Curious incident

Curious incident (Full Version)

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qgaliana -> Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:09:31 PM)
Wondering if anyone has had a similar experience before. I'm playing the campaign game as allies against the AI. I catch a Japanese a lightly escorted invasion convoy headed for Davao with the US far East cruiser force. Several transports get mauled, thousands of casualties, survivors being rescued, etc. I know the AI doesn't bring many cover forces in 41 and search planes show nothing so I hang around just in case. Sure enough the convoy forms up and heads back to Davao - I hit it again. Doorman has arrived with the RNN so the yanks go play elsewhere. The Japs insist - more sunk transports, drowned troops, etc. Their stubborness is becoming impressive even by Imperial Japan standards. There original dozen transports plus escort is down to 4 burning hulks. Actually there may have been a fourth day of target practice - can't recall - I was mostly enjoying this and keeping an eye out for mini KB or BBs. Figuring my work is done, I decide to sail away and look for something else. Much to my surprise, that evening, 4 flaming transports appear in the Davao harbour and unload 4-5000 Japanese soldiers. Doorman arrives to sink the now empty boats. Unfortunately, the one bayonet charge from the soaking unsupplied rabble that probably swam to shore is enough to clear a PA division out of Davao (attacker AV 100-200)... (expletives in many languages). The point being that after being heaviliy damaged, and loaded with survivors, the surviving transports still delivered an effective invasion... Theories? 1) While damage seems to destroy cargo (killing troops), I suspect the capacity is unaffected. That half sunk, burning transport is ditching the bodies and picking up live ones from the water. 2) I suspect the rescued squads may not be suffering any disruption from their swim, even if equipment is lost.

JWE -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:14:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: qgaliana 4 flaming transports appear in the Davao harbour and unload 4-5000 Japanese soldiers. Doorman arrives to sink the now empty boats. Unfortunately, the one bayonet charge from the soaking unsupplied rabble that probably swam to shore is enough to clear a PA division out of Davao (attacker AV 100-200)... (expletives in many languages). Theories? Hakku Ichiu! Banzai! JWE

qgaliana -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:19:47 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JWE quote: ORIGINAL: qgaliana 4 flaming transports appear in the Davao harbour and unload 4-5000 Japanese soldiers. Doorman arrives to sink the now empty boats. Unfortunately, the one bayonet charge from the soaking unsupplied rabble that probably swam to shore is enough to clear a PA division out of Davao (attacker AV 100-200)... (expletives in many languages). Theories? Hakku Ichiu! Banzai! JWE Indeed [:D] I have to try this one day when I get to play the other side

Feinder -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:25:14 PM)
Kamikaze transports. Been around since the days of UV. Yes, a transport that takes damage, will lose cargo (whether it's fuel, supplies, or people). However, they don't lose all that much (all things considered). And when you also consider that it usually takes about 3 – 4 days (or more), for a ship to finally succumb to “barely mortal” wounds, you still have 3 – 4 days to reach your target and unload.

JWE -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:32:18 PM)
Indeed [:D], indeed! But seriously folks. I'm not an expert on the code, but I think what is happening is code driven. If you can get a ship to the beach, its 'cargo' is unloaded as if nothing untoward happened. In other words, those fragments that were on 'sunk' ships just go into 'null' values for the LCU (replaced and reconditioned later) and surviving fragments are pulled from the "as loaded" fields and sent ashore. There does not seem to be any correspondance between damage to the carrier vessel and disruption to the 'cargo'. I suppose in code terms that is logical (although not particularly gamey) since the added 'conditional' routines would be a bit*h (and especially since if you did a 'conditional' for one, you would have to do a 'conditional' for everything). Time for coding and cpu load for resolution seem to be the drivers. Make sense??? JWE

qgaliana -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:34:38 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Feinder Kamikaze transports. Been around since the days of UV. Yes, a transport that takes damage, will lose cargo (whether it's fuel, supplies, or people). However, they don't lose all that much (all things considered). And when you also consider that it usually takes about 3 – 4 days (or more), for a ship to finally succumb to “barely mortal” wounds, you still have 3 – 4 days to reach your target and unload. How much is "all that much"? I've only seen some cargoes go to less than 10% of their original supply load after getting hit hard. I don't know what a 'reasonable' troop loss to damage would be. I broke off figuring the invasion force was toast and there was no reason to push my luck. I'm not lobbying for any expectation of how the game should work. Just curious as to how it actually does work.

Feinder -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:48:38 PM)
I do know that in WitP release, cargo on transports suffered –no- damage. It was patched in to incur damage to cargo as the ship takes damage. How much damage, and how sever? I’ve never formally tested it. Those casualties may just be disablements, or maybe they are eliminated, I really don’t know. It also might depend on how full to capacity the ship is (so a ship that is 100% loaded might pass on more damage to it’s cargo, than one that is only 50% loaded, who knows). Wouldn’t be that hard to look at some before and afters of an AP that eats a 1000# bomb. I do know that folks have always found it “curious” that you do NOT score points for troops killed on transports. You can sink an entire division and get 0 points because they died aboard ship. That tells me that it –might- only be disabling squads, not killing them, when the ship is damaged. -F-

JWE -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 9:51:44 PM)
I don't know exactly, either, but it seems to me that it would be very much easier to apply a proportionality factor to 'supply' as cargo than to an LCU. There are many fields that must be accounted for in an LCU and the engine would very likely treat them differently. I believe that decrements in 'supply' cargo are taken in accord with a type of damage (fire, flotation etc.) applied to the carying vessel. Only long term record keeping and accounting will say what the factor is. Wish I could be more definitive, but ... that's a question for the "Real Manual". JWE

qgaliana -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 10:08:17 PM)
Well I could see how scaling damage to ferried troops might be complicated. Fishing survivors out of the drink would get thrown in as a 'cool' feature, and it wouldn't be hard to overlook changing their status whether it was hard or not. Lesson learned - leave no survivors - or keep a PT boat around to discourage them from approaching shore.

niceguy2005 -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 10:41:33 PM)
How about an alternative theory, since it is the AI we are talking about. The AI may have brought plenty of "spare" capacity and many of the survivors from damaged ships simply transfered to the next one. In RL, I would not expect damage to a ship to amount to significant loss of life, supplies would be another matter. In playing the AI I had a similar incident at Rabaul. In that case the force that landed was significantly weakened.

qgaliana -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 10:58:32 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: niceguy2005 How about an alternative theory, since it is the AI we are talking about. The AI may have brought plenty of "spare" capacity and many of the survivors from damaged ships simply transfered to the next one. In RL, I would not expect damage to a ship to amount to significant loss of life, supplies would be another matter. In playing the AI I had a similar incident at Rabaul. In that case the force that landed was significantly weakened. Well I did say I suspected some survivors were present - whether they were combat worthy I don't know. IRL I'd think naval cannon fire putting dozens of holes in an unarmored troop transport and setting it on fire (esp this part) would do very bad things to the passengers. Never mind compartments flooding. But as I said, I'm only moderately concerned with that. If it's typical behaviour I can work around it. I just thought shooting up the transports would be sufficient, but apparently not. Sounds like this isn't news to some of the old hands.

niceguy2005 -> RE: Curious incident (11/29/2006 11:05:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: qgaliana Well I did say I suspected some survivors were present - whether they were combat worthy I don't know. IRL I'd think naval cannon fire putting dozens of holes in an unarmored troop transport and setting it on fire (esp this part) would do very bad things to the passengers. Never mind compartments flooding. But as I said, I'm only moderately concerned with that. If it's typical behaviour I can work around it. I just thought shooting up the transports would be sufficient, but apparently not. Sounds like this isn't news to some of the old hands. I wouldn't disagree that the amount of confusion created would be significant. Even more, the idea that IRL a transport group would get shelled, retreat, put out the fires, transfer troops, reform and repeat again and again is fantasitical. I have personally experienced that some AI invasion TFs can be broken up and severly damaged, to what extent this is an exception or a rule I am not sure.

wdolson -> RE: Curious incident (11/30/2006 1:14:28 AM)
One factor probably going on here is that the Japanese get a huge amphibious invasion bonus in the first couple of months of the war. I don't know how far that rule extends. The fact that those transports unloaded completely in one turn is probably due to the bonus. Badly damaged transports don't usually unload that quickly. It sounds like amphibious convoy commanders get some kind of bonus too. Most task forces, even a surface combat one would cut and run if they got badly mauled. The AI will also assign some of its best commanders to amphibious task forces early in the war. In the full campaign I played, the AI was trying to land troops at Rabaul with a large Australian cruiser force in the harbor. The cruisers hit the convoy hard and I saw the message go by saying that Admiral Yammamoto had been killed. A few days later another invasion task force was mauled (I think from the air that time) and I saw the message go by that Admiral Nagumo had been killed. I thought it odd that two of Japan's top admirals were commanding invasion task forces, but that's what happened. The invasion task force you mauled may have been commanded by a very aggressive admiral who had been watching too many John Wayne movies? Bill

bradfordkay -> RE: Curious incident (11/30/2006 6:41:12 AM)
The Japanese AI typically sends BBs or CAs to cover the invasions in Malaya and at Kuching, but none for the southern Philipines invasions. I have had it send in a surface combat TF after I had clobbered the Davao invasions in past games, but not soon enough to help that first invasion TF (it typically takes at least a week of game time - if not longer - for the SCTF to reach Davao or Jolo).

qgaliana -> RE: Curious incident (11/30/2006 6:58:24 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: bradfordkay The Japanese AI typically sends BBs or CAs to cover the invasions in Malaya and at Kuching, but none for the southern Philipines invasions. I have had it send in a surface combat TF after I had clobbered the Davao invasions in past games, but not soon enough to help that first invasion TF (it typically takes at least a week of game time - if not longer - for the SCTF to reach Davao or Jolo). I've noticed that - I've found several soft spots where my cruisers can play for the first month. Now if I could sort out the exact decision making to get force Z to arrive on the day I want them to I could get a nice BB battle before KB shows up (instead of the current retreat 120 miles to get a running start for the next day's evening phase then arrive too late). It's all good [:D]

Mike Scholl -> RE: Curious incident (11/30/2006 7:49:28 AM)
qgaliana. Real problem is that Transports (especially Japanese Transports) are WAY too tough to sink. You had 12 "targets" that couldn't fight and couldn't run away under attack by Cruisers and DD's for 3-4 Days---and 1/3rd survive to land troops. U-Boats sank these things all over the Atlantic with moderate expenditures of ammo from relatively small calibre (105mm) deck guns---but in this game they survive 5", 6", 8", torpedoes, and even BB calibre hits with amazing regularity. It's just something you will have to live with...

wdolson -> RE: Curious incident (11/30/2006 1:29:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl qgaliana. Real problem is that Transports (especially Japanese Transports) are WAY too tough to sink. You had 12 "targets" that couldn't fight and couldn't run away under attack by Cruisers and DD's for 3-4 Days---and 1/3rd survive to land troops. U-Boats sank these things all over the Atlantic with moderate expenditures of ammo from relatively small calibre (105mm) deck guns---but in this game they survive 5", 6", 8", torpedoes, and even BB calibre hits with amazing regularity. It's just something you will have to live with... I was thinking about the ship sinking model the other day. Ships never reach 100% system damage. They will only sucomb if they are on fire or flooding. If flooding is under control and the fires are put out, the ship can limp 2000 miles home with 99% system damage. If an attack doesn't start more fires and doesn't cause too much flooding, the ship will just keep absorbing punishment for days on end. What the game needs is an auto scuttle if the system damage gets too severe. In the real world, if a ship was at 99% system damage, it was scuttled. At Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma was around that level. After rescuing what survivors they could, they refloated the wreck and sank her in deeper water. Even in a major port with shipyard facilities, her damage was considered too severe to repair. I've seen way too many ships that were complete wrecks make it back to port. I know it is quite gratifying to save that 99% damaged carrier and put her back in action after extensive time in the ship yard, but frankly, it's gamey to do so. In the real world, the carrier would have been scuttled by her escorts near the scene of the battle. All 4 of the IJN Midway carriers were scuttled. Most US carriers sunk were also scuttled. The Hornet's escorts were trying to scuttle her when the Japanese arrived on the scene and did the job for them. Ships receiving 99% system damage and remaining afloat more than a few hours are exceedingly rare. The only case I can think of was the Neosho at Coral Sea which became a floating hulk and hung on for a couple of days. The only reason it wasn't scuttled immediately was because it's only escort had been sunk and the Navy was unaware of it's fate. As soon as it was found and the survivors rescued, it was sent to the bottom. Ships that receive massive damage and refuse to sink is probably the most unrealistic problem that comes up consistently. (There are a few others like ships out of fuel able to fight like nothing was wrong, but that doesn't bite you as often.) Bill

qgaliana -> RE: Curious incident (11/30/2006 4:34:24 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: wdolson quote: ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl qgaliana. Real problem is that Transports (especially Japanese Transports) are WAY too tough to sink. You had 12 "targets" that couldn't fight and couldn't run away under attack by Cruisers and DD's for 3-4 Days---and 1/3rd survive to land troops. U-Boats sank these things all over the Atlantic with moderate expenditures of ammo from relatively small calibre (105mm) deck guns---but in this game they survive 5", 6", 8", torpedoes, and even BB calibre hits with amazing regularity. It's just something you will have to live with... I was thinking about the ship sinking model the other day. Ships never reach 100% system damage. They will only sucomb if they are on fire or flooding. If flooding is under control and the fires are put out, the ship can limp 2000 miles home with 99% system damage. If an attack doesn't start more fires and doesn't cause too much flooding, the ship will just keep absorbing punishment for days on end. What the game needs is an auto scuttle if the system damage gets too severe. In the real world, if a ship was at 99% system damage, it was scuttled. At Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma was around that level. After rescuing what survivors they could, they refloated the wreck and sank her in deeper water. Even in a major port with shipyard facilities, her damage was considered too severe to repair. I've seen way too many ships that were complete wrecks make it back to port. I know it is quite gratifying to save that 99% damaged carrier and put her back in action after extensive time in the ship yard, but frankly, it's gamey to do so. In the real world, the carrier would have been scuttled by her escorts near the scene of the battle. All 4 of the IJN Midway carriers were scuttled. Most US carriers sunk were also scuttled. The Hornet's escorts were trying to scuttle her when the Japanese arrived on the scene and did the job for them. Ships receiving 99% system damage and remaining afloat more than a few hours are exceedingly rare. The only case I can think of was the Neosho at Coral Sea which became a floating hulk and hung on for a couple of days. The only reason it wasn't scuttled immediately was because it's only escort had been sunk and the Navy was unaware of it's fate. As soon as it was found and the survivors rescued, it was sent to the bottom. Ships that receive massive damage and refuse to sink is probably the most unrealistic problem that comes up consistently. (There are a few others like ships out of fuel able to fight like nothing was wrong, but that doesn't bite you as often.) Bill These all seem reasonable. I'd venture that damage control on merchant ships in particular seems oddly effective. I didn't think they had the systems or personnel to keep a ship afloat once it took major damage. But these are nits. They could keep coding more and more details in until the computer melts down. And my transports can do something similar, so...

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