Reluctant Admiral Feedback

[FatR]

With all the talk about ships, I forgot to make a comment about the flak performance...

I certainly don't find it ahistorically low in general, although I can easily see how this opinion can form in actual game, where both CAP and flak hit attacking planes and it is hard to recognize from which operational losses result. There are some discrepancies - if the game code considers extra vulnerability of torpedo bombers, particularly large 2E ones, at all, it is completely trumped by greater durability and greater ability to suppress flak by taking out enemy ships - but overall 1/5th - 1/3rd of attacking planes lost from flak alone, even against a relatively unimpressive concentration of ship-based AAA, seem to be right, maybe even a bit too good. I also feel that this level of flak is sufficient to produce a game balanced roughly to historical level of outcomes with PDU OFF.

I haven't done an equally detailed test with the same TF using DaBabes flak upgrade, because I didn't have time or patience (at least yet) so I can just say that in a few turns where I tried to use the device list from there, Japanese losses jumped to roughly 40-50% of the attacking planes from flak alone.

Overall, while DaBabes flak seem to produce much more historical results in the beginning of the war (judging by the PH strike mostly), I think that it is too good by the time of Downfall. The stock flak might use a little bit of a buff maybe, but not the almost doubling of results. From the narrow historical viewpoint I'd prefer the stock flak...

Now, in the wider viewpoint, acknowledging that generally Japanese air attacks will be several times more powerful than historical, particularly with PDU ON (and I prefer to play PDU ON), while the Allied fleet strength is fixed, DaBabes flak might produce results that, in the big picture, are closer to the historical outcomes of campaigns. I can't say for sure. I'll certainly continue testing, and hopefully our ongoing games will provide more data as well. At the moment I won't recommend adopting DaBabes flak model for Scen 70.


Regarding ongoing games, by the way... the test has shown that:

1)Torpedo attacks are vastly more effective than bomb attacks, at least until the appearance of late-war planes with 800-kg bombs. Sure, they miss alot, but hits count for much more. Doing massive damage to the enemy early on also greatly helps to reduce losses - B7As suffered much more as divebombers.
2)Ki-49 and Ki-67 are the best survivors by far. Once again, small differences in stats seem to produce large differences in results.
3)Ki-48 fails in the divebomber role as well. It has no worth and should not be built, much less researched.
4)G4M3a actually outperformed P1Y2... which surprised me. The difference is not too big, though, and, with relatively small number of tests, might be explained by luck.

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: bklooste
Yubari full load is 4075 vs 3700 for the Akuzuki.

Over 4400 actually, at least after installing AAA armament during the war. Also, take note, that Akizuki had much bigger fuel load.

Which is pretty close... And note why would a GP destroyer have such a large fuel load ?

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: bklooste
A Akuzuki widened to a cruiser style hull would probably be 4500 or so full load. And yes it couldn't carry more than 6 * 6" tubes. Also I don't think its relevant that tubes were removed for AA on a pre war design this was the case even for Japanese DD.

It is relevant. Not only Akizuki was an AAA design to begin with, Japanese never even seriously contemplated a cruiser without medium-calibre AAA armament after mid-20s, so any such project will go right to recycle bin.

I have no issue with them as fleet escorts BUT pre war why build / schedule so many CLAA / DDAA ? In the mod they replace [edit] some of the Yagumas which means they become GP destroyers and a flotilla of them has a major deficiency hence the need .

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: bklooste
But my question here is on roll , an Agano built prewar isabout the same time the Akuzuki are laid down in RA ~39 . If its a raider/ destroyer leader , then a slightly widened Akuzuki with the historical Agano/Tromp armament's + float plane would be appropriate and much cheaper .

However it also will be a severely inadequate ship.

ORIGINAL: bklooste
Also the rest of the ships provide plenty of AA

The very reason for Akizuki projects was that they didn't.

Note the assumption of the Akizuki as a GP destroyer in a flotilla
1) All the other ships are AA
2) they have a gun deficit.

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: bklooste
The current earlier Agano in Reluctant Admiral makes no sense for the early ships , compared to existing designs , they cant tackle US cruisers ,

This is incorrect. Maybe it's would be case in RL, but in AE new Aganos sink Allied heavy cruisers just fine.

ORIGINAL: bklooste
are more expensive as raiders and would be the same cost as a full 5*3 *6.1" using borrowed turrets. Remember for the last Takaos slip time was 3 months less than the historical Agano. I can understand the historical Aganos as these were built with War time constraints on steel etc .

??? The class started building in the summer of 1940.

re the Aganos it doesn;t matter if they are decent ships they just dont fit what Japan would have laid down in 39 ( since they arrive much earlier im assuming they would be lair down earlier) with the other changes .

re being laid down in 40 thats not going to happen if John wants 4 in 41 .. He is bringing them forward 1 year so they should be laid down a year earlier.

ORIGINAL: FatR

EDIT: Another huge problem with Akizuki-related side of your proposal is that it does not take into account the main point of divergence for destroyers being second half of 1942. Before that decisions are similar to RL, except with greater focus on AA ships at the expense of other areas. With our hindsight, I can easily imagine likely better alternatives with earlier points of divergence. 6x100/65 ship of Yugumo's size as the standard fleet DD, if it is late 30s, for example, or complete dedication to night combat capabilities. i.e. ROF at the expense of range, using 127/40 - and hopefully its evolution with better ballistics, by the war's beginning - as the main calibre for DDs, instead of developing 127/50. But in 1942 it is too late for any of that.

The main issue i have is bumping up the number , replacing other DD and building them earlier. This means from a high bukerage fleet escort they become a v large long range GP destroyer with not a lot of gun weight.

Ben

[bklooste]

Would kind of defeat the purpose of the after desk since a heavy cruiser can do 2 .. Historically they carried 5 and rarely 6 normally the full compliment just wasn't available.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

There's no problem putting 8 or 10 floatplanes on a cruiser or a battleship. The point is indeed how many you can realistically operate. I'd say no more than 4.

[FatR]

I don't understand why you think that Akizuki lacks gun compared to Yugumo. 127/50 gun HE shell weight - 23 kg. 100/65 gun shell weight - 13 kg. The latter has ROF 2-3 times higher and even better range. Both shells are HE, so the difference in penetration IRL probably was pretty marginal. Yugumo will have an edge only in large-to-medium distance daytime engagements, where you fire in volleys, taking time to correct your aim, but in much more common night engagements, the higher ROF should prevail, even if we don't consider that Akizuki has 2 more guns. What Akizuki class lacks is torpedoes.

However, here we are postulating that with the concept of Decisive Battle (tm) between surface fleets completely buried and the dominance of airpower firmly established, the Naval Ministry will realize, that they have loads of Long Lancers but still vastly insufficient number of fleet escort ships. In AE, I'm forced to attach many of my best torpedo attackers, Fubuki (II) and (III) DDs to KB (particularly early on), because of their flak/ASW potential. This pretty much mirrors the RL situation. So, in actual practice, most Akizukis added to the fleet will not only add much needed AA and ASW capabilities to carrier escort, but also release older DDs for surface combat duties. While also being good in destroyer-on-destroyer combat.
In fact, that's how the thought went IRL, with Yugumos being phased out of production more than a year eariler, except IRL it all happened too late (but there wasn't a greater pre-war emphazis on AA ships, namely Akizukis, which we postulated separately, as the part of overall changes in approach).

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: FatR
With all the talk about ships, I forgot to make a comment about the flak performance...

I'm not plumping for DaBabes, by any means, but think you might want to rerun, backing completely out of the game in each case. We've done this for about 300+ runs of a dedicated test bed, looking at data tweaks and proposed code tweaks, and found the average AAA kills goes from ~ 4.77% of sorties in stock, to ~ 9.71% of sorties in Babes, pre 1943; and from ~ 8.15% of sorties in stock, to ~16.64% of sorties in Babes, post 1943. The sigma, of course is huge, and we have seen some of the same 50% numbers you have seen - but only on statistically relevant occasions. We have seen the same 50% numbers for stock values on the same relevant basis.

It's all in the pseudo-random number generator. All PRNGs are eventually periodic. They are also deterministic (give the same input, you get the same output, every time). If it generates a number it has previously generated, it will drop into a loop and reproduce the sequence between the first occurence and the second. It all depends on the starting number from the seed, the size of that starting number, and the range of the randoms one is evaluating. Randomizing the seed is the sufficient and necessary sine qua non for any sort of relevant data analysis. That's what makes 'quickie' analyses for the game so often misdirective, even if the data appears different for each run.

Unfortunately, for multi element data tweaks, and given how the code is structured, one must exit to desktop every time and do a statistically significant run of 30 passes, before coming to a conclusion. Harsh, I know, but in a game with 1500 turn opportunities, one must needs perform a definitive mathematical analysis in order to judge long term results of the gestalt.

FYI, DaBabes AAA tweaks did not mess with DP guns on warships. The only tweaks warships got were to 40s, 25s, 20s, 13.2s, Brownings, etc. .. . The rest of the tweaks were to dedicated AAA guns for the land model side of things.

[FatR]

Argh. This certainly makes things much harder, but thanks for the tip JWE. This certainly explains certain discrepansies that I saw, but considered flukes, like similar numbers of planes in raids, and Francises' performance seriously changing between the first five torpedo bomber tests and the second five, which I ran on the next day. I'll try to do tests your way when I have time...

And as we're talking about DP guns and Japanese 100mm/65 in particular here anyway... I looked at DP guns stats recently, when checking devices' stats before testing, and I wanted to ask why it is so abysmal in stock (and therefore in DaBabes' list of guns as well)? Every other Japanese DP gun is better in every area, except range and ceiling, differences in which don't really matter past certain values, because you won't hit anything anyway or no one will fly that high. Well 127mm/40 is equal in penetration. It's just strange that a supposedly superb gun is flatly inferior to the old 120mm 10YT.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: FatR
And as we're talking about DP guns and Japanese 100mm/65 in particular here anyway... I looked at DP guns stats recently, when checking devices' stats before testing, and I wanted to ask why it is so abysmal in stock (and therefore in DaBabes' list of guns as well)? Every other Japanese DP gun is better in every area, except range and ceiling, differences in which don't really matter past certain values, because you won't hit anything anyway or no one will fly that high. Well 127mm/40 is equal in penetration. It's just strange that a supposedly superb gun is flatly inferior to the old 120mm 10YT.

Because DP guns have to operate in the Naval combat mode. This game is a Naval game. The AA values are sufficient. If you dink with DP-AA you may well turn a DD into a CA without knowing what you did. But, hey [;)]

[bklooste]

An important point ,discussed on many thread and the reason why the US 5"/38 were reduced a bit.. The engine makes any gun thats ok at surface weak at AA. And one that is about right for AA is a killer in surface combat.

[bklooste]

I don't understand why you think that Akizuki lacks gun compared to Yugumo. 127/50 gun HE shell weight - 23 kg. 100/65 gun shell weight - 13 kg. The latter has ROF 2-3 times higher and even better range. Both shells are HE, so the difference in penetration IRL probably was pretty marginal. Yugumo will have an edge only in large-to-medium distance daytime engagements, where you fire in volleys, taking time to correct your aim, but in much more common night engagements, the higher ROF should prevail, even if we don't consider that Akizuki has 2 more guns. What Akizuki class lacks is torpedoes.

You can probably build 50% more Yagumos for one Akizuki ...anyone have the costs for the Yagumos? 2.5 Akizuki was about a Tone class CA.

Re gun weight who does better when a light or heavier cruiser shows up especially with the weaker torps ? A single ship carrying old / cheap 6" guns would really help the Akizuki flotilla.

Not sure i agree entirely at night , what you say is right but there are other factors eg

- the 100mm strength in RL was high accuracy so it could snipe at long range..
- night engagements will be short and sharp and may just be down to the ready store improving the fire rate of the 127/50
- The fast wearing of the tubes.

However, here we are postulating that with the concept of Decisive Battle (tm) between surface fleets completely buried and the dominance of airpower firmly established, the Naval Ministry will realize, that they have loads of Long Lancers but still vastly insufficient number of fleet escort ships. In AE, I'm forced to attach many of my best torpedo attackers, Fubuki (II) and (III) DDs to KB (particularly early on), because of their flak/ASW potential. This pretty much mirrors the RL situation. So, in actual practice, most Akizukis added to the fleet will not only add much needed AA and ASW capabilities to carrier escort, but also release older DDs for surface combat duties. While also being good in destroyer-on-destroyer combat.
In fact, that's how the thought went IRL, with Yugumos being phased out of production more than a year eariler, except IRL it all happened too late (but there wasn't a greater pre-war emphazis on AA ships, namely Akizukis, which we postulated separately, as the part of overall changes in approach).

This makes more sense freeing up old DDs , but with a large number of Akizuki , are they all fleet escort ? The Japanese themselves plan to have flotillas of them ( with later models sacrificing bunkerage for more speed) and their were plans for fast flottila leaders ( fast aganos) to handle the problem but this was way out of their economic capabilities.

Regarding the mod being full air pre war this is not the case ... We still have the Yamatos , BC , Tone ( during war the Ibkis became CVL , Yamatos became Shinano) etc so the mod changes the focus at some time after or late in the life of these 2 ships.

[John 3rd]

Wow. Work for 12 hours and find 15 new entries on the Thread! Will read and catch-up on the discussion.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: JWE
Because DP guns have to operate in the Naval combat mode. This game is a Naval game. The AA values are sufficient. If you dink with DP-AA you may well turn a DD into a CA without knowing what you did. But, hey [;)]

If 5in/38 doesn't break the game (anymore), I don't think that raising at least accuracy of 100/65 to its level, as we already did for Scen 70, will. John 3rd probably has more experience with their current performance in naval combat, but I haven't seen out-of-the-whack results from the Scen 70 version of 100/65s on cruisers so far. I'm not calling for giving the stock version 100/65 the best stars ever, but when it is significantly worse than even 120/45 10 YT, this just can't be right.

[JWE]

You are probably right. There's still quite a few things a bit out of kilter and could use a massage. Let me know how it works out.

[John 3rd]

If my time holds today I am going through and tweaking the LCUs as we originally intended with RA. Should be noted after JWE's changes I am being very SLIGHT with my additions to the IJN LCUs.

QUESTION: I always get confused so I'll ask this one. When messing with engineers 1 means ONE right? It doesn't mean one squad. Am I correct?

Created the new CD units. They deploy to Palembang, Bataan, Tinian, and Guam in 1943-1944.

Coming back to the discussion covering this page and part of last:

--the new Agano's to me reflect the real desires of the 'Fleet' Faction of the IJN: stronger and built for battle. I just wish we could build two more of them but I understand the whole decision process we have made. As to the timeline concern, BK only two start deployed for battle. The IJN gets two more in 1942 and the last pair in 1943.

--concur with Stanislav that the increased production and numbers of the Akizukis fix it so the real surface-fighting DDs can be transferred from CV Escort Duty to STF action. Should really help add 'punch' to the surface force.

--Flak really sits outside my thinking. It is WAAAAY scaled-back in AE. Cannot really compare it to WitP so will leave it up to you guys who have a better grasp of the mechanics side of it.

[John 3rd]

Juan--I am working through the BBs and found Yamato all screwed up with the guns broken down individually. Example: where it should have After Gun 3 Barrels=1 Turret, it has 3 Barrels=3 Turrets. The Bow guns are broken into two lines that read 3 barrels and 3 turrets each. Was this done to correct the ammo loading issue? I changed them to 3=1, 3=1, and 3=1. Will that still work?

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Created the new CD units. They deploy to Palembang, Bataan, Tinian, and Guam in 1943-1944.

Hi John,

Assuming these are ahistorical CD units, would Palembang be the best site for one? It's a river port, so large ships can't reach it anyway. I'm not sure many folks would invade there. Wouldn't almost everyone invade at Oosthaven and march to Palembang? I'm just making an observation (probably uninformed since I play vs AI).

bc

[kfsgo]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

Juan--I am working through the BBs and found Yamato all screwed up with the guns broken down individually. Example: where it should have After Gun 3 Barrels=1 Turret, it has 3 Barrels=3 Turrets. The Bow guns are broken into two lines that read 3 barrels and 3 turrets each. Was this done to correct the ammo loading issue? I changed them to 3=1, 3=1, and 3=1. Will that still work?

If you've done what I think you've done, you now have a battleship with nine main gun turrets - the '3' being the number of guns in the slot and the '1' being the number of guns per turret. 03/03 in three slots would be correct for what you're doing.

[John 3rd]

This is what I am talking about 3 Guns to 1 Turret. This should be correct I think!

[Herrbear]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

This is what I am talking about 3 Guns to 1 Turret. This should be correct I think!

I don't believe you are correct. IIRC 3x1 would represent 3 guns with each turret having one gun.3x3 means 3 guns with each turret having 3 guns. So in the first instance you would have three turrets with one gun each and the second instance, which I believe is correct, you would have one turret with 3 guns.

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
QUESTION: I always get confused so I'll ask this one. When messing with engineers 1 means ONE right? It doesn't mean one squad. Am I correct?

John, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. 1 (or one) what? If I understand you right, 1 (one) engineer thing is 1 (one) device, which is represented as 1 (one) squad. Don't know any other way to express Eng function (except 1 (one) EngVeh device is equivalent to 3 or 5 ordinary Eng devices (I forget which)).

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
QUESTION: I always get confused so I'll ask this one. When messing with engineers 1 means ONE right? It doesn't mean one squad. Am I correct?

John, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. 1 (or one) what? If I understand you right, 1 (one) engineer thing is 1 (one) device, which is represented as 1 (one) squad. Don't know any other way to express Eng function (except 1 (one) EngVeh device is equivalent to 3 or 5 ordinary Eng devices (I forget which)).

Thank you John for the clarification. Am headed back to working on the Mod today. Appreciate the help as always.