Ron Saueracker
Posts: 12121
Joined: 1/28/2002 From: Ottawa, Canada OR Zakynthos Island, Greece Status: offline
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Heyho. Well, it has been a month away from this latest frustrating one sided battle and I'm less stressed. Did not help that I was awaiting a response from the medics regarding a tumour biopsy in my head! Benign thankfully. I wonder if the tumour is WITPs fault...being so close to a monitor for years?! My big arse beef regarding this result is that yet again the Allied CVs get pounded without launching (every CV battle Bill and I've had in both our games have been one sided with the Japs launching over two air phases at extreme range and the Allied CVs never launching or reacting one hex to close the range). This is not exactly sour grapes. For one thing, Bill and I are playing two games, one in 43 which I'm winning as Allies (no CVs lost on either side despite two CV exchanges where the USN was hit at extreme IJN range and unable to respond against IJN CVs) and this one in mid 42 which Bill is leading. I'm not throwing in the towel because of one bad result, we have had three consecutive one sided exchanges in two games (100% of the CV battles) which just does not wash IMO. Secondly, ust for the record, can anyone post an historical example of a CV exchange where one side had the range advantage in aircraft endurance and the opposing CVs could not reply during the same period due to shorter ranged aircraft? (The IJN strikes by Ozawa during Phillipine Sea can't be mentioned here as they launched well outside their own range and were to utilize Marianas airstrips between themselves and the USN TFs, which is one of the many things the game can't handle) The naval air model is not really capable of handling the range differences in aircraft because of its' inherent level of abstractness. Not only can't a Midway result happen with aircraft caught on a carriers deck when the enemy is within range of each other (unless of course the Allies get nailed at range extreme range...the only way a Midway result happens it seems, especially since the search model is so generous to the recon aircraft) but I've sat through three consecutive CV "battles" where the Allies get creamed at long range and don't respond, despite having friendly air bases between themselves and the enemy CVs (which would also permit a launch and safe recovery in lieu of the TFs themselves closing the range to allow recovery). The reaction rules fail to alleviate this because folks tend to set reaction to 0 or 1 to reign in the uncontrollable urge of CVs to close vastly superior forces regardless of a setting of zero reaction, damage, LBA, cautious COs and lastly the inability of TFs set to follow to do just that if the lead TF reacts (basically each TF reacts and does not remain cohesive resulting in your TFs being spread out over multiple haexes and open to destruction in detail). In lieu of any programming modifications the only thing I can think of to make this acceptable is to equalize the ranges of naval aircraft to ensure mutual exchanges within this very abstract model. Hard to handle playing for a year only to have something totally unrealistic and strategically decisive happen such as CVs not launching because of the limitations of the model whereas in real life every CV battle we experienced with the IJN pounding the Allies at extreme range with impunity would have seen mutual air group launchings instead. I still have the games and saves on my PC Bill. If there was a way we could fix this so that both our CVs launched then I'd be happy to continue. Longer term fixes outside of database adjustments or reprogramming might be as simple as limiting the max launch range for Jap CV aircraft to the max of the Allied CV aircraft.
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Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan
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