Bizarre combat results

[Jaus1]

I'm new to WitP, but a couple of recent combats have shaken my confidence in the games realism.

In both intstances a single Japanese destroyer waded into the middle of a flottila of ships, ravaged them, and walked away without a scratch.

In the first case I had a TF of 7-8 transports unloading at Noumea with a couple of cruisers and a handful of destroyers as part of that TF. The TF was not docked, but was unloading. THe Japanese DD came in on a night surface action (with no other Japanese units near), sank 5 of the transports, and departed with out taking a hit.

In the second case I had a TF consisting of one BB, 4 DDs, and 4 transports unloading at Midway. Not docked, and all in one TF. Same thing happened. A single lone Japanese DD comes in on a night surface action, puts 15 hits and two torpedoes into the BB, and heavily damages two transports and walks away with no damage whatsoever. The combat report showed both sides engaging at gradually reduced ranges, but no effect from the BB.

I decided to redo the turn with the BB and DD's put into a separate TF with orders to patrol around Midway. This time the covering TF completely missed the Japanese DD and the result was pretty much the same. Finally, another redo of the turn had the BB and DDs again in a separate TF but given Midway as the destination with orders to remain on station. This time the result was what I would expect, the BB blasted the Japanese DD out of the water before it could get close enough to do much damage.

First off, I know about Bushido/Kamikaze and all that, but it seems odd for the AI to send a destroyer on a long voyage into what should be a suicide mission against a massively larger TF in early '42. But maybe the AI knows more about how the game works than I do.

In the end I'm wondering if there are different escort methods/configurations that leave your escorts in a catatonic state where even a BB can't defend itself against a DD. I'm aware the Japanese were good at night actions, but the two initial combat results above seem pretty ridiculous to me.

I want to believe that my orders were not configured correctly and this was just a result of a strange quirk in the orders interpretation in the game. Was my setup wrong, or were these just bizarre results (and how often do such results occur )? And does this single-Japanese-DD-raid-deep-into-hostile-territory thing happen a lot?

(As a footnote I just want to say that the level of suppport available in these forums is amazing, especially for what is a 20 year old game!)

[Ambassador]

Hi,

A couple of considerations, to answer to your puzzlement (without going too much into the details).

1) Quality of respective forces

Early war, USN warships start with low XP. Day XP is in the 50’s, while night XP is in the 30’s. By comparison, IJN warships start with day XP in the high 60’s or low 70’s, and night XP is in the high 60’s too. This is a considerable advantage, and it takes a lot of time for ships to simply reach 50 night XP when starting from so low.

Also, most of the IJN DD are equipped with the type 93 torpedo, the famed Long Lance. While I have recently read an article showing their performances were not as good as hoped or reputed (http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-067.php), they were still far better than US (or other Allied) torpedoes, and it shows in the game. I have the feeling they are too good, but the IJN needs some advantages to be slightly relevant on the long term (it’s a game : no one would want to play Japan if it was really hopeless). Anyway, in the game, they are far better : longer range, better accuracy, greater effect.

In addition, most Allied ship captains at start are average at best (low 50’s) or worse, while IJN ship captains are mostly good (lots of 60’s or 70’s). If you did not change leaders, those higher Naval skills (and Aggression skills) lead to better performances in combat. Also, unless you paid PP to assign a TF commander, the captain of the flagship is the TF commander, and if he is average or mediocre, the IJN’s in the same circumstances will also be very good, given the quality of their ship captains.

Moreover, to perform adequately in night combat, USN warships need to have their radars - and early ‘42, most won’t have a radar. They get it in various upgrades, across 1942.

Lastly, a DD is not equal to a DD. Some of the USN destroyers available at start are not very good (Clemson- and Wickes-classes). Same for other types of ships (beware of CL Adelaide for example). Without knowing the exact composition of your task forces, it’s hard to give a full opinion.

2) Performance in combat

Besides all the above factors relative to the ships, XP and leadership, performance in combat may vary. A big factor is the Detection Level, or DL, assigned to each ship at the start of the combat. Not all the factors are known, but XP, leadership, and radar, play a role.
This DL will play a part in allowing ships to actually engage enemy ships. In early night combat, advantage goes to the IJN for all the factors mentioned above. Early war, Japan often has high DL/MDL on Allied TFs.

Also, bigger TF get a penalty in combat, in certain circumstances. So, advantage for the small, possibly one-ship, combat TF.
Related is the fact that you included the cruisers and BB in the transport TF, so they’re limited to transport ships’ speed. It has been hinted that speed plays a role, which is logical in fact. If you want to protect a TF from surface enemy combatants, it’s better to have a Surface Combat TF.

Moreover, lack of radar on the USN ships means the night combat will start at a closer range, which increases the probability of the type 93 torpedoes to hit their target (especially an old, slow and pachydermic battleship).

3) AI

AI performs poorly (I’d have another word to use, but I try to stay polite in 2023). The only way you get the impression it works adequately, is through the scripts which the game engine will follow blindly. If the script tells to send a naval attack to Midway, the computer will do it, and if it doesn’t have enough ships to include in the TF, it’ll use a lone DD (or even SC, PB if they lack the heaviest warships).

This is also why it’s so easy to derail the AI’s game. After a couple of grand campaigns, you really shouldn’t try to defend any base Japan wants to take in the first six months, otherwise the AI will kill its forces (air, land, sea) trying to achieve its objectives.


So, overall I’d say your experience is typical of early game. Things you need to do in ‘42 is protect your ships, let them do the upgrades (late Spring and Summer-Autumn upgrades are primordial), make them gain XP (especially night XP) without taking risks, check leaders. Important TFs should have a good leader picked, too.
And hold on ! The game’s learning curve is steep and long, but it’s the best wargame I’ve seen.

[Jaus1]

Thanks. I'm disappointed to hear that this may be a typical early-game experience. I'm aware of Japan's advantages early-war, and the other factors you describe, but the imbalance of these engagements was so extreme, and the distance the DD had to cover sole so great, that I really can't think of real world circumstances that would produce such extreme results.

Yes, this game does have a very steep learning curve, but if results like these are going to be typical I doubt I will continue to climb it.

[Ambassador]

You do remember that no Japanese surface combat ship (bigger than a small patrol boat) had been sunk by the Allies’ surface or air assets before Coral Sea, don’t you ? While in the meantime the same Allies lost, in surface engagement, I don’t remember how many cruisers (at least 5) and destroyers (at least a dozen or two) ?

Also, regarding Japanese destroyers’ performance in the war, please read this : https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedi ... rld-war-ii

Extract :
« Radar did not at once win the night war for the U. S. Navy. Though their scientists had served 'them badly, the Jap destroyers still fought back, winning their greatest victories under this handicap. Eight battles5 they fought with American cruisers and destroyers, battles where we had radar and they did not; yet in those they sank two and torpedoed nine Allied cruisers and sank seven or eight destroyers for a cost of one light cruiser and nine destroyers of their own. The degree of ambush varied from complete surprise in the action off Vila Stanmore in March, 1943, to a very qualified surprise at Kolombangara, where the radarless enemy discovered our approach by radar receivers; but the circumstances were certainly disadvantageous in all cases, and yet the DesRons gained great victories. In the five battles where squadron formations met American cruiser forces, they sank 33,000 tons of American warships and damaged 85,000 tons, in exchange for 16,000 tons of Jap cruisers and destroyers sunk and a similar tonnage damaged6. »

This is during the Guadalcanal campaign, with radar-equipped USN ships who had been at war for over 9 months by then.

[Jaus1]

I don't dispute what you quote, but they are aggregate results and instances of squadron actions. And remember I'm not talking about ordinary poor performance from my escort ships, I'm talking about no ability to inflict even one shell hit on a single DD during the entirety of two incidents (not including replays) despite facing 12 and 5 opposing ships respectively. This was not a hit and run, the DD in these engagements inflicted a large number of hits in each engagement so they stayed for a while. Then there is the odd nature of a 'kamikaze' DD going up against such odds all alone 500 miles from the nearest support. Strange.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree on my specific results. Has anyone else experienced similar engagements?


I'm also still curious about what escort configurations do and don't work,

I see three basic schemes for protecting vulnerable TF's (vTF) while ocean crossing, unloading, etc.:

1) Escort vessels within the 'Transport' vTF (Actually this may have been the problem, perhaps surface combatants in a TF with 'Transport' missions are ineffective, although they seem to be effective against subs)
2) Escort set to 'Surface Combat' and instructed to 'Follow' vTF at 0 hex
3) Escort vessels assigned to 'Escort' mission ( I have to say I'm not sure what this is really supposed to do in the game)

What other possibilities are there?

[Ambassador]

Not all ships in a TF get to participate in a fight, especially against a smaller enemy TF, and especially when lacking experience or skill, or surprised.

Before I take more time to answer you, please provide the following informations :

What is the date of the combats ?

Which Japanese destroyers are we talking about ?

Which BB, cruisers and destroyers were involved in the two combats ? What are their experience levels, day and night ?
What are the skills of their captains ? Skills of the TF leaders ? Did you bother to change leaders, or appoint a decent TF commander ?

Did your ships expend much ammunition ?

Did you see a message that the Allied TF is surprised ?

What was the starting range of the engagement ?

What type of shell hits are we talking about ? Exclusively 12.7cm or 25mm too ?

Each and everyone of those informations, which you didn’t provide, can help explain what happened. As I said, steep and long curve.

[pnzrgnral]

Jaus1, the way the game handles combat routines is quite involved and depends upon a great many factors, which Ambassador has pointed out. One of my pet peeves was seeing an AI-driven Jap destroyer conduct a night surface intercept of any of my US CVTF's and see really bizarre results, almost always with damage and loss to CV's and results comparable to what you stated. However...there IS such a thing as karma in this game. Keep at it, don't lose interest or hope, muddle through, and you'll see incredible results the other way around. Best way to kill a relatively heavily escorted Jap transport TF is hit it with a SCTF when it's in port - you'll almost never see a return shot with lots of Jap cruisers, destroyers etc sunk and damaged. Keep at it and enjoy!

[RangerJoe]

There was a Japanese destroyer sunk at Wake with a 100 pound bomb dropped by Captain Henry Talmadge "Hammering Hank" Elrod, he also attacked 22 enemy aircraft and later commanded ground troops on Wake. His widow received his Medal Of Honor. She has her own story about as well about her service. His uncle in law was a retired admiral who entered the US Navy because of an act of Congress.

"On December 4, 1941, Captain Elrod flew to Wake Island with twelve aircraft, twelve pilots, and the ground crew of Major Paul A. Putnam's fighter squadron, VMF-211. Hostilities in the air over Wake Island commenced on December 8, 1941. On December 12, he single-handedly attacked a flight of 22 enemy planes and shot down two. He executed several low-altitude bombing and strafing runs on enemy ships; during one of these attacks, he became the first man to sink a warship, the Japanese destroyer Kisaragi, with small-caliber bombs delivered from a fighter aircraft, dropping the bombs onto the destroyer's stern, causing the depth charges to explode.

When all the U.S. aircraft had been destroyed by Japanese fire, he organized remaining troops into a beach defense unit which repulsed repeated Japanese attacks. On December 23, 1941, Captain Elrod was mortally wounded while protecting his men who were carrying ammunition to a gun emplacement.

He was posthumously promoted to major on November 8, 1946, and his widow was presented with the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the defense of Wake Island. His widow, the former Elizabeth Hogun Jackson, was the niece of Admiral Richard H. Jackson and served as a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_T._Elrod

:Richard Harrison Jackson (May 10, 1866 – October 2, 1971) was a four-star admiral in the United States Navy. Originally cashiered from the Navy for poor grades at the U.S. Naval Academy, he was commissioned ensign by special act of Congress for his heroism during the 1889 Apia cyclone. He served as commander in chief of the Battle Fleet in 1926 and lived to be 105 years old."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_H._Jackson

But while he was going through the US Naval acadey, he was also going to medical school!

[RangerJoe]

If you read about the naval part of the first Battle of Balikpapan in 1942, you can imagine what happened in your game. Even though the Japanese saw the American destroyers, they did not engage them. Just think if the US Mark 15 torpedoes would have worked properly . . .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of ... pan_(1942)

[Ambassador]

I had a list attributing Kisaragi’s loss to shore batteries (on hyperwar, by the joint assessment committee : https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/ ... ses-3.html ), but whatever, it’s still not a surface action loss.

By the way, there are conflicting sources on the sinking, another version has the bomb destroying the bridge, and starting a fire. ( http://www.combinedfleet.com/kisara_t.htm )

[Platoonist]

My favorite real-life bizarre combat would have to be the March 1942 running battle between the old four-stacker destroyer USS Edsall and the Japanese battleships Hiei and Kirishima and the heavy cruisers Tone and Chikuma. Seemed like it would be a slam-dunk but wasn't. The Japanese fired well over 1,300 14" and 8" shells but scored only two hits on the evasive DD which was actually running at reduced speed due to previous battle damage. So frustrated were the Japanese commanders that after an hour they passed an order out to the nearby Kido Butai for the assistance of aircraft. An incensed Admiral Nagumo had to call in the dive bombers to put this plucky little destroyer down. The Japanese after action report described the sinking of Edsall as a fiasco. The Japanese Navy revised rules of engagement for battleships and cruisers against destroyers as a result.

I guess in the light of RL events like this and others I can forgive some oddities in combat.

[RangerJoe]

It was the Hayate that was sunk by battery L, a 5/51" battery, which may have cause a magazine, torpedo, or depth charge explosion with only one survivor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ ... ate_(1925)

The Kisargi was sunk by the Wildcat, no survivors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ ... agi_(1925)

[Yaab]

I see three basic schemes for protecting vulnerable TF's (vTF) while ocean crossing, unloading, etc.:

1) Escort vessels within the 'Transport' vTF (Actually this may have been the problem, perhaps surface combatants in a TF with 'Transport' missions are ineffective, although they seem to be effective against subs)
2) Escort set to 'Surface Combat' and instructed to 'Follow' vTF at 0 hex
3) Escort vessels assigned to 'Escort' mission ( I have to say I'm not sure what this is really supposed to do in the game)

What other possibilities are there?

4) Escort TF set to 'Surface Combat and followed by Transport' vTF at 0 hex

[Marauder11]

Realistically these events would be possible. The forces you talk about were small, at anchor, and attached to merchant class shipping., in other words pinned and unable to respond appropriately. While I don't think that what you are describing would have happened at Midway I do think it would have been possible at other locations. Most people only think of destroyers as small escort ships when in reality they weren't. Numerous tactics were developed by the British under Adm Jackie Fisher and then expanded upon by all nations. Destroyers during daylight would help screen and and scout and then at night would form into small groups and attack with torpedo's. Because of this destroyers and light cruisers dominated the night and large ships were extremely venerable to them. There are several instances that this happened. At the The First Battle of Sirte the Regia Marina withdrew because of this even though the Italians out numbered and out gunned the British. In the Guadalcanal campaign there were several actions like this. There were several other instances in WWII and throughout naval history that in essence are similar to what you describe. HMS Warspite sailed into Narvik undetected and sank a German force at anchor. As I mentioned The First Battle of Sirte the Royal navy with 5 light cruisers and 14 destroyers held off 4 battleships 2 heavy cruisers 3 light cruisers and 13 destroyers. At the battle of Surigao Strait the US destroyers caused havoc with the Japanese battleships.

In regards to "escort methods/configurations" normally for example I have a surface TF followed by a transport/amphibious task force then a replenishment TF or an ASW TF followed by a cargo TF, etc. While in a contested area and I have a TF in port unloading I set a surface combat TF to patrol and react. At Port Moresby I have two cruiser forces patrolling and set to react

Port Moresby.jpg (64.34 KiB) Viewed 806 times

[btd64]

This is addressed to the OP. Don't let these battles discourage you from this great game. As you can see above it happens in RL. Move forward....GP

[Trugrit]

All good advice.

But….is this the new Beta install?

Standard Campaign Game?

I’ve never seen this happen to me except in one of of the
Ironman Nasty type scenarios.

Andy Mac has been modifying the Beta scenarios.
It is well known that Andy Mac can drop a Japanese Task Force
close to you almost from outer space when he wants to.

[Jaus1]

..... The forces you talk about were small, at anchor, and attached to merchant class shipping., in other words pinned and unable to respond appropriately.

Ok, this is what I really want to get at.

In regards to "escort methods/configurations" normally for example I have a surface TF followed by a transport/amphibious task force then a replenishment TF or an ASW TF followed by a cargo TF, etc. While in a contested area and I have a TF in port unloading I set a surface combat TF to patrol and react. At Port Moresby I have two cruiser forces patrolling and set to react Port Moresby.jpg

I'm going to start a new topic to discuss escort schemes as that question got lost in this topic. I think I have misinterpreted how escorts should function and the combatant ships I have put in 'Transport' TF's have been rendered ineffective.

[RangerJoe]

There is a difference between "close" escorts which are in the same task force and "far" escorts which are in a separate task force. Look up how the British and Americans had their heavy ships escorting convoys to and from northern Russia during World War II.