Typhoons etc.

[sedecula]

Typhoons were the cause of the loss and damage of several ships and hundreds of aircraft.

How will non-combat losses be represented? They fit will within the scale of the game, and they were significant in scope.

Storms at sea, collisions during combat and during peace, ammunition handling accidents (U.S.S. Mt. Hood), and so on should have some kind of representation.

Any work on this being done? Anyone else thinking along these lines?

[Luskan]

kamikazes, POW labour?
Not sure it is worth including.

[Raverdave]

Kamikazes ARE worth including........they caused a lot of damage to the USN from '44 onwards.

[Yamamoto]

Kamikazes should definitely be in there. I can’t imagine how anyone could even suggest otherwise. I hope they also have the kaiten suicide subs and the oka planes that some kamikazes flew.

Now I’ll finally have a purpose for those Japanese pilots with skills in the teens.

Yamamoto

[U2]

Hi

For sure Kamikazes is a must. If done well one could blast away less protected invasion TFs. They sure were good in PAC WAR.

Dan

[sedecula]

Before this topic gets totally heisted by the kamikaze crowd, let me include the evidence for the conclusion of typhoons.

In a 48 hour period beginning 18 December 44, the U.S. lost 3 destroyers sank and seven other ships were seriously damaged. CVL Monterey lost 18 aircraft and sustained moderate damage because of a fire. Many other CVLs and CVEs lost 7+ aircraft and the total aircraft loss to the fleet was 146. That's more than significant, and in fact Morison spend 25 pages on the event. Admiral Nimitz commented that it was the greatest uncompensated loss since Savo.

The typhoon of June, 1945 tore off 105 feet of the heavy cruiser Pittsburgh's bow, and put her out of the war.

[showboat1]

Not to mention that had it not been for the absolute faithfulness and loyalty of Nimitz, Halsey probably would have court martialed and possibly drummed out of the war.

[Raverdave]

What about the Volcano on Rabaul after all it did blow while the japs were there.....are we going to model that as well:p

[U2]

Originally posted by Raverdave
What about the Volcano on Rabaul after all it did blow while the japs were there.....are we going to model that as well:p

Hey what about sharks eating sailors when the ships sink:p

Now to get back to the point and answer Sedecula's idea.

Ships in UV takes damage once in a while to represent the fact that ships do take damage from being on station or weather(?). Storms like you request are realistic but I just dont know how they could program that. Ammo accidents too. Just impossible in my view and would not do any good for the game at all. Sure things like that happened but how often?


Dan

[Jeremy Pritchard]

Weather was a very important device in warfare. Some of the most critical stations in WW2 were weather stations. Knowing when the weather is going to be bad is very important, as it impedes air land and sea movement. The Pacific has some very important constant weather zones. The Monsoon and the Arctic weather zones are repetitive limitations to operations. I remember the game Carriers at War II, which had cloud cover modeled in the game, would it not be possible to have a map that shows weather patterns? Matrix games has probably alreadey done something in this regard, as even Pacific War had effects of Monsoon and Arctic weather.

[U2]

Originally posted by Jeremy Pritchard
Weather was a very important device in warfare. Some of the most critical stations in WW2 were weather stations. Knowing when the weather is going to be bad is very important, as it impedes air land and sea movement. The Pacific has some very important constant weather zones. The Monsoon and the Arctic weather zones are repetitive limitations to operations. I remember the game Carriers at War II, which had cloud cover modeled in the game, would it not be possible to have a map that shows weather patterns? Matrix games has probably alreadey done something in this regard, as even Pacific War had effects of Monsoon and Arctic weather.

That is very true. I do hope there are different weather zones that would effect our operations in different places. However to program ammo accidents and ships sinking because of storms sounds way too complicated.

Dan

[CynicAl]

Mmmmmm... Mutsu.

My favorite contender for the coveted "Most Ignominious Loss" award.

[angus]

Originally posted by CynicAl
Mmmmmm... Mutsu.

My favorite contender for the coveted "Most Ignominious Loss" award.

Hardly unique tho' (maybe unique for a WWII battleship). Plenty of ships were lost that way.

I did a quick non-scientific search for ways to lose ships or seriously damage them other than by enemy action. Mainly German Navy info used.

Internal explosion - mainly, but not only, ammo/torpedoes/mines. Ships were also lost to engineroom explosions.

Fire - not aware of any examples, but I can't believe it didn't happen.

Own minefields - we have this one ! Should be able to happen in any minefield tho'. The German Navy were the experts at this one.

Weather - storms sink ships, giant waves sink ships, icebergs sink ships. The USN typhoon experience is well known and the IJN had a similar disaster happen to it's Fourth Fleet in the mid 30s.

Navigation error - hit rocks/reef/whatever.

Collision - The cruiser HMS Curacao got cut in two by the liner Queen Mary.

***

Missed two ...

Depth charges - ships dropping depth charges could and did damage themselves if the charges went off too soon. I can't think of anything being sunk this way tho'.

Mad torpedos - ships were hit by their own torpedos on occasion. Mainly a sub problem. Some submarines reported being missed this way, but no one would survive to be reported hit in a submarine ...

***

Attacked in error by own forces - plenty of examples. At least one USN S/M was sunk by an American destroyer. The German Air Force's first sinkings of significant surface warships were the German destroyers Leberecht Maass and Max Schultz. The RAF wrote off more Canadian minesweepers than the Luftwaffe. And so on.

The easiest numbers to get were for the German Navy. The Germans' surface ships appear to have been "unlucky" (or some other harsher but more accurate term). The following numbers could easily be a bit out, but the general idea is right.

Out of the 127 German flagged destroyers/torpedo boats which appear to have been in service, about 75 were lost to enemy action and about 15 to accidents.

So, for the Germans the ratio is about 5 to 1. I'm pretty sure no major navy (USN, IJN, RN) would have managed quite so many self-inflicted wounds. Whatever the number for accidental sinkings might be, several ships would be more or less damaged by accidents for every one lost that way.

We should have accidents in WitP. Lots of them. And if there's ever a Med game (I hope not) the Germans should get extra accidents.

Cheers,

Angus

[CynicAl]

Yeah, but with Mutsu's loss you have just about every conceivable aggravating factor involved. You've got her sheer size and power, her importance to a wartime navy with few capital ships remaining, the lack of any sort of enemy involvement in her loss, and the being in harbor - docked - in home port! - at the time of loss... Am I missing any?

[angus]

Originally posted by CynicAl
Yeah, but with Mutsu's loss you have just about every conceivable aggravating factor involved. You've got her sheer size and power, her importance to a wartime navy with few capital ships remaining, the lack of any sort of enemy involvement in her loss, and the being in harbor - docked - in home port! - at the time of loss... Am I missing any?

One. It had happened twice to the IJN in WWI and so they ought to have fixed their problems with unstable munitions as a result of the loss of the battleship Kawachi and armoured cruiser <forget name>.

Cheers,

Angus

[CynicAl]

Oh yes, Tsukuba '17 and Kawachi '18 - I'd completely forgotten about those two. I'd call that aggravating, at the very least. Thanks for the reminder!

Back on-topic, I'd say there's definitely a case to be made for a small but real chance of a ship being seriously damaged or destroyed by accident or weather. Something like a .0001% chance (or, probably, lower) of any given ship randomly exploding for no apparent reason; and a similar chance for ships to be damaged or lost in bad weather, modified by ship size and damage and by weather severity. The former might be doable as a modification of the UV Fire Damage routine, the latter as a modification to the Progressive Flooding system.

[angus]

Originally posted by CynicAl
Back on-topic, I'd say there's definitely a case to be made for a small but real chance of a ship being seriously damaged or destroyed by accident or weather. Something like a .0001% chance (or, probably, lower) of any given ship randomly exploding for no apparent reason; and a similar chance for ships to be damaged or lost in bad weather, modified by ship size and damage and by weather severity. The former might be doable as a modification of the UV Fire Damage routine, the latter as a modification to the Progressive Flooding system.

Seems good to me, let's just hope the Matrix guys agree !

Accidents add up to quite a lot of sinkings and damage over the several years a campaign would last.

I figured out the combat loss:accident ratio for German destroyers and torpedo boats as 5:1. I did the same for all French-built French-flagged destroyers and torpedo boats up to the end of 1942 and for all British-built destroyers under Allied flags for the whole war. I made it 19 French combat losses to 3 accidental and 135 "British" combat losses to 13 accidental.

What is really needed is the accident:days at sea ratio, but I haven't a clue how to get that, but I'll try anyway.

The RN probably had an average destroyer strength of at least 180 over the whole war and lost 13 ships to accidents. We have about 1750 days, an average of 135 destroyers if we assume 75% of ships are active on any day and 13 accidents in all. So 236250 DD/days is 13 accidents, about .005% chance per day of a particular destroyer being sunk in an accident and X times more of being damaged in one. (*) What X is is anybody's guess, but I'd imagine it's somewhere between 3 and 10. F

Anyway the KM was more accident prone, just like I thought. I'd guess the Regia Marina would be around the French/German level, the USN and IJN at or more likely better than the RN level. The Soviets would much worse, along with the Thais and Chinese.

Cheers,

Angus

(*) If you think this is sad, it's not half as bad as knowing that the kinetic energy of a kamikaze B-17 is about the same as a 16in AP.

[CynicAl]

Sounds like you need the Tabular Records Of Movement for the various combatant navies. The Nihon Kaigun site (www.combinedfleet.com) has fairly complete information for the IJN; the DANFS site (www.hazegray.org) may have enough data online that such a record could be built, though probably not as well organized for the purpose we want here - it could take quite a bit of time and work to extract that data from the records there. I'm not sure where to find TROMs for the RN or the other European navies, but I'd be willing to bet they're out there somewhere.

[angus]

Originally posted by CynicAl
Sounds like you need the Tabular Records Of Movement for the various combatant navies. The Nihon Kaigun site (www.combinedfleet.com) has fairly complete information for the IJN; the DANFS site (www.hazegray.org) may have enough data online that such a record could be built, though probably not as well organized for the purpose we want here - it could take quite a bit of time and work to extract that data from the records there. I'm not sure where to find TROMs for the RN or the other European navies, but I'd be willing to bet they're out there somewhere.

Thanks a lot Al. I think the IJN will do for a start, at least to see if the rather dodgy numbers I came up with for the RN are anything like the Japanese. I'll have a dig on the Kaigun site and see what I can come up with. I'm on call this week so I have plenty of time to waste !

Thanks again,

Angus

[Drongo]

Posted by angus

(*) If you think this is sad, it's not half as bad as knowing that the kinetic energy of a kamikaze B-17 is about the same as a 16in AP.

I think the pair of you are very sick puppies. :p