Paul Goodman
Posts: 198
Joined: 7/5/2000 From: Portsmouth, VA, USA Status: offline
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I agree with Mogami on the necessity of waiting things out as the Allies. In the long scenarios, I immediately attempt to defend Gili Gili, then begin a long, kind of boring, build up of supplies, aircraft, and equipment. The amount of shipping available seems to vary from game-to-game, depending on something I haven't been able to deduce. The Japanese submarine uber-weapon is just plain preposterous and needs to be fixed and quickly. I've had to abandon an invasion hex, despite 24 destroyers in the hex and over 300 aircraft on ASW. I ought to be very very difficult for either countries submarines to torpedo cruising undamaged warships. Something is definitely wrong with carrier aviation. In a recent action, in mid 1943, the following occured. I (the U.S.) occupied Shortlands and Buin. The Japanese had been bombarding Buin, with considerable effect. I decided to attack Rabaul. Having determined that task force speed has nothing to do with the speed of the ships in it and that destroyers were useless, I had a task force of 4 fleet carriers, 5 CVE and heavy, light and AA cruisers to make of 15 ships. Two destroyer squadrons of 12 destroyers each and a cruiser squadron accompanied this group, as did two replenishment TF (again, no destroyers in these, as it slows them down). I sent a cruiser/destroyer force to Shortlands from Guadalcanal. P-38's swept Rabaul each day, suppressing the fighters. Heavy bombers from PM bombed the airfield each day. During the cruise, the plan seemed to working. I arrived off of Rabaul with overwhelming force, around 200 fighters and over 140 Dauntless. He, Haw, a task force is in Rabaul with Yamato and Musashi! Nothing! The whole deal just sits there doing nothing! Fighters shoot down a few small raids. Here's a curiosity, there were a pretty good group of bombers in Rabaul, but they wouldn't attack due to (I assume) lack of fighter escort. I was attacked by Nell's and Betty's out of Truk. Also no mention of missions being cancelled. All aircraft were, by the way, well rested, experienced and had high morale. Hell, the bombers were even set to naval attack. Next turn, the Japanese task force attempted to bombard Buin. the CA/CL/DD task force I sent to Shortlands reacted. RATS! I only lost a destroyer, but the two heavy cruisers will spend the rest of the game in Pearl. Then the Japanese task force appears adjacent to my fleet and one hex from Rabaul. Nothing. No air attacks (fortunately no reaction from my cruiser force, either). The whole mess just sits there doing nothing. Missions are not cancelled. Mitchell's from Gili Gili bomb the Japanese task force, actually hitting Musashi with a couple of 500 pounders, but 140 dive bombers sit 30 miles away and do nothing. Next, the Japanese TF, minus the BB's is in Rabaul, still no attacks, no nothing (by cheating, I discovered that the BB's had detached and gone to Truk). Next the TF shows up north of Truk, out of range. BUT a task force of AP's shows up in Rabaul. Off goes the Dauntlesses, down go the AP's, great slaughter. The most disturbing thing about this is that it seems to be some kind of repeat of the frustrations of PacWar. Superweapon submarines and carrier aircraft that will not attack the obvious target. It really seems as though it is intentional on the part of the designers. As GG never comments publicly on anything, it's a little difficult to know what to expect in the way of a fix. Also, on the shipping issue, just change the commitment to 150 percent. You'll get all kinds of stuff, which will unbalance the game. Just keep what you should have and send the rest back. It does seem to me that when you select "historical", you ought to get "historical". Paul
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