Fleet assets (Full Version)

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Chiteng -> Fleet assets (4/30/2003 11:51:18 AM)

From the limited materials I have on hand....

Fleet assets such as Oilers are highly specialized and are not
easily replaced. The estimated construction time of an oilers is
at a minimum 6 months. Using a battleship as a fleet tender
is NOT something they are designed to do. I am sure it can be done, I am sure it WAS done, but I am also sure it wasnt the preffered method.

By destroying the fleet support assets, you limit the range
the enemy can react to 1/2 its steaming capacity.

That isnt very far, for a Battleship.




showboat1 -> (4/30/2003 10:58:13 PM)

In PACWAR I always tried to take out the USN's AO's and TK's early in the game. I found it could limit offensive capabilities in the latter stages of the game.
Glad to see that is being taken into consideration here.




Chiteng -> (4/30/2003 11:13:52 PM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by showboat1
[B]In PACWAR I always tried to take out the USN's AO's and TK's early in the game. I found it could limit offensive capabilities in the latter stages of the game.
Glad to see that is being taken into consideration here. [/B][/QUOTE]

I am not sure it is. Mogami says that they are easily replaced




Bulldog61 -> (5/1/2003 1:34:15 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chiteng
[B]I am not sure it is. Mogami says that they are easily replaced [/B][/QUOTE]

There appear to be enough tankers in the allied player mix to keep forward bases fueled. About 1/2 dozen at SF to start and a bunch arriving in January 42. There are several Oilers that start at Pearl but more on the west coast. WITP (at least where we are at in development at this time) rewards proper tactics.




Chiteng -> (5/1/2003 1:44:33 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by MikeKraemer
[B]There appear to be enough tankers in the allied player mix to keep forward bases fueled. About 1/2 dozen at SF to start and a bunch arriving in January 42. There are several Oilers that start at Pearl but more on the west coast. WITP (at least where we are at in development at this time) rewards proper tactics. [/B][/QUOTE]

Whatever 'proper tactics' means.

Its sounds like a traditional attack on the BB.
Because at least that gets rid of them at least for a while.




showboat1 -> (5/1/2003 2:04:43 AM)

Disclaimer: All facts taken from: The Encyclopedia of the World's Warships, Salamander Books, New York, 1978 and are related to ships AS BUILT except where noted.

Cruising range of typical US battleships
Texas class : 10,000 miles @ 10 knots
Tennessee class : 10,000 miles @ 10 knots
Iowa class : 20,727 miles @ 12 knots
Obviously the newer classes had much greater range. No info given on N. Carolina class or Alaska class.

Cruising range of typical IJN battleships
Kongo class : 11,660 miles @ 18 knots (post-1937 rebuild)
Hyuga class : 9,360 miles @ 16 knots (post-1936 rebuild)
Nagato class : 10,300 miles @ 16 knots (post-1936 rebuild)
Yamato class : 7,200 miles @ 16 knots
Strange that the largest ship had the shortest legs. Guess all that armor ate at fuel efficiency and carry capacity.

Anyway, LET THE BIG DOGS EAT!!!!!!!!!!!
Battleships should be set loose on the Pacific!!!!!!!!!




Chiteng -> (5/1/2003 2:30:26 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by showboat1
[B]Disclaimer: All facts taken from: The Encyclopedia of the World's Warships, Salamander Books, New York, 1978 and are related to ships AS BUILT except where noted.

Cruising range of typical US battleships
Texas class : 10,000 miles @ 10 knots
Tennessee class : 10,000 miles @ 10 knots
Iowa class : 20,727 miles @ 12 knots
Obviously the newer classes had much greater range. No info given on N. Carolina class or Alaska class.

Cruising range of typical IJN battleships
Kongo class : 11,660 miles @ 18 knots (post-1937 rebuild)
Hyuga class : 9,360 miles @ 16 knots (post-1936 rebuild)
Nagato class : 10,300 miles @ 16 knots (post-1936 rebuild)
Yamato class : 7,200 miles @ 16 knots
Strange that the largest ship had the shortest legs. Guess all that armor ate at fuel efficiency and carry capacity.

Anyway, LET THE BIG DOGS EAT!!!!!!!!!!!
Battleships should be set loose on the Pacific!!!!!!!!! [/B][/QUOTE]


I suspect all those are based at speeds less than TOP speed.




showboat1 -> (5/1/2003 11:07:15 AM)

Your suspicion is correct. For USN battlewagons the cruising range is determined by a speed of less than 50% of max speed. For IJN battleships/batlecruisers the cruising speed is somewhat higher, approximately 67%.




mogami -> BB and fuel (5/1/2003 7:24:43 PM)

Hi, Chiteng I did not mean the BB would join the CV TF to refuel them I only meant the CV could siphon fuel from the BB in port (you would need to make a BB TF and then refuel CV at sea)
While the CV would not fill up they would get enough fuel to protect the PH area while waitng arrival of fuel from West Coast)

There are enough aircraft on the 6 IJN CV to damage somewhat PH's supply/fuel. I am waiting for final version of special strike rules for turn 1. If the Japanese can damage the airfields enough prehaps they can stick around for an extra day and hit the base again. (On Dec 7 they hit airfields and ships in port. On Dec 8th they hit the base again.)

Sinking the BB would therefore serve two purpose. One remove BB from order of battle. Two remove fuel source for CV returning to PH. (But there is a lot of fuel at PH on Dec 7th it would require a massive port strike on Dec 8th to have any real effect.




Raverdave -> Re: BB and fuel (5/1/2003 7:51:49 PM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mogami
[B] (But there is a lot of fuel at PH on Dec 7th it would require a massive port strike on Dec 8th to have any real effect. [/B][/QUOTE]

I am surprised to hear that....I would have thought that a larger tank farm would be easy to find and put out of action than a smaller one would. After all, it's not like oil is THAT hard to destroy, or whatever it is stored in.:confused:

Can you shine some light on the subject please Mogami?




mogami -> Port attack (5/1/2003 8:07:42 PM)

Hi, WITP uses the same formula as UV. each fuel/supply hit destroys .9 percent of fuel/supply.

So if there is 100k fuel at PH 1 hit would reduce it by 900. I'll do a few PH strikes to see how much it can in fact be reduced by the Dec 7th port attack (this attack mainly hits the ships but does do some damage to fuel/supply. Also it hits the oilers and tankers there. But I think a second strike on the 8th would do much more
because it would be a 'normal' port attack where ships in port while targets are not the main target)




mogami -> Dec 8th (5/1/2003 8:45:18 PM)

Hi, OK this is only the alpha version so don't have a cow.
PH has 300k fuel on Dec 7th. I was unable to hit any of it.
(after strike of Dec 8th there was still 300k fuel)
However Dec 8th strike did also target the size 100 ship repair facility and damaged 86 points of it. (How long it take to fix this remains to be seen. It was targeted using the new "city" attack function. The second strike also hit a lot of ships and damaged the port (9 percent)
After both strikes
PH
Port Damage 9
Runway Damage 40
Airfield damage 22
Repair Yard (86)x14 (86 out of 100 damaged)

The IJN airgroups were shot up on Dec 8th CV would need to return to port to get new AC/Pilots and rest airgroups.




mdiehl -> (5/1/2003 10:21:47 PM)

These results are incorrect unless the repair facility may be rebuilt to pre-war strength in two weeks. The only critical non-replaceable devices were heavy lift cranes. Can't damage one without scoring a direct hit. An a/c pilot would have to be extensively trained to know exactly waht to look for and exactly where to hit it. And given the tech of the day, he'd almost certainly miss.

These days one could use satellite or laser guidance, but it would [B]require[/B] that sort of accuracy to have a reasonable chance of doing the job.




mogami -> Ship yards (5/1/2003 10:48:07 PM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
[B]These results are incorrect unless the repair facility may be rebuilt to pre-war strength in two weeks. The only critical non-replaceable devices were heavy lift cranes. Can't damage one without scoring a direct hit. An a/c pilot would have to be extensively trained to know exactly waht to look for and exactly where to hit it. And given the tech of the day, he'd almost certainly miss.

These days one could use satellite or laser guidance, but it would [B]require[/B] that sort of accuracy to have a reasonable chance of doing the job. [/B][/QUOTE]

Hi, I don't agree cranes are the only item that could not be replaced in two weeks. I spent 2 years at Naval Shipyard Philadelphia.

Dry-docks, Valve shops, Propeller shops, Machine shops of all types, shore to ship power and water lines, the tracks the cranes move on, the warehouse with the pipe and other material for repair, the offices with the ship drawings and plans, the barges and tugs. A normal airstike that hit the confined area that most of the repair facilities occupy could do significant damage.
(The strike was over 150 bombers targeting the shipyard)




mdiehl -> (5/1/2003 11:00:38 PM)

[QUOTE]Dry-docks[/QUOTE]

What exactly is a Dry Dock made out of? Some flood control valves and concrete. There was not Bo Diddley in the IJN munitions arsenal that could do Oingo Boingo to bunker grade concrete. To nail the valves would require a direct hit to make Luke Skywalker's fictional hit on the DS look like a random drive by shooting.

[QUOTE]Valve shops, Propeller shops, Machine shops of all types, shore to ship power and water lines, the tracks the cranes move on, the warehouse with the pipe and other material for repair, the offices with the ship drawings and plans, the barges and tugs.[/QUOTE]

All very important. All easily replaced. Tracks? Whoopty doo. Replaceable in a day if stocks are to hand. Machine shops? A couple merchant vessels can restore these to full productivity. Ship plans? All archived in Washington. Everything lost can be moved form the West Coast to PH in two weeks. Allow two more weeks to have the whole shebang up and running smoothly.

[QUOTE]A normal airstike that hit the confined area that most of the repair facilities occupy could do significant damage.
(The strike was over 150 bombers targeting the shipyard)[/QUOTE]

I really don't agree. The targeting systems of the day, the profusion of hard, small, targets. The relatively low payload of naval attack a/c. Consider Europe: The US was unable to completely shut down comparable facilities in Europe (75% was the best result ever achieved, IIRC, against a Messerschmitt factory in, IIRC, Regensberg) typically using much larger strikes with much larger payloads, with a/c, targeting systems, and aircrews all designed specifically for this task, controlled by a general staff who'd studied strategic warfare inside and out.

No friggin way that Kido Butai can be effective as a strategic bomber force. Even letting them try is a huge break from reality, since they did not train or even consider training for hitting strategic targets. What the Japanese knoew about strategic warfare could be written on a 3x5 index card using sidewalk chalk.




Chiteng -> (5/1/2003 11:22:20 PM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
[B]What exactly is a Dry Dock made out of? Some flood control valves and concrete. There was not Bo Diddley in the IJN munitions arsenal that could do Oingo Boingo to bunker grade concrete. To nail the valves would require a direct hit to make Luke Skywalker's fictional hit on the DS look like a random drive by shooting.



All very important. All easily replaced. Tracks? Whoopty doo. Replaceable in a day if stocks are to hand. Machine shops? A couple merchant vessels can restore these to full productivity. Ship plans? All archived in Washington. Everything lost can be moved form the West Coast to PH in two weeks. Allow two more weeks to have the whole shebang up and running smoothly.



I really don't agree. The targeting systems of the day, the profusion of hard, small, targets. The relatively low payload of naval attack a/c. Consider Europe: The US was unable to completely shut down comparable facilities in Europe (75% was the best result ever achieved, IIRC, against a Messerschmitt factory in, IIRC, Regensberg) typically using much larger strikes with much larger payloads, with a/c, targeting systems, and aircrews all designed specifically for this task, controlled by a general staff who'd studied strategic warfare inside and out.

No friggin way that Kido Butai can be effective as a strategic bomber force. Even letting them try is a huge break from reality, since they did not train or even consider training for hitting strategic targets. What the Japanese knoew about strategic warfare could be written on a 3x5 index card using sidewalk chalk. [/B][/QUOTE]

They could however hit an oil tank farm, and the ships that fill it.




mdiehl -> (5/1/2003 11:37:49 PM)

[QUOTE]They could however hit an oil tank farm, and the ships that fill it.[/QUOTE]

They could, if the Japanese had studied strategic warfare enough to realize that they were a worthy target. It's less likely than the US having its own version of the Long Lance torpedo in 1941, though.

Hitting the oil tanks with a dedicated strike would put the fueling system nonoperative, with perfect accuracy and target selection, for maybe two months. Oil tanks are easily built and easily rebuilt.




Apollo11 -> Hmmm... (5/2/2003 12:46:00 AM)

Hi all,

This is exactly why I started thread:

"Pearl Harbour question for WitP designers (Matrix/2By3) and BETA testers..."

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37216


I distinctively remember reading (on many places - must find it) that Japanese
did indeed planned the strike on Pearl Harbour that would deliberately target
specialized shipyard repair, supply (oil?) and ammo storage facilities.

But the air commander's wish was turned down by fleet commander.

Also, I distinctively remember reading that, if hit and destroyed, those targets would
hurt US much more than destruction of battleship row (i.e. that the only
similar facilities existed in US west coast and it would take months and
months to repair them in Pearl Harbour).


But in discussion here some of you said that no such facilities existed (like
"mdiehl")...


So... what is the historic truth regarding this?



Leo "Apollo11"


P.S.
Yes, there were no laser guided bombs for small and specific targets in WWII
but there were very very capable dive bombers... let's not forget that...




TIMJOT -> (5/2/2003 1:24:29 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
[B]
No friggin way that Kido Butai can be effective as a strategic bomber force. Even letting them try is a huge break from reality, since they did not train or even consider training for hitting strategic targets. What the Japanese knoew about strategic warfare could be written on a 3x5 index card using sidewalk chalk. [/B][/QUOTE]


Actually the IJN made a study of and applied stategic bombing in China 1937-40. It pioneered hitting ground facilities with a combination of high level and low level attacks. Due to there extensive deployment in China IJN pilots on a whole had more experience attacking ground targets than they did ships.

They did a pretty thorough job of demolishing facilities at Cavite Naval yard, Olangpoa Naval base, Clark field, and Manila air depot. Likewise the naval/repair facilities at Sorebaya. It likely would have fairly destroyed the Singapore Naval base as well, but becuase there was no fleet "in being" there and the fact that they wanted it for themselves, opted not to.

Certainly everything can be replaced, but to do it in your two week time frame (very debatable) one would have to strip facilities on the west coast, with the effect of costly down time and disrutption of those very important facilities. In the short term moveing the Fleet to new facilities might be a more economical and efficient use of resources than moveing new facilities to the Fleet.




mdiehl -> (5/2/2003 1:41:09 AM)

What "facilities" Leo? What are you talking about?

TIMJOT -

The "facilities" strikes in China fairly fall under the clasification of tactical targets. Granted, there's a fuzzy line between A & B. Japan made no effort to study the strategic effects of engaging a 1st world power with substantial production and repair facilities. The PI airbases "demolished" only in the sense that lot's of a/c destroyed and a few buildings. Japan's only way to shut down an airbase was to keep it stripped of a/c long enough to overrun it with infantry. Everything else at these facilities is easily replaced withing a few weeks provided taht a ship can get there to deliver the needed stuff. Ditto for Cavite.

The only really hard to replace stuff at PH were the heavy lift cranes. All the rest was portable and easily replaced. "Stripping" the West Coast of Cranes would slow down ship building and repair on the west coast. Stripping the WC of other equipment wouldn't stop anything for more than a couple weeks.

Dive bombing a crane would not be accurate enough to do the job. About the only way to have a chance of success would be to suicide bomb the cranes.




mogami -> Cranes (5/2/2003 1:44:20 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
[B]What "facilities" Leo? What are you talking about?

TIMJOT -

The "facilities" strikes in China fairly fall under the clasification of tactical targets. Granted, there's a fuzzy line between A & B. Japan made no effort to study the strategic effects of engaging a 1st world power with substantial production and repair facilities. The PI airbases "demolished" only in the sense that lot's of a/c destroyed and a few buildings. Japan's only way to shut down an airbase was to keep it stripped of a/c long enough to overrun it with infantry. Everything else at these facilities is easily replaced withing a few weeks provided taht a ship can get there to deliver the needed stuff. Ditto for Cavite.

The only really hard to replace stuff at PH were the heavy lift cranes. All the rest was portable and easily replaced. "Stripping" the West Coast of Cranes would slow down ship building and repair on the west coast. Stripping the WC of other equipment wouldn't stop anything for more than a couple weeks.

Dive bombing a crane would not be accurate enough to do the job. About the only way to have a chance of success would be to suicide bomb the cranes. [/B][/QUOTE]

Hi, I think we are making cranes into some kind of indestructible beast. What about a simple fighter strafing the beast. If I simply assign 3 bombers with 3 250kg bombs to attack each crane it's going to suffer damage. I only have to hit one leg.




Chiteng -> (5/2/2003 1:44:55 AM)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mdiehl
[B]What "facilities" Leo? What are you talking about?

TIMJOT -

The "facilities" strikes in China fairly fall under the clasification of tactical targets. Granted, there's a fuzzy line between A & B. Japan made no effort to study the strategic effects of engaging a 1st world power with substantial production and repair facilities. The PI airbases "demolished" only in the sense that lot's of a/c destroyed and a few buildings. Japan's only way to shut down an airbase was to keep it stripped of a/c long enough to overrun it with infantry. Everything else at these facilities is easily replaced withing a few weeks provided taht a ship can get there to deliver the needed stuff. Ditto for Cavite.

The only really hard to replace stuff at PH were the heavy lift cranes. All the rest was portable and easily replaced. "Stripping" the West Coast of Cranes would slow down ship building and repair on the west coast. Stripping the WC of other equipment wouldn't stop anything for more than a couple weeks.

Dive bombing a crane would not be accurate enough to do the job. About the only way to have a chance of success would be to suicide bomb the cranes. [/B][/QUOTE]

Sabotage =)




mogami -> Ship Yard Damage (5/2/2003 2:04:41 AM)

Hi, Not to disregard your opinion. How much damage to a ship yard would 150 bombers sent to simply bomb the acreage do?




mdiehl -> (5/2/2003 2:25:25 AM)

[QUOTE]What about a simple fighter strafing the beast. If I simply assign 3 bombers with 3 250kg bombs to attack each crane it's going to suffer damage. I only have to hit one leg.[/QUOTE]

We're talking about a solid concrete pillbox about the size of a house, that moves on a track. The metal base(s) of the crane (where they emerge from the pillbox) are variously, depending on the size of the crane, around 24" in 'diameter.' They're made out of a super high grade high tensile steel, because the crane has to lift really heavy stuff; so a direct hit and only a direct hit will have a hope to cause damage to a supporting element. Shrapnel will bounce off. Concussion won't blow it out of alignment or topple the pillbox using any weapon in Japan's arsenal. You can scrag the tracks, but these can be replaced in a day. As with most cranes of this type, if you hit one of the elements in the lifting arm (or, on smaller cranes that actually have legs, the beastie in that picture does not have "legs as such") these are modular (just high-grade steel beams) and can be replaced modularly.

Take a look at this picture. The ship is USS California undergoing repair at PH. One of the major cranes is visible, low center. The housing on that beastie is bunker-grade concrete:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h83000/h83997.jpg

The thingie astride the bow is another crane (a floating crane) that was brought to PH in 1942 via military tug.

Drydocks:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h83000/h83998.jpg

What exactly is the aiming point for taking out one of those, Mogami? In the spirit of Monty Python's King Arthur talking to the disarmed Black Knight: 'Whatt're ya gonna do? Fill one of them with water?'




LTCMTS -> Port Facilities (5/2/2003 3:05:54 AM)

1. High tolerance repair facilities to handle geared turbine plant repairs, fire control systems, and a myriad of other warship technologies in World War II did not grow on trees and were not easy to build, replace or expand, or the US would not have had to use multiple engineering plants for DEs, the British would have had better gearing for their engineering plants in their warships, reducing their fuel consumption and the German power plants wouldn't have kept breaking down. Destroying the turbine maintenance shop at Pearl Harbor would have forced any ship with stripped gears in its reduction box, or worn blades in its turbines to return to Seattle, Mare Island or San Diego for repairs. This is just one example of the complexity of warship technology even in 1941.

2. By the way, the USN did have a "Long Lance" torpedo. The Mk.16 (sub) and Mk.17 (surface) test programs were completed in early 1941 and production was planned for early 1942 upon completion of a hydrogen peroxide (Navol) fuel plant to feed the torpedoes. IIRC Mk.17 could range to 16,000 yds at 46 kts, equivalent to a later Type 93 and with the adoption of TORPEX in 1943, a larger equivalent warhead in TNT. The Mk.16 fully matched the high speed range of the Type 95.




mdiehl -> (5/2/2003 3:09:25 AM)

I know. I'm saying that Japan having enough strategic sense to follow through with an attack on the PH support facilities is about as likely as the Mk 17 torpedo mounted on US DDs and torp-equipped CLs in 1941.

Turbine shops did, for all intents and purposes, grow on trees in the US in 1942. Repairing the one(s) at PH would have been a piece of cake for the US.




mdiehl -> (5/2/2003 3:16:51 AM)

[QUOTE]How much damage to a ship yard would 150 bombers sent to simply bomb the acreage do?[/QUOTE]

None that could not be fixed in a day.




mogami -> Damage (5/2/2003 3:26:17 AM)

Hi, I don't really want to engage in a debate over what damage 150 250KG bombs would do to PH. I don't think they repaired the actual damage in 2 weeks. If I drop a 250KG bomb on your crane track it will not be repaired 2 weeks later. (I don't think spare track is in warehouse and I don't thinkl the surface the track is laid across will be repaired yet. Dropping a bomb near the lock in a dry dock is going to make the dry dock require repair.

These items are not just laying around in warehouses.

86 out of 100 might have been excessive. In WITP repair is supply and engineers. PH is low on supply from day 1. It will require several weeks for supply to begin arriving from west coast. First piority at PH is going to be the airfields, and then port and then repair. (repair will be busy preventing ships damaged in first strike from sinking.)

The motors on your giant pillboxes are all on the outside.
(The cranes at Philly were/are not made of concrete.)

But enough of my opinion. Do air dropped bombs have any effect on land targets?




mdiehl -> (5/2/2003 4:00:38 AM)

[QUOTE]Hi, I don't really want to engage in a debate over what damage 150 250KG bombs would do to PH. I don't think they repaired the actual damage in 2 weeks. If I drop a 250KG bomb on your crane track it will not be repaired 2 weeks later. (I don't think spare track is in warehouse and I don't thinkl the surface the track is laid across will be repaired yet. Dropping a bomb near the lock in a dry dock is going to make the dry dock require repair.[/QUOTE]

The "actual damage" was largely to ships. Those were not repaired in two weeks. The problem was heavily influenced by the fact that ships have to be patched underwtaer before they'll float. Once they float you have to move em for permanent repair etc. I'm sorry you don't want to debate the effects of the damage, but that IS the [I]heart[/I] of the what happens if we "bomb the 'strategic assets'" at PH question.

Re: a 250Kg bomb will do to a RR track. The effects have been widely documented. Major US railroad companies in 1876 could lay 20 MILES of track per DAY (that includes building the substrate as needed). All a track requires is a stable foundation, ties, and iron. So bingo a 250Kg bomb hits. You fill the hole and compact. That takes about an hour, in my experience, monitoring street construction. Depending on the nature of the foundation and fill, maybe a whole day for a really sizeable hole if you want to start adding a concrete substrate. You lay the new ties and rails. That takes about ten minutes for a hole, say, 50 feet in diameter.

[QUOTE]These items are not just laying around in warehouses.[/QUOTE]

Heck YES they are. It's ties, rails, and concrete. It's not like some secret tech or reserved only for military use. You could fly the darned stuff out from the west coast in a day (more or less depending on the number of holes you wanted to fill) if you did noty have a heap of it to hand. Rail stock and ties could be found in warehouses aplenty throughout the US in 1941 and had it become a critical resource there were hundreds of miles of unused line that could have been pulled up and recycled. Believe me the rail tracks for this thing are trivial to replace.

[QUOTE]86 out of 100 might have been excessive. In WITP repair is supply and engineers. PH is low on supply from day 1. It will require several weeks for supply to begin arriving from west coast. First piority at PH is going to be the airfields, and then port and then repair. (repair will be busy preventing ships damaged in first strike from sinking.)[/QUOTE]

PH is low on supply because of what? The bombing? What sort of supply is lacking? Engineers? Does the game model assume that all the engineers in PH are sitting around a table in abuilding with a sign on the roof that says "Civil Engineering Division: Bomb Here?"

Repair teams don't work that way. The Civil Engineers whose specialty is substrate, rail lines and runways are not going to be involved in ship damage control because they're not going to know anything about it. For that sort of stuff you'd need mechanical engineers that specialize in naval design (like my cousins).

If that's the way Matrix is thinking about repair facilities then this stuff should just be removed from the target list. The only way you're going to wipe out the engineers from the general civil population is to kill most of the civilians. That'd be one really big, soft, amorphous target and would take many more days of bombing than KB can deliver.

[QUOTE]The motors on your giant pillboxes are all on the outside.
(The cranes at Philly were/are not made of concrete.)[/QUOTE]

A motor is a piece of cake to fix. I'm not sure what drives the beastie in the given photo to move it along the rails. I suspect it's the locomotive at center-right. If so, that locomotive is your best target. I think that the US could quickly find a spare locomotive among the 900 or so surplus locomotives that we gave to the USSR.

[QUOTE]But enough of my opinion. Do air dropped bombs have any effect on land targets?[/QUOTE]

Well, yeah, but the effect depends on the target. Take a runway for example. You can crater it to pieces. Depending on how the runway's mad eand what it needs to hold, this can be a critical kill or just another ho-hum repair. Cratering a runway will prevent the Concorde from landing there for a darned long time, but not a 747. Definitely little effect on, say, a C47 or B17 once the rubbish is removed and the hole is filled and compacted (or covered with marston matting).

You can bomb warehouse. These can be rebuilt with wood frame and tin. A few weeks required, tops. Really, anything in PH can be rebuilt or replaced quickly. To mess up a turbine machine shop, for example, you'd need to destroy machine tools like lathes. Basically, the USAAF in Europe discovered that while you can really make a shambles of floor space, ruining machine tools is really hard to do. It requires an intense melting fire or blast damage so big and thorough and dense that big solid steel thingies shear from the blast effects.




Chiteng -> (5/2/2003 4:16:43 AM)

It seems to me that the thrust of Mdeihl's argument is that he doesnt wish to see Japan have any alternative to a traditional
attack on the BB.




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