93 sonar, and had T-13 or T-22 radar fitted in mid ’44. Not at all a bad boat. Compares ok to our PC-461 class except we had mousetraps, SO radars, QB/SL sonar (linked to the DC projectors), stuff like that; and we built 362 of them.

The really interesting (odd) thing is that Japan, despite having a decent design, didn’t use it. It took them 3 years to build 31 CH-28s – that’s less than 1 per month. In the meantime, they settled on a purpose-built small SC (SCS-1) on a standard trawler hull, and built perhaps 120 of these – one 3”, couple MGs, 10 knots, and maybe a frikkin hydrophone – basically naked, slow, and dumb.

They got really intense with the building program for these pukes in late ’42 and peaked in early ’44. When your SC can’t keep up with a convoy, can’t keep up with a sub in cruise mode, and can barely catch a strong man in a rowboat, one can only think – what the heck were these people thinking of?

ORIGINAL: Puhis

Apparently some people are playing ahistorical scenario 2, where Japan gets about 100(?) extra destroyers or other ASW vessels, and then they are complaining japanese ASW... [&:]

confirmed, modded scenario #1. no mods to asw forces.

But someone mentioned a house rule for sub skipper swapouts - not a bad idea. still doesnt redress the asw performance of the jap pb and dd captains, which start out with high stats.

a better move is a patch so that the subs simply have a much smaller chance of hitting a DD/DE. 4 in 1 day?

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: Brady
The poor preformace of Japanese ASW forces during the war had mostly to do with the fact that their were no escorts present for most US sub vs Japanese merchant men encounters. This was because the Japanese did not take the whole busisness seriously enough, untill much later in the war.

So you are claiming that the IJN was manned and commanded by a bunch of incompetent buffoons who couldn't figure this out?

I tend to agree ‘somewhat’ with both you and Brady, but tend to disagree more with both. The poor performance of Japanese ASW was because of command/strategic/psychological/doctrinal factors more than anything else. Take a look at m10bob’s Japanese Subchasers thread, and you will see that Japan had a quite reasonable “potential” ASW capability from about 1938 onward. However, their use of that capability, and their development of its future, can only be described as incompetent in the extreme. They had the basic tools: they chose neither to use them, nor even to sharpen them.

Japan had some decent SCs. The CH-1/4 was operational from about 1938; CH-13 from about 1940; and Ch-28 kicked off in mid 1942. Japan built anywhere from 58 to 61 total (depends on who’s counting). Most had a 3” on the nose, some 13mm-25mm MGs, couple DC rails, couple DC throwers, hydrophones; some (perhaps as many as one half) had T-93 sonar, and had T-13 or T-22 radar fitted in mid ’44. Not at all a bad boat. Compares ok to our PC-461 class except we had mousetraps, SO radars, QB/SL sonar (linked to the DC projectors), stuff like that; and we built 362 of them.

The really interesting (odd) thing is that Japan, despite having a decent design, didn’t use it. It took them 3 years to build 31 CH-28s – that’s less than 1 per month. In the meantime, they settled on a purpose-built small SC (SCS-1) on a standard trawler hull, and built perhaps 120 of these – one 3”, couple MGs, 10 knots, and maybe a frikkin hydrophone – basically naked, slow, and dumb.

They got really intense with the building program for these pukes in late ’42 and peaked in early ’44. When your SC can’t keep up with a convoy, can’t keep up with a sub in cruise mode, and can barely catch a strong man in a rowboat, one can only think – what the heck were these people thinking of?

I think you are hitting all around the "bush" here John. Basic reality was that Japan was a second/third rate industrial power trying to play in the big leagues. She managed to do some things very well, but to do so others simply had to get "short shrift". Even in the US economy priorities had to be set, and some things put on the back burners to give others priority.

Japan's economy simply didn't have enough "burners", and ASW was a low priority. If they had read the lessons of Great Britain in the First World War correctly, then maybe ASW would have gotten more inter-war attention and development. But then they would have had to give up something else...

ORIGINAL: Frank

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

The real clincher in this discussion is that the period of maximum Allied submarine success in the Pacific coincides exactly with the period when the Japanese finally pulled their collective heads out and were making their maximum effort in the ASW field.  So even when they WERE trying, they were lousy at it.  [8|]

And German maximum weapons construction was in 1944, when US airforce ruled the skies.
Therefore American 8th airforce was lousy in doing her job?
No, sorry, I don´t buy your logics.

Actually, it was. German arms production peaked in the summer of 1944, then declined. During 1944 her synthetic oil industry was smashed, which meant those new tanks had no fuel. And by 1944, one of the major tasks of the 8th Air Force was to bring the Luftwaffe up to fight so the P-51's could shoot them down. You admit the "US airforce ruled the skies.", so you make my point quite well. So I'm afraid your "logics" (sic) are the faulty ones.

ORIGINAL: Frank

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

German U-Boats sank approximately 15,000 tons of Allied Shipping per sub lost during the War.

US Subs sank approximately 122,000 tons of Japanese Shipping per sub lost during the War....,
even with lousy torpedoes.

Japanese ASW was pitifully inadequate to it's task..., and is totally overrated in the game.

Quite nice, now please tell us, how the numbers for German subs were in 1941 and 1942.
I am quite sure, you would be astonished about the uselessness of Allied ASW in these years.
Allied ASW became great in 1943. Neither the Brits nor the US were able to defend their convoys adequately before that date.



"The worst period was from the beginning of 1942 to March 1943 when 7 million tons of merchant shipping was sunk. In July 1942, 143 ships were sunk in a single month, and in November 1942, 117 ships were lost."
http://www.johndclare.net/wwii8.htm

The Germans were winning the battle for production. While new U-boats were being delivered at the rate of thirty each month by June 1942, the Allies lost 173 ships that month alone. Only twenty-one submarines were sunk in the first six months of 1942. The Germans were succeeding in slowly strangling Britain.
http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/atlantic43_45.htm

Here is a listing of every ship sunk by U-boats for the course of the war. 41 and 42 (AKA the 'Happy Time' for the U-Boat crews) were very, very bad for the Allies, as you can see: 1321 ships hit in 1942.

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/losses_year.html

I'll keep my comments short:

Against the AI, my subs are massacring UNESCORTED Allied merchant ships. I've also managed to finish off two crippled PH BBs with subs as the AI tried to ship them back to the West Coast. My ASW efforts with an extremenly agressive ASW surface and air patrol scheme has netted the sinking of exactly 0 Allied subs. I have sunk 4 total...1 hit a mine at Osaka, 1 sunk by KB during my PH attack, 2 sunk by Betty's on port attack against Manila. I have had tons of contacts...for a net total of 3 DC hits in all the time I've been playing.

Against my PBEM opponant...polar opposite of the AI results. But I expect that as I have a very competent opponent who uses his subs wisely and actually puts effort into ASW and convoy escort, the same as I do. We're about equal in performance due to this.

The answer is not to nerf the capabilities of the Japanese player...the answer is to develop better tactics. If you send convoys unescorted or too lightly escorted, expect to lose ships. If you send your subs to hover around ports within range of short range ASW TFs and air ASW, expect to lose subs.

Subs operate best in open blue water, where they can dive deep and slip away, ASW works best in shallow water where the sub is easier to locate and has little room to run. An allied player that plants subs in the choke point between mainland China, Formosa and the PI can expect to lose those subs, that is one of the areas I patrol heavily (and I suspect a number of Japanese players do the same). If you try to blockade Osaka or Yokohama with subs you can expect to lose them; shallow water and heavy air/surface ASW assets = dead subs.

There is no 'I WIN' button here. People who do well at the Sub/ASW game do so because they use good tactics and put a lot of effort into it. [;)]