www.navalism.org

Hello all!

I have had some thoughts on torpedos. Torpedos were large, fragile, perishable and expensive peices of armament. In fact torpedos cost more than light artillery peices(150mm) or aircraft and production was very specialized. This is why no nation uses TBs as their sole form of defense, they are too costly! I believe it would be a good idea to track them separately with relatively high costs(as we do with Mines).

In the game War in the Pacific great problems were introduced due to the simplified supply system. The Japanese had the premier Torpedo bombers in 1941, single and twin engined, available in the hundreds. In game these would be used to cut off entire portions of the pacific. Anything crossing there path had a good chance of being sunk. The problem is that in RL they only built a few thousand torpedo of all kinds during the war, and the Long Lance especially was maintenence heavy and heavy in need of trained mechanic personnel. The Japanese never had many on hand at the front and could not even maintain the several dozen kept on hand in the carriers.

The solution to the many complaints was to make torpedos a seperate unit for supply purposes. This came out in the Admirals Edition version of the game. Along with many other changes it has made a great game fantastic in its relative strategic realism.

The prominance of the torpedo in Navalism has bothered me for some time. Noticing the great numbers of MTBs in Logis Naval OOB caused great concern. 170 20ton boats armed with 2 torps each for a cost of only $6.8 and 3.4BP. I am not sure how they are being modeled but I am concerned. the problem MTBs bring up in particular were partialy brought up in 1908 with DFs turbinas. A navy with no MTBS suddenly was building dozens on an island (Hainan?)with little infrastructure. MTBs require highpower engines and highly trained crews, both are rare things and take time to build-especially in this timeframe). None of this was taken into account.

Now that Aircraft and Subs are coming in play I fear a bad situation will be made worse.

As we have been tracking mines separately I really feel that torpedos desrve the same. Perhaps $1 per 50 or 100? Tech level and size would need to be noted. As 21" Destroyer Torps cannot be used by Aircraft and torpedo bought with 1910 tech are not the same monster as 1918 tech Torpedos.

Quote from: Blooded on November 30, 2010, 11:32:48 AM
Hello all!

I have had some thoughts on torpedos. Torpedos were large, fragile, perishable and expensive peices of armament. In fact torpedos cost more than light artillery peices(150mm) or aircraft and production was very specialized. This is why no nation uses TBs as their sole form of defense, they are too costly! I believe it would be a good idea to track them separately with relatively high costs(as we do with Mines).

That depends on the torpedo and who made it. The Nordenfelts were awful. The Schwarzkopfs (German fish) were like the Bliss Leavitts and Silufurcos robust and deadly, the Whiteheads were somewhere in between.   

QuoteIn the game War in the Pacific great problems were introduced due to the simplified supply system. The Japanese had the premier Torpedo bombers in 1941, single and twin engined, available in the hundreds. In game these would be used to cut off entire portions of the pacific. Anything crossing there path had a good chance of being sunk. The problem is that in RL they only built a few thousand torpedo of all kinds during the war, and the Long Lance especially was maintenence heavy and heavy in need of trained mechanic personnel. The Japanese never had many on hand at the front and could not even maintain the several dozen kept on hand in the carriers.

Correct as reported Hyper-war in real history. This along with superior designed Japanese naval shells was a major US war worry.

However-the sheer technical superiority of the few torpedoes they had has to be represented somehow?  

QuoteThe solution to the many complaints was to make torpedos a seperate unit for supply purposes. This came out in the Admirals Edition version of the game. Along with many other changes it has made a great game fantastic in its relative strategic realism.

Makes sense, as long as there is a 'national qualifier' Not all torpedo makers were equal.

An example of Nverse breakdown to 1919 using RTL template.

Excellent
Italy
DKB
Japan
Holland
Good
CSA
UNK
ESC (Danes and Germans, Swedish torpedoes were terrible)
Terrible
Everyone else.

QuoteThe prominence of the torpedo in Navalism has bothered me for some time. Noticing the great numbers of MTBs in Logis Naval OOB caused great concern. 170 20ton boats armed with 2 torps each for a cost of only $6.8 and 3.4BP. I am not sure how they are being modeled but I am concerned. the problem MTBs bring up in particular were partialy brought up in 1908 with DFs turbinas. A navy with no MTBS suddenly was building dozens on an island (Hainan?)with little infrastructure. MTBs require highpower engines and highly trained crews, both are rare things and take time to build-especially in this timeframe). None of this was taken into account.

That was of concern to me too, which is why I devoted such money to the PT boat

QuoteNow that Aircraft and Subs are coming in play I fear a bad situation will be made worse.

I foresee it.

QuoteAs we have been tracking mines separately I really feel that torpedos deserve the same. Perhaps $1 per 50 or 100? Tech level and size would need to be noted. As 21" Destroyer Torps cannot be used by Aircraft and torpedo bought with 1910 tech are not the same monster as 1918 tech Torpedos.

Again agreed.

As the inheritor of Logi's navy, I agree entirely with the idea of making torpedoes cost money.

Quote from: damocles on November 30, 2010, 01:41:47 PM

An example of Nverse breakdown to 1919 using RTL template.

Excellent
Italy
DKB
Japan
Holland
Good
CSA
UNK
ESC (Danes and Germans, Swedish torpedoes were terrible)
Terrible
Everyone else.

Absolutely not. If I have paid to keep my torpedo tech at the top of the line, I expect it to be at the top of the line. Nationality's, due to the false geography of the N-verse, are unappliable, and frankly, I won't accept my torpedoes being "terrible"

Quote from: TexanCowboy on November 30, 2010, 02:04:45 PM

Quote from: damocles on November 30, 2010, 01:41:47 PM

An example of Nverse breakdown to 1919 using RTL template.

Excellent
Italy
DKB
Japan
Holland
Good
CSA
UNK
ESC (Danes and Germans, Swedish torpedoes were terrible)
Terrible
Everyone else.

Absolutely not. If I have paid to keep my torpedo tech at the top of the line, I expect it to be at the top of the line. Nationality's, due to the false geography of the N-verse, are unappliable, and frankly, I won't accept my torpedoes being "terrible"

Its an example based on real history. The modifiers could be moderator rolled. What you get in that case would be Nverse 'history'.

US torpedoes after 1919 until 1956 were simply AWFUL the worst in the world.  

Dutch torpedoes were Schwartzkopfs, which were superb until after WW I. Then the Germans made their own in their government factory (like the US) and look what happened to them? Holland had to switch to Whiteheads: the quality suddenly dropped to mediocre.

If you stick to a simple 1d6 roll in a five year block (how long it usually takes to bring new torpedo tech on line.)
1d6 1-2 Excellent +1
1d6 3-4 Good       0
1d6 5-6 Poor       -1    

Could turn out that you get excellent torpedoes(*1920-1925) or clunkers.

Tech inequality of quality is a provable fact of life. Wars are based on that fact.
 

Quote from: Laertes on November 30, 2010, 02:03:28 PM
As the inheritor of Logi's navy, I agree entirely with the idea of making torpedoes cost money.

Well we dont know how much of that navy is left, or will be at the end of things.

Quote from: TexanCowboy on November 30, 2010, 02:04:45 PM

Quote from: damocles on November 30, 2010, 01:41:47 PM

An example of Nverse breakdown to 1919 using RTL template.

Excellent
Italy
DKB
Japan
Holland
Good
CSA
UNK
ESC (Danes and Germans, Swedish torpedoes were terrible)
Terrible
Everyone else.

Absolutely not. If I have paid to keep my torpedo tech at the top of the line, I expect it to be at the top of the line. Nationality's, due to the false geography of the N-verse, are unappliable, and frankly, I won't accept my torpedoes being "terrible"

Im in agreement with this, the tech level should govern torps, not a preseaved geographic bias. There would be some difference between nations, but I dont see this taken into account anywhere else in the rules regarding technological items such as planes, shells, mines, tanks and other things.

Quote from: damocles on November 30, 2010, 02:26:47 PM

If you stick to a simple 1d6 roll in a five year block (how kong it usually takes to bring new torpedo tech on line.

1d6 1-2 Excellent +1
1d6 3-4 Good       0
1d6 5-6 Poor       -1     

Could turn out that you get excellent torpedoes(*1920-1925) or clunkers.

Inequality is a fact of life. Wars are based on that fact.

Unless we take this into account for all items of tech, I dont think it is wise to implement something like this. Also, think of the micromangament involved in keeping track of all this.

On the idea as presented: While numbers would need to be talked about, I think the idea is fairly sound.

While I can see the logic behind this suggestion, I am strongly against it. I will be the main one impacted by it, and it would be costly. Asymmetrical weapons are the only thing small countries have going for them and you people keep making them more expensive.

I could support this suggestion but only for a bonus BP factory, call it a grandfathered torpedo factory.

Quotethe problem MTBs bring up in particular were partialy brought up in 1908 with DFs turbinas. A navy with no MTBS suddenly was building dozens on an island (Hainan?)with little infrastructure. MTBs require highpower engines and highly trained crews, both are rare things and take time to build-especially in this timeframe). None of this was taken into account.

Actually I have built quite a few before the war. Also at the time Taiwan and Hainan where independent countries with stand alone factories.

QuoteCould turn out that you get excellent torpedoes(*1920-1925) or clunkers.

Tech inequality of quality is a provable fact of life. Wars are based on that fact.

That's what the tech tree is for...

We keep track of mines?  ??? :o

Quote from: Sachmle on November 30, 2010, 06:55:35 PM
We keep track of mines?  ??? :o

I didnt realize that either...

However I do like the idea of paying for torpedoes because they are quite large and are not very easy to store and transport to rearm ships at sea. 

To a degree. Somewhere it was posted that we each get 10,000 mines at the start(game start=1906 so 1905 type mines). Then it was finally posted(after I asked many times) what they cost($1/0.5BP per 2000). Russia has purchased many more since(maybe another 12,000 1908 type- i've got it somewhere around here... ) Now the 1918 type will begin production for many folks. So if you have been building them, then you should have how many you have bought somewhere. Otherwise just the 14+ year old decrepit 1905 types rusting away in an armory somewhere(with acid leaking out of the horns... hmmm could get ugly... anyone want some old mines?).   ;D

So... some people have been purchasing them just like the Corps ammo or stocking up on Gas attacks.

Alright.  I guess Egypt has some 10,000 ancient horned mines causing a minor environmental catastrophe somewhere.  I wonder how long it would take to plant them all in a single belt across the Mediterranean.... hrm... the possibilities...  ;D

I am still looking around for the 'official' rules but I found this part. So my memory may be off about mine type for the 10,000. But it would not make sense that you suddenly have 10,000 new type mines after researching the next mine tech level.

QuoteMeeting Room/Rules updates
« Last Edit: November 19, 2007, 12:56:15 pm by P3D »
Mine warfare

One mine is considered to weight 1ton - 'long' ton, as in displacement, iirc 1016kg
1000 t of mines cost 0.25BP and $0.5 (increased cost)
Player define the area (sq.nm) numbers of mines in every minefield.
Minefields degrade 10% of their starting size every 6 months.
Every nation has 10,000t of mines stockpiled unless depleted in war.

Quote from: Blooded on November 30, 2010, 07:38:01 PM
I am still looking around for the 'official' rules but I found this part. So my memory may be off about mine type for the 10,000. But it would not make sense that you suddenly have 10,000 new type mines after researching the next mine tech level.

I agree.  Updating existing inventories takes time.  Egypt probably still has M1905 mines though...

Quote from: Desertfox on November 30, 2010, 05:21:20 PM
While I can see the logic behind this suggestion, I am strongly against it. I will be the main one impacted by it, and it would be costly. Asymmetrical weapons are the only thing small countries have going for them and you people keep making them more expensive.

That is reality. Precision weapons are expensive and scarce for a reason. They are hard to make.

QuoteI could support this suggestion but only for a bonus BP factory, call it a grandfathered torpedo factory.

Please explain how that works?

Quotethe problem MTBs bring up in particular were partialy brought up in 1908 with DFs turbinas. A navy with no MTBS suddenly was building dozens on an island (Hainan?)with little infrastructure. MTBs require highpower engines and highly trained crews, both are rare things and take time to build-especially in this timeframe). None of this was taken into account.

QuoteActually I have built quite a few before the war. Also at the time Taiwan and Hainan where independent countries with stand alone factories.

How was that possible? Where did they get their copper and tin for air flask manufacture, which neither actually has?

QuoteCould turn out that you get excellent torpedoes(*1920-1925) or clunkers.

Tech inequality of quality is a provable fact of life. Wars are based on that fact.

QuoteThat's what the tech tree is for..

Apparently some may not understand the difference between a hand-made weapon and a machine-made weapon. A 1918 torpedo has the equivalent of built-in Swiss watch movement. It is a precision made weapon at the 1918 level almost exactly equivalent to a modern hand-built satellite today. There is no such thing as a mass produced torpedo when the parts have to meet 1/10000th inch tolerances in that era. (Mark 14 US 1930 still failed to meet that quality.)

There was a curious flywheel powered weapon, that if its maker had figured out how to make a motor drive that could make the weapon work at extreme ranges would actually be superior to the clumsy torpedoes we use today. It was known for its ease of manufacture and rough simplicity to make. It was called the Howell torpedo and it was appropriately named that because once you heard that thing launched and you heard its howl you knew that you were dead, it was so deadly simply as it roared toward you.    

One just can't wave a hand and say presto I have torpedoes. I sure can't. If I do get oxygen torpedoes, I have to treat them as a very scarce resource because those fish require bottled oxygen gas. I have to use stainless steels and brass fittings. I have to handbuild all the valves and piping and I have to have trained crews that can check those torpedoes for corrosion and leaks constantly as well as manufacture defects, as well as guard against fire spark and flame, because even kerosene in the presence of pure oxygen is deadly. The use of alcohol a preferred fuel is far worse with that pure oxidizer.

The whole point of the exercise is that small and medium sized countries (KoN is a medium sized country as is the NS~ equal in size) are NOT France.

We should have lots of problems with torpedoes.      

Ok,

This is a good descussion.   I agree that Torpedoes have always been Hand Machined Tooled weapons.   And reliability issues that such items had in this time period need to be addressed.  If you launched 100 WW1 Torps you might find as many as 25 of them simply failed to run or failed to run properly.  In addition of those that hit you would end up with a significant number of Duds or Low Order Detonations.

In addition they are a clear Logistical Log Jam... they are not machine massed produced like Artillary Shells.   And Despite Desertfoxs claims A-Symetrical War is not nor has it ever been Cheap.   Producing a Large Number of PT or MTB Boats does not a real defense make.  And while the production of the boats themselves is cheap maintaining the supply of Torpedoes to them is expensive.

The US Navy had its own Production facility for Torpedoes If I remember Production was extremely limited in Peace Time to probably a few Dozen to as many as a 100 a month.  And then every single torpedo requires constant maintenance by a trained technician.  Without maintenance you end up with the performance problems of the Early WWII US Torpedoes.

So Torpedoes make a good discussion point but then we have to decide just exactly what we are going to track from Logistics point of view.   We track Artillary Ammo, and Mines, but right now we dont track Naval Munitions other then Mines ??

Quote from: ctwaterman on November 30, 2010, 09:23:19 PM
The US Navy had its own Production facility for Torpedoes If I remember Production was extremely limited in Peace Time to probably a few Dozen to as many as a 100 a month.  And then every single torpedo requires constant maintenance by a trained technician.  Without maintenance you end up with the performance problems of the Early WWII US Torpedoes.

United States Naval Undersea Warfare Center is about 10 miles from me.  They have been in Narragansett Bay since the USN started working with torpedoes. 

What if we interpreted DF's statement

Quote from: Desertfox on November 30, 2010, 05:21:20 PM
I could support this suggestion but only for a bonus BP factory, call it a grandfathered torpedo factory.

as a choice to invest in a torpedo factory that will churn out modern torpedoes at a set rate instead of BP? 

Oh... another layer of complexity..... are you trying to give the Anti-Bean counter crowd an heart attack  ;D

Next you will be advocating that we track resources and.... 
[The rest of this thought has been censored please move along nothing to see]

Quote from: ctwaterman on November 30, 2010, 09:23:19 PM
So Torpedoes make a good discussion point but then we have to decide just exactly what we are going to track from Logistics point of view.   We track Artillary Ammo, and Mines, but right now we dont track Naval Munitions other then Mines ??

Well ammo can be stockpiled for corps. I assume that this is not only artillery, but rifle and MG ammo as well. We do have a way of representing this (As I am about to get royally screwed by...) so it seems fine to me. Mines are already represented with Blooded's system for torps being similar as they are complex bits of hardware like mines. As for gun ammo, tracking that becomes a nightmare if we chose to do so for each gun type with all the different calibers a navy would have in service, any system should avoid that option. As all gun ammo is mostly mass-producible, would it not be possible to adapt the Army stockpile rules to navy use? Say a sustained stock for 6 months of use with more purchasable in units of tons for X amount of money and Y amount of BP?

As to the variable effectiveness argument

Quoteanother layer of complexity

One that, while interesting to explore, I don't think has a place here. Implementing it would be very hard and keeping track of it would make for, IMHO more numbercrunching.

QuoteHow was that possible? Where did they get their copper and tin for air flask manufacture, which neither actually has?

There's these things called ships...

Quote
There is no such thing as a mass produced torpedo when the parts have to meet 1/10000th inch tolerances in that era. (Mark 14 US 1930 still failed to meet that quality.)

Nothing has 1/100000th inch tolerance... You tell a machinist to make said tolerance, he WILL shoot you, even CNC machines can't do it.

QuoteOne just can't wave a hand and say presto I have torpedoes. I sure can't. If I do get oxygen torpedoes, I have to treat them as a very scarce resource because those fish require bottled oxygen gas. I have to use stainless steels and brass fittings. I have to handbuild all the valves and piping and I have to have trained crews that can check those torpedoes for corrosion and leaks constantly as well as manufacture defects, as well as guard against fire spark and flame, because even kerosene in the presence of pure oxygen is deadly. The use of alcohol a preferred fuel is far worse with that pure oxidizer.

That's why you spend money on tech research, and NS has spent a hell of a lot of money on torpedoes, oh and I have more experience with them than everyone else put together.

QuoteWhat if we interpreted DF's statement

Quote from: Desertfox on Yesterday at 18:21:20
I could support this suggestion but only for a bonus BP factory, call it a grandfathered torpedo factory.
as a choice to invest in a torpedo factory that will churn out modern torpedoes at a set rate instead of BP? 

What I'm saying is that if torpedoes are going to cost money, I should get a free factory, cause I have already built a huge amount of them... NS probably already has a factory dedicated to building only torpedoes.

QuoteSo Torpedoes make a good discussion point but then we have to decide just exactly what we are going to track from Logistics point of view.   We track Artillary Ammo, and Mines, but right now we dont track Naval Munitions other then Mines ??

As I see it, that's where upkeep falls in. Which is why I see ammo stock[piles as superfluous.

QuoteWhat if we interpreted DF's statement

Quote from: Desertfox on Yesterday at 18:21:20
I could support this suggestion but only for a bonus BP factory, call it a grandfathered torpedo factory.
as a choice to invest in a torpedo factory that will churn out modern torpedoes at a set rate instead of BP? 
What I'm saying is that if torpedoes are going to cost money, I should get a free factory, cause I have already built a huge amount of them... NS probably already has a factory dedicated to building only torpedoes.

No... No... and No....  Everyone has dedicated factories to building them as people stated the US Navy had its own facility to building them.

What we are discussing  is something I mentioned to you in a PM recently.   An example is how did your Fleet of 100+ Destroyers most with 4+ Torpedo Tubes reload all their  tubes after the first battle in the Rift Sea ??????   Its about Logistics Logistics Logistics... the most important part of any war.

Just because you wrote stories about Torpedo Boats and Asymetrical Warfare doesnt give you something for FREE.  As another Example Italia had 120 40 Ton MAS boats each with 2 Torp Tubes in the Southern Rift... but after 1 possibly 2 Combat Actions in the same month they would in all likelihood be completely out of torpedos in the Southern Rift Area.  Another 240 Torps might be ready on the Docks of Taranto at the Imperial Torpedo Factory but thats 4000 NM away.  Think about it this way 240 Torpedoes are 240 Tons of Metal so there is .24 BP worth of munitions if we wanted to do it that way.

Charles

Quote from: ctwaterman on November 30, 2010, 09:23:19 PM
Ok,

This is a good descussion.   I agree that Torpedoes have always been Hand Machined Tooled weapons.   And reliability issues that such items had in this time period need to be addressed.  If you launched 100 WW1 Torps you might find as many as 25 of them simply failed to run or failed to run properly.  In addition of those that hit you would end up with a significant number of Duds or Low Order Detonations.

It was closer to half CT.

Quote
In addition they are a clear Logistical Log Jam... they are not machine massed produced like Artillary Shells.   And Despite Desertfoxs claims A-Symetrical War is not nor has it ever been Cheap.   Producing a Large Number of PT or MTB Boats does not a real defense make.  And while the production of the boats themselves is cheap maintaining the supply of Torpedoes to them is expensive.

Even PT boats were scarcer than is supposed. The US produced more frieghters than PT boats. Reason? PT boats required aircraft engines.  

Quote
The US Navy had its own Production facility for Torpedoes If I remember Production was extremely limited in Peace Time to probably a few Dozen to as many as a 100 a month.  And then every single torpedo requires constant maintenance by a trained technician.  Without maintenance you end up with the performance problems of the Early WWII US Torpedoes.

Working from memory the US produced a grand total of 69,000 torpedoes in WW II of which only 29,000 were fired with a PK of 10%. The US built almost a dozen torpedo factories and was not able to meet the shooting needs of its forces. Note that? The US built 100000 tanks and 500,000 aircraft from just as many factories!  It means that one out of every two torpedoes weapons built was rejected as unfit for service. Add to that the miserable 25% to 30% fail to run rates.      

QuoteSo Torpedoes make a good discussion point but then we have to decide just exactly what we are going to track from Logistics point of view.   We track Artillary Ammo, and Mines, but right now we dont track Naval Munitions other then Mines ??

The mines rules is a good beginning point.

Quote from: Darman on November 30, 2010, 09:48:06 PM

Quote from: ctwaterman on November 30, 2010, 09:23:19 PM
The US Navy had its own Production facility for Torpedoes If I remember Production was extremely limited in Peace Time to probably a few Dozen to as many as a 100 a month.  And then every single torpedo requires constant maintenance by a trained technician.  Without maintenance you end up with the performance problems of the Early WWII US Torpedoes.

United States Naval Undersea Warfare Center is about 10 miles from me.  They have been in Narragansett Bay since the USN started working with torpedoes.  

What if we interpreted DF's statement

Quote from: Desertfox on November 30, 2010, 05:21:20 PM
I could support this suggestion but only for a bonus BP factory, call it a grandfathered torpedo factory.

as a choice to invest in a torpedo factory that will churn out modern torpedoes at a set rate instead of BP?  

With all due respect, the NUTS facility is an op-eval and prototype facility these days. I am nor exactly current not again from memory, Westinghouse, GE, HUSL, (it still exists) some refrigerator company, and Gould make US torpedoes. In fact Australia just opened a factory that makes US torpedoes for the US.

The US government learned its lessons, it still has hundreds no thousands of WW II torpedoes to make up for its lack of current modern fish in inventory and production. Those cheap Mark 14s, 16s, 23s, and so forth on up to the NT-37s are rebuilt like old anti-tank missiles to the new current standard  for that model to keep the weapon zeroed and war-ready. A Mark 14 is good enough to kill a freighter. Save the 48 for the Songs and Akulas.        

Quote from: Desertfox on November 30, 2010, 11:07:35 PM

QuoteHow was that possible? Where did they get their copper and tin for air flask manufacture, which neither actually has?

There's these things called ships...

Not in 1880 it took 20 years to design the first reliable Whitehead  weapon. The torpedo factories in 1890? Two in Italy, one in Austria, One in Britain, One in Germany. That was it on the planet Earth. The US didn't even have a 'factory' until 1895. The Howell was made in a cannon foundry. The Americans didn't know how to make 1200 psi+ air flasks. Didn't until the Bliss Leaviitts around 1900.    

Quote
There is no such thing as a mass produced torpedo when the parts have to meet 1/10000th inch tolerances in that era. (Mark 14 US 1930 still failed to meet that quality.)

Nothing has 1/100000th inch tolerance... You tell a machinist to make said tolerance, he WILL shoot you, even CNC machines can't do it.
1/10,000th of an inch. (Typo?) Packard and Oldsmobile did in 1928 in auto engines, something that won them an engineering award from the Royal Society and which embarrassed RR who could not do it. The Germans (Daimler Benz) did  it in the DB 600s in 1940 in centimeters.,

http://users.ntua.gr/rogdemma/MILLIMETER-SCALE,%20MEMS%20GAS%20TURBINE%20ENGINES.pdf

MODERN EXAMPLE.

QuoteABSTRACT
The confluence of market demand for greatly improved
compact power sources for portable electronics with the rapidly
expanding capability of micromachining technology has made
feasible the development of gas turbines in the millimeter-size
range. With airfoil spans measured in 100's of microns rather
than meters, these "microengines" have about 1 millionth the
air flow of large gas turbines and thus should produce about 1
millionth the power, 10-100 W. Based on semiconductor industry-
derived processing of materials such as silicon and silicon
carbide to submicron accuracy, such devices are known as
micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Current millimeter-
scale designs use centrifugal turbomachinery with pressure
ratios in the range of 2:1 to 4:1 and turbine inlet temperatures of
1200-1600 K. The projected performance of these engines are
on a par with gas turbines of the 1940'

As for 100,000 of an inch today? Visit an atomic clock or open up your computer.  

Quote

Quote

QuoteOne just can't wave a hand and say presto I have torpedoes. I sure can't. If I do get oxygen torpedoes, I have to treat them as a very scarce resource because those fish require bottled oxygen gas. I have to use stainless steels and brass fittings. I have to handbuild all the valves and piping and I have to have trained crews that can check those torpedoes for corrosion and leaks constantly as well as manufacture defects, as well as guard against fire spark and flame, because even kerosene in the presence of pure oxygen is deadly. The use of alcohol a preferred fuel is far worse with that pure oxidizer.

That's why you spend money on tech research, and NS has spent a hell of a lot of money on torpedoes, oh and I have more experience with them than everyone else put together.

Not anymore. ;D I have as much if not more experience in MTB and submarine warfare

QuoteWhat if we interpreted DF's statement

QuoteQuote from: Desertfox on Yesterday at 18:21:20
I could support this suggestion but only for a bonus BP factory, call it a grandfathered torpedo factory.
as a choice to invest in a torpedo factory that will churn out modern torpedoes at a set rate instead of BP?  

What I'm saying is that if torpedoes are going to cost money, I should get a free factory, cause I have already built a huge amount of them... NS probably already has a factory dedicated to building only torpedoes.

Nope. This the airplane rules all over again. The moderators decide.    

QuoteSo Torpedoes make a good discussion point but then we have to decide just exactly what we are going to track from Logistics point of view.   We track Artillary Ammo, and Mines, but right now we dont track Naval Munitions other then Mines ??

As I see it, that's where upkeep falls in. Which is why I see ammo stock[piles as superfluous.

Upkeep is not what maintenance means here. See own remarks about rebuilds?

Quote
As for 100,000 of an inch today? Visit an atomic clock or open up your computer.

Last I checked neither are machined...

Quote from: Desertfox on November 30, 2010, 11:55:03 PM

Quote
As for 100,000 of an inch today? Visit an atomic clock or open up your computer.

Last I checked neither are machined...

Micro-turbines and atomic clocks and floppy drives actually are, DF.

;D

Actualy, microchips are machined. The cutting tool is a deep ultraviolet laser. Just like steel can be machined with a visible light kilowatt laserbeam.

But I ,as machinist, can say, I have worked upon 0.005mm with conventional tools.  For tests, in ideal circumstances.
Imagine you have to keep tool, workpiece and messurment gauges at a level temperature.  
I had to trow away 6 pieces before I got the feel for the convensional machines I was using. 3 Precision lathed axles , then hardened-what induced sleight warping-, then grinding, honing and lapping them to a high gloss and extreem accuraty... it was an endeavor of manweeks.  

And as far as I know, 1/100 000 of an inch is  sleigthly less than that. It is possible, and stupid el cheapo chinese ballbearings proof that every day.  But for you and me with individualy affordable tools.  Forget it.

Ever seen a ball bearing factory?  I did.  The machine that makes the balls is using the same movement as any mum making minced meatballs for the soup. But then with alloyed steel balls, heat treated to a hardness and toughness...

The first steam engines had a tolerance of  1/8 inch. The waxed leather piston rings had to deal with that.

Today, the  tolerance is calculated to the maximal expansion before the heat destroys the engine in other than expansion induced ways.

No,IRL for 1920, mass producing  1920 "just proven but experimental torpedo's" ain't an option.
The mass produced weapons of 1920 are the ones  experimental in 191X, first used in larger numbers in 191X because the first machines to produce those came into use and after that it becomes easier and cheaper to make more of those in shorter time.

I know, the Nverse has flaws, and this is one. After researching something it just takes $X and Y BP to mass introduce.
But if we would revise this now, we have to turn over the excisting fabric, and do we keep the Nverse then? 

Quote from: maddox on December 01, 2010, 02:17:16 AM
Actualy, microchips are machined. The cutting tool is a deep ultraviolet laser. Just like steel can be machined with a visible light kilowatt laserbeam.

Forgot that

QuoteBut I ,as machinist, can say, I have worked upon 0.005mm with conventional tools.  For tests, in ideal circumstances.
Imagine you have to keep tool, workpiece and messurment gauges at a level temperature.

Ugh. Use a a micron scale cutter with turret mounted milling heads and try to mill a piece of steel using a microscope to see the gauge sets.

QuoteI had to trow away 6 pieces before I got the feel for the convensional machines I was using. 3 Precision lathed axles , then hardened-what induced sleight warping-, then grinding, honing and lapping them to a high gloss and extreem accuraty... it was an endeavor of manweeks.  

How did you balance your cuts?

QuoteAnd as far as I know, 1/100 000 of an inch is  sleigthly less than that. It is possible, and stupid el cheapo chinese ballbearings proof that every day.  But for you and me with individualy affordable tools.  Forget it.

Actually if the Chinese were anywhere near as good as the French (or the US) when it came to ball bearings, their pilots wouldn't be smeared all over the countryside as their WS-10s, 11s and, 12s exploded and dropped their crappy aircraft out of the sky. The old sawdust in the artillery shell trick plagues them today as Norinco and Chengdu turns out substandard quality items in China as well as on the world stage. I don't put much stock in their tech.          

QuoteEver seen a ball bearing factory?  I did.  The machine that makes the balls is using the same movement as any mum making minced meatballs for the soup. But then with alloyed steel balls, heat treated to a hardness and toughness...

I have seen one in Indianapolis. Impressive. Harder has to mill hard. The working faces need constant replacement.  

QuoteThe first steam engines had a tolerance of  1/8 inch. The waxed leather piston rings had to deal with that.

That was the chief defect of US Civil War engine designs(that and the pistons tended to crack-lousy steels).

QuoteToday, the  tolerance is calculated to the maximal expansion before the heat destroys the engine in other than expansion induced ways.

And that is somewhat more than 1/10,000 of an inch.

QuoteNo,IRL for 1920, mass producing  1920 "just proven but experimental torpedo's" ain't an option.

Thanks for that. The Mark 10 torpedo a Bliss Leavitt type wet-heater (the world's first wet heater design), was prototyped in 1907, I think. It did not really enter limited service until 1915. Eight years.

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_7/newport.htm

QuoteThe mass produced weapons of 1920 are the ones  experimental in 191X, first used in larger numbers in 191X because the first machines to produce those came into use and after that it becomes easier and cheaper to make more of those in shorter time.

See examples above. Add this, the US in WW II started about a dozen different types of torpedoes including two electrics, three hydrogen peroxide (NAVOL fuel) at least two acoustics, a crash program to fix its three wetheaters, and tried to reverse engineer at least two captured German types (electric peopulsion and pattern runner, both were disasters)  

It took three years to fix the Mark XIV, It took two years to fix the Mark XIII (actually a good weapon so long as you didn't try to drop it from aircraft, the silly thing actually worked from the start as a conventional PT boat torpedo amazingly well. It would have been a deadly submarine launched weapon if it could have fit a 53 cm torpedo tube. (It was a 57 cm torpedo)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_13_torpedo

Notice that it was a BLISS LEAVITT and not a Navy Torpedo Factory product?

Anyway, the result of almost a billion dollars and ten years work was this remarkable weapon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_37_torpedo

That was the type weapon the US wanted in 1943 and could have had if it started in 1933 with Ralph Christie's preliminary work if he hadn't screwed everything up.  
     

Quote
I know, the Nverse has flaws, and this is one. After researching something it just takes $X and Y BP to mass introduce.

But if we would revise this now, we have to turn over the excisting fabric, and do we keep the Nverse then?  

We do the best we can. That is why the 1920s rules changes are a good break point.

I was also thinking about similar stuff, inspired by the different APC shells of WWI. Have a chance that your shells are not designed correctly (UK, US), works OK (Germany) or you "got it right" (Russia). Only the moderators would know the exact status, and it would have some chance to be corrected if the next tech is developed.

The only major drawback is that Nverse players would only have to write two news stories about comparing notes with their allies (to be sure, throw some money at it to justify it to moderators) and everyone who counts is at the same level by next report.

Its all about Testing Testing Testing....

At the Start of World War II the US, Germany, and GB all deployed Torpedoes with major defects the most major of which was the Magnetic Detonator.   In the US case the US Torpedo was developed the Magnetic Detonator was developed and the detonator was labled Top Secret and the maintenance manual was locked away in a safe.   The Torpedoes since they are so very expensive and hard to build were not addequately tested until the war actually started.

Germany and GB suffered through 1940 with many of the same problems the plagues US Submarines in 1942 into 1943 they just had less problems at the Admiral Level in moving forward with fixing the problem.   I forget how many Torpedoes U-47 Fired at Royal Oak but they had to reload all the forward tubes and try again before getting any hits.....?????

Basically Torpedoes that failed to run, ran too deep or too shallow, or the dreaded circulair run were common.  Reliance on the magnetic detonator were quickly discarded in favor of contact hits.

Charles

And which Nverse nation would have inadequate testing before accepting a new weapon?

But one can run a lot of tests and arrive at wrong conclusion, if the initial test criteria are faulty - as the RN had learned after Jutland, and the US Army with the 76mm tank gun.

Quote from: ctwaterman on December 01, 2010, 09:43:33 PM
Its all about Testing Testing Testing....

At the Start of World War II the US, Germany, and GB all deployed Torpedoes with major defects the most major of which was the Magnetic Detonator.   In the US case the US Torpedo was developed the Magnetic Detonator was developed and the detonator was labled Top Secret and the maintenance manual was locked away in a safe.   The Torpedoes since they are so very expensive and hard to build were not addequately tested until the war actually started.

Germany and GB suffered through 1940 with many of the same problems the plagues US Submarines in 1942 into 1943 they just had less problems at the Admiral Level in moving forward with fixing the problem.   I forget how many Torpedoes U-47 Fired at Royal Oak but they had to reload all the forward tubes and try again before getting any hits.....?????

Basically Torpedoes that failed to run, ran too deep or too shallow, or the dreaded circulair run were common.  Reliance on the magnetic detonator were quickly discarded in favor of contact hits.

Charles

Quote from: P3D on December 01, 2010, 08:51:14 PM
I was also thinking about similar stuff, inspired by the different APC shells of WWI. Have a chance that your shells are not designed correctly (UK, US), works OK (Germany) or you "got it right" (Russia). Only the moderators would know the exact status, and it would have some chance to be corrected if the next tech is developed.

The only major drawback is that Nverse players would only have to write two news stories about comparing notes with their allies (to be sure, throw some money at it to justify it to moderators) and everyone who counts is at the same level by next report.

That is interesting. I can see why the Russians thought they got it right *(They didn't until post-WW I defeat when they actually had scientists test the shells the czarist scientists designed based on Japanese unexploded Tsushima samples.  

I like the suggestions very much. Just as a note, the British redid their shells after Dogger Bank. If Jutland had been six months later? Might have been bad for Scheer.

US shells were cursed with defective fuses, the dispersion was fairly bad in multi-barrel salvos (turret guns were sleeved too close together).  The ballistics and penetration of plate of individual shells were fairly good, certainly better than the British or the Germans ever achieved in equivalent calibers. They just didn't explode.

Quote from: ctwaterman on December 01, 2010, 09:43:33 PM
Its all about Testing Testing Testing....

Quote

Keep it simple, Sam.

QuoteAt the Start of World War II the US, Germany, and GB all deployed Torpedoes with major defects the most major of which was the Magnetic Detonator. In the US case the US Torpedo was developed the Magnetic Detonator was developed and the detonator was labeled Top Secret and the maintenance manual was locked away in a safe.   The Torpedoes since they are so very expensive and hard to build were not adequately tested until the war actually started.

Bit of history... and a technical clarification.

The Mark VI exploder was not a magnetic detonator. It was a pendulum lever inertia hammer style detonator with a solenoid boosted and electrically actuated hammer that fired a shotgun powder charge that drove a firing pin that was supposed to strike the primer charge and detonate the warhead. The magnetic feature was the electrical circuit built into a thoroughly pedestrian Mark V contact pistol.    

Germany and Britain ran into their torpedo problems in 1839 and went through 1942 before they 'solved' their simple detonator problems by designing entirely new detonators. In the end, neither the Germans nor the British took any less time, nor were their admirals any better than the Americans. In fact in the case of the Royal Navy on the torpedo problem, they were just as incompetent or worse than the Americans as they never solved their original detonator and still had depth control problems as late as the Falklands War in their so-called fixed WW II torpedoes.
========================================
Now then, the US could not design a new detonator. Issues with torpedo geometry, volume, and time were just too critical for a two year fumble-jerk. Robert English, the first obstructionist, died in a plane crash and Ralph Christie was end-run at last and the torpedoes were tested in May 1943. It wasn't until August when Bu-ord was ordered to test that the torpedoes received remedial work.

What was that work? New spring was installed, and an aluminum firing pin replaced the steel one in the striker assembly and then they disconnected the solenoid booster circuit. it was done at Pearl Harbor machine shops 'in the field' when Charles Lockwood ordered field tests on the Mark XIV and 'Swede' Momsen figured it out.

The depth control problem was far more subtle and was flow pressure related. Pressure rises as you move faster (Mark XIV was 8 knots faster than the Mark X, Both torpedoes used the same depth control setting device-an identical hydrostatic valve), meaning the Mark XIV torpedo will run deeper than calibrated, as the calibration was for the Mark X (even calibration that was screwed up.)  Nobody on Earth solved it in the flow tank. It took dozens of open ocean shots and a lot of guessing to recalibrate the existing hydrostatic valve to the correct depth and a brilliant guess to move the valve to the rear of the Mark XIV torpedo to get the properly calibrated settings. The valve was moved aft (pressure drops as we move aft on a moving torpedo body) so it could still be used as designed.

Note that the solutions took existing designed components and within four months produced a reliable working (as in design function) fish. After that the design was not the problems, it was poor quality of manufacture in the fish.

That had to be solved in the factories, and it never was solved in the government ones.

Now post-war, when there was time to tinker with the influence feature of the Mark VI exploder, the USN discovered to its absolute horror that the influence feature as designed in function was perfect. The thing the USN had not done was map the Earth magnetically east to west as well as north to south. They had  mapped one north to south latitude (USS Indianapolis an ill fated cruiser that failed its very first and as it turned out most critical mission) along one latitude  to detect variations in the Earth's magnetic field lines. One mapped latitude does not a planetary magnetic field map make. That was Ralph Christie's fault. He suspected it at the time, but did not pursue what the data actually showed him, curse him.  

What does that mean? The Earth's magnetic field was mapped post war just as soon as the USN discovered  why the Mark VI exploder influence feature pre-matured or delayed late. That mapping, if it had been done before the war would have resulted in the addition of a set dial (a resistance gate) that would have adjusted the solenoid circuit in direct proportion to the strength of the Earth's local magnetic field. Neither the British nor the Germans could do this in their WW I German magnetic mine fuse derived designs. Those were separate mechanical linkage circuits, not pure electrical circuits designed into a contact pistol.

That little set dial in 1936 would have just required one letter from a Lieutenant Commander Ralph Christie to get it installed. He, the man who designed the wonderful device  recommended to Bu-ord not to install the device to save some money. ($50,000)

Now then... He was a rear admiral in 1942, and as soon as he learned of the Mark XIV pre-matures and prolonged delay initiates he knew what he had screwed up in the design work in the exploder, as a Lieutenant Commander.  

It takes a brave man to face a machine gun. It takes a braver man to face a court martial for a testing mistake that once he points to it will be so damned obvious that his reputation and his very fitness to lead will be destroyed.

English just did not know any better. He was just a destroyer driver who stumbled into submarines and he was stubborn. He was a convenient obstruction until he died, then Christie was out there all by himself.

Christie, who was a scientist and an engineer, and who ran the test programs, knew he was in deep trouble.

The bastards in charge at the Newport torpedo works also knew about the magnetic influence feature testing screw-up (the failure to map for variation in field strength) in the exploder, as soon as he did.                  
       
They suspected that they had also thoroughly screwed up the contact pistol manufacture, but were clueless about the depth setter problem. They became very defensive because those were malfeasance charges some of those civilians (including government union workers) now faced. Jail was a grim certainty if they admitted their knowledge. Sabotage, if it could be proved, carried the death penalty. Some of their wartime cover-ups could be so construed as sabotage.
                 

QuoteGermany and GB suffered through 1940 with many of the same problems the plagues US Submarines in 1942 into 1943 they just had less problems at the Admiral Level in moving forward with fixing the problem.   I forget how many Torpedoes U-47 Fired at Royal Oak but they had to reload all the forward tubes and try again before getting any hits.....?????

Not really. The Americans had to get rid of two admirals and fix quality control (never did fix quality control). Doenitz had to court martial five of his bozos and then had to wait for his engineers to design whole new torpedo front ends. 1942 is still 1942. Three years it took.  

QuoteBasically Torpedoes that failed to run, ran too deep or too shallow, or the dreaded circular run were common.  Reliance on the magnetic detonator were quickly discarded in favor of contact hits.

Charles

Ah... but you see, one little mistake robbed the Americans of an actually working magnetic influence feature in her torpedoes. It was a sin of omission that if found in 1940 in emergency testing as soon as the Americans became aware of the British duds, could have given them such an effective exploder. (You would have seen frantic magnetic field mapping in the Pacific in the run up to Pearl Harbor).

Now could a torpedo that passed under a Japanese ship 3 meters deeper than expected still snap a keel? No. The delay initiate would have to show up in testing. However, with a resistance set dial you just change the book settings for depth control and current resistance to adjust the calibrations.

Then the Japanese keels will snap. Firing pin will still jam if its a 90 degree contact strike, but what do you care?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beU3sExN1BA          

It, the Mark VI worked as designed.

Quote from: P3D on December 01, 2010, 11:13:11 PM
And which Nverse nation would have inadequate testing before accepting a new weapon?

But one can run a lot of tests and arrive at wrong conclusion, if the initial test criteria are faulty - as the RN had learned after Jutland, and the US Army with the 76mm tank gun.

See what I wrote about the USS Indianapolis.

As for the 76mm gun, it worked too. It was the 75 that you mean and in a curious way that is also very misunderstood when it is called a failure.

The US expected its tanks to kill infantry and exposed antitank gun crews, not fight tanks. That was what the tank destroyer was to do in the US scheme of things. according to the whims of Leslie J. McNair.

Now the first tank destroyers (M-10s) carried the US 3 inch L50 naval gun. That gun had a huge breech to hold the large shell and bag charge it carried.

That gun could kill a Panther at 1000 meters. From the front.  

Good enough if it was in a tank. Trouble was that it did not carry a good HE shell until one was designed in 1944 just after the Normandy invasion.

Now, why wasn't a proper HE shell and a proper tank (the gun required a huge closed turret so a 40+ tonne tank to carry it.)  ready?

The tank was,

(http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3493/m6productionyd0.jpg)

QuoteTop Down View of the M6.

Statistics for the M6:

6 Man Crew
322" Long with Gun Forward
123" Wide over Track armor
118" High to turret roof
63 tons combat weight
22 MPH Top Speed
3 inch M7 L53 Main Gun (75 rounds)
37mm M6 Coaxial (202 Rounds)
2 x .50 MGs in a mount in hull front (6900 rounds)
1 x .30 BMG (5500 rounds of .30 cal total)
1 x .30 cal AAMG
Stablizer: Elevation Only

HULL
Upper Front: 96mm effective
Lower Front: 102 to 70mm @ 0 to 60 degrees
Upper Sides: 47mm effective
Lower Sides: 70mm effective
Rear: 43mm effective
Top: 25mm effective
Floor: 25mm effective

TURRET
Gun Shield: 102mm effective
Front: 84mm effective
Sides: 83mm effective
Rear: 83mm effective
Top: 25mm effective

That was an anti-tank gun in a tank like the 77mmL70 in a 45 tonne Panther. That was what the Germans expected the US to throw against them.

Why did it not happen?

Remember Ralph Christie and his one critical mistake?

This man made a lot of mistakes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_J._McNair

He was incompetent. That is actually charitable. He was the American Grigory Kulik.

But the M-6 tank was actually too underpowered to be an offensive tank.    

The Americans' combat generals (George Patton) wanted dual purpose guns in their fast medium tanks. This was actually wise, as an offensive tank has to be able to fight anything: tanks, artillery, infantry, etc..

The definition of the gun that could do that is gun-howitzer-something that could work as an anti-tank weapon and as an anti-infantry weapon. That was actually the French 75mm derived gun in the 1940-1944 Sherman, and that worked quite well against every German tank until the Panthers and Tigers.

Now if the geniuses who worked out the US antitank doctrine had figured that out, competently based on North Africa and Russia, they would have fielded this:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/T20E3.jpg)  

QuoteThe M27

With their 76mm guns, torsion bar suspension and low silhouettes, the T20E3 and T23E3 were roughly comparable to the Russian T34, and the German Panzer IV so, on the basis that the M4 was becoming obsolete, the Ordnance Department requested the T23E3 and the T20E3 be standardised as the M27 and M27B1 in July 1943. However, the request was rejected and neither design was ever mass produced.

The reason for this lay partly in the decision of the Army Ground Forces command (AGF) not to act upon the growing obsolescence of the M4 design. The Sherman had performed admirably in North Africa and Italy so there was no sense of urgency to replace it. German Tigers had already been encountered by this time, but only in small number and the AGF did not expect to see them fielded in quantity.

Additionally, the AGF declined to adopt the M27 as they did not wish to interrupt M4 production, although by 1943 the manufacture of M4's had reached such a mammoth scale it seems unlikely that a staged switch over to M27 production would have significantly reduced tank output. Perhaps also of significance the M27 would have mounted the 76 mm gun, the introduction of which to the tank force was opposed by the AGF. The Ordnance Department would later suffer almost equal difficulty convincing the AGF to accept the upgunned versions of the Sherman with the net result that not a single 76 mm armed Sherman was in service in time for D-Day, even though they could have been available months earlier. The AGF's reason for rejecting the 76 mm gun was that it would encourage tank crews to stalk enemy tanks, an idea in conflict with then current US armour doctrine, and had a much less effective high explosive shell than the 75mm M3 Gun. The 76mm and 90mm guns were both accepted much more readily into the Tank Destroyer service, however US tanks would not always be able to avoid direct confrontations with German tanks and the shortcomings of the 75mm M3 gun against armour would handicap American tanks for much of the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T20_Medium_Tank

The idiot, McNair, also held up the 90 mm armed M-36.
   
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M36_tank_destroyer

The 90 mm AAA gun-howitzer was too large for a standard Sherman tank. In other words the only way to mount that dual purpose gun on a Sherman chassis was in an open gun tub mount.

But why not size up to the relevant gun-howitzer if you know you need the 3.5 inchL50?

Simple. The US did not have a working 900 HP tank engine (neither did the Germans, but they built the Panthers with the fake 700 HP [actual 500 HP] engines  they had anyway.)  

Nor was the US RR and shipping supposedly capable of handling 50 tonne tanks.

But the 3 inch L53 armed M-27 was there and it was capable.

So McNair refused to deploy tanks that used naval rifles as US Army tank destroyers and thus reveal how stupid the doctrine he helped to invent was.

See, he was an artilleryman... and that was armored horse cavalry.
   

Posting just to say: I am in awe of the erudition in this thread.

Quote from: Laertes on December 02, 2010, 05:32:16 AM
Posting just to say: I am in awe of the erudition in this thread.

Im in awe of the word Erudition ????

<derail>

Erudition n. Learning, knowledge. Usage: damocles showed great erudition in his knowledge of US tanks.

One of the many words in the world which sounds rude, but isn't, like mastication or fasces. Use responsibly and with great lols.

</derail>

Quote from: ctwaterman on December 02, 2010, 06:08:14 AM

Quote from: Laertes on December 02, 2010, 05:32:16 AM
Posting just to say: I am in awe of the erudition in this thread.

Im in awe of the word Erudition ????

I agree!  I had to look it up....

But I do agree that damocles post was quite impressive. 

If we decide to do anything with torpedo (or munitions in general) quality I think it must be connected to your research/tech in some way.  Perhaps you research a tech, then research a type and for the type its hit or miss for quality.  That will definitely lead to more paperwork though.  Especially for the mods if they are the only ones keeping track of quality. 

No I dont think were going to be adding another layer of complexity and uncertainty to the game.

I mean who accept the poor countries wouldnt spend whatever ammount of money it takes to test both their shells and their torpedoes to insure they worked.

I mean even Italia would find an Old PDN hull to turn into a live target ship and shoot it up every decade or two...

Quote from: ctwaterman on December 02, 2010, 07:55:32 AM
I mean who accept the poor countries wouldnt spend whatever ammount of money it takes to test both their shells and their torpedoes to insure they worked.

Couldn't they just buy torpedoes/shells (or designs perhaps) from richer neighbors?  Didn't Krupp, Schneider, and Armstrong each (with varying degrees of success) sell armaments to lesser powers? 

Yes and you would find the small poorer countries buying and just like OTL not testing or training or even properly maintaining the things like Wet Heater Torpedoes.

Live training exercises are just very expensive and using even a few live torpedoes on a target ship is something most nationions could not afford to do on a regular basis.   

Which as I pointed out is how Germany,  Great Britain, and the US all ended up with major torpedo problems at the start of WWII.

Quote from: ctwaterman on December 02, 2010, 08:09:32 AM
Yes and you would find the small poorer countries buying and just like OTL not testing or training or even properly maintaining the things like Wet Heater Torpedoes.

Which would be a serious mistake on their part.  If you're going to spend money buying equipment you can't build yourself its in your best interest to maintain it well, right? 

I do see it as potentially being less effective, to buy as opposed to build your own.  However, as it is we often end up buying equipment anyways. 

ctwaterman makes a good point - all major nations in the Nverse would put the maximum effort and expense into making sure their munitions functioned. On the other hand, real life major powers evidently didn't (and I personally don't know why they didn't; building a huge gun and not making good shells for it seems a difficult budgetary decision to justify), and thus representing this might be a non-trivial game design problem.

I am personally in favour of more abstraction, rather than less. Easier bookkeeping, easier on the mods, and less room for metagaming.

Quote from: Laertes on December 02, 2010, 08:55:53 AM
ctwaterman makes a good point - all major nations in the Nverse would put the maximum effort and expense into making sure their munitions functioned. On the other hand, real life major powers evidently didn't (and I personally don't know why they didn't; building a huge gun and not making good shells for it seems a difficult budgetary decision to justify), and thus representing this might be a non-trivial game design problem.

I am personally in favour of more abstraction, rather than less. Easier bookkeeping, easier on the mods, and less room for metagaming.

We will say that the Country X has a weapon directorate.

Now Country X has something called a referent enemy, Country Y.

Country Y has a navy 1 and 1/2 times larger than Country X-especially in its line of battle ships.

What does country X do, especially if Country X plans to attack country Y?

Country X looks for a cheap offensive equalizer.

In the case of France versus the UK, it was the ironclad.

In the case of Japan versus the US, it was the torpedo armed aircraft.

In the case of the US versus everybody it was the heavy strategic bomber.

Only one of them got it right. (No, it wasn't the US.)

The US answer to the Japanese ship carried Long Lance and the Kate carried Type 93 was the Mark 37 (AAA) fire control system, the Wildcat fighter, the Ford ballistic  computer and a series of super-heavy artillery shells for the 6", 8", 12", 14", and 16" naval guns.        
   
That was a good technical defensive solution as it allowed an outnumbered American Navy to defeat the numerically and technically superior Japanese in 1942 and early 1943.

Lots of naval battles and defeats happened for Japan from May 1942 to May 1943. May 1943 to May 1944 there was no serious naval fighting? Nothing, as both sides sort of retired and fixed their discovered wartime problems.

For the Japanese this was their aircraft engines and machine guns, their lousy naval artillery, and their poor radios.

For the Americans this was catchup time to replace their early 1930s era cheap-made Curtiss Wright junk aircraft with the cluster of 1938 outstanding Douglas and Grumman designs.      

Someone figured out how to drop the Bliss Leavitt torpedo from PT boats and aircraft.

And the Mark XIV they fixed, sort of...

Then June 1944 comes and the retooled fleets, who think they fixed their discovered peacetime defects, fight.

Japanese aircraft armament now could hurt American aircraft. Their improved engines allowed their planes to keep pace with the faster Americans. This would be okay if the Japanese had fixed their real problem, which was pilot training. They didn't. Kill ratio was 10/1 in favor of the Americans who never bothered to fix the severe problems they had with their own aircraft armament (-even against the Germans). Why bother with guns when its the pilot who matters if the machines are anywhere near equal?

Japanese naval shell quality was never a problem, it was the design of their naval rifles. The Japanese were to show that no matter what they tried, once they departed from British practice (1908 series guns) they were just incompetent naval gun smiths. Return to first principles would pay dividends against the 1944 British, but not against the 1944 Americans-not in a gunfight-where American tracking parties zeroed in on your baseline track and straddled you within three salvos. (That is 90 seconds!)       

Japanese radios now worked. Too bad that the trained cadre of electricians and radio operators who could maintain and use those excellent sets were dead at Iron Bottom Sound. Also too bad that it wasn't radio where the Japanese needed to do the work, it was radar.    

How did the Americans do?

Musashi, Yamato, another Japanese battleship whose name I cannot remember about a dozen Japanese cruisers, and a score of destroyers and five aircraft carriers were sunk by American torpedo armed planes carrying the poor stubby little Bliss Leavitt Mark 13 torpedo. I think that the little wet-heater accounted for more ships between June 1943 and June 1944 than any other aerial weapon in history, because I didn't include all the forty or so torpedoed Japanese ships sunk during the Truk raids (and there were at least another hundred attacks all across the Pacific). The Bliss Leavitt torpedo was the one 'good' quality American torpedo and had worked somewhat at Coral Sea. It was the 'poorly trained' (read wrongly trained) American pilots and not the torpedo that actually failed at Midway. A little weapon tweaking to correct a porpoise and broach problem during fast high drops (which is how you actually drop a torpedo and survive AAA) and a lot of pilot training fixed the early war 'poor torpedo performance' problems.  

The American subs ran riot in the Pacific from June 44 to June 45. They sank at least five (six?) aircraft carriers, one battleship at least four cruisers, almost forty destroyers and patrol boats. This Japanese debacle was accomplished with American torpedoes (Mark XIV and Mark XVIII) that can only be described as 'still simply awful'. Once again, the Japanese who had excellent torpedo-armed subs showed that it was the trained American crews, not the Japanese weapons that mattered.

The question is then what does this have to do with the underlined above?  

When you are in a depression, what do you spend the little tax money you get on?

Training-always training, the weapons have to wait.  

   

*Chuckles* Sitting here wondering why I cant sleep but an interesting read.

I wouldnt call the American Fleets of 1942/43 quite out numbered and by the the Marrianas Turkey Shoot or lets say late 1943/ Early 1944 the Japanese Aircraft were completely outclassed by the Corsairs, Hell Cats, and P-38 Lightings they were being asked to face.  When you add in that the New Japanese Pilots joining the carrier force had 100 or so Hours of flight training when most of the US Pilots had over 500 well that  really really hurt the Japanese.

The Problems with Training before Weapons is a complex problem.   If your training and training and training on a weapon system that is outdated then you could have just lost your self the war.  And New Battle Ships and Carriers are long lead time Items.... any Capital Ship takes at least 2 years to build after you think you need it....

So when France Feel in 1940 the American Response with an even larger 2 Ocean Navy bill basically cornered Japan... by the Time of the US Oil and Steel Embargo Japan was faced with the fact that they had a slight material and training edge over the USN NOW mainly in Carriers, Carrier Aircraft and Aircrew experience.  But that by the End of 1942 early 1943 the US would begin putting into service the first of 16 New Battle Ships and Dozens of new Carriers.   Heck Roosevelt had even announced the desire to build 50,000 Aircraft a year in 1941....

So do you attack now and hope you can force a settlement before the enemy simply has more planes, and ships then you can ever realistically fight or do you surrender you national ambitions to form an Empire.....

We all know what the Japanese Choose... In then End they Choose Poorly.

Quote from: ctwaterman on December 02, 2010, 01:32:29 PM
*Chuckles* Sitting here wondering why I cant sleep but an interesting read.

I wouldnt call the American Fleets of 1942/43 quite out numbered and by the the Marrianas Turkey Shoot or lets say late 1943/ Early 1944 the Japanese Aircraft were completely outclassed by the Corsairs, Hell Cats, and P-38 Lightings they were being asked to face.  When you add in that the New Japanese Pilots joining the carrier force had 100 or so Hours of flight training when most of the US Pilots had over 500 well that  really really hurt the Japanese.

The ratios are these after December 7,1941 to May 1943) and are Pacific averages.
                         Japan                                          United States
Aircraft carriers        8                                                     4
Battleships              11 (10 once Mutsu blew up)                 7 (available)
Cruisers                 ~30->20 (they were whittled down)       18 (constant)  
Destroyers              120 (constant)                                  100->130 (increase)
Submarines             110-120 (increase)                     80-110 (increase)

The Japanese started the Pacific war with about 550 naval and 600 Army air force aircraft outside China and Japan. The Allies had 400 US naval, 60 British naval, and almost 1500 (mostly British) land-based aircraft on December 6, 1941. By Coral Sea the British were mostly wiped out. The US forces were 200 naval and 500 land-based (by that time mostly in Australia and New Guinea). Japanese levels were about constant.

After the New Guinea/Solomons fighting the Japanese strength  increased to about 1000 land based aircraft and remained naval constant.  
                 
It wasn't until mid 1944 that the pilot massacres set in.
==============================================================

Sources are

The First Team: Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway
http://www.amazon.com/First-Team-Pacific-Combat-Harbor/dp/0870211897
Shattered Sword
http://www.shatteredswordbook.com/
Hyperwar as always
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/PTO/index.html

QuoteThe Problems with Training before Weapons is a complex problem.   If your training and training and training on a weapon system that is outdated then you could have just lost your self the war.  And New Battle Ships and Carriers are long lead time Items.... any Capital Ship takes at least 2 years to build after you think you need it....

The answer is you need to do the research and prototype work. Then you improvise.

Can't build eight fast carriers? Then build eight fast oil tankers (or ocean liners) that you can plank over and turn into carriers.

Need a battleship killer in a hurry?  Research torpedoes and aircraft.  A plane takes ninety days. The torpedo had better work. Make sure you have a lot of trained pilots.

Build quick-build ships. Submarines and destroyers are expensive but lend themselves to two qualities that are desirable, they can use the same torpedoes as planes if the tubes match the weapon and they only take a year to build.

There was an argument that if the US had traded the Iowas in on equivalent monetary investment in subs that the Pacific War would have ended a year sooner.

Let's compare.

ship                      Iowa                            Gato    
Cost(millions)         $180                             $10            =18 subs
Crew (men)           2700                               88            =30 subs
Oil(tons)               4000(1 trip)                    200(1 trip)   =20 subs
sank ships/ship lost  0/0                              60/1            1 sub = >100 Iowas
 
Makes a lot of sense doesn't it? As a general rule (once one does this for all battleships versus all US subs) one US battleship actually = 20 US subs as per cost and one US sub = 10+ US battleships for total damage inflicted on enemy.  
                                         
The numbers are roughly 5/1 in favor of US subs when you compare to US aircraft carriers.

QuoteSo when France fell in 1940 the American response with an even larger 2 Ocean Navy bill basically cornered Japan... by the Time of the US Oil and Steel Embargo Japan was faced with the fact that they had a slight material and training edge over the USN NOW mainly in Carriers, Carrier Aircraft and Aircrew experience.  But that by the End of 1942 early 1943 the US would begin putting into service the first of 16 New Battle Ships and Dozens of new Carriers.   Heck Roosevelt had even announced the desire to build 50,000 Aircraft a year in 1941....

A little economics analysis and you throw money into a 30 knot sustained combat speed 7000 ton 6" gun and torpedo armed cruiser prototype, a 25000 tonne carrier prototype, and the most advanced submarines, destroyers (frigates) and aircraft in small lots that you can build and afford. You develop  3"L50 and 2"L50 automatic anti-aircraft weapons, a 6"L50 dual purpose naval gun, a wet heater (or electric) 40 knot/10,000 yard/1 ton torpedo and the large fast carrier based plane to carry it and a decent carrier fighter to protect it and your carrier, as well as launch tubes to fire that torpedo from ships and subs and MTB boats.

You test that torpedo until you know for sure that it works and then you manufacture thousands not hundreds.

With other $1 Billion in scarce development money you develop radar and sonar and naval mines.

Then you cross your fingers as an American and pray that the Japanese do exactly what they did.  Because if they do, the money you saved on the choices listed above
-allows you to re-deck the Arizona with a bomb deck and put TDS blisterx on every battleship that was torpedoed at Pearl Harbor.
-replace the 5"L51 casemate and 5"L25  AAA guns on every Pacific battleship with 8 x  5"L38 twin mounts
-allows you to install CXAM or SCR on every battleship and carrier you own.    
-allows you to install torpedo tubes on every 8" gun cruiser you own.  

And then you go into a two ocean program in September 1940 knowing that it will be September 1942 when all those new ships work up and NOT September 1943.      

Quote
So do you attack now and hope you can force a settlement before the enemy simply has more planes, and ships then you can ever realistically fight or do you surrender you national ambitions to form an Empire.....

You stall, try for a Lindbergh Peace.

QuoteWe all know what the Japanese Choose... In then End they Choose Poorly.

So did the Americans.

Quote from: damocles on December 02, 2010, 03:11:18 PM
It wasn't until mid 1944 that the pilot massacres set in.

That's something of a dishonest statement.  As Shattered Sword points out - which you yourself cited - the creme of the IJN naval aviators were wiped out over the course of the Solomons campaign, and that's really the point where the IJN's naval aviation died.  The battles of 1944 were only one-sided massacres because the USN had already torn out the throat of Japanese naval aviation.

Also, while you argue for building more subs instead of the Iowas, you might instead gain a similar rise in cost-benefit analysis by more effectively using your submarines as minelayers, rather than as raiders.  US submarines laid 658 mines to sink or damage 54 ships for no operational losses, and a significantly higher number of kills for the amounts of ordnance expended.  But I know you already know about the effectiveness of mine warfare, Damocles. ;)

Quote from: Brockpaine on December 02, 2010, 07:12:52 PM

Quote from: damocles on December 02, 2010, 03:11:18 PM
It wasn't until mid 1944 that the pilot massacres set in.

That's something of a dishonest statement.  As Shattered Sword points out - which you yourself cited - the creme of the IJN naval aviators were wiped out over the course of the Solomons campaign, and that's really the point where the IJN's naval aviation died.  The battles of 1944 were only one-sided massacres because the USN had already torn out the throat of Japanese naval aviation.

Also, while you argue for building more subs instead of the Iowas, you might instead gain a similar rise in cost-benefit analysis by more effectively using your submarines as minelayers, rather than as raiders.  US submarines laid 658 mines to sink or damage 54 ships for no operational losses, and a significantly higher number of kills for the amounts of ordnance expended.  But I know you already know about the effectiveness of mine warfare, Damocles. ;)

1. The history shows that the collapse of Japanese pilot training came after September1944 when they ran out of tankers and imported fuel. That was when the Kamikazi decision was made.  

2. You can't lay submarine launched mines until you design and build them. The US did not develop a really good tube-launched self propelled mine until after the war. (same reason as the torpedo weapons-mistakes in tactics and manufacture.) Most of the mines the US used were laid by strategic bomber aircraft or fast mine-layer and did not affect Japanese operations in home waters until 1945. That was especially true of US submarines as you can see HOW* the USS Argonaut was wiped out. Other large US subs** had trouble approaching Japanese harbor entranced because while  Japanese open ocean ASW was a joke, their coastal defense setups made the Germans look like the rank naval amateurs they were.  

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WAMUS_Mines.htm

* USS Argonaut.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/history/pac-campaign.html
** US submarine losses.
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/sublosses/sublosses_intro.htm

QuoteRESULTS OF THE AMERICAN

PACIFIC SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN

OF WORLD WAR II

Michel Thomas Poirier
Commander, USN
30 Dec 1999

The year 2000 marks the centennial of the U.S. Submarine Force. Among the most extraordinary accomplishments of American submariners is the impressive victory of U.S. World War II Fleet Boats over the Japanese Navy and Merchant Marine. While many books have been written describing this victory, few understand to what degree the U.S. Submarine Force gutted Japanese industrial and military strength during the Second World War. Such details are contained in the post war U.S. Strategic Bombing Study of Japanese industry and in Mark Parillo's excellent Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II.

The U.S. Pacific Submarine campaign had three major accomplishments. First, Japanese merchant marine losses crippled the ability of Japanese industry to generate military power. Second, destruction of Japanese merchant marine and naval forces significantly reduced the Japanese ability to project power throughout the vast Pacific. Third, use of the submarine enabled the U.S. Navy to take the offensive in Japanese controlled waters and inflict disproportionate losses relative to the U.S. investment in submarines.(1)

We will review the effects of the U.S. submarine campaign on Japan including the effects on the four military pillars of Japanese power: her merchant marine, Navy, Army and air power. The implication for today's military, heavily dependent on logistics for power projection should not be forgotten. Today, even with the impressive and growing ability of the U.S. Navy to effect land warfare, sea control still remains job number one.

The U.S. Submarine Campaign in the Pacific: 1941-45

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor resulted in a significant loss of strength for the U.S. Navy and placed that Navy in a defensive posture. The only weapon system immediately available to take the war to the enemy was the U.S. Submarine Force. Indeed, FDR had decided prior to the start of the war that "unrestricted submarine warfare" would be undertaken in the event of hostilities with Japan.(2) Throughout the war, the growing U.S. submarine force was employed in attacks on Japanese merchant shipping as well as on Japanese fleet units when the opportunity presented itself. In both these tasks, the American submarine force was aided by magic- intelligence derived from broken Japanese codes.(3) The Japanese Navy, with Mahanian intellectual roots, prepared tardily and insufficiently for an onslaught not directly related to "decisive battle." The American Navy won a spectacular victory.

Editorial comment. Those ship kills were in the open ocean where US mines did not work in 1941-1944. That was torpedo terrain.  

The Japanese Merchant Marine lost 8.1 million tons of vessels during the war, with submarines accounting for 4.9 million tons (60%) of the losses.(4) Additionally, U.S. submarines sank 700,000 tons of naval ships (about 30% of the total lost) including 8 aircraft carriers, 1 battleship and 11 cruisers.(5) Of the total 288 U.S. submarines deployed throughout the war (including those stationed in the Atlantic), 52 submarines were lost with 48 destroyed in the war zones of the Pacific.(6) American submariners, who comprised only 1.6% of the Navy, suffered the highest loss rate in the U.S. Armed Forces, with 22% killed.

Editorial comment. The losses versus results were extraordinary when you consider a. defective torpedoes, b. meager open ocean Japanese ASW, and c., lack of US air cover. The thing you need to remember is that most of those US submarine kills were coastal.   

The American Pacific submarine campaign had substantial direct, indirect and second- order effects on the Japanese economy and the four bases of Japanese military power- Japanese airpower, the Army, the Imperial Japanese Navy and the merchant marine.(7) I will analyze the effects of the American guerre de course in each of these areas. It is important to note that the submarine was the predominant, but not the only, factor in the destruction of Japanese commerce and the ensuing damage to the Japanese economy. We cannot realistically look at the submarine campaign in complete isolation from other attacks against the Japanese transportation system.

Editorial comment, such as airpower. Battleship effect? Zero.

Loss of Shipping Impoverishes Japanese Industrial Strength

The Japanese merchant marine started the war with 6 million tons of shipping. The Japanese Army and Navy each requisitioned a part of the merchant marine to transport and supply their respective operating forces. The Japanese leadership believed they needed to retain 3 million tons of shipping in order to meet the industrial and civilian needs of the economy- although this estimate was probably too low.(8) Two important points need to be made in order to understand the effect of the war on the Japanese transportation system. First, Japan's industrial capacity was proportional to her ability to import needed material.(9) Secondly, due to the extensive drafting of merchant vessels for military needs as well as high losses from American attacks, Japan never achieved the minimum of 3 million tons of capacity required for industrial and civilian uses.(10)

Editorial comment, nor was the 1 million tons for overseas garrisons in the SE Pacific zone of operations deliverable. (Their ciewpoint.)

Losses of merchant vessels combined with the indirect loss of a portion of the merchant marine fleet due to convoying significantly reduced Japanese economic strength. Imports of 16 key materials fell from 20 million tons in 1941 to 10 million tons in 1944 and 2.7 million tons in the first 6 months of 1945.(11) The specifics were impressive:

"Bauxite imports fell off 88% just between the summer and fall of 1944 (E. c., aircraft). In 1945, pig iron imports plunged 89%, pulp 90%, raw cotton and wool 91%, fats and oils 92%, iron ore 95%, soda and cement 96%, lumber 98%, fodder 99%, and not one ounce of sugar or raw rubber reached Japan."(12)

Editorial comment Sugar you need for fermentation.... for explosives as well as for fuel.

Moreover, the reduction in imports of raw materials mirrored problems importing food. During 1944, average caloric intake fell 12% below the minimum daily requirement for the non-farming population.(13) The enormous drop in importation of raw materials resulted in a significant drop in Japanese industrial production. In fact, the Japanese mobilization committee stated in a late 1944 report: "Shipping lost or damaged since the beginning of the war amounts to two and one half times newly constructed shipping and formed the chief cause of the constant impoverishment of national strength."(14)

The Japanese pilot trainee received a special diet. I wonder why?  

Submarine attacks on the oil flow to Japan were a second critical factor in destroying Japanese military potential. Japanese oil imports fell from 1.75 million barrels per month in August 1943 to 360,000 barrels per month in July 1944. In October 1944, imports fell even more due to high losses around the Philippine battlefields.(15) After September 1943, the ratio of petroleum successfully shipped from the southern regions that reached Japan never exceeded 28%, and during the last 15 months of the war the ratio only averaged 9%.(16) These losses are especially impressive when one considers that the Japanese Navy alone required 1.6 million barrels monthly to operate.(17) Much anecdotal evidence describes Japan's often desperate responses to the American guerre de course. For example, in early 1945, the Japanese Navy loaded crude oil barrels on battleships to import home, while at the same time the nation experimented with producing gasoline from potatoes.(18)
Editorial comment. That was how Haruna was killed. She carried aviation gas, no fuel oil. Did you know that? Why was that?  

The loss of raw materials and petroleum and inability to transport items to the front lines lay at the heart of Japan's weakening ability to maintain effective military strength. Munitions Minister Toyoda said as much when interrogated after the war: "the shipping shortage and the scarcity of oil were the two main factors that assumed utmost importance in Japan's war efforts."(19) We will now look at the specific effects of the drop in industrial production and inability to transport goods on Japanese airpower, naval and merchant marine shipbuilding and the army.

Editorial comment: open ocean submarine torpedo kills. Non salvageable non recoverable in deep water.

Effects on Japanese Airpower

Aircraft production was strongly affected by the war against Japanese sea lines of communication (SLOCs) due to the lack of raw materials. By April 1944, aircraft engine production had fallen to "critical" levels.(20) The Japanese significantly reduced aircraft engine testing due to lack of aviation gas: from about 8 hours and 5 flights for each engine in 1941 to 2 hours of testing on 10% of the engines built at war's end.(21) The reduction of bauxite imports by 500,000 tons from Indonesia and Malaysia resulted in a 70% drop in aluminum production in 1944.(22) As a result, by the end of 1944, 80% of every plane was made from aluminum pilings, which significantly reduced aircraft quality.(23) By the spring of 1945, the Japanese fabricated major parts of aircraft from wood and they actively planned to construct entire aircraft out of wood.(24)

Editorial comment: no planes means no training, same effect as for fuel.

The war against Japanese SLOCs resulted in significant indirect effects on Japanese air strength. In fact, the reduction in Japan's air power strength was not so much due to the reduction of aircraft quality or production but due to the reduction in pilot quality. Fuel shortages substantially reduced pilot training.(25) In 1944, the great Japanese naval aviator Fuchida complained about the "inadequate training" aviators received prior to attachment to an operational unit.(26) Moreover, once Japanese pilots reached operational units, their training opportunities often did not improve. For example, prior to the Battle of the Philippine Sea, Admiral Toyoda stationed his carriers at Tawitawi near the Borneo oil supplies due to the effective submarine campaign against Japanese tankers. U.S. commanders vectored submarines into the area. Alerted to the danger, the Japanese commander refused to sortie for training- with the result that what little skills his undertrained pilots possessed atrophied.(27) The resulting Japanese aerial defeat became known as the Marinas Turkey Shoot.

Editorial comment: note the dates?

An additional indirect effect of the war against Japanese transportation should be noted. Inadequate numbers of merchants and fear of additional losses resulted in the use of barges and small boats to ferry supplies in the empire's combat zones. As a consequence, the Japanese undersupplied forward-deployed units, including ground based aviation units. As an example, one air staff officer noted "a 75% drop in aircraft serviceability in New Guinea from such causes [loss of shipping] and blamed the loss of aerial supremacy over that strategic island on transport shortages."(28)
Editorial comment That set of causes was far more important than the  loss of Japanese veterans which is a myth.

Effects on the Japanese Navy

The submarine offensive gravely weakened a second pillar of Japanese power: the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). As previously discussed, 30% of total Japanese Navy losses were caused by U.S. submarines. Submarines played another important role in reducing IJN capabilities. Damage to ships, caused in part by submarines, significantly increased ship repair time in Japanese shipyards, thereby reducing opportunities for new construction. The Japanese Navy spent 12% of its construction budget on ship repairs in 1943 and 1944; the figure increased to 34% in 1945.(29) Additionally, the submarine campaign had two important second order effects on the Japanese Navy. First, the necessity to build merchant ships to replace losses resulted in a reduction of potential naval construction. Private shipyards devoted to naval construction fell from 44% of the total in 1942 to 30% in 1943.(30) Secondly, the requirement to build escort ships and naval transports (also to replace merchant losses) reduced the potential to build more powerful combatants. As a result, while the IJN used 14% of its construction budget for escorts and transports in 1941, the percentage shot up to 54.3% in 1944.(31) More astonishing, the need for escorts and merchants was so grave, that after 1943, the Japanese Navy started construction on no ship bigger than a destroyer!(32) Finally, the American stranglehold on imports, in this case, iron ore, proved fatal to any long term ability to build adequate numbers of warships to replace losses.(33) By September 1944, the Japanese had so little steel that naval construction fell precipitously.(34)

Editorial comment: open ocean submarine torpedo kills. Non salvageable non recoverable in deep water.

Effects on the Japanese Merchant Marine

In addition to the direct loss of merchant hulls already described, the Japanese suffered an important indirect effect of submarine warfare caused by the loss of efficiency due to convoying. The entire merchant marine (including that shipping throughout the empire that was not convoyed) had a loss of "carrying efficiency" of 8% between January 1942 and January 1944 with a further reduction of 21% by 1945.(35) However, on the critical line between Singapore and Japan, efficiency declined by 45% between May 1943 and May 1944, with further substantial declines later.(36) Not only did Japan have too few ships, but their ships took longer and longer throughout the war to carry badly needed cargoes the same distances.(37)

Editorial comment: carriage losses per trip means loss of opportunity to make the tools of offense.

In response to American attacks, the Japanese attempted to increase construction of merchants to replace losses. The Japanese used 7% of their total steel production on merchants in 1941 but 46% in 1945. (No tanks) (38) Despite their best efforts, the import crisis hit merchant construction hard. Of note, concentrated submarine attacks on tankers resulted in the Japanese augmenting construction of the vital petroleum carriers at the expense of general-purpose ships. In the fall of 1944, lack of steel forced significant cutbacks on production.(39) Despite considerable efforts, Japan never succeeded in building more than 45% of her losses. In the words of the Strategic Bombing Study, the Japanese "didn't have the production potential to surpass wartime shipping losses."(40) The inability to protect merchants and replace losses could only result in disaster for such a nation so dependent on imports for survival.

Editorial comment: every loss at sea was lost forever.. The machine tools in a bombed factory could be cleaned off and moved. Mined ships were salvaged. Torpedoed ships (deep water) were not.  

Effects on the Japanese Army

The breakdown of the Japanese merchant marine placed grievous logistical constraints on the ability of the Japanese Empire to supply her army deployed throughout the Central and Southern Pacific. Japanese logistical problems first became apparent in 1942 during the Guadalcanal campaign, when an overstrained logistical system and relentless U.S. air attacks resulted in frontline Japanese units receiving only 10% of the supplies comparable American units received.(41) U.S. submarines attacks directly affected the ability of the Japanese to move troops and supplies into important combat zones. For example, concentrated submarine attacks on shipping delivering the experienced 32nd and 35th Infantry divisions to the New Guinea theater resulted in the Japanese convoy disembarking the surviving troops over 500 miles from their destination. As a consequence, the Japanese barged ineffectual penny packets of troops to combat McArthur's forces in Biak and Hollandia.(42) In another case, U.S. submarines destroyed 6 transports loaded with troops destined to boost the defenses of the Marinas before the U.S. invasion of those islands, and sank ships loaded with vital concrete and wire needed for the islands' fortification.(43) The rate of successful delivery of military supplies to front line units averaged 96% in 1942, declining to 83% in 1943, 67% in 1944 and 51% in 1945.(44) These statistics fail to capture the extraordinary indirect effects of both U.S. submarine and air attacks on Japanese merchants as the Japanese had to resort to carrying much of their supplies within the combat zones by slow, inefficient means such as barges, fishing boats and the like. These direct and indirect effects of U.S. attacks clearly impacted Japanese army units. Throughout the war, munitions deliveries were 15% below front line needs, and 33 to 50% of all food sent to the front was lost due to attack or spoilage.(45) Accounts from front line units depict significant efforts to make up for lack of food deliveries by gardening, fishing, or bartering with natives with sporadic accounts of cannibalism in especially poorly supplied areas like New Guinea.(46)

Editorial comment: open ocean submarine torpedo kills. Non salvageable non recoverable in deep water.

Misplaced Resources and Strategic Immobility

Several important second order and indirect effects must be noted in the U.S. submarine campaign. First, the Japanese used a portion of their submarine force to supply bypassed units. Indeed, the Japanese army and navy each built significant numbers of submarines designed for the express purpose of carrying cargo.(47) Not only were scarce resources wasted in this way, but Japanese submarines that could have been used to attack the extended American logistics train were not properly employed. Another important combined direct and indirect effect of the U.S. campaign against the Emperor's lines of communication was strategic immobility. The inadequacy of total lift and reliance on barges in theater meant large number of Japanese troops could not be quickly moved around the empire. U.S. sea and airpower usually prevented the Japanese from reinforcing islands under attack or removing defeated troops from an island under assault. Therefore, the Japanese could not exploit their advantage of interior lines of communication to move and supply adequate numbers of troops to defeat any of the three major Allied lines of advance in the Pacific theater.

Editorial comment: With only forty boats per sortie cycle, if you tied them up as mine-layers you don't have anything out there to blockade the oceans where the Japanese could cover with artillery and aircraft. The submarine is an open ocean blockade weapon.

Disproportionate Costs Imposed on Japanese

I have attempted to roughly calculate costs of each side's effort in order to determine whether the U.S. campaign was "efficient." The cost of merchant ships and warships lost to U.S. submarine attack were calculated using actual Japanese prices and added to the cost of all Japanese ASW frigates and corvettes (but not fleet destroyers or ASW aircraft).(48) Using U.S. Navy figures I calculated the cost of the entire fleet of 288 U.S. submarines that served or were built during the war (regardless of whether they served in the Pacific). The result is impressive although not surprising: the Japanese spent at least 42 times more on anti-submarine warfare and in losses attributed to submarines than the U.S. spent on her Submarine Force. When one considers the fact that the Japanese economy was only 8.9% of the size of the U.S. economy in 1937, the submarine campaign was clearly both an extraordinarily cost efficient and effective means to employ U.S. forces against Japan.(49) Regardless of the cost effectiveness of the U.S. submarine campaign, the military effects were stunningly clear. Fully a year before the end of the war, and before the extensive bombing of mainland Japan, the war against Japanese lines of communication resulted in decisive impact on the Japanese war economy and on the Japanese military logistical system.


Editorial comment: open ocean submarine warfare with defective weapons., Imagine if we had Italian torpedoes.

Why Should We Care?

We can draw several important lessons from the U.S. submarine campaign. First, Japan was a vulnerable opponent who required the use of the sea to import raw materials and to project military forces far from the homeland. Similarly, the U.S. must project power overseas and, like our allies, depends significantly on sea trade for both resources and essential industrial products. Second, the U.S. Pacific submarine campaign, much like the German U-boat campaign of World War II, incurred disproportionate costs on the side conducting ASW; there is every reason to believe the same would be true today.(50) Third, the indirect and second order effects of these campaigns were virtually as important as the direct costs. In the case of Japan, the U.S. submarine campaign substantially reduced Japanese war production, and, ultimately, significantly reduced the Japanese ability to implement their preferred defensive strategy. As a result, the submarine campaign proved itself as an efficient way to wage war against a competitor that must supply its forces over long distances by sea.

It is interesting to contemplate to what degree the United States is vulnerable today to a campaign by a committed regional power or peer competitor against our sea lines of communications. Within the U.S. Navy today, one hears some discussion on the possible impact of submarine attacks against our Battlegroups, but few consider the impact a campaign against our vulnerable sealift train might have. Since America remains dependent today on sealift to project military power, an opponent might well assess this vulnerability worth exploiting.

1 The German World War II campaign also resulted in disproportionate investment in ASW capabilities by the Allies (at least ten times the German investment in submarines) and placed significant logistical limitations on Allied strategy. See "Sea Control and Regional Warfare" by the same author in the July '93 Proceedings)

2 Janet Manson, Diplomatic Ramifications of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (New York, Greenwood Press, 1990), pp. 154-158.

3 C. Blair, Silent Victory (Philadelphia, J.B. Lippencott and Co., 1975, p. xvi

4 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, The War Against Japanese Transportation (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), p. 47.

5 Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee, Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses during World War II (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947), p. vii.

6 Theodore Roscoe, U.S. Submarine Operations in World War II (Annapolis, U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1949), pp. 493, 853.

7 An example of submarine induced direct costs is loss of enemy merchants or warships; example of indirect costs are loss of part of the effective merchant fleet due to convoying; example of second order costs is the cost of additional escorts built to combat submarines.

8 Mark Parillo, The Japanese Merchant Marine in World War II (Annapolis, U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1993), p. 75.

9 Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Transportation, pp. 60, 108-109. This study indicates there was a number of factors that were important, but that in most industries, industrial output was directly linked to imports of primary materials.

10 Parillo, Merchant Marine, pp. 75-78.

11 Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Transportation, p. 4.

12 Parillo, Merchant Marine, p. 207.

13 Ibid., p. 218.

14 Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Transportation, p. 48.

15 Parillo, Merchant Marine, p. 215.

16 Ibid., p. 215.

17 Mark Parillo, "The Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II," in Reevaluating Major Naval Combatants of World War II (New York, Greenwood Press, 1990), p. 64.

18 W.J. Holmes, Undersea Victory: The Influence of Submarine Operations on the War in the Pacific (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1966), p. 425. C. Blair, op. cite., p. 792.

19 Parrillo, Merchant Marine, p. 46.

20 Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Transportation, p. 110

21 Parrillo, Merchant Marine, p. 213.

22 Ibid., pp. 109-110.

23 Ibid., p. 113.

24 Ibid., p. 112.

25 Parillo, Merchant Marine, p. 213.

26 J. Belote, Titans of the Seas (New York, Harper and Row, 1975), p. 280.

27 Potter, op. cite., p. 326.

28 Parillo, Merchant Marine, p. 212.

29 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Naval Construction (Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946, p. 4.

30 Strategic Bombing Survey, Merchant Shipping, p. 3.

31 Strategic Bombing Survey, Naval Construction, pp. 9-10.

32 Ibid., p. 3.

33 Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Transportation, pp. 4, 21. Iron Ore imports fell from 6.3 million tons in 1941 to 2.2 million in 1944 and 341,000 in 1945. As a result, steel deliveries to naval shipyards in 1944 were 58% of that delivered in 1941.

34 Strategic Bombing Survey, Naval Construction, pp. iv, 11-12.

35 The Japanese calculated merchant marine efficency by a factor called Kakoritsu. Kakoritsu is computed by dividing actual cargo carried (in metric) tons in a given time period by the cargo carrying capacity of ship's in use during that period in that particular service.

36 Strategic Bombing Survey, Japanese Transportation, p. 51.

37 The delays were caused by the need to await sufficient merchants and escorts to form convoys and by the Japanese tactic of running some convoys near the coast- which lengthened the distances that needed to be traveled.

38 Strategic Bombing Survey, Merchant Shipping, p. 32.

39 Ibid., p. 3.

40 Ibid., p. 3.

41 Parillo, Merchant Marine, p. 211.

42 Ibid., pp. 139-141.

43 Ibid., pp. 1-5, 211.

44 Ibid., p. 211.

45 Ibid., p. 211.

46 Ibid., pp. 213-215. Only 3% of deaths on New Guinea were due to combat. Some Japanese opted for suicide rather than the slow starvation that caused so many deaths.

47 Ibid., p. 175.

48 The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey includes cost data on Japanese ships (although the relative exchange rate between the U.S. and Japan must be estimated).

49 B.R. Mitchell, International Historical Statistics, Africa and Asia. (New York, New York University Press, 1982), p. 761. U.S. Data from: World Almanac of 1940, op. cite., pp. 559, 604.

50 In my July 1993 article I make the case that the Germans submarine campaign placed significant logistical constraints on the Allies even after the Germans had lost the U-Boat war; furthermore, the Allies required a disproportionate resource investment to defeat the German U-boats. British forces used many platforms and over 200 ASW weapons with no successful hits against a single unlocated Argentine submarine during the 1983 Falklands war.

http://www.fleetsubmarine.com/ss-166.html[/email]

Last editorial comment. I am an expert on the US Pacific War.

My statements may be fact-based opinion, but they are not false in the slightest.

Those are very similar to the the same views held by the United States Navy.    

And yes BP landmines is something I have unfortunate experience with.  

Quote from: damocles on December 02, 2010, 12:54:21 AM

Quote from: P3D on December 01, 2010, 11:13:11 PM
And which Nverse nation would have inadequate testing before accepting a new weapon?

But one can run a lot of tests and arrive at wrong conclusion, if the initial test criteria are faulty - as the RN had learned after Jutland, and the US Army with the 76mm tank gun.

As for the 76mm gun, it worked too. It was the 75 that you mean and in a curious way that is also very misunderstood when it is called a failure.

I meant the 76mm gun. I recall from somewhere that the ammo tests were done at perpendicular penetration, and the shells had subpar performance against sloped armor - APCBC had the same performance as  the 7,5cm KwK 40 L/43 (with 40m/s less MV), which degraded worse as the impact angle increased.

http://www.freeweb.hu/gva/weapons/german_guns5.html
http://www.freeweb.hu/gva/weapons/usa_guns5.html

And 91mm@30* won't penetrate Panther's upper front hull, 80mm@55*. HVAP could penetrate, but those rounds were available August '44 in limited quantity.

McNair, TDs and 76mm Shermans...

Indeed, the 76mm Sherman was available, but no one wanted it, armored commanders (like Abrams) and the Tank Board included. 75mm can deal with the Pz IV, has better HE, and the occasional Tiger can be dealt with like in Tunisia. Their new heavy tank with fancy sloped armor should not be a big problem either.
However, Panther was not a heavy tank but a mass-produced "MBT". So field commanders got their wish with 75mm armed Shermans, and the 76mm armed tanks were sitting in warehouses in the UK.

A gigantic (45 page) thread on Tanknet on this topic, might take a few hours to read:
http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=32156&st=0

QuoteMy statements may be fact-based opinion, but they are not false in the slightest.

Hey Play Nice we are all expressing Opinions here even Commander Poirier is simply using Statistics and Facts to support his arguement.

Ok that being said... I will hopefully not have my 2 pages of replys eaten by the computer this time.  So I will try to be Brief... ;D ::)

I have always been a suporter of a Balanced Fleet Option.   A Dozen or even 2 Dozen subs cannot replace a battle ship in all circumstances.   They cannot provide AAA defense to a Carrier, nor can it provide Naval Gunfire Support to an Amphibious landing.  I also doubt you would find enough volunteers among the crew of One Iowa class BB to man 20 Subs...????   To many people do not like boats that sink or really really tight confined spaces.

In addition Japanese failures in the Radar Department really hampered their Convoy and ASW escorts.

So given my choice and realizing that without Radar a sub can only see a very very small circle around itself and with Radar that circle only increase slightly then I want to Have Destroyers, Subs, Cruisers, Battle Ships and Carriers... all have their uses and an all Sub force or all Destroyer force is unbalanced and has limitations.

Charles

Quote from: P3D on December 02, 2010, 10:11:20 PM

Quote from: damocles on December 02, 2010, 12:54:21 AM

Quote from: P3D on December 01, 2010, 11:13:11 PM
And which Nverse nation would have inadequate testing before accepting a new weapon?

But one can run a lot of tests and arrive at wrong conclusion, if the initial test criteria are faulty - as the RN had learned after Jutland, and the US Army with the 76mm tank gun.

As for the 76mm gun, it worked too. It was the 75 that you mean and in a curious way that is also very misunderstood when it is called a failure.

I meant the 76mm gun. I recall from somewhere that the ammo tests were done at perpendicular penetration, and the shells had subpar performance against sloped armor - APCBC had the same performance as  the 7,5cm KwK 40 L/43 (with 40m/s less MV), which degraded worse as the impact angle increased.

http://www.freeweb.hu/gva/weapons/german_guns5.html
http://www.freeweb.hu/gva/weapons/usa_guns5.html

And 91mm@30* won't penetrate Panther's upper front hull, 80mm@55*. HVAP could penetrate, but those rounds were available August '44 in limited quantity.

McNair, TDs and 76mm Shermans...

Indeed, the 76mm Sherman was available, but no one wanted it, armored commanders (like Abrams) and the Tank Board included. 75mm can deal with the Pz IV, has better HE, and the occasional Tiger can be dealt with like in Tunisia. Their new heavy tank with fancy sloped armor should not be a big problem either.
However, Panther was not a heavy tank but a mass-produced "MBT". So field commanders got their wish with 75mm armed Shermans, and the 76mm armed tanks were sitting in warehouses in the UK.

A gigantic (45 page) thread on Tanknet on this topic, might take a few hours to read:
http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=32156&st=0

http://www.wwiivehicles.com/usa/guns/76-mm.asp

That is the correct data for the 76 mm..

http://www.lonesentry.com/manuals/90-mm-ammunition/index.html

That is the correct information on the M-3 90mm gun. Note the data for composite rigid which was not rare.

Also the  Panther was not a main battle tank. It was a German medium tank, but with only 5000 of those made with just 1500 that could be called 'acceptable' for service, it was the PZKW IV that was the German main tank. As for the Sherman 75 not being able to do its job? I am typing this in English on an an American developed information network. The Shermans did their jobs.           


http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/2-17883/page11.aspx

MUCH better discussion. Please pay attention to the US Army Ground Forces (Eisenhower and Patton to Marshall) demands for 76mm and 90 mm weapons to Tank Automotive and Army Ordnance after Italy and before Normandy.  

Quote from: ctwaterman on December 02, 2010, 10:14:40 PM

QuoteMy statements may be fact-based opinion, but they are not false in the slightest.

Hey Play Nice we are all expressing Opinions here even Commander Poirier is simply using Statistics and Facts to support his arguement.

Interesting, is he Irish Navy?  

I am playing nice.  ;)

Quote
Ok that being said... I will hopefully not have my 2 pages of replys eaten by the computer this time.  So I will try to be Brief... ;D ::)

8)

QuoteI have always been a supporter of a Balanced Fleet Option.   A Dozen or even 2 Dozen subs cannot replace a battle ship in all circumstances.   They cannot provide AAA defense to a Carrier, nor can it provide Naval Gunfire Support to an Amphibious landing.  I also doubt you would find enough volunteers among the crew of One Iowa class BB to man 20 Subs...????   To many people do not like boats that sink or really really tight confined spaces.

1. That is what the 7000 ton cruiser is for.
2. A US 6" cruiser actually gave better gunfire support; faster response better area coverage, more barrage load.
3. I can find 40,000 Americans for subs, if I can find 100,000+ (40,000 killed and wounded,) of them for strategic bombers.
   
In addition Japanese failures in the Radar Department really hampered their Convoy and ASW escorts.

Japanese used MAD detector equipped flying boats, and auto-gyros aboard ASW carriers from 1943 on. They were deadly enough at the end.

QuoteSo given my choice and realizing that without Radar a sub can only see a very very small circle around itself and with Radar that circle only increase slightly then I want to Have Destroyers, Subs, Cruisers, Battle Ships and Carriers... all have their uses and an all Sub force or all Destroyer force is unbalanced and has limitations.

Charles

You have a balanced air and sea fleet as I laid out. Just one designed and optimized to kill the Nihon Kaigun much quicker and hit those islands before they fort up.    

Quote from: damocles on December 02, 2010, 10:28:19 PM
http://www.wwiivehicles.com/usa/guns/76-mm.asp
That is the correct data for the 76 mm..

The penetration data is identical, so I don't understand your point.

Quotehttp://www.lonesentry.com/manuals/90-mm-ammunition/index.html
That is the correct information on the M-3 90mm gun. Note the data for composite rigid which was not rare.

My comments were concerning the 76mm gun not on the 90mm one.
You might mean the solid AP shot for the 90mm (that could penetrate Panther glacis by your link), as APCR is HVAP in British-speak.

QuoteAlso the  Panther was not a main battle tank.

I did put it in quotation marks. And Pz IV numbers were not much higher than Panther numbers, even on the West, so it was anything but scarce.

http://ww2total.com/WW2/History/Orders-of-Battle/Germany/German-Orders-of-Battle-December-1943.htm
http://www.feldgrau.com/org44.html

BTW, have you read Hunnicutt?

Quote from: P3D on December 03, 2010, 03:02:45 PM

Quote from: damocles on December 02, 2010, 10:28:19 PM
http://www.wwiivehicles.com/usa/guns/76-mm.asp
That is the correct data for the 76 mm..

The penetration data is identical, so I don't understand your point.

Not quite Look at the angle of the test plate.

Quotehttp://www.lonesentry.com/manuals/90-mm-ammunition/index.html
That is the correct information on the M-3 90mm gun. Note the data for composite rigid which was not rare.

QuoteMy comments were concerning the 76mm gun not on the 90mm one.
You might mean the solid AP shot for the 90mm (that could penetrate Panther glacis by your link), as APCR is HVAP in British-speak.

I am aware of the criticism you made. I should have included this.
http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/tiger1-02.htm

QuoteAnother fact that helped the Tigers a lot was the "shatter gap" effect which affectted allied ammunition, a most unusual situation where rounds with too high an impact velocity would sometimes fail even though their penetration capability was (theoretically) more than adequate. This phenomenon plagued the British 2 pounder in the desert, and would have decreased the effectiveness of U.S. 76mm and 3" guns against Tigers, Panthers and other vehicles with armor thickness above 70 mm. It should be noted that the problems with the 76 mm and 3" guns did not necessarily involve the weapons themselves: the noses of US armor-piercing ammunition of the time turned out to be excessively soft. When these projectiles impacted armor which matched or exceeded the projectile diameter at a certain spread of velocities, the projectile would shatter and fail.

Penetrations would occur below this velocity range, since the shell would not shatter, and strikes above this range would propel the shell through the armor whether it shattered or not. When striking a Tiger I driver's plate, for example, this "shatter gap" for a 76mm APCBC M62 shell would cause failures between 50 meters and 900 meters. These ammunition deficiencies proved that Ordnance tests claiming the 76 mm gun could penetrate a Tiger I's upper front hull to 2,000 yards (1,800 meters) were sadly incorrect.

Its called shatter gap and that is why the US went to hardened steel capped composite rigid, as opposed to wolfram dart sabot. British darts tended to skip off when fired by US guns. The velocity had to be kept down! Also the US lacked larger supplies of wolfram.     

I am also aware that some do not seem to understand what composite rigid is. Composite rigid (at least in US and British parlance because they invented it to break each other's ironclads during the US Civil War [who captured the other's shells is and duplicated the others' work is argued] see the Battle of Charleston for the Armstrong and Rodman's shells )  is dense steel or wolfram wrapped in a lighter metal shell (aluminum or light alloy steel or in the case of the Civil War wood!). Upon the strike of the face armor the the shell peeled off like the petals of a banana peel and the dart or the bullet punched through the armor with higher strike energy (joules/centimeter squared.)##    

http://67thtigers.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

The British version was called the Palliser Bolt by the Confederates.     

QuoteAlso the  Panther was not a main battle tank.

I did put it in quotation marks. And Pz IV numbers were not much higher than Panther numbers, even on the West, so it was anything but scarce.

Twice as many (yes I include the Semnovente [Stug] versions, since I regard those like the actual AusF forward as the German's primary general purpose panzers.)    

Average Panther numbers were never more than half. And average German tank numbers were about ~100 Tigers, ~300-600 Panthers, and about 800 other machines most of them IVs in either pure tank or self propelled gun version.  

Quotehttp://ww2total.com/WW2/History/Orders-of-Battle/Germany/German-Orders-of-Battle-December-1943.htm
http://www.feldgrau.com/org44.html

BTW, have you read Hunnicutt?

Yes, have you read Ian Hogg? Greatest expert on WW II ordnance (in my opinion) that ever lived.

D.

Thanks. Will look into Hogg.

Was his son's name J.D.?

Quote from: Sachmle on December 04, 2010, 03:57:04 PM
Was his son's name J.D.?

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL218678A/Ian_V._Hogg

No it was not.

Quote from: damocles on December 05, 2010, 10:10:44 AM

Quote from: Sachmle on December 04, 2010, 03:57:04 PM
Was his son's name J.D.?

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL218678A/Ian_V._Hogg

No it was not.

Was a joke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Hogg)

Quote from: Sachmle on December 05, 2010, 08:24:59 PM

Quote from: damocles on December 05, 2010, 10:10:44 AM

Quote from: Sachmle on December 04, 2010, 03:57:04 PM
Was his son's name J.D.?

http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL218678A/Ian_V._Hogg

No it was not.

Was a joke (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Hogg)

This is a joke.

QuoteA soldier, a marine, and an airman

A soldier, a marine, and an airman got into a fight about which service is best. The fight was so heated, that they killed each other.

Soon, they found themselves in Heaven. They see St. Peter walk by and ask, "Which
Branch of Service is the best?"

St. Peter replied, "I can't answer that. But, I will ask God what He thinks the next time I see Him."

Some time later, the three see St. Peter again and ask him if he was able to find the
answer.

Suddenly, a dove landed on St. Peter's shoulder. The dove was carrying a note in
its beak. St. Peter opened the note and read it out loud to the three fellows:
"Gentlemen: All the Branches of the Service are 'Honorable and Noble'. Each one
of you has served your country well. Be proud of that.

(signed)
GOD, USN (Ret.)"