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There once was a ship from Down Under, Whose escorts did foolishly blunder. The Japanese went And found her and sent The ship from Down Under down under.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:47
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| # ? May 17, 2024 17:40 |
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 The MV Limerick was a cargo mover. Built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1925 she was typical of her class of twin engine long-haul freighters. A civilian ship operated by a New Zealand-based cargo company, she was one of the largest ships lost to combat action during the Japanese offensive sub patrols of 1942-43. Limerick was somewhat ironically torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-177 on April 25th 1943, ANZAC Day, and sank the next day. The wreck was found off of Australia's east coast using sonar imaging in 2013. She was only found because she'd become a popular fishing spot and leaking oil clued local fisherman in to the fact that there was a wreck. Finding the boat created something of a local sensation and newspapers managed to interview Allan Wyllie, a survivor of the Limerick about the sinking: quote:Well, there was a beautiful moonlit night that night, and so I went – I was sharing with a mate a two-berth cabin, my mate was in there – so when I went to go to bed, I said, 'I don't like the look of tonight.' He said, 'Get into bed you windy bastard!' So I did, and when I heard 'bang' in the [early] morning, I jumped out of bed and lost my pyjama pants, and when I looked for my pants on the settee there, they weren't there, my trousers. My mate had jumped out and grabbed them, and he had them on. So I went out, and a joker said to me, 'Get back inside and get some strides on!' So I went to go in, but all the bulbs had got blown out, the lights in the passageway, and I walked in glass. So I thought, no way. So I went out. Anyhow, when the corvette picked me up the next day, a sailor gave me a pair of shorts. That's the shorts I've got on there [in the photograph], you can see there, that's the ones the sailor gave me.  Allan Wyllie (left), wearing his borrowed navy shorts and with bandages on his rope-burned hands, stands with other Limerick survivors in Brisbane after their rescue.
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Jan 18, 2016 20:17
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Wonder why she's down as an xAP instead of an xAK
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Jan 18, 2016 22:44
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Splode posted:There are no panthers in this game. Take this conversation There really should be, as the Japanese bought the rights to produce this tank and the Tiger I--though they never did--in late 1943/early 1944. In fact, a Tiger I was purchased buy Japan for testing purposes, along with the rights to build the tank, and built specifically by Germany for export to Japan. It sat at Marseille waiting for the Germans to figure out how to fit it into a submarine for a few months until D-Day happened. After D-Day the German government leased the tank back from Japan for German use. If I remember right it was lost somewhere in Belgium during the Ardennes offensive, but I could be wrong. I'd really like to see these things in-game to be honest, even if they are only produced in very small numbers if the Japanese player chooses to pursue them; however, I acknowledge I am a bit weird about wanting more "variant" gameplay in the Garry Grigsby titles.n ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 23:34
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Why? A few panthers - an above average but not war-changing tank by any means - aren't going to do the Japanese a lick of good. Historically, the Japanese had pretty good reasons not to develop tanks much. The terrain in much of the theater isn't well suited for them, and Japan had rather limited supplies of raw resources, manpower, and especially fuel. The actually historically really good pieces of armor from the Germans were their SPGs, most notably the StuG III and the Hetzer. None of the Big Cats were all that good compared to what they were up against. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 23:47
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Drone posted:I don't think that's how limericks work, Grey, but bless you for trying.  Shave! 
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Jan 18, 2016 23:55
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dublish posted:There once was a ship from Down Under, Don't mean to take away grey's thunder but this was pretty great.
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Jan 19, 2016 02:20
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does the game emulate the different qualities of torpedoes in any meaningful sense? Also what happens if you manage to hold on as the Japanese? Do you ever get the ability to get decent airplanes are you forced to use increasingly obsolete models versus increasingly terrifying american fighters?
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Jan 19, 2016 02:55
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Mans posted:does the game emulate the different qualities of torpedoes in any meaningful sense? Different torpedoes have higher/lower explosive yields and speeds, which are modeled in-game. If you manage to survive long enough, you eventually gain access to late-war Japanese aircraft such as the Ohka, the Shinden, the Karyu, and so on. At that point though, you're probably more pre-occupied with finding decent pilots and replacement airframes. Cythereal posted:None of the Big Cats were all that good compared to what they were up against. Lol
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Jan 19, 2016 03:13
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Mans posted:does the game emulate the different qualities of torpedoes in any meaningful sense? 1. Yes. Every type of projectile has a "dud rate", and the Mark 14 specifically has it set to 90%, which slowly improves over time (I can't recall the exact rate off-hand). There's a realism setting to toggle whether this is strictly followed. 2. Yes. There's a realism setting that changes how radically you can reconfigure your squadrons and how much faster you can push aircraft research with concerted efforts.
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Jan 19, 2016 03:14
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Indeed. It's quite funny how over-exaggerated their reputations are.
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Jan 19, 2016 03:41
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gradenko_2000 posted:1. Yes. Every type of projectile has a "dud rate", and the Mark 14 specifically has it set to 90%, which slowly improves over time (I can't recall the exact rate off-hand). There's a realism setting to toggle whether this is strictly followed. 
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Jan 19, 2016 03:52
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BuOrd REALLY hosed up on those torpedoes, man.
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Jan 19, 2016 03:56
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Commanders told them over and over too, and the brass kept coming back with "no, that doesn't sound right". BuOrd didn't even test the magnetic detonators, since Congress cut the funding to do so. Which leads to this ridiculous report:quote:Uniquely, Lieutenant Commander John A. Scott in Tunny on 9 April 1943 found himself in an ideal position to attack aircraft carriers Hiyo, Junyo, and Taiyo. From only 880 yd (800 m), he fired all ten tubes, hearing all four stern shots and three of the bow's six explode. No enemy carrier was seen to diminish its speed, though Taiyo was slightly damaged in the attack. Much later, intelligence reported each of the seven explosions had been premature;[20] the torpedoes had run true but the magnetic feature had fired them too early.[26]
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Jan 19, 2016 04:05
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I don't even really think it's an overstatement. All other torps in the game have a dud rate of about 10%, but for the Mark 14s, they'd run something like 10-20 feet deeper than what you set them at, so it's not just capturing the dud rate of the magnetic detonators going off prematurely, or the dud rate of the magnetic detonators refusing to go off because they can't "detect" the hull of the ship they're under, or the dud rate of the contact detonators not going off if they hit a ship at right angles to the hull, it's also capturing the "dud rate" of the torpedo sailing underneath the ship completely
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Jan 19, 2016 04:08
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One notable thing about Japanese torpedoes is how rigorously the Japanese tested them. The Long Lance, unique design as it was, didn't start out as this wonderweapon. The Japanese, acting on rumors the British had oxygen-powered torpedoes (they hadn't), went the extra mile to ensure to iron out all the problems, from the careful cleaning procedures to remove all traces of motor oil which could catch fire if exposed to heated pure oxygen, to removing bends in the tubing where impurities could pool. They didn't bother with the magnetic detonator for any of their torpedo designs, and instead refined their contact detonator until it was acceptably reliable (every torpedo design had its share of duds, mind you). They also had the budget to live-fire test their torpedoes more than other navies, in a much greater variety of circumstances. In comparison, BuOrd didn't get around to depth testing the Mark 14 until 1943. Thanks to similar refinements, Japanese air-dropped torpedoes were generally more reliable than other early-war aerial torpedoes, as they had much better shock protection and could be launched at higher speed and malfunctioned from the shock of hitting the water less often. In comparison to all of America, Germany, and Britain, Japanese torpedo quality can probably be attributed to the dedication of resources to test, develop, and iterate their various types of torpedo until they all worked more or less as advertised. Worth noting re: the Long Lance specifically that although they had a theoretical maximum range of ridiculous, they were in almost every case launched at their maximum run speed, which is the shortest of their range settings. Makes sense, they still run for 22000 meters and might be easier to aim and more difficult to avoid.
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Jan 19, 2016 04:14
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Cythereal posted:Indeed. It's quite funny how over-exaggerated their reputations are. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3585027
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Jan 19, 2016 04:30
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Be my guest. I'm sure they'd love another wehraboo. Torpedochat: Bear in mind, though, the Long Lance wasn't all sunshine and roses. Two heavy cruisers at Midway suffered extensive air attack, and one made the decision to dump their Long Lances overboard.  This is the ship that did not. Any questions?
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Jan 19, 2016 04:33
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PittTheElder posted:Commanders told them over and over too, and the brass kept coming back with "no, that doesn't sound right". BuOrd didn't even test the magnetic detonators, since Congress cut the funding to do so. Which leads to this ridiculous report: ironically, if he'd selected contact instead, there's a good chance the pins would've smashed in and failed to detonate because of that instead. Since he was in 'perfect' position, that meant he was aiming for square on hits. which were too fast for the contact detonators to handle. if he'd used contact and scored angled hits he might have actually had success. Essentially the US torpedoes had 4 problems. 1: They didn't run at the set depth (they ran deep) 2: Their Gyros were unreliable, and sometimes didn't shut off, leading the torpedo to circle around. 3: Their magnetic detonators didn't work, either detonating too soon, or not at all depending on the magnetic field locally 4: Their contact detonators wouldn't detonate on square hits - the firing pin would be impacted too far due to the force. #1 was field kludged by setting them to run at minimum depth. #3 was 'solved' by using contact always #4 was 'solved' by instead of going for the beautiful 90 degree hits, instead aiming for angled hits of (off memory) 80 to 50 degrees. I mean, eventually they were resolved at the production side of things. But only after a LOT of failures and lost lives.
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Jan 19, 2016 05:08
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Cythereal posted:Any questions?
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Jan 19, 2016 06:10
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NGDBSS posted:How long until someone takes the Mikuma as their lucky ship? Already claimed by Bacarruda
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Jan 19, 2016 06:11
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Already claimed by Bacarruda
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Jan 19, 2016 06:16
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Granddad chat: My Grandfather-in-law was a B-24 pilot out of Italy. I only got to talk to him about it a bit since he died not long after I met my (future) wife. His family gave me a copy of a mission briefing he had stashed away, and I've been meaning to scan it in, so thanks to this thread I got off my rear end and did it tonight.   
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Jan 19, 2016 06:17
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which of the unclaimed ships suffered the most spetacular fiery death?
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Jan 19, 2016 06:56
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Mans posted:which of the unclaimed ships suffered the most spetacular fiery death? Take your pick of the Taffy 3 boats. I haven't claimed a lucky ship, so I'm claiming CVE White Plains. An escort carrier that crippled a heavy cruiser with its guns (yes, the escort carrier's guns). By starting a fire that detonated said heavy cruiser's Long Lances, incidentally.
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Jan 19, 2016 07:17
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How many CVs/CVEs/CVLs would Grey need to sink per year to maintain a rough parity? Because if he almost loses a CVL in January, I'm already having doubts
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Jan 19, 2016 11:05
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Cythereal posted:Take your pick of the Taffy 3 boats. I haven't claimed a lucky ship, so I'm claiming CVE White Plains. An escort carrier that crippled a heavy cruiser with its guns (yes, the escort carrier's guns). By starting a fire that detonated said heavy cruiser's Long Lances, incidentally. I wonder if there was some gunnery officer who demanded to have regular live fire drills with the captain going 'seriously, what the gently caress do you want to practice shooting surface targets for' but kept badgering him and ended as the smuggest man in the Navy.
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Jan 19, 2016 11:08
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The US vomits out aircraft carriers after a certain point. Parity is probably going to be a pipe dream.
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Jan 19, 2016 11:08
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Cythereal posted:Torpedochat: Bear in mind, though, the Long Lance wasn't all sunshine and roses. Two heavy cruisers at Midway suffered extensive air attack, and one made the decision to dump their Long Lances overboard. I believe that was a fairly common procedure on both sides when a ship had received its death-blow. That and securing eventual depth-charges. Commander Hara, CO of the cruiser Yahagi that escorted Yamato on its last mission, mentions a similar incident in that battle in his book: Destroyer Captain. I should think the efficiency of the "Long Lance" outweighed its eventual drawbacks. Hara, who was a well-known torpedo specialist, he wrote the IJN manual on it, is not making much fuzz about eventual problems. That said, there is a spectacular assertion by Hara during the same circumstances - that the torpedoes he regretfully fired for the sake of his ship's safety, were "homing" torpedoes. On another place, when laying in the water, he referred to all the training they had done on such torpedoes beforehand. Yahagi had also had some modifications made on her in the preceding months while Hara was serving with the torpedo school. I know the Japanese were working on homing torpedoes, as did the other warring parties, but this work was allegedly stopped as they weren't happy with the practical results. Would be interesting to hear if anybody have any information on this.
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Jan 19, 2016 12:01
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Both the Germans and the Americans had acoustic-homing torpedoes developed and in-use by 1943, but they were relatively slow things: anywhere from half to a third as fast as "regular" torpedoes of the day to allow the acoustic sensors to hear their targets, but if you were going to shoot at 10 knot or slower merchantmen anyway then it's not too bad. The Japanese tried to acquire some of this technology from the Germans via their inter-oceanic submarine transfers, but I couldn't find if the I-52 actually got to deliver those parts, or if they were able to apply it to their own torpedoes.
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Jan 19, 2016 12:20
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So far as I am aware, the only combatants of WWII that developed guided weapons were the US and Germany. The US abandoned their guided torpedo projects (guided air-to-ground and bombs were successfully developed at the same time or slightly earlier than the German ones but saw little combat use due to a lack of worthwhile targets late-war) because it wasn't likely to produce a usable weapon during the current war, while the Germans made a workable but dangerous (it was very easy to have the weapon lock on to the launch craft) weapon out of it. As far as I know, the British didn't deploy homing torpedoes until after WWII, and Japan didn't develop their own until the 1980s (with the JSDF using American ones until then).
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Jan 19, 2016 12:25
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Veloxyll posted:Ironically, if he'd selected contact instead, there's a good chance the pins would've smashed in and failed to detonate because of that instead. Since he was in 'perfect' position, that meant he was aiming for square on hits. which were too fast for the contact detonators to handle. If he'd used contact and scored angled hits he might have actually had success. There's a story going around that Mr. Einstein, when seeing the drawings of the fuze pistol, right away said it wouldn't work. The piston would break. Another interesting story is that the Mark X's used by the US S-boats, and usually described as reliable, it did not have the magnetic fuze but an impact fuze that worked, also had its flaws, that of running deeper than set. Before the war lt. Dempsey, CO of the S-37 in the Asiatic Fleet, together with his torpedo officer, had discovered that some of them leaked if only exposed to the water in the torpedo tubes, resulting in them running deeper. After much experimenting they informed the torpedo workshop at Cavite on their findings but no action was taken. After that Dempsey and his crew made a point out of checking every torpedo and return those leaking. fredleander fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 12:27
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That reminds me, does this game bother to model the Monsun Gruppe? I can't remember.
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Jan 19, 2016 12:29
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fredleander posted:There's a story going around that Mr. Einstein, when seeing the drawings of the fuze pistol, right away said it wouldn't work. The piston would break. To be fair, they are usually compared with the Type-14s. And a torpedo that only runs deep some of the time is a lot more reliable than a torpedo that runs deep, circles back, and doesn't explode when hitting the target (or explodes too soon)
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Jan 19, 2016 13:24
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Veloxyll posted:To be fair, they are usually compared with the Type-14s. And a torpedo that only runs deep some of the time is a lot more reliable than a torpedo that runs deep, circles back, and doesn't explode when hitting the target (or explodes too soon) Sure, my point was that the (smaller) problems with the Mk.X was also known, by some, anyway. IOW, could have been remedied. Dempsey and his crew discovered the problem during routine field maintenance, some torps that had been in water-filled tubes had water inside them.
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Jan 19, 2016 13:37
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gradenko_2000 posted:Both the Germans and the Americans had acoustic-homing torpedoes developed and in-use by 1943, but they were relatively slow things: anywhere from half to a third as fast as "regular" torpedoes of the day to allow the acoustic sensors to hear their targets, but if you were going to shoot at 10 knot or slower merchantmen anyway then it's not too bad. During post-war interrogations it came to light that the Japanese did their own research on the topic. They had the same problems as the Germans, that the torpedo speed influenced (blanking noise) on the sensitivity of the directional microphones but they worked on it. Officially (according to the US investigations) the project was eventually dropped. However, only about half of the Japanese torpedo manufacturers/research institutions were investigated. It has been indicated that those Japanese officers interviewed after the war were somewhat less open than, for example, the German. So, why in the world would commander Hara make the statements he did in his book?
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Jan 19, 2016 13:57
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ZombieLenin posted:In fact, in many ways Stalin was an idiot for pushing so hard for a second front. Had D-day happened any later, Stalin could have Sovietized a whole lot more of Europe. He caught up on that in the end, when he tried to give the allies the impression that he wasn't really interested in Berlin - while pushing his generals to go there tout suite. The allies bought it. I'm not sure if Stalin was that interested in much more. He had got his buffers.
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Jan 19, 2016 17:31
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What is this western pigdog limerick crap doing here? Only the noble haiku can properly bring honor to the glorious navy of Nippon  Ship from down under Torpedo launch detected Scrap in the bottom
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Jan 19, 2016 17:33
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fredleander posted:He caught up on that in the end, when he tried to give the allies the impression that he wasn't really interested in Berlin - while pushing his generals to go there tout suite. The allies bought it. I'm not sure if Stalin was that interested in much more. He had got his buffers. Plus the issue of "who got what" was really based not exclusively on who happened to have troops there. An area wasn't going to be a Soviet puppet just because the Red Army was there. It was really more based on agreements reached before most of those countries had been occupied. The whole idea of D-Day and poo poo being a desperate ploy to save Europe from communism is really nothing more than a stupid conspiracy theory than people who know nothing about Western-Soviet, and especially US-Soviet, relations during WW2 which were really quite different from those of the Cold War from about 1947 and you shouldn't automatically begin to assume that all that applies to the Cold War was a thing during WW2. Things were quite different.
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Jan 19, 2016 17:49
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| # ? May 17, 2024 17:40 |
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Actually the US had a homing torpedo known as FIDO (also known as the Mark 24 mine). They were air dropped and when they hit the water they would start a helical search pattern and home in of the first sound they heard. Because they were air launched they didn't have to worry about having friendly ships in the area. The idea was that the Germans would see the plane coming, and crash dive. The allied pilot would then fly to the subs last known position and drop the torpedo. The torpedo would then start going in circles until it heard the U boat and then it would home in using hydrophones. From what I've read they seemed to be reasonably effective, and I think they were one of the reasons why later in the war the German U boats were told to stick it out on the surface and shoot it out with allied aircraft instead of diving to escape. Since diving allowed the allied aircraft to fly over and drop their torpedo right over the U boat's last know position. I hadn't heard about any German or Japanese guided torpedoes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_24_mine
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Jan 19, 2016 18:17
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