tsimmonds
Posts: 5498
Joined: 2/6/2004 From: astride Mason and Dixon's Line Status: offline
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Unfortunately the only tool available to control at-sea refueling is to micromanage your DH and your home port with the aim of keeping the total distance from your present location out to the DH and then back to the home port as small as possible. I think a lot of the time when guys see their TF unaccountably disobey their movement orders, it is because even though their DH may be just a few hexes distant, they have set a home port many hundreds or or even some thousands of miles away, and the AI decides it's a no-go. The only other trick to handle this is to set your important TFs to follow a replenishment TF as they move in non-contact situations. Leave the replenishment TF behind only for the final run to whatever violence you have planned, and have the replenishment TF move to a planned rendezvous point. Which is, of course, precisely how it was done IRL. IJ, in particular, may find itself tied quite closely to bases and replenishment TFs because of the extremely short legs of its DDs. THe older DDs, which otherwise make decent CVTF escorts because of their relatively good AA and ASW ratings, have endurance of only 3000-4000. The nice modern DDs are all less than 6000. Only the Akitsukis have decent range. The IJ CVs too, have fairly restricted operating radii, and Yamato burns fuel at a ferocious rate. The fact that these are the ships the DDs will try to replenish from in the absence of AOs just makes it that much worse.
< Message edited by irrelevant -- 2/10/2007 7:40:07 PM >
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