American Gunnery

[Chris21wen]

I'm playing Japan against eh AI and it's Dec 1943. I've noticed over the 6 months a gradual improvement to US naval abilit, torp or gunnery. Early war they couldn't hit a barn door sitting on the handle, night or day, so is the improvement built into the game or is it just crew experiience?

[GreyJoy]

The ships that start to arrive in 1943 have much more experienced crews, both at day and at night. Hardly, in combat, the naval experience grows sadly

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

I'm playing Japan against eh AI and it's Dec 1943. I've noticed over the 6 months a gradual improvement to US naval abilit, torp or gunnery. Early war they couldn't hit a barn door sitting on the handle, night or day, so is the improvement built into the game or is it just crew experiience?

if the ships aren't upgraded it's just experience

[Gunner98]

Upgrades to radar probably have something to do with it as well. IIRC there are quite a few upgrades in the first year and many add radar to the pre-war optical rangefinders etc.

BG

[Chris21wen]

Forgot about the radar, other stuff I thought might be the reason. Thanks

[HistoryGuy]

And training probably gained a bit more emphasis considering new ships crews knew they were going into combat. Hopefully not so many "check the block" events prior to deploying.

[HansBolter]

your torps are also getting more hits that explode instead of bouncing off because your dud rate for the Mk 14s went down in Jan '43. It will drop again in Jan '44.

[Cpt Sherwood]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

your torps are also getting more hits that explode instead of bouncing off because your dud rate for the Mk 14s went down in Jan '43. It will drop again in Jan '44.

I believe that would be September 1943.

[HansBolter]

Which means he has already had two reductions in the dud rate which should have had a big impact on the improvements he has witnessed.

[Lokasenna]

Keep in mind that USN surface torpedoes worked just fine*. The Mk 14 is "fleet boat" subs only.



*Right? Someone please tell me if I'm wrong. I've not really seen many "Hit! but no explosion" messages in surface combats. No more than aerial torpedoes anyway. It just happens sometimes, not 80% or whatever in '42.

[Jorge_Stanbury]

Aerial torpedoes should be a little more reliable

from wikipedia:
The Mark 13 was very similar in design to the Mark 14 and Mark 15 torpedoes which suffered from problems such as submerged running approximately ten feet lower than set, contact exploder duds and magnetic trigger premature explosions. The Mark 13 design avoided these problems with its larger diameter, lesser mass, lesser negative buoyancy, slower running speed and the lack of a magnetic influence feature in its Mark IV exploder

[msieving1]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Keep in mind that USN surface torpedoes worked just fine*. The Mk 14 is "fleet boat" subs only.



*Right? Someone please tell me if I'm wrong. I've not really seen many "Hit! but no explosion" messages in surface combats. No more than aerial torpedoes anyway. It just happens sometimes, not 80% or whatever in '42.

Sorry, wrong. The Mk 15 had the same issues as the Mk 14. In the game, the Mk 15 is given a 60% dud rate instead of 80%, but I suspect the difference is to abstract some other factors that limited US subs in 1942, including a severe shortage of torpedoes and flaws in tactical doctrine. (For example, pre-war a submerged periscope approach was considered too risky, and the preferred attack profile was using sound to track the target. That may have worked in exercises, but didn't work so well in wartime conditions.)