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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >> Loading mines on Aragonut Page: [1]
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Loading mines on Aragonut - 7/31/2009 9:07:56 PM   
medicff

 

Posts: 710
Joined: 9/11/2004
From: WPB, Florida
Status: offline 		There are no Mk 12 replacement mines for Aragonaut until 1943? Why?
Post #: 1
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 7/31/2009 10:03:48 PM   
Admiral Scott


Posts: 625
Joined: 1/8/2001
From: Syracuse, NY USA
Status: offline 		AE seems to be anti mine warfare.

(in reply to medicff)
Post #: 2
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 7/31/2009 11:32:34 PM   
NightFlyer


Posts: 68
Joined: 7/24/2009
Status: offline 		I rarely used mines anyway, even moving thru my own minefields gives me the willies since there is a chance you can hit a "friendly" mine. I still use minesweepers though

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Post #: 3
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/1/2009 12:21:45 AM   
pad152

 

Posts: 2871
Joined: 4/23/2000
Status: offline 		I copied Campaign 2 then changed the number of mines per month to 60 for each mine type with the editor. I just use mines for forward base defense. It seems there are members on the AE team that don't like mines!

(in reply to NightFlyer)
Post #: 4
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/1/2009 12:30:52 AM   
seydlitz_slith


Posts: 2036
Joined: 6/16/2002
From: Danville, IL
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: medicff

There are no Mk 12 replacement mines for Aragonaut until 1943? Why?


If I recall, Argonaut never laid a mine during wartime.

From Norm Friedman's "U.S Submarines Through 1945", on page 176:

"The submariners disliked so large a submarine, and V-4 was not altogether satisfactory. For several years the nave sought funds for modernization, including re-engining; they were finally included in the FY40 budget. The Submarine Officers Conference wanted V-4 converted to a conventional submarine that laid mines (if at all) through her torpedo tubes. The General Board retorted that conversion would take 6 mo and cost about $225,000 for two stern tubes, or $300,000 for four. She might then carry 61 Mk 10 torpedo tube mines instead of 68 Mk 11s. The board considered Mk 11 much superior, and the two mines were so different that a combination would much complicate minesweeping.

The approach of war delayed work, but Argonaut was mondernized at Mare Island between February and July 1942. Her two BuEng engines were replaced by four 1,200 BHP GM 12-258S 4-cycle diesels (then being installed in the Cachalots driving through hydraulic couplings and reduction gears; the auxiliary diesel was replaced by one 300 kw GM 8-268A and one 150 kw GM 4-268A. Other improvements were air conditioning; a torpedo data computer (TDC); new electronics, including SD and SJ radar; new long periscopes; and a negative tank. Tow aft external tubes were operated from the mine room, and two external stowage tubes were added aft. The minelaying tubes remained. En route to the Pacific, Argonaut was converted to a transport (APS-1) by stripping out her mine gear at Pearl Harbor to carry 120 Marines to the raid on the Central Pacific island of Makin."


My guess is that since she was a specialist vessel and the navy never liked her in her original configuration, then they didn't have a stockpile of mines for her. At any rate, she did one war patrol then went to be refit. After that she had her mine gear removed and couldn't lay mines anymore. BTW, V-4 was the original name of Argonaut.

(in reply to medicff)
Post #: 5
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/1/2009 12:45:35 AM   
gunnergoz


Posts: 447
Joined: 5/21/2002
From: San Diego CA
Status: offline 		Yep, I remember reading that...all that engineering and cost to set her up for mine work and then, bam!  Pearl guts her out and crams her full of Marines for the Makin raid...of course, leaving several behind on that island, to be beheaded by their Japanese captors.  An ill-starred sub, that was.

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Post #: 6
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/1/2009 1:35:44 AM   
medicff

 

Posts: 710
Joined: 9/11/2004
From: WPB, Florida
Status: offline 		Thanks, I guess history will repeat and she will be refit. In WITP I always kept her as a minelayer.

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Post #: 7
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/1/2009 2:00:59 AM   
seydlitz_slith


Posts: 2036
Joined: 6/16/2002
From: Danville, IL
Status: offline 		If you search the web for the wiki entry on her, it describes her mine gear. I can understand why the navy didn't like it.

"Her minelaying arrangements were "highly ingenious, but extremely complicated", filling two aft compartments. A compensating tube ran down the center of the two spaces, to make up for the lost weight as mines were laid, as well as to store eight additional mines. The other mines were racked in three groups around this tube, two in the fore compartment, one aft, with a hydraulically driven rotating cage between them. Mines were moved by hydraulic worm shafts, the aft racks connecting directly to the launch tubes, which had vertically-sliding hydraulic doors (rather than the usual hinged ones of torpedo tubes). Each launch tube was normally loaded with four mines, and a water 'round mines (WRM) tube flooded to compensate as they were laid, then pumped into the compensating tube. Eight mines could be laid in 10 minutes."

Imagine the difficulty of keeping proper trim and depth control in a huge underwater submarine built with technology from the twenties, while having heavy weights moving and rotating inside the hull in addition to the weight change from launching the units.

(in reply to medicff)
Post #: 8
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/1/2009 9:54:00 AM   
Jonathan Pollard


Posts: 577
Joined: 2/25/2007
From: Federal prison
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: gunnergoz

Yep, I remember reading that...all that engineering and cost to set her up for mine work and then, bam! Pearl guts her out and crams her full of Marines for the Makin raid...of course, leaving several behind on that island, to be beheaded by their Japanese captors. An ill-starred sub, that was.

If the USN had known that it was against the rules for subs to carry Marines, I'm sure they would have left her in its minelaying configuration.

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Post #: 9
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/3/2009 4:34:30 AM   
rogueusmc


Posts: 4548
Joined: 2/8/2004
From: Texas...what country are YOU from?
Status: offline 		It wasn't the toting of the Marines that was the problem...it was the getting them ashore and getting them back that was the toughie...especially the getting them back part...

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There are only two kinds of people that understand Marines: Marines and the enemy. Everyone else has a second-hand opinion.

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Post #: 10
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/3/2009 5:29:50 AM   
gunnergoz


Posts: 447
Joined: 5/21/2002
From: San Diego CA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Jonathan Pollard

quote:

ORIGINAL: gunnergoz

Yep, I remember reading that...all that engineering and cost to set her up for mine work and then, bam! Pearl guts her out and crams her full of Marines for the Makin raid...of course, leaving several behind on that island, to be beheaded by their Japanese captors. An ill-starred sub, that was.

If the USN had known that it was against the rules for subs to carry Marines, I'm sure they would have left her in its minelaying configuration.


I'm not sure what "rules" you are speaking of - my point is that, what seems to be a great engineering idea in peacetime is often a pain in the a_s to deal with in wartime. And in wartime, all sorts of grand plans and schemes often go into the crapper and the protagonists have to wing it. That's pretty much what happened to plans to use Argonaut as a mine layer. She was there, they needed a troop carrier, and the rest was fairly predictable. I'll wager some chiefs on that sub watched the gutting of the mine equipment with glee, knowing they wouldn't have their butts on the line any longer for having to maintain it and make it work. But what happened later to the Marines, and the FUBAR that abandoned some of them to the Japanese, is more of a testament to how war is a learning process where the price of the lessons is in mens' lives.

_____________________________

"Things are getting better!
...Well, maybe not as good as they were yesterday, but much better than they will be tomorrow!"
-Old Russian saying

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Post #: 11
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/3/2009 5:35:02 AM   
bradfordkay

 

Posts: 8666
Joined: 3/24/2002
From: Olympia, WA
Status: offline 		gunnergoz... what JP is talking about is one of the standard "house rules" in WITP PBEM games. It was generally considered "gamey' to conduct invasions via submarine and so a rule often agreed to by PBEM partners was to disallow those landings. 

_____________________________

fair winds,
Brad

(in reply to gunnergoz)
Post #: 12
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/3/2009 5:50:18 AM   
byron13


Posts: 1589
Joined: 7/27/2001
Status: offline 		I'm going to ask only a distantly related question because there are too many threads being started.

If I form a local minesweeping task force, does just forming the task force without giving it any orders mean that it is sweeping its home port? Or do you have to give it a DH of its current port and then maybe set it to do not retire? In other words, how do you sweep your own home port of enemy mines.

Also, does sweeping sweep for friendly mines? I would assume the answer is no, but someone might be nervous enough about hitting one's own mines to decide to sweep a port of both friendly and enemy mines, and there would be no other way to accomplish this other than to not tend the mines an let them drift away over time. Inquiring - even if dull - minds want to know.

(in reply to bradfordkay)
Post #: 13
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/3/2009 6:35:48 AM   
medicff

 

Posts: 710
Joined: 9/11/2004
From: WPB, Florida
Status: offline 		NO to friendly mines;
Yes to constantly sweeping home port for enemy mines.


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Post #: 14
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/3/2009 7:07:37 AM   
gunnergoz


Posts: 447
Joined: 5/21/2002
From: San Diego CA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

gunnergoz... what JP is talking about is one of the standard "house rules" in WITP PBEM games. It was generally considered "gamey' to conduct invasions via submarine and so a rule often agreed to by PBEM partners was to disallow those landings. 


NOW I get it - thanks!

_____________________________

"Things are getting better!
...Well, maybe not as good as they were yesterday, but much better than they will be tomorrow!"
-Old Russian saying

(in reply to bradfordkay)
Post #: 15
RE: Loading mines on Aragonut - 8/3/2009 8:44:41 AM   
mjk428

 

Posts: 1944
Joined: 6/15/2002
From: Western USA
Status: offline
quote:




If I recall, Argonaut never laid a mine during wartime.


Shinano never launched a combat strike and Musashi never fired her main guns at the enemy. They still get planes and ammo respectively.

I plan to upgrade Argonaut when the time comes but it would have been nice to have the option to use the boat to the upmost (and as designed) until that upgrade. I never abused the mine capabilities in WitP and I kinda resent being protected from myself when playing the AI.


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Post #: 16
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