Tristanjohn
Posts: 3027
Joined: 5/1/2002
From: Daly City CA USA
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Brady
"The Betty/Nell chutai are excellent for this. You want to conduct recon at 10k or higher and Naval Patrol at 6k and ASW at 3k"
Why these spcific Alt's, I use different ones, and espichaly Recon, it varys depending on threat.
You can fly you reconnaissance flights at 1,000 feet if you want. (The manual specifically states that the lower the altitude on recon flights, the more accurate the information gathered will be.) At least as the Allies. PBYs are rarely hit by flak or caught by fighters. It seems to me the Japanese snoops get caught more often--at least in my games. If a PBY is hit the morale of the squadron will drop, but not alarmingly, probably just into the 70s range. In that case you could either stand it down for a couple of days or curtail it flying activities to 50%, say. I prefer the latter, as the squadron will then get back to the high 90s for morale quickly, and that's where I like ot keep my aircraft whenever possible.
I fly my ASW at 1,000 feet, but I'm not sure there's any difference between this and 2,000 fett or 6,000 feet for that matter. Naval search at 6,000 sounds reasonable, though in the war these patrols regularly ranged around at much higher altitudes.
As for fatigue: I can't speak for the Japanese (though I don't understand why it would be different), but Allied recon planes can be flown at 100% without any worry of getting fatigued.
What I like to do when planes are short and I want to recon a base (I do a lot of recon--you can never have too much intelligence) is to set a PBY squadron at 80% Naval Search, then let the others do reconnaissance flights to wherever. So, for example, let's say you had a squadron of 12 PBYs at Baker Island and you wanted to keep an eye on the Japanese at Tarawa. Set that squadron to recon Tarawa, then set its Naval Search to 80%. That way you have all bases covered.
Definitely set up a web of Naval Search that overlaps as much as possible, especially as the Allies early in the war. My coverage in my first PBEM game with Chez/Joe goes like this, running north to south to west: Kiska-Dutch Harbor-Anchorage-Sitka-Prince Rupert-Seattle-San Francisco-San Diego-Midway-Pearl Harbor-Johnston Island-Palmyra-Baker Island-Canton-Pago Pago-Suva-Luganville-Noumea-Auckland-Sydney-Brisbane-Townsville-Kiriwina-Port Moreseby-Darwin-Derby-Broome-Perth, and up in the Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean it runs Andaman Islands-Akyab-Chandpur-Trincomalee-Colombo-Panaji-Karachi. In that manner everything that can overlap in coverage does. My only gap is along Sumatra, which I don't own and so I can't do anything about that.
Basically, in this game whenever possible every asset should be doing something every turn. It's like warships: mine are either training or repairing, patrolling or hauling supplies and/or troops somewhere every turn. They never sit around idly in some port with zero damage. Ship transports? As the Allied player all of mine are always hauling something somewhere. As a Japanese player you may or may not have that luxury or necessity. The word is after awhile they don't have much to haul with their APs and AKs. The Allies always have something to haul somewhere.
Planes in combat will need rest. But if a plane isn't resting for more known combat action I have it running ASW patrols if nothing else. This both trains pilots and keeps an eye out for enemy subs--you never know! For bombers that are already rested, set those for Naval Attack at 10% search and always be getting something out of their potential--and they'll never get tired with that command.
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