Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros


January 13th 1942.

1. Enterprise is gone! After two days struggle to stay afloat till she reached Ambon she went down in The Moluccan Sea. Most of her planes evaded to Menado,
only 5 damaged Wildcats followed her down.


What happened to Big E? I went back through page one and could not find mention of damage to her? Perhaps you mean Yorktown?



2. That Japanese carrier force – it must be the KB - is going totally bananas! It has now rounded the south-western corner of Celebes. It consists of several
CV, CVE’s and BB’s. In The Macassar Strait our scouts counted 7 CV and CVE’s. Now there are only 3 CV’s that we know of. A Dutch tanker convoy returning to
Soerebaja from Ambon was caught east of Soerebaja. 6 ships went down. What are their intentions? Are they heading for Ambon via the back door, or Timor or Darwin?
No enemy transport fleets are known to be in their vicinity.

The initial IJA landings in the DEI tend to be southern Sumatra, Western Java and the Celebes area (including southern Borneo). Ambon generally is assaulted after air bases are established in the other islands to suppress Ambon.

3. Last day and night’s attacks on the Ternate garrison was a great success. 9 PB’s and transports are claimed sunk, most by gunfire and DD torpedoes but also
a 1000 lb SAP bomb – Enterprise’s SBD’s flying from Menado? Those ships not sunk are retreating towards Palau.

The Combat Report will tell you what kind of aircraft dropped the bomb. Did you fly A-24 Banshees or SBD-1 Vindicators into the area?

4. IJN I-121 depth-charged and claimed sunk near Lihue.

5. 7 Wildcats lost during the last 2 days, inclusive those going down with Enterprise. 3 B-17E’s, too. That is not good.

6. What to do with Lexington? She is now just west of Ambon. Should I fly off her planes and send her down to Brisbane to pick up the P-40’s for the Luzon
fighter squadrons? Her fighter complement consists of 27 Buffalos. If the P-40’s are flown north by heaps and bounds there’s got to be numbers of OPS losses.
OTH, the pilots accompanying them are frightfully inexperienced and obviously have little to do in a combat zone. But, it is 68 fighters! Is it possible to have
pilots stranded on Bataan flown out?

CV's are a strategic asset, not an aircraft ferry. Without their air group they are a helpless target under enemy attack, and you can bet the Philippines will now have lots of Japanese aircraft around it. Using Lexington to ferry would be like the RN's mistake using CV Courageous to hunt subs.
Lex is needed to escort troop convoys and keep them safe from surface raiders like AMCs and CLs. (Escorting carriers should be in their own TF, not part of the troop convoy!) Use xAKs to transport the aircraft somewhere close to Mindanao, then land them where there is air support and fly them in.

7. The C-47 transport flight is holding up well. I plan to fly in the 2 Aussie Ind. Coys. in Menado to Mindanao to help in the defense.

8. Another Japanese TF with carrier escort is just south of Davao, proceeding west. I’ll let them in peace till their intentions are clearer.

Other than subs and expendable PT boats, you should avoid strong IJN carrier groups like the plague!

9. The Davao landing force has expanded south to Digos and the former USN base in Malalag Bay. They shall surely try to cut across Mindanao to Cagayan.
They failed in their earlier try but are much stronger now.

Fred

quote:

BBF wrote: What happened to Big E? I went back through page one and could not find mention of damage to her?

quote:

BBF wrote: CV's are a strategic asset, not an aircraft ferry. Without their air group they are a helpless target under enemy attack, and you can bet the
Philippines will now have lots of Japanese aircraft around it.

quote:

BBF wrote: Lex is needed to escort troop convoys and keep them safe from surface raiders like AMCs and CLs. (Escorting carriers should be in their own TF,
not part of the troop convoy!).

quote:

Use xAKs to transport the aircraft somewhere close to Mindanao, then land them where there is air support and fly them in.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros
She was damaged while lingering in Donggela Bay preparing to attack the enemy CV force in The Macassar Strait. They obviously got ahead of her. It was a BIG enemy
TF. She diverted her planes to Menado automatically and I directed her towards Ambon. On her way flooding only increased.

There is a repeated problem. I have several times concentrated quite large air forces towards the Jap carrier force but they don’t seem to find it as there is no
action mentioned on it when it runs the scenario. As I understand it, to attack an enemy unit at sea I have to use the “Naval Attack” and “Recon”, specifying the
flown angle of the “recon” search area. Is there another way?

quote:

Yaab wrote: Leandros, I see you like to play historically.

Here is what I try to do.

Allies enjoy the benefit of unified supply. Since supply in the game represents food, construction materials, ammunition and devices, you can use the supply from
Java to bolster the PI/US forces in Philippines. This leads to gamey tactics (empty Java of supplies, move the supply to Philippines, resupply Java from Colombo,
refill Colombo from Indian supply etc.)

quote:

Yaab wrote: What I am doing in my game is to divide supply into 5 national pools: Commonwealth, Chinese, Soviet, Dutch and US/PI. Combat units and ships can
only use their respective national pools. The only exception is the Chinese using US supply.

quote:

Yaab wrote: Thus, you can only reinforce Luzon with US supply. Thus, Pensacola convoy needs to move to Luzon, and any other additional supply has to come
from PH (closest source of the US supply). Dutch get no help whatsoever. Americans need to ship supplies from CONUSA to India before they can move it by air from
Ledo to India etc.

quote:

Yaab wrote: Only non-combat units (HQs, base forces, construction regiments) can use ANY supply. Thus a US construction regt can be moved to India and
freely use Commonwealth supply for developing bases in India.

Try it, it really adds another level of planning to this great game.

quote:

BBF wrote: Re: finding the enemy TFs, Naval Search is absolutely essential to pinpoint the enemy TF location and composition so that a successful attack can
be made. Unless you have the enemy pinpointed during the night the morning air phase is usually taken up by search looking for them and, if found, the attacks
tend to be in the afternoon.

quote:

BBF wrote: I usually set my DB on Naval Attack but use the section below that to set 20% Search. Sometimes the search aircraft will return in time to take
part in the strike. Sometimes the search aircraft will attack by themselves after they radio their contact report - this happens a lot with submarine sightings.
It is good to also have PBYs doing search to assist your TFs. Many players have noted that search beyond 12 hex range tends to be ineffective, and will increase
the chance of ops losses to your patrol aircraft. Its all part of the huge learning curve for this game! ..

quote:

BBF wrote: For the Malta operations the RN had to assemble several carriers - one or two to bring the fly-in aircraft and one or two to provide CAP on the
way in. With Enterprise gone and Yorktown damaged, Lexington cannot carry significant land based fighter numbers plus have her own air group. Add to that the
consideration that the Japanese have very long range naval torpedo bombers in the Betty and Nell which can put the Lexington in danger long before it can launch the ferried aircraft. Then there are the very strong surface combat forces, especially those with the big, fast heavy cruisers. My take is that the situation between DEI and Philippines is much more risky that the Med where at least the RN still commanded the seas.

quote:

BBF wrote: There are some game nods to aircraft assembly times. Putting them on a simple "Transport" TF means they are disassembled and crated, and take
about three days to reassemble. Putting them on an xAK in an "Air Transport" TF means they are not disassembled, but are tied on deck and covered, probably
drained of fuel. These take one or two days to put into operation.
Putting them on an AKV in an "Air Transport" TF means they are stored intact below deck, some of them slung from the overhead beams to use the space. These are
ready to go the turn after they unload.

quote:

wdolson wrote: Not only do TFs need to be found with air search, but whether an attack is launched or not depends on the local commanders. If the commanders
are poor and timid, they will be more reluctant to go after well defended targets. Aggressive commanders will go after well defended targets, but losses will
likely be very high and results will probably be poor. In the early going IJN 1st line fighters and their pilots are better than any Allied pilots except possibly
the AVG and all Allied fighters.

quote:

jmalter wrote: Dunno where exactly 'Donggela Bay' is, but CV/CVL airgroups are hampered by 50% if they're flying from a TF located in a base hex.

quote:

jmalter wrote: When a ship is heavily damaged, you must immediately change its TF to 'cruise speed', & change its destination to a nearby port. Even if the
damaged ship has been auto-transferred to an EscortTF, you must manually change the TF speed to 'cruise', otherwise the TF will accrue add'l damage as it attempts
to escape.

quote:

jmalter wrote: wrt Attack settings from CV TF airgroups, Recon is useless against naval targets. In early-war, a USN CV has 2 dive-bomber groups. When the
TF is moving in for a strike operation, each DB group should be set to Naval Attack, altitude 10-15k', w/ 20-30% set to Search. Leave the search-angles alone,
unless you've got a very specific target in view, & have nearby patrol-plane search to assure that your flanks are covered.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

For the Malta operations the RN had to assemble several carriers - one or two to bring the fly-in aircraft and one or two to provide CAP on the way in.

England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros
I understand that but how is the “morning” and “afternoon” differentiated?

quote:


I’m not sure I understand this completely. If one part of the squadron is set to 20% search, what happens to the rest of it? How are they tasked – and when?

WitP AE - Test team lead, programmer

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson
They fly whatever other missions they are assigned, unless that is also search. So a unit set to naval attack with 20% search will use 20% of its aircraft for
searching and reserve the other 80% to attack any ships found by the searching planes, or other searching planes. There is a bit of a higher likelihood planes will fly a naval attack if the target is found by their own search aircraft.

Bill

quote:

ORIGINAL: Leandros

quote:

ORIGINAL: wdolson
They fly whatever other missions they are assigned, unless that is also search. So a unit set to naval attack with 20% search will use 20% of its aircraft for
searching and reserve the other 80% to attack any ships found by the searching planes, or other searching planes. There is a bit of a higher likelihood planes will fly a naval attack if the target is found by their own search aircraft.

Bill

OK, I think I've got it now. I've probably searched in a too narrow area as the day after they've usually been in a very different place.

Fred

quote:

ORIGINAL: Wargmr

When you set a search arc you will notice that part is blue and part is green. You can set searches clockwise and counter clockwise. An arc that is small enough will show up as black.

It is my understanding that blue means morning, green means afternoon and black means the planes will attempt to fly both phases.

By manipulating the arcs you can determine what phase your planes search a particular area.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jmalter

hi Fred,

This game is all about Supply & Fuel, distributed to where it's needed. Oil & Resources are also v. important to an IJ player, less so to the Allies - though I'll note that Oz needs Oil, & Pearl needs Resources, to keep their industry producing Supply.

Industry can get damaged by attacks, so look at Pearl to see if its Shipyard suffered damage on 7Dec41. Set its Repair to ON. Other bases under Allied control might start the game w/ damaged Industry, & areas under attack might suffer damage. The game wants to repair damage, so it's important to look at the Industry screen (hotkey J) from time to time. A base can repair 1 point of each damaged industry per day, provided it has at least 10k Supply points on hand, + 1k Supply points for each repair.

Look at your China Industry, & turn Repair OFF for all damaged Industry, do the same for all Dutch & Phillipine Industries. 1000 Supply points are more useful for defense. A repaired Heavy Industry point will produce 2 Supply points per day, so it takes 500 days to break even on the cost of repair. A Light Industry point needs 1000 days to justify its repair cost.

Likewise, look at your base construction. Each Engr point (an Engr Vehicle = 5 Engr points) spends 1 Supply point per day/night phase to repair or build base facilities. Only Engrs in a Combat-mode LCU can repair or build. Engrs will always attempt to repair base facilities (in order of Runway, then Airfield facilities, then Port facilities) before they will attend to new construction of Forts or Air/Port expansion. Damage-repair takes priority over new construction.

If a base's defenses aren't strong enough to prevent add'l damage, & it doesn't have enough supplied Engrs to make the needed repairs each day, that's a sure sign that the base is circling the drain. If a base is under attack, it should try to build Forts.

Spending effort & supply to build Port & Airbase capacity at a threatened base is unwise - if the base falls to the enemy, you've made a gift.