[REL] Real Fleet Boat

[Madman]

Thanks Beery!!!!!

[DiveMonkey]

This never happened to me before.
On Patrolling just north of Manila when I run across a Fubuki and Sub chaser.

It's my first patrol and the crews pretty green, didn't spot em till they were 4500yds away. dive to periscope depth, silent running I move to take a shot on the Fubuki thinking the sub chaser (as always does) will come to a complete stop.

Not this time! soon as I nail the DD that sub chaser did a 180 and ran like hell...:rotfl:

I'd never seem em do that before!
Very immersive
Still early, but so far this is working very well.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by DiveMonkey

This never happened to me before.
On Patrolling just north of Manila when I run across a Fubuki and Sub chaser.

It's my first patrol and the crews pretty green, didn't spot em till they were 4500yds away. dive to periscope depth, silent running I move to take a shot on the Fubuki thinking the sub chaser (as always does) will come to a complete stop.

Not this time! soon as I nail the DD that sub chaser did a 180 and ran like hell...:rotfl:

I'd never seem em do that before!
Very immersive
Still early, but so far this is working very well.

That's great, but just so no one gets the wrong impression - none of the above has anything to do with RFB. It's just the 5 levels of AI - some will stop, some run away, some will attack. It just depends on how that particular level of AI has been set up.

[akdavis]

Originally Posted by Beery

I think I've cracked the sampan issue. Now they go down after one, two or three rounds. Junks go down after three or four and large sampans go down after a few more. Fishing boats (the bigger Japanese ones) take about 25 rounds and small freighters take around 60 rounds of high explosive. If we use AP it doesn't work as well (which is as it should be).

I'm fairly certain that the 4" deck guns, and maybe 3" deck guns, should only have one type of ammunition: AP (hollow core with small HE charge).

Although the 3"/50 calibre was an excellent anti-aircraft weapon, it proved to be too light to be effective against surface targets, and in 1942 was replaced by the heavier 4"/50 Mark 12 gun. As a direct fire weapon, the small 13 pound projectiles used in the 3"/50 had a reputation of bouncing off U-boats and merchant vessel light plating. As an AA weapon, the tiny HE payload and relatively low rate of fire made the weapon almost useless against fast-moving aircraft. On April 6, 1943 the British Frigate Goodall (K-479, the former Evarts-class DE-274) attempted to scuttle a damaged tanker by firing 36 rounds of armor-piercing ammunition into the light-plated hull. The gunnery officer observed at least 20 ricochet off without penetrating. Frustrated with the 3"/50's performance, the crew finally sank the tanker with shallow depth charges.

http://www.de220.com/Armament/3%20Inch/3Inch50.htm

3"/50: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_3-50_mk10-22.htm

4"/50: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_4-50_mk9.htm

The 5"/25, however, may not have had an AP round.

5"/25: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_5-25_mk10.htm

There is no indication that US submarines carried AA shells. Not sure about illumination, but I would think not as well.

Also not sure if the 20mm should have mixed ammo types. It could fire AP-T, HE, and HE-T, but seems that only HE-T might be a more realistic loadout. Would be great if there was a way to simulate the need for a barrel change.

Seems the 40mm Bofors typically carried a AP and HE mixed load due to its dual purpose role, so that is probably okay as is. Also, 600 yards is probably not an appropiate engagement range for the 40mm against aircraft, although I understand that might be needed for gameplay.

"At dusk GQ, six enemy planes were spotted coming in on our port side. We opened fire with our 5" guns at 9,000 yards, the 40mm guns at 4,000 yards, 20mm guns at 2,000 yards. We could see our tracers hitting the Jap, but he didn't splash until about 50 feet off our port side. Later, the Black Gang said they were cool when the 5" opened up, concerned when the 40mm guns opened up, but started moving toward the ladders when the 20mm guns started firing! As a matter of fact, my knees started to knock when we kept hitting the enemy aircraft without success (I should not have been using binoculars to watch it come in)."
Chief Gunners Mate William Powers, USS Stafford (DE 411)

http://www.de220.com/Armament/40mm/40mm.htm

I'm looking for more sources for the above, but that is what I have been able to deduce from what I have at hand.

[castorp345]

hmmmm
in Dust on the Sea Capt'n Beach makes reference to having both AP and HE rounds available for his deckguns...
:hmm:

[akdavis]

Originally Posted by castorp345

hmmmm
in Dust on the Sea Capt'n Beach makes reference to having both AP and HE rounds available for his deckguns...
:hmm:

What guns?

[castorp345]

Originally Posted by akdavis

What guns?

well, from his description of her the USS Eel would presumably have been a Balao class, so i'd imagine this would have been for her 4 inch guns.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by akdavis

...600 yards is probably not an appropiate engagement range for the 40mm against aircraft, although I understand that might be needed for gameplay.

The problem is that the AI gunners are nearly 100% accurate even at long range. When a 40mm gun is hitting its target with every single bullet any aircraft that comes under fire doesn't last long even if we massively reduce the bullet effectiveness. Whereas human gunners might have hit with one in every few hundred bullets the game's AI hits with every single bullet. The only effective way to tone down the AI's killing ability (without reducing the human player's ability to also use guns) is to restrict AI gunnery range to what was considered 'effective range' for submarine AA guns.

Before the restriction in AI gunnery range all the player had to do was set the AA to fire at aircraft and he could just watch the AI gunners take them down. If the player took over a gun he was a liability because he had no chance to be as effective as the AI. In other words there was no point in the player ever manning AA guns. With the reduction in AI range the AA guns are balanced so that the player is at least as effective as the AI. This has the effect of bringing the player back into this part of the game.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by DiveMonkey

Thanks

I have a strange request or question.

We have missions to drop off spies, cargo, and insert troops.
would it be possible to add another objective to the mission?
Pick up cargo and transport to X
Pickup troops at X and transport to X

I know the animation for it probably wouldn't look right but I think it would add something to these types of missions

I'm working on some objectives like this just now but there are a few problems getting it to work right. I'm getting there slowly, though.

[Galanti]

Beery, have you looked into the effectiveness of the 40mm against syrface targets? There have been reports from the other players that they act like 5" chain guns against larger vessels.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by DiveMonkey

Thanks Egan

I think that would improve these types of missions 100%.
give em a feel of authenticity instead of always starting from base with cargo, spy or commandos on board.

Sometimes you'd have to go fetch em

Quick question, I've been trying to reduce the drop zone in mission editor, but am unable to get the mission to save.
Right now all you have to do is get within 3nm. I want to reduce that to about 1nm.
Insertion Commando Attu 01.mis

[MapZone 1]
Name=Insertion Commando Attu 01_Zone1
Radius=3.000000<---------------------------Do I have it correct? edit this to 1.000000 should be 1nm
MaxHeight=1000.000000
MinHeight=-1000.000000
Long=20769624.000000
Lat=6336823.000000
Height=0.000000

thanks

It looks okay to me. Did you try the Validate Mission feature? Usually if a mission won't save it is either because you forgot to tell it to ignore the Player sub or there are date entry problems. Validate mission will tell you whats wrong.

You should be able to set it to 1.00 without any problems.

[DiveMonkey]

Thanks again

I tried the validate mission feature, but since there's no player sub in the layer, it wouldn't save.

No problem, I can edit in note pad those radius's I want to change, mite mix em up a bit depending on depth versus risk to boat...sometimes 3nm is as close as you can get.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by DiveMonkey

Thanks again

I tried the validate mission feature, but since there's no player sub in the layer, it wouldn't save.

No problem, I can edit in note pad those radius's I want to change, mite mix em up a bit depending on depth versus risk to boat...sometimes 3nm is as close as you can get.

Go to Mission/Parameter and under 'Validation' tick the box 'ignore player sub' - the game will no longer look for a playable when saving.

I'm amazed how many people go to editing the files by hand. The editor is actually pretty good when you get used to its slightly odd ways.

[DiveMonkey]

:rotfl: Sweet!

this just saved hr's of work. will move some locations for better deep water insertion where I reduce radius, should I include the radius\distance to target in briefing?

or would that make it to easy?

Sorry Beery! didn't mean to hijack your thread.

[Egan]

Originally Posted by DiveMonkey

:rotfl: Sweet!

this just saved hr's of work. will move some locations for better deep water insertion where I reduce radius, should I include the radius\distance to target in briefing?

or would that make it to easy?

Sorry Beery! didn't mean to hijack your thread.

I don't know about that one, to be honest, I don't usually bother myself although I can see why it might come in useful.