One dreams of this PH!

[Mr.Frag]

Had one of those perfect starts you just just dream of seeing, thought I'd share it. By far, the absolute best PH result I have ever seen. Normal is 1-3 BB's sink, lots damaged.

[BPRE]

Hi,

Did the APs hitting the PTs explode or did they just make a very big hole

/BPRE

[LargeSlowTarget]

Maybe the bombs missed but their suction dragged the PTs under the surface...

[Luskan]

Man - I didn't do that well and I sent my planes back 3 times!

[Mr.Frag]

Man - I didn't do that well and I sent my planes back 3 times!

I know Luskan, my normal is 1 sinks and another goes down the following turn.

This was a default run (nothing changed or set differently) with a single morning attack. As I was watching the sunk messages pile up I was cursing myself for not saving it as my master turn #1

[Bulldog61]

I always smile when I find that a PT boat was sunk by a torpedo!

[Mr.Frag]

I always smile when I find that a PT boat was sunk by a torpedo!

Thats like the ultimate irony eh?

[Mike Scholl]

Thats like the ultimate irony eh?

The ULTIMATE irony is when it says the Pennsylvania was sunk by torpedoes..,
on her chocks in a drydock!

[Bulldog61]

The ULTIMATE irony is when it says the Pennsylvania was sunk by torpedoes..,
on her chocks in a drydock!

Seen that happen too!

[Bobthehatchit]

I always smile when I find that a PT boat was sunk by a torpedo!

What did they do? drop it thought the hatch????!!!

[Mike Scholl]

What did they do? drop it thought the hatch????!!!

Even if the "miracle" you mentioned had occurred, the torpedo wouldn't have
been "armed"---they have to travel through water to arm themselves. It's
just pitifully bad programming. Easy to correct, though. Just prevent the
use of torpedoes in port attacks. The "loss of historical accuracy" at PH would
be more than made up for in the next 4 years of turns.

[madflava13]

Mike,
You're forgetting Taranto, Truk and hundreds of other port attacks carried out with torpedos during the war. There were literally hundreds of times US Carrier aircraft used torpedos on merchant shipping in ports throughout the Pacific in WW2. Just because it wasn't a huge attack with hundreds of planes and capital ships doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't see torpedos in port attacks as "pitifully bad programming" at all. In fact, I think thats a gross exaggeration and doesn't reflect the reality of these games and the skills of the designers.

I think torpedos in port attacks need to stay in the game in order to accurately reflect history.

[Luskan]

Easy to correct, though. Just prevent the
use of torpedoes in port attacks. The "loss of historical accuracy" at PH would
be more than made up for in the next 4 years of turns.

Nice try - but it is never going to happen.
Besides, one of my two big "things" I rant about in the development forum is the indestructibility of PT boats and how super effective they are (compared to historically). Any way to sink the bastards is fine with me.

[TIMJOT]

Mike,
You're forgetting Taranto, Truk and hundreds of other port attacks carried out with torpedos during the war. There were literally hundreds of times US Carrier aircraft used torpedos on merchant shipping in ports throughout the Pacific in WW2. Just because it wasn't a huge attack with hundreds of planes and capital ships doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't see torpedos in port attacks as "pitifully bad programming" at all. In fact, I think thats a gross exaggeration and doesn't reflect the reality of these games and the skills of the designers.

I think torpedos in port attacks need to stay in the game in order to accurately reflect history.

Madfava

Hundreds of times? Not sure you are correct about that. You can hardly call Truk a port. It is a huge wide open lagoon. A natural anchorage but not a port by any stretch of the imagination. Personally I can not recall a single USN port attack useing torpedoes. They were not used at Kure or Yokuska. I am not sure about Rabaul, but I do not believe they were ever used their either. What hundreds of attacks are you refering to?

As far as the IJN is concerned. After PH the IJN did not mount torpedo attacks on any other port. Not at Manila, Singapore, Sorebaya, Darwin, Colombo, Tricomolee.

There are only a very few ports in the Pacific were torp attacks from single engine carrier torp bombers were possible. I am pretty positive there are no ports were multi-engine (Nells,Betty,B-26s) could successfully make torp attacks. IMHO, Since geography of individual ports are not modeled, excludeing port torpedo attacks might not be a bad compromise, with PH being the only special exception.

[Bulldog61]

Even if the "miracle" you mentioned had occurred, the torpedo wouldn't have
been "armed"---they have to travel through water to arm themselves. It's
just pitifully bad programming. Easy to correct, though. Just prevent the
use of torpedoes in port attacks. The "loss of historical accuracy" at PH would
be more than made up for in the next 4 years of turns.

I think a lot of us are ok with torpedo planes making torpedo attacks in ports because it did happen. It's the level bombers that we hope to see curtailed from that activity. There was a thread a while back where we were trying to see if anyone knew of any occasion of this happening. Every occurance was a torpedo plane (Kates,Swordfish, TBFs).

[TIMJOT]

I think a lot of us are ok with torpedo planes making torpedo attacks in ports because it did happen. It's the level bombers that we hope to see curtailed from that activity. There was a thread a while back where we were trying to see if anyone knew of any occasion of this happening. Every occurance was a torpedo plane (Kates,Swordfish, TBFs).

Mike

Which port besides the Truk lagoon did TBF's launced torpedo attacks?

That being said. I personally can live with CV torp bombers being allowed torp attacks for game purposes, but agree that multi-engine level bombers should absolutely be disallowed from this activity.

Regards

[madflava13]

Timjot,
I'm not referring to massive carrier attacks, I'm talking about strikes such as Halsey's attacks in the Phillipines/Formosa regions, etc. Attacks where one or two planes find a freighter or other ship holed up somewhere and sink it. A lot of those attacks used torpedos. I'll try to scrounge up some sources later on. I know I've seen photos of those strikes as well.

I agree some ports were not suitable for torpedo attacks. However, unless there is the ability to code in the game the exact geography of each and every port, there's no real way to restrict it.

For example, Simpson harbor at Rabaul was huge - an S boat penetrated quite some distance into it early in the war. I don't know whether torpedo attacks were carried out there ever, but if a whole sub can get in there, surely a TBF could drop a torpedo. Wewak harbor was penetrated by the Wahoo in 1942 I believe - she sank a Chidori class PC in there. Clearly planes could do the same. Truk as you mentioned was a huge lagoon - definitely ok to use torps there.

The main problem isn't getting enough room to have the torp arm, its the problem of approach and pull-out for planes. US torpedos only needed a few hundred yards of run-time to arm. Almost every port in the world of any consequence has that much room. In my opinion, there's also certainly enough ports in the game where a torpedo bomber could approach from seaward, drop and then pull out in time. I think the minority of ports are the ones where this isn't possible. I would even say PH is such a port, but the Japanese still managed to pull it off with their mods. In that respect I think this is a feature that should still be included.

You may have a point with respect to twin engine bombers. They'd certainly require more room for approaches and drops. I just don't want to see CV-based torpedo attacks taken out because they didn't happen historically. I think they could have happened in many ports, and therefore should still be in the game. My two cents...

[madflava13]

I'm at school so I don't have all my books with me, but here's some links from some quick net research I just did:

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/provinces/ ... _guam.html - Tokai Maru sunk by aerial Torpedo attack in Apra Harbor, Guam

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/b ... 25-18.html - Glide Torpedo attacks by US B-25s in the Sasebo and Nagasaki harbors at the end of the war. Not necessarily relevant to this discussion, but interesting nonetheless.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~diving/a ... inkoku.htm - Shinkoku Maru sunk by US aerial torpedos, Truk Lagoon.

http://www.geocities.com/jimvasko_94555/history.htm - USS John Rawlins, Liberty Ship hit at Naha Harbor, Okinawa (Ctrl-F to jump to the description)

Also, consider that many of the locations in WiTP listed as ports aren't really ports in the sense of PH. Guadalcanal, Truk, Tulagi, Ulithi, et al. are going to be listed as "ports" in the game, but these are either huge lagoons or open beach areas where supplies can be unloaded. Disallowing torpedo attacks in the game would severely and a-(or is it un)historically limit a player's options in these situations.

[TIMJOT]

Timjot,
I'm not referring to massive carrier attacks, I'm talking about strikes such as Halsey's attacks in the Phillipines/Formosa regions, etc. Attacks where one or two planes find a freighter or other ship holed up somewhere and sink it. A lot of those attacks used torpedos. I'll try to scrounge up some sources later on. I know I've seen photos of those strikes as well.

I agree some ports were not suitable for torpedo attacks. However, unless there is the ability to code in the game the exact geography of each and every port, there's no real way to restrict it.

For example, Simpson harbor at Rabaul was huge - an S boat penetrated quite some distance into it early in the war. I don't know whether torpedo attacks were carried out there ever, but if a whole sub can get in there, surely a TBF could drop a torpedo. Wewak harbor was penetrated by the Wahoo in 1942 I believe - she sank a Chidori class PC in there. Clearly planes could do the same. Truk as you mentioned was a huge lagoon - definitely ok to use torps there.

The main problem isn't getting enough room to have the torp arm, its the problem of approach and pull-out for planes. US torpedos only needed a few hundred yards of run-time to arm. Almost every port in the world of any consequence has that much room. In my opinion, there's also certainly enough ports in the game where a torpedo bomber could approach from seaward, drop and then pull out in time. I think the minority of ports are the ones where this isn't possible. I would even say PH is such a port, but the Japanese still managed to pull it off with their mods. In that respect I think this is a feature that should still be included.

You may have a point with respect to twin engine bombers. They'd certainly require more room for approaches and drops. I just don't want to see CV-based torpedo attacks taken out because they didn't happen historically. I think they could have happened in many ports, and therefore should still be in the game. My two cents...

I think you might be surprised just how few ports were suitable for torpedo attacks. Regarding subs, they are not really pertinent to the discussion. Minus subnets and mines any sub can pentrate a harbor. Planes need much more room and a clear flight path to launch attacks than a sub. Its really not just a matter of arming. Ports have jetties, breakers, sandbars, warfs, piers, floating docks torp nets ect... that tend to get in the way of planes flying in 100s mph. This is less a problem in large natural anchorages like Truk, but there arent that many Truks in the pacific. Manus and Rabaul's Port Simpson comes to mind as they were large but not very developed ports.

Again look at history the USN did not use torp bombers in the Kure/Yokosuka Pearl harbor revenge raids in 1945. Kido Butai did not use torp bombers at Darwin, Colombo, and Tricomalee. Actually Pearl Harbor is a good example just how difficult it is. The IJN torp pilots trained for months for the attack yet despite a large stationary broadside target (Battleship row) only about dozen torpedos out of some 40 torpedo bombers taking part, found their mark. We have to assume the vast majority of those torps either failed to arm, got stuck in the mud or failed to raze to the proper depth.

That being said, since as you stated the game engine doesnt really differentiate betweens ports, harbors, anchorages, and roads. So there is probably no easy way to model it realistically. Maybe instead of restricting torp attacks in ports. All that is needed is additional disruptions hits on torpedo bombers to limit their effectiveness in ports.

Regards

[wobbly]

That being said, since as you stated the game engine doesnt really differentiate betweens ports, harbors, anchorages, and roads. So there is probably no easy way to model it realistically. Maybe instead of restricting torp attacks in ports. All that is needed is additional disruptions hits on torpedo bombers to limit their effectiveness in ports.

Regards

Possibly another check made on torpedo planes when attacking in an anchorage/port. If you watch the combat reply bringing up a "section unable to get clear torpedo run on target" message and have them abort their attack - much like the "section unable to find target" message you get when a ship has sunk.