Slitherine

quote:

Air raid pickets such as at Okinawa were largely "in-hex" in regards to distance and were tied specifically to the amphib op at hand vs. air attack. (a small # of them would exceed a single hex in WitP terms....more so in AE with the reduction in hex size) Besides the distance, these small groups of ships (1-6 depending on the patrol area) were integrated with air CAP's present overhead to help protect them and FDO officers were assigned aboard key picket ships to help co-ord with the carriers providing overall protection to the invasion fleet. They were NOT sacrficial lambs though the mission could be highly dangerous.

They are like an Apples and Oranges comparison whenever the controversial issue of "pickets" comes up in the game. Players tend to use pickets at multi hex distances to give instantanious (and i do mean instantanious) warning of enemy assets in the area due to the nature of the combat report phase as well as draw off attack strength to eliminate them.

Nikademus

quote:

While I agree with you on the ahistory front, I think Alfred made an excellent series of points yesterday concerning merchant crews being sent out as sacrificial lambs. The Allies did not do this, nor would they have. To me this crewing difference is the key variance with the older debate in CR's old AAR concerning sending a DD on an around-the-island recon of Borneo. That wasn't done either, but that was a military crew and the intel they could gather was probably worth the risk. It wasn't done historically either, but I think US admirals woudl have considered it if other intel-gathering not present in the game had not been available.

Bullwinkle

quote:

5. In the game, there are no merchant men on merchant ships; and no Navy men on naval ships. The best way I can approximate what the Allies were able to do in the real war is to employ ships in this fashion. It doesn't matter one whit what kind of ships I use. They are all pretty low value, so the designation doesn't mean much from a victory point standpoint. And I am absolutely certain that the Allies would have done exactly the same thing had they been in my shoes

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert
If you have read the article, one of the few men who survived this strategy explains that the men on these ships DID think they were being sent out sacrificially, (but of course believed in the strategy and the reason for employing it).

quote:


I'm arguing that these methods ARE apples and oranges. But they are both fruit.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Nikademus
As i said.....players are free to do whatever they want in their games as long as both sides agree its kosher. However if someone is try to justify their tactic to me along the lines of historical comparison. I will politely continue to disagree with said viewpoint in such cases as the above.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE
IIRC, the Doolittle raid started early because it bumped into a picket line of fishing trawlers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ChickenOfTheSea
Whichever side I am playing gets tuna boats.
Number and armament negotiable.

quote:

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert
If you have read the article, one of the few men who survived this strategy explains that the men on these ships DID think they were being sent out sacrificially, (but of course believed in the strategy and the reason for employing it).


Many soldiers and sailors have felt as such.....that doesn't mean it was the case. I often feel picked on at work. Doesn't mean the company is gunning for me intentionally.

Nikademus

quote:

That article on the pickets stated that 80% of the 182 destroyers used as pickets were sunk or damaged beyond service. Thats 146 destroyers. The USN didn't lose 146 destroyers in the entire war (Atlantic and Pacific from 1941 to 1945) let alone at Okinawa. Even including all the various classes of picket ships used (DE's, LCI's, etc.), I'd be very surprised that 146 were lost in the entire war, let alone Okinawa. So, let's just say that the article is a little suspect in it's facts.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

IIRC, the Doolittle raid started early because it bumped into a picket line of fishing trawlers.

quote:

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

AFAIK the boat that spotted the Doolittle task force was a patrol boat on picket duty.

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert
He also says if you were the picket 1 ship, and an attack came, you were virtually sure to be sunk. The navy intentionally put them in that position because it had to, and those men knew it and did their duty.

quote:

If you have a real interest in the subject, I suggest this book:

http://www.amazon.com/KAMIKAZES-CORSAIRS-PICKET-SHIPS-Okinawa/dp/1935149415/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1298580737&sr=8-1

It explains the working use of the pickets and the situation that the pilots, sailors and FDO crews working inside some of the ships faced....without the melodrama of the article you read online. The men described in this book did not expect to die but they did do the job despite the risks because it was part of the overall strategy of the amphibious op being conducted.

Nikademus

quote:

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

So from a combat sense, I don't find much of a difference.  They are both suicide missions no matter if you're in a PB or an xAk.

From a mouseclick standpoint... it's far less mouseclicks to put a 4k endurance xAKL on a spot, than it is a 1.5k AM.  2.5k endurance worth of less mouseclicks.  If you use xAKLs, then you also free up ships, as you have less ships "intransit every 1k endurance". 

This is all a "convenience" issue for the Allies.  It's not a difference in the actual combat theaters.  Those lanes should always be plugged, the allies have plenty enough crap-combat ships to throw away on picket duty.

But making xAKL's not able to do picket duty does free THEM up for something else.  Transport duty.  If the allies aren't using xAKL's for picket duty (by choice, or hr), then they can all be grouped up in a couple of tf's and make fuel transport runs to bases every month.

quote:

ORIGINAL: HMSWarspite

All the 'gamey' threads end up going the same way, mostly because there is no one single definition of 'gamey'. In my book, gamey is any tactic that either exploits a weakness of the code (ammunition magnets for example), or strays in to areas of RL that are just not in scope of the game, or otherwise are not modelled. An example of the latter is the use of Merchant ships as pickets. The developers have not considered what would happen to a merchant in such a role, or to the rest of the ships in the game. If single merchants had a high % chance of not showing any reports when they get hit by overwhelming force (equals anything larger than a SC/PB!), and were highly inaccurate and slow in their reports even when they do see small forces, and had a very high chance of going off and hiding rather than patrolling where they were meant to be (said chance =fn(number of merchants lost in the same role)), using them as a picket would be not too gamey.

Since this is not the case, the tactic must be considered gamey, even if in real life it was possible/likely to happen.

The key is not to look at the input (player action) but the result (game outcome).

quote:

ORIGINAL: PMN

nteresting discussion and I totally agree with the above. My issue with this is not so much the recon/intel aspect of it - it's the fact that my carrier TF out hunting for the other side's carriers invariably launch a full alpha strike on a poor djonk. Doesn't matter to me if it was on picket or just hauling supply to some outpost. My carrier commander should be spanked for expending a third of his torpedo loadout on anything other than major enemy fleet units! But since there is no way to tell him to hold back on the ammo UNTIL he finds a carrier (or possibly a fat troop/tanker convoy) this is what happens...

/M

quote:

ORIGINAL: PMN

Ah, after all these years I could still probably write a book about all the things I do not know about this game. Well maybe I exaggerated a bit - but the fact remains that even a 12 DB strike on an out of the way xAKL is too much when I'm out carrier-hunting and every sortie counts...