Contempt for Japanese ASW...
 

I would say normally by 1944, I do not have contempt for Japanese ASW, especially in TMO RSRD but last night it nearly cost me.Gato-USS Herring out of Fremantle. 100 difficulty

February 1944 Celebes Sea.After patroling Western Celebes sea with three tanker convoy sunk on Feb 6/7 in one submerged and one night surface attack, found nothing until an ULTRA directed me just south of Tawi Tawi waiting for two convoys to pass after midday Feb 16. Sure enough, along comes a 7 ship, two escort convoy late in afternoon.Decided on dusk scope attack, follow up night surface if possible, or wait for second convoy, depends.Attacked, sunk a large freighter with 3 Mark 23's from forward tubes, sunk a smaller one with two, then went to 300 feet.The escorts were a minesweeper up front, and a momi patrol boat in the rear.The minesweeper was way up front but the momi was closing it, I was surprised when it never pinged but was closing, obviously it did not have active sonar yet but passive. I leveled off at 300 feet, few charges fell, none close.The minesweeper was on scene, but not pinging.Then I heard the momi roaring back overhead and dropped 6 charges at short intervals.I was not worried since had no active gear .Suddenly, the boat was shocking, taking damage, lights flickering, reports of flooding in control room, trimp pump damaged.Then two more close explosions, various noises.Man the luck, I would say 5 of 6 charges were very close, caused some damage.Fortunately, got the minor flooding under control.Then the minesweeper began to ping me, dropped more close ones, boat went to 350 feet before coudl level off due to the flooding.They seemed to lose me for a bit due to the water disturbance(love that mod) but then regained contact and kept me pinned with multiple charges as they hunted me for 5 hours before departing area.Surfaced, repaired, attacked next convoy, expending last of torpedoes, went home with 7 ships down, 55k tons.

I will admit I was not worried about either escort, esp the momi when found it had no active sonar but they were pretty solid, definitely a wake up call to not hold contempt for even the escorts things are not much of a threat.

This game doesn't really have winning so much as surviving.

I would not call it unrealistic, it was luck and ideal passive sonar conditions.I gave them a target by staying at scope depth to watch torpedoes hit and hit flank to close in and fire on the small freighter to sink it, so even without he had an idea of where i was, but depth etc hard to determine without active sonar, just got lucky.

I would much rather have them diffficult to easy, not getting depth charged in this sim after an attack is anti climatic.I am working on a mod that stops the insta death, basically upped the sub's hit points from the extremely low 300(a solid barrage of charges would easily top that if they are scoring max amount.However, sub's equipment maintains current hit points, this is basically about the hull, making them durable as they were.

So do I, but I've come to realise that true realism in any computer sim is not really possible, the best you can hope for is historical accuracy.And the Japanese convoy protection was inefficient for most of the war due to the IJN using the best escorts and crews for their surface fleet.

Another problem with any sim is that the enemy is computer controlled and your computer always knows exactly where you are!

Ironically, on those rare occasions when they were released from Combined Fleet work, Japanese fleet destroyers often displayed no greater competence at protecting merchant vessels than the lowly minesweepers, auxiliaries and subchasers which usually got the duty. Despite their elite status, their only practical everyday experience at ASW lay in screening warship task forces, which usually steamed at higher speeds that deterred submarine attacks and substantially simplified the destroyers' job. Not to mention that they tended to look down their noses at such tedious work.

Personally I like games that make the player have to do the realistic stuff even if that means the AI is overpowered to a degree. That's is why I like TMO so much as it makes you think like a submariner.

there was always an element of randomness in Japanese ASW. It could be very good on occasion. For example, USS Trout was sunk in feb. 44 by 3 veteran IJN DDs after it attacked a convoy. The big problem with the Japanese is they gave up the hunt too quickly.

On to BH's situation, an escort can detect you at 300 feet depending on various factors, i.e.:

http://www.ducimus.net/sh415/ai.htm

It may also be that the escort was dropping the DCs blind and just got a lucky hit. Even when an escort fails to detect you, it will still drop DCs on what it thinks is a likely spot.

They werent exactly put through the kind of training needed to get to the level we and Britain enjoyed in OUR DD's I think, part of that is no doubt Japan's racist beliefs of the time that they were invincible geniuses and that we were stupid subhuman beasts who couldnt even hold a gun properly, meaning (in their minds) they didnt need to worry about our subs having any success against them.

I don't know if I would put Japan's issues down to just contempt or arrogance, although it played a part. A big factor was just the pre-war philosophy behind the IJN which was obsessed with winning another decisive Tsushima like battle such as they had won against the Russians in 1905. Actually one Imperial Navy officer after the war summarized it best. "The Japanese naval authorities had confounded the war with battle. We built a fleet for fighting battles instead of one for fighting a war."

This philosophy also hampered Japan in other areas than escorts. Japan never had enough fleet train units, minesweepers, troopships, tenders, MTBs, specialized amphibious craft and logistical ships as well. It was all mostly spent on the battle fleet. To a degree this was true of other nations as well, but Japan was shorter in industrial resources than the USA or Britain, so the disparity was greater.

I was talking about my contempt for what I saw was weak escorts, esp the Momi PB once realized it did not have active sonar and it nearly cost me my boat.Some luck was involved but I was in ideal passive sonar conditions, in a Gato and since try to play realistically, I rarely purposely take boat below 300 foot test depth, occasionally 345 to 350(as some skippers did) even though I know boat can go much deeper if forced. My contempt for the perceived weakness of the escorts, esp the momi pb being close by, lead me to stay at scope depth, and speed up to make noise after first three fish hit the large freighter(which was in far column so only fired at it, it was a 50/50 shot but managed to get it) then attacked the small one close by with two fish.

So my contempt and disregard of the threat lead me to take a risk.I tend to take calculated risks on patrol, saw this as one as that but may have overdone it.Combination of my actions, their skill, in optimal conditions and some luck.Definitely will not make same mistake again.

Far as realism, well this is 1944, Japanese ASW was pretty good by then and only improved, late war ASW was effective.TMO with RSRD provides best balance of realism and gameplay.Escorts are tough but not always impossible.I think a mod people must have is the SH AI fix, which stops them from always having active sonar on, they listen until detect you, then go active, this allows you to get close in like in RL undetected, depending on other factors of course.

No need to apologize, I agree with you for most part.I have made a lot of my personal tweaks and have things just about where want them, target for release is over the christmas holidays when have time to sit down and get all together, think it will help quite a bit.