Rearming DMs for Minelaying

[ago1000]

Hoping someone can please help with an explanation of how to rearm my DMs or why I cannot in this scenario.

In the Thousand –Mile War there are two DMs (Pruitt and Sicard) both starting with 40 MK 16 Mines each. On the first turn I used them to lay their mines near Dutch Harbor and then returned them to port in Dutch Harbor to rearm. I dock the task force and ask it to “replenish at port”. I then get the message that “Task force # could not fully rearmed at Dutch Harbor”. I look at the ship information and it shows 0 mines.

Dutch Harbor is a port size of 5 with a Naval Support team of 214. I looked up MK 16 Mines on the Rearm in port table (in the manual) and found that they have a rearming cost of 1200 and that for a port size of 5 (rearm points 300) that the MK 16 Mines require 180 Naval support squads. Furthermore looking at the Industry/Troops/Resource Pool table, it shows that I have at the start of the scenario, 104 MK 16 Mines in the pool that I haven’t used up.

I need:
Port (5) = 300 + 5 x 180 = 900 (since each squad = 5 rearm points) => 300+900=1200 rearm points (from table)

I have:
Port (5) = 300 + 5 x 214 = 1070 hence 1370 rearm points. (more than enough)

I have tried having the Mine laying task force of one ship in port all by itself for several days trying to rearm it, but with no success. What am I missing?

[GB68]

Not entirely sure on this, but it may possibly be due to insufficent supply?

Maybe check the required supply levels?

[ago1000]

Thanks for the response GB68.
Supply at the port is greater than 45000. Furthermore, I thought OP points might be the problem and I restarted the scenario and only created a minelaying fleet (of 1 ship) and asked it to lay mines and reload. No luck.
Reading some of the posts on the forum it looks like DMs are 1 hit wonders. Use up the mines and never get to use them for minelaying again. However, in April 1943, the DMs should be able to reload especially if I have mines in the pool. I've been playing this scenario to see how things work, amphibious assaults, CAP levels, mine warefare, etc ...
In WITP, I believe you would need a port size of 9 to rearm with mines. But according to the emanual, this is not the case for WITPAE.
However, the only thing I can think of is that there are no mines in the port and that the port must be resupplied with them first. However, for the life of me I can't figure out how to see what munitions(bullets, mines, etc) are in Dutch Harbor.

[Mike Solli]

You need to check to see if there are any of the type of mine that particular ship uses available.  They are in the pool, not at a specific port.  If you meet the requirements to load at that location and there are enough available in the pool, you'll be able to load them.  I suspect there aren't enough in the pool.

Here's an example:

[John Lansford]

I was loading mines into Argonaut and got a message saying "not enough mines to fully load".  When I looked, sure enough she had only loaded about half her available capacity.  This was after sending only a few subs out on minelaying missions too (no more than half a dozen total).

[ago1000]

Thank you all for your reponses. I've included some screen captures before and after minelaying.

[ago1000]

Created the task force and mines are already on the ship.

[ago1000]

Still before the mission, task force shows 80 mines.

[ago1000]

Check to make sure mines are in the pool.

[RevRick]

My only real problem with the DMs is that they use the Mk 6 mine, and the production is absurdly low on that device. I checked, and the USN site says that they had 59,000 of the Mk 6 in stock at Dec. 7. So how come they are parceled out like Scrooge McDuck,s money?

[ago1000]

Tried to replenish the docked task force with mines.

[ago1000]

Checked the ship to find, all but the mines have been replenished.
Don't know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks again everyone.

[Jonathan Pollard]

ORIGINAL: RevRick

My only real problem with the DMs is that they use the Mk 6 mine, and the production is absurdly low on that device. I checked, and the USN site says that they had 59,000 of the Mk 6 in stock at Dec. 7. So how come they are parceled out like Scrooge McDuck,s money?

It's a deliberate design decision because in stock WITP some players thought that mines played a more significant role than they did historically and bogged down the game. I think a more reasonable approach would have been to include the amount of mines historically produced but to reduce their chances of hitting a ship by about 90%, or else have a formula for diminishing returns on mines that are part of massive minefields.

[Sardaukar]

I think the mine pool and production will be addressed among first thigns when someone gets modded scenarios out. [8D] I myself, would raise the production so that you could always lay mines with main mine-laying vessels at least once a month...

[rockmedic109]

Or at least increase production enough that a minefield will not deplete itself before another mine {let alone enough to fill a minelayer} is produced.

[ago1000]

Thanks again everyone for your responses. I thought I was missing something but it looks like a design decision. Tried to go into the editor to see if there was something checked off for the ship that might allow me to load mines but with no luck. No matter, this is still an epic game.

[Mikeydz]

have you tried expanding DH to a level 7 port?

Code: Select all

9.3.3.2
 Note the large jump at a level 7 port, which basically insures that torpedoes, most mines, and Battleship size guns cannot be rearmed at smaller ports.
 
 Rearm Limit is applied to each device on a ship being rearmed. Depending on the load cost of each weapon and the adjusted capability of the port, some or all of the weapons may not be rearmed. A medium sized port might be able to rearm cruiser guns and smaller, but not BB guns, torpedoes, or mines.

Otherwise, I would think that you should be able to load those mines

[Nomad]

Make sure that your units with Naval support are in combat mode.

[Rapunzel]

You can always rearm your minelayers with a good sized AE.

[ago1000]

Ran the scenario with Dutch Harbor port size 7 to see what would happen. The DMs rearmed with mines. Therefore, port size 7 is important and you must have mines in the pool with Naval support. I must be misreading 20.1.2.2 Ship rearmament at ports table found on p. 284 of the manual. I thought any port with sufficient Naval support would be able to load the mines port size (5) + Naval support 180 squads.
p. 212 9.3.3.2 seems to hit the heart of my problem.
Thank you all. [&o]