Abandon Ship

[Wraith]

I wish there was a button to order the crew to abandon ships that you know will not survive. That way the vast majority of the crew survives and could mediate crew losses during campaign. That or give ship captains the ability to issue abandon ship. Countless time I have watched ships not actively being shot at and just the victim of a particularly good shot slowly sink losing all hands with maybe one or two crew rescued post battle. This has always bothered me. You don't get a veteran crew over night. It is something of an investment and I hate seeing it wasted because we don't have the coding.

[Hidden Gunman]

We already have crew loss mitigation, granted its probably a bit low for what you suggest, but if we bump it up to 30% survival that would equate to the Indiannapolis survival rate.

[chaosguy]

Kinda like the idea though.

[Kuma]

These are military vessels not civilian. You fight till the last shell. The lives are the sailors are irrelevant. Twas the mindset at the time, and the game portraits this.

[Stridswombat]

Originally posted by Kuma:

These are military vessels not civilian. You fight till the last shell. The lives are the sailors are irrelevant. Twas the mindset at the time, and the game portraits this.

Portrays*

Also, very false. when the ship was clearly lost no one in their right mind wouldn't give the order to abandon ship.

[vanDyck]

Depends on time and nation... outside of battle maybe, but not as long a ship has something to fight with, and engines count as you may be able to ram something...
And yes, this "trandional thinking" lead to the unneccesary loss of lives...

In the end, unneccesary feature stealing devs time for more important stuff.

[Hidden Gunman]

Originally posted by Stridswombat:

Originally posted by Kuma:

These are military vessels not civilian. You fight till the last shell. The lives are the sailors are irrelevant. Twas the mindset at the time, and the game portraits this.

Portrays*

Also, very false. when the ship was clearly lost no one in their right mind wouldn't give the order to abandon ship.

I cant recall which german ship it was at jutland, but when it was obvious she was wrecked and the bridge was gone, a gunnery officer took it on himself to locate a surrender flag and ran to the stern of the ship to hoist it to minimise casualties for the remaining crew. Gutsy effort.

[vanDyck]

Really?
Lützow was abandoned after her propellers came up due to forward flooding and the forward heavy bulkhead started flooding.
Wiesbaden was hit in the engines and drifitng around getting target of anything british came along and only one survived.
Frauenlob sank after a torpedo hit.
Elbing was rammed by Posen and scuttled with explosives on her captains order.
Rostock was hit by a torpedo and sunk by own TBs after the crew already left the ship and towing did not work.
Pommern exploded after a torpedo hit with no surviviors.
V 48 sank after heavy hits with only one survivor.
S 35 breaked in half after a heavy hit.
So its either V 4, V 27 or V 29, as i cant get the circumstances oth their losses right now quickly, or a myth.

[Kuma]

Originally posted by vanDyck:

Really?
Lützow was abandoned after her propellers came up due to forward flooding and the forward heavy bulkhead started flooding.
Wiesbaden was hit in the engines and drifitng around getting target of anything british came along and only one survived.
Frauenlob sank after a torpedo hit.
Elbing was rammed by Posen and scuttled with explosives on her captains order.
Rostock was hit by a torpedo and sunk by own TBs after the crew already left the ship and towing did not work.
Pommern exploded after a torpedo hit with no surviviors.
V 48 sank after heavy hits with only one survivor.
S 35 breaked in half after a heavy hit.
So its either V 4, V 27 or V 29, as i cant get the circumstances oth their losses right now quickly, or a myth.

Going to have to call Myth.

V4 - V4 had its bow blown off; V2 and V6 came alongside and took off the remaining crew, and then V2 then sank the hulk. Since there was no enemy nearby, it was assumed that she had hit a mine or had been torpedoed by a submarine.

V27 - V27 was immobilised by two 4-inch shell hits, one of which severed her main steam pipe. Her crew was taken off by V26 which then scuttled V27 with gunfire.

V29 - V29 was hit in the stern by a torpedo from the British destroyer Petard. V29's bow remained afloat for 30 minutes before sinking, allowing her to launch four torpedoes at the British battle cruisers, while her crew were taken off by the torpedo boats V26 and S35.

[vanDyck]

Could be only Wiesbaden then. 22 of her crew survided her going down, only one was saved. Something like that could have happend, but i dont know the details what happened in detail on board in the 8-9h ca. she drifted and came under fire several times, incudling a torpedo hit. You could imagine some chaotic stuff happening there, but sadly my literature dont give any details and i dont own the book about german WWI cruisers...

[[6thAL.I] Pfc Emperror steve]

sorry but abandon ship was the standard practice if a ship is sinking no crew in there right minds would simply stay on board and drown now the captain thats a different story as sometimes the captain would stay on board and go down with his ship but even in those cases the crew would abandon ship
and of course it wasnt always possible to abandon ship especially if the ammo magazine went boom as it would just rip a ship apart killing majority of the crew and cause a very fast sink

[MasterFool]

Abandon ship was used more often when commanding officers were killed. Ship Captains always tended to hang on a little longer because they may be facing court-martial for the loss of the ship if they were too lenient with the order to abandon.

I think it was a US carrier that the Captain gave the order to abandon when the ship was on fire and was flooding. It stayed floating long enough that some crew re-boarded to try to save the ship. It was taken back under tow but lost in a storm, or to a sub or something. I am probably confusing the story a bit could've been a CA or something, but I seem to recall reading that and it was pretty famous too, but my brain isn't pulling up full data at the moment. Someone who's grey matter is working better can probably put up the correct details.

Anyway, the point is, Abandon Ship is a serious order and not taken lightly. Most Captains that chose to go down with their ships did so out of 'honor' but also out of paying the ultimate price for failing to save their ship, and some so they didn't face Court Martial. Some Navies actively ordered their Captains to avoid doing this as training a competent ship commander was a really long, hard and expensive task and they wanted them alive to give them new ships. Also, surviving command officers could give detailed accounts of what went right and what went wrong, dead ones took those accounts to the ocean floor.

[Wraith]

Originally posted by MasterFool:

Abandon ship was used more often when commanding officers were killed. Ship Captains always tended to hang on a little longer because they may be facing court-martial for the loss of the ship if they were too lenient with the order to abandon.

I think it was a US carrier that the Captain gave the order to abandon when the ship was on fire and was flooding. It stayed floating long enough that some crew re-boarded to try to save the ship. It was taken back under tow but lost in a storm, or to a sub or something. I am probably confusing the story a bit could've been a CA or something, but I seem to recall reading that and it was pretty famous too, but my brain isn't pulling up full data at the moment. Someone who's grey matter is working better can probably put up the correct details.

Anyway, the point is, Abandon Ship is a serious order and not taken lightly. Most Captains that chose to go down with their ships did so out of 'honor' but also out of paying the ultimate price for failing to save their ship, and some so they didn't face Court Martial. Some Navies actively ordered their Captains to avoid doing this as training a competent ship commander was a really long, hard and expensive task and they wanted them alive to give them new ships. Also, surviving command officers could give detailed accounts of what went right and what went wrong, dead ones took those accounts to the ocean floor.

Captains go down with the ship, not the crew. Even the fanatical Japanese did not have the crews of their ships go down when they could be rescued to continue the fight (see Battle of Midway).

Only in such events where ships are destroyed utterly like the HMS Hood, or capsize rapidly like IJN Yamato, were crew losses severe.

In game, even if you win the battle you aren't likely to rescue more than 10 crew per ship. At least I have never seen it. If you lose the battle than you won't be getting any crew back which makes sense. But if you win? I think anywhere from 10-50% of the crew per ship lost should be rescued.

And you are thinking of the USS Yorktown. When she refused to sink the destroy USS Hammann sent a boarding party to attempt repairs and take her under tow. Hammann was torpedoed by a sub and even though she was torn in half ~60% of her crew were rescued. Case in point.

[Kuma]

Originally posted by Wraith:

Captains go down with the ship, not the crew. Even the fanatical Japanese did not have the crews of their ships go down when they could be rescued to continue the fight (see Battle of Midway).

IJN Shinano sank after Toshio Abe gave the order to abandon ship. 1435 men died out of a compliment of roughly 2400. The ship sunk after 8 hours of being hit. The ship wasn't destroyed utterly instantly. Crew losses were severe. 60% of the crew died.

When a Japanese military vessel is sunk, they generally have very high casualty rate.

[vanDyck]

The first OPs post was about to give the order to abandon a ship that can not be saved, which is something elso to abandon a ship that is clearly in a sinking state. Ships like SMS Emden, the german east asia squadron at falklands or SMS Zenta fought in situiations that were desperate and not to win and did not abandon the ship until they had nothing more to fight with or were in a clearly sinking state.
I understand the OP he wants to andandon a ship that cant escape becaurse of lacking speed/engine hits or so but is still mostly functional...
Also its a difference between a ship in battle, and a carrier far away from the enemy after hours of trying so safe the ship without an enemy fleet shooting their guns at you...

As japanese, i would have fought as long as possible too, as i know at least once case were a submarine commander systematically shot at shipwrecked after he sank a troop transport... talking about 1000s... still not to be found as allied WWII war crime sadly.

BTW, if you fight ongoing battles with a damaged ship you can safe crews even months after the losses occured...^^

[dragonflyer]

Originally posted by vanDyck:

I understand the OP he wants to andandon a ship that cant escape becaurse of lacking speed/engine hits or so but is still mostly functional...

In that case, striking the colors would've been more appropriate. Right now, ships will only do that if they lose almost all their crew.

I would love if another ship could be ordered to conduct a rescue action for a sinking ship, or one about to sink. Getting into the lifeboats and hoping for the best is all right when you win, but when you lose, you're not getting that crew back until after the war. Either way, recovering crews should definitely be more of a thing.