[REQ] Escort types in campaign

AntEater · 04-03-07, 01:36 PM

Sofar I, all the convoys I ran into were mostly escorted by fleet destroyers.
Especially stupid were the huge numbers of Akizuki class AA destroyers.
While this is certainly one of the most beautiful warships ever build, Akizukis and other fleet destroyers were high value ships and were mostly escorting fleet units or really high value convoys. They should be rarer.
In 1944, some older regular fleet destroyers (early Fubukis and Shiratsuyus) should escort convoys, but the vast majority of late war convoy escorts should be subchasers, minesweepers, minelayers (do they have DCs in SH4?) and old destroyers.
In mid- early war, older destroyers and minesweepers, but no fleet destroyers at all, except for troop convoys for landing operations like Guadalcanal or so.
The hordes of Akizukis (I sank 4 in 2 war patrols on USS Mudskipper) are boring.
Sh4 has so many ship types, yet the campaign does seem to use only half of them.

tater · 04-03-07, 03:33 PM

^^^

tater · 04-03-07, 05:23 PM

OK, I took a look at the campaign files. Open the random layers of things like convoys. There are files by year. Early in the war, the cnvoys are just too large. A few might represent important military convoys, to and from invasion forces/supplies to the front, etc, but it's way overdone, IMO.

Most have multiple Fleet DDs at 100% probability. For 1942, many of these should be unescorted. What I also noticed is that the escorts are USUALLY set to novice and poor AI levels. So we have mods to make them more effective, but more often than not the escorts are actually set to be idiots. THAT is the problem. The task forces have higher skill levels set. This would explain all the wierd posts where one guy says the AI is a joke, another gets hounded for 3 hours. Probably "poor" vs "elite" crews.

I think the bare minimum crew quality for a fleet DD should be "competant." The subchasers, etc, might vary a lot, even the mine sweepers and minelayers, but fleet ships? Competant and up. If at that point the AI seems lacking, only then will I think about installing a mod except for stuff like visibility, which I still think is lacking.

Note also that the the most common escorts for merchants are the Mutsuki (1926) and Fubuki (1928) Classes. The Minekaze (1919) Class doesn't get used at all that I can see. Early in the war they got DCs. If the in-game version has DCs, I'd tend to want to use those (representing both Minekaze and Kamikaze Classes). The existing choices of Mutsuki and Fubuki are not bad, at least they are older, smaller DDs.

We need some Auxiliary Cruisers for convoy protection (armed, converted merchantmen). http://www.combinedfleet.com/Hokoku_t.htm . Other than that, I'd tend to make the 100% occurance of escorts be subchasers, with DDs only as occasional escorts, and if there is one, then an old one. Minesweepers are another good choice. In '43 and '44, most were conversted to convoy escorts. If they don't have DCs in game now, that might be a good mod to do, eliminate the minesweeping gear and replace with 36 DCs.

Minelayers are a nice change of pace as well, but there were only 5 or 6 of them, lol.

tater

U-Bones · 04-03-07, 05:31 PM

Nice work !

nimitstexan · 04-03-07, 10:30 PM

Good work.

Fleet destroyers were present in convoy, especially troop convoys in contested waters, but they should not be there 100%.

One note on Japanese DD skill, though: even though IJN fleet destroyers were often very skilled in anti-shipping duties, that skill did not necessarily carry over into ASW. Note the example of the Kagero class Urukaze: http://www.combinedfleet.com/subura.htm

akdavis · 04-03-07, 10:54 PM

well, on this topic, I had an interesting run-in north of Luzon several days after the war starts: big task force followed by a handful of small passenger carriers. Task Force was composed entirely of Agano light cruisers (at least 3) and Akizuki destroyers (a minimum of 10, maybe more).

tater · 04-03-07, 10:56 PM

True, that is certainly a problem. It's a problem that matters to the player, though, since I imagine that the DD's capability against surfaced subs is just as tied to AI quality.

So set a DD to "poor" and it'll do nothing well, even permitting a sub to cruise right by on the surface.

You are right about strictly military convoys though.

As I posted in the research thread, about 41% the shipping was civilian. This shipping simply got not escort before maybe late '43. ASW sweeps that were a zonal thing, but not escorts sticking with them as SOP. The rest was merchant shipping commandeered by the IJA and IJN--more of the former than the latter. The IJA had few escorts, and since the IJA didn't get along with the IJN, that means another 35% basically unescorted. That's 76% unescorted as a baseline. Sure, the odd improtant ARMY convoy might manage to convince the IJN to help, but it would be rare.

tater

akdavis · 04-03-07, 11:19 PM

Well jeez, here's the problem:

All 4 of the task forces in the eastasiacampaign.mis layer Start with a full compliment of destroyers. Every destroyer in each task force is of the same type. So, for example, BBConvoy2 has 9 Akizuki-class escorts. Same is true for the convoys. For example, Convoy1 (which I believe is the group I encountered, and yes, I overcounted the destroyers

) has 8 small passenger carriers escorted by 7 Akizukis and 3 Agano CLs (it should also be noted that there are, mysteriously, 13 Aganos total present around the map December 41 to early January 42.

Looks like this was rather rushed, perhaps with simple copy and paste jobs that were never fleshed out or made appropiate for the campaign.

tater · 04-04-07, 01:30 AM

Yeah, and that is in addition to random TFs and convoys as well. There are only a few over 100 DDs available at the start of the war. The Kido Butai would have at least 4 desdivs for the 6 PH CVs, possibly 8. That's a third of the entire DD fleet right there. Similar screens for the BB divs.

Making a really good campaign will be daunting. Fun, but daunting. I'd want to have a DD for each real DD (might need to use some stand ins from similar classes), a CA for each CA, etc. Create the appropriate task forces that we know for a fact existed, and only play a little loose with ships that are not for sure in some known location.

There are TROMs for ALL of the DDs in the IJN at combined fleet. That means we know specific dats DDs were assigned to different desdivs, what their duty was, even convoy or ASW duty with a rough location.

AntEater · 04-04-07, 04:19 AM

"Special Type" DDs starting with Fubuki were used for fleet service only, at least in the first years.
Later, at least the Fubukis were used as convoy escorts, some later DDs as well.
The division structure was in shambles because of high losses and DDs which could not be integrated in a coherent division because of different classes were released as escorts.
But Akizukis definitely did not belong there. These were THE high value escort ships for carriers and battleships. This was because the Akizuki was the only really AA capable IJN destroyer. Also, Akizukis were the only destroyer class still under construction in 1945 even if the program had been suspended in early 1945, but at the surrender there were a few brand new Akizukis which the chinese and the russians eagerly took over.

The Fubuki class was the watershed, the older types with the typical well deck torpedo mount and single guns were considered not first line capable anymore. But there were more of them than in SH4, also some "second rate" types a bit smaller but similar looking.

Btw, the Fubuki has the wrong torpedo mounts in SH4....

tater · 04-04-07, 09:06 AM

I had posted something before release and a dev (I think) posted that the convoy rate was around 55%, and he suggested that DDs were fine as escorts. Having not seen the game yet, I had no idea that there'd be so many DDs per little convoy. It's pretty funny.

Fubuki should have 3xtriple TT mounts, right? What does she have in game?

tater · 04-05-07, 10:15 AM

Where is the toggle to allow a given type of ship to become an escort? I notice that the minesweeper cannot be told to be an escort, even though it has DCs, and was used as an escort.

akdavis · 04-05-07, 12:45 PM

edit: no need to beta test for these guys

akdavis · 04-05-07, 04:49 PM

see above

nimitstexan · 04-06-07, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tater

I had posted something before release and a dev (I think) posted that the convoy rate was around 55%, and he suggested that DDs were fine as escorts. Having not seen the game yet, I had no idea that there'd be so many DDs per little convoy. It's pretty funny.

Well, we know they grossly overused the Akizuki (which were specifically designed big AA destroyers, generally assigned to escort carriers or battleships, and which should never be used to escort a convoy in a low air threat area). Even in the Allied convoys in the Atlantic, the big fleet destroyers like the Fletchers were not that prevelent. In the IJN, when you had destroyers escorting, they were going to be the older, smaller pre-war classes. The exception, of course, would be cases like the Tokyo Express or Bismark Sea convoys, where the expectation of a heavy surface or air threat would compel the IJN to use its fleet destroyers for escort duty.

04-03-07, 01:36 PM	#1
AntEater Grey Wolf Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Germany Posts: 936 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	[REQ] Escort types in campaign Sofar I, all the convoys I ran into were mostly escorted by fleet destroyers. Especially stupid were the huge numbers of Akizuki class AA destroyers. While this is certainly one of the most beautiful warships ever build, Akizukis and other fleet destroyers were high value ships and were mostly escorting fleet units or really high value convoys. They should be rarer. In 1944, some older regular fleet destroyers (early Fubukis and Shiratsuyus) should escort convoys, but the vast majority of late war convoy escorts should be subchasers, minesweepers, minelayers (do they have DCs in SH4?) and old destroyers. In mid- early war, older destroyers and minesweepers, but no fleet destroyers at all, except for troop convoys for landing operations like Guadalcanal or so. The hordes of Akizukis (I sank 4 in 2 war patrols on USS Mudskipper) are boring. Sh4 has so many ship types, yet the campaign does seem to use only half of them. __________________

04-03-07, 10:54 PM	#6
akdavis Samurai Navy Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fort Worth, Texas Posts: 597 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	well, on this topic, I had an interesting run-in north of Luzon several days after the war starts: big task force followed by a handful of small passenger carriers. Task Force was composed entirely of Agano light cruisers (at least 3) and Akizuki destroyers (a minimum of 10, maybe more). __________________ -AKD

04-03-07, 11:19 PM	#8
akdavis Samurai Navy Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fort Worth, Texas Posts: 597 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Well jeez, here's the problem: All 4 of the task forces in the eastasiacampaign.mis layer Start with a full compliment of destroyers. Every destroyer in each task force is of the same type. So, for example, BBConvoy2 has 9 Akizuki-class escorts. Same is true for the convoys. For example, Convoy1 (which I believe is the group I encountered, and yes, I overcounted the destroyers ) has 8 small passenger carriers escorted by 7 Akizukis and 3 Agano CLs (it should also be noted that there are, mysteriously, 13 Aganos total present around the map December 41 to early January 42. Looks like this was rather rushed, perhaps with simple copy and paste jobs that were never fleshed out or made appropiate for the campaign. __________________ -AKD Last edited by akdavis; 04-03-07 at 11:37 PM.

04-04-07, 04:19 AM	#10
AntEater Grey Wolf Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Germany Posts: 936 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	"Special Type" DDs starting with Fubuki were used for fleet service only, at least in the first years. Later, at least the Fubukis were used as convoy escorts, some later DDs as well. The division structure was in shambles because of high losses and DDs which could not be integrated in a coherent division because of different classes were released as escorts. But Akizukis definitely did not belong there. These were THE high value escort ships for carriers and battleships. This was because the Akizuki was the only really AA capable IJN destroyer. Also, Akizukis were the only destroyer class still under construction in 1945 even if the program had been suspended in early 1945, but at the surrender there were a few brand new Akizukis which the chinese and the russians eagerly took over. The Fubuki class was the watershed, the older types with the typical well deck torpedo mount and single guns were considered not first line capable anymore. But there were more of them than in SH4, also some "second rate" types a bit smaller but similar looking. Btw, the Fubuki has the wrong torpedo mounts in SH4.... __________________

04-05-07, 12:45 PM	#13
akdavis Samurai Navy Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fort Worth, Texas Posts: 597 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	edit: no need to beta test for these guys __________________ -AKD Last edited by akdavis; 04-06-07 at 12:04 PM.

04-03-07, 03:33 PM	#2
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	^^^

04-03-07, 05:23 PM	#3
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	OK, I took a look at the campaign files. Open the random layers of things like convoys. There are files by year. Early in the war, the cnvoys are just too large. A few might represent important military convoys, to and from invasion forces/supplies to the front, etc, but it's way overdone, IMO. Most have multiple Fleet DDs at 100% probability. For 1942, many of these should be unescorted. What I also noticed is that the escorts are USUALLY set to novice and poor AI levels. So we have mods to make them more effective, but more often than not the escorts are actually set to be idiots. THAT is the problem. The task forces have higher skill levels set. This would explain all the wierd posts where one guy says the AI is a joke, another gets hounded for 3 hours. Probably "poor" vs "elite" crews. I think the bare minimum crew quality for a fleet DD should be "competant." The subchasers, etc, might vary a lot, even the mine sweepers and minelayers, but fleet ships? Competant and up. If at that point the AI seems lacking, only then will I think about installing a mod except for stuff like visibility, which I still think is lacking. Note also that the the most common escorts for merchants are the Mutsuki (1926) and Fubuki (1928) Classes. The Minekaze (1919) Class doesn't get used at all that I can see. Early in the war they got DCs. If the in-game version has DCs, I'd tend to want to use those (representing both Minekaze and Kamikaze Classes). The existing choices of Mutsuki and Fubuki are not bad, at least they are older, smaller DDs. We need some Auxiliary Cruisers for convoy protection (armed, converted merchantmen). http://www.combinedfleet.com/Hokoku_t.htm . Other than that, I'd tend to make the 100% occurance of escorts be subchasers, with DDs only as occasional escorts, and if there is one, then an old one. Minesweepers are another good choice. In '43 and '44, most were conversted to convoy escorts. If they don't have DCs in game now, that might be a good mod to do, eliminate the minesweeping gear and replace with 36 DCs. Minelayers are a nice change of pace as well, but there were only 5 or 6 of them, lol. tater

04-03-07, 05:31 PM	#4
U-Bones Grey Wolf Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Treading Water Posts: 847 Downloads: 56 Uploads: 0	Nice work !

04-03-07, 10:30 PM	#5
nimitstexan Loader Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 87 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	Good work. Fleet destroyers were present in convoy, especially troop convoys in contested waters, but they should not be there 100%. One note on Japanese DD skill, though: even though IJN fleet destroyers were often very skilled in anti-shipping duties, that skill did not necessarily carry over into ASW. Note the example of the Kagero class Urukaze: http://www.combinedfleet.com/subura.htm

04-03-07, 10:56 PM	#7
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	True, that is certainly a problem. It's a problem that matters to the player, though, since I imagine that the DD's capability against surfaced subs is just as tied to AI quality. So set a DD to "poor" and it'll do nothing well, even permitting a sub to cruise right by on the surface. You are right about strictly military convoys though. As I posted in the research thread, about 41% the shipping was civilian. This shipping simply got not escort before maybe late '43. ASW sweeps that were a zonal thing, but not escorts sticking with them as SOP. The rest was merchant shipping commandeered by the IJA and IJN--more of the former than the latter. The IJA had few escorts, and since the IJA didn't get along with the IJN, that means another 35% basically unescorted. That's 76% unescorted as a baseline. Sure, the odd improtant ARMY convoy might manage to convince the IJN to help, but it would be rare. tater

04-04-07, 01:30 AM	#9
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	Yeah, and that is in addition to random TFs and convoys as well. There are only a few over 100 DDs available at the start of the war. The Kido Butai would have at least 4 desdivs for the 6 PH CVs, possibly 8. That's a third of the entire DD fleet right there. Similar screens for the BB divs. Making a really good campaign will be daunting. Fun, but daunting. I'd want to have a DD for each real DD (might need to use some stand ins from similar classes), a CA for each CA, etc. Create the appropriate task forces that we know for a fact existed, and only play a little loose with ships that are not for sure in some known location. There are TROMs for ALL of the DDs in the IJN at combined fleet. That means we know specific dats DDs were assigned to different desdivs, what their duty was, even convoy or ASW duty with a rough location.

04-04-07, 09:06 AM	#11
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	I had posted something before release and a dev (I think) posted that the convoy rate was around 55%, and he suggested that DDs were fine as escorts. Having not seen the game yet, I had no idea that there'd be so many DDs per little convoy. It's pretty funny. Fubuki should have 3xtriple TT mounts, right? What does she have in game?

04-05-07, 10:15 AM	#12
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	Where is the toggle to allow a given type of ship to become an escort? I notice that the minesweeper cannot be told to be an escort, even though it has DCs, and was used as an escort.

04-05-07, 04:49 PM	#14
akdavis Samurai Navy Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Fort Worth, Texas Posts: 597 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	see above __________________ -AKD Last edited by akdavis; 04-06-07 at 12:04 PM.