Nighty Night

Still replaying Tokyo Express scenarios. Just did a replay of the Kula Gulf action, July 6 1943. Not a good day for the US, my opponent played Japanese first. He was able to sink 3 of the US DDs and got a torpedo hit on one of the cruisers, before we decided that the remaining Japanese DDs would be able to swamp the US cruisers with torpedoes. In the replay as the Japanese I had the a very frustrating turn where I launched 28 torpedoes and obtained 2 hits! Whereas the US were able to get off 10 and scored 2....... However in the next turn the remaing IJNs DDs were able to score hits on all 3 of the US cruisers, crippling 2. With still 3 IJNs DDs with their full torpedo compliment we again called it.
My point is that I still feel that it is too easy to hit with torpedoes. What you say, you fired 28 and only got 2 hits, yes, but my opponent launced 10 and got 2, both sides firing at destroyers. I also realize that all the actions I am doing are night actions and ranges are close. If this was a day action the US Cruisers would be able to much more effective. One article I read on navweaps.com gives a statistic of a probable hit rate of 6.7% for Japanese torpedoes, almost exclusively against cruisers or destroyers. Now if you look at submarines this changes to about 30%, but that is typically from about 600 yards. In this article dionysus.biz/torpedoaccuracy.html, you get a wide range of hits rates from as low as 14% to as 75% at differing ranges. But it looks like these stats are against merchant ships, not warships.
I know you are going to roll your eyes, but here is my suggestion to change the chance of hitting with torpedoes.
Merchants 5+
Large vessels 6+
Medium/Small 7+
Mods
Moving 10cm or less +1
Firing at night +1
Engaged from from both aspects +1
Bow or stern aspect -1
Extended long lance range -1
With that have you thought about allowing for obtaining scores over 6? ie to get a 7 you have to reroll any 6s and a further result of 4+ is equal to 7, 5+ is equal to 8, and a second 6 is a 9?
Lastly, and I know you shot me down last time, but how about a Japanese advance order that allows for reloading of torpedoes? 4+ Select a single cruiser or destroyer squadron and rearm all empty torpedo tubes, fail no effect, bad fail no reloads available for rest of game. Cannot be attempted in turn where torpedoes were fired. Only available for long lance torpedoes.
Ahhh, one more lastly. I feel the change you made to the bad stuff fail on the advanced activations is too detrimental. How about the really bad things only happen on a 1 regardless of the baseline number?

Hey there,
Still replaying the Tokyo express games. Under the distinct opinion that it is quite baffling how the Japanese did not do significantly better in real life! That aside I have been using my house torpedo rules and I feel these have dropped the torpedo hit rate, though strangely not by as much as you might think! I have also started allowing Japanese to reload torpedoes as a remaining action using an order token on a 4+, with the opponent being allowed to add the normal 2 disruption markers. A successful roll reloads the torpedoes for the squadron if small ships, or a single ship if a larger, a normal fail can retry next turn, a fail on a 1 means no reloads available for the rest of the game. Seems to work as a lot of the time you never seem to be able to save a token for the remaining action phase and it is such high number. Another thing I have been doing is giving the Japanese forces an extra token for fighting at night, which doesn't seem to tip the scales too much.
One thing that just came to mind was adding back the short range bonus at night, but only if the firing ship has the target lit with searchlights. Also with searchlights we have only allowing there use when activating for an attack action and not allowing them in the remaining actions phase. Though allowing the use of starshells in the remaining actions phase. Does that sound right for what you intended, can't remember if I had asked that already?

I think this is correct. Searchlight need to be in an attack activation, this is noted specifically. Starshells are listed to be shot instead of a normal shot, so this can be in the remaining actions phase as a repeat fire action.

Your scenario rules for night fighting and the tokyo express seem very flavorful. Would you be able to list them in bullets and work them into scenario setups? Having specific scenario's to play with Naval War is something I still haven't found time for...