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Originally posted by deakant:
Hi all,
I have been playing this game since April and have not seen one enemy aircraft carrier. Is their enemy aircraft carriers in this game? Just looking forward to sinking one
deakant
Have a little patience, deakant. You'll find'em eventually. Warships encounters are meant not to be so common. It makes it more special when you do.
tambor198
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They are there, just hard to come by ay times. I was wandering around in the coral sae about the time of the battle of the coral sae and i stumbled into 2 fleet cariers and an escort. I sent them all to the bottom! I have tried to find them on purpose in the same time frame in a new career, but have come up empty. try a cruise into hirosima harbor you may find a carrier and a few Battleships to play with!!
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If you have trouble finding CVs, this might not reflect a bug in the game. Navies chart in a pyramid, with carriers and other really, really expensive stuff at the narrow top, with lots and lots of cheap stuff like DDs, DEs, etc. at the bottom. I cannot yet discern how accurate the game is versus the war, but try reading the Tabular Records of Movement from Combinedfleet.com (under Kido Butai), to see if you can't get yourself roughly in the right place at the right time, at least for major battles.
Regarding Carrier durability, I think it is a bit odd that a single torpedo might regularly destroy a CV. I suppose it must be said in the game's defense that during the war, Aircraft Carriers were not necessarily durable versus torpedoes. Shokaku was sunk by three fired by the Cavalla, and Taiho by just one from the Albacore. The escort-carrier Taiyo suffered similarly. The carriers generally fell prey to several factors, chief among them that they were carrying large quantities of aviation-grade high-octane fuel, that generally helped consume the ship once a severe jolt with accompanying fires got things going. I have read where Japanese carriers might have had a further flaw in this respect, in that they had no large-scale ventilation or open-air access for the hanger-decks. US carriers had large doors that opened to the outside on either side of the hanger deck, making them look a bit like floating bus garages but thereby allowing the ventilation of dangerous fumes, and even allowing their surface-warfare friends (CAs and DDs) to come alongside and help fight fires. Lastly, later in the war Japanese crews were younger, perhaps less-well trained in many things including damage control, and were not the direct replacement of the excellent, seasoned, and skilled crews of 1941-42.
However, if the game shows these ships sinking immediately, I agree that this, too, needs be amended. These ships didn't sink quickly, and I do not know if the submarine crews were aware of their feat until days/weeks/months later (or after the war?).
Upon further reflection, I have to add the USS Wasp to the list; sunk by three torpedoes fired by the I-19, that started aviation gas vapor fires. But again, the process was slow enough to allow the crew to abandon ship.
Senior Member
HIJMS Unyo:
19 January 1944:
Around noon, en-route, struck by three torpedoes from USS HADDOCK (SS-231) in position 12-12'N, 146-26'E. Forward section shattered.
20 January 1944:
Limp into Saipan for emegency repairs.
HIJMS Taiyo:
Hit twice by single torpedos and lived, but the 3d time her avgas tank blew, then she may have been hit by a 2d torpedo.
HIJMS Chuyo:
4 December 1943:
- At 0010, hit by in port bow magazine by torpedo from USS SAILFISH (SS-192) in position: 32-30'N, 143-40'E. Though magazine does not catch fire, the bow plates are torn and the forward part of the flight deck collapses. But the carrier is able to maintain headway, and in order to proceed, Captain Tomasaborou reverses direction and begins to steam backwards towards Yokosuka at half-speed.
- At 0555 is hit again by two torpedoes in the port engine room in a second attack. (Note 1) Ship is stopped dead in the water and unable to navigate - position: 31-55'N, 143-40'E. Destroyer URAKAZE and cruiser MAYA come to assist, and air cover from the homeland arrives overhead at dawn. Despite this aid, --
- At 0942 the ship is again attacked and hit by one or two torpedoes in the port side. Flooding massively, she now quickly rolled to port and plunged by the bow at 0948. As a result, loss of life was very heavy: Captain Tomasaborou and 513 officers and men, and more than 730 passengers went down with the ship. Among the lost twenty of the U.S. POWs from USS SCULPIN. Only one of the POWs survived to be rescued among the mere 160 survivors found by SAZANAMI and URAKAZE. (See Note 2)
^^^ at least 3, maybe 4 before she went down. She might have sunk with just the 1 or 2, but it certainly wouldn't be the instant sinkings we see.
Note that I have done no experiments at all with the 35k CV, Taiho since it is not unrepresentative of IJN CVs. She was lost to a single torpedo due to bad damage control.
CVs:
Shokaku was sunk by 3-4 torpedos. It was thought they would save her, but 2.5 hours after being hit a bomb in the hanger went off, and set avgas lines afire...
None of the above examples would ever happen in stock SH4. None. Every one would have sunk within seconds of the 1st torpedo hit.
