Terrible American torpedoes

[Axe99]

The Japanese ships had crap radars and poor armor on the other hand, yet it is also not simulated in the game by penalties because the variant system let's you deal with these kind of issues.

Almost every nation had issues with their torpedoes, not just the USA.
Japan was the only one who had very relieable and good torpedoes at the start of the war, and that's why they get a national focus to represent that. Even so, they and the rest of the nations will need to work on their torps by spending time and resources to experiment with them.(naval EXP) Just like the USA did in the example you given.

Did you read the article I linked? The US and Germany had particularly large trouble with their torpedoes, to the degree that it had a strategic impact on their performance, largely because they'd gone for technologically complex designs that proved more complicated in wartime than expected.

All nations (except Japan, for the most part) had trouble with their contact pistols as well, but as you say, because pretty much everyone had this issue except Japan (who gets a national focus that can help cover this off as well as the long lance), it doesn't really need special treatment.

 

[Zaku]

Did you read the article I linked? The US and Germany had particularly large trouble with their torpedoes, to the degree that it had a strategic impact on their performance, largely because they'd gone for technologically complex designs that proved more complicated in wartime than expected.

Yes, I understand it, and I know about the issues of the German, and USA torps had. I'm a veteran Silent Hunter player after all.
All I'm saying is that HOI4 will have the variant system to model the poor torpedoes, just as it can model the Zero, that had a design flaw so it would burst in flames very easily. That also had a strategic impact on the war, yet the game doesn't model it any other way then the variant system(which is perfectly fine IMO). Why should the torps get a special treatement then? As I wrote I think these things are too small for the scope for the game to realisticly represent.

 

[Denkt]

However the lack of good aa on the axis side proved more decisive then some terrible american torpedoes.

 

[Axe99]

Yes, I understand it, and I know about the issues of the German, and USA torps had. I'm a veteran Silent Hunter player after all.
All I'm saying is that HOI4 will have the variant system to model the poor torpedoes, just as it can model the Zero, that had a design flaw so it would burst in flames very easily. That also had a strategic impact on the war, yet the game doesn't model it any other way then the variant system(which is perfectly fine IMO). Why should the torps get a special treatement then? As I wrote I think these things are too small for the scope for the game to realisticly represent.

I'm not sure we can variant our torpedoes (although it'd be cool if we could - I'll file that as an idea for the naval mod ), but I agree it's probably a bit much detail for the base game. I'm keen to squeeze it into the mod if I can make it work right though. The zero's flaw can be modelled by low reliability, but we can't model low reliability for the torpedo, just the sub, and unless torpedo attacks have the sub's reliability as a factor in their calculations, then this won't be reflected. Even if it was, I'd prefer to be able to have unreliable torpedoes in reliable subs (which both Germany and the US had - they both had some very good subs) rather than consign all the early subs to low reliability even after the torpedo issues had been fixed. It's an interesting thought though, don't get me wrong .

However the lack of good aa on the axis side proved more decisive then some terrible american torpedoes.

I'm not entirely sure about that - the US and Germany 'missed' a lot of key sinkings because their torpedoes didn't work right - Battleships and CVs amongst them. Unlike the AA (which was neglected by the Axis more than it could have been), it wasn't because they hadn't tried to get good torpedoes, but because the complexities of some of the more modern torpedo features proved harder to iron out than expected. The British, on the other hand, stuck with less complex torpedoes that were more reliable, and had more success with them.

The alternative, if we're trying to model things accurately (and I know you're not big on that, but I'm talking from a mod perspective so I'm not trying to force my plausibility on you ) would be to have a step in the tech tree lead to a temporary reduction in torpedo quality, which would be against the general 'gist' of the tech tree (although it's an option I'm kicking around in my head), and doesn't model the institutional inertia on the US side in fixing it, or that the Germans didn't realise the issues until war broke out.

From a gameplay perspective, it also gives Japan a bit more of a window where there's less of a gap between it and Japan's naval capability, while not modelling it makes the US relatively more powerful vis-a-vis Japan than it was historically. It's just another thing that can help Japan have it's 'breakout period' during the Pacific war. So even if you're just looking from a gameplay perspective, it makes sense to have something like this in, to better balance Japan vis-a-vis the US.

 

[Secret Master]

Keep in mind that we are talking about a strategic game, not worrying about individual submarines on missions. It's not Silent Service with the "Dud torpedoes" function enabled.

It's a statistical problem at the level of country management that needs no special mechanics (beyond maybe giving Japan an advantage with the Long Lance). You just keep giving submarines upgrades to their ability to hit targets as their tech improves, with the assumption that lower values for fighting at lower tech represent the statistical likelihood of a dud.

 

[Gort11]

American torpedoes for the first period of the war were something really special, though.

Certainly more of a disadvantage than Long Lances were an advantage, and those are modelled.

 

[Axe99]

Keep in mind that we are talking about a strategic game, not worrying about individual submarines on missions. It's not Silent Service with the "Dud torpedoes" function enabled.

It's a statistical problem at the level of country management that needs no special mechanics (beyond maybe giving Japan an advantage with the Long Lance). You just keep giving submarines upgrades to their ability to hit targets as their tech improves, with the assumption that lower values for fighting at lower tech represent the statistical likelihood of a dud.

With torpedoes, though, there's often a big difference between a smaller warhead torpedo hitting and a dud (particularly for anything smaller than a BB/BC/CV, which isn't likely to have a heap of torpedo protection). I'm curious to see how torpedoes work in sea warfare, but if there's an 'accuracy' stat, this may be played with to increase the number of 'duds', rather than reducing the torpedo strength (so same number of torpedo hits is reduced, rather than the strength of hits).

That way, when the US and Germans fix their problems, they don't suddenly get super-torpedoes, but they start getting a lot more torpedo hits, which at the strategic level should put more pressure on the UK/US/Japanese merchant marine. Just a thought mind, and I'm only thinking about it from a modding perspective - these issues have never made the cut for HoI before.

 

[Sir Garnet]

Well, on the level of HOI4 it would give a better game and feel for the process of weapons system development and use to have event chains that reflect discoveries of latent glitches in some various systems with the probabilities of occurrence and discovery affected by the extent and nature of testing/experience etc. up to that point, with the odds of occurrence being affected by production, research and other player decisions as well as complexity relative to the knowledge base. So Japan comes with in effect a pre-set completed focus in torps justifiying high confidence, and a very natural one given the nature of the Asia/Pacific war they expected to fight. Normal countries would face the normal uncertainties.

 

[Gort11]

I was thinking the torpedo problem might be well solved through the armaments company mechanic they have. Like the USA starts with the Bureau of Ordnance as their naval company with a big penalty to torpedo attack, but you could spend your political points replacing them with the "Reformed Bureau of Ordnance" if you wanted to.

That said, they've already given Japan a national focus for "Good Torpedoes", so it might be a bit asymmetrical to have a different way for the USA to get out of "Bad Torpedoes".

 

[Axe99]

I was thinking the torpedo problem might be well solved through the armaments company mechanic they have. Like the USA starts with the Bureau of Ordnance as their naval company with a big penalty to torpedo attack, but you could spend your political points replacing them with the "Reformed Bureau of Ordnance" if you wanted to.

That said, they've already given Japan a national focus for "Good Torpedoes", so it might be a bit asymmetrical to have a different way for the USA to get out of "Bad Torpedoes".

If you could have the company affect accuracy instead of damage that'd work well - assymetric doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing, and the issues the US faced were more a PP thing (institutional inertia and all that). Would also work in that Germany has more PP to throw around, so should be easier for them to switch to a more sensible company more quickly. I like your thinking .

 

[Kovax]

There were several entirely separate issues with the American torpedoes, one of which I read a short article about a couple of decades ago. Apparently, one of the major contractors in the Philadelphia area produced the firing pins for a significant percentage of US torpedoes, and decided to cut costs by substituting cheaper metals for the hardened steel pins, which then failed to detonate the explosive charge. This was determined to be an intentional deviation from the specification, and there was apparently some debate over whether to try the manufacturer for treason, or to keep the plant running (once it started making the pins correctly) to avoid a significant delay in getting badly needed replacement firing pins into service. The latter approach was taken, and the contractor was forbidden to ever bid on another government contract, rather than serve prison time.

Add that to all of the other problems, and you have a torpedo that often fails upon entry to the water, often goes WAY off course, often runs at the wrong depth, and often fails to detonate in the unlikely event that it makes it that far. That's why the US Navy started to rely more heavily on dive bombing against Japanese ships, because both its air-launched and submarine-launched torpedoes were so heavily prone to failure. The increase in the effectiveness of air attacks against Japanese ships from 1942 to '44 may have been due in part to the change in tactics to compensate for the defective equipment, and eventually due to the improved torpedoes, once the flaws were ironed out.

 

[tommylotto]

It is clear that the early American torpedoes were less than optimal at war's start and eventually improved (I believe anything on Navweps), however, I am still not convinced that the defect was so severe that it resulted in profound strategic consequences. According to the wiki on the Allied sub campaign in the Pacific, the Japanese lost about a million tons of shipping in 1942 as well as a CA and a CL while the US torpedoes were arguably defective. In 1943, the shipping losses seemed to have doubled. In 1944, the losses doubled again. However, what was the cause of these increasing losses? Was it bad torpedoes or other factors?

"On 7 December 1941, the USN had 55 fleet- and 18 medium-sized submarines (S-boats) in the Pacific, 38 submarines elsewhere, and 73 under construction.[22] (By war's end, the U.S. had completed 228 submarines.)"

"The British submarine force in the Far East was greatly expanded from August 1943 onward. "

I would like to know the number of actual patrols by year, but from above, it seems the expansion of the anti-shipping campaign would be enough to explain the increasing losses.

So, not only was there a change in emphasis from fleet operations to attacking merchant shipping, but there was also a vast expansion of the US sub fleet and the British sub fleet which had mostly been relocated to the Mediterranean in 1942 was released on the Pacific in mid 1943 once the Italians had been taken care of. From a strategic statistical viewpoint, these developments were the most likely cause of the Japanese increasing losses in merchant shipping, not bad torpedoes, as the Japanese losses were not exactly insignificant in 1942 went the torpedoes were supposedly so bad, before the US had a chance to expand it sub fleet and while the British sub fleet was occupied in the Med.

 

[Tarskin]

Do not forget that in a statistic like 'Allied sub campaign' in the pacific includes other nations, which were relatively more prevalent at the beginning of the war. For instance, at the start of the war there were about 30 Dutch submarines available (1) which in the first weeks of the war with the Japanese resulted in the Dutch submarines sinking more tonnage/ships than all other allied navies combined (2,3).

The point being that you have to be very careful when interpreting such a mixed value, specifically requiring one to split it into each country and potentially even further as nations would start to share equipment (e.g. the Dutch used several different torpedo's throughout the war (4) supposedly due to supply issues).

Sources:

1. http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/boats/boats_name.htm
2. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,884450,00.html
3. http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/specials/special_attacks_wwii.htm
4. http://www.dutchsubmarines.com/classes/o_21.htm

 

[Kovax]

From a strategic statistical viewpoint, these developments were the most likely cause of the Japanese increasing losses in merchant shipping, not bad torpedoes, as the Japanese losses were not exactly insignificant in 1942 went the torpedoes were supposedly so bad, before the US had a chance to expand it sub fleet and while the British sub fleet was occupied in the Med.

The shift in tactics from the primary emphasis on torpedo bombing to mainly dive bombing was implemented fairly rapidly, given the amount of time necessary to make the change. Japanese ships certainly took losses during that time, but my vague recollection is that dive bombers and surface guns did a far greater percentage of the damage than torpedo attacks. In numerous air attacks on ships, both dive bomber and torpedo groups were used, partly in order to force any defending air cover to have to choose between them. In a significant number of instances, the torpedo bombers released on target, but the torpedoes failed in one way or another, while the dive bombers managed to score hits which inflicted serious or critical damage. In several instances, the torpedo bombers were targeted by the Japanese air cover as the more dangerous threat (since they knew how deadly their own torpedoes were), and took heavy losses even before release.

As the war progressed, the American torpedoes improved and the Japanese fighter defenses declined or were partially negated by a new generation of American fighter planes, a combination which made torpedo bombing the more effective option. Add to that the number of submarines built by the US, with the torpedo problems fixed, and the huge increase in tonnage sunk is very understandable. The torpedo issue is a significant part of the equation, but not the only factor, and trying to determine how much of a part it played would take a lot more digging through the records for causes of sinking than I care to deal with.

 

[tommylotto]

Do not forget that in a statistic like 'Allied sub campaign' in the pacific includes other nations, which were relatively more prevalent at the beginning of the war. For instance, at the start of the war there were about 30 Dutch submarines available (1) which in the first weeks of the war with the Japanese resulted in the Dutch submarines sinking more tonnage/ships than all other allied navies combined (2,3).

Yes, it does seem they were very active in 1941, but after the loss of DEI: "Following the fall of the DEI, only a handful of British and Dutch submarines were based in the Indian Ocean, and these had little impact on Japanese forces in the area.[38]" And your third source shows in 1942 Dutch subs only had 6 or 7 sinking. So, most of the damage done in 1942 (a million tons plus a heavy cruiser and a light cruiser) must have been done by US subs with Mark 14 torpedoes.

 

[Big Nev]

The Japanese ships had crap radars and poor armor on the other hand, yet it is also not simulated in the game by penalties because the variant system let's you deal with these kind of issues.
Almost every nation had issues with their torpedoes, not just the USA.
Japan was the only one who had very relieable and good torpedoes at the start of the war, and that's why they get a national focus to represent that. Even so, they and the rest of the nations will need to work on their torps by spending time and resources to experiment with them.(naval EXP) Just like the USA did in the example you given.

Sorry, a little red "respectfully disagree" cross doesn't quite cut it here.

Japanese ships had some of the best armour in the world. Their metallurgists and heat-treatment were top-notch and they had all the latest internally sloping belts, crushing voids etc. etc. that was standard with most of the western naval powers.

I would say that all western nations had problems with their torpedoes. The British & Italian ones being generally reliable and the German ones catching-up &, possibly, surpassing the British. They worked as they were intended, they just weren’t of spectacular performance.

The US torpedoes were crap. As has been pointed out, their users took time to realise they were crap. Then it took time to convince the establishment that they were crap and THEN it took time to fix the problems, of which there were many. In one batch of testing, there were many more "fatal" problems that torpedoes tested with many displaying two or more critical failures.

NOBODY ELSE HAD THE SAME LEVEL OF PROBLEMS, NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Then there's the Japanese torpedoes which are considered to be only slightly more reliable than British or Italian ones but their performance was VASTLY superior. All but the air dropped torpedoes were significantly faster with three times the range of their contemporaries and carrying warheads twice as powerful.

But the big thing that's annoying me about the implementation of Japanese torpedoes in the game is that they can be unlocked with a National Focus.

The Long lance Type 93 was standard issue to all surface vessels in 1934 and IJN destroyers were the ONLY destroyers in the world to carry re-loads for their torpedo batteries.

The 21" submarine derivative of the Long Lance was standard issue in 1935.

Why does Japan have to expend anything to get this advantage that they historically had?

Keep in mind that we are talking about a strategic game, not worrying about individual submarines on missions. It's not Silent Service with the "Dud torpedoes" function enabled.
It's a statistical problem at the level of country management that needs no special mechanics (beyond maybe giving Japan an advantage with the Long Lance). You just keep giving submarines upgrades to their ability to hit targets as their tech improves, with the assumption that lower values for fighting at lower tech represent the statistical likelihood of a dud.

And the US starts with almost zero % chance to hit anything with their torpedoes and takes at least a year of combat to realise they have a problem at least another year to solve it, while Japan gets a significant chance to hit bonus for the stupidly long range they can fire their faster torpedoes from and they do at least double damage for each of their hits from the beginning of the game.

Yeah. I'd be OK with that.

 

[Gort11]

Of course, Long Lances weren't without their drawbacks. Them exploding on deck was pretty nasty.

 

[Big Nev]

I'll grant you that.

BUT...

If we're not going to model multiple US submarines sinking themselves when their torpedoes decide to run circular, (and NOBODY knows how often this happened but at least three US subs are known to have sunk themselves in this way) the occasional "critical hit" before an IJN warship jettisons their torpedoes or, more usually, launches them (let's not forget the 20km range these things had on their "fast" setting) shouldn't be modelled either.

 

[Axe99]

But the big thing that's annoying me about the implementation of Japanese torpedoes in the game is that they can be unlocked with a National Focus.

The Long lance Type 93 was standard issue to all surface vessels in 1934 and IJN destroyers were the ONLY destroyers in the world to carry re-loads for their torpedo batteries.

The 21" submarine derivative of the Long Lance was standard issue in 1935.

Why does Japan have to expend anything to get this advantage that they historically had?

This is a very good point (as is the rest of your post ) - I wonder how easy it'd be to shift it to a national spirit, or to mod in an event that gave the torpedo NF for free at the start of the game?

 

[Secret Master]

And the US starts with almost zero % chance to hit anything with their torpedoes and takes at least a year of combat to realise they have a problem at least another year to solve it, while Japan gets a significant chance to hit bonus for the stupidly long range they can fire their faster torpedoes from and they do at least double damage for each of their hits from the beginning of the game.

Yeah. I'd be OK with that.

I was going to respond...

But I can't tell if that's sarcasm, hyperbole, or just a positive response.