jwilkerson
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
quote:
ORIGINAL: witpqs
quote:
Please re-read Mike's point as this is very valid, in that these gents *intentionally* by-passed Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, and scads of troopships seeking nothing but....CARRIERS!!!!!
"When Nimitz sent Spruance and Fletcher out to Midway, he sent them looking for Kido Butai, not for the first stray Japanese force that was spotted. That's why they ignored the "main body" spotting on the 3rd." 
Mike does have a good point. In my games, carriers do act that way (hitting the right targets - like carriers) the vast majority of the time. In terms of what you are saying, I think it boils down to 'should those orders (or priorities since the game doesn't allow you to give the orders explicitly) always be perfectly obeyed?' If so, you lose that 'friction' element. If you don't want it, that's good. If you want the flavor of slightly uncontrolled reality in there to simulate WWII, then sometimes things will go askew...
The ORDERS should be obeyed, as in "Take off and TRY to attack "X" target. Now they might not find it (as most of Hornet's A/C failed to do at Midway)---but at least they would be trying to attack the "right" target (Midway's B-17's didn't go hairing off to the WSW to attack Tanaka's Transport Force---they went after Kido Butai). The big problem with "naval strike" is you CAN'T give it any orders, you CAN'T specify any priorities, you CAN'T even suggest a direction. I don't expect "perfect" results..., but we ought to be able to avoid "perfectly rediculous" results. As it stands now, a gamey but usable strategy is to send some TF's of garbage along with anything important because the game mechanics will generally go after the easiest prey.
Just "confusing the issue with facts" and pointing out that I "don't" think you want to completely remove possibility of strikes hitting the "wrong target" ... as this description of the Battle of Coral Sea shows, on the 7th of May ... everyone hit the "wrong targets" even though the big carrier forces were clearly stalking each other. But they both missed. And so did both sides land based planes, though the American ones tried to bomb the Allies as well an "aggrevated" miss that can't even happen in our WITP !
The first day of the carrier battle of Coral Sea, 7 May 1942, saw the Americans searching for carriers they knew were present and the Japanese looking for ones they feared might be in the area. The opposing commanders, U.S. Rear Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher and Japanese Vice Admiral Takeo Takagi and Rear Admiral Tadaichi Hara, endeavored to "get in the first blow", a presumed prerequisite to victory (and to survival) in a battle between heavily-armed and lightly-protected aircraft carriers. However, both sides suffered from inadequate work by their scouts and launched massive air strikes against greatly inferior secondary targets, which were duly sunk, leaving the most important enemy forces unhit.
Japanese scouting planes spotted the U.S. oiler Neosho (AO-23) and her escort, the destroyer USS Sims (DD-409), before 8AM, in a southerly position well away from Admiral Fletcher's carriers. Reported as a "carrier and a cruiser", these two ships received two high-level bombing attacks during the morning that, as would become typical of such tactics, missed. However, about noon a large force of dive bombers appeared. As was normal for that type of attack, these did not miss. Sims sank with very heavy casualties and Neosho was reduced to a drifting wreck whose survivors were not rescued for days.
Meanwhile, a scout plane from USS Yorktown (CV-5) found the Japanese Covering Group, the light carrier Shoho and four heavy cruisers, which faulty message coding transformed into "two carriers and four heavy cruisers". Yorktown and USS Lexington (CV-2) sent out a huge strike: fifty-three scout-bombers, twenty-two torpedo planes and eighteen fighters. In well-delivered attacks before noon, these simply overwhelmed the Shoho, which received so many bomb and torpedo hits that she sank in minutes. Her passing was marked by some of the War's most dramatic photography.
Adding to the confusion, if not to the score, Japanese land-based torpedo planes and bombers struck an advanced force of Australian and U.S. Navy cruisers, far to the west of Admiral Fletcher's carriers. Skillful ship-handling prevented any damage. Australia-based U.S. Army B-17s also arrived and dropped their bombs, fortunately without hitting anything.
All this had one beneficial effect: the Japanese ordered their Port Moresby invasion force to turn back to await developments. Late in the day, they also sent out nearly thirty carrier planes to search for Fletcher's ships. Most of these were shot down or lost in night landing attempts, significantly reducing Japanese striking power. The opposing carrier forces, quite close together by the standards of air warfare, prepared to resume battle in the morning.
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