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Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 4:20:15 AM   
Tom Hunter


Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/14/2004
Status: offline 		This post is from my AAR with Mogami, but I wanted to put it here since there is some talk of WitP 2.

We all know that land combat is completely screwed up. We also know that the air combat model does not work properly with large battles, which is another way of saying that the air combat model is broken, various people at Matrix have said this.

We also know (see a different thread) that warship ammo loads are broken. And we know that surface raiders Vs. Merchant ship combat is broken.

Now here is some pretty compelling evidence that large scale naval combat is broken as well. As far as I can tell this means that the combat systems do a decent job of simulating medium sized air and naval actions, which is kind of weak.

Take a look:

Today Mogami sent a force of 3 CAs 2 CLs and 8 DDs against a total of 7 BBs, 2 CAs, 7CLs, 14 DDs and 12 PT boats. He hands down won.

The Japanese scored mutlipe torpedo hits over 7 or more rounds of combat with 3 different TFs, the Allies scored on torpedo hit and 2 heavy shell hits.

They did score a number of lighter calber hits that slowed the Japanese DDs and the 2 heavy caliber shell hits slowed the Atago, Atago and 4 DDs were sunk by Allied aircraft the next day.

On the Allied side Resolution is at 84 float and a number of other ships are badly damaged. All the British ships and the Oklahoma had hand picked captains and the best leaders the Brits have to offer.

I have a number of explainations for this result:

One is that (as discussed on a different thread) ammo and rates of fire are a mess.

2 is that manuever works as armor (makes a ship harder to hit) in this game, but that does not happen in gunnery battles because ships need to steer in straight lines to shoot accurately. This gives a huge bonus to the CAs and CLs which are much more difficult to hit than the BBs.

3 The combat system models big guns wrong, they don't hit often enough. By WWII radar directed guns were hitting with 10% or more of thier shells, which is one hit per salvo for most BBs most of the time.

Finally the Japanese have access to 90 Naval Skill leaders, the British have access to 60 Naval Skill leaders. Considering that the Japanese were trained by the British this is really odd. It certainly helped screw me.

Of course strategically I won, the Japanese did not sink any transports and my CVs murdered half of Mogami's TF the next day. But I am still appalled at how bad the naval combat system really is.

Here are the results:

Night Time Surface Combat, near Sorong at 42,74 Somerville was suprised on round 1 of this combat.

Japanese Ships
CA Atago
CA Haguro, Shell hits 2
CA Nachi, Shell hits 3
CL Naka
CL Nagara, Shell hits 3, on fire
DD Teruzuki, Shell hits 3, on fire
DD Yugumo
DD Kagero, Shell hits 1
DD Kuroshio, Shell hits 1
DD Hatsukaze
DD Natsushio, Shell hits 5
DD Hayashio, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Asagumo, Shell hits 1, on fire

Allied Ships
BB Warspite
BB Revenge, Shell hits 6
BB Ramilles, Shell hits 5
BB Resolution, Shell hits 12, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
CA Exeter, Shell hits 1
CL Leander, Shell hits 4
CL Achilles, Shell hits 2
CL Newcastle, Shell hits 9, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Voyager, Shell hits 3
DD Vampire, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Vendetta
DD Le Triomphant
DD Isis, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Jupiter, Shell hits 1
DD Norman

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Sorong at 42,74 Niether side was suprised

Japanese Ships
CA Atago, Shell hits 2, on fire
CA Haguro, Shell hits 2
CA Nachi
CL Naka
CL Nagara, on fire
DD Teruzuki, Shell hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yugumo, Shell hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
DD Kagero
DD Kuroshio
DD Hatsukaze
DD Natsushio
DD Hayashio, on fire
DD Asagumo, on fire

Allied Ships
BB Warspite, Shell hits 1
BB Revenge, Shell hits 1
BB Ramilles
BB Resolution, on fire, heavy damage
CA Exeter
CL Leander
CL Achilles, Shell hits 1
CL Newcastle, on fire, heavy damage
DD Voyager
DD Vampire, on fire
DD Vendetta
DD Le Triomphant
DD Isis, on fire
DD Jupiter
DD Norman, Shell hits 1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Sorong at 42,74 Niether side was suprised

Japanese Ships
CA Atago, Shell hits 1, on fire
CA Haguro
CA Nachi, Shell hits 4, on fire
CL Naka
CL Nagara, on fire
DD Teruzuki, Shell hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yugumo, Shell hits 5, on fire, heavy damage
DD Kagero
DD Kuroshio, Shell hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Hatsukaze, Shell hits 1
DD Natsushio, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Hayashio, Shell hits 1, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
DD Asagumo, on fire

Allied Ships
BB Prince of Wales, Shell hits 1 Hit one Japanese ship once in 2-3 rounds with a 14"
BC Repulse, Shell hits 2 No hits at all with the main battery
CA Cornwall
CL Dauntless, Shell hits 1
CL Mauritius
CL Birmingham
CL Glasgow
DD Arrow
DD Electra
DD Fortune
DD Hotspur, Shell hits 2, on fire
DD Pakenham
DD Paladin
DD Panther, Shell hits 1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Sorong at 42,74 Niether side was suprised

Japanese Ships
CA Atago, Shell hits 3, on fire
CA Haguro
CA Nachi, Shell hits 2, on fire
CL Naka, Shell hits 1
CL Nagara, on fire
DD Teruzuki, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yugumo, Shell hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
DD Kagero
DD Kuroshio, Shell hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DD Hatsukaze
DD Natsushio, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Hayashio, on fire, heavy damage
DD Asagumo, on fire

Allied Ships
BB Prince of Wales
BC Repulse, Shell hits 1
CA Cornwall, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
CL Dauntless
CL Mauritius, Shell hits 1
CL Birmingham
CL Glasgow
DD Arrow, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Electra
DD Fortune
DD Hotspur, on fire
DD Pakenham
DD Paladin
DD Panther, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Sorong at 42,74

Japanese Ships
CA Atago, Shell hits 2, on fire
CA Haguro
CA Nachi, Shell hits 1, on fire
CL Naka
CL Nagara, on fire
DD Teruzuki, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yugumo, Shell hits 3, on fire, heavy damage
DD Kagero, Shell hits 1
DD Kuroshio, on fire, heavy damage
DD Hatsukaze
DD Natsushio, on fire
DD Hayashio, on fire, heavy damage
DD Asagumo, on fire

Allied Ships
BB Oklahoma, Shell hits 15, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
PT PT-142
PT PT-143
PT PT-157
PT PT-158
PT PT-159
PT PT-160
PT PT-161
PT PT-162
PT PT-164
PT PT-165
PT PT-169
PT PT-170

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Sorong at 42,74

Japanese Ships
CA Atago, on fire, heavy damage
CA Haguro
CA Nachi, on fire
CL Naka
CL Nagara, on fire
DD Teruzuki, on fire, heavy damage
DD Yugumo, on fire, heavy damage
DD Kagero
DD Kuroshio, on fire, heavy damage
DD Hatsukaze
DD Natsushio, on fire
DD Hayashio, on fire, heavy damage
DD Asagumo, on fire

Allied Ships
PT PT-144, Shell hits 2, and is sunk

The screen shot is for fun.

I'm not saying that everything the Japanese had should have sunk (though odds are it should have) but I stunned that NOTHING sunk. There is no naval battle remotely like this one in history, because gentleman, your looking at a result that simply could not happen.




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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 5:09:08 AM   
Feinder


Posts: 6589
Joined: 9/4/2002
From: Land o' Lakes, FL
Status: offline 		Not disagreeing with you. Just giving you some info. The naval combat model seems to like to "return fire", which is why TFs of 6 - 10 ships can work better than those of 18 - 25.

You get a chance to shoot, and this (appears) to be modified by the number of ships in the TF. I believe I there was something mentioned that if the TF is inordinately large, it is almost certain that some ships will NOT fire, simply because they don't have time or opportunity to get into position. I'm not saying I agree with this, but it seems to be proven out by experience in WitP.

Next is the "return fire" issue. Ships that are fired upon -will- return fire. They might not hit, but they -will- shoot back. What this means is that a large TF will certainly not have everyone fire. But the smaller TF will have their "normal" round of fire, plus they get to shoot back (and the big TF then shoots back).

Example
TF #1 = 25 ships
TF #2 = 12 ships.

Say for "opening salvo",
TF #1 = 14 ships salvo (penalty for large TF) at 6 ships
TF #2 = 9 ships salvo at 6 ships

They "return fire"
TF #1 = 6 more salvos (ships being fired upon in large TF)
TF #2 = 6 more salvos (ships returning fire).

Total Salvos
TF #1 = 14 + 6 = 20
TF #2 = 9 + 6 = 15.

It's a disproportionaly large number of salvos for the smaller TF.

Dunno.

I really have no idea of the complexities of REAL naval surface combats in WW2. And my example from WitP is purely observational (therefore very subjective).

But the game does seem to significantly penalize you for a large TF. Again, not saying I agree with that. Just saying that, that's the way it appears to be.

-F-

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Post #: 2
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 5:15:15 AM   
Ron Saueracker


Posts: 12121
Joined: 1/28/2002
From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece
Status: offline 		.

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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 5:21:08 AM   
Tom Hunter


Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/14/2004
Status: offline 		Feinder,

These TFs were not particularly large, the British had one or two ships more than the Japanese, the Americans one less or the same number.

Further the British ALL SHOT at the Japanese. I belive this is because their individual ship qualtiy was high.

There are many problems with what happened, but not the problem you described. The smaller British guns fired and hit, that slowed the Japanese DDs down which kept them in range of CV based air the next day and they all sunk.

The problem is with the larger ships/guns and the over all result.

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Post #: 4
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 6:02:08 AM   
Ron Saueracker


Posts: 12121
Joined: 1/28/2002
From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Feinder,

These TFs were not particularly large, the British had one or two ships more than the Japanese, the Americans one less or the same number.

Further the British ALL SHOT at the Japanese. I belive this is because their individual ship qualtiy was high.

There are many problems with what happened, but not the problem you described. The smaller British guns fired and hit, that slowed the Japanese DDs down which kept them in range of CV based air the next day and they all sunk.

The problem is with the larger ships/guns and the over all result.


At the very least there needs to be ops point limits in tactical battles. Otherwise the kung fu effect takes over and a few small ships can pound a large TF...was alot worse a few years ago.


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Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan

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Post #: 5
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 7:36:50 AM   
Nomad


Posts: 5905
Joined: 9/5/2001
From: West Yellowstone, Montana
Status: offline 		I remember in UV I had a TF of 4 CAs and 8 DDs that I broke up into 4 x 1 CA 2 DDs, smashed and sunk a single, much larger Bombardment TF. My opponent was not amused.

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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 7:41:31 AM   
Ron Saueracker


Posts: 12121
Joined: 1/28/2002
From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece
Status: offline 		Well, maybe we can propose a few things given the new situation, eh? This is pretty cool.

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Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan

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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 10:36:16 AM   
pauk


Posts: 4162
Joined: 10/21/2001
From: Zagreb,Croatia
Status: offline 		Tom, i agree - results like you have shouldn't happen (or i could happend but at the very rare occasions). I recall that i had such results too - although not so extreme like you had (i'm playing Japanese only) - even when i have better leader, achived suprise and crossed the T.

Especially i was angry when my SC crossed the T but fired 3x less shots than enemy ships. I do not know is the naval combat broken or there is some small chance based on dice roll which deterimine that weaker side could won...

i suspect that the answer is latter but something is messed up there....

(BTW, this is lunacy game, is that why you formed PT escort to your BB?)


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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 12:22:37 PM   
String


Posts: 2661
Joined: 10/7/2003
From: Estonia
Status: offline 		Looks like the battle of Tassafaronga straits. 8 japanese destroyers, 6 of them loaded with supplies and not very combat ready, are ambushed by 4 allied heavy, one light cruiser and four destroyers. The japs sink one and damage heavily three heavy cruisers and lose one destroyer.

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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 2:13:36 PM   
Ron Saueracker


Posts: 12121
Joined: 1/28/2002
From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: String

Looks like the battle of Tassafaronga straits. 8 japanese destroyers, 6 of them loaded with supplies and not very combat ready, are ambushed by 4 allied heavy, one light cruiser and four destroyers. The japs sink one and damage heavily three heavy cruisers and lose one destroyer.


No, this is what happens when you cross modern WW2 naval weapons with pre Nelsonian conepts of naval combat.


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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 3:46:31 PM   
el cid again

 

Posts: 16922
Joined: 10/10/2005
Status: offline
quote:

Tom, i agree - results like you have shouldn't happen (or i could happend but at the very rare occasions). I recall that i had such results too - although not so extreme like you had (i'm playing Japanese only) - even when i have better leader, achived suprise and crossed the T.


This report is not a good indicator that the naval combat model is broken. One cannot draw statistically significant conclusions from a data sample of one. Further, the reason the naval combat model is probably NOT broken causes factors you are not considering to be influential. For example, I find it matters a great deal what the ratings of the commander of each task force are. Ignore this at your peril! I find it matters a great deal what the ship situation is in terms of its individual ratings (some ships have perfectly awful ratings - even zero), its damage level, its ammunition level, its commanding officer ratings, how tired the ship is and how many ops points it has already expended. Other factors which matter (sometimes) are visibility and range.

Naval battle is a very strange combination of luck and skill. Skill matters a great deal - yet luck matters more than in most forms of combat. I was able to go into GENCON IX and draw the absolute worst command in the Battle of the Java Sea - a perfectly awful understrength and damaged division of WWI era destroyers. Yet I lost no ships, sank more than any other player, and got my destroyers - with almost no ammunition expended - amid the Japanese transports - winning a strategic as well as tactical victory. Many players were upset at such "ahistoric" results - but I had been lucky because most of them ignored me for too long (there were all those "more dangerous" cruisers to shoot at after all), and because I am a real life destroyer sailor who can do torpedo plots in my head. I also was clever - I deliberately did not shoot most of the time - so as to avoid notice or being regarded as dangerous. This is represented in our model by the rating of the ship's commanders - and by die rolls for luck. I have no problem whatever believing things can go awfully wrong in combat - or right either. I think the raid on Balikpapan by four pipers should never have come off as it did - theoretically. [The Japanese admiral believed he was under fire by a single unseen Dutch submarine!] For a Japanese point of view on early Pacific battles read Takishi Hara (Japanese Destroyer Captain). I admit he was the best - he also literally wrote the Torpedo Manual - the best on the planet - and had the best torpedoes to play with. But you might be surprised what can be done - and how Japanese warships were optimized to do well - and how their crews were the best trained (and are again today - Japan is the ONLY nation EVER to train in bad weather - in spite of the cost in lives lost - so it will have such advantages).


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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 4:09:28 PM   
tsimmonds


Posts: 5498
Joined: 2/6/2004
From: astride Mason and Dixon's Line
Status: offline 		Don't see this mentioned in your post: are your ships in SCTFs? In my experience, other TF types seem to be heavily penalized in surface combat.

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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 4:11:51 PM   
madflava13


Posts: 1530
Joined: 2/7/2001
From: Alexandria, VA
Status: offline 		You can't make a statement like "The naval combat system is broken" on one battle... There are so many factors in play that unless you're looking under the hood at the math behind everything, you just don't know...

There's leader quality, surprise, training levels, experience levels, quality of individual ship captains, accuracy of individual weapons, damage levels of each weapon, etc...

The whole "sky is falling/worst game ever/holy S**t this could never happen!" thread is getting old. Ask Yamamoto in May 1942 if 4 of his CVs and just about all his best air crews would be dead in a month... he'd probably say "that could never happen." Ask the US commanders at Pearl on Dec. 6th and they'd say the same thing...

War is full of unexpected results. Pearl Harbor, Midway, Taranto, Battle of Britain, Battle of Malta, Stalingrad, Bastogne... Supposedly evenly matched forces do not result in evenly matched results. Even overmatched forces can win battles. Look at Rommel in North Africa.

End Rant...


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RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 5:02:37 PM   
Tom Hunter


Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/14/2004
Status: offline 		Some of the discussion is also going on over in my AAR thread, and I am posting something from Admiral Laurent and my reply here:

"I know it is frustating, but it doesn't surprise me. BBs are in WITP not good night fighters. In fact they are only useful against another BBs and for bombardment.

The problem is that we can't say it is unrealistic because in real life BBs were used against enemy BBs and for bombardment too...
They were very few cases of BB vs CA/DD during the war, and they were not in BB favor. Either the Scharnhorst or the Bismark were unable to get rid of DD and cruisers following or attacking them, and the Hiei and Kirishima off Guadalcanal were not so efficient. Yes the Allied TF was crushed but more by the IJN CA and DD (and their torpedoes) that by the heavy guns of the BBs." -Admiral Laurent

I strongly disagree with this for a number of reasons.

Firstly we cannot look at the Pacific war alone, there is not enough data and only 2 navies involved. The way the Americans fought, emphasis on gunfire, no torpedos on the cruisers, is very different from the British, or the Germans or Italians and (for all I know) the French.

Second the battle your referencing is one battle, but there are more than one, BBs fought smaller ships at Narvik, in the Med, US BBs fought very effectively against both Japanese BBs and cruisers when they met them. I don't think the data backs up your claim, and even in the battle you cite the Americans got mauled though they did do very well considering the mix of forces on both sides.

A fundamental problem with WitP is that the combat tables reflect known data on things like heavy shell hit rates or actaul air to air losses during the war. BBs had hit rates of between 4% and a bit over 10% with their main battery, which means that if a combat round is more than 2 minutes long BBs should hit thier targets at least once, assuming that the target is trying to shoot back, not evade. I don't know how long a round of combat is supposed to be but based on ammo expenditures I think it is 6-10 minutes.


Lets look at the combat between PoW and the Japanese.

Neither side is suprised, suprise is worth a lot in naval gunnery, probably more than this combat system gives it, but there is no suprise here.

Range is 8000 yards

The British have 16 heavy caliber guns, assuming a rate of fire of 40 seconds per round ( a little slow) and an 8 minute combat round (480 seconds) the British will fire 12 shells per gun, which is 192 heavy shells. If thier hit rate is 3% they will hit 6 times, if it is 8% (which is about right at this range under these conditions) they will hit 16 times. In actuality they hit once, which is a hit rate of .05% similar to the hit rate scored by Admiral Dewey at Manila bay, and less than half of the hit rate scored by Dovton Sturdee at the Battle of the Falkland Islands early in WWI, a battle that was remarked on for its low rate of hits, and caused major changes in Royal Navy gunnery training. These changesade their way to the US Navy in 1917-18 when the US BB squadron was stationed with the British in Scapa flow.

I would bet that if we could get a good analysis of the battle you are mentioning in your post we would find that even in that fight the Japanese BBs scored a hit rate of better than .05% and they were suprised.

I don't see any defense for this system, mathmatically it may be even more broken than the air system.

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Post #: 14
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 5:04:35 PM   
mogami


Posts: 12789
Joined: 8/23/2000
From: You can't get here from there
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker


quote:

ORIGINAL: String

Looks like the battle of Tassafaronga straits. 8 japanese destroyers, 6 of them loaded with supplies and not very combat ready, are ambushed by 4 allied heavy, one light cruiser and four destroyers. The japs sink one and damage heavily three heavy cruisers and lose one destroyer.


No, this is what happens when you cross modern WW2 naval weapons with pre Nelsonian conepts of naval combat.



Hi, The combat animation is not a visual reproduction of the battle. WITP provides absolutly no graphic recreation of battles as far as formations are concenred. The 2 sides are not arrayed in opposing lines. There is no way to tell anything except that those ships were in the same hex when combat occured. You can see what ship fired at what target and if it scored any hits. Thats all you can tell.

Tom you don't need to put PT in with the BB to refuel them. They can still refuel from TF in the hex. Other then that I can't figure out why you'd mix BB with PT.

The Japanese TF commander was a 71. (There are not that many Japanese over 75 most of them are in 60's) But the ship captains also matter.

If you had a 75 TF commander and 4 ship captains 70,60,50,40 you'd have a command rating of 59 (putting chucklehead ship captains into TF can be a mistake.)

I counted more then 2 main gun hits. Atago took 2 15inch in 1 round. I didn't watch every round all the way (It looked like I was being creamed and I kept hoping my TF commander would run away) I wish I had scored a few more torpedo hits on those BB.

I don't know why my other TF did not engage. (I had a BB TF as well)

< Message edited by Mogami -- 3/5/2006 5:09:38 PM >

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Post #: 15
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 5:34:27 PM   
Tom Hunter


Posts: 2194
Joined: 12/14/2004
Status: offline 		Some more replies to posts above:

"You can't make a statement like "The naval combat system is broken" on one battle... There are so many factors in play that unless you're looking under the hood at the math behind everything, you just don't know...

There's leader quality, surprise, training levels, experience levels, quality of individual ship captains, accuracy of individual weapons, damage levels of each weapon, etc...

The whole "sky is falling/worst game ever/holy S**t this could never happen!" thread is getting old. Ask Yamamoto in May 1942 if 4 of his CVs and just about all his best air crews would be dead in a month... he'd probably say "that could never happen." Ask the US commanders at Pearl on Dec. 6th and they'd say the same thing...

War is full of unexpected results. Pearl Harbor, Midway, Taranto, Battle of Britain, Battle of Malta, Stalingrad, Bastogne... Supposedly evenly matched forces do not result in evenly matched results. Even overmatched forces can win battles. Look at Rommel in North Africa.

End Rant... " madflava13

Actually one can make any statment one wants

but more to the point this was actually 3 naval battles, not one, and it is consistent with other results I have seen in my games. These results were more extreme, and I do understand that under the hood matters a lot, in fact it matters completely, and what is under the hood does not work correctly.

Look at the math in my reply to the good Amiral, and I will point out that he is correct, BBs are not good for night combat against other forces, but he is wrong about this being justified, the math does not work. What is true is that historically light forces have a somewhat better chance against BBs at night than during the day, but it does not justify the 19th century hit rates on mid 20th century ships.

Any time a battle produces an impossible result it is a problem in a historical wargame. Any combat system that produces historically impossible results doesn't really belong in a game like this. If Matrix had advertised "Featuring Historically Impossible Combat Results!" would we have bought the game? How about "Battleship Gunnery Results That Are Off By A Complete Order Of Magnitude?"

I'm not really concerned about unexpected results, but I balk at impossible ones.

Irrelevant, yes all 3 groups were in SCTFs, if they were not I would not be bringing this up. Further only one (the first) was suprised. In short the factors that lead to lopsided results were not present for most of the combats. There is no historical example of unsuprised BBs scoring less than .05% hits in this type of combat. You have to find examples where one side had at least 2 of these 4 elements against it to find that kind of shooting: Suprised, Already Damaged, Heavily Outnumbered, Major Technology Advantage none of those things apply here.


el cid again

Though I agree that all of these things are important, I still believe that this example is outside of the possible largely because of the gunnery issues mentioned above. I don't play naval minatues any more because of time issues, but I used to and I have pulled off the same kind of thing your quoting.

Basically my argument is that this result is much too extreme given the conditions, suprise and lack of it, leadership and ship quality. The counter examples that are being quoted above (execpt for Laurent's) all share one feature, they don't involve the same mix of ships present at this series of battles.

My assertion is that with this mix of ships under these conditions the result was historically impossible, I have good data to back this up and have quoted from the combat replays. So far I have not seen any data, inside or outside of these boards that show I am wrong, and I don't think there is any. What it comes down to is that barring mitigating factors BBs should hit between 3% and somewhere a little bit over 10% of the time and in this game they don't. In fact the PoW group fought 2 or 3 rounds and hit once which is a hit rate of .0017. Sommervilles command, which had twice as many gun tubes firing did half of that or .00086

I am suggesting that these hit rates are actually impossible to achive, and that this means the system is busted.

Now if the Japanese had taken evasive action and run away, or if other factors had been in play these numbers are possible (but unlikely) but they didn't, they slugged it out for multiple rounds against forces that were not suprised, had them on radar and had the best crews in the Allied fleet commanded by the best admirals available.

So play devils advocate, why should the naval combat system produce such low hit rates under these circumstances?

Remeber you have to use BBs in your example, they can't be damaged or suprised, and the example has to be a stand up fight, not one side trying to evade. Where is the data?

(in reply to madflava13)
Post #: 16
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 6:21:01 PM   
mogami


Posts: 12789
Joined: 8/23/2000
From: You can't get here from there
Status: offline 		Hi, I can't see where you think you should have won outright everytime these two forces meet. what if the Japanese hit with more then 5 torpedos? (that was some terrible torpedo shooting considering the number of torpdos fired, the close range, and slow speed of those BB)
I think you need to run the replay again and recount your main gun hits. Atago took 2 in one round one right after the other and she was already burning from at least one main gun hit. (15in so I suspect it was the POW/Repulse TF)

I think it just as possible that the Japanese TF defeats the first TF in a barrage of torpedos.
Surprise does not mean it just means the Japanese had some kind of advantage at start of combat. Since the game does not fight battles (none of the combat in WITP is tactical it just looks that way because of animations) there is no way to say what went wrong (or right) tactically. In aircombat X number of aircraft fly missions of various types and produce the results, ground combat x number of formations conduct missions and produce results. Here we have X number of ships of various types engaged and some are sunk some are damaged and they now require supply and fuel and repair. this is an operational level game. It does not produce tactical sequences that can be reviewed
"Sommerville then turned his column north to present his starboard batteries blah blah" All we get is ammo expended damage inflicted. It's too bad you sank all the Japanese by air before I could actually tell you how much damage you inflicted by gunfire. Since these ships would have moved 6 hexes undamaged and they only moved 1 (I think this was 3xDD) and 2 (Atago group) I'd say they were pretty damaged from the battle.
Only Exeter aside from BB could hurt Atago with gunfire.

The Allied forces engaged had 7 ships that only torpedos could hurt.
But the Japanese brought a lot of torpedos to the battle. (any one want to calculate the Japanese hit rate for the battle? 5 out xxx hits. )

It was not 3 separate naval battles it was 1 naval battle fought in 3 segments. But once again we don't know why. (who broke off and who pursued and renewed the battle etc)

While I like the animation I wish all of them had been left out of game. They cause too much confusion. It would be better if after a turn you had a text message

"TF 1005 engaged enemy surface TF at Hex xx,yy" And then listed ships present and damaged sustained/inflicted. That is all the game is really trying to do. Produce a combat report text message. It just lets you watch a cartoon while it writes it.

< Message edited by Mogami -- 3/5/2006 6:25:32 PM >

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Post #: 17
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 6:41:31 PM   
madflava13


Posts: 1530
Joined: 2/7/2001
From: Alexandria, VA
Status: offline 		Tom,
Touche - you certainly can make any statement you want!

In my game experience, I've not found the British navy to be particularly efficient in naval battles... I don't know if this is coded, or if its just a bad run of luck on my part, but I try to avoid letting the Royal Navy get tangled up at night. Just my experience though, and it might be based on nothing more than a hunch.

As for the USN, I've had good results once my ships are up to snuff and have higher experience levels... Every time I fight the IJN at night early on though, I get slaughtered...

Any idea what your ships' experience levels were before that series of battles?

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Post #: 18
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 7:00:22 PM   
mogami


Posts: 12789
Joined: 8/23/2000
From: You can't get here from there
Status: offline 		Hi, See there are differnet opinions. In my experiance the only Allied ships that should fight at night are the RN. I think the mistake most Allied player make early in war is mixing in bad Dutch or USN ships with RN ships and then fighting night battles. I tend to win my early night battles using only the British. The Japanese only have leaders in the 70's except for Tanaka and a few others. There are RN leaders in the high 60's and the crews are great.
However you can always get the leader from what ever navy you want. Form the TF with a ship of correct Navy. Assign TF leader and then add other ships. Getting a good leader should never be a problem unless the game has already ate them.

< Message edited by Mogami -- 3/5/2006 7:01:54 PM >

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Post #: 19
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 8:44:48 PM   
Mike Scholl

 

Posts: 9349
Joined: 1/1/2003
From: Kansas City, MO
Status: offline 		THERE IS A STRANGE DICHOTOMY IN THIS GAME. You can't even give a naval air strike a "Preference" (like go after the CV's over there, not the barges in the other direction)---but you can "teleport" ship captains and admirals around the Pacific and have a major effect on surface actions by who you assign. There is an inherent lack of balance in the levels of detail the player can get involved in in the various forms of combat that really needs to be leveled out into a less schitzophrenic system.

(in reply to mogami)
Post #: 20
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 8:55:25 PM   
moses

 

Posts: 2252
Joined: 7/7/2002
Status: offline 		I don't see why it should not be possible to have a large night naval battle in which nothing is sunk. I can easily imagine a battle in which the forces barely even sight each other and simply fire a phantoms and shadows for a bit before losing contact. Maybe I have too much imagination.

Its hard to believe that there were no examples of this but then how many large naval actions occured. I guess it could just as well be argued that it should be impossible for the allies to lose more then two carriers in a single battle. As this did not occur historically any occurance of is occuring in the game is proof that the model is flawed.

The results do not look so impossible to me. But its human nature to complain about such things. I'm sure the Japanese were convinced that Midway was a bug.

(in reply to mogami)
Post #: 21
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 9:17:51 PM   
Ron Saueracker


Posts: 12121
Joined: 1/28/2002
From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

THERE IS A STRANGE DICHOTOMY IN THIS GAME. You can't even give a naval air strike a "Preference" (like go after the CV's over there, not the barges in the other direction)---but you can "teleport" ship captains and admirals around the Pacific and have a major effect on surface actions by who you assign. There is an inherent lack of balance in the levels of detail the player can get involved in in the various forms of combat that really needs to be leveled out into a less schitzophrenic system.


Flag admirals should be mini HQs, which must be treated like other units, and it would have been cool if they were vulnerable to combat (penetrating tower armour hits), but then again, ships are just robots in a design which deals with individual pilots. (Crew factors for ships were a must in my opinion).


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Post #: 22
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 9:42:26 PM   
moses

 

Posts: 2252
Joined: 7/7/2002
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

THERE IS A STRANGE DICHOTOMY IN THIS GAME. You can't even give a naval air strike a "Preference" (like go after the CV's over there, not the barges in the other direction)---but you can "teleport" ship captains and admirals around the Pacific and have a major effect on surface actions by who you assign. There is an inherent lack of balance in the levels of detail the player can get involved in in the various forms of combat that really needs to be leveled out into a less schitzophrenic system.


Or even tell a single destroyer at sea. "Do not engage large battleship formations in daylight combat at long range. If you see one of these large battleships use you're speed to turn and run." But of course I can decide when to take on fuel!

In my current game early as Japan my opponent is using his BB's to bombard my bases south of Rangoon. I've placed Betties/Nells in position to attack these. For three days the BB's fail to show up so each day my planes fly to Rangoon where a couple AK's and half the AVG wait. So now I have a zero squadren with half the pilots sitting under experience 50. Just a simple don't go to the following locations button would be nice.


< Message edited by moses -- 3/5/2006 9:47:35 PM >

(in reply to Mike Scholl)
Post #: 23
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 9:58:52 PM   
Oleg Mastruko


Posts: 4921
Joined: 10/21/2000
Status: offline 		Tom, being a "company yes man" this post is going to be predictable but I really don't see anything strange in these results. It's not like he sunk 4 of your BBs with CA gunfire (as happened in some of previous "naval combat is broken" threads). Your BBs simply failed to hit his fast, and expertly led cruisers that's all.

OTOH, you ate like 6-7 of his destroyers which will hurt him for sure. Also damaged some cruisers (some heavily). He scored some lucky torpedo hits on (as far as I can see) only one of your BBs with his (presumably) massive torpedo salvos. Did the BB sink BTW?

BB in a PT TF.... well that's just strange, whoever does that automatically gives away any right to complain about results of that particular TF.

O.

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Post #: 24
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 10:12:45 PM   
madmickey

 

Posts: 1336
Joined: 2/11/2004
From: Calgary, Alberta
Status: offline 		The bigger question is what model is not broken? I quit playing until the various models have been improved. I understand that a Beta model has a slightly better surface ASW, while the aerial ASW is worse than ever.

(in reply to Oleg Mastruko)
Post #: 25
RE: Naval Combat is broken too - 3/5/2006 10:55:59 PM   
madflava13


Posts: 1530
Joined: 2/7/2001
From: Alexandria, VA
Status: offline 		It amazes me how many people on this board are complaining the game's completely broken - a month after it was released I'd bet the same people were singing its praises...

I guess it's just common sense that people take for granted what they're used to having around...

Does anyone remember the dark days of Pacwar anymore??

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Post #: 26
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