ASW Aircraft Apr-May43 [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

gi_dan2987

12-22-13, 01:48 PM

I think the realism has some affect on how detectable you are in general. When you turn realism up, what you're doing is changing values in the code to a degree. I don't know for sure if detection values are changed, but it's a good guess they are.

Also early war will not see the kind of air coverage like late war. I once played a campaign where I did not see one aircraft of any kind until mid-1940, and that was because I was lurking around by Scapa Flow. If you play a mod that gives you the convoy route maps and air coverage zones, you should be able to see if you're in an air patrol area or not. You really should be grateful, as aircraft usually tend to catch me with my pants down as I'm going around the north coast of England to the Rockall Bank.

HW3

12-22-13, 05:37 PM

Time compression plays a big factor in whether you are attacked or not. The higher the time compression you use, the less likely you are to be detected and attacked.

Stompbox

12-22-13, 06:05 PM

I am constantly attacked by aircraft. I run my game at 90%.
I hate aircraft and wish I could just get rid of them. I never battle em and crash dive all the time. I have never been killed by aircraft. I have been bombed and DCd a couple times. I just find em a nuisance. The way they are scripted just makes it even worse. I find that there are so many flights over my exact area to be somewhat a little crazy. It is what it is.

Example: I am cruising around and spot a plane crash dive... Spot a plane crash dive. Spot a plane crash dive. etc. etc. etc.... All these planes are on a bearing to be real close to my area or pile driving over me. Come on now. Really? I hope they have good air traffic controllers.

When I hit 500 miles out from the Jap coast I go under in the day time now.

Running TMO and RSRDC and the aircraft just annoy me. They are never going to kill me. I see 'em way b4 they see me. I never go into shallows in the day time. And If I am In the shallows i get right out b4 light hits. At least to 100 foot depth. If I was patrolling around in shallow water putting my crew at risk I think the crew would take over the boat.

Any way. I have no idea if your realism setting has anything to do with the game as it puts out aircraft on you.

But I do think it is just scripted as in... If your up on the surface in the day you are going to get harassed if you are in a hot spot. I don't know how the guys make the map layers. But i am sore when they put a circle on there as a flight area as a hotspot for planes it will just automatically start sending planes your way for a given date that was assigned to it. I used to make a ton of maps in The Sim IL2 flight game and That is All I did to annoy people. Make triggers and use time as the bottom line.
If you are here at this time period than these events trigger...

So I imagine if you are not seeing planes ... if you restart it and run the same course again you wont see em. Try it out. Just run it at high time compression and do it a couple times. Than do the exact same thing in another year. Im sure you will see a difference.

Good sailing.

RJ:salute:

gi_dan2987

12-22-13, 07:47 PM

When I hit 500 miles out from the Jap coast I go under in the day time now.

I think there's just a bit of confusion. This is the SH3 forum and I would assume you're talking about SH4.

SH4 is terrible with aircraft spawning. It is almost unrealistic to a point. If you are spotted in a hot zone, you should get swarmed with planes, but to get swarmed in the middle of the ocean for no reason makes no sense and probably didn't happen all too often. It isn't just everyday that entire squadrons of planes just happen to keep running into the same submarine over and over. The Pacific is a vast area. There are places in the Pacific still where if you get stranded you're a goner, plain and simple. This is why I defaulted back to SH3 and that's where I'm going to stay. No more Ubi titles for me, EVER.

U505995

12-22-13, 09:09 PM

I brought this up a few weeks ago but I just started a career in Apr43 and crossed the bay of Biscay outwards in Apr and Home again in May and was not attacked once by aircraft, just cruised along at 8 knots on the surface all the way to my patrol area. Does the realism % in the game a factor in determining how many aircraft attack you. ??

I usually run at about 82%.

Cheers
Eastwa
I generally travel out of harbors at 256 tc because it isn't a slow crawl but it still allows aircraft to spawn.

gi_dan2987

12-22-13, 10:51 PM

Leandros

12-23-13, 05:58 AM

Can somebody explain to me why TC changes so many things yet it's included in the game? What is the optimal TC to run at? I mean, a TC slow enough to not get caught unaware and also to get all the aircraft and what not, but not so fast that you're missing things or being sunk before you know it. Anybody know?

Hi, as important as the TC you are travelling at is the adjustment for how the TC shall change according to various events. For example: Should the TC go to 1 or 8 when a radar signal is detected or a ship sighted?

Fred

gi_dan2987

12-23-13, 06:19 AM

I've changed some TC values in my .cfg files. Mostly I want it to snap to RT for unidentified and enemy planes and ships. All too often I've stumbled across a DD, my TC has went to 8 without me realizing it, then by the time I hit RT I'm already half sunk. The game should go to RT when any unidentified ship or plane is spotted anyhow.

I like to travel at 1024x, but does this make me miss things I should not be missing? Should I cruise @512x? 256? This has always been a question for me.

What I want to know is how do I change the keyboard commands? I want the Enter button in my keypad to be RT. That way I can hit it as my Oh #$%! button if I have any concerns about why I'm lagging at 1024, etc.

GreyBeard

12-23-13, 07:55 AM

.........What I want to know is how do I change the keyboard commands?..........

Download SetKeys here: http://www.lsh3.com/v5/tools_en.html Just scroll down and you'll see it. I'm using GWX 3.0 so the enter button is already set to realtime = 1.

:salute:

irish1958

12-23-13, 08:19 AM

Or set keys modified for GWX: http://www.subsim.com/mods1/con/GWX3.0SetKeys.7z

gi_dan2987

12-23-13, 08:48 AM

I was running GWX3, but then I decided to switch it up a little and went to NYGM3 with a ton of ala carte mods, and that's when I noticed my enter button was fire torps... Of course, the friendly DD that I blew up in port by accident didn't make the folks at Wilhelmshaven too happy. I guess that's what happens when you start randomly pushing buttons thinking you're still on GWX3... who knew? :hmm2:

So yeah, It was something like this:

Me: Hrrm, I wonder if Enter is still RT... (pushes Enter)

PSSSSS PSHHHHH! "Eel ist im wasser!"

Me: :doh: (Friendly DD goes up in ball of flame and smoke) :o

That's when i think everybody turned on me and returned the favor lol

So yeah, Will this work for NYGM3?

GreyBeard

12-23-13, 09:02 AM

.....It was something like this:

Me: Hrrm, I wonder if Enter is still RT... (pushes Enter)

PSSSSS PSHHHHH! "Eel ist im wasser!"

Me: :doh: (Friendly DD goes up in ball of flame and smoke) :o

That's when i think everybody turned on me and returned the favor lol

Found out the hard way, eh? That's too funny! :D

So yeah, Will this work for NYGM3?

I don't see why either method can't be made to work properly.

gi_dan2987

12-23-13, 09:15 AM

is setkeys JSGME ready or is there another directory I have to copy the files to?

HW3

12-23-13, 09:17 AM

What is the optimal TC to run at? I mean, a TC slow enough to not get caught unaware and also to get all the aircraft and what not, but not so fast that you're missing things or being sunk before you know it. Anybody know?

I usually run at x128 unless I'm in the middle of the Atlantic, where little traffic and no planes are to be expected till late in the war.

gi_dan2987

12-23-13, 09:22 AM

So 128x is the best trade off between speed and ability to detect/notice that you're being detected? I often wonder how many ships I've missed running at 1024x....

Jimbuna

12-23-13, 09:42 AM

Yes.

GreyBeard

12-23-13, 09:46 AM

is setkeys JSGME ready or is there another directory I have to copy the files to?

SetKeys is an external utility. Place it anywhere you like and then tell it where your SH3 directory is located.

gi_dan2987

12-23-13, 10:45 AM

Ok thank you!

sharkbit

12-23-13, 11:30 AM

I've always disliked how aircraft seem impotent in the game. It has always been "aircraft spotted", crash dive, surface after 15 minutes or so. There is never any surprise.
I've recently been experimenting with a dice roll to randomly simulate the possibility of a surprise attack. When I get the aircraft spotted message, I roll 2 dice and multiply by 10. That is the number of seconds before I can dive. The dice are modified by some factors for year, night, etc.
It makes things a bit more chilling when you're watching a Sunderland coming at you and you're counting down the clock before you can dive.

gi_dan2987

12-23-13, 12:43 PM

That's hardcore man! The only way to play! The experience you want to have is decided by YOU and only you.

Ok so I (finally) started a campaign in NYGM3. Much different than GWX3 I must say, but so far I'm really liking it.

There's only one issue I have to bring up. I was tracking this merchant vessel for a good while, probably an hour or so. I spotted him when I was in a favorable position anyways, so I didn't need to track him longer than that. I took range/bearing estimates with the UZO at about 9000m off his starboard bow, and then turned to a heading parallel to track him. At the correct intervals I took my estimates with the UZO until I was satisfied and locked him in at 9 knots.

I also estimated his course to be about 015. Now with this I could spring ahead and get into an attack position. Confident about his speed and heading, and detecting no evasive maneuver, I got into position about 1500m off his course line. Not ideal, but good enough. I did all my final torp preps and setup battle stations. I took another reading through the periscope, and determined him to be on roughly the same course line 015. With that I used my formulas (which I've tested time and again, they're correct), to figure his AOB. He was properly ID'ed as a small merchant. With everything set, AOB and speed pre-factored, now all I had to do was one more range, lock it in, and shoot....and miss. There were no evasive maneuvers that I could tell. I tracked this guy for a long time and no variables changed, even up until the time I took my shot. Frustrated, I surfaced and put him under with my deck gun. Not my cleanest kill, but I still got the end result.

Now to the drawing board... What went wrong? What changed? What variables did I miss/mis-calculate? Up until I took my shot, I confirmed all my parameters and found them to be accurate. Could he have made just a slight course or speed change? Is the stadimeter broken? Anybody have any ideas?

Andrewsdad

12-23-13, 06:37 PM

Salute, Dan !!!

There are a whole bunch of things that go wrong even when we do everything right !! :wah:

First thing that comes to mind is your torps may have run under the target. (I usually watch steam torpedoes on their run with the external camera so if I miss I can learn from it.)
If you have Hsie's mod and are using realistic torpedo performance then there is a very good chance that they were duds. He mimics that by making the torps run too deep.

Is it possible you accidently got your AOB backwards? (starboard/port)? Did you remember to put the TDC back in auto after you inputted the settings?

In real life, I think that most misses were due to errors in the target speed. That is what probably causes us to miss as well.

AD

gi_dan2987

12-23-13, 06:47 PM

I'm guessing it wasn't a dud since I didn't get a message saying it was a dud, but who knows. It's possible that a deep run happened, but I was using the T1 early war steam torps, I thought the early electric torps had depth keeping and pistol issues?

I know I didn't get the AOB wrong because I have tried and true formulas to figure that out to an exact number, as long as you correctly estimate enemy true course. I also visually confirmed AOB with the scope.

It was either a speed or course change last minute, or a deep runner, or a dud that didn't get reported. Either way, I sunk him, and now I'm going back to GWX3 because shortly after him I went on to sick a Medium Cargo worth 6,000GRT with one torp on impact, and it did the stock "split in two" thing :/\\!!

All is good though, as recently I've been doing more mod putzing than actual playing, so a complete reinstall of GWX3 is nothing more than a tedious way to spend an evening for me at the moment.

I've played SH3 until the cows have come home. Right now I think I'm just using it as an art easel to test mods and what not. If I screw something up, oh well, that's why I'm diddling around with SH3 and not SH5.

Well, gotta beta test stock SH3 to see if it's corrupted, then onto reinstall of GWX! :rock:

Madox58

12-23-13, 07:04 PM

You don't always get the dud message.
I've watched torps bounce off Ships and gotten no dud message.
It happens and is just 'one of those things' ya live with.

Marcello

12-24-13, 07:17 AM

gi_dan2987

12-24-13, 11:47 AM

Try leaving Bergen for a patrol in February of 1945... All your flak guns are roaring before you even leave the confines of the bay! And of course when you're in a fjord there's really no diving for obvious reasons.

By that time in the war, the allies were shipping in ONE DAY what it took the U-Boats a whole week to sink. Once that happened it really was pointless and futile to keep sending them out to their certain deaths.

I'm sure by that point is was obvious that Hitler didn't care, and was simply hell bent on killing Germans needlessly. Any scrupulous commander knows to not engage in a fight he cannot win. No wonder why some of those ocean-going IXD's defected to places like Argentina and Mexico. If it were me, I would choose a sunny spot in the Caribbean.. Jamaica would be good. :arrgh!::sunny:

YA MON.. Now what about our submarine? (Kaleun and crew on beach sipping rum n cokes). :cool:

Marcello

12-24-13, 12:53 PM

Actually it was Donitz who insisted for continued operations. The rationale being that the allies had to keep planes on ASW duty instead of releasing them for use against Germany, the inefficient convoy system had to remain in place and a large amount of resources in general had to be expended to mantain the global ASW effort. I do not recall any confirmed wartime defections, though going by accounts the boats which made it to Argentina were not the only ones whose crews made the attempt or seriously considered it as an option.

gi_dan2987

12-24-13, 01:18 PM

Not confirmed by whom? Do you think the German high command would actually "confirm" a boat to have defected? What do you think that would do for PR?

gi_dan2987

12-24-13, 01:22 PM

So Donitz was using the uboat crews as sacrificial lambs to keep the allied birds off Germany's doorstep. Sounds like the Nazi party to me. I heard of an instance where a German Uboat was ordered to fire all torpedos at the D-Day landing fleet, and then ram the biggest ship in a suicide attack. Obviously, that commander disappeared with his crew and was never found again, but the attack was also never carried out. Read D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. He talks about that event and also the Slapton Sands incident.

Marcello

12-24-13, 01:46 PM

What do you think that would do for PR?

For allied PR it would be a coup: remember that U-505 was used for war bond tours in 1945, they were not shy about showing off. A defection would have made a for a nice story.
I can't rule out that the crew of a boat might have said "screw it" late in the war, landed somewhere, sunk the boat and somehow go unnoticed. But AFAIK there is no serious proof that it did in fact happen and a lot of reasons to think it was unlikely. For a start you have to have the crew mostly agree with wartime desertion, which was perceived rather differently from the "let's go to Argentina" at war's end. As far as I can tell from interrogations and memoirs does not seem a likely proposition.
Then you have the problem of fifty germans managing to go unnoticed somewhere and keeping their mouths shut.
Not impossible given that there were several german communities in Latin America and that local authorities might be inefficient and/or sympathetic but not the easiest.

Marcello

12-24-13, 01:54 PM

So Donitz was using the uboat crews as sacrificial lambs to keep the allied birds off Germany's doorstep.Pretty much. Then again considered the losses in air raids it might have seemed worthwhile.

Sounds like the Nazi party to me. Hence the Hitler Youth Dönitz nickname.
Though honestly I find the ramming order fishy, I recall terms like disregard of survival and such but not something that nutty . As I recall the only u-boat that managed to attack the invasion fleet carried out a conventional torpedo attack and evaded.

gi_dan2987

12-26-13, 09:20 AM

Dread Knot

12-26-13, 09:33 AM

What about the Slapton Sands incident? Where U-boats got in and took out a couple troop transport ships off the coast of England while they were practicing the D-Day landings? I don't think the Allied high command let many people on to that until long after the war. Isn't it funny how we support war through blindness and complete and utter lies?

It wasn't U-Boats that hit the landing exercises at Slapton Sands but schnellboots, or S-Boats. Sometimes called E-Boats. Basically, German motor torpedo boats.

The incident was detailed in at least three books at the end of the war, including, Captain Harry C. Butcher 's My Three Years With Eisenhower.

Jimbuna

12-26-13, 09:35 AM

It wasn't U-Boats that hit the landing exercise at Slapton Sands but schnellboots, or S-Boats. Sometimes called E-Boats. Basically, German motor torpedo boats.

The incident was detailed in at least three books at the end of the war, including, Captain Harry C. Butcher 's My Three Years With Eisenhower.

Still used to this day by Royal Marine Commandos and surfers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger

Dread Knot

12-26-13, 09:45 AM

The reason Slapton Sands got buried in obscurity was probably due to security and because D-Day came not long after and captured all the attention of the media at the time. Much as the ugly meatgrinder that the US Army went through at Hurtgen Forest tends to get lost because of the much large Battle of the Bulge that followed. In the afterglow of victory, setbacks on the way there tend to be forgotten.

I've often thought that the negligent loss of the US heavy cruiser Indianapolis in the dying days of the war would have been largely forgotten had it not been a major plot point in the 1975 movie Jaws.

gi_dan2987

12-26-13, 11:52 AM

Isn't that sad though? People only notice things when it comes to them in the form of entertainment. I once heard a kid say "Wow! Fallout New Vegas has got AWESOME music!!" Little did he know that the music he was hearing debuted in the 1950's, but he thought the video game developers made it. I blame our education system honestly. What a joke, and what an ignorant, apathetic, aloof, and self-centered society we've become :nope:

Ok so I correct myself, Schnellboots launched the attack, I remember reading that now. Stephen Ambrose briefly covered Slapton Sands in his book D-Day the Normandy Invasion.

The Indianapolis was a tragic affair. I often wonder if their fate really was just happenstance. One major thing I've learned in my short life, nothing is as it seems. There are so many layers to this deception onion that I'm afraid it cannot all be peeled back. Layer upon layer of lies, deceit, misinformation, and disinformation have perverted history into some sick pseudo-version of the real thing. It almost seems like we only know the official story of history, and believing the taboo or unofficial story brings about accusations of being paranoid or crazy from the wholly brainwashed masses.

How free are we really? Think about it. Are we truly sure why WW2 went down and how?

"History is the lies that the victors agree upon." -Napoleon Bonaparte

History can be changed with the stroke of a pen. In one swipe of ink, the reputations of men can be either made or broken in an instant. Stories can be hidden or fabricated at will to exact some form of controlled response from the general public. So ask yourself, do we really have freedom of thought? Or are we merely lemmings marching to the tune of our masters music thinking we do?

Dread Knot

12-26-13, 12:14 PM

One major thing I've learned in my short life, nothing is as it seems.

One major thing I've learned in a long life is never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Or a better (and more laconic) British English variation, coined by Bernard Ingham. "Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they adhered to the cock-up theory."

After all, the attempt to cover-up common human traits like ineptitude, complacency , arrogance or stupidity is usually indistinguishable from covering up a conspiracy.

gi_dan2987

12-26-13, 02:57 PM

I wonder if it is just simply stupidity though. To say a man who commits suicide by stabbing himself 10 times in the back and throwing himself over a bridge was just lacking human intelligence causes a raised eyebrow for me.

I know an older gentleman who served 37 years in law enforcement, and the final 17 of those years as a detective investigating mysterious deaths. He told me once of a story where a local PD called upon him to investigate a severed head that was found by the banks of a river. To his astonishment, the local PD did not want to investigate it as a murder, but rather as a "terrible accident." Does Hot Fuzz come to mind?

It makes you wonder, is it really just stupidity, or simply the act of playing stupid?

I don't know about you, but heads don't just randomly fall off by accident and not get found until a week after the fact.

I suppose he was out hunting, got excited when he saw his deer, then "lost his head" so to speak...... Terrible accident, I must say.

The local cops took the head for evidence, marked it as an accident, and closed the case. Nothing about that seems in the least bit suspicious to you?

Madox58

12-26-13, 03:39 PM

I've often thought that the negligent loss of the US heavy cruiser Indianapolis
It wasn't a negligent loss.
An enemy sub just happened to be in the area and sunk it.
What was regretable was not searching sooner.
But War, and all that means, has a way of causeing such things.

Dread Knot

12-26-13, 06:46 PM

It wasn't a negligent loss.
An enemy sub just happened to be in the area and sunk it.
What was regretable was not searching sooner.
But War, and all that means, has a way of causeing such things.

When I use the term negligent I'm referring to a capital ship with no ASW capabilities of it's own, (other than zig-zagging and luck) sailing alone in the Western Pacific with no escort of any kind. Even a lowly minesweeper tagging along could have radioed in the sinking, pulled some survivors aboard and provided more life rafts and provisions for the rest. Ultimately, that's on the higher authorities that denied the escort than the captain.

Leandros

12-27-13, 07:25 AM

I've changed some TC values in my .cfg files. Mostly I want it to snap to RT for unidentified and enemy planes and ships. All too often I've stumbled across a DD, my TC has went to 8 without me realizing it, then by the time I hit RT I'm already half sunk. The game should go to RT when any unidentified ship or plane is spotted anyhow.

I believe the SH3 Commander has an adjustment possibility for this - under tools.

What I want to know is how do I change the keyboard commands? I want the Enter button in my keypad to be RT. That way I can hit it as my Oh #$%! button if I have any concerns about why I'm lagging at 1024, etc.

I have made a habit of hitting the observer scope ("O") button as soon as a detection is made.

Fred

Eastwa

12-27-13, 07:29 AM

Would the 4gb patch or the GWX 16km atmosphere have anything to do with the lack of ASW aircraft ?

Leandros

12-27-13, 07:44 AM

The Indianapolis was a tragic affair. I often wonder if their fate really was just happenstance.

Do you know that the Japanese U-boat captain that sank the Indianapolis wrote a book where he also describes that incident?

Many years after the war this captain, on his own suggestion, witnessed in US court to exonerate the captain of Indianapolis - he had been court-martialled, and condemned, for not zig-zagging - and therefore loosing his ship and more than 300 men. The U-boat captain testified that it would have made no difference to the end result. He also had Kaitens onboard which he saw no need to use. Conventional torpedoes did the job.

Fred

gi_dan2987

12-27-13, 09:21 AM

that's on the higher authorities that denied the escort than the captain.

Now you understand my suspicions. Do you know what the Indianapolis's cargo was? The atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima! You don't think those guys might have known too much? Have you ever heard of the "Let it happen on purpose" theory? Know it's going to happen, let it, then play dumb and point the finger at the other guy? The Captain took the fall, and surprisingly offed himself with a pistol. How convenient. All loose ends tied up..... :shifty:

gi_dan2987

12-27-13, 09:36 AM

he had been court-martialled, and condemned, for not zig-zagging

Yeah, something really seems fishy to me with the Indianapolis story.

HW3

12-27-13, 10:00 AM

Would the 4gb patch or the GWX 16km atmosphere have anything to do with the lack of ASW aircraft ?

No.

Leandros

12-27-13, 10:42 AM

Now you understand my suspicions. Do you know what the Indianapolis's cargo was? The atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima! You don't think those guys might have known too much? Have you ever heard of the "Let it happen on purpose" theory? Know it's going to happen, let it, then play dumb and point the finger at the other guy? The Captain took the fall, and surprisingly offed himself with a pistol. How convenient. All loose ends tied up..... :shifty:

Oh, well - I think you are over-reacting a little on this one. The captain was eventually (many years later) exonerated for negligence of duty as, according to intelligence received by him, no enemy U-boat activity was expected in the area he was passing through. The point of the Japanese U-boat captain, in his testimony, was that it would not have mattered much if he had zig-zagged because he had sunk him anyway.

If it was a cover-up it was probably more because Indianapolis received an inaccurate intelligence evaluation and the time it took to discover its loss and come to the assistance of its crew. This incidence, to my knowledge, was the only one where the USN captain was court-martialled for losing his ship in the Pacific. Some brass may not have liked this incidence to happen when things were going so "well" - the nuke and everything. That said, nobody would have blamed him for zig-zagging. Captain's decision.

Incidentally, less emotional later investigations have shown that only a few of the crew members were actually killed by sharks. Nothing like what was pictured by Robert Shaw in "Jaws".

Fred

gi_dan2987

12-27-13, 11:04 AM

It's pretty hard to tell if somebody is over-reacting through an email. I was just making an observation.

Aktungbby

12-27-13, 11:25 AM

One of the issues of Slapton Sands was that several killed officers were 'bigoted' individuals with actual knowledge of the D-day operations-day and date. It was not known if they had been captured by the German Schnellboots or not. All of the bodies of the bigoted officers were recovered and no alterations to D-day planning were necessary. Additionally, when a crossword puzzle with "overlord, sword, bigot and Omaha innocently later appeared in a London newspaper, allied SHAEF headquarters and British intelligence had heart attacks.:o

Dread Knot

12-27-13, 01:25 PM

Now you understand my suspicions. Do you know what the Indianapolis's cargo was? The atomic bomb that hit Hiroshima! You don't think those guys might have known too much? Have you ever heard of the "Let it happen on purpose" theory? Know it's going to happen, let it, then play dumb and point the finger at the other guy?

I'm quite aware that the Indianapolis carried the bomb. No one aboard knew what the cargo was, but if the brass was worried that they would blab a secret, the crew and officers easily could have been sequestered in a R&R area in the Marianas and a valuable ship saved. There was only a week between the Indianapolis' sailing and the dropping of the bomb. Trusting that a Japanese submarine would stumble on it and that it would sink it before a signal could get off is kind of a lousy way to ensure security. Especially when you consider that the ship was also unescorted during the long voyage to Tinian from San Francisco carrying it's unique cargo as well. Apparently, they weren't worried about a submarine sinking the atomic bomb during that longer voyage although in retrospect, they probably should have.

What you have is complacency perhaps mixed with contempt for a beaten navy, from the brass being covered up. Not a conspiracy to silence a crew.