Convoy escorts...Be more agressive

Drifter9 · 03-26-07, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tater

Also, why use the term "realistic escorts" (not slamming you, specifically) when "realisitc" might be what they are now, or even worse as a total system.

True, I was just going with a prior posts comment for that option. Realistic wasn't a great choice but you got the jist. Who can say what a real escort would have been other than a vet or a historian.
Of course, like I said, you have to add warships for the fun factor. I mean blowing up or even finding one or two random cargo clunkers doesn't appeal to the masses. To keep things off the shelf and on your hard drive there needs to be cruisers and carriers zipping about for you to throw torps at.
I think a good mod would put almost all of the warships in task forces or small surface action groups, string out the cargo ships to small groups (like sampans and junks are in SH4) and limit their escort accordingly, and add a lot more gunboats, armed supply barges and small ships in the coastal waterways. Also, some Q ship style merch's would be nice too.

tater · 03-26-07, 06:03 PM

In general, it seems to me that there should be more of the subchasers, and fewer DDs seen as escorts.

One thing I might be inclined to tweak would be to really push the VISUAL spotting skills of the IJN DDs in particular. They were very very well trained for night operations.

tater

scg737 · 03-26-07, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tater

One thing I might be inclined to tweak would be to really push the VISUAL spotting skills of the IJN DDs in particular. They were very very well trained for night operations.
tater

And this clearly isn't modeled in SH4. My sub was flooded with light, so much so that I couldn't actually see the tankers I was shelling but rather simply hurled rounds into the bright light, and the destroyer only got a single shot off...which missed.

BTW, great info on Japanese convoy operations and escort assignments from a historical standpoint. Much Thanks!

FAdmiral · 03-26-07, 06:35 PM

I made my own mission from the editor for testing purposes in learning
more about how the enemy DDs work. In my first attempt, no mods,
there I was at PD with scope up watching a DD come within 288 (yards or meters?)
of me. Nothing, he didn't see me or detect me?? I sank the Seaplane Tender
he was escorting. All 4 DDs stopped and all I saw was blinking lights and a few
star shells fired. I waited, still doing 5 kts at PD with scope up. After about 10
minutes with nothing happening, I sank a Lt. Cruiser (1 torp was all it took).
Still nothing ?? The DDs didn't seem to know what to do. I was NOT detected
so I assume they were clueless on what action to take. I had set them all to
Veteran in the mission editor. This was on May 5, 1942 at 730 AM in the Coral Sea.
Sun was already up. Another time I tried to stay on the surface till seen and
then went under. This time they acted more like they should. They started
looking for me and dropped DCs in some areas but not close (I was at 200 ft.,
under thermal layer and silent running) At one time, one darted over the top
of me and I thought here it comes but he didn't drop. I was NOT detected.
As of now, I think DETECTION is the KEY element here. Without that, I don't
think the DDs know what to do !! I will continue further testing on this and
will use some of the mods that are supposed to increase DD agression...

JIM

CaptCrashDive · 03-26-07, 08:25 PM

I don't know, think about it. You are an escort and out of no where a ship explodes, you know a sub is out there, maybe what side he is on, that's it. Stopping and listening isn't a bad idea, and from the literature I have seen Japanese ASW doctrine and sonar was pretty poor. Maybe they should have been more aggressive. I ran upon a TF of Java with 3 flat tops, set up about 1200 yds off, 4 fish on slow, dove to 200ft and started to motor off. 2 hits, and she sank. 3 DDs and 2 Cruisers came after me while the other kept on. Picked me up for a second, DCed near me, I fired off a decoy and made a speed run to clear datum. Slowed down. The 3 DDs were all over my noise maker, then planes showed up and they bombed it to. Eventually they moved off, but I made a mistake and kicked up the speed too soo, had a DD turn around and come at me again. I slowed down and he lost me. Crept on for a while, and eventually went clear. Was a pretty good run I thought. I was impressed by A.I. I have noticed however that they seem pretty lax when in formation, but when they come after you they can be tought to shake. I think without external view it would have been much harder. I am going to try it again like that and see.

FAdmiral · 03-27-07, 12:58 PM

Patches from the devs are needed to fix bugs and make changes to the game engine & hard-coded elements.
Everything else (plain text files) can & will be addressed by the modders but they almost have to wait till the
devs release the patches first. From what I have observed so far: the AI DDs don't have the detection down
pat in SH4 like the Brit. DDs did in SH3 (actually this could be historical) and I can see that happening early in the
war years. The thing that irks me the most is when you do torp and sink a ship in the convoy they are guarding, the DDs don't seem to have a search plan they impliment in order to find you. Detection is one thing but looking for an enemy sub that just attacked the convoy the DD was guarding is lacking here. In plain words, the DDs in SH4 are just NOT doing their
job right. This may be hard-coded and a patch is needed to fix it. American Sub Doctrine at the start of WW2 in the
pacific was to protect the BB TFs and sink enemy warships (same as Japans). Adm Nimitz changed all that when he
figured that Japan, like England, was an island nation and needed to ship in all the resources to sustain itself. So he
used the German approach to go after the merchant & tanker ships (or convoys later) doing the resupply. I think that
caught Japan off-guard in relation to what American Subs would be doing till at least late in 1942 when they finally
started to catch on....

JIM

TheSatyr · 03-27-07, 02:51 PM

The first thing the devs need to do is to remove decoys from the game. I have never ever read about a US sub using decoys in WW2.

It's totally unrealistic to give US subs something they never had or used. But then,considering how screwed up this game seems to be with historical things (Australians with Lancasters AND with upside down US insignias),I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

It's a shame Microprose went out of business. SH1 was the only game in the series to get everything right.

Werewolf13 · 03-27-07, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSatyr

The first thing the devs need to do is to remove decoys from the game. I have never ever read about a US sub using decoys in WW2.

It's totally unrealistic to give US subs something they never had or used. But then,considering how screwed up this game seems to be with historical things (Australians with Lancasters AND with upside down US insignias),I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

It's a shame Microprose went out of business. SH1 was the only game in the series to get everything right.

No kidding! It's almost like they took SH3 and just modded it over to SH4 with a few changes.

Hell's Bell's... They couldn't even get something simple like the medals and Officer's uniforms right. How the heck can we expect them to have gotten escort AI or the fact that the Japanese didn't do convoys in the early war right?

NefariousKoel · 04-24-07, 09:24 PM

The Escorts and even the Convoy AI needs a big overhaul. I've only seen DCs dropped on me once and that was back near where I fired long before.. nowhere near.

I've also never heard active sonar pings nor seen searchlights. This all in the first year of the war.

I have screenshots of a destroyer passing directly over my submerged position twice in a row and not even pinging much less dropping DCs.

This is definitely not historical. From the onset, the subs were getting DC'd and prosecuted though perhaps not as efficiently as later.

I'm thinking there's something seriously wrong with the escort's detection abilities at the least, and possibly the AI.

-Pv- · 04-25-07, 08:58 PM

I'm seeing some people report aggressive escorts and many reporting laconic DDs.

I've seen both so far playing between 41 and 42 on my second patrol. I have found the China Sea heavily populated and aggressively patrolled.

What I would expect out of the history, theater, and time period that low value convoys would be poorly protected early in the war and large tankers or task forces would be more aggressively protected and more so as the war progressed.

This would all be modified by:
Quality of the convoy commander
Quality of the escort crews
Lighting and sea conditions
Stealth skill of the sub commander

Submarines while end-on to escorts at night were very hard to spot by escorts and even harder to judge the distance since they didn't have radar range finders. It would be hard to tell if the sub was coming or going at low speed.
It would take several ranging shots to find out.

More than one US sub commander in the real war were very effective at picking ships off while surfaced inside the convoy so this is historically correct. The confusion, destruction, plethora of props in the water and lack of torpedo wakes would confuse the enemy.

-Pv-

castorp345 · 03-30-07, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tater

One thing I might be inclined to tweak would be to really push the VISUAL spotting skills of the IJN DDs in particular. They were very very well trained for night operations.

hey tater
this question probably belongs in the mod forum, but i'm curious if you're pushing ahead with tweaking the visual detection parameters, and if so which values you are adjusting?

cheers
hc

tater · 03-30-07, 09:53 AM

I know squat about the sensor files, so no. As a mod noob, I was trying to stick to the ridiculously easy stuff first (like setting bombloads to "NULL"), lol.

Anyone else think that this makes sense?

The funny thing is that (as others have observed) the quality of escorts is so amazingly variable. I made a mission of the Midway CV force last night and every ship was set to veteran. The DDs were pathetic. I never ran silent, I rarely slowed down to 1/3 (all submerged). They didn't drop a single DC, though 1 DD pinged around. It was getting late and I couldn't catch up submerged so i surfaced the boat a few thousand yards from 2 DDs and a CV. Only then did I get attacked. I decied to duke it out with the deck gun (hehehe). I was sunk, of course, but I also took a DD with me---he wasn't listed as destroyed, but was furiously burning as the death-cam spun around. I think the DDs are a little too easy to take out with gun fire, frankly.

castorp345 · 03-30-07, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tater

I know squat about the sensor files, so no. As a mod noob, I was trying to stick to the ridiculously easy stuff first (like setting bombloads to "NULL"), lol.

Anyone else think that this makes sense?

'best way to learn is to dive on in and not be afraid of breaking stuff along the way...

but could you please then point me to some source readings that indicate the sort of visual acuity on the part of the ijn forces that you're talking about?

many thanks!

03-26-07, 06:35 PM	#4
FAdmiral Pacific Aces Dev Team Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA Posts: 1,079 Downloads: 6 Uploads: 0	I made my own mission from the editor for testing purposes in learning more about how the enemy DDs work. In my first attempt, no mods, there I was at PD with scope up watching a DD come within 288 (yards or meters?) of me. Nothing, he didn't see me or detect me?? I sank the Seaplane Tender he was escorting. All 4 DDs stopped and all I saw was blinking lights and a few star shells fired. I waited, still doing 5 kts at PD with scope up. After about 10 minutes with nothing happening, I sank a Lt. Cruiser (1 torp was all it took). Still nothing ?? The DDs didn't seem to know what to do. I was NOT detected so I assume they were clueless on what action to take. I had set them all to Veteran in the mission editor. This was on May 5, 1942 at 730 AM in the Coral Sea. Sun was already up. Another time I tried to stay on the surface till seen and then went under. This time they acted more like they should. They started looking for me and dropped DCs in some areas but not close (I was at 200 ft., under thermal layer and silent running) At one time, one darted over the top of me and I thought here it comes but he didn't drop. I was NOT detected. As of now, I think DETECTION is the KEY element here. Without that, I don't think the DDs know what to do !! I will continue further testing on this and will use some of the mods that are supposed to increase DD agression... JIM __________________ If you\'re not taking losses, you\'re not doing enough. RAdm. Kelly Turner, USN ********************************** www.fairtax.org

03-27-07, 12:58 PM	#6
FAdmiral Pacific Aces Dev Team Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA Posts: 1,079 Downloads: 6 Uploads: 0	Patches from the devs are needed to fix bugs and make changes to the game engine & hard-coded elements. Everything else (plain text files) can & will be addressed by the modders but they almost have to wait till the devs release the patches first. From what I have observed so far: the AI DDs don't have the detection down pat in SH4 like the Brit. DDs did in SH3 (actually this could be historical) and I can see that happening early in the war years. The thing that irks me the most is when you do torp and sink a ship in the convoy they are guarding, the DDs don't seem to have a search plan they impliment in order to find you. Detection is one thing but looking for an enemy sub that just attacked the convoy the DD was guarding is lacking here. In plain words, the DDs in SH4 are just NOT doing their job right. This may be hard-coded and a patch is needed to fix it. American Sub Doctrine at the start of WW2 in the pacific was to protect the BB TFs and sink enemy warships (same as Japans). Adm Nimitz changed all that when he figured that Japan, like England, was an island nation and needed to ship in all the resources to sustain itself. So he used the German approach to go after the merchant & tanker ships (or convoys later) doing the resupply. I think that caught Japan off-guard in relation to what American Subs would be doing till at least late in 1942 when they finally started to catch on.... JIM __________________ If you\'re not taking losses, you\'re not doing enough. RAdm. Kelly Turner, USN ********************************** www.fairtax.org

04-24-07, 09:24 PM	#9
NefariousKoel Ace of the Deep Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: No-good Missouri scum Posts: 1,223 Downloads: 43 Uploads: 0	The Escorts and even the Convoy AI needs a big overhaul. I've only seen DCs dropped on me once and that was back near where I fired long before.. nowhere near. I've also never heard active sonar pings nor seen searchlights. This all in the first year of the war. I have screenshots of a destroyer passing directly over my submerged position twice in a row and not even pinging much less dropping DCs. This is definitely not historical. From the onset, the subs were getting DC'd and prosecuted though perhaps not as efficiently as later. I'm thinking there's something seriously wrong with the escort's detection abilities at the least, and possibly the AI. __________________ "When Gary told me he had found Jesus, I thought, Yahoo! We're rich! But it turned out to be something different." - Jack Handey

03-26-07, 06:03 PM	#2
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	In general, it seems to me that there should be more of the subchasers, and fewer DDs seen as escorts. One thing I might be inclined to tweak would be to really push the VISUAL spotting skills of the IJN DDs in particular. They were very very well trained for night operations. tater

03-26-07, 08:25 PM	#5
CaptCrashDive Swabbie Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Pensacola Fl Posts: 7 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	I don't know, think about it. You are an escort and out of no where a ship explodes, you know a sub is out there, maybe what side he is on, that's it. Stopping and listening isn't a bad idea, and from the literature I have seen Japanese ASW doctrine and sonar was pretty poor. Maybe they should have been more aggressive. I ran upon a TF of Java with 3 flat tops, set up about 1200 yds off, 4 fish on slow, dove to 200ft and started to motor off. 2 hits, and she sank. 3 DDs and 2 Cruisers came after me while the other kept on. Picked me up for a second, DCed near me, I fired off a decoy and made a speed run to clear datum. Slowed down. The 3 DDs were all over my noise maker, then planes showed up and they bombed it to. Eventually they moved off, but I made a mistake and kicked up the speed too soo, had a DD turn around and come at me again. I slowed down and he lost me. Crept on for a while, and eventually went clear. Was a pretty good run I thought. I was impressed by A.I. I have noticed however that they seem pretty lax when in formation, but when they come after you they can be tought to shake. I think without external view it would have been much harder. I am going to try it again like that and see.

03-27-07, 02:51 PM	#7
TheSatyr Captain Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 545 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	The first thing the devs need to do is to remove decoys from the game. I have never ever read about a US sub using decoys in WW2. It's totally unrealistic to give US subs something they never had or used. But then,considering how screwed up this game seems to be with historical things (Australians with Lancasters AND with upside down US insignias),I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It's a shame Microprose went out of business. SH1 was the only game in the series to get everything right.

04-25-07, 08:58 PM	#10
-Pv- The Old Man Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 1,434 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	I'm seeing some people report aggressive escorts and many reporting laconic DDs. I've seen both so far playing between 41 and 42 on my second patrol. I have found the China Sea heavily populated and aggressively patrolled. What I would expect out of the history, theater, and time period that low value convoys would be poorly protected early in the war and large tankers or task forces would be more aggressively protected and more so as the war progressed. This would all be modified by: Quality of the convoy commander Quality of the escort crews Lighting and sea conditions Stealth skill of the sub commander Submarines while end-on to escorts at night were very hard to spot by escorts and even harder to judge the distance since they didn't have radar range finders. It would be hard to tell if the sub was coming or going at low speed. It would take several ranging shots to find out. More than one US sub commander in the real war were very effective at picking ships off while surfaced inside the convoy so this is historically correct. The confusion, destruction, plethora of props in the water and lack of torpedo wakes would confuse the enemy. -Pv-

03-30-07, 09:53 AM	#12
tater Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Mexico, USA Posts: 9,023 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 2	I know squat about the sensor files, so no. As a mod noob, I was trying to stick to the ridiculously easy stuff first (like setting bombloads to "NULL"), lol. Anyone else think that this makes sense? The funny thing is that (as others have observed) the quality of escorts is so amazingly variable. I made a mission of the Midway CV force last night and every ship was set to veteran. The DDs were pathetic. I never ran silent, I rarely slowed down to 1/3 (all submerged). They didn't drop a single DC, though 1 DD pinged around. It was getting late and I couldn't catch up submerged so i surfaced the boat a few thousand yards from 2 DDs and a CV. Only then did I get attacked. I decied to duke it out with the deck gun (hehehe). I was sunk, of course, but I also took a DD with me---he wasn't listed as destroyed, but was furiously burning as the death-cam spun around. I think the DDs are a little too easy to take out with gun fire, frankly.