[Harry Buttle]

Originally Posted by giganoni

Actually, that was what was wrong with Japanese Submarines, the navy never actually gave them a true Primary Role.

No, they had a primary role - sinking warships, but they were crap at it. So they wound up supplying irrelavant, bypassed garrisons (and they were crap at it).

Originally Posted by giganoni

The supply missions were as well only carried out by certain sub groups. After things went bad in Guadalcanal (which Japanese Subs extensively patrolled or picketed)

and achieved nothing whilst picketing and patrolling.

Originally Posted by giganoni

you have 11 subs doing transport duty out of the Sixth fleet which at the time had 26 subs. Japan started WWII with 65 submarines. The Seventh Submarine Group later ran supply runs to Lae. Meanwhile the Eigth Submarine Group was enjoying great success and other subs were doing war patrols as well.

I think you are going to have to define 'great success' in the Eigth Sub group context, historically none of the Japanese sub groups experienced anything like great success.

Originally Posted by giganoni

What doctrine? If they came across an enemy ship on a supply mission, the conditions were favorable and their cargo allowed it, they would engage.

No. Japanese doctrine largely precluded attacks on Merchants (not considered worth a torp) and Japanese Submarines were so inferior that they largely precluded attacks on warships.

Originally Posted by giganoni

Troms only mention certain times unable to attack due to the nature of the cargo or a reduction in torpedeo strength. Even in evacuation missions they would fire on the enemy. I-176 sinking the USS Corvina is a prime example.

as a 'prime example' the Corvina is (by definition) the perfect example of a one off incident, it also shows IJN subs on task only attacking where there in no chance of retaliation and whilst I-176 was transiting Rabual to Truk, I wouldn't mind seeing a cite that shows it was on a resupply mission.

Originally Posted by giganoni

Look, unless you like real time a lot of time in SHIII is going to be spent staring at a map at 1024x as you move to your assigned patrol area. Do you always stay in your assigned patrol area? No, I sure don't. So if I play the IJN am I not allowed to fire on a ship I stumble on while on a supply or evacuation mission? That would be like not being able to leave your patrol area in vanilla SHIII.

So you don't believe that Japanese doctrines and limitations should be enforced. fair enough, why do you care where the game is set or which subs you drive? just pretend that the USN subs are Jap.

Originally Posted by giganoni

Actually, subs continued to patrol into 45, the sinking of the Indie should be a clear example.

Your problem is that you are being forced to lean on 'one off' incidents (a CA that was running as if it was peacetime) to try to back up an argument that the Jap subs were not ineffectual.

Why not look at how many ships all up the Jap subs sank in 1945 for a more realistic indication of why playing them is a waste of time.

Originally Posted by giganoni

However, you are forgetting the sub operations again in the Indian Ocean, the Eastern Solomons of 42-43, the Mariana's, Carolines of 44. The sub ops for the Phillippines (especially Leyte) and Gilbert Islands. Then even when things are going really bad for Japan you have sub operations off Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

No, I'm not forgetting them, they were ineffectual, they sank trivial amounts of targets - the top 4 u-boat aces sank almost as much shipping by tonnage as the entire IJN sub force.

Originally Posted by giganoni

These are certainly more dangerous and exciting than trying to deliver beans, as it were. In many of these operations the smaller, more manuverable RO subs were used. However, it wasn't sub design that hampered the Japanese sub force as much as inexperienced command, miscommunication, and no clear purpose.

No. it was crap boats, crap doctrine, being so far behind the curve in relation to sonar/radar as to be a joke, poor comsec, farcical leadership - none of which sounds like fun to play and if you change it, you might as well just use a 688i

Originally Posted by giganoni

Look with a US PTO campaign you'll certainly have an easy time, until perhaps the Matsu class destroyer and ASW tech becomes a bit more prolific. Even then a game might have to fudge the realism a bit to make it harder.

20% casualties does not equal easy.

Originally Posted by giganoni

However, late in the war there is not much to sink, most of it has been sunk.

Historically you just wind up with smaller targets and different missions.

Originally Posted by giganoni

As the IJN you have opposite. You have decent amount of targets early in the war, with okay ASW depending on where you are (say around Hawaii for instance). Mid war ASW gets at little tougher, merchant ships are still around esp in the Indian Ocean and supply ships, carriers, warships are easily available to try your luck at in the Solomons.

except historically the Japanese were incapable of doing much of any of that, so you need to ignore real doctrines to try to make it work.

Originally Posted by giganoni

Late war, like SHIII it would be very tough for the IJN subs, even with newer sub designs having less noisy machinery, radar, and anti-sonar coating. However, there would certainly not be a lack of targets, especially around the invasion fleet areas. The key is to avoid all that ASW. That just sounds interesting to me, maybe to others it isn't, but that is why people have opinons.

except historically the Japanese failed almost entirely at doing the part that you say is of interest, which rather suggests that their kit wasn't up to it and, since their sub commanders largely avoided combat, it also suggests that they knew it.

There is almost no market for a Jap sub sim. there is a reason for that, as a realistic subject it is untenable.