Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (Full Version)

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Harrybanana -> Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 6:57:09 AM)

Properly planning and executing Naval Patrol/Interdiction Air Directives is, IMHO, more challenging than planning any other type of air mission. The purpose of these Air Directives are to gain you control of certain sea hexes so that you can safely move your units and supply from one port hex to another port, temporary port, or mulberry hex and also to deprive your enemy of the ability to do the same. Before you learn how to properly plan these missions, you should first understand how sea hexes are controlled and the consequences for failure to do so. Accordingly, please make sure you have read all the relevant rules. The most important things to remember are:

1. A sea hex is friendly controlled if your interdiction value for that hex is 2 or greater than your opponents.

2. A sea hex is neutral if the difference between the opposing interdiction values is 1 or less.

3. A sea hex is enemy controlled if your opponents interdiction value for the hex is 2 or greater than yours.

4. The more neutral or enemy controlled sea hexes your units are naval or amphibious transported through during your Ground Movement phase, the more likley that transport/amphibious ships wil be lost and you will lose men and elements. It is therefore important that at the end of your friendly Air Phase you control all sea hexes that you plan on sea transporting units through.

5. If at the conclusion of your opponents Air Phase you are unable to trace a supply line through sea hexes from a supply source to a particular friendly port without passing through an enemy controlled sea hex, than all f riendly units tracing supply to that port will be isolated. Therefore it is important that at the end of your opponents Air Phase you can trace such a supply line through friendly controlled or neutral sea hexes.

6. Even if you control a particular sea hex, the higher the level of enemy interdiction in that hex the more likely you will lose transport ships (and therefore men and equipment) if you move through that hex. Therefore when sea transporting units it is better to move through a sea hex that is controlled by you 6:4 than it is to move through a sea hex you control 8:5.

7. So long as Auto Patrol is set to "Yes" (on) for a particular air HQ, air groups assigned to that HQ and not given other orders and not set to fly only at night will automatically fly naval patrol air directives around their airbase. This is useful for maintaining control of sea hexes in back water areas or anywhere the threat of enemy air patrol missions is negligible.



Harrybanana -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 7:00:25 AM)

I will shortly show you how to setup some Naval Patrol Air Directives, but first some general hints.

1. If playing the Allies I suggest turning Auto Naval Patrol Off ("No") for all Air HQs except RAF Coastal and Coastal. If playing the Germans turn it Off for all Air HQs.

2. Be sure to reset the Load Outs for all your Naval Patrol air groups to the best possible Load Out for this mission. Since the most recent updates this means (at least for the Allies) mines if available, than rockets, than torpedos and than whatever gives you the most bombs.

3. Auto Naval Patrol is generally OK for maintaining control of sea hexes in uncontested areas; but should never be relied on to provide control of sea hexes that you absolutely must control in areas that might be contested.

4. When setting Naval Patrol Air Directives do not let the AI auto set the number of strikes or the number of aircraft requested for each strike. Even if set to High Intensity It will tend to use only a minimum number of aircraft and strikes.

5. For sea lanes and hexes you really need to control you want to set things to send in very few strikes of large numbers of aircraft.

6. If you want to control a particular area both during your air phase and your opponents air phase it may be better to set 2 smaller Air Directives (one to fly in the Friendly Phase and the other to fly in the Enemy phase) than to set a larger Air Directive to fly in both phases.

7. Also be sure to reset, when necessary, the SBase of the Naval Patrol and it's flight path. In particular, for the flight path you will often want to ensure that it passes over an in supply port hex (usually a port in England or North Africa) on its way to the target sea hexes. The reason for this is because your Air Groups will not only create Sea Interdiction in the target hexes, but also in every hex along the flight path.

8. Set the altitude to 5000 feet to avoid interception by enemy fighters.

9. Be aware that recent changes to the program make it easier to attain low levels of Sea Interdiction and harder (much harder) to obtain high levels of Sea Interdiction.



Harrybanana -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 7:04:01 AM)

For this demonstration I have chosen the 44 Campaign game with the June start date. My plan is to simulate the Naval Patrol Air Directives that I would set to support the Normandy landings. On the first turn I simply rebased all the RAF Coastal Air groups to SW England, turned Off Auto naval Patrol for all Air HQs, cancelled all the preset Air Directives and than advanced the turn. The reason is that the weather was rain and I very seldom Invade in rain.

On turn 2 I first wanted to see how well the AI would perform. So I set RAF Coastal to fly a Naval Patrol Air Directive within a 2 hex radius of the Normandy beaches. I added all of RAF Coastals air groups to this mission and set the intensity to High; but otherwise let the AI choose the SBase, flight path, load outs, altitude, number of strikes and aircraft per strike. As you can see in the Air Execution Summary, even though there were over 350 aircraft available the AI only committed between 50 and 85 per day. As well note that 2 of the 11 strikes were intercepted by German fighters. The final Sea Interdiction numbers averaged around 6 for my Air Execution Phase and 5 for the enemy Air Execution Phase. With numbers like that if I was playing a determined opponent I might have found that my invading units were now out of supply.


[image]local://upfiles/14737/741D877E949441F493A77133CC69F610.jpg[/image]



Harrybanana -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 7:07:18 AM)

Next I reloaded the game from the start of my Turn 2 to see if I could do better. First I changed all of my aircraft loadouts to the best Naval Patrol load outs possible (see Hint 2 above). I then divided my aircraft equally between 2 Air Directives, one to fly during the Friendly Air Phase and the other to fly during the Enemy Air Phase. Both Air Directives were set to fly with all of their aircraft in 1 strike each day from an altitude of 5000'. I reset the Sbase to Poole and made sure the flight paths did not get too close to any enemy airbases. As you can see in the Air Execution Summary I flew far more sorties per day than the AI did with twice as many aircraft. As a result I was able to achieve Sea Interdiction numbers averaging about 8 for both my Air Phase and the Enemies Air Phase. Note as well that none of my Strikes were intercepted by enemy fighters.


[image]local://upfiles/14737/6352D7A09D524317A9EBA6EAB0145076.jpg[/image]



Harrybanana -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 7:09:14 AM)

But be forewarned, this came at a cost as several of my airgroups had fatigue in the 10 and 11 range.


[image]local://upfiles/14737/7A52BFF21731474EB412A609C693BC24.jpg[/image]



Harrybanana -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 7:10:50 AM)

In addition to protecting and supporting your invasions Naval Patrols are also important for gaining control of sea hexes so you can move units (and the AI can move your supply) with less risk of loss. This is especially important in the Mediterranean where you will often have to move units great distances by sea from North Africa to Italy and from Italy to the Western map edge. Remember that each neutral sea hex you transport a ground unit through increases your chance of losses by twice as much as a friendly controlled sea hex. This is true even if the enemy Naval Interdiction in the sea hex is 0. If you have lots of unneeded patrol and torpedo bomber air groups, the easiest way to deal with this is to assign these groups to Coastal Command and then base them at airbases around the Mediterranean without orders. They will then fly auto naval patrol missions to try and establish control over nearby sea hexes. But there will be times when this may not be possible. In that case you will have to set your own Naval Patrols.

Shown below are 3 screenshots of the MTO from the 44 June start Campaign game. The first screenshot is where I just left the Coastal AF on auto Naval patrol. The lighter sea hexes are the ones over which I gained control. The darker sea hexes are neutral. As you can see, if I had units I wanted to sea transport from North Africa to Italy or Italy to the Western map edge they would have to transverse a lot of neutral sea hexes. As a result I would probably suffer casualties for each unit. And Allied casualties means Negative VPs. So to fix this I rebased some air groups and then performed the Naval Patrol Air Directives shown in the middle screenshot. The final screenshot shows that I now have a path of friendly controlled sea hexes stretching from Italy to North Africa and the Western edge.

[image]local://upfiles/14737/F574B68A7E4348D98D1D6A7B3DA1FB42.jpg[/image]



loki100 -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 7:39:59 AM)

great stuff ... thank you



bairdlander2 -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 1:54:39 PM)

Is it necessary to rebase to SW England?Pretty much all the coastal ag's planes have good range.I put shorter range aircraft in SW England.



Harrybanana -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 7:44:54 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: bairdlander

Is it necessary to rebase to SW England?Pretty much all the coastal ag's planes have good range.I put shorter range aircraft in SW England.




Good point. Even though Patrol and Torpedo bomber aircraft have good range I still like to base them as close to the action as possible. The reason is that I understand that the further they have to travel the more fatigue they suffer. I may be wrong about this though. In any event, if I really were invading Normandy you are right that I would have needed those bases in SW England for the FBs and so my RAF Coastal air groups would have had to base further back.



loki100 -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/14/2016 8:26:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana


quote:

ORIGINAL: bairdlander

Is it necessary to rebase to SW England?Pretty much all the coastal ag's planes have good range.I put shorter range aircraft in SW England.




Good point. Even though Patrol and Torpedo bomber aircraft have good range I still like to base them as close to the action as possible. The reason is that I understand that the further they have to travel the more fatigue they suffer. I may be wrong about this though. In any event, if I really were invading Normandy you are right that I would have needed those bases in SW England for the FBs and so my RAF Coastal air groups would have had to base further back.


you're right - in general the only air mission I find that runs up high fatigue is naval patrols so best to keep it as small as possible



Chris21wen -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/21/2017 9:21:12 PM)

I attempted to replicate you Med patrols. I succeeded after a number of attempts but it brought up a conundrum. How many a/c are need to create a complete path?

Take the Naples - Tunis patrol first. These are the settings I used to achieve it using Marauders based in Salerno, load out was 8 x 500lb bombs.


[image]local://upfiles/5388/A14F2F7E1B654F248EAF47B00C79B18A.jpg[/image]



Chris21wen -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/21/2017 9:30:26 PM)

Now the Tunis-Algiers leg. I had to use these two units flying 4 strikes of 4 a/c, but I thought I'd need more as the distance is roughly the same as Naples-Tunis. The Beaus had rockets the Wimpies mines.

Now the real question. Why did one patrol require twice as many a/c to achieve the desired result?



[image]local://upfiles/5388/206772CAD4FD4435A809ADFE955462AB.jpg[/image]



Helpless -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (5/22/2017 9:03:39 AM)

quote:

Why did one patrol require twice as many a/c to achieve the desired result?


Hard to answer w/o knowing what is the desired result.

PA planes have lighter load out, which usually prevents them to achieve high NP values, but they have type (PA) bonus (higher detection efficiency), so low NP values without actual control should be possible. There are many other factors which should be evaluated - exp, morale, weather, "naval" load out bonus, etc.



Qitbuqa -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/13/2020 2:49:26 PM)

Those are very well made posts. Played with it and it worked for me. Thank you for that.

However, while playing around with Naval Patrol AD, I encountered a weird thing - I cannot transfer squadrons which are labelled as 'naval only' between HQs. Is this WAD or am I missing something?



Laits -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/14/2020 7:00:09 AM)

You're right. You cannot change the HQ of your "naval only" planes.
It's quite disappointing for isolated patrol wing like in the tactical air force...



loki100 -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/14/2020 7:48:54 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Laits

You're right. You cannot change the HQ of your "naval only" planes.
It's quite disappointing for isolated patrol wing like in the tactical air force...


you can ...

the trick is to put them on an airbase that has the desired target HQ, so for eg move that single naval air from Malta Air to an airbase assigned to the Med naval air command. Since you have a mismatch, the option comes up to assign all air units to the controlling HQ.



Laits -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/14/2020 11:57:42 AM)

Thank you for the trick. I've never tried that...
It still seems to me very weird to use such a procedure to change the HQ.



loki100 -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/14/2020 12:15:46 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Laits

Thank you for the trick. I've never tried that...
It still seems to me very weird to use such a procedure to change the HQ.


och, didn't claim it was an efficient way to do it - but it does work [8D]



Laits -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/14/2020 5:31:55 PM)

Indeed! Thank again for the tip. There are so much things to learn.
This makes WITE and WITW such interesting.



Qitbuqa -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/15/2020 6:41:20 AM)

Thanks, loki100! [sm=happy0065.gif]



Cavalry Corp -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/19/2020 12:20:55 PM)

Thanks for this but how do the axis handle it ( esp around Italy ) - almost all I see is from the Allied side. I cannot even see how to make axis ( German ) run sea patrols but still trying to learn the game.



loki100 -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/19/2020 12:28:33 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: cavalry

Thanks for this but how do the axis handle it ( esp around Italy ) - almost all I see is from the Allied side. I cannot even see how to make axis ( German ) run sea patrols but still trying to learn the game.


same way, you can do them automatically, if so set the AD table to include auto-naval (strong hint I wouldn't do this) or via a naval patrol.

this is probably one time when you need to micromanage as there are a few things to think about.

a) load outs, most German LB have a naval load out, some have a choice. For default interdiction (say to hamper supply). I'd go with mines, if you think they are going to move troops in then there a couple of variants of torpedos
b) your turn/enemy turn/both? If you set the NP for your turn, you'll seriously interdict unit moves but not resupply, if you pick their turn you'll threaten supply but not unit moves, if you do both then you cover both issues but may also take fairly heavy losses
c) is it best done as a box or a snake? The 'snake' works as a NP drops interdiction all along its path, so a well chosen flight route leading to a single hex target can be good - esp if you want to isolate but in turn, its pretty easy for the allies to breach (this line of interdiction is also what TF leave behind them). A box may be harder to offset as it can be deeper.



Cavalry Corp -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (4/19/2020 12:30:54 PM)

thanks for the fast reply - some of the things you mention I am still needing to learn but thanks. I will now look at it in more detail.



cfulbright -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (10/18/2020 5:00:11 PM)

Loki,

Woohoo! I never noticed that command at the bottom of the air base details box. This is awesome, thank you.

Cary



cfulbright -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (10/18/2020 5:07:57 PM)

Harry,

I know you posted this four years ago, but someone just pointed me at it, and it was very educational. I have a question and a comment on two of your recommendations:

quote:

5. For sea lanes and hexes you really need to control you want to set things to send in very few strikes of large numbers of aircraft.

Question: I've always set a lots of strikes with 3-4 planes each. So if I have 24 available PA and TB aircraft, I would set 8 strikes of 3 planes each. The F11 after-action screen typically shows the strikes around the edges of the 4-hex area box I drew, but I get results inside the box as well. Are you saying it would be better to set a single strike of 24 planes?

quote:

6. If you want to control a particular area both during your air phase and your opponents air phase it may be better to set 2 smaller Air Directives (one to fly in the Friendly Phase and the other to fly in the Enemy phase) than to set a larger Air Directive to fly in both phases.

Comment (with a question at the end): Rather than do what you do, I do the following: I put all the groups in a single air directive and set half the air groups to rest in the Friendly turn, the other half to rest in the Enemy turn. I sort by Experience and fly the less experienced in the Friendly, the more experienced in the Enemy, so this helps me keep the same air groups flying the same phase every turn, and I seldom have Fatigue issues that way. What do you think of that approach?

Cary



Zenra -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (10/29/2020 3:32:27 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: cfulbright
<snip>
Comment (with a question at the end): Rather than do what you do, I do the following: I put all the groups in a single air directive and set half the air groups to rest in the Friendly turn, the other half to rest in the Enemy turn. I sort by Experience and fly the less experienced in the Friendly, the more experienced in the Enemy, so this helps me keep the same air groups flying the same phase every turn, and I seldom have Fatigue issues that way. What do you think of that approach?

Cary


This sounds like a good approach but I cannot figure out how to order individual groups assigned to one AD to fly in one phase or the other. I see how I can assign some groups to day or night, but the field to select Friendly / Enemy / Both phases is associated with the AD, not by group. What am I missing here?



cfulbright -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (10/29/2020 4:54:21 AM)

Let's say you assign eight air groups to the AD. You mark the AD to fly Both Phases. You activate four of the eight groups and rest the other four for the friendly turn, and then you swap the ones you activated and the ones you rested.

Cary



Zenra -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (10/30/2020 4:09:11 AM)

So you alternate flying half the groups in the Friendly phase of one turn while the other rests, then fly the rested groups during the Enemy phase of the next turn?

Sorry, but I feel like I am still missing something. Is there a way to set one set of groups from an AD to fly during the Friendly air phase and another set of groups from the same AD to fly only during the Enemy air phase?



cfulbright -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (10/30/2020 5:07:25 AM)

quote:

Sorry, but I feel like I am still missing something. Is there a way to set one set of groups from an AD to fly during the Friendly air phase and another set of groups from the same AD to fly only during the Enemy air phase?

1. At the beginning of your own Air phase set half of the air groups in each Air Directive to Day/Night, the other half to Rest. The Day/Night groups will fly in the Friendly Air Phase.
2. After your own Air phase, set the first half of the air groups to Rest, the second half the Day/Night. The formerly Rested and now Air/Night groups will fly in the Enemy Air Phase.

It's some extra work, but it works.

If you move the Naval Patrol air groups so that all the groups for a particular air directive are in a single base, and no two air directives share a base, then it's easy to administer in the Commander's Report.

Cary



Qitbuqa -> RE: Naval Patrols/Interdiction For Dummies (1/16/2021 12:01:48 PM)

Perhaps I missed it in the manual, but is there a way to add waypoints when setting a directive. By "adding" I mean not altering their hex, but adding a bigger number thereof.



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