Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Randy Stead

Guadalcanal scenario, AI is IJN. While the cats [carriers] are away, the rats are playing. Kirishima and from friends showed up at Lunga to bombard my base. I lost a few planes, took some damage to the facilities. When the animation opened it mentioned the plane spotting for the TF. I've had floatplanes along with my shore bombardment missions but never got that message. Obviously I am doing something wrong; must be some setting you can alter. My fleet certainly had enough planes with them.

I was most worried about the mini subs in that area when I bombarded, so I had all of my floatplanes on ASW. I am sure that was the culprit. Oh, well, I am shutting down for the night, will take the manual to bed tonight for a read.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

You need at least one floatplane group, flying from a bombarding ship, on the recon mission, best set to zero range, and at about 2000 ft. On night recon if the bombardment TF will go in at night.

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Recon at night - lower altitude seems to work better, when correcting fire.

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

You need at least one floatplane group, flying from a bombarding ship, on the recon mission, best set to zero range, and at about 2000 ft. On night recon if the bombardment TF will go in at night.

Careful, here.

I believe range is overridden when there is a "target" selected.

Why 2000 feet? I would assume that opens you up to being damaged by night time flak easier. I have flown night fighters to intercept night time recon missions.

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: Randy Stead

Guadalcanal scenario, AI is IJN. While the cats [carriers] are away, the rats are playing. Kirishima and from friends showed up at Lunga to bombard my base. I lost a few planes, took some damage to the facilities. When the animation opened it mentioned the plane spotting for the TF. I've had floatplanes along with my shore bombardment missions but never got that message. Obviously I am doing something wrong; must be some setting you can alter. My fleet certainly had enough planes with them.

I was most worried about the mini subs in that area when I bombarded, so I had all of my floatplanes on ASW. I am sure that was the culprit. Oh, well, I am shutting down for the night, will take the manual to bed tonight for a read.

Exactly on what basis would floatplanes, tasked by the player to conduct the ASW mission, of their own volition and contrary to the orders given by the human, then proceed to conduct the recon mission.

Do you order your torpedo bombers to fly a naval attack mission, equipped with torpedoes, then expect them to disobey orders and instead drop supplies to a land unit in the jungle.

Alfred

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ORIGINAL: Randy Stead

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: Randy Stead

Guadalcanal scenario, AI is IJN. While the cats [carriers] are away, the rats are playing. Kirishima and from friends showed up at Lunga to bombard my base. I lost a few planes, took some damage to the facilities. When the animation opened it mentioned the plane spotting for the TF. I've had floatplanes along with my shore bombardment missions but never got that message. Obviously I am doing something wrong; must be some setting you can alter. My fleet certainly had enough planes with them.

I was most worried about the mini subs in that area when I bombarded, so I had all of my floatplanes on ASW. I am sure that was the culprit. Oh, well, I am shutting down for the night, will take the manual to bed tonight for a read.

Exactly on what basis would floatplanes, tasked by the player to conduct the ASW mission, of their own volition and contrary to the orders given by the human, then proceed to conduct the recon mission.

Do you order your torpedo bombers to fly a naval attack mission, equipped with torpedoes, then expect them to disobey orders and instead drop supplies to a land unit in the jungle.

Alfred

I would not expect them to do otherwise. However, I was not even aware they could assist a bombarding fleet. In the manual section about shore bombardment, 6.4.3, it says jack squat about having planes spot to increase accuracy. The first time ever seeing information about a fleet using a spotter plane when the IJN bombarded Lunga, as above. This is a great game but the manual could have been more forthcoming with useful information.

Ian R, thank you. I will do so in future.

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Recon at night - lower altitude seems to work better, when correcting fire.

I remember reading about a light observation plane that was correcting fire at Anzio when it was hit by a 155 mm shell . . .

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ORIGINAL: Randy Stead

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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ORIGINAL: Ian R

Recon at night - lower altitude seems to work better, when correcting fire.

I remember reading about a light observation plane that was correcting fire at Anzio when it was hit by a 155 mm shell . . .

Amazingly low-odds collisions occur if not enough things fly around.

This image [hope I can figure out how to post it correctly] is of two bullets that collided in flight during the Gallipoli campaign. An incredibly unlikely thing to happen, yet it did, and then someone had to find them. Considering how many rounds of ammunition have been fired over all the years of conflict, things like this may have happened more than once.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy


I have done hundreds of bombardments with my night Recon FP set at 1000 feet and never lost any - but then the Japanese land units do not have radar in 1941-43 that I know of.

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy


I have done hundreds of bombardments with my night Recon FP set at 1000 feet and never lost any - but then the Japanese land units do not have radar in 1941-43 that I know of.

I am pretty sure I managed to get shore bombardment recon planes to not function, especially in my game against Tiemanj where I was bombarded daily for a year. Now, it could simply have been weather...but I was doing everything to interdict them from AA (good 1944 AA) to night fighters on one hex LRCAP.

Early war Obvert used shore bombardments better than anyone I have ever played against...perhaps he flew them at 1000 feet too. Don't know?

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

If you don't specify the target base for the spotter, you run the risk that a different base on the run in will be reconned instead.  It therefore depends very much on the path taken by the Bombardment TF to the target.  If coming in from blue water, not passing by any other bases, you are not going to recon an unwanted base.  Coming in instead from brown water, travelling through a rich base target environment, you run the risk of reconning an unwanted location.

Alfred

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

If you don't specify the target base for the spotter, you run the risk that a different base on the run in will be reconned instead.  It therefore depends very much on the path taken by the Bombardment TF to the target.  If coming in from blue water, not passing by any other bases, you are not going to recon an unwanted base.  Coming in instead from brown water, travelling through a rich base target environment, you run the risk of reconning an unwanted location.

Alfred

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ORIGINAL: jmalter

The majority of my Bombardment missions occur during the Night naval movement phase, usually (but not always) the TF's #flagship leads the Bombardment. Its floatplanes must be set to Night Recon mission, range = 0.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

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ORIGINAL: jmalter

The majority of my Bombardment missions occur during the Night naval movement phase, usually (but not always) the TF's #flagship leads the Bombardment. Its floatplanes must be set to Night Recon mission, range = 0.

Not true about the TF flagship. Many of my bombardment TFs have a ship with the best captain as the Flag, but the first ship to bombard is almost always the last major ship listed - i.e. on the TF screen with 4 BBs and a bunch of DDs, BB #2 might be the Flag while BB#4 will be the one that bombards first. The text at the end of the Combat Report will tell you what order the bombard in - almost always reverse order of TF list.
Of course if you always just go with the last ship in the list as Flag it will appear the Flag always bombards first.