Statistics

[Sniper297]

Odd coincidence, this week I brought home several non fiction WWII books from the library including some submarine history. So when the recent discussions about how realistic the constant air attacks in the stock game were started, I just happened to have a couple of reference books on hand. I'm only up to 1943 in SILENT VICTORY, but there are several mentions of air attacks when cruising in the open ocean - all by "friendly" planes, mostly US Army Air Corps. All enemy air attacks in the book were while in contact with enemy surface ships, which would make sense - air patrols over task forces and convoys would obviously take priority over patrolling the empty sea.

Some stats on the 52 US subs lost from another book, FINAL PATROL, which was published in 2006. After the war was over and historians could examine Japanese records the number of unknowns was reduced, and later discovery of some wrecks helped with the mystery of the deep minefields in Japanese home waters.

Losses by cause;

Friendly aircraft - 1
Friendly destroyer - 1
Ran aground - 4
Collision with friendly ship - 1
Own torpedo (circular run) - 2
Enemy mines - 6
Enemy sub - 1
Enemy aircraft - 5
Enemy surface ships - 16
Combined enemy aircraft and surface ships - 7
Unknown - 8

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Sniper297

Friendly aircraft - 1
Friendly destroyer - 1
Ran aground - 4
Collision with friendly ship - 1
Own torpedo (circular run) - 2
Enemy mines - 6
Enemy sub - 1
Enemy aircraft - 5
Enemy surface ships - 16
Combined enemy aircraft and surface ships - 7
Unknown - 8

When you look at the first five items on the list, about a fifth of all US losses are basically self-inflicted. Some of the unknowns may have been as well.

It's interesting to note that during the war, the Japanese Grand Escort Headquarters analysts calculated that the IJN was destroying about fifteen submarines a month, which was twenty times higher than the actual rate. American codebreakers soon learned that claims of submarines sinkings in intercepted Japanese radio traffic were wrong 90 per cent of the time.

[Pigboatcook]

The loss figures are interesting. Any idea how many weren't sunk but holed and had to RTB?

I agree the air is prolific and probably the designers could have been a bit more accurate but you could also say that about surface ships and our own boats. The modders can only work with the machine supplied to them by Ubi. I've yet to have to call off a patrol because of food poisoning or a burned out propeller shaft bearing.

[Pigboatcook]

Additionally none of us have HOR engines...

HOR engine problems

Moreover, the dubious reliability of the H.O.R. main-propulsion engines - apparent from the beginning of the war - became even more critical in May 1943 when the twelve boats of SUBRON TWELVE arrived at Pearl Harbor, all fitted with H.O.R. diesels. In both shakedown cruises and their European service with the Atlantic Fleet, all of the SUBRON TWELVE submarines revealed engine problems. These only became worse under combat conditions in the Pacific, where virtually all the H.O.R. boats were handicapped by catastrophic breakdowns that often required curtailing war patrols and returning to base for repairs. One by one, the H.O.R. submarines were shuttled back to Mare Island for new Winton engines, but it was nearly a year until all had been returned to duty and the H.O.R. maintenance problems eliminated.

The above figures don't take into account the 12 submarines already in service in the Pacific at the outbreak of the war that had HOR engines also.

So I guess my whole point is yes the air system isn't perfect but the modders have done what they could with what they had and we have the luxury to tweak the files ourselves to produce the air system to be as realistic as we see fit.

[Sniper297]

I have no criticism of the modders, the problem was in the original game. Possibly it was toned down a bit in one of the patches, but in the original it took many hours of game time just to get to and from the operating area. Got a job, got kids, got a limited amount of time per week to play computer games, who wants to spend all his spare time for an entire week jumping out of time compression to dive from an air attack over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again?

"When you look at the first five items on the list, about a fifth of all US losses are basically self-inflicted. Some of the unknowns may have been as well."

And Lockwood estimated that 10 of the 16 sunk by surface ships were aided by the infamous congressman from Kentucky.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._May

"Any idea how many weren't sunk but holed and had to RTB?"

Or damaged badly enough to have to RTB, to actually hole a fleet sub required detonation within 10-20 feet of the pressure hull. What actually sunk most U-boats was cumulative internal damage rather than one lucky hit. No stats for that, but many stories of heavy damage to systems, electrical fires and battery explosions, wrecked motors and pumps, along with routine failures like the HOR engines. There's one account of a HOR boat that had all four gears fail at sea. One thing the game doesn't cover is the small auxiliary diesel engine in fleet boats normally used to top off a battery charge, that sub used the aux diesel to putt back to base at 3 knots. S-39 (in a different book PIGBOAT 39) started one patrol four times before actually making it to her patrol area, the previous three tries she had to RTB for assorted mechanical failures before going 100 miles.

The amazing part isn't how many had to RTB due to damage, what's really amazing is the really bad ones repaired by the crew and they decided to finish the patrol regardless. One HOR boat lost an engine on the way to the patrol area and went ahead to finish the patrol on three engines, cannibalizing parts from the disabled engine to keep the other three running.

[merc4ulfate]

I bet most of those unknowns were either circulars or those cruddy sticking dive planes plowing them to the deep.