Watched the replay for last nights turn. Captain Allison in Thresher fired two fish at a lone, Japanese AK without effect. After missing with his first two shots the officer surfaced and continued the attack. Thresher fired off every torpedo that she carried while engaged with the AK in a long running gun duel. At least seven or eight "hit but failed to explode" messages were received during the course of this battle. End result of the night's actions was six 3 inch hits on the AK with some damage, three hits on Thresher with little damage, every torpedo fired with no hits for damage and only a few rounds of gun ammo left.
Captain Allison sent a report into HQ and said he was returning to base and suspected that his torpedoes were defective. He was promptly relieved of his command for wasting valuable torpedoes, spreading false rumors and failure to follow accepted doctrine by risking his ship in a foolish night surface engagement.
Thresher's night experience looks like it went up a few notches!
Too bad for Commander Allison, but his leadership isn't great anyway, so the men are probably relieved he won't be exposing them to this kind of threat again.
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"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
Thresher's night experience looks like it went up a few notches!
Too bad for Commander Allison, but his leadership isn't great anyway, so the men are probably relieved he won't be exposing them to this kind of threat again.
Actually, for sub commanders I find aggression along with naval skills more important than leadership. Capt Allison obviously has a very high aggression rating... Perhaps after the board of inquiry there will be second thoughts about relieving him... We can only hope. Too many of my sub commanders are proving to be too "timid" in action. We need more men like Allison.
"I can't spare this man. He fights!" (Abraham Lincoln defending U.S. Grant)
< Message edited by crsutton -- 7/2/2014 2:36:15 PM >
Thresher's night experience looks like it went up a few notches!
Too bad for Commander Allison, but his leadership isn't great anyway, so the men are probably relieved he won't be exposing them to this kind of threat again.
Actually, for sub commanders I find aggression along with naval skills more important than leadership. Capt Allison obviously has a very high aggression rating... Perhaps after the board of inquiry there will be second thoughts about relieving him... We can only hope. Too many of my sub commanders are proving to be too "timid" in action. We need more men like Allison.
"I can't spare this man. He fights!" (Abraham Lincoln defending U.S. Grant)
Playing the Allies in a PBEM I've begun to realize what a luxury of captains, generals and air group leaders the Japanese have from day 1. It's amazing I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel to get a sub commander with 60+ naval and 60+ aggression, when the Japanese have enough all of the way through 45 of these good captains.
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"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
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Agree completely on the aggressiveness factor.
Many players are loathe to put the fleet boats at risk while they have 80% dud fish.
My policy is give them the most aggressive commanders available with good nav skill and they will surface and use their guns.
They will even get an occasional exploding fish as a bonus.
Many players prefer to use them as transports until the dud rate goes down.
May take is that they need to get into action and build up experience.
Sure I will have beat up and lost boats, but I believe it is worth it to build the experience.
I have seen players ask if the Dutch boats ever use their guns.
Mine do since I give them the most aggressive commanders available with good nav skill.
I look for aggressiveness above 60 (min 50) and nav skill above 50, the higher the better for both.
Early on, the Americans lack sufficient numbers of commanders with these level skills.
It is only boats stuck with commanders with aggressiveness ratings in the 20s and 30s that I use as transports until more aggressive commanders become available.
I am with you on this Hans, I always look for good naval + high aggression for my boats.
Yep, I am with Hans as well. Use the subs, they won't sink much but if you are using Da Babes or have installed the ASW fixes into the betas, Japanese ASW is not very dangerous in 42 as well. I get a fair number of RTBs but mostly from air attacks and the fact that I like to linger close to ports, but have only lost half a dozen or so subs so far. My American subs have sunk a couple of Japanese DDs so far, so I look upon that as a bonus in 42.
One thing I am trying is to use good but less aggressive captains for subs that are hunting tankers and transports in the sea lanes. I wonder if skilled but cautious commanders will bypass the escorts and attack the more valuable cargo ships. Aggressive captains always seem to go for the escort-and miss. Anyone try this before?
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For fleet boats, I like to get the ones with the high aggression...but that's not always possible.
So I settle for 65+ Naval and then the highest aggression that I can. Be careful that you don't assign Arleigh Burke to an SS, because you can do that .
I've found that Aggr 55+ or so will still see them using the deck gun against unescorted ships. 60-70 Aggr is better, but... you should have plenty of Nav60+/Aggr50+ commanders. I also like to give them 60+ Ld/60+ Inspiration if possible - I want those crew XP skill-ups from the Ld die roll, even on failed attacks, and I want the damage control rolls to pass with Inspiration...
It's a balancing act, but I haven't found myself actually out of viable commanders yet.
I've noticed that a hit from the short-barrel 70mm deck gun of most IJ AKs only rarely gives a serious dent to a surfaced Allied sub. One could argue that any gun-hit on a sub should seriously mung w/ its flotation, but the game-engine don't play that way.
An Allied player should examine his sub-patrol TFs at least once every week - if the sub is low on front-facing torps or deck-gun ammo, it's time to RTB for reloads or a possible upgrade.
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Had an interesting (?) thought based on this thread. I wonder if it would be possible to add a simple counter that would keep track of the "hit but failed to explode" results. After "x" of these results, the first "dud reduction" would occur. After "y" more of these results, the second "dud reduction" would occur. This would penalize US players who just let their fleet boats sit in port, waiting for better results. (I actually don't think that is a wise strategy anyway, but there should be some consequences). How would BurNavOrd ever believe the torpedos don't work if they are never fired?
I had Tarpon do the same thing a couple of turns ago. Fired all of his torps in one turn, but he did get one to explode.
And the commander is LCDR Wallace, L with stats of Ldr = 52, Insp = 47, Naval = 55 and the big one, Agg = 27. We are only 4 turns into the war and I didn't have enough PPs to change him out.
< Message edited by EHansen -- 7/3/2014 3:00:47 AM >
Had an interesting (?) thought based on this thread. I wonder if it would be possible to add a simple counter that would keep track of the "hit but failed to explode" results. After "x" of these results, the first "dud reduction" would occur. After "y" more of these results, the second "dud reduction" would occur. This would penalize US players who just let their fleet boats sit in port, waiting for better results. (I actually don't think that is a wise strategy anyway, but there should be some consequences). How would BurNavOrd ever believe the torpedos don't work if they are never fired?
--Dave
A lot of work and you would have to find somebody to do it who is tied to the game. Many have move on. So, in short I doubt it.
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"hit but failed to explode" Ouch! - 
Perhaps after the board of inquiry there will be second thoughts about relieving him... We can only hope. Too many of my sub commanders are proving to be too "timid" in action. We need more men like Allison. 
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