Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat?

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> War In The Pacific - Struggle Against Japan 1941 - 1945 >> The War Room >> Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat?

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Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/6/2005 8:12:43 PM

DrewMatrix

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I have noticed in my playing WITP that there is almost no ship vs ship combat. This may be a function of my style of play. I tend to mass Land Based Air, then advance short distances under cover of LBA.

I get lots of enemy A/C attacking my TFs, and I get lots of attacks on enemy TFs with my LBA, but I don't see the enemy sailing into areas I have so much air cover to contest the sea with a fleet, nor am I willing to sail out of range of my LBA protection.

Do others play with a different style?

It seems risky, given that you can hop A/C from anywhere in transfer range to mass where you see an enemy TF near one of your bases.

(Of course War Plan Orange will solve the "Lack of ship to ship combat problem"

)

< Message edited by Beezle -- 1/6/2005 6:14:53 PM >

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/6/2005 8:16:49 PM

2ndACR

Posts: 5665
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Me and Panzer have fought a couple surface battles. Against Ron we have quite a few surface fights.

Pzb came after my landing at Balikapan with surface forces the day after I sent my bigger surface combat unit back for ammo. He thrashed my small CL with 4 DD anti PT boat TF.

But I smashed him 2 days later with oogles of Betty's.

All in all, I must say that yes, I have tons of surface fights in my PBEM games. Now if only I can get Ron to come play with Yamato and her friends.

(in reply to DrewMatrix)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/6/2005 8:40:54 PM

Tom Hunter

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Are you playing the AI or PBEM?

One of my PBEM games has a surface battle every 3 or 4 days including some involving BBs and BCs (go Force Z go) though more often they are PT boat or other ambushes. My other game has fewer of these because my opponent makes better use of air assets which its sounds as if your doing as well.

Both these games are in early January 42 as we get farther along and Allied LBA starts to be a bigger factor I expect the number of surface combats in the second game to increase as well.

(in reply to 2ndACR)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/6/2005 9:49:56 PM

DrewMatrix

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I play only vs the AI (due to time limitations). Actually I am impressed the AI has the wit not to send CAs and BBs too close to my LBA bases. Instead it tries to contest with its own LBAs.

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(in reply to Tom Hunter)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/7/2005 3:17:25 AM

Hornblower

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I had my fare share of combat in 41-early 42 in the DEI. Mostly it was my TF's set on react in a vain attempt to hold back the japanese hord. They'd hit and sink 1-2 AK's then leave the rest...

IJN started contact normally if they went in to bombard, or intercepted the above TF's...

(in reply to DrewMatrix)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/7/2005 4:01:21 AM

medicff

Posts: 710
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From: WPB, Florida
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I have a PBEM game in effect currently and my opponent likes the ship combat hence several battles have occurred around PI and DEI. You must want them and hope to catch your opponent there by chance or not paying attention though.

(in reply to DrewMatrix)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/7/2005 4:34:05 PM

AmiralLaurent

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From: Near Paris, France
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Beezle

I play only vs the AI (due to time limitations). Actually I am impressed the AI has the wit not to send CAs and BBs too close to my LBA bases. Instead it tries to contest with its own LBAs.

The Allied AI is probably hard-coded to run as fast as he can at the start of the game. I wonder if it will do something of its warships until 1943.

In PBEM, I have often seen extensive ships vs ships battles. As the Japanese I like to send small DD/CL TF to hunt for fleeing Allied ships. On the other hand, I have also defetaed force Z in a sea battle. Well to be honest, it tries to oppose an invasion of Kuching but I saw them the day before so i ordered the transports to stay at sea with their escorts, while all Betties/Nells in the area were ordered on naval attack.

During the night, force Z was off Kuching as planned, found nothing and was found the next day by my planes, that disabled Repulse and a CL. And the next night my surface ships strike on the supposed retreat path of the British. The POW was fatally hit during the night battle but manage to damage (SYS 40) a Japanese BB. And the day phase saw the damaged Repulse and his escort DD end in the same hex as my ships and they were both sunk.

(in reply to DrewMatrix)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/7/2005 4:48:28 PM

WhoCares

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quote:

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent
...

The Allied AI is probably hard-coded to run as fast as he can at the start of the game. I wonder if it will do something of its warships until 1943.
...

In my game it does, at least in the Pacific. I had some nice BB battles around Guadalcanal - until its BBs were sunk the next day(s) by my Betties/Nells

.
However, I still have to see any british ships in the Indian Ocean/Bay of Bengal, and I am already in 9/42; only a few freighters were seen around Akyab and Daimond Harbour, that's it...

(in reply to AmiralLaurent)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/7/2005 5:12:38 PM

Tom Hunter

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Amiral Laurent outplayed his opponent at Kuching and sunk Force Z. I don't think the Allied player was reading the ops reports if he had been he might have known that the Japanese knew the location of Force Z.

If your playing allied its a really good idea to check the hex numbers for Force Z and your 3 CV TFs every turn and see if any of them show up in the ops report. If they do then run away.

< Message edited by Tom Hunter -- 1/7/2005 3:13:11 PM >

(in reply to WhoCares)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/7/2005 8:13:03 PM

AmiralLaurent

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quote:

ORIGINAL: WhoCares

quote:

ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent
...

The Allied AI is probably hard-coded to run as fast as he can at the start of the game. I wonder if it will do something of its warships until 1943.
...

In my game it does, at least in the Pacific. I had some nice BB battles around Guadalcanal - until its BBs were sunk the next day(s) by my Betties/Nells .
However, I still have to see any british ships in the Indian Ocean/Bay of Bengal, and I am already in 9/42; only a few freighters were seen around Akyab and Daimond Harbour, that's it...

Well you're right. But it is probably another case of hard coding. The AI will fight for PM and Guadalcanal to the death (well its death usually) but will probably not react with ships if you land in Australia or New Zealand. If you want to have a good game against AI, you should follow an historical path.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

Amiral Laurent outplayed his opponent at Kuching and sunk Force Z. I don't think the Allied player was reading the ops reports if he had been he might have known that the Japanese knew the location of Force Z.

In this case it was rather a story of a hunter closing the deer and not seing the bear family coming close. I had seen force Z while he had seen only my AP convoy and not my 2 surface covering forces, that were coming from other operations and were scheduled to arrive at the target the same day as the convoy. My BB were at Khota Bharu just before and he probably thought they were refueling somewhere. Except that they had refueld in KB where I had sent an AO, so they may sail directly to Kuching.

I also watched each turn in PBEM and take notes while watching.

This battle took place around 16-18 Dec 1941. Force Z was coming from Java (probably). The funny part was that after the battle I sent some MSW to the place and found that probably all Dutch ML had laid their engine here so my AP went to Invade Miri and Brunei instead. Kuching was saved. Had I not seen its force, my surface force would probably have been hit by the minefields before the night battle and the score would have not been the same. But I had two Mavis squadrons and one Nell group doing naval search at this time in the area. That helps.

(in reply to WhoCares)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 10:53:20 AM

Hirohito

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Joined: 9/10/2004
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Beezle

I have noticed in my playing WITP that there is almost no ship vs ship combat. This may be a function of my style of play. I tend to mass Land Based Air, then advance short distances under cover of LBA.

I get lots of enemy A/C attacking my TFs, and I get lots of attacks on enemy TFs with my LBA, but I don't see the enemy sailing into areas I have so much air cover to contest the sea with a fleet, nor am I willing to sail out of range of my LBA protection.

Do others play with a different style?

It seems risky, given that you can hop A/C from anywhere in transfer range to mass where you see an enemy TF near one of your bases.

(Of course War Plan Orange will solve the "Lack of ship to ship combat problem" )

As the Allied player, I put anything I can get my hands on into the air on naval search and flood areas that I think the Empire will be sailing through with subs hoping that I will get ops reports on the location of the Empires transports. I put the carriers in small task forces, one carrier per TF with most planes on naval search also looking for transports. I make lots of small TFs with one BB, BC, CA or CL and one or two DD and put these around the periphery of the main Empire activity. I watch closely for transports that wander too far from combat ship protection and then launch hit and run raids on them. If the japanese player is playing extremely aggressively many opportunties will present themselves to hit unprotected transports, usually after they have landed troops. If the Japanese player plays very conservatively then there won't be as many opportunities to hit transports.

I had one game where Force Z was a huge thorn in the Empire's side conducting hit and run raids against transports up and down the malay coast. It seemed that Z was always where the Empire's capital ships weren't. EVentually Z was caught by a force containing 5 BB and the entire TF was sunk but not before Z wreaked havoc on the transports. I don't know if this was dumb luck or if hugging the coast makes it more difficult for an enemy TF to react to intercept your movement. The Japanese player had played very aggressively and landed troops on both sides of the Malay peninsula at the same time.

As the Japanese player I send large TFs with several BB and CA to ports where I think the Allied TFs might be heading or refueling. I also station TFs at choke points with reaction set to 6 and with a replenishment TF in the same hex, so that any allied TF trying to pass by will be reacted to and intercepted. I put CS or AV either in these TF or nearby. As the Japanese player my goal is to remove the combat ships in the allied fleet completely as soon as possible so I am willing to suffer losses, even significant losses to accomplish this, so I am very aggressive in seeking out allied fleets even if they are under air cover.

Not all hexes can be sailed through by larger ships and I made a map showing which hexes are impassable by larger ships, that makes the possible routes to and from certain areas very predictable, I put TFs in these chokepoints hoping a hapless convoy will come that way.

I found making a map like this invaluable.

Hirohito

(in reply to DrewMatrix)

Post #: 11

RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 4:48:30 PM

derwho

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From: Finland
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quote:

I have noticed in my playing WITP that there is almost no ship vs ship combat. This may be a function of my style of play. I tend to mass Land Based Air, then advance short distances under cover of LBA.

Noticed the same thing.

I'm playing one PBEM game - don't have the time for more. We are playing 3 day turns, me as the IJN. We are in March '42. Some very light surface action has been going on but due to the fact that my worthwhile opponent is more or less retreating all the time we haven't had any good surface action.

I really don't know if this has anything to do with our style of play. I'm now consolidating the SRA and cleaning up Java. My strategy has been to build up airbases around targets and station Bettys and Nells with aircover to keep my opponent from moving in surface forces. I've mostly been using SC-TF's for point defence of bases or bombardment. I've sunk quite a bunch of my opponents assets, including 4BB's and a stack of CA's, CL's and DD's just with my carriers and land based airforces.

I wish we would have the possiblity to react with surface combat TF's. I'd be doing convoy raiding deep behind enemy lines all the time. ;)

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(in reply to Hirohito)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 5:36:58 PM

Feinder

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Rememeber that surface groups must both end their turns in the hex with an opposing unit (and must detect, leaders must attack, and a bunch of other stuff). It's not easy to get a surface intercept.

It's also probably harder to get an intercept if you're playing 2 or 3 day turns. In these cases, it's probably at the end of each day (that they must be in the same hex), but it's harder to guestimate where you're going to be at the end of each day (much less your opponent), so it's probably even harder to get intercepts when doing multiday turns.

In my 2 PBEM games, I've gotten a fair amount of surface intercepts, but it's usually centered aroudn objective bases where we know the bad-guys are coming, and squat a couple of cruisers to defend the place. We got a few mid-ocean intercepts on a convoy that we scattered, but that was also from splitting up our own surface group into singles, and saturating the area that the convoy remnents would be moving thru. Naturally, you wouldn't want to be splitting up when trying to engage another surface group tho.

-F-

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 5:48:18 PM

AmiralLaurent

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quote:

ORIGINAL: drwho

I'd be doing convoy raiding deep behind enemy lines all the time. ;)

I'm doing convoy raiding with surface forces most of the times, convoys only move one or two hexs during a turn so chances of a night intercept at sea are high.

I send surface TF just out of enemy LBA range, fly extensive naval search to find TFs (Jakes aboard cruisers are very useful for this due to their great range) and if there is a target and no immediate danger dash at full speed at night, strike and then retreat.
As target is usually merchant shipping, I use cautious admirals so they will not fight to the death in case a stronger enemy TF reacts or is just at the bad place. On the other hand they will always be enough to sink merchant and auxiliaries.

(in reply to derwho)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 6:12:23 PM

Hirohito

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Rememeber that surface groups must both end their turns in the hex with an opposing unit (and must detect, leaders must attack, and a bunch of other stuff). It's not easy to get a surface intercept.

It's also probably harder to get an intercept if you're playing 2 or 3 day turns. In these cases, it's probably at the end of each day (that they must be in the same hex), but it's harder to guestimate where you're going to be at the end of each day (much less your opponent), so it's probably even harder to get intercepts when doing multiday turns.

In my 2 PBEM games, I've gotten a fair amount of surface intercepts, but it's usually centered aroudn objective bases where we know the bad-guys are coming, and squat a couple of cruisers to defend the place. We got a few mid-ocean intercepts on a convoy that we scattered, but that was also from splitting up our own surface group into singles, and saturating the area that the convoy remnents would be moving thru. Naturally, you wouldn't want to be splitting up when trying to engage another surface group tho.

-F-

As the japanese player I set all my reaction ranges to 6 and I put a leader in charge of every combat fleet who is labeled as aggressive and who has a very high inspiration rating. I don't know what effect this has on interception, I would imagine it has a large effect.

Hirohito

(in reply to Feinder)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 6:40:51 PM

mlees

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From what I remember reading, the "react" for surface combat TF's is misleading. The SCTF will not react to everything in range. Just stuff approaching on of your bases inside your range... I think. Someone else please confirm...

(in reply to Hirohito)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 7:00:51 PM

Nikademus

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A TF will "react" when the range setting is set to 1 or greater by moving towards or into it's current home port (assuming enough movement/op points) if set to react.

A TF already in it's home port will not "react" to a nearby TF that doesn't enter the port hex

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 7:12:45 PM

AmiralLaurent

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AFAIK TF react only to defend friendly base against Bombardment or Invasion TF. They will never react to a TF in open sea, or in an emeny hex and it seems to me they will not react to an enemy surface TF attacking transports off one of your base but not the base or MSW sweeping mines in the hex (but that is the way it was in UV, I can't confirm it is the same in WITP).

Reaction depends also of the detection level of the enemy fleet. If ships sail from the hyperspace to bomb one of your base and achieve total surprise, your TF has less chance to react than if the enemy was seen by 10 of your planes the day before.

I rarely used react, only when I am 100% I have overwhelming numbers and might in my favor, and then I don't see why I will be on the defensive.
Most of my naval battles are open sea interceptions or raids into enemy hexes that I plan manually, by guessing (or not) what my opponent will do (or not). WITP scale has increased by 4 the chances of an intercept, as one hex of WITP = 4 hexes of UV.

(in reply to mlees)

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RE: Do you have much Ship vs Ship combat? - 1/14/2005 7:34:13 PM

DrewMatrix

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quote:

I rarely used react, only when I am 100%

I use react in the opposite situation: Mostly with PT boats where losing them isn't so bad but they may get lucky.

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Beezle - Rapidly running out of altitude, airspeed and ideas.

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