Japanese damage control! WTF*#?$

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Charles_22

Spawning carriers tends to make the Allied players care a lot less about losses.

In reality those Essex class carriers would have arrived even if the originals hadn't been sunk. The respawn feature actually pulls carriers out of the Allied side if less than the full amount allowed are sunk.

That and the CA's and CL's of both the US and Aus. OT a bit, but what fantastic ship building did the Aussies allegedly have that would justify their inclusion? Why not the English too while GG was at it?

[Charles2222]

Feinder:

"Oh well. I just lost 5 CVs. No biggie. They'll come back."

Which goes for the US and AUS CA's and CL's as well. Nobody may play stupid with the US CV's because they will always get them back, but it's quite unlike the reality of NEVER getting them back, such as what an IJN player faces. Still further, it makes a larger difference than any most other kind of player, the sort who would, like myself, use his first option at playing this game as trying to hold off the Allies in the long run (not caring in the least about how many lame points I inflicted and thereby might win some 'early victory'), such that my AI opponent really might not care that his early CV's were lost too much.

Still to this day, as many times as I've raised this issue, NOT A SINGLE PERSON HAS EVER EVEN ATTEMPTED TO EXPLAIN OR JUSTIFY WHY CA'S/CL'S ARE INCLUDED IN SPAWNING, AND FAR MORE HILARIOUSLY, WHY THOSE OF AUSTRALIA WERE. Why is that? Care to explain that seemingly non-defensible position?

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Qunicy II CA39 sunk 7th Aug 42. respawned as QuincyIII CA71
Vinciennes CA 41 sunk 7th Aug 42 respawned as Vinciennes CL 64
Chicago CA 29 sunk 2 Nov 42 respawned as Chicago II CA 136
Astoria CA 34 sunk 7th Aug 42 repawned as Astoria II CL 90
I'm sure there are several others.

It wasn't the great Aussie shipyards- but lendlease.
After the USN Blue torpedoed and sunk HMAS Canberra 7 Aug 42 the Americans replaced it with one of their cruisers.
And when HMAS Australia was sunk by the Japs the Americans gave Australia another one.

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Go here:

http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/index.html
scroll to the bottom of that page and click on the return to homepage.

It has every USN ship ever built and their history. The complete naval history of the USN.
It is an official history of the USN.

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Houston II CA 30 sunk 26th Feb 42 respawned Houston CL 81

I don't know why the respawning is in the game instead of just having every ship the USA built. My main guess would be for play balance so the Japs don't get over-run by huge USN navy. And maybe to get the Allied player to be a bit more aggressive in the early war period instead of just waiting for his huge fleet to build up.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Charles_22
Still to this day, as many times as I've raised this issue, NOT A SINGLE PERSON HAS EVER EVEN ATTEMPTED TO EXPLAIN OR JUSTIFY WHY CA'S/CL'S ARE INCLUDED IN SPAWNING, AND FAR MORE HILARIOUSLY, WHY THOSE OF AUSTRALIA WERE. Why is that? Care to explain that seemingly non-defensible position?

See the USS Canberra (CA 70).

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Sharkosaurus rex
And when HMAS Australia was sunk by the Japs the Americans gave Australia another one.

Just one correction - HMAS Australia was not sunk by the Japanese. She survuved the war (unlike HMAS Canberra and HMAS Sydney) and was sold for scrap in 1955.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Sharkosaurus rex

Houston II CA 30 sunk 26th Feb 42 respawned Houston CL 81

I don't know why the respawning is in the game instead of just having every ship the USA built. My main guess would be for play balance so the Japs don't get over-run by huge USN navy. And maybe to get the Allied player to be a bit more aggressive in the early war period instead of just waiting for his huge fleet to build up.

Thanks for explaining. Seems the more sensible thing to do is just give it to them the date they got it, irrespective of the reason. I mean if Aus. doesn't lose it, it should be in the USA's lineup right?

[witpqs]

That's how I think it shuold be with all of them - no respawn, just produce them as they were coming. But it is what it is.

[pmelheck1]

does system damage effect damage control?

[witpqs]

Well, ships do attempt to repair system damage while at sea. Is that what you mean?

[Belphegor]

I believe the higher the system damage the less effective repairing floatation and fire damage will be at sea. Thus a really high sys damage will slow or even prevent repairs to keep the ship afloat.... that's my understanding anyway.

[Sharkosaurus rex]

Ships at sea should repair:
page 183 of the manual:

ships at sea can never repair their sys damage below 50
ships docked can never repair their sys damage below 5

so it suggets that you can repair while at sea, but without the bonuses of being disbanded inside the port it is hard to see any effect. Also if you are damaged at sea with float or fire- any small repairs will be over-taken by added sys damage from fire.

[jwilkerson]

BTW manual be wrong. Ships in port "disbanded" do repair to 0 sys .. though the ports I use for such have AR and Naval HQ which may help .. any ole level 3 with no AR and no HQ might have a different out come ...

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

BTW manual be wrong. Ships in port "disbanded" do repair to 0 sys .. though the ports I use for such have AR and Naval HQ which may help .. any ole level 3 with no AR and no HQ might have a different out come ...

Disbanded does not equal docked. Docked means still in a TF, but not at sea/in port. Disbanded means in port, not in a TF.

However, DOCKED ships can still repair to less than 5. This seems to be dependant on thre presence of a repair facility/shipyard, though.

[mogami]

Hi, OK I want to explain something here. Early in testing I mentioned that ships do not burn for several days. They put the fire out within 12 or so hours or they sink or are abandoned.
The system currently in play has these 12 critical hours spread out over several turns.
The reason is the turn length. To be correct the player would get a series of messages like "Fire on CV Soryu under control" and later "Fire on CV Soryu out" or "Fire on CV Soryu out of control"
The current system hopefully gives the player a chance to abandon ship and save a few VP.
As long as a ship is on fire you are getting a slow painfull account of the struggle.
Just remember that the system is abstracting damage accumulating from fire and flooding to show the progressive nature. Actually ships have a better chance of surviving in WITP then in any other game of Pacific combat because the damage requires more then 12 hours to resolve. If you fight near a size 3 port and have an AR there with a HQ any ship that actually docks and is not bombed or shelled has a good chance of staying afloat.
All fires are put out in 1 turn in port. Flooding can repair at around 5 per turn.
I recently had a CV battle where if I had been at Midway I would have lost most of my CV however since I was less then 10 hexes from Shortland (size4) where AR and HQ were waiting every ship that made it to port will survive (2 docked with system 70+ flooding 60+ and fires 10+) IN a quick damage resolution game I don't think they would have made it.
The designers had a hard choice how to handle damage and damage accumulation.
It would be more realistic timewise for a ship to sink or be abandoned by the time the player got a chance to check a TF after a battle. There is no debate on this. Ships do not burn while crawling towards a port after a battle. They put the fire out or they are lost. Fires cannot exist on a ship for long because as we know a ship sinks when it fills with water to a certain point (where it no longer displaces more then it weighs) Fighting a fire is dumping water into the ship. (After a point you will put the fire out but doing so on the way to the bottom is no solution)
So think hours even though you watch it resolve over days. If the ship makes it safely then it won the battle the first day. If it sinks in the port hex before it disbands (or even worse the turn it disbands before the port can repair) then console yourself with the fact that in reality it was lost the turn it was damaged.
We get to watch the drama in slow motion.
One bad side effect of this delayed damage resolution is ships in the TF with the damaged ship are held in danger much longer then would be the case if the damage was taken care of at real speed. If a ship has flooding and is on fire and can't make better then 10 knots. Leave it. You don't have to scuttle it but don't keep healthy ships tied to it. I assign 1 DD.
Please don't drop cows over this. The other method would be more correct time wise. But the designers wanted to show the progressive nature of damage and provide the drama of the struggle. The alternative would be those old
"Explosions on CV Soryu" messages we used to get where during a turn they just kept popping up untill "CV Soryu sinks" In WITP Japanese damage control is not as good as USN damage control but the player do get a chance to save damaged ships. (or scuttle them) What I mean is any ship that sinks in WITP would sink if the faster method was used. However often ships that would sink the fast way are saved in WITP.

[castor troy]

It´s a fact now that all three carriers sunk!!! And I still call it medium damage! A few bombs and two torps sinking three carriers seems to me a bit toooo much! Ships that start out with 20 flood damage going down is just weird. Next time there´s a post, hey I´ve been hit by 1 bomb and my carrier sunk??!!?? What? One bomb? Perhaps 500 lb. ship killer bomb? Yeah, because your sailors aren´t able to stop that flooding. It wouldn´t be that hard to believe for me, if one of the three went down because of some special circumstances. But hey, not all three. 1942 was not the time of wooden boats!

I just can say again that Wolfpack did a real good job in closing in, but the outcome....

Perhaps Japanese players can start "Will she make it with 12 flood damage back home" threads in the future!

[DuckofTindalos]

[mogami]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

It´s a fact now that all three carriers sunk!!! And I still call it medium damage! A few bombs and two torps sinking three carriers seems to me a bit toooo much! Ships that start out with 20 flood damage going down is just weird. Next time there´s a post, hey I´ve been hit by 1 bomb and my carrier sunk??!!?? What? One bomb? Perhaps 500 lb. ship killer bomb? Yeah, because your sailors aren´t able to stop that flooding. It wouldn´t be that hard to believe for me, if one of the three went down because of some special circumstances. But hey, not all three. 1942 was not the time of wooden boats!

I just can say again that Wolfpack did a real good job in closing in, but the outcome....

Perhaps Japanese players can start "Will she make it with 12 flood damage back home" threads in the future!

Hi, One more try. After a battle you click on a TF and then on a damaged ship. It shows 20 sys 20 flood and 5 fires. "Not bad you think" However you must also understand that while it is "not bad" it is also "not final"
The first time you look at your TF after a battle your not seeing the damage 24 hours later your seeing it minutes later. The TF has checked damage perhaps 2 times since it was inflicted. Now pay attention here because this is where you and many others lose the system.

Bomb hits does 5 system damage 5 flood and 2 fires.
Ship checks damage/repair now 10 system and 10 flood because fires are now 15
Ship checks damage repair (your not getting these messages) now system 20 and flood 20 and fires down to 5 here is where you first get a chance to look and you think "not bad" not realizing that yes it is bad ship is accumlating damage quite rapidly from initial damage.
Now you end turn
Ship is going to check damage 3 more times before you see it again. Unless the fires are out next time you look it means the ship has been losing the battle against the fires.
(any ship that has a fire 2 turns after damage inflicted is in real trouble)
Flooding damage can occur rapidly both from damage that occured when bomb or torpdo hit and from the fires. Damage control is made up of 2 things mainly
1. Firefighting
2. Stopping flooding from structural damage (plugging holes)
Firefighting is going to add to flooding. No ship has inductors that can pump out water faster then it floods. The pumps can slow the rate of flooding but unless at some point it is stopped the ship will sink. Once you stop the flooding the pumps can begin to reduce the amount of water onboard.

All this occurs within the first 24 hours. (In real life) However in WITP in order for you to see it the process has been spread out.
No ship is safe if
1. It is on fire. No matter how low the level of fire the ship is still gaining damage to system and is flooding. Fires that are not put out can gain in level. They can gain level and then be fought back down and then gain again. (You look fire 10 you look again a turn later fire 10 but while you were not looking it climbed to 20 was fought back down to 15 and then to 10)
Ships that are on fire will not sink because system reaches 99 they will sink when flooding reaches 99. You can have system damage of 1 and sink from flooding. (unlikley a ship would gain 99 flood with only 1 system the point is system damage has no effect on a ship sinking.

2. Progressive flooding. Even after a fire is out a ship at sea with flooding will either lesson the flooding or aquire more. Guess which is more likely to occur for a ship at sea?
Flooding does not move like system damage 1,2,3,4,5 Flooding can move 5,10,20,40
A ship that has 40 or 50 flood during your orders phase might very well sink before your next orders phase.
A ship that is 20 percent flooded is in real trouble. There really is no such thing as"minor" damage when refering to flooding of a ship still at sea (never mind still on fire)


However as pointed out 4 IJN CV were sunk with 0 torpedo hits and 13 bombs divided among them.
In WITP no CV will ever be caught with full decks. Aircraft will either be up flying mission or they will be stowed in hanger. (unarmed and unfueled) This is because all missions in a airphase launch at same time. (both opposing CV TF launch strikes together only the game has to place one before the other . It means nothing what order the strikes resolve in. )

In reality your 3 CV were sunk the first day. To show you the "How" the game spread it out over time. This is unrealistic. However just as unrealitic remains the fact that had the battle been fought next to one of your ports size 3 or larger with AR and HQ you might have saved them. And the entire time you had a chance to abandon them and save a few VP (I never abandon a ship screw the VP)

[Ron Saueracker]

I still think the flood model is a wee bit weird. The progressive flooding issue was one of my concerns (with regard to Japanese ships) because it does seem to slam the Japanese ability to perform tasks for which they were well trained. Personally I'd lessen the penalty on the flooding and increase the penalty regarding fires (which the Japanese did have problems with because of lower standards handling fuel (early war they did not purge lines etc, later war they used less refined and therefore more volatile fuels).

The thing that has always bothered me is the ability of ships to repair 100% of flood damage at sea. To me, flood damage should be more permanent (like system damage) and require major yard time to fix. Why? Say a ship lost its bow like Selfridge did in 1943. Just because the flooding has stopped being progressive, there was still flooding of the forward area and counter flooding to keep the ship from nose diving into oblivion. There should/could have been some differentation between permanent flood damage and progressive flood damage. In WITP, the ship either sinks or has 100% flotation restored, and in Selfridges case, this is illustrated as being totally innaccurate. How can a ship lose it's bow, have widespread flooding and controlled flooding, and end up with 100% flotation values without major repair time in a yard? Nothing can be done about this because apparently nothing could be done about it a few years ago.