Doom's Barge Rant

[doomonyou]

so here I am in March of 43 in scen 17. I have lunga as a major medium bomber base, Everything on Finchshaven on down is Allied. SBD's and Beauforts rule from Lae, and PM sends once a week raids of 75 b17's/24's/PBY4's/Hudsons to visit the airfield that has annoyed me most that week. Four Japanese CV's and a CVL rest comfortably as anchor points for yet unformed coral reefs of the coast of Gili Gili and Finchshaven. And yet....

I cannot do a damm thing about the barges which now provide the bulk of supply of the IJA/IJN bases. I have 48 p39s and 48 wirraways rolling around from Lae, sinking barges like there's no tomorrow. I have mined heavily all barge ports, pass through points, and destinations. Barges sink and sink. Yet if you were to calculate I AM LOSING THAT FIGHT!!! Why? because barges are worth nothing and my planes which suffer attrition and occasoinal flak losses to barge aa are worth vps. So in a convoy if they shoot down two wirraways but lose five barges filled with hundreds of tons of valuable supplies and various crewmen (must be what 5 guys per boat right?) the allied lose that battle tactically.

Yes I am aware that I am denying the enemy suppies blah blah blah.

I WANT A POINT PER BARGE DAMMIT. I have probably sunk around a hundred barges. I don't know how big barges were in real life, but lets say they carry twenty tons a piece. That's four million pounds of supplies dropped into the sea with lets say conservatively two or three hundred Japanese sailors. Why is one AP worth say 8 to twelve points, but enough barges to carry many times that volume of cargo is worthless?

/rant off

still love the game.

[SWODOG]

I totally agree... I love this game and I want a point for all those annoying AG's. ps. I like the spirit of your post

[Erik Rutins]

These barges were really not expensive or impressive things, so I can understand the O VP value assigned to them. However, consider also the effect that sinking those barges is having. Assuming you've sunk as many as you claim, that should have made a significant dent in the barge chain. You will likely have received VPs for:

- Any troops loaded on the barges
- Troops destroyed at the bases they were heading for because their supplies never arrived
- Ships sunk resupplying the barge hubs that are being sucked dry of supplies while getting relatively few to the forward bases.

Severely decreasing their resupply efficiency will give you a good chance of earning some of these indirect VPs, which is how I usually justify strafing those suckers. Surface combat intercepts also work well - use groups of DDs for best results.

Regards,

- Erik

[doomonyou]

and while I do not really disagree with most of what you wrote eric, since they appear to be running out of barges, I notice that SC's and PT's are worth VP's (not particularly impressive vessels themselves) and more to the point you should not be allowed to supply a dangling forward base AT NO RISK OR PENALTY because your sending suicide barges that are aboslutely valueless from bases which automatically get free supplies. If these barges are so unimpressive how come they can go from rabaul to new guinea over the open sea? It would have to be far harder to build such a cargo vessel than it would be to build a single zero fighter yet the zero is woth 1vp.

If a 1500 AP is worth points than however many barges I have sunk should be worth points too. Not a million points, not "Wow you captured the shortlands" points, but 1 per barge. I think Losing one hundred barges (or one hundred PTS or one hundred Zeros for arguments sake) should be about as bad as losing a CVL.

-Doom Quixote

P.S. I still LOVE THIS GAME!!

[XPav]

One thing with barges...

When my mediums go on massive strafing runs, they all gangbang the same barge.

Poor AG103 has 80 shell hits and 30 bomb hits, while his brothers and sisters sail on by.

This seems strange.

[pad152]

Barges

I don't care about VP points for barges, but would like to see them show up in as ships sunk. I want to know how many I've lost/sunk.