I think many destroyers will opt for the one-barreled-cannon-inside-scale-launcher option When I get around to the Gearing, I will [unless I get my homebrew Pb-H2SO4 sprial batteries figured out so I can realize David's vision of zillions of lil torps spiralling around with the fleets going mad trying to avoid them] . . Oh, I will be posting plans for the Gearing in 1/96 soon. Ditto for the DE/APD. Anyone want to make a plug? I'm busy cranking out Alaskas and finishing the Omaha plug, and trying to get a decent Yamato turret. Work speeds up dramatically in less than a month! Then I will only be working nights at the hospital And I may even be able to get Nevada started! How cool, my own ship gets worked on
Before this shifts to an entertaining thread hijacking, does anyone have any objections to the rules as proposed? (With the one shot per tube limit unless proven otherwise?)
Tugboat, I like the rules as proposed. Well done! If you wish, I can provide reload data for IJN cruisers and DDs from Japanese sources. Conway's doesn't have this information. But I think Conway's has enough info to figure out reloads on subs. Carl
That would be great, Carl, I'm going to crawl through my Friedman books on American ships and see what I've got on Brits. Any volunteers on Krauts and Frogs?
Any objections? I don't want to hear later that I steamrollered anyone If I don't hear anything negative on these by 1700 EST Monday, I'm adding these to the official rules. If it doesn't work out, we can always revise after I get sunk by a torp whore (note to japanese cruiser captains, please have mercy on my slow battleship
Now where is my Conways, i need to look over the Japanese section on DD and CA's [] ONE question please.... If the ships Main Purpose was a Torpedo DD or CA would it then be considered like a Sub with the Torpedo's being the MAIN Armament ??? Sharky
As one of what I assume to be the less well-versed in naval history half of those of us here, I have to ask: what destroyers or cruisers are there out there that were designed with the intent of depending primarily upon their torpedoes?
Even the torp whores Kitakami and Ooi the IJN built were conversions of obsolete regular cruisers. Of the destroyers, only Shimakaze seems particularly overgunned with 15 tubes (3 quintuple launchers). Most of the rest are an even split between 8 or 9 and 4 tube ships. Whilst cruising the IJN DD stats, I did notice that at least one carried a full reload for her 9 tubes. So really, no Japanese ships were designed from the outset as torpedo ships. Even Shimakaze had 3 twin 5" turrets. Don't think of it as a handicap. Think of it as 'you're allowed to arm all the tubes you want', with a caveat.
Sharky, amongst surface ships, only boats like PT boats had their primary armament as TTs. DDs were almost always a mix of guns and torps, and some had TT launchers removed as the war progressed to reduce top-side weight. So PT boats would consider TTs the primary armament like subs, but it's be real tough to build a PT boat, even in 1/96. Not impossible, but tough... Kitakami and Oi were oddities in WWII. I'm not close to my sources (I'm in CA on travel), but as I recall they still retained 5 of their original 7 single 5.5" gun mounts when they were converted to TT cruisers. I'd be OK, though, with a special provision in the rules for Kitakami and Oi to require all their guns to be armed before they can arm TTs. Carl
During the destroyer and cruiser slugfests off Guadalcanal, how many ships were heavily damaged, removed from the fight, or sunk outright with gunfire vs torpedoes? Those are some of the nastiest, down and dirty, most vicious fights I recall, and most similar to our model battles.
There's an article on the interwebs that breaks down torpedoes fired for hits. I think the Japanese acheived a 3% hit ratio, which was high than the US's. I'll find the article and post a link.
Here's a look at the First Battle of Savo Island, based on the Wikipedia article: Canberra: heavy gunfire damage from cruisers, possible friendly fire hits from torpedoes, scuttled with gunfire and torpedoes the next day Chicago: one torpedo hit and light gunfire damage Patterson: moderate gunfire damage Astoria: heavy gunfire damage and set ablaze, fires went out of control and sank later that day Quincy: heavy gunfire damage and set ablaze, struck by three torpedoes and sunk within 22 minutes of third hit Vincennes: heavy gunfire damage, hit by three torpedoes, abandoned and sunk within an hour Ralph Talbot: heavy gunfire damage Tenryu: slight gunfire damage Kinugasa: moderate gunfire damage Chokai: moderate gunfire damage Results: one ship sunk with with gunfire damage long after the battle, one ship scuttled with torpedoes and gunfire long after the battle, two ships sunk with gunfire and torpedoes during the battle, five ships survived gunfire damage (55%), one ship survived both gunfire and torpedo damage (25%). This suggests to me that, in a close range cruiser and destroyer melee like our model battles, gunfire is used to damage the opponent, but torpedoes are used to sink him. Does this hold true for later battles, as radar became more widespread and better used (knowing that our hobby has no way of simulating radar)?
The US did pretty well with gunfire, as their torpedoes were ineffective, both materially and doctrinally at the beginning of the war. Radar was new, and it's advantages not understood and properly utilized. Japanese torpedoes however were the best in the world, bar none, and their light forces were well trained in their proper use. The next battle, Cape Esperance, showed the USN cruiser force getting the drop on the Japanese and Furutaka sunk, Aoba nearly sunk all by gunfire. The Japanese scored no torpedo hits (IIRC much of the heavy damage to the two IJN cruisers was caused by their OWN torpedoes exploding on their decks, which IMHO helps confirm the correctness of the USN choice to remove torpedoes from their cruisers as cruiser fired torpedoes really didn't have that impressive of a record), and the USN lost no ships. The Japanese never sank an American cruiser with gunfire alone, torpedoes from destroyers were usually needed. The later battles in the Solomon campaign saw a switch from 8" cruisers to 6" cruisers on the part of the USN as there was a perhaps mistaken impression that the 6" cruisers were better in the night battles. In 1942, that may have been the case as radar was in it's infancy, and the higher rate of fire and train by the light cruisers could help offset the advantage of surprise that the Japanese often got. By 1943 however, as radar was better understood, and radar firecontrol had improved, it's possible that the 8" cruiser would have been the superior choice. Take the battle of Empress Augusta Bay for example. The CL's fired an enormous amount of shells, and bagged only the CL Jintsu (IIRC, going off memory here). At night, it was impossible to range on shell splashes because it was dark, and radar could not range on 6" shell splashes, so each salvo was effectively as accurate as a first salvo, with no ability to correct the fire. Radar by this time COULD range on 8" shell splashes, which would have allowed the ships to correct their fire, and thus theoretically improve their accuracy. The short version however is the USN did sink ships with gunfire alone. The USN also seems to have used the wrong ships at the wrong time periods. At close range (as the first few battles were fought) the rapid fire 6" guns would have in my mind have yielded better performance then the American 8". Later in the war as radar improved the longer range of the 8" gun combined with radar could have more easily kept the IJN destoyers out of torpedo range and neutralized their advantage. The Japanese were always tied to their torpedoes. They won or lost on the strength of their ability to get into torpedo range, then hit if they got there. As the US ability to use radar increased, the success rate of the IJN decreased. On the cruisers I think the torpedoes were more of a liability then they were a help. Destroyers were the correct weapon to deploy torpedoes on, and once the USN learned to unleash their destroyers and use radar directed gunfire, the IJN stopped winning surface battles.
