To scuttle a CA or not, that is the question

[Graycompany]

I always know when he is up to something, because in his email's he stops talking. Instead of the constant[8|] radio traffic, there is radio silence, which means something is about to happen.

[Oznoyng]

I would not scuttle the CA's - you don't have to send them to the coasts to repair since they are only 35 durability and you can repair them to operational long before you will get them back.  You have 3 repair yards close by that you can send them.  Auckland, Sydney, and Melbourne are all capable of repairing a 35 durabiility ship - they are not big enough to repair CV's, but they are plenty big enough to repair the CA's.

[RUPD3658]

I would not scuttle either one. You only save 10% of the VP so even if they do nothing more than serve as KB or Sub bait they are more usefull afloat.

They will repair fast at a repair yard. I had a Jap CA up to 70 SYS damage and had her back after 4 months in Singapore (Naval HQ helped).

[jwxspoon]

I don't play for points.  I never scuttle, and always attempt to repair.
 
jw

[Xargun]

I would save them - even if scuttling removed all VPs I would still save them. Look at it from the Allied point of view - they did not know that the US's ship production would be so plentiful that they could 'waste' ships and they would attempt to save any ship at all... Definately save it. Let it sit somewhere until the flooding / fire is gone then send him on a long trip home to the West Coast. Put her in drydock and forget about her.. In a year you'll have an extra ship.

Xargun

[Luskan]

Firstly, nobody who has ever played the Japs in this game would ever ask the question "do I scuttle?".  As the japs, you can't afford to scuttle anything - ever.  Even if you only use the cripple to decoy bombers away from the rest of your retreating TF, that 10% of points you lost saved you 100% of the points on the other ships KB would have sunk.

[AmiralLaurent]

IRL the main interest in abandoning a ship (and often scuttling it) was saving its crew. For example a DD having 250 crew = the equivalent of 21 squads = 7 troops points... A BB will have 35 troop points of crew or more, a CV up to 70 troops points... so depending of the ship points saved for scuttling should be between 50 and 25% of the VP total.

There were some cases (Yorktown at Midway, Houston off Formosa) where ships were abandonned by most of the crew and only a repair crew remained aboard the ship being towed to safety. But in most of the cases the 'abandon ship' order was followed by orders to scuttle it. The idea behind the scuttling being that it wasn't worth risking other ships to save a wreck.

By the way, to tow a cruiser you need another cruiser, a DD won't be able to tow a CA anywhere. So any "cripple" TF should have at least as many undamaged capital ships as there are crippled ones... and then you have to add DD escorts.

[Yakface]

Actually a DD can do a fair job of towing a cruiser so long as the cruiser has some power left the destroyer basically points her in the right direction: http://www.combinedfleet.com/atully07.htm

[BrucePowers]

I would repair them. I think that is what the USN would do. I think about the Arron Ward. These ships were home for these sailors. They would have (and did) fight hard to save them.

[niceguy2005]

Amiral Laurent, those are my thoughts as well. I think a commander, in this case would marshal his assets toward saving the ships are crews that had the greatest chance of survival and not risk too much to save those that are in a very questionable state.

[The Gnome]

Historically speaking, I would think command would try to save the ship unless it looked absolutely hopeless.  Look at the lengths they went to to save ships like the Franklin.  Of course a carrier is a more valuable asset than a cruiser, but they were cranking the CV's out at a very fast pace, and the mentality still seemed to be to save the ship!

As far as myself, I only scuttle if the ship is in imminent danger of sinking in the next turn or two.

[Mike Solli]

As a Japanese player, I never scuttle a ship.  I once had the Hiryu at 97 flot damage.  I had no hope that she would survive, yet she did.  But, I don't play for points either.

[RUPD3658]

I don't know if the bug made it from UV to WiTP but if you scutteld a barge
(normally 0 VP) it would score 1 VP for your opponant. [:@]

[niceguy2005]

There is a triage issue here. I can say no more here now, but will comment on it in my AAR.