This is getting ridiclous!

[Doolittle81]

I see now where you are coming from.....

I was speaking in terms of what would be Wise in Real Life in WWII. You are speaking of the Game AI behavior and or mission building/scenarios. Your discovered tricks very probably work quite well in this Game, as you have pointed out has been the case in your Sixteen patrols. I've learned a trick or two myself, especially when dealing with the extremely poor/laughable Aircraft AI in this submarine Game. Read the post somewhere on this Forum from the guy who shot down something like 15 out of a series of waves of 16 Betty bombers attacking his sub....Ridiculous.

My basic point is that had one followed such a tactic (as recommended by you) as a real life Sub Captain in WWII, I doubt they'd have survived more than one or two patrols, at most. Possibly some real-life captains who failed to return in fact tried such a risky tactic....we'll never know.

I think it is a matter of the degree of immersion one seeks in a "Simulation", Flight or Sub or (I guess) Tank Sims(?)...

You say

...Hiding is providing aid and comfort to the enemy and every bit as reprehensible as hiding on the battlefield, letting your buddies get killed while you might poke your nose out if the shooting stops. Stealth is not the same as hiding. Stealth is a tool of attack. Hiding is a tool of cowardice...

Somehow I think you've never been in combat....but, then again, not many folks on this Forum have been.

Anyway, it's been an interesting hypothetical discussion of tactics.

[Captain Vlad]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Even if you stay below their detection depth (you'd have to be below 150' or perhaps 200' to cover all possible conditions) you expose yourself for a prolonged amount of time during surfacing and submerging to that depth. During that time you have no way to know that the attacker is even there.

You'd have a fairly good idea that no plane is there if you wait till after sunset to surface, as is my usual practice. Gamewise, it's kept me safe for more than 16 patrols.

If you live to surface at night, your batteries are in no condition to attack and evade.

They are if I crawled along at 1 knot all day or even, assuming I'm in a likely contact area, just sat there (it worked for the Tang), resting at my chosen depth, listening without even the sound of my props to interfere with the hydrophones.

This is a war where you are expected to seek and engage the enemy.

Seek and destroy the enemy. If he's aware enough for me to consider him 'engaged' with me, I've done something wrong.

1/1000 is not acceptable risk when repeated without end.

Then the sub might as well not leave port. On average, I'd say the odds of not coming back, as a sub sailor, were worse than 1/1000.

Knowledge is not just power, in war it is life itself.

Indeed. And if the enemy has no idea where I am...or even if I exist...his power over me is limited, while I have the power to engage any enemy I detect in the manner I see fit without his knowledge.

But as Doolittle said, it's all about immersion. I try to play as I've read, as I've seen, to get some small sense about how it might've been.

[Torpex752]

Trigger Maru Overhaul is ready, it makes a big change in Air Power density.

Frank

[JSF]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

Im the captain of the USS Gar

it's early 1942

and, I AM UNDER CONSTANT AIRCRAFT ATTACKS!!!

they are so frequent that i can't even charge batteries!!!

Help!! Ive got the air search radar and that can't even save me they just keep coming for me and im still over 800 MN from Japan.

How can i get rid of the planes!?

I had same problem...hated it....switched to RSRD Mod and aircraft are less frequent and easier to live with....

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

Help!! Ive got the air search radar and that can't even save me they just keep coming for me and im still over 800 MN from Japan.

Whether they're one or many it seems to me if it's forewarned you, it's saved you.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

they are so frequent that i can't even charge batteries!!!!?

Not even at night :hmm:

[Munchausen]

I'm at 200 feet right now (different computer), mid-morning on 26 February 1942, attempting to cross major Japanese shipping lanes just south of Kyushu. I dove for a plane on what has become their standard north-south patrol. I see them coming and going ... usually two or three times a day. I dive at first report (ignoring direction and map plot ... not realistic) and stay under for about 15 minutes. I do that twice (the same plane usually makes a return trip). Except in very unusual circumstances, I then have a few hours to cruise unmolested on the surface.

It takes approximately 16 minutes to recharge batteries for every 10% depleted. I do that at 1/3 ... then, when done, advance to 10 knots.

The only time I even consider duking it out with an aircraft is if it's nearly dark ... when there is far less chance I'll be subjected to follow-up attacks and a lot more time to put distance between myself and a downed plane. I always assume that the first thing a patrol plane does, if it spots me, is report my position. Then he may or may not attack. So I do my best to not be spotted.

[donut]

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=131709 >>SOON

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Doolittle81

I see now where you are coming from.....

I was speaking in terms of what would be Wise in Real Life in WWII. You are speaking of the Game AI behavior and or mission building/scenarios. Your discovered tricks very probably work quite well in this Game, as you have pointed out has been the case in your Sixteen patrols. I've learned a trick or two myself, especially when dealing with the extremely poor/laughable Aircraft AI in this submarine Game. Read the post somewhere on this Forum from the guy who shot down something like 15 out of a series of waves of 16 Betty bombers attacking his sub....Ridiculous.

My basic point is that had one followed such a tactic (as recommended by you) as a real life Sub Captain in WWII, I doubt they'd have survived more than one or two patrols, at most. Possibly some real-life captains who failed to return in fact tried such a risky tactic....we'll never know.

I think it is a matter of the degree of immersion one seeks in a "Simulation", Flight or Sub or (I guess) Tank Sims(?)...

You say

Somehow I think you've never been in combat....but, then again, not many folks on this Forum have been.

Anyway, it's been an interesting hypothetical discussion of tactics.

Very interesting reply. Your resort to personal attack exposes the weakness of your argument. Personal attacks are unnecessary if you are right.

I present to you a middling successful sub jockey. This middling sub jockey didn't begin his war until March 28, 1944, when targets were few, the Japanese planes had excellent radar detectors. Many Japanese planes were equipped with radar and sub jockeys were sitting below periscope depth all day and coming back home with a boatload of torpedoes. That is, if they came home, for their strategy unnecessarily endangered their boats and crews. On his first cruise, Eugene Fluckey lost both of his wolfpack hunting mates. Enough of my babbling. Let's hear his and see what you might learn about real sub skippers, not game tricksters:

Thunder Below, Eugene Fluckey, pp 94:

2 September, time 0003. Dark as pitch. Radar receiver showed enemy radar-equipped planes approaching.

Nighttime planes were real. Surfacing at night was no security. One argument disposed of nicely with one torpedo.

Page 97 will sound familiar if you've read my other posts

Fortunately, after dawn, aircraft contacts ceased, enabling us to charge batteries, patrol on the surface and get some badly needed sleep. With dusk, however, the night radar planes came after us again, forcing us to yo-yo, diving and surfacing.

Fluckey sure wasn't copying me. I have copied him and his yo-yo was both the key to his survival and his success in sinking enemy shipping.

Page 126

Klinglesmith, the starboard lookout, called down, "Plane bearing 030, altitude 5º. I said "Don't dive, Max" All our binoculars centered on the plane far away. "Okay to stop, captain? He may not see us if he doesn't spot our wake." We stopped and watched. With a sigh—thank God—we watched him depart.

Actually, I'm looking for a passage where Admiral Fluckey actually explains his strategy so I can do more than just quote dozens of examples. Stand by...What I'm seeing is that Barb was always on the surface, yo-yoing only as necessary to avoid planes and back on the surface like no real real captain could have done and "survived more than one or two patrols, at most". I'm reading his third cruise right now, looking for my chosen passage.

Page 196

Regretfully, we had inadequate weapons to fight our nemesis—aircraft. So we yo-yoed to evade. (as usual: my comment) Tex avidly questioned me on strategy and tactics. I explained that some skippers stayed undetected, submerged all day, using their periscope to search a circle with a radius of five miles. Our Barb system (surely the book must say "our game trick!") was to stay on the surface, searching with high periscope up, covering a circle with a radius of more than 10 miles. The difference: 70 square miles versus 350. Surfaced, we also augmented our coverage by using as much speed as our diesel oil supply would permit.

"I'll buy that," Tex said, "but you take more chances of being seen by planes—and convoys may avoid the area."

"And we have a greater chance of being bombed, granted. The choice is to patrol either the coast and open seas submerged or the open seas surfaced. I believe that the most worthwhile targets come with escorted convoys and naval task groups that ply the high seas at some point in their movement. Thus we stay out unless watching a major port. ...Remember though that each sub must produce, or the admiral puts in a new skipper. He might accept an empty bag once, but never twice."

All this is by Admiral Eugene Fluckey of the USS Barb. In a short war career lasting only sixteen months and seven patrols, Fluckey sank 29½ ships, 3 luggers, 69 sampans, 1 trawler and a 16 car railroad train. He put the only American ground attack on the mainland of Japan, landing a party to destroy the train. Barb's battle flag sports 23 silver stars, three Presidential Unit Citations, one Navy Unit Commendation, the Congressional Medal of Honor, six Navy Crosses and 23 Bronze Stars. He rescued 14 British and Australian prisoners of war during a typhoon, conducted three shore bombardments with deck gun and the only four rocket attacks by an American submarine in WWII. He rose to take Admiral Lockwood's place and in 1989 the US Navy named the nuclear submarine Combat Systems Training Center in New London as Fluckey Hall, the only building there named after a living person.

I'd say I stand on solid ground. Looked down lately? I don't present half-baked, poorly researched strategy. But you see, it's not my strategy. Attacking me missed your target. And your target, Admiral Fluckey, was out of your reach anyway. Funny how that happens.

[joegrundman]

Play nice, Gentlemen.

It has been interesting though.

Certainly with TM i have been having some hairy aircraft encounters. Both my recent careers I lost to aircraft. The first one was through greed (I got a radar contact as i was racing to get a firing position on a big target and figured one more minute, one more minute...boom!) I was finished off later because I had no radar left and couldn't dive. it was a bit sad really, i'd just been upgraded to Salmon class form my S-boat which i had attained great success with using only a whiz wheel for all my attacks.

Second career as i wrote before.

Both of these sinkings were in 1942, so I have a historical/technical question. How early did Japanese planes develop night search and attack capability? What were the details of the evolution of their radar capability?
Was Japanese radar better/worse/about the same as Allied/German radar?
Did Japanese planes also have radar warning receivers?
In the game i don't seem able to turn off my SD radar. Is this not radiating a clear beacon to all RWR equipped planes of my presence?
Would it not, at night, have been better to turn off SD radar and just use RWR as a defense?
And how did the USS Catfish get sunk?

Thanks

Joe

[LukeFF]

Some great anecdotes there, RR. Thanks for sharing them!

[Rockin Robbins]

I guess I might have also but total destruction of a fallacious attack is sometimes necessary. His implications were that I was talking out of inappropriate parts of my anatomy and that dog wasn't going to be allowed to try to hunt. So I served it for dinner.

One thing very clear from Thunder Below is that some aspects of WWII technology still lie beneath the layer of secrecy that covered the American submarine program in the Pacific.

Fluckey (pronounced Floo-key, long oo, I met a compatriot of his at the Orange Blossom Special Star Party this month, of all places) mentions Japanese airplane radar as if it were common knowledge. He trots out the radar night flights just because Ducimus and many screaming SH4 players have condemned night flights as unrealistic..... Oh, SH4 wasn't invented yet, never mind, but it turns out that as usual, Ducimus did a good job by making those night flights. And if you read between the lines, he doesn't seem to have been using radar very much there, does he? And he implies that the careers of daytime bottom-dwellers were very short. Certainly, when Fluckey became admiral, such conduct wouldn't have been advisable!

The recent finding of Wahoo seems to show that she fell victim to just what I posted about: surfacing after too-long submersion, with no combat picture, all info stale and no possible way to check for planes except for the periscope. They missed one and a bomb hit just forward of the conning tower, penetrating almost to the keel.

It's been a recurring story that items people have complained about in SH4 turn out to be historical fact. And it seems the louder the complaint, the more likely the complaint is wrong and the game is right. Finally, Fluckey's book shows that there is a lot to the sub war that we just don't know and are still discovering.

Joe, your questions sound like Luke/tater questions. I can research, but I'll bet my copy of SH4 that they already have the information available. Fluckey mentions that at the beginning of his command, March 1944, he assumed that any plane or ship could have radar. That's scary!

To this day, as we drive our space-age Toyota Prius, we persist in the WWII stereotype of the bottle-glasses wearing, short, stupid Jap when we play our WWII sims. Folks, the stereotype just doesn't fit. As Admiral Fluckey says in his book:

The Japanese are disciplined, brave, professional warriors. As U.S. allies, they must be permitted to be an asset.

If the Admiral didn't sell them short, why do we? They were a real enemy with plenty of sharp teeth. Cheapening their efforts cheapens ours as well.

[Doolittle81]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

...Very interesting reply. Your resort to personal attack exposes the weakness of your argument. Personal attacks are unnecessary if you are right.

I didn't intend to "personally” attack you...although I am aware that in other threads on this Forum you have previously seemed to draw a similar conclusion when others have challenged your opinion/logic on assorted matters. My comments were directed to your 'logic' and statistical analysis, though I passed up the opportunity to elaborate...so I will do so now: your 1 chance out of 1,000 of a single event taking place, 500 days...etc...resulting in a statistical probably exceeding 1.0, etc. That simply doesn't hold water, sorry. Flip a coin one time, you have a 50% probability of it landing as a "Heads"; flip it 999 times, and let's just say that it lands "heads" 900 times or even all 999 times...On the one-thousandth flip, guess what the probability is that it will land as a "Heads"??...50-50. That's not really a critical mistake on your part, though, which is why I didn't belabor it in my earlier post......and it's certainly not a personal attack.

As for logic, non sequiturs abound. All the excerpts of your 'evidence' below are anecdotal, as LukeFF pointed out, with regards to selected accounts by surviving "skippers"...but you drift into total supposition when it comes to Submarines which went missing in action...with the exception of your Wahoo 'evidence' which seems relatively concrete. However, your conclusion from that Wahoo 'evidence' is a perfect and classic example of a non sequitur: The fact that the Wahoo may have been found to have been hit by an aircraft bomb means nothing with regard to the situation at the time of the 'hit'. The Wahoo could have been sitting on the surface with the crew sunbathing; it could have been starting a dive having spotted an attacking aircraft approaching (perhaps a mere 5NM distant); it could have been a foggy day in London town and the Wahoo caught completely by surprise; or, it could possibly have been surfacing (blindly), as you surmise. One cannot draw a conclusion from the evidence/proposition. The conclusion "does not follow"...the very definition of a non sequitur in Logic 101.




Note that empirical evidence is usually much more reliable than anecdotal:

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

...sub jockeys were sitting below periscope depth all day and coming back home with a boatload of torpedoes. That is, if they came home, for their strategy unnecessarily endangered their boats and crews. On his first cruise, Eugene Fluckey lost both of his wolfpack hunting mates...

Mere supposition, by you, as to cause of those losses....and, in any event, irrelevant to your argument about yo-yoing to avoid enemy aircraft a mere 5 NM distant.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Nighttime planes were real. Surfacing at night was no security. One argument disposed of nicely with one torpedo.

I never said a word about the existence (reality), or lack thereof, of nighttime Japanese aircraft, nor of their radar capabilities...so who are you shooting your torpedo at? Obviously you must have some sort of long-standing argument with some other people on the Forum, not with me.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Fortunately, after dawn, aircraft contacts ceased, enabling us to charge batteries, patrol on the surface and get some badly needed sleep. With dusk, however, the night radar planes came after us again, forcing us to yo-yo, diving and surfacing.

[Totally anecdotal....where did this happen, when, how often, every day? every patrol?]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

"....Our Barb system (surely the book must say "our game trick!") was to stay on the surface, searching with high periscope up, covering a circle with a radius of more than 10 miles. The difference: 70 square miles versus 350. Surfaced, we also augmented our coverage by using as much speed as our diesel oil supply would permit.

As an aside, Fluckey's math(geometry) needs some work, but I guess he's close enough for gov'ment work: A five mile radius circle has an area of roughly 78.5 square miles, not 70 (Pie are square here in these parts, not round); a ten-mile radius circle has an area of 314 square miles, not 350.




Most importantly, however, you stated that your "strategy" (actually a tactic) was to begin a Dive when the Japanese aircraft being "watched/monitored" hit a point FIVE (5) NM from the Submarine.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I draw a 5 nm circle around my boat. When the plane nears the 5 mile radius I submerge. I'd estimate I probably begin submerging when the plane(s) are 7 to 8 miles away......[Elsewhere: ... If its path takes it within 5 miles of your sub, submerge just before he enters that radius ])

I explained that the time it would take for such a Japanese aircraft (real life, not game AI) to be "on" you from that range would be 60-75 seconds, likely before you could reach your declared "safe" depth. Again, in your very own Fluckey example, you quote him as saying that he would

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

...stay on the surface, searching with high periscope up, covering a circle with a radius of more than 10 miles.

From a distance of 10NM versus 5 NM, an aircraft would obviously take twice the time to reach the Sub...perhaps 2-2.5 full minutes...While risky, and relying upon the Sub's radar/lookouts to spot the aircraft first, that period of time would allow a Sub to dive to a safe depth. My challenge to your "Game" tactic was with regard to the implication that your 5NM circle would have also been adequate in 'real life' to guarantee safety. I expressed the opinion that such a down-to-the-wire tactic would be taking an unacceptable risk...in Real Life. (Again, no personal attack, whatsoever)

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

"I'll buy that," Tex said, "but you take more chances of being seen by planes—and convoys may avoid the area." "And we have a greater chance of being bombed, granted."

A direct acknowledgement, anecdotal, of the increased risk of the daylight yo-yoing tactic.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The choice is to patrol either the coast and open seas submerged or the open seas surfaced. I believe that the most worthwhile targets come with escorted convoys and naval task groups that ply the high seas at some point in their movement. Thus we stay out unless watching a major port. ...Remember though that each sub must produce, or the admiral puts in a new skipper. He might accept an empty bag once, but never twice."

Okay....so he is talking about the 'strategy' of staying out in blue water...That is supportable as a tactic/strategy....But, that wasn't the subject of your initial posts...In terms of logic, therefore, this comment by Fluckey is totally irrelevant to your opinion/position about yo-yoing.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

...
I'd say I stand on solid ground. Looked down lately? I don't present half-baked, poorly researched strategy. But you see, it's not my strategy. Attacking me missed your target. And your target, Admiral Fluckey, was out of your reach anyway. Funny how that happens.

WOW! You certainly do have thin skin... I didn't say that you had presented half-baked, poorly researched "strategy". You've said it.

You pride yourself on your

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

... total destruction of a fallacious attack ...[and]...implications were that I was talking out of inappropriate parts of my anatomy

Once again, I didn't say anything about your anatomy,.... you drew that conclusion. By the way, in Logic 101 you'll learn more about "Logical Fallacies"...check it out.


.




Thanks for the intellectual challenge and the mature and objective, unemotional discussion.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

... and that dog wasn't going to be allowed to try to hunt. So I served it for dinner.

What’s on for dinner tonight, Mate?

[Rockin Robbins]

With absolute confidence, I leave it to others to judge the situation. Read the book. Read Destroyer Killer about Sam Dealey. You are beyond reach of any logic or argument. There is no there there. You said I was advocating game tricks that had no valid application in real life. I demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were wrong. You lose.

[DavyJonesFootlocker]

Ah, the drama. Just love it.

C'mon RR maybe it's wise to drop the argument. Besides you have the Admiral and myself to deal with and you know how grumpy da boss is when he misses his prune juice.

But I agree it's not wise unless absolutley necessary to engage aircraft.
I disagree to some extent of radars. Since when they used them in 1941? And on a Zero of all planes and at night...hmmmm?