Long lance torpedoes. . .
- Thread starter Soulmage
- Start date
DM said:True, but it would probably have an even less reliable fuse than the US 21" weapons since the bigger torpedo would be even more expensive
DM, are you referring to the unreliable Mk-6 magnetic exploders that worked fine in the northern latitudes of the testing facility but failed when used around the equator (where the enemy was), or perchance the defective backup Mk-5 contact exploder that bent the firing pin (this is a bad thing, btw) when achieving anything close to a near-perfect right angle shooting solution and only exploding when fired at a very bad angle or at a very slow speed? Oh, and don't forget the other problem where they would run up to around ten feet deeper than their set depth and miss the target by running too deep under the target's hull. This of course being denied by the guy in charge at Pearl Harbor and accusing the issue on bad maintenance and poor execution or training. Understanding of course that this person was one of the designers of the Mk-6 magnetic exploder who was proud of his excellent work. You needed to wait until this nice chap died in a plane accident in California to get his replacement at Pearl Harbor to authorise a kit to fix the depth problem (or adjust the setting manually until the kits were received) and then finally authorise the magnetic exploders to be disabled. Oh, heck DM, let me just place your answer here as well: "Yes, all of those." :lol:
Btw, the Germans also had a problem with their magnetic exploders, but discovered the problem and went back to contact devices and resumed sinking ships. It doesn't help much to use US submarines or aerial torpedoes in a perfectly-accurate naval game of WW2 because the entire series of the Mk-13 air-launched, the Mk-14 submarine-launched and the Mk-15 destroyer-launched torpedo series all had similar features. A thoughtful player using U.S. forces might do well to pick old S-boat subs and use Mk-10 torpedoes as these did not embrace any of these problems. The good news is that by 1943 some of the hit percentages went from 7% up towards 40%, but all of these previous issues had to be surmounted before that score could be posted. :roll:
Der Kommandant
Mongoose
i was just gonna say the same thing BU... nice work :wink:
:wink:"Yes, all of those."
The RN also had problems with magnetic fuses, although their use was less widespread through (I guess) a more cautious approach to their introduction. The fish that detonated on contact with the sea in the infamous (but non-fatal) blue on blue against Sheffield during the Bismarck chase was a classic case. However, the RN also scored some notable successes with magnetic fuses (Taranto). I suspect that, had the fish used against Bismarck been armed with magnetic fuses the damage caused would have been significantly greater, generally bypassing any torpedo side protection that the ship had, causing more widespread equipment damage through shock (shock protection was pretty poor) and, against smaller ships, breaking the ship's back through structural whipping.
The RN also had problems with magnetic fuses, although their use was less widespread through (I guess) a more cautious approach to their introduction. The fish that detonated on contact with the sea in the infamous (but non-fatal) blue on blue against Sheffield during the Bismarck chase was a classic case. However, the RN also scored some notable successes with magnetic fuses (Taranto). I suspect that, had the fish used against Bismarck been armed with magnetic fuses the damage caused would have been significantly greater, generally bypassing any torpedo side protection that the ship had, causing more widespread equipment damage through shock (shock protection was pretty poor) and, against smaller ships, breaking the ship's back through structural whipping.
DM said:
Thats what aircraft are for
Yes, and an excellent point! Just don't forget that the Japanese have aircraft too :wink: . If you took back the lucky break that the USN got at Midway and received the Shokaku and Zuikaku back from repair, mid and late 1942 Pacific war history probably would have turned out with a continued Japanese dominance and then the airfield at Guadalcanal would have most likely become operational under its original builder's control. The Butterfly Effect happened instead, and it was a butterfly emblazoned with a white star over a navy blue circle, heh. In a game where you can succeed in suppressing the American aircraft, then those Long Lances come back into play and can be used effectively to pick off crippled ships. The thing in regaming this history is hoping that the dice give you an 'A6M2 butterfly' with which to shoot the U.S. butterfly down in flames. :lol:
Fitzwalrus
Mongoose
Our group ran our first battle last night, playing the "Guadalcanal Finale" scenario between the Kirishima and the South Dakota and Washington.
Naturally, Long Lances were everywhere. The smaller units (cruisers and destroyers) died off in proper historical fashion, but when it came to the American BB's things seemed to change considerably. As both the South Dakota and Washington had the Torpedo Belt trait they effectively were able to force the IJN players to reroll all their torpedo hits, which meant the BB's soaked up a huge number of torpedoes with not much effect.
At one point we literally had a Japanese destroyer division circling the two US BB's like Indians around a wagon train and pouring in Long Lance hits, but the Torpedo Belt rerolls meant both ships survived a situation that would have sent them straight to the bottom in any other set of rules I've ever played (or, I suspect, historically.) This attack did finally cripple the South Dakota (after considerable previous damage) but the Washington was still in good operational shape afterwards.
I can see where perhaps the intent of the Torpedo Belt rule is a game balance issue, to offset the comparative ease of scoring torpedo hits by making it more difficult for a given hit to do damage, but if that is the case then it appears to me the effect is too extreme in the Belt's favor. No already-damaged US battleship (or any ship, for that matter) should be able to absorb three full DD broadsides of Long Lances at point-blank range and survive, but as this part of the rules seems to work that not only is possible, but is likely.
Or are we just doing this wrong somehow? :?
Naturally, Long Lances were everywhere. The smaller units (cruisers and destroyers) died off in proper historical fashion, but when it came to the American BB's things seemed to change considerably. As both the South Dakota and Washington had the Torpedo Belt trait they effectively were able to force the IJN players to reroll all their torpedo hits, which meant the BB's soaked up a huge number of torpedoes with not much effect.
At one point we literally had a Japanese destroyer division circling the two US BB's like Indians around a wagon train and pouring in Long Lance hits, but the Torpedo Belt rerolls meant both ships survived a situation that would have sent them straight to the bottom in any other set of rules I've ever played (or, I suspect, historically.) This attack did finally cripple the South Dakota (after considerable previous damage) but the Washington was still in good operational shape afterwards.
I can see where perhaps the intent of the Torpedo Belt rule is a game balance issue, to offset the comparative ease of scoring torpedo hits by making it more difficult for a given hit to do damage, but if that is the case then it appears to me the effect is too extreme in the Belt's favor. No already-damaged US battleship (or any ship, for that matter) should be able to absorb three full DD broadsides of Long Lances at point-blank range and survive, but as this part of the rules seems to work that not only is possible, but is likely.
Or are we just doing this wrong somehow? :?
Fitzwalrus, I would test this out by doing a series of repeat experiments using a series of "dummy" attacks, charting it out and marking down the results. Maybe ten sequences (or more) of several destroyer broadsides closely repeating your example. By your definition, I'd agree that it doesn't seem historical to what the weapon was capable of doing. The only question that I have currently is that by being forced to re-roll are you saying many missed the second time around? If so, then it may only be that the dice fell badly last night. Statically, if the odds are the same for the re-roll as the first attack then the re-roll should give you the same average of hits, but cut down by being forced to roll a second time from the first group of hits. It's not an excuse, but this reminds me of a U.S. destroyer that survived being hit by seven kamikazes. If you could rewind that "movie" and do it several times chances are it would instead go to the bottom under that kind of attack. Those test dice runs should indicate a problem of bad luck or instead a weakness in the torpedo rules.
Fitzwalrus
Mongoose
BuShips said:
I don't have either my rulebook or papers from last night's game with me, but am working from memory so bear with me.
The game effect of the Torpedo Belt was to drastically cut down the amount of damage the torpedoes were doing. Let's say the Armor number for the South Dakota was 6+ (think it was, but not positive): to damage or critical her the IJN player with his +2 Super AP long Lances needed to roll 4+ on each DD die to score. I do remember one IJN player rolling 35 Damage Dice from one attack but do not recall his exact results: let's use a smaller number and work statistically off that. If he rolls twenty dice (four AD hits at DD5 each, a reasonable result), statistically he will score 4+ on half, or ten of them. Without the Torpedo Belt reroll he scores ten points damage, plus any Crits he might have done. However, being forced to reroll his ten damage dice by the Belt, statistically the reroll will mean only five will roll 4+ the second time, effectively doubling the misses the second time around and reducing the damage by half to five points, plus Crits (if any). It's not a question of rolling badly or well: the way the game mechanic is written it reduces the damage dealt by the best torpedo in the game by 50%. With other navies' smaller and weaker torpedoes the effect will be even more pronounced because their initial chance of doing damage in the first place is lower, which translates to an increased chance of losing the damage on the reroll.
Running a number of "test runs" is only going to confirm the statstical curve, as the die roll results will even out over the test. The point decame obvious to us last night because we were in effect running our own test program: spread after spread of Long Lances hit one or the other BB, and each time the Belt cut the damages way down.
As I said, I can understand the Belt idea as a balance against the comparative ease of scoring torpedo hits in a game that does not require tracking of individual spreads or torps across the playing area. Among the lighter forces involved last night (DDs, CLs & CAs) the torps worked well and the carnage was what one would expect historically. It was only when we got to the Big Boys that the mechanics of the Belt rule seemed to give them much more survivability than they should have had historically.
Soulmage said:
Soulmage, I missed anything possibly said about the destroyers themselves. His main question was that torpedoes (and even specifically the Long Lance type) worked pretty much as they should against ships smaller than battleships but seemed very weak against the U.S. battleship's Torpedo Belt trait. With the large number of torpedoes that he was sending at the BBs, he thought other rulesets would have put those battleships down for the count. I think he is looking for other opinions of his observations and is wanting to know if he is running the game correctly. In other words I don't think he is trying to set any flames. He found his way here and is looking for feedback from others. Fair enough for me, but I don't have the rules and you for one do. Did you see his original post? Do any others here have the rules in front of them? Lastly for Fitzwalrus, you might ask your question more "officially" here perhaps-
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=75
Soulmage
Mongoose
On another thread he was talking about the destroyers being impossible to hit. Sorry if my post came off as a little inflammatory. It was late at night and I was really tired.
Anyway, yes, he is playing it correctly. The torpedo belt does have the effect of dramatically reducing torpedo damage. I'm not sure that is a bad thing. If a ship has been specifically protected against a certain kind of attack, it makes sense to me that you would want to use other forms of attack to sink it, rather than just trying to batter your way through the extra protection.
Use bombers and big guns against ships with torpedo belts. Use torpedoes against ships that are hard to hit with guns!
Anyway, yes, he is playing it correctly. The torpedo belt does have the effect of dramatically reducing torpedo damage. I'm not sure that is a bad thing. If a ship has been specifically protected against a certain kind of attack, it makes sense to me that you would want to use other forms of attack to sink it, rather than just trying to batter your way through the extra protection.
Use bombers and big guns against ships with torpedo belts. Use torpedoes against ships that are hard to hit with guns!
Mongoose apparently felt that battleships with torpedo belts (not all BBs had them) needed a way to shrug off hits and so added the qualifier. The fact that the torpedoes can still damage (after that re-roll) would probably simulate a torpedo that was deep-running (DM mentioned that a few days back) or perhaps they hit forward or aft of the belt. Much like the way that main belt armor was applied, torpedo bulges did not extend the entire length of the ship and left the area deeper under the waterline and the bow and stern area uncovered. A house rule for those that feel the forced re-roll is too corrective might be to only re-roll a portion of the first wave of dice that earn a hit. To save adding in yet another die roll step, perhaps half (rounded up) of the torpedoes that hit are then forced to re-roll, with the other half said to have hit to either end or under the torpedo belt. This would have the effect of not adding more die roll steps and should not add undo complexity to the game. There were more than a few BBs that took torpedo hits in the bow area where there were no torpedo bulges to stop the damage. :idea:
Soulmage said:
In many cases added as an afterthought to a warship, it was a series of compartments along the hull just under the waterline. In the British Rodney and Nelson class, they were even filled with water. The water did more of course to absorb damage than air would do, and remember that this was an area "tacked" onto the hull under the waterline and thus outside of the main belt armor. Although generally more "honest" in naval armament treaties, the Brits counted the water as "water" and not as additional weight used as defence for the ship :wink:. If you know how reactive armor works in a main battle tank you can see how this somewhat resembles reactive armor in that it absorbs the energy of the attack even before the main armor is encountered. Some of these were built into the ship's interior sometimes, as in the previously mentioned USS Phoenix / General Belgrano (not that it did any good, as the Brits still hit even after "re-rolling" their attack, lol). I poked about and found a good example of a pic of an external bulge, fitted to the HMS Royal Oak-
It seems that even this example of an anti-torpedo bulge didn't succeed in protecting the ship from torpedo attack as the German U-47 torpedoed and sank her at anchor at Scapa Flow. :lol:
If you look closely at this next pic (or if you can't see it go to the link), you'll see an example of an external anti-torpedo bulge on a Japanese Heavy Cruiser, the Atago-
http://www.combinedfleet.com/atago_t.htm
If it seems that I'm picking out ships that support the opinion that anti-torpedo bulges do not stop that ship from sinking from a torpedo attack, I won't say, but after four torpedoes from the USS Darter connected with the IJNS Atago it did indeed sink very nicely. :wink:
Ahem... USS Phoenix (sunk by torpedoes), HMS Royal Oak (sunk by torpedoes), and IJNS Atago (sunk by torpedoes). :roll:
Were these cases of lucky re-rolled dice? Maybe, but also just maybe Fitzwalrus has a point and this is an overrated defensive system. :idea:
The plot thickens, as well... http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=24724
Fitzwalrus
Mongoose
I think we're getting closer, here... I like some of these ideas quite a bit.
How about this for a "House Rule":
Torpedo Belt:
(a) Fully protects only against torpedo attacks that strike the target ship on the beam.
(b) Torpedo attacks striking outside the beam arc roll 1d6 for each attack: 1-3 = attack hits unprotected area of ship, ignore Torpedo Belt effect, 4-6 = attack hits end of Belt, resolve as normal attack against Torpedo Belt. (This could be changed: maybe 1-4 and 5-6?)
(c) After the first torpedo attack against a ship's Torpedo Belt has been resolved, the Belt on the side of the ship that was hit is considered damaged and loses some of it's effectiveness. In any subsequent torpedo attack on the side of the ship with the damaged Belt, the target ship may only require the attacker to reroll half (?) of his successful Damage Dice, not all of them as in the current rule.
Have to thrash those around the table a few times... this would require keeping track of which Belt has been hit and which hasn't, but that shouldn't be too tough a chore.
(c) in particular could help lead to some more historical results. Several ships were lost during the war to a succession of torpedo hits on one side that opened the hull to flooding so badly that counterflooding couldn't keep up and the ships were lost.
How about this for a "House Rule":
Torpedo Belt:
(a) Fully protects only against torpedo attacks that strike the target ship on the beam.
(b) Torpedo attacks striking outside the beam arc roll 1d6 for each attack: 1-3 = attack hits unprotected area of ship, ignore Torpedo Belt effect, 4-6 = attack hits end of Belt, resolve as normal attack against Torpedo Belt. (This could be changed: maybe 1-4 and 5-6?)
(c) After the first torpedo attack against a ship's Torpedo Belt has been resolved, the Belt on the side of the ship that was hit is considered damaged and loses some of it's effectiveness. In any subsequent torpedo attack on the side of the ship with the damaged Belt, the target ship may only require the attacker to reroll half (?) of his successful Damage Dice, not all of them as in the current rule.
Have to thrash those around the table a few times... this would require keeping track of which Belt has been hit and which hasn't, but that shouldn't be too tough a chore.
(c) in particular could help lead to some more historical results. Several ships were lost during the war to a succession of torpedo hits on one side that opened the hull to flooding so badly that counterflooding couldn't keep up and the ships were lost.
This is pretty much word for word my own house rule on the subject, so it gets my approval
If you want something even better then think about torpedom hits against SPSs on both sides of the ship. One of the "lessons" from the sinking of Musashi was that it made sense to concentrate torpedo attacks on a large vessel from one side, since hits on both sides tended to cancel each other out from an asymmetric flooding (and hence transverse stabilty) viewpoint. Concentrating hitsd on one side increased the chance of hits against an already damage portion of the SPS, induced greater degrees of heel and required counterflooding to recover.
Of course the above is a step too far in terms of complexity for VAS but I ahve used it in other more detailed sets.
We should proabbly also consider a special house rule regarding torpedo damage against Japanese CAs to reflect their "interesting" machinery room arrangement.
If you want something even better then think about torpedom hits against SPSs on both sides of the ship. One of the "lessons" from the sinking of Musashi was that it made sense to concentrate torpedo attacks on a large vessel from one side, since hits on both sides tended to cancel each other out from an asymmetric flooding (and hence transverse stabilty) viewpoint. Concentrating hitsd on one side increased the chance of hits against an already damage portion of the SPS, induced greater degrees of heel and required counterflooding to recover.
Of course the above is a step too far in terms of complexity for VAS but I ahve used it in other more detailed sets.
We should proabbly also consider a special house rule regarding torpedo damage against Japanese CAs to reflect their "interesting" machinery room arrangement.
