Japanese torpedoes stupidly OP? Discussion welcome.

[Aidan]

Hello fellow gamers,

This year I bought the Victory at Sea:Pacific starter set, and at first I thought the Americans had the advantage with 9 ships versus 6. However, after a few games I realized that despite their numerical advantage, it was really, really, hard to win against the IJN. They could just spam their torps from their cruisers and destroyers at unbelievable distances, while the U.S. player frantically played keep away trying to shoot at the IJN ships without getting close. Am I doing something wrong, or missing a good U.S. playstyle?

Also one thought is that, is it meant to reflect how most American ships lost in the Guadalcanal campaign were from torpedoes? now I know the Type 93 was a good torpedo, but you would thing it would not be represented in game as being a newb spam weapon with more range than most destroyer guns.

Opinions/comments anyone?

[Aidan]

Or maybe I am just really bad at playing the USN, does anyone have any tips?

[Enioch]

The ship selection in the starter set is abysmally bad.

IJN torpedoes are made to kill big ships – anything from a CA (heavy cruiser) upwards. They are very good at that. They are not as good at killing DDs and CLs. Guess what the starting set gives the USN? That’s right – heavy cruisers, that are made to be murdered by IJN torps.

The USN (and any fleet, really) has very clear answers to IJN torpedoes and those are:

– Dive bombers. The IJN DDs have relatively bad AA and 2-3 DBs will typically cripple or outright kill a DD with Devastating damage on a 3+ to hit.

– Light cruisers. Anything with Fast Tracking, Twin-linked or Light gun turrets will neutralize the DDs’ dodge buff at high speed and murder them at relatively long range.

– Cheap destroyers. Find something that costs around 40 or 50 points and swarm the IJN fleet destroyers with cheap shitty hulls. What are they gonna do? Dump their Long Lances to kill a 40-point hull?

-Smoke. Use smoke to break line of sight (you need it to launch torps).

IJN torpedoes have an insanely low skill floor to use, but even the most basic fleet building and tactical play will neuter them something fierce. It’s just sad that the starting set does not give you the necessary tools.

[Aidan]

Ah ok, glad that it’s not just me then. When it reached the point where a 10-year old spammed my fleet with torps and I lost in 3 turns, I started to have doubts about my abilities.

Thank you, it looks like I’ll be 3d printing some aircraft carriers and Atlanta class cruisers, and using more Fletchers.

I wish that the starter set maybe included at least one CL per side, to give the fleets more variety and protection against DDs.

Yeah I agree, there’s got to be other people like me who are getting destroyed by Type 93s because they don’t have any way to counter them.

Thanks Enioch!

[invisible officer]

Well, the long lance torpedo had a crazy long range. More than once allied forces returned to old course, thinking having  succeeded in outrunning them. Then:  Bang.

The rules do just reflect reality.

Playing  pacific I would expect that the USN was inferior in that aspect.   Late war radar and new tactics changed that. 41-43 I would expect a Japanese force winning.

Most Gamers want games with equal chance forces. OK if You are not interested in a historical basing. But  some are like me, being more interested in historical abilities of vessels. So I like these rules.

[Aidan]

Oh ok, that’s an interesting perspective that I never considered, thanks.

Yeah that makes more sense, although my “USS Indianapolis 1944” is still getting it’s stern handed to it by a 50 point “Fubuki”.

So I guess my best bet to still play historical, because I do like naval history, but balance it out a bit, because I play games to have fun, is to bring a ton of planes as Enioch said.

[Author]

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