Bullnose BLOWN OFF

[Torpex77]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

If I recall, GROWLER attacked three destroyers in the Aleutians on her first patrol in 1942. Hit two of the DD's, then the third DD launched torpedoes at Growler. Growler damaged the third in return, severely. That is going solely on memory, I will check my sources have saved and the patrol report and share with here tomorrow.

IMHO, I am inclined to agree with you overall. I will say that if a class of vessel had torpedoes, should be able to fire them in the sim. If they did not have them, really should not have them in the sim, part of maintaining a simulation.

Per the rocket launcher, I have heard that , as a upgrade (Which would be okay if its costly renown wise and only available at end of war) it is is in the works.

I'm skeptical of torpedo's hitting a sub from any surface ship because of my experience in US Subs. When I was on USS Boston, we were a test Platform for the ADCAP, my entire tour, minus a few short deployments, was spent on loading and shooting over 750 exercise weapons over 3 years. Im no expert but being involved in that program, seeing the number of hits vs misses with such an advanced weapon does make me skeptical of ANY WWII surface ship hitting a submerged sub.

A surface ship hitting a surfaced sub is a different story and may account for a few of the 52. The 3D battlefield on surfaced units is more like 2.9D LOL If the torpedo ran on the surface it would still most likely sink a surfaced sub.

Sending Torpedo's would also require the captain to make sure any misses didn't hit his friendlies. I was attacking a task force in the Bismark Sea and some Jap lunatic starting shooting torpedo's at me. I was in the middle of the Task force! Not sure who but they hit an escort and sank it, hit a carrier and a Heavy cruiser. Which I helped to submerge.

So Im not suggesting it should be removed, unless there's no way to control/limit it. Just my experience & thoughts, not making any harsh judgement.

[propbeanie]

Read up a bit on the WW2 Japanese doctrine. They fired torpedoes from long range, and if you didn't know to look out for them, that was your problem. Their DE, DD, CL and CA all had torpedo launchers, and most did not have radar until late, if at all. If nothing is supposed to be in a given area, when something is seen, it must be enemy. All target "ID" was visual, and a submarine on the surface does look like a DE or DD from long distance, hence, they shot torpedoes, probably assuming the "ship" was between 6 & 8k away. Gun engagement would follow at just about the same time as the expected torpedo hits. Here's an interesting article:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...d-war-ii-48887

There are more that describe their long-range and profligate use of torpedoes, and yes, they did hit themselves several times, and their "hit" percentage was generally quite low, with a few engagements off Guadalcanal showing the weapon's potential, but also spotlighting its mis-use... I often wonder how many more torpedoes were shot that US ships never saw because they had changed course with a zig or a zag after the shooting platform let fly? There is an article that studies that perspective, and is in the JANAC reports somewhere... their hit to miss ratio was quite poor, being worse than the early US Mark 14 ratio.

Edit: one thing in the game as it stands now with the use of the TorpGun, is that the DD will indeed use the weapon for AA fire also... so if you see airplanes attacking DD in the game, look-out for torpedoes to be sprayed in every direction. There will also be the inevitable fratricide incidents that way also... The "fix" is to make the guns from a Main gun weapon, but then they shoot torpedoes when you're 10k yards away... so a compromise has been done, and they are short-ranged weapons in FotRSU and TMO_BH.

PS: I found another example of the IJN use of torpedoes, though no details, from H-Gram 068:

“'They Sold Their Lives Dearly' is the title of a Tom Freeman painting that hangs in the entrance to my office at Naval History and Heritage Command. The painting shows USS Houston under a deluge of shellfire, her own guns are blazing away as she is surrounded by an overwhelming Japanese force while attacking the Japanese invasion fleet off Java on the night of 28 February/1 March 1942. It took 87 Japanese torpedoes to put Houston and her consort, Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth, under, and in the chaotic melee, Japanese torpedoes sank four of their own troop transports."

[Torpex77]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

Read up a bit on the WW2 Japanese doctrine. They fired torpedoes from long range, and if you didn't know to look out for them, that was your problem. Their DE, DD, CL and CA all had torpedo launchers, and most did not have radar until late, if at all. If nothing is supposed to be in a given area, when something is seen, it must be enemy. All target "ID" was visual, and a submarine on the surface does look like a DE or DD from long distance, hence, they shot torpedoes, probably assuming the "ship" was between 6 & 8k away. Gun engagement would follow at just about the same time as the expected torpedo hits. Here's an interesting article:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...d-war-ii-48887

There are more that describe their long-range and profligate use of torpedoes, and yes, they did hit themselves several times, and their "hit" percentage was generally quite low, with a few engagements off Guadalcanal showing the weapon's potential, but also spotlighting its mis-use... I often wonder how many more torpedoes were shot that US ships never saw because they had changed course with a zig or a zag after the shooting platform let fly? There is an article that studies that perspective, and is in the JANAC reports somewhere... their hit to miss ratio was quite poor, being worse than the early US Mark 14 ratio.

Edit: one thing in the game as it stands now with the use of the TorpGun, is that the DD will indeed use the weapon for AA fire also... so if you see airplanes attacking DD in the game, look-out for torpedoes to be sprayed in every direction. There will also be the inevitable fratricide incidents that way also... The "fix" is to make the guns from a Main gun weapon, but then they shoot torpedoes when you're 10k yards away... so a compromise has been done, and they are short-ranged weapons in FotRSU and TMO_BH.

PS: I found another example of the IJN use of torpedoes, though no details, from H-Gram 068:

“'They Sold Their Lives Dearly' is the title of a Tom Freeman painting that hangs in the entrance to my office at Naval History and Heritage Command. The painting shows USS Houston under a deluge of shellfire, her own guns are blazing away as she is surrounded by an overwhelming Japanese force while attacking the Japanese invasion fleet off Java on the night of 28 February/1 March 1942. It took 87 Japanese torpedoes to put Houston and her consort, Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth, under, and in the chaotic melee, Japanese torpedoes sank four of their own troop transports."

I read both references. I never disputed that IJN warships did have and did use Torpedo's. The references confirm that they were used against other surface ships.

Im only suggesting that in realistic ASW situation the primary weapon was depth charges (and ramming) against a submarine, NOT torpedo's. had there been more events Im confident they would have been picked up by sonar and documented in the war patrol reports.

I commend that the Mod Team got them working, I think its great, its just that the game engine uses them in a very unrealistic manner.

[propbeanie]

The game engine is sadly lacking in this department. It does not know what to do with the torpedoes, since a "gun" was used to simulate the torpedo. All AI guns are capable of firing at air, surface & submerged targets. I would not be surprised to see them also used against shore guns at some point. That is another reason why they were made short-range weapons in FotRSU. My main point is that there are at least several instances of submarines being shot at by destroyers with torpedoes. That one example was one of three that I can remember, but the only one I could find documentation on without spending 2 weeks going through the submarine War Patrol Reports. The surface ship depth charge was the primary ASW weapon, airplanes probably 2nd, ship guns 3rd, etc... on down to probably 12th on the list for the torpedo (after potatoes even), and my guess would be that the several of their real life uses against submarines was mis-identification of the target due to the range, and therefore, an inappropriate weapon was utilized. Either that, or a torpedoman was at the ready, but no one was in the gun turret at the time...

[Torpex77]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

The game engine is sadly lacking in this department. It does not know what to do with the torpedoes, since a "gun" was used to simulate the torpedo. All AI guns are capable of firing at air, surface & submerged targets. I would not be surprised to see them also used against shore guns at some point. That is another reason why they were made short-range weapons in FotRSU. My main point is that there are at least several instances of submarines being shot at by destroyers with torpedoes. That one example was one of three that I can remember, but the only one I could find documentation on without spending 2 weeks going through the submarine War Patrol Reports. The surface ship depth charge was the primary ASW weapon, airplanes probably 2nd, ship guns 3rd, etc... on down to probably 12th on the list for the torpedo (after potatoes even), and my guess would be that the several of their real life uses against submarines was mis-identification of the target due to the range, and therefore, an inappropriate weapon was utilized. Either that, or a torpedoman was at the ready, but no one was in the gun turret at the time...

LOL Exactly!

On a separate note I did notice you all got the sleeping escort working! How surprised was I to pop the scope spin a look around and whoop-whoop an escort about 700 yards away at zero knots making not a sound!

[propbeanie]

We cannot claim full responsibility for that Torpex77, though I'm certain s7rikeback's cleaning of the ID conflicts has helped in the "logic" of the game being more capable of "thinking" (crunching numbers more efficiently). But the stock game is also capable of the "trick". It seems to be a situationally dependent phenomenon. I don't know if it depends upon if you sink the "Lead" ship of a group, and the group then becomes "unstable", or what. But it does seem to be a part of the game's AI, and seems to be like a roll of the dice, only happening maybe 10-15% of the time, or maybe only under the 2nd blue moon... ??

Like a few WWII skippers, I too have popped my scope up before, seen nothing, nothing on sonar, blown ballast and almost immediately got a "We're under attack sir!!!" message, and there it is, that "smart" AI DD that hung around, and somehow or other ( ) knew to hang-out ~behind~ the way my boat was facing... If I have SJ and it is a dark night, I add a slight pause at Radar Depth and do a couple of quick scans prior to coming up anymore - ~IF~ I think about it...