Armed Merchants in TMO - question

[JoeCorrado]

Sorry for the length of the post- but please at least skim the post, and share your thoughts.

Converted Merchantman "cruisers" of which Japan had a total of 14 during the entire course of the war are not the topic of this discussion, nor is any form of Q-Ship; auxiliary gun ship, etc. - having said that...

The US was much more proactive in arming it's merchant fleet than were the Japanese- "Fortunately, Japanese convoy protection was 'shiftless beyond description'[6] and convoys were poorly organized and defended compared to Allied ones, a product of flawed IJN doctrine and training, errors concealed by American faults as much as Japanese overconfidence."

The Japanese were "remiss" to say the least in arming it's merchant ships. That does not mean they ignored them altogether, but the primary weapon, so far as I can determine was a modified version of the Lewis Gun. Oddly enough, an American Weapon.

American forces used the Lewis gun (in .30-06 caliber) throughout World War II. The US Navy used the weapon on armed merchant cruisers, small auxiliary ships, landing craft and submarines. The US Coast Guard also used the Lewis on their vessels.[34] Despite being originally a US design, it was never officially adopted by the US army for anything other than aircraft use.[12]

The Germans used captured British Lewis Guns during World War II under the designation MG 137(e)[35], whilst the Japanese copied the Lewis design and employed it extensively during World War II;[34] it was designated the Type 92 and chambered for a 7.7mm rimmed cartridge that was interchangeable with the .303 British round.[36][37]

The "upgraded" version of the Japanese Type 92 was the Type 1 Heavy Machine Gun, (also 7.7mm, but slightly lighter and more manageable) pictured below - This appears to be the weapon seen most in SH4 on Japanese ships in TMO- I could be wrong, but from the info that I can find, and visually as well...



Note that I am not talking about heavy guns here, like the 20mm or even larger "cannons" that were mounted on high value ships- but simply the generic machine guns that are so prevalent in TMO and present on all Japanese Merchants.

These weapons are simply not a "military" threat to a warship, even one as lightly armored as a submarine at ranges above 600 meters. The pressure hull of an American sub was about 7/8" thick steel and it COULD be pierced by a non-opaque (dead on - 0% angle) round of 7.7mm armor piercing ammo at a range of up to 300 yards. Definitely, these babies WOULD pierce the hull (dead on) at ranges of 100 meters or less.

BUT, standing off, at a range of 600-1100 meters, as recommended in the U-Boat Commander's Handbook- these weapons should NOT pose a serious threat (a 'military threat') to the sub itself. To human flesh, they would certainly continue to be a real threat, so my gun crew and watch team would be at some risk, but to the integrity of the sub. Not so much.

A merchantman armed only with these machine guns falls under the classification of "poorly armed."

I wouldn't expect to sink a merchantman at 800+ meters with a machine gun- I just don't expect to be sank under those circumstances by the merchantman either. What are your thoughts, and how could the "sting" from these light weapons be modified within the game without removing them from the ships altogether?

Please, tell me your thoughts. It is a matter of taste I suppose, I have told you mine and explained the reasons- care to share your thoughts? Would it in your opinion be "cheating" to modify the strength of these weapons? What other alternatives are there to change something to just tone these puppies down?

[keltos01]

the 7.7 mm machine gun was for old subs, new ones got the 13.2 mm type 93 machine gun (I made one for our IJN subs) and I guess it must've been used on many an IJN ship too.

see :

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=148124

just my 2 cents

keltos

[Brenjen]

My thoughts?

The higher the detail & realism the better. If I had to wear a set of seal skins to be on the bridge in a storm I'd like it.

[Admiral8Q]

Originally Posted by Jan Kyster

Since you asked for it...
To put it simple and blunt, then I really don't care what anyone is armed with.
I can not know it in advance and I'm never gonna expose my boat to anything anytime anywhere on the surface...
Will never risk neither crew nor boat that way.

Learned that lesson the hard way...

I mostly agree with your opinion Jan as I don't like to take any hits either if I can help it. But Joe does have an interesting point. Sometimes you may be forced to gun it out on the surface, such as being in shallow water and a destroyer is after you withing a few hundred yards and you can't get a decent torpedo shot, you're too damaged to submerge without sinking, or perhaps you're out of torpedoes and that last merchie you torpedoed just won't sink.

BUT, standing off, at a range of 600-1100 meters, as recommended in the U-Boat Commander's Handbook- these weapons should NOT pose a serious threat (a 'military threat') to the sub itself. To human flesh, they would certainly continue to be a real threat, so my gun crew and watch team would be at some risk, but to the integrity of the sub. Not so much.

This makes absolute sense. Can this be modeled into the game I wonder?

[JoeCorrado]

Originally Posted by keltos01

the 7.7 mm machine gun was for old subs, new ones got the 13.2 mm type 93 machine gun (I made one for our IJN subs) and I guess it must've been used on many an IJN ship too.

see :

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=148124

just my 2 cents

keltos

The 13mm machine guns were in fact used by the IJN for their patrol craft and other warships- and I am sure that the warships were the priority for the heavier guns. Maximum production of the 13mm type 93 Hotchkiss that you mention was only 1200 per year by 1944 and these were being rushed to their destroyer fleet. The twin and quad models are really cool if you are interested in modding these for your project.



Damage received by the US Sub Growler (SS 215) confirm this much. The damage estimates that I noted for the 7.7mm weapon is actually more in line with these heavier 13mm weapons.

Once again, I would like to reduce the effectiveness of the 7.7mm machine guns. Any assistance in pointing me in the right direction is appreciated. I don't want to make my own sub stronger since that would affect all aspects of the game, I am interested in changing just the 7.7mm weapons... IF these are the weapons that are being used by the merchants. Anybody know how I can find out the exact type of weapons being used by these merchants for certain?

I am kind of a newb at the concept of modding anything other than graphics. I have no idea what files are involved or what the format of the files even is.

[Ducimus]

You can limit the max range of the gun, or you can lower the AP value of the shell the gun is shooting. What you can't do, is ballistic damage degradation of a shell fired at range. The sim engine has no routine or method for handling that.

[Capt. Morgan]

Just keep your distance and you'll be OK.

In TMO 1.9 and RFB 2, I have never recieved damage or lost crew to small-arms fire (and that includes the 20MM's on Ducimus's merchants) at ranges greater than 1000 yds.. It seems realistic to me.

To be on the safe side I always try to engage lightly armed merchants at 1500 yds. or more, which is still quite close range for the deck gun. Now if Ducimus sneaks a few 40's onto his merchants...

[JoeCorrado]

I'll try the 1000 meter rule and see how it goes.

Originally Posted by Ducimus

You can limit the max range of the gun, or you can lower the AP value of the shell the gun is shooting. What you can't do, is ballistic damage degradation of a shell fired at range. The sim engine has no routine or method for handling that.

What file would I need to look at to tweak the AP value for a weapon? And what would I need to change in particular?

Never tried it before, any help is appreciated.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Capt. Morgan

Just keep your distance and you'll be OK.
...

To be on the safe side I always try to engage lightly armed merchants at 1500 yds. or more, which is still quite close range for the deck gun. Now if Ducimus sneaks a few 40's onto his merchants...

When i tuned the MG file damage, i used the artillery mission in the sub school as a test bed. That mission places the merchant at roughly those distances.

Originally Posted by JoeCorrado

What file would I need to look at to tweak the AP value for a weapon? And what would I need to change in particular?

shells.dat/zon. I don't remember which shell it is exactly. I only vaguely remember altering the AP value to something like 10.5. US subs have a AP value of 10 or 12 in TMO, i forget which, but i remember tuning it so it was *just* enough of an AP value to incur damage on the players sub at 1500 meters or so.

[tater]

A surprising number of jap merchants were pretty heavily armed.

http://ww6.enjoy.ne.jp/~iwashige/modellist.htm

This came up on another forum, and I started out opening the thread with the premise that I thought ships were overarmed. I shortly decided that I was wrong. Roughly speaking, jap merchants were divided into thirds. 1/3 commandeered by the IJN, 1/3 by the IJA, and 1/3 remained under civilian ownership (but still government control).

All the IJN ships were armed at some level. Many heavily. Larger composites frequently have 6-8 DP guns (3 to 5 inch DP deck guns), and as many 13mm MGs (later many converted to 25mm guns). Ditto the IJA.

Their accuracy is another matter The trouble with small-arms (MGs) is that they don't bump off the deck crew as they should.

Here is what an SH4 ship—Nagara Maru—looked like in RL:

4 DP deck guns, 4 MGs.

[JoeCorrado]

My issue with the armed merchants was not so much that they were armed, but rather the DAMAGE caused by the machine guns of the merchants. Specifically the 13mm type so prevalent in TMO.

I have no problems with cannon being placed on the ships, or the damage caused by them. Cannon fire was a real threat to any sub of the era- even a fluke, or lucky shot could be enough to cause very serious damage.

However, I felt that the machine gun damage was not realistic based on my own research of actual damage received by our subs during the war. Sometimes, making a thing more difficult or dangerous in the game for the purpose of encouraging a certain behavior by the player- does not necessarily equate to making the game itself more realistic.

At the distance described in my original post, the machine guns deadly affects needed toned back down to a more realistic level. I reduced the affect by 40% from TMO values. In my own humble opinion, this is much more realistic. Heavy damage is still likely at point blank to even medium range, but at distances above 800 yards- it's just not happening. You may get your deck crew killed, but you won't have your boat sunk by machine gun fire alone at 1,000 yards.

Against airplanes- the ballistic values of the weapons is still quite adequate to be lethal against the relatively thin skinned planes of the era.

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

You can limit the max range of the gun, or you can lower the AP value of the shell the gun is shooting. What you can't do, is ballistic damage degradation of a shell fired at range. The sim engine has no routine or method for handling that.

Can guns fire more than one ammo type? Could it be arranged so that a gun fires three shells, each with a max range less than the previous one, so at longer ranges it doesn't damage as much? Sort of a tripple barrelled single barrel gun.

[tater]

Gotcha. It bugged me, too, and I did MANY experiments to see if a 20mm gun (the smallest I had at the time) could do ANY damage to the sub.

It turns out (and ducimus can correct me here) that they were incapable of hurting the deck crew AT ALL until they destroyed/penetrated the compartment the crew was in. Since the small guns cannot do this, they do no damage except to slowly destroy the hull. Then the whole boat sinks after a while. Stinks.

So you end up with small arms, ad even AAA guns being useless against subs (which creates zero fear or trade offs for surface attacks), or they harm the subs, and keep the skippers honest (since surface atatcks were somewhat rare in the PTO).

Not sure is someone more clever than I am ever figured it out so that small arms were deadly to people, but not subs.

[Ducimus]

Can guns fire more than one ammo type?

yes, but i beleive their is a hirearchy of what shells they will use. I think they'll use HE first, and AP second, ( Starburst only at night.) Switching shells only when they run out of the previous preferred type.

It turns out (and ducimus can correct me here) that they were incapable of hurting the deck crew AT ALL until they destroyed/penetrated the compartment the crew was in. Since the small guns cannot do this, they do no damage except to slowly destroy the hull.

You can get the MG's to harm crew without harming hull integrity. Just ramp up the "crewExposure" variable in the compartments configuration section in the subs UPC file. Default for many compartments is 0.1. For Deck and AA gun positions i increased that to 9. Which, still isn't enough to kill a crewman outright half the time. (other half it might )

( edit: watch crew this is not a good idea because it effects crew OFFWATCH as well since the variable is compartment wide. which is why RFB uses the damage system they do for the watch crew )

The reason why MG file is whitteling down the hull intergrity is because i wanted it to. I altered the armor piercing factor so it did just a little bit. Enough to give you an incentive to move. I did this in part because of the documented damage the growler sustained, but also to keep people honest. In a number of things i define realism as getting the player to behave realistically. I don't think a real skipper would subject his boat to MG fire if he could avoid it, and the game didn't give one enough encouragement to do so.

[tater]

Gotcha, that's sensible, though if the deck crew gets wiped out, that's pretty stiff penalty wise...

Does the deck crew include the Captain (player)?