Ship experience

[Tom Hunter]

A brief study of ship quality.

The table below shows the quality ratings for 9 Allied ships at selected intervals though the Fear and Loathing game. Most of these ships were chosen because they are very familiar to the Japanese, they are the ships that keep attacking and sinking Japanese AP TFs. These are also the ships that sank several Japanese DDs and the Atago off the coast of Malaya.

Repulse picked up a small amount of experience from a battle of Kuching on day 2 or 3 of the war, ate a tin fish and then stayed the same on a long trip back to San Francisco.

Looking at the chart I am a bit disturbed. These ships have fought more night battles than almost all the ships that participated in World War II. They have hit enemy TFs off of Mersing, Kuantan, Toboali and Singapore sinking many ships. Here are some weapon types and sinking statistics:

15”/42 these hits are either Revenge or Royal Sovereign.
Mersing: 3x AP
Kuantan: CA, PG, AP, AK,
Toboali: MSW

That is 8 ships sunk for an aggregate 4 point XP gain.
8”/50 MK VIII on Cornwall, but hits could be from Dorsetshire:
Kuantan: 2x AK PC
Singapore: CL


6”/50
Glasgow only, this ship scores hits in every combat 3% for 2 ships
Kuantan: 2 PC


There are many other sinkings from 6”/45 guns and various types of torpedos that I do not remember well enough to assign to individual ships
‘
Eversten participated in at least 4 surface actions, and finally put 4 4.5” shells and a torpedo into a Japanese AP on March 3rd. Her Xp went up 5% after that, though it is still appallingly low.

Royal Sovereign also hit and sunk a Japanese ship on the night of the 3rd, so her Xp went up 1%. One of the rather disturbing conclusions that I have from this table is that ships don’t seem to get XP from fighting at night or even hitting things at night, they only get it from sinking things at night and they don’t even get much XP for doing that. If that is actually true then fighting surface action is not going to do a hell of a lot for a ships experience.

Other than sinking the enemy can anyone recommend ways to boost ship quality? Any ideas why it is so hard?

[Big B]

Very disturbing Tom.

One of the problems is that the game does not spread experience learned in battle throughout your navy.
Example, after Savo Is the US Navy learned many valuable lessons witch were distributed fleet-wide (which is one reason Savo Is was never repeated during the war). In the next engagement - Cape Esperance - the US Navy really bested the IJN...lessons of Savo learned well.

In the game however, until each individual ship accumulates personal experience points, the broad based quality will never go up - no lessons are learned and shared.
So in 1944 a ship could still be a 60/38 etc.

Other than raise the base values with the editor I don't know what you can do about it...

B

[Tankerace]

Actually experience is just that, experience. You can read all about it in textbooks, but you don't get better until you do it. Keep in mind, the rating is not "ability of learning tactics", it is ship experience. At Cape Esperance the USN performed better than at Savo. But green ships, with green crews, wouldn't fair as well. And experience should take a long time to acheive. If it didn't, then you'd have several ships at 100 by 1943, and that sounds pretty stupid.

Lessons should be spread throughout the battle, but experience is gained through actually doing (which this represents). Ships can train and train and learn, but until they do it under fire they won't actually gain combat experience.

Example: The US army by the Battle of the Bulge had fought in Africa, Italy, France, etc. Yet there were still green divisions. They knew the tatics, but they hadn't yet been under fire. There were disparities in troop experience, and there should (as there are) be dispareties between ship experience.

Personally, I think the model is accurate. (And Im not saying that as a fanboy. A DD at San Fran shouldn't get higher crew experience because of a DD fighting in the Java Sea).

[String]

It all depends on the amount of ships involved I guess. I had Musashi fending off several very large allied BB TF's at Koepang and she had both experience ratings increase from her starting levels (high 60's low 70's) to 80+ on both night and day ratings. This was over a weeklong period with a clash happening almost every day. Sadly, she was sunk in the end, but her long fight enabled me to bring in reinforcements so Koepang turned into a defeat for the allies.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Actually experience is just that, experience. You can read all about it in textbooks, but you don't get better until you do it. Keep in mind, the rating is not "ability of learning tactics", it is ship experience. At Cape Esperance the USN performed better than at Savo. But green ships, with green crews, wouldn't fair as well. And experience should take a long time to acheive. If it didn't, then you'd have several ships at 100 by 1943, and that sounds pretty stupid.

Lessons should be spread throughout the battle, but experience is gained through actually doing (which this represents). Ships can train and train and learn, but until they do it under fire they won't actually gain combat experience.

Example: The US army by the Battle of the Bulge had fought in Africa, Italy, France, etc. Yet there were still green divisions. They knew the tatics, but they hadn't yet been under fire. There were disparities in troop experience, and there should (as there are) be dispareties between ship experience.

Personally, I think the model is accurate. (And Im not saying that as a fanboy. A DD at San Fran shouldn't get higher crew experience because of a DD fighting in the Java Sea).

Essentially I agree with you Tankerace,

However using THAT as the logic for awarding experience levels - there is no way that the IJN should start at an average of 65-70 night experience service wide (or perhaps closer to 65 avg service wide) with the USN starting at an average of 35 night experience service wide....simply because that would imply (using the same standard) that EVERY IJN ship got enough night battle experience BEFORE the war to warrant that high of a rating.
Like you said - "training is one thing, combat experience is another - at THAT is what experience levels are supposed to represent" (to paraphrase you).

A better solution would be to start everyone around 50-55 (trained) and award a 5-10 point lead for the IJN (superior tactical training) and let every ship gain the rest themselves.

At least that way they would be on the same page, with the Japanese still holding an initial advantage.

B

[Tankerace]

Like you said - "training is one thing, combat experience is another - at THAT is what experience levels are supposed to represent" (to paraphrase you).

That is how I have always interpreted the levels. I agree, not every Japanese ship had night experience. But, in almost every historical engagement until late 1942, the Japanese performed better. So, higher exp levels keep that part historical (though admittedly, I though Japan had night bonuses anyway.)

[Nomad]

To me the problem is that there is only one data item "experience" to model a lot of things. If there were a side or nationality wide "tactics" variable then things would be better. The new ships would enter with better tactics but still have experience low( they haven't been in a fight). Then experience is a measure of how well the crew puts the tactics they have learned to use and the tactics variable is a measure of how well a side/nationality is learning the lessons of this particular war. There could/should have been tactics variable for more than just surface combat. And it would have helped to have more than one experience data item for each ship crew.

[Tom Hunter]

More than one arguement going on here. I'll start with Tankerace. I don't think I agree. For example if its early 1942 and the captain of your ship does not believe in radar your going to lose. If the admiral says "pay attention to the Goddam radar!" then your going to do a better job even if you have not used radar in combat before.

Second there are certain types of experience that you just don't get lots of practice in, and surface combat is one of them. Most ships in WWII did not fight more than a few surface battles. Some of them got better between the their battles. If your argument is that it takes 10 battles "a long time to achieve" to make a ship experienced I don't buy that at all, find me a ship that fought 10 surface battles in WWII.

The game does not seem to be based on this idea either, the Japanese had plenty of practice night fighting, and the British did too, but the Japanese did not have any experience until after December 7th 1941.

More generally either experience is a factor or its not, and if a ship is in combat a lot one would think that experience would increase. I think Big B is completly on the money when he says that a whole Navy can learn from the expereince of a squadron or even a single ship.

I would argue that the mark of modern professional navy is the ability to transmit the experience of one ship to all the other ships through training and doctrine.

Then finally there is question at hand, if experiene is important how do you increase it. Fighting does not seem to help much, at least not for these ships. There is a a real catch -22 operating here as can be seen from the Eversten. She has fought in 5 or 6 battles but because she has low XP she does not hit anything, and because she does not sink anything it keep the XP low.

[Tankerace]

I direct you to rule 6.1.24 in the manual, P. 101. SHips gain experience by sailing. So, the manual reccomends giving new ships hakedown cruises in rear areas to increase experience. The ratings take into a ccount more than just combat.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Like you said - "training is one thing, combat experience is another - at THAT is what experience levels are supposed to represent" (to paraphrase you).

That is how I have always interpreted the levels. I agree, not every Japanese ship had night experience. But, in almost every historical engagement until late 1942, the Japanese performed better. So, higher exp levels keep that part historical (though admittedly, I though Japan had night bonuses anyway.)

ORIGINAL: Nomad

To me the problem is that there is only one data item "experience" to model a lot of things. If there were a side or nationality wide "tactics" variable then things would be better. The new ships would enter with better tactics but still have experience low( they haven't been in a fight). Then experience is a measure of how well the crew puts the tactics they have learned to use and the tactics variable is a measure of how well a side/nationality is learning the lessons of this particular war. There could/should have been tactics variable for more than just surface combat. And it would have helped to have more than one experience data item for each ship crew.

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

More than one arguement going on here. I'll start with Tankerace. I don't think I agree. For example if its early 1942 and the captain of your ship does not believe in radar your going to lose. If the admiral says "pay attention to the Goddam radar!" then your going to do a better job even if you have not used radar in combat before.

Second there are certain types of experience that you just don't get lots of practice in, and surface combat is one of them. Most ships in WWII did not fight more than a few surface battles. Some of them got better between the their battles. If your argument is that it takes 10 battles "a long time to achieve" to make a ship experienced I don't buy that at all, find me a ship that fought 10 surface battles in WWII.

The game does not seem to be based on this idea either, the Japanese had plenty of practice night fighting, and the British did too, but the Japanese did not have any experience until after December 7th 1941.

More generally either experience is a factor or its not, and if a ship is in combat a lot one would think that experience would increase. I think Big B is completly on the money when he says that a whole Navy can learn from the expereince of a squadron or even a single ship.

I would argue that the mark of modern professional navy is the ability to transmit the experience of one ship to all the other ships through training and doctrine.

Then finally there is question at hand, if experiene is important how do you increase it. Fighting does not seem to help much, at least not for these ships. There is a a real catch -22 operating here as can be seen from the Eversten. She has fought in 5 or 6 battles but because she has low XP she does not hit anything, and because she does not sink anything it keep the XP low.

I pretty much agree with all of you (if that's possible).
Experience, tactics, the Catch-22 of the system.
I'll go one further and point out that most surface ships in WWII NEVER fought a surface action - but that dosen't mean they couldn't do well when the chance encounter occured.

That's why I suggested the vanilla approach of giving EVERYONE a basic level of 50ish (trained) then adding a bit here and there to account for superior training...

I also DON'T believe ANY ship should get an experience rating (bonus) of 90+ ...the system ought to have limits on top as well.

My thoughts

B

[Tankerace]

Here is the manual entry


SO you see, experience is a ships fighting and sailing rating, and must be acheived by doing. You can increase simply by having the ships at sea.

[Tankerace]

As the game interprests it, any ship at roughly 55 is combat trained, any higher represents experience. So in this since, you have to train the ships, which is fairly accurate. At all the levels Tom posted, your ships are already seasoned veterans.

[Tom Hunter]

Apperently they are combat veterans who have reached the limit of thier ability to learn from combat. Revenge and Royal Sovereign are on their way to sinking more ships than any other BB or BC in history but they still don't move.

Anyone try switching Captains?

[Tankerace]

Captains play a large part in tactics. Low aggression, they trade a few shots and run like hell. Bloodthirsty ones, and they'll attempt to ram the enemy, close in point plank, and BOOM.

[ChezDaJez]

Ships can train and train and learn, but until they do it under fire they won't actually gain combat experience.

I agree with you to a point....

But we do it with pilot training in WitP. Why else would allied pilot training provide increased experience levels as the war progresses. In addition to more effective pilot training techniques overall, these "lessons learned" also provide excellent training. Those "lessons learned" during the war were written in blood and they are what allowed the allies to develop tactics to defeat the Zero. Those lessons were taught to the fleet.

If you remember the old adage, "you fight as you trained," then training is crucial to good performance in battle. Training can forge coordination and tactics amongst units right up to shooting the guns. This is why the Japanese Navy was initially better at night fighting than the allies. They practiced and trained extensively for it. Couple that with their superior optics and torpedo doctrine and you have a well-trained, well-coordinated force that can be expected to outperform their enemies in battle. Once the allies learned how to effectively use radar and better coordination, they were able to turn the tables on the Japanese.

Tom's post indicated that there was little experience gained from combat by ships. If that is true then there is a problem here. How else can you increase the experience levels of the ships?

Chez

[Tankerace]

I agree wholeheartedly with Tom. My main point was simply that because of a series of battles off Guadalcanal, the entire navy shouldn't get more experience. I agree that for each battle ships should gain more experience, but I disagree that other ships should benefit from it. (i.e., ships can train up to the 55 level, but beyond that to gain exp points they need to be in combat themselves).

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

I agree wholeheartedly with Tom. My main point was simply that because of a series of battles off Guadalcanal, the entire navy shouldn't get more experience. I agree that for each battle ships should gain more experience, but I disagree that other ships should benefit from it. (i.e., ships can train up to the 55 level, but beyond that to gain exp points they need to be in combat themselves).

But Tanker,
How do you account for high Japanese experience when - especially at the beginning - they saw no naval action and had no NAVAL combat experience?
Clearly they got their high (65-70) expierience from mere training. A human is a human, if the Japanese could train hard and get those ratings without naval action - why not the Allies?

B

[Tankerace]

My guess? Because historically the Japanese early on always had superior night fighting skill, and bested the Allies badly until late 1942. With the game engine, that was the only way to model that.

Keep in mind, some things are done statistic wise, other things are done to represent history within the game engine.

EDIT: That, and the Allies (Britain and America) didn't put in much night training at the time. Their theory (as far as I can tell) was that ngiht actions should be avoided if possible. The Japanese on the other hand preferred the ngiht action. Different doctrines, different experience levels to match.

[Tom Hunter]

Several points:

"That, and the Allies (Britain and America) didn't put in much night training at the time. Their theory (as far as I can tell) was that ngiht actions should be avoided if possible." - Tankerace

This is factually incorrect. The British were well aware of the importance of night training and worked at it constantly. The Japanese emphasis on night training came in part from analysis of the RN's fighting of Jutland. The British and Japanese were Allies at that time, and their navies traded a great deal of information.

I am not certain that the US Navy sought to avoid night actions, but I agree completely that they did not train hard for them, with disasterous results.

Up above when I was asking about captains I should have been clearer, has anyone seen a ships XP improve more quickly by switching captains.

I am looking for ways to improve my fighting ability. One would think that the best way to do this would be to fight and sink enemy ships. However the evidence is pretty strong that this does not actually work. We might buy the arguement that at 73/83 Glasgow is a really hot ship and therefore does not improve much. But even if that is true Eversten at 68/36 is not a hot ship and did not improve during her involvement in several battles. In fact her night rating did not go up at all until the recent battle at Toboali where she put one torpedo and several shells into a Japanese AP that sank.

That is what makes me think about a catch-22 situation. If you ship is not rated well it's chance of shooting at all in a night action goes down. If it does not shoot it can't hit, if it does not hit it cannot kill, and apparently the only way to get combat credit is to kill.

But in the real world as Woody Allen put it "80% of success is showing up" any ship that fought in 5 or 6 battles would improve at least a bit. Eversten was in at least 3 and did not improve at all. If you count encounters between TFs as a battle she was in 1 off Mersing, 1 off Singapore and 3 off Kuantan and her raiting did not budge. Niether did the rating of Revenge, Stronghold or Vampire.

That really suprised me. I had expected a TF that is constantly fighting to improve and apperently it does not. I'll take a closer read at the manual, and keep trying different things but I am still kind of amazed. And as I said before if anyone knows how to get ship XP to improve I would love to see some suggestions. Especially on getting the ships past 50%.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Several points:

snip...

But in the real world as Woody Allen put it "80% of success is showing up" any ship that fought in 5 or 6 battles would improve at least a bit. ...

I do believe ITRW you will be hard pressed to find ANY ship that fought 5-6 surface actions...if you can find them the list will be small indeed.

My point? It's about training MORE than fighting (in a naval war)

B