dpstafford
Posts: 1910
Joined: 5/26/2002 From: Colbert Nation Status: offline
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by juliet7bravo [B]I've tested the bombardment TF thingee carefully, by adding in bunches of PBY search planes so I can watch exactly what's going on, and from playing both sides simultaneously. The bomb TF's will always stage just outside of LBA range, usually about 10 hexes away. That's a 600 mile round trip, or a constant 25 miles an hour. As much as it pains me to admit, it's possible...barely. Eric is almost undoubtedly correct, it's the DD's attached not having enough fuel to do the mission. If you refuel in route at the staging point, then they have too many OP points to get in/out in time. This happens when you're using a slow (relatively) BB...it's just fast enough to do the job on its own, BUT it slows down the DD's, yet the DD's are still going fast enough to use max fuel, thus creating a vicious cycle where "you can't get there from here". No matter what they do, they can't complete the mission under the parameters for a bombardment mission, ie. shell at night and get out of Dodge. IJN DD's were notoriously short-legged fuel hogs, so it's not a glitch in the code or the ship stats...more like showing the codes accuracy, plus the TF commander stopping and giving you an opportunity to "save" them from certain death within the LBA envelope. [/B][/QUOTE] I don't think they are staging "just outside of LBA range". LBA range is too variable. I think they are staging so that the DH is exactly half of the TF's (full day) max speed move away. The rest I'll buy. It's probably the DD's. So the question is what should the TF commander do when he sees he can't complete the mission. Should he sit in the middle of the Bismarck Sea, or return to home port. I think it should ALWAYS be the latter (when RETIREMENT ALLOWED is selected). And that the program should be changed. The deadly embrace you describe should not be allowed, by programming, to occur.
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