neutered PT boats post 1095/1096

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

how do you fire a torp without a tube??????[X(]

"Roll One." (Splash) "Roll Two." (Splash)

I believe there was a lanyard system to achieve engine start; could be wrong. I also think this sytem reduced aiming error due to there being no tube offset to the boat's centerline as with the old tube system. The roll system also eliminated any flash from the old black powder ejection systems. Overall many improvements in theory.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: spence

IMO PTs should attack quite regularly. They should score hits with torpedoes quite rarely; with a slight improvement in accuracy occasioned by the newer torpedoes that didn't require a launch tube later in the war. They should survive IJN warships quite well (since relatively few were destroyed by enemy surface ship action) but suffer losses due to running aground etc with a greater frequency than other warships.

Against the AI, I don't see barges anywhere near to where I have PTs. The one hex reaction limit in the first patch also makes them more useful as harbor defense.

Where I have had PT engagements the loss rate has been a bit high versus history. I don't know how well the code works at the outer edges of surface speed and maneuvering. But nothing to really woory about either. Where I've wanted PTs I've had enough in inventory to place them. Overall they're not that useful after mid-game, which is pretty RL.

Running aground is another area where the game probably does the player a favor. If all of the minor reefs were modeled (the major ones are there and tactically useful--the one blocking off Port Blair often adds a full day of exposure for cargo guys coming and going) there would be howling in here. It's largely unappreciated now just how pitiful the USN's charts were at the start of the war. Many from the 19th C. What comes from being an isolationist power.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: jackyo123

Also - I have their threat tolerance set to ABSOLUTE. Seems to make no difference to them. I would think that setting to ABSOLUTE would be something like this in their orders:

- 'You are ordered to engage and destroy all enemy vessels at location x,x. Press home the attack with all vigor. Do NOT, rpt do NOT consider the safety of the boat. Your priority is to SINK the enemy transports. All other considerations are secondary.'

If that captain came back and said he had retreated from a bunch of merchies without firing a shot .... I think he would be relieved pretty quickly. Unfortauntely, i picked the highest rated 'aggression' commanders that were available.

I don't have the game open, but isn't the Absolute variable only for possible air attack? I thought it says that in the roll-over, but it's been weeks since I read those.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

The torpedoes were more than a match for any merchie weapons. Moreover, the merchies chances of hitting the PT even considering that there were nine of them are, if realistically modeled, less than the chance that Dick Cheney can squeeze through the eye of a needle. One merchie. Ten merchies. A PT should engage and have a much greater chance of damaging or sinking one than vice versa, unless the merchies are covered by air cover or DDs.

The original set-up, which I responded to with my scenarios, was the merchant unloading in the hex the PT boat was based in. I said that an unescorted merchant, at sea, underway, should be attacked, even in daylight. But charging in, from 7-9 miles away, in daylight, into an unknown and unscouted anchorage, with one PT boat, when you KNOW there are LCU forces ashore already with unknown weapons, is, quite simply, negligent behavior on the part of the PT boat CO.

Even one who played in the Army-Navy game.

At a minimum that boat should fall back, go to ground near shore until 0300, then go blast away, preferably with some friends who came after the recon report.

[jackyo123]

ORIGINAL: Kull

ORIGINAL: jackyo123

Also - I have their threat tolerance set to ABSOLUTE. Seems to make no difference to them. I would think that setting to ABSOLUTE would be something like this in their orders:

- 'You are ordered to engage and destroy all enemy vessels at location x,x. Press home the attack with all vigor. Do NOT, rpt do NOT consider the safety of the boat. Your priority is to SINK the enemy transports. All other considerations are secondary.'

If that captain came back and said he had retreated from a bunch of merchies without firing a shot .... I think he would be relieved pretty quickly. Unfortauntely, i picked the highest rated 'aggression' commanders that were available.

Based on the following Dev comment from another thread, it appears that a different piece of code is overriding your settings.

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

We also added routines that allow PT's to evade/retreat from combat in daylight situations where high visibility gives the edge to a surface force that spots them.

could be right - but it happens at night as well.

Now, one thing I will say - these pt boat squadrons do NOT have high experience (50's and 60's). But I still have expected some of them to attack. I think that setting it to Absolute should be enough, but apparently isnt. When you see your home harbor invaded, and the pt boats there run without firing a shot from merchant vessels, its frustrating.

Ive long advocated 'special rules' task forces in their own harbors. If an enemy surface unit enters a base hex, and either bombards or unloads troops, then its DL should go to maximum and all the units that are in 'combat' task forces (asw, surface combat, etc) should attack it. I cannot imagine a warship captain trying to retreat when an enemy TF begins unloading troops into his harbor.

[jackyo123]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: jackyo123

Also - I have their threat tolerance set to ABSOLUTE. Seems to make no difference to them. I would think that setting to ABSOLUTE would be something like this in their orders:

- 'You are ordered to engage and destroy all enemy vessels at location x,x. Press home the attack with all vigor. Do NOT, rpt do NOT consider the safety of the boat. Your priority is to SINK the enemy transports. All other considerations are secondary.'

If that captain came back and said he had retreated from a bunch of merchies without firing a shot .... I think he would be relieved pretty quickly. Unfortauntely, i picked the highest rated 'aggression' commanders that were available.

I don't have the game open, but isn't the Absolute variable only for possible air attack? I thought it says that in the roll-over, but it's been weeks since I read those.

No, its for surface units. I dont think air units have the 'routing' option at all - the 2 options are 'routing' normal/safer/ direct and 'threat tolerance' normal lower high absolute' or somethinn like that.

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: spence

IMO PTs should attack quite regularly. They should score hits with torpedoes quite rarely; with a slight improvement in accuracy occasioned by the newer torpedoes that didn't require a launch tube later in the war. They should survive IJN warships quite well (since relatively few were destroyed by enemy surface ship action) but suffer losses due to running aground etc with a greater frequency than other warships.

That's pretty much how it was. However, there's always going to be a problem in coding these things because they are surface warships, and have to use the same code as the other platforms. To code them "true-to-life", they would have to close range to 1000 yards, survive the whole time, shoot, miss (90-95% of the time), and then slowly extend the range and escape unscathed. Seriously. You CANNOT code that with the WitP engine built the way it is.

I would recommend that every time somebody gets the message that their PT TF "evaded" the enemy, just imagine that they REALLY closed to 1000 yards and fired and missed. As far as the "how could PTs possibly miss those slow AKs?" argument goes, the problem is that we really don't have convincing evidence from the war, either way. From the link below (look at "Table II"), you can see that US forces sank 2117 Japanese merchant ships in WW2, but only ELEVEN were sunk by surface warships. As to how many of those 11 came at the hands of PT boats, it's impossible to say, but probably no more than a couple.

http://funsite.unc.edu/hyperwar/Japan/I ... ses-2.html

The only real-life Pacific War opportunity against merchants came during the early Phillipines invasions, and the record from that is mixed - a few attacks against stationary targets, and no confirmed sinkings (see the link in my earlier post).

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


[I don't have the game open, but isn't the Absolute variable only for possible air attack? I thought it says that in the roll-over, but it's been weeks since I read those.

I checked, and my memory was wrong. The change notes for Patch One state that the threat tolerance is not only from air attack.

[John Lansford]

The PT boats in Surigao Strait IIRC were fairly new boats and had all their torpedoes still on board.  However, the crews hadn't practiced very much in using them since their main concern was aerial attack, scouting, pilot rescue and anti-barge patrols.  Certainly the Solomons PT boats unloaded their torpedoes in favor of more guns to counter the barges and their escorts (daihatsus), which were shallow draft, heavily armed (for their size) vessels.

[bradfordkay]

Keep in mind, guys, that this thread wasn't started about the effectiveness of PTs, but rather their willingness to prosecute attacks.

Otherwise, carry on...

[mdiehl]

Well, if they're unwilling to carry out attacks that makes them ineffecitve, doesn't it?

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: mdiehl

Well, if they're unwilling to carry out attacks that makes them ineffecitve, doesn't it?

[:D]

Certainly, but this thread has gone off topic to discuss whether they were capable of damaging the enemy - which is not the original complaint.

[spence]

I haven't as yet seen the Tokyo Express in action much in AE either in its bombardment or transport incarnations but PT attacks managed to effect both types of operations off of Guadalcanal.

Specifically the cruiser TF that bombarded Henderson Field on 13-14 November 1942 shot inaccurately and aborted its bombardment because of PT attacks.

And the DDs of the Tokyo Express often just jettisoned supply canisters over the side off the island (hoping that they'd drift ashore to the soldiers there) rather than to stop to unload. The PTs just as often machine-gunned and sank the canisters after the DDs left thus the entire effort came to naught from the IJN point of view. It was also during those runs that an IJN DD and an IJN SS ate a PT launched fish and was sunk so the worry of the IJN Captains expressed by their hesitancy to stop was in fact fully justified.

In the old WitP the IJN would nearly always complete its real mission (supply or bombardment) after tangling with the PTs (and sinking most of them usually). I'll agree that PTs should not routinely be putting down IJN warships but IMHO the PTs should be quite capable of frequent "mission kill": aborted landing ops (which I have seen), wasted bombardment runs (which I have not seen) and supply runs that deliver only a portion of the supply carried (which I have not seen).

In the old WitP the success to be expected from large warship supply runs made barge operations superfluous most of the time. If the IJN had to balance a real risk of damage to a major warship in an operation that might well turn out to be just a waste of fuel and supplies barges costing next to nothing would take their real historically important role in places like the Solomons/New Guinea and PTs could occupy themselves in much the same way as they did historically countering the barges.

[mdiehl]

Hey Spence. Seen any good 327s lately? [;)]

[freeboy]

ok, so if pt was so much window dressing WHY DO THEY EXIST!! ok my hair pulled out and rant over, seriously, so much crap to wad through in the battle forthe game!!!
I could go for a complex game where things actually where clearly annotated and ,"blah blah blah blah blah" ok rant really over [:-][:-][:-]

[Kull]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

ok, so if pt was so much window dressing WHY DO THEY EXIST!! ok my hair pulled out and rant over, seriously, so much crap to wad through in the battle forthe game!!!
I could go for a complex game where things actually where clearly annotated and ,"blah blah blah blah blah" ok rant really over [:-][:-][:-]

They DO have an effect, it's just subject to a lot of variables. Commanders, training, day/night, plus random variables. I have a LOT of planes on ASW patrol in the early war. Are they sinking (or even attacking) anything? No. But I'm sure that over the long haul (i.e years and years) they will provide an incremental benefit. And that's the thing with a game like this. You have the opportunity to play around with thousands and thousands of tiny details that will eventually add up to a war winning position.

PT Boats weren't and aren't war-winning weapons, but used correctly they can bring real value to your war effort.

[mdiehl]

Ultimately it seems to come down to whether you think the circumstances of particular engagements warrant MORE effects than are observed in game usage or not. If you think that vis PT boat engagements, then it follows that things like USN skippers' EXP values, to the extent that these are determinative, are too low.

Which is completely plausible. The game engine has some elements that are based on fairly researchable facts vis ship types and so forth, and some where indices like EXP seem to have been imaginated out of nothing, signify nothing real, and aren't necessarily indexed to anything having to do with WW2.

[freeboy]

OK, my poiint is simplythis, if these ships could not use torpedoes in the real world they should not exist..in ae artificial world

[mdiehl]

Which ships? PT boats had torpedoes. If I understand your claim, you're disappointed that they don't hit with them or even try to use them. If I understand the rebuttal, it is of the form that "PTs didn't torpedo all that many ships during the actual war."

Well, they didn't, but that's different from "they couldn't." If someone sends a pack of merchies or AKs into PT waters unescorted or escorted by only a patrol boat or something, the PTs ought to torpedo them. Not all the time, but often enough to force the opfor to wish he'd use real escorts. Hitting a cumbersome 8 knot merchie or AK was an easier proposition than hitting a DD making 30+ knots, I think we can all agree.

[freeboy]

ok lets try again
PT boats where inaffective
usingthem wastes time.. and is ahistorical, unless they are ineffective again wasting our time..
Why mnodel an ineffective part ofthe war,?game?..