American sub. failure update.........

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: tigercub
take it like man

Happens rarely these days.

I turn "Realistic US Torpedos OFF" for balancing. The Japanese subs in the game are Type VIIc U-Boats with Kretschmers and Priens in command. Very, very hard to kill. 90% of my ASW attacks fail. In about 30 attacks, I've only sunk one and damaged another.

Ahistorical.

Contrary to what you believe, turning reliable USN torps to 'ON' unbalances the game and makes it ahistorical.


chazz, just a general advice wrt this game and this forum: If you do not accept the complexity of WitP AE, and do not start to search and identify own faults before blaming something else, you will find it difficult to impossible to both understand and enjoy the game.

That you as a new player are unable to cope with IJN sub threat just says something about the learning curve of the game and about your expectations in relation to your actions, but nothing about the capability to cope with the sub threat in general.

[Gaspote]

In 1942, US sub torpedo aren't able to sink a capital warship, I mean even if you hit is successful the carrier will get so tiny damage, she will return to port anyway. You should use them on the merchant fleet what they are supposed to do.

[pharmy]

If your an AFB and want warship successes early on then I recommend Dutch or British subs vs the mini-KB - if I sail it too deep into the DEI I usually lose a CVL. The CVL will probably survive the hit, but with the nearest repair yard being far away (and with Japanese damage control), they usually succumb. The Bay of Bengal is also incredibly dangerous if infested with subs. Gaspote, sometimes even tiny damage on a CV is months of yard time, which is terrible early in the game when you are racing against the amphib bonus timeout. And depends which carrier - IJN CVLs have a durability below 40 - the Hiryu and Soryu around 60. The Shokakus are more survivable with 90 and the ex-BB/BC Kaga are almost imperishable with something like 120.

[pharmy]

ORIGINAL: chazz

I turn "Realistic US Torpedos OFF" for balancing. The Japanese subs in the game are Type VIIc U-Boats with Kretschmers and Priens in command. Very, very hard to kill. 90% of my ASW attacks fail. In about 30 attacks, I've only sunk one and damaged another.

Ahistorical.

IRL, Japanese subs (particularly the big 'uns) were slow divers and noisy.

What date are you at in the game - here is the list of IJN subs lost - use it for comparison - http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/Sub ... anese.html - it seems that in 42 only 7 IJN subs were sunk by DDs and the like

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: sdhundt

For any of you who may have read my American torpedoe rant last weak well here is the update.......My head just exploded.....For the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth time in a row the American subs. torpedoes failed to detonate against a Nip. CV. Three times in one turn American subs. shot torpedoes at the KAGA but none detonated. This has become absolutely absurd.

Your frustrations are miniscule compared to those crews on the actual pigboats of that navy..that era.....Suggest a great read...SILENT VICTORY by Clay Blair........

I'm sure most of us have felt our hormones surge seeing a nice juicy target lined up...just to see the darned thing get away unscathed, while our subs then undergo an intense depth charge attack....

Just like real life for those poor guys..............

[pmelheck1]

I remember reading an account of a sub firing at a disabled ship in perfect firing position and perfect range and ALL torps hit and were duds. He kept his last torp to return to pearl to be analyzed as to why every single shot was a dud. Some of the accounts I've seen would think 80% dud was generous as to what was actually happening. I read why the torp was bad and am somewhat surprised that any exploded.

[tiemanjw]

as others have said, US torps were awful early in the war. I understand your frustration - as I have invented more curse words for those torps than successful attacks. But this is only part of your problem. Even though you keep seeing the "HIT! No explosion" message, it doesn't mean that all your torps hit, but rather just 1 (or more). CVs are hard to hit targets as they can travel at high speeds so fewer torps are going to hit (only 1 or 2 per attack, if any hit at all). Try attacking merchants - they are slower, and you can usually get multiple hits in one attack. 2 Hits, and your effective dud rate goes to 64%, or roughly 1/3 of your "hits" will be successful. Plus those tankers burn easy. All that said though, you are still going to tear your hair out, as most of those juicy tankers and fat merchants still get away.

Also, as others have alluded to... I am envious of the number of times you got into firing position! Turn that on his tankers, and he will be out of gas by mid '43.

[LargeSlowTarget]

In the first four months of the war the submarines of the Asiatic Fleet made 136 attacks, fired 300 torps - and sank only 10 ships.

[witpqs]

"I'm Baaack!"

This thread has arisen from its slumber!

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

"I'm Baaack!"

This thread has arisen from its slumber!

Dude was so good in "Forbidden Planet" and all those TV dramas from the late 50's to early '70s; flips a switch and becomes one of the funniest actors ever.

[HansBolter]

This has been debated to death and as many times as I have seen the debate it I have yet to see anyone produce any historical data to support the games seemingly over the top dud rate of 80% for Mk14 fish.

Everyone knows and agrees that the US had a dud problem (the same exact one the Germans had) and took way, way longer to face the reality of it and fix it than the Germans did, but no one, and I repeat no one has ever shown any historical data to support 80%.

If you play the game long enough you do realize the average of 20% non-duds, but that rate of 80% duds means it is very easy to hit strings of incredible duds. I have personally counted 13 straight duds before getting one that explodes.

It is what it is and we have to live with it as players, but for once I would like to see one of those who believes 80% is accurate to show me the money and defend that particular design decision with something more substantial than a simple "suck it up"!

[Sardaukar]

http://www.historynet.com/us-torpedo-tr ... war-ii.htm

gives some info from Lockwood tests:

What must never be forgotten is the fact that just over 50 years ago, submariners were forced to engage the enemy for 18 months with ordnance that proved to be at least 70 percent unreliable.

I think (I don't really know) that devs got the dud rate 80% from submarine after-patrol reports.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

"I'm Baaack!"

This thread has arisen from its slumber!

No.

Its that new series called "The Last Ship"


years later the sub comes up for air and the crew asks......"Where is everyone?" "Whats a Smartphone?"

[tigercub]

good looking guy when he was a young man!

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

http://www.historynet.com/us-torpedo-tr ... war-ii.htm

gives some info from Lockwood tests:

What must never be forgotten is the fact that just over 50 years ago, submariners were forced to engage the enemy for 18 months with ordnance that proved to be at least 70 percent unreliable.

I think (I don't really know) that devs got the dud rate 80% from submarine after-patrol reports.

Interesting.

I was thinking 67% would be a rate I could by into, but 80% is a hard sell with me that would require some hard data.

[Lecivius]

There were 3 separate problems with American torpedoes. Plus the magnetic exploder was considered so secret testing was deemed a breach of national security [8|] Add in the fact that a certain manufacture was lining the pockets of congress in order to keep lucrative contracts in an economy just coming out of depression, and the delay in getting the issues fixed become more understandable.

Note understandable, but sure as heck not acceptable.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

ORIGINAL: Sardaukar

http://www.historynet.com/us-torpedo-tr ... war-ii.htm

gives some info from Lockwood tests:

What must never be forgotten is the fact that just over 50 years ago, submariners were forced to engage the enemy for 18 months with ordnance that proved to be at least 70 percent unreliable.

I think (I don't really know) that devs got the dud rate 80% from submarine after-patrol reports.

Interesting.

I was thinking 67% would be a rate I could by into, but 80% is a hard sell with me that would require some hard data.

Problem is that the issues with the Mark 14 were solved one at a time over the course of 18 months-each given slightly better results. But yes, 80% in the first two thirds of 1942 is entirely believable but it was a combination of duds and misses that I think are lumped into this high rate. The jump to 40% later on seems right too as the torpedoes were routinely defective until late 43. There were incremental refinements between these dates that could boost efficiency a little bit, but it is Ok with me they way they are.

[HansBolter]

I can't buy that argument CR.

I get 80% duds PLUS huge percentages of misses from the inexperienced crews.

I certainly don't begrudges the misses as the crews ARE inexperienced.

Saying the 80% dud rate seems OK because it also encompasses the miss rate is flat wrong headed from my perspective.

And yes, I agree that the drops in the dud rate are sufficient to make the MK14 carrying subs effective eventually.

I just feel very strongly that the 80% dud rate feels excessive. I say "feels" because I don't have hard data to base my gut feeling on.

I suspect that perhaps no one has accurate hard data (likely very hard to collect as many early reports of duds were scoffed at by higher command and chalked up to misses by inexperienced crews)and the 80% was simply an educated guess on the part of the designers.

[LargeSlowTarget]

Lockwood conducted tests of the contact exploders and they alone had a dud rate of 70%. Together with the depth problem and faulty magnetic exploders a dud rate of 80% in the game seems not unreasonable. USS Tinosa had a dozen duds in a row against a stationary target so no "misses" here. And as I have posted before - 300 torps fired for 10 ships sunk. Even if half the torps missed that leaves 15 torps per ship sunk hitting. And if we generously assume that per sinking three exploding torps were required, that leaves 12 duds out of 15 "hits". I think the devs know their stuff quite well.

[Bullwinkle58]

You can't extend the stats that way. For example, the S-boats didn't have TDCs. The fleet boats did. A lot of those 300 were S-boat shots in the defense of the PI. Training and doctrine also changed rapidly after the first set of short patrols. By early 1942 pre-war training was out the window.

I don't have a problem with 80% in 1941. I do have a problem with it all the way to January 1943. There were well-documented local "fixes" to the torpedo problem, often varying depending on the CO and the degree of risk he was willing to shoulder. But they got better through 1942. Look at the tonnage curves.

I really have a problem keeping the Mk 14 pretty broken almost to the end of 1943.

The key game-wise is if the US submarine force is a strategic tool in the game and something Japan players have to counter. As the stock scenarios work now I think the answer is pretty much no. They were an anti-commerce weapon. In the game they aren't.

Won't be "fixed", but nobody should think that what they see in the game is how it really went.