Shakedown Cruise

[Gary D]

Gent's

I am not getting much of an improvement in my ASW groups using shakedown cruises. I form them up, set them to remain on station and then let them sit a hex or two outside port until they run out of fuel. After 3 weeks the ships are falling apart and the crews may have gained a couple points of experience.

Is this what you are doing? Does somebody have a technique that offers up better results? ASW (awfully slow warfare) is kicking my butt.

Gracias,

Gary

[Jagger2002]

After 23 days back and forth between Brisbane and out to sea, I checked two minesweepers. They haven't gained one point of experience- either day or night. One was still at 46/25 and the other at 46/23.

I guessed the ship experience process is not working.

[Raverdave]

Yup I am having a torid time to the west of Noumea, it is the new "Iron Bottom Sound". Time and time again I see my DD's, SC's and PG's as nothing more than target practice for the Jap subs. IIRC I am running at a lose ratio of 5 to 1 in the IJN's favour. I have tried to get the crews trained with upto a full months shake down, but they still get thumped. *Sigh*

[Mark W Carver]

Originally posted by Raverdave
Yup I am having a torid time to the west of Noumea, it is the new "Iron Bottom Sound". Time and time again I see my DD's, SC's and PG's as nothing more than target practice for the Jap subs. IIRC I am running at a lose ratio of 5 to 1 in the IJN's favour. I have tried to get the crews trained with upto a full months shake down, but they still get thumped.

A suggestion if I may. Create a TF with your best DD (of course a DD with depth charges) commander and than add some SCs and/or PGs. Once it's created, the DD commander will be the commander of the TF. See it that helps...

[11Bravo]

I don't have hard data to back this up, but I feel you are right. Six weeks of shakedown cruises by a variety of ship classes have earned me no noticeable increase in experience levels.

I will try to go back to a saved game and check on the data. This would also be a prime candidate for an experiment with the editor, if I knew how to use it.

The experiment would be to stick some SC's with a large herd of AO's and strip all the other forces from the South Pacific. The turn length could be set for 1 week, then, turns could be run very fast, and changes in experience levels could be noted at 1 week intervals.

[AlvinS]

A suggestion if I may. Create a TF with your best DD (of course a DD with depth charges) commander and than add some SCs and/or PGs. Once it's created, the DD commander will be the commander of the TF. See it that helps...

Thats what I have done and it seems to work fine. I put one of my best DD's with the SC's and sent them out. within a couple of weeks one of the SC's with day experience of level 47 had progressed to level 50.

[mogami]

Hi, In the long Campaign I put everything in one monster TF and send it up to L'ville and back. The second time it returns I put everything in port for a couple of days (to repair a little system damage.) Then I make a new TF with all the ships with less then 2 sys damage and send them up and back. Every time it returns I remake it with sys damage 1 or less ships. After 2 months every ship has gained at least 1 point (I only pay attention to night ratings since the subs rarely bother me in day time. This TF is led by a DD. It has not been much help yet since the Brisbane ASW assets get sent on actual combat missions (escorting transports) right from the start and most of the Japanese subs have been in PM or off Gili where they are a constant pain. I have sank 1 sub (with USN DD) and damaged 2 others. But the poor SC have been slaughtered. (air/and sub) Hopefully SouthPacs ASW will be up to speed by the time they are needed.

[Beckles]

Ships only have a 1 in 5 chance of increasing day time effectiveness and 1 in 7 chance of increasing night effectiveness each day they are out at sea, and that is only up to 55 for combat ships. (See page 63 of manual, also Version 1.1 adjusted the value SC's could train up to).

[Scouters]

Originally posted by Beckles
Ships only have a 1 in 5 chance of increasing day time effectiveness and 1 in 7 chance of increasing night effectiveness each day they are out at sea, and that is only up to 55 for combat ships. (See page 63 of manual, also Version 1.1 adjusted the value SC's could train up to).

Assuming a SC comes in with D Exp of 35 and N Exp of 25, it would take 100 days for it to reach its daytime max and 210 days to reach its nighttime max. I really haven't paid much attention to this. Does this seem to match people's experience?

-Scouters

[Toro]

I've formed small groups of PCs & SCs (and DMs, DMS, etc) and send them to sea (patrol) one hex out of Noumea or Brisbane. I leave them there until fuel is low, then send them back, refuel, repeat. I've seen one group of four out of Bris that has gained an average of 3 experience each in the last 2 weeks. As soon as they hit 50, I put them in patrol groups.

Also, another tactic, is to make these low experience ships as escorts for supply/fuel runs in lower-threat areas (ie, Noumea to L'vil, Bris to a north Aussie port, or Truk to Rabaul). Some subs, but less of a threat. They do gain experience, but slowly.

Toro

[Jim D Burns]

Gents,

Just thought I'd drop a note and let everyone know how I handle my shakedown cruises. I create a transport taskforce and put all my SC's, PG's and MSW ships in it along with a single AO. I then load it with fuel and give it a destination hex several hexes southeast of Noumea with orders to patrol. The AO will refuel the entire taskforce several times before it gets depleted.

This allows the taskforce to remain at sea for a considerable period of time (about a month I'd guess) and saves me from the tedious task of continually having to assign shakedown cruises new destinations every few days. It also speeds up experience gain a bit as ships are not continually ending every few turns docked in port when refueling which probably prevents them from even making their rolls on those turns.

I've found it is simplest to move all assets you wish to train to Noumea and placing them all into one large taskforce instead of creating several of these taskforces at different locations. It also keeps most of my Oilers free to move fuel to forward staging areas.

Jim

[11Bravo]

This is what 3 of my boats from scenerio 17 have accomplished in roughly 7 weeks of shakedown cruises:

Boat Dstart/Dfinal Nstart/Nfinal
PG Kiwi 45/45 31/34
SC 637 41/47 20/29
SC 640 45/46 22/32

My boats are definitely gaining experience on shakedown cruises, especially the critical night experience for ASW operations. I was surprised at how much they gained when I went back and looked at an earlier saved game. My initial impression checking on them once in a while was that nothing much was happening.

[sitkis]

The quickest way to get night experience for the Allied DDs is to go play with the IJN. It is typical for night experience to go from 45 to 65 in a single engagement. Of course they need to survive. Many do though, and they get sent back to Pearl for an AA upgrade and promotion to CV TF duty. When night experience hits 70 they get sub hunter duty.

Getting 1-3 night experience each week is what I see with patrols. I make a big stack with a few DDs (for fuel,) and all the SCs, and send it one hex from port. Chose a hex with no beach (so they can't dock.) They will return to port when they run out of fuel, and it's only one hex, so no need to check on them. Put them in shallow water in case a sub shows. Do not pick a site with likely sub contacts as those 25 experience SC have no prayer.

A pack of four 70 experience DDs will damage 3-4 subs for every damaged DD. Jap DD sub killer groups are deadly. A group of four 25 experience SCs will hit one sub for every 15-20 SCs lost. Just casual observation with no statistical validity. Putting SCs in harms way without 2-4 months of training just results in more experienced Jap subs.

[kaleun]

AIr assets also improve after a while and begin to attack subs. They even hit them on rare occasions:)
Now and then an IJN sub sinks.:rolleyes:

[Jagger2002]

I don't really see the results that justify shakedown cruises. Sure I can keep SC and MSW at sea for a couple of months shaking down but the same experience gain can be had by escorting convoys.


Now I just put SC's and MSM's with the convoys. I know they won't sink anything but they may be that picked sub target instead of your fat transport containing vital troops or supplies. Also absorbs sub torps forcing enemy subs to use up their ammo and return to base.

Am I wrong or is there any reason to do shakedown cruises? The cruises just seem like a massive amount of effort over months for so little return vs just using them.

[AlvinS]

My SC's are gaining experience. SC 518 just sunk SS I-24 after being on a shakedown cruise of about 3 weeks. SC 518's experience is 55 Day and 28 Night. Unfortunately I did not check 518's experience level before the attack to see how much 4 hit gave it.

The TF consist of

CA Chicago
DD Walke (77 Day, 54 Night)
DD Farragut (78 Day, 51 Night)
PG Swan (52 Day, 36 Night)
PG Warrego (49 Day, 23 Night)
SC 517 (48 Day, 30 Night)
SC 518 (55 Day, 28 Night)
SC 519 (50 Day, 30 Night)
SC 521 (48 Day, 28 Night)
SC 522 (49 Day, 28 Night)


The date is 14 June 1942.

[FONT=courier new]Sub attack near Mouly at 52,64
Japanese Ships
SS I-24, Shell hits 4, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
CA Chicago
SC 518[/FONT]

This is the first time I have ever had an SC sink a submarine. It has always been a DD in the past. Usually my SC make good targets.

[AlvinS]

2 Turns after my last post SC 519 has gone from (50 Day) to (52 Day). The TF was attacked once during this time. Seems like once they start gaining experience the numbers increase faster. Also I think the fact that they are making contacts is giving them experience faster.

[Chiteng]

If anyone cares:

I went in and modified the xp and morale of some Japan
PG and PC ships just to see if it made a difference.
It makes a BIG difference.

From hardly ever attack, to attack all the time.

Just so you know