Japanese Task Force Compostition, Formations?

[jazzabilly]

I have encountered (3 times in seperate careers) quite a few Japanese TF's. Twice I have managed to sink Hiryu Class CV's with very little difficulty. Now, I would normally never complain about bagging a CV, but...

In both instances they were travelling at fairly low speed (14 kts the 1st time, 11 kts the second) in Line-Ahead formation with one DD ahead and one or two behind with one roving DD.

It looked like this the last time:

DD (Kamikaze)
CA (Maya Class)
CV (Hiryu)
CV (Hiryu)
CA (Maya)
DD (Kamikaze)

It wasn't hard to nail either one; it looked like an IJN review "Sail Past".

From a realism standpoint, I find it hard to believe that the IJN would trust such important assets to the care of only 3 DD's, in such a loosey-goosey formation.

My mods are listed below.

[A Very Super Market]

Japanese weren't really in on ASW now were they? They mostly focused their escorts on guarding against surface ships or planes. They didn't have that many DDs to spare anyways.

[Torplexed]

As of December 7th, 1941 Japan had 110 destroyers. There were enough to go around for fleet protection anyway.

[tater]

Originally Posted by A Very Super Market

Japanese weren't really in on ASW now were they? They mostly focused their escorts on guarding against surface ships or planes. They didn't have that many DDs to spare anyways.

Their DDs were ASW capable, their principal failing was in escorting merchants (not utilizing convoys).

Note, of course, that no Navy would be providing much in the way of ASW capability above the speed where their hydrophones worked until after the fact except via ASW air patrols, or later, surface-search radar.

At 11+ knots, IJN ASW would be blind, anyway, in other words.

[jazzabilly]

Thanks, everyone for replies.

So what you cats are saying is that the lack of any really useful defensive formation that is represented in the game is consistent with how the IJN operated?

Not surprising, I guess, that they lost 8 carriers of various types to subs.

I forgot to mention; I've also sunk a BB in the same fashion.

[Torplexed]

A lot probably depends on how the carrier is being used. In 1942, when the Japanese carrier Zuikaku left Truk for Japan after the Coral Sea operation she only had a screen of three destroyers. The damaged Shokaku about the same. In the preceding Coral Sea fight as a task force they had a screen of 6 destroyers (and two heavy cruisers).

[rubenandthejets]

I seem to recall from my readings that the Japanese formations usually had a spear head shape, with the DDs ahead and flanking left and right of the capital ships.
eg:

....dd.....................................dd
dd cv ca ca dd only 2 dds then ca cv ca
....dd.................................... dd

With active carriers the'yd have the dds as pickets to rescue any ditchers. Getting to and from the battle zone this seems to be reasonable.

The US navy was very keen on "line ahead" with dds in front and rear, for its non carrier task forces (bb,ca etc). It's a holdover from the old "form a battle line" mentality of the "big gun" school.

The big box of a dd screen, ca's (especially aaa ca's) in closer and then the carriers in the center was standard, with a dd or two close in for ditchers when launching / recovering aircraft.

[tater]

There are AI limitations in the game.

In RL, IJN formations would likely steam from A to B in line astern in many cases, at fairly high speed, zigzagging. In combat formation, IJN CVs assumed a box, typically, with around 7 kilometers between CVs. RL zig zagging was complex, too. not a ^v^v^v^v shape, but many legs of different angles off the base course, on short time scales (short enough to FUBAR a setup).

Screening ships (CAs and BBs) would be displaced a similar distance from the box in an arrowhead, so around 7km port of the left CV, and 7km right of the stbd CV. Another would be a similar distance ahead of the middle of the box. DDs would be all around (plus a guard DD with each CV).

The AI does not allow this. The largest spacing in random groups is 1 or 2 km (been a while since I messed with this). Scripted groups have their own problems, you can set the formation, but there are other, nasty issues with them.

RL IJN ZZ patterns:



tater

[tater]

How to array CV BGs was a learning experience for BOTH navies.

There was debate regarding concentration of forces, dispersion for deception, as well as sea room for evasive maneuvers. The IJN box was partially to allow independent movement of CVs under attack (flank speed, evasive circles, combing torpedo attacks, etc).

The USN had similar debates. At Midway, Yorktown was far enough away from Enterprise and Hornet that they could not really provide mutual support, for example. On the plus side, IJN snooper planes confused sighting s of the separate groups. The same happened at Coral Sea.

Concentration ultimately proved the right way to go.

[jazzabilly]

Ah, Tater. I was hoping you would jump on this thread.

Just now on the way home from the abovementiond patrol where I nailed a Hiryu, I come across another TF, this time 3 Tenryu CL's, a Chitose Seaplane Tender and a Large Minelayer. Screened by 5 DD's in a Diamond formation with 2 of them roving. I had 2 torpedoes left, minimal fuel and figured I would try my luck.

I managed to penetrate the screen after putting myself in a good ambush position and creep up from 180'. I manage my LAST TWO torp's into the Chitose, figuring that a damaged seaplane tender would benefit the war effort. Good news: she sank.

I can't help but thinking that the big TF mentioned at the beginning of this thread would have been better served with such an escort.

Long story short - the second TF was better defended (before and after my attack) than the first one (with 2 CV's).



My point? It's a little too easy. Maybe more zigzagging, course changes and elite escorts for the CV's would be a good idea. That way, bagging a big capital ship would be suitably rare event. Perhaps that's a possible answer, in lieu of being able to adjust formations. I appreciate what you are saying, though. The difficulty lies in the game's AI development. In truth, some merch's are harder to get a good solution on than either these two kills. Neither TF initiated course changes.

Just my two pfennig's worth.

[tater]

Youy are running RSRD, so that's would be the escort they actually had. You sure it was Hiryu, and not Unryo? If it was after June, 1942, it was certainly the latter (given that Hiryu and her sister (half-sister?) Soryu were sun at Midway.

[tater]

Another thing is that since RSRD matches the TROM data, the ships might be moving slower than in RL. Why, when it matches the TROM? Because if they were doing an elaborate ZZ pattern in RL (possible here and there in SH4, but it literally makes ~10,000 waypoints for a single TF/convoy (I know, I made some)) their progress on the map is slowed, even though their speed is faster. Ie: ships making 16 knots along any given leg, but their forward movement along the base heading was only 11 knots.

SH4 would need an organic ZZ code to make this really doable in SH.

[tater]

Jazzabilly, where did you sink those on December 8th, 1941, the very moment you left port?

[jazzabilly]

No, I sank them in the course of a patrol that started on Dec. 8th. I don't know how that happened. I was having a lot of problems with the game, so I uninstalled and reinstalled.

Weird. Another bug, I guess.

[tater]

Your sig lists mods installed, so I was wondering if this formation you saw was RSRDC or not.