Suppression caused by interdiction

[32shaw]

Here's a real problem. I launched an attack by 5 carrier air units against a concentration of enemy fleets. Before my planes could get to the target, though, ONE enemy fighter caused significant suppression of each of my 5 planes through interdiction from an adjoining land area and effectively ruined my attack against the enemy fleets. Whichever route I took to attack those fleets, there was going to be interdiction by one enemy fighter. Obviously, the way this works is illogical, because it implies that the carrier air units aren't simultaneously launched. It was irksome enough in WAW, where you only had to deal with potential hits against your carrier air units; but with the added drawback of suppression points, this has become extremely unrealistic and seems to be part of a pattern in AWD to negate the power of carrier air units. What say you? 32shaw

[Uncle_Joe]

That should be an extremely rare circumstance. In all of my games as Japan, I cant say I've ever encountered that situation.
 
Worst case scenario, send one CAG unit to soak off the offending Fighter unit (assuming you've been keeping CAG AtA rating up).

[JanSorensen]

In addition to the advice given by Uncle_Joe I can assure you that there was no intention to weaken CAGs in AWD. Nor do I believe they have been.

[32shaw]

Hi Uncle Joe. When you say that you've never encountered that situation, exactly what do you mean? That you've never seen one Japanese fighter fly multiple interdiction missions against CAG's, or that you never seen one Japanese fighter cause significant suppression of multiple CAG's through interdiction? I have to assume that the rules mandate that each of the multiple CAG's will be subject in turn to the one interdicting Japanese fighter. Is that correct?

Your suggestion of having one CAG "soak off" the interdicting fighter had occurred to me, but I didn't know whether the fighter would still be able to interdict the other CAG's if it survived the attack on it by the "soaking off" CAG. What's the rule on that? Thanks.
32shaw

[WanderingHead]

CAGs have certainly not been weakened in AWD, I would say that CAGs and CVs are substantially more important.

There are certain sacrifices made in creating a game with a reasonable scope of rules, and I would certainly agree that op-fire has some issues, but those seem mostly difficult to avoid.

As to comparing to WAW, in WAW most of your CAGs would be damaged, unable to complete the mission at all and in need of repair. In AWD, the CAGs are most likely suppressed, capable of completing the mission but at reduced efficacy. It seems improved, IMHO.

Two reasonable tactics to clear out a fighter screen are (1) send in your own air units to damage them, (2) send in a surface fleet to scare them off.

Since fighters are generally ineffective against surface fleets, and all it takes is 1 attacking surface fleet against 0 defending surface fleets to cause a retreat, this will typically work when a CAP is over water.

[32shaw]

To Wanderinghead: Actually, in the situation which gave rise to this thread, none of my 5 WA CAG's would have been damaged, as I had raised their evasion level to 7 and none of the fighter's (level 6 air attack) dice rolls were high enough to generate hits (under WAW rules). Also, the interdicting fighter was based in Honshu, so I couldn't attack it with a fleet. I'm surprised that you feel that CAG's are strengthened in the new game, as I've found that the suppression pts. generated against them by fleet anti-aircraft fire causes suppression which then lessens their ability to damage the various fleets. What is it that makes you feel that CAG's and CV's (what is a CV?) are strengthened in AWD? Thanks, 32shaw

[Uncle_Joe]

CAGs have much higher EV and AtA World Standards in AWD. That means they can still stand toe to toe with land-based Fighters even late in the game if you keep up your research. In WaW, once the Fighters got up to around 8-8 or so, CAGs were hopeless against them.
 
Also, and more importantly, CAGs now Op-fire on enemy surface fleets entering the same region as the CV/CAGs. This makes it difficult to just mass up HFs and LFs and 'bum rush' CVs as was possible in in WaW.
 
Finally, the suppression for AA means a LOT less planes die to AA fire from opposing ships. In WaW, if you increased the AA value of your fleets by a point or two, you could easily have HFs that were functionally immune to CAGs. Any CAGs that attacked the fleets were shot down by flak.
 
By the way, how is a Fighter on Honshu interdicting movement in adjacent sea zones? Are you trying to move through the sea area that touches Honshu? If the Fighter is on CAP at sea, thats how you can throw a LF at it to drive it off and if its based on land, its shouldn't be OP-firing at air moving past the sea zone.
 
Can you take and post a screen shot of that?

[WanderingHead]

ORIGINAL: 32shaw
To Wanderinghead: Actually, in the situation which gave rise to this thread, none of my 5 WA CAG's would have been damaged, as I had raised their evasion level to 7 and none of the fighter's (level 6 air attack) dice rolls were high enough to generate hits (under WAW rules). Also, the interdicting fighter was based in Honshu, so I couldn't attack it with a fleet. I'm surprised that you feel that CAG's are strengthened in the new game, as I've found that the suppression pts. generated against them by fleet anti-aircraft fire causes suppression which then lessens their ability to damage the various fleets. What is it that makes you feel that CAG's and CV's (what is a CV?) are strengthened in AWD? Thanks, 32shaw

CV = carrier fleet (US Navy, somehow I think the V=vehicle, not sure).

The reason I think they are stronger are:

1) CAGs op-fire on surface ships entering a sea zone, making it pretty much impossible to engage a defending fleet with 2 or more CAGs (without first turning such fleet into "a defending fleet with 1 or no CAGs" via air action).

2) CAG targeting rules are modified, so that they typically target CVs, then HFs, then LFs, ...

3) surface to air suppression fire rarely actually shoots down a plane.

It has actually been a long time since I played WAW1, so some details I've undoubtedly forgotten, like the world standard changes Uncle_Joe mentioned.

All I know is that I wouldn't think of operating a navy without the CVs/CAGs, and I think that experienced players (i.e. the play testers at this point) never bother to build new HFs. The seas are ruled from the air.

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe
By the way, how is a Fighter on Honshu interdicting movement in adjacent sea zones? Are you trying to move through the sea area that touches Honshu?

Land based air will op-fire on air moving through narrows, so a Honshu fighter would op-fire on movement through the Hokkaido/Honshu narrows. And that is the least MP route from North Pacific 2 to the Sea of Japan.

I view the op-fire as just part of the necessary abstraction to make it a game. In this case, yes, it is a little odd that one fighter unit can fire at 4 CAG units, but it is also a little odd that 4 CAG units try to fly right by a bunch of land based air without engaging them.

I admit I would love to see slightly more complex op-fire rules to handle it a little better, but it works out OK on the whole.

[32shaw]

To Uncle Joe: At the start of my WA turn my 5 CVs and 5 CAGs were in 243 North Pacific to the Southeast of Japan. Their mission was to attack multiple Japanese fleets situated in the Yellow Sea. Since all of the intervening islands were guarded by combinations of fighters, AA and artillary, I decided to move my CVs to 203 North Pacific immediately to the South of Japan and launch my CAGs from there. When I did, the one Japanese fighter located on Honshu interdicted each of my 5 CAGs in turn.

I had noticed the higher initial evasion level for CAG's that you mention. I don't know how to "take and post a screen shot". If it's not too complicated a procedure, I'l try it if you'll explain how to do it.


To Wanderinghead: I couldn't agree with you more about the greater value of CAGs vs HFs. In WAW, which I always played from the very beginning, if I had the WA I would build 3 additional CVs on the West Coast on my first turn and start to heavily invest in research for my CAGs. Since in WAW you were able to spend a lot on research from from the outset, I would raise all my CAG levels, other than the land attack value, at least one level and would raise the CAG movement level to 4 before engaging Japanese CVs with CAGs. Since I would also have higher air to air and evasion levels than the Japanese CAGs, I was always able to shoot down most of the Japanese CAGs AND avoid counter attacks by surviving enemy CAGs against my CVs, since I had launched my attack from two sea regions away. In my limited experience with AWD I haven't tried to raise the WA CAGs' movement level, since it would take a much longer time to raise it to the critical level 4. As far as building WA HFs, I'm with you. In WAW I never built additional WA HFs, and typically stopped the building process on HFs that were on track for completion in 1944 or later.

32shaw

[JanSorensen]

ORIGINAL: 32shaw


I had noticed the higher initial evasion level for CAG's that you mention. I don't know how to "take and post a screen shot". If it's not too complicated a procedure, I'l try it if you'll explain how to do it.

32shaw

While playing - press the key "Print Screen" on your keyboard.
Then open "Paint" (the free painting program that comes with Windows) or any other painting program you use.
In Paint - select Edit in the menu and then Insert.

You now have a screen shot from the game. If you wish you can crop it by selecting only the relevant part of the shot using the features of the painting program.

Now save the picture as a jpg file.

When you post on this forum - check the "Embed picture in post" and click on "Click here to upload" to attach the picture to your post.

There are also more fancy programs to take screen shots. Personally I use hypersnap but thats not for free. I am sure there are free tools though.