Ever see opposing Task Forces engage?

[Incubus]

I'm in late 1942, the IJN has already gotten spanked in Midway yet they seem not to have gotten the message, because there is enemy aircraft and task forces all over the places. One time I saw 2 task forces within about 200 nautical miles of each other and it made me wonder if they would fight. Ever see this?

Or, perhaps, spotting an enemy task force and radoing it in, with the idea that a friendly task force nearby intercepts them. It seems like SH4 has a lot of task forces compared to SH3, which might have single ships or ONE task force. Here, there are a ton of them, on both sides.

It would also be funny to see an enemy convoy attacked by a task force.

I'm curious about this because how awesome would it be for an IJN fleet distracted by a surface/air engagement and get the opportunity to plug a Carrier or Battleship in the melee :arrgh!:

[seaniam81]

I've seen the battle of midway before. I was heading back from honshu out of torpedos and almost out of fuel. I tracked some airplanes back to one of the IJN task forces. I didn't stick around to watch much.

[SteamWake]

If two opposing forces somehow manage to bump into one another they will engage as they are passing.

Funny thing is they continue to steam on there original course.

It will also bring your machine to its knees.

[tater]

They shoot at such short ranges it becomes pretty pointless. I made a Battle of Savo Island, and it was pathetic. The lack of ship launched torpedos makes even surface engagements horrible. Air stuff is even worse.

tater

[SteamWake]

They shoot at such short ranges it becomes pretty pointless. I made a Battle of Savo Island, and it was pathetic. The lack of ship launched torpedos makes even surface engagements horrible. Air stuff is even worse.

tater

I dont know how you modders keep your sanity at times.

Between being hamstrung with flakey AI and mysterious coding not to mention the brow beating you get from the community.

[tater]

I made it just for myself to watch, lol. The engagement ranges are so short (I could fix that now), but the lack of torpedos cripples the IJN.

I never expected CV battles to be any good, no game has ever modeled CV operations properly that I know of.

tater

[DyingCrow]

i didnt have the chance to watch the battle at midway, but managed to get into position and killed an escort carrier and a heavy cruiser while they were retreating:arrgh!:

[Packerton]

I made it just for myself to watch, lol. The engagement ranges are so short (I could fix that now), but the lack of torpedos cripples the IJN.

I never expected CV battles to be any good, no game has ever modeled CV operations properly that I know of.

tater


Battlestations midway modeled Carrier vs Carrier battles perfectly, even though its not 100% realistic.

[tater]

It did? It modeled that the CVs needed to turn into the wind? It modeled the time to arm planes, gas them, and warm them up (all below decks for the IJN). It modeled the time it took to respot the planes forward or aft for tyhe USN, or up on the elevators for the IJN? Can the IJN CVs only spot ~1/2 a strike force on deck at a time?

If planes had a CAP aloft, and they want to land it, they have to wait for the on-deck planes first?

All of the above is required for proper CV operations (even if merely abstracted so that operations are time limited, and only 1 major operation at a time---launch planes, OR recieve planes. Spot strike package, nothing else happens, etc.

That's what I mean by proper modeling. If it doesn't take 30-45 minutes to get a strike aloft at the bare minimum for an IJN CV (assuming no interuptions like having to launch/recieve CAP aircraft), then it's not accurate. That's why I think CV airgroups need to go away in SH4 CVs, they are all in the air all the time, it's silly.

:)

[SteamWake]

Battlestations midway modeled Carrier vs Carrier battles perfectly, even though its not 100% realistic.

Whats wrong with this sentance ? :p

Sorry Pack not picking on you it just struck as funny.

[Ducimus]

They shoot at such short ranges it becomes pretty pointless. I made a Battle of Savo Island, and it was pathetic. The lack of ship launched torpedos makes even surface engagements horrible. Air stuff is even worse.

tater

You have to increase the gun range in the sim.cfg, and i beleive alter the max elevation for the guns as well. Making capital ship encounters is quite possible. GWX for SH3 took it too extremes. By default the AI in that mod has a max visual distance of 30 KM (while you only have 16). The gun ranges as you can also guess were increased drastically, and im really sure they altered the max elevation on the guns because if you watch the individual units, the gun arc goes waaay up there in elevation. Shots are lobbed over, not shot in a straight line of fire, so it makes sense.

[tater]

Cool, I assumed that that was possible, just wasn't sure about exactly what needed to happen. Regardless, the IJN would be at a disadvatage in SH4 for a number of reasons:

1. Radar. The US had radar, but our ability to properly employ it took a while (case in point, Savo). In game it would be perfect.

2. Torpedos. The lack of the type 93 torpedo would cripple japanese surface forces as their doctrine was built artound them. Even their CAs are armed with torpedos.

3. Lack of AI. Escorts have the ability to move away from their waypoints to prosecute attacks, merchants are coded to scatter sometimes, large warships seem to just follow the waypoints. That means painful scripting of the missions to get what you want (possible, but a nightmare ;) )

tater

[Incubus]

I'm really disappointed SH4 didn't include torpedoes as a weapon deployable by any force (friendly/enemy/ai/etc). I think that was something that hurt modding in SH3- since you couldn't code other ships using torpedoes, you couldn't direct AI-controlled U-boats for wolf pack operations (which would have been AWESOME) or model the rare (but historical) times submarines did fire at each other with torpedoes in WWII.

In my opinion, SH4 should have modeled other torpedoes. While an IJN DD would not normally fire Type 93's at a submarine, in a major DD engagement (especially at night, which was IJN's specialty early in the war) there would be torpedoes flying around everywhere, and it would be pretty exciting to be in the middle of all of it. Kates are torpedo bombers, but I can't really tell what they are dropping in this game.

The other great benefit to this is that it would have the potential for two interchangable campaigns (something that I really hoped for in SH4) where you could either command a US or IJN sub, occasionally encountering your counterpart.

[tater]

Aircraft drop torpedoes, actually.

tater

[Lafferty]

Man i didn't get to watch the battle i was somewhere off the coast of Japan :(

[ElAurens]

I was in the middle of an engagemant between IJN and USN task forces once. I posted about it a while back. No BBs, just cruisers and DDs. It looked like a scene from Trafalgar. Man were they close.

[SteamWake]

I was in the middle of an engagemant between IJN and USN task forces once. I posted about it a while back. No BBs, just cruisers and DDs. It looked like a scene from Trafalgar. Man were they close.

Sounds very cool... could you link us to the original thread ?

[ElAurens]

Heck, I cannot even figure out what happened to my sig pic... LOL!!!!

Maybe it's over at the UBI forum.

I'll look about for it.

[ElAurens]

Found it over at UBI...

Here it is:

Lt. Cdr. "T.J." ElAurens, commanding, USS Drum.

156deg. 34min. East, 7deg. 15s. South.

We were submerged at the top of "The slot", having diverted from our normal patrol to assist in operations in the Solomons at the request of ComSubPac. At periscope depth an hour after submerging for the day's run.

The hydrophone operator called down from the con with a very anxious voice... "Skipper, I think you had better come up here and have a listen."

Now my senior hydrophone man has never been one to get overly excited about anything before, so I got up into the con on the double.

"Sir, I have multiple warship contacts, in two groups, one to the southeast, and one to the west of us, both at high speed and on a converging course with us in the middle."

I did some quick figuring in my head and ordered the boat to 200 feet and brought the crew to battle stations and silent running. "Any idea who is who?" I asked. The hydrophone officer rubbed his forehead at bit.. "Hard to tell sir, but the lead ship in the western group sure reminds me of the Jap tin can that chased us all over the South China Sea on our last patrol..."

That was good enough for me. We came about to 270. I really did not relish the idea of getting caught in the middle of a major surface engagement. Large surface fleets always have a good size destroyer screen, and in the middle of a fight they don't really know or care who they are dropping depth charges on, but I also knew that our surface assets in the area were on the thin side, so there really was nothing to do but commit to the battle. Hopefully the Japs would be too occupied to notice us.

After what seemed an eternity I brought the boat to periscope depth. There were sound contacts on all points of the compass. I raised the scope to a horrific scene. I could not believe my eyes, it was like an engagement from the days of Nelson. the fleets had closed to essentially point blank range and were firing madly at one another. A US light cruiser was sinking by the bows, two Jap heavy cruisers were on a course for USS Northampton, who appeared dead in the water, but whose guns were putting up a valiant fight. One cruiser lost in a day is enough I thought, they will not get another one. it looks bad in the papers and upsets civilians at their breakfast.

I opened all the outer doors, fore and aft. I fired two fish at the lead cruiser and 3 at the second, (who was actually closer to me), dropped the scope and waited. I didn't need my XO's confirmation of 5 torpedo hits, we all heard and felt them through the hull. I put the scope up and saw the lead Takao now dead in the water, and the closer Jap heavy slipping beneath the waves.

Our excitement at sinking the Mogami was short lived though as the Takao was still hammering at the Northampton. I got another solution on the now motionless enemy cruiser and unleashed my last forward torp at her. "Down scope! hard to port! ahead full!" I was trying to bring my rear tubes to bear if I needed them. I was watching the stopwatch... 15 seconds.... 10... 5... 3.... 1... nothing. "torpedo is a dud sir."

"D@mnit!" I put the scope up to try to get a good solution on the Takao, but were were still to far off angle. then I saw the most heroic thing I've seen in this crazy war so far. A Fletcher class destroyer, the last of the surface fleets screen came tearing by us at flank speed, all of her 5 inchers firing an amazing barrage at the Takao, who could not respond because the Fletcher was too close and too fast for what was left of her battery to track. Then the Northampton's "B" turret fired at the Takao, resulting in a massive explosion. She slowly rolled over to port and took her final voyage...

I scanned the horizon and saw no other ships, and the hydrophones confirmed. We then surfaced and set a course directly for the USS Northampton, who was dead in the water, and burning amidships. I ordered us along side to offer assistance.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/9408/assistfm4.jpg

However the Captain of the Northampton said his crew was getting things under control and would have the Fletcher class if they needed further assistance, so I set a course to Tulagi to refuel and hopefully get a few more torpedos...