Landing force surrenders before landing

[erstad]

This is a new one to me, but actually happened twice in the turn.

During combat (and in the ops report), I see this message w.r.t. an amphibious TF which reached an enemy base during the turn

Landing Force surrenders at Tacloban - TF 38 retires

I assume this is some sort of check that if your landing force consists of three drunken sailors armed with baseball bats and the base has several marine divisions, you're done before you start.

However, as far as I can tell no actual troops even landed. The unit on TF38 still is at 100% of TOE.

The check happened during one of the phases, not ground combat. What I'm worried about is the TF arrived with not enough op points to start unloading in the phase, but somehow the engine decided something was unloaded and decided it was overmatched. But regardless of cause, the TF shouldn't give up unloading because a (presumably) non-existent fragment surrendered.

Of course, there's always the option that I'm confused in some way.

Here's a save. Password available via PM.

[Don Bowen]

Now this is an interesting one. Basically, both of us did an under-wonderful job.

The Amphib TF is really poorly set up. The Kanno detachment is not prepped for Tacloban and the TF leader has the land combat rating of a turnip (or worse, a politician). In addition, the ships are all small freighters with no inherent amphibious capacity. Two teenage girls using a slingshot made out of their unworn bikini tops could probably repel this invasion.

Now for me. The weakness of the invasion exposes a whoopsie in the amphibious invasion process that is responsible for the (false) surrender message. And the same "logic" that generates that message aborts the invasion. I will go stand in the corner for a few minutes, then fix it for patch 2.

[erstad]

Well, this is April of 42 and Kanno is one of a few detachments just going around cleaning up all of the leftover bases. Truth is, I forgot there was even a unit at Tacloban until I reconned it a couple turns back, but decided to go ahead anyway. Sloppy, I'll admit. If it would help, I could stand in the corner for a few minutes too.

[Streptokok]

The Amphib TF is really poorly set up. The Kanno detachment is not prepped for Tacloban and the TF leader has the land combat rating of a turnip (or worse, a politician). In addition, the ships are all small freighters with no inherent amphibious capacity.

Its not an invasion force. Its an invasion farce [:D]

[erstad]

Thought I'd publish the final outcome, particularly since someone just linked to this thread.

After my invasion force cleaned up an empty base or two, I moved it back to the hex where the invasion originally failed. I had "do not unload" and "remain on station" set when it moved into the hex.

Then, I unloaded the TF on the next turn sequence. So, it basically had at least one entire unloading phase to unload before any surrender check. I did not prep for destination and I left the turnip in charge of the TF, just to see what happened. Unloaded without anything odd happening.

Next turn sequence I shock attacked, and took the base on day 2 (2 day turns)

[IronWarrior]

Thanks for posting this! I'm having similiar issues as well, and had a turnip in charge. I've switched to a commander with a higher Land Combat rating (but lower everything else) to test if this is the cause (baffled as to why Land Combat rating matters). If I fail this time I will try this trick with Do Not Unload. [;)]

[Don Bowen]

Sorry guys, this issue has been reported and is solved for Patch 2. It has to do with failure to clear a special "amphibious landing stage" control in the TF record. Not a problem unless a TF is used for two amphibious landings without disbanding. The TF get's confused about where it is in the second landing.

As a temporary workaround, you should disband TFs after each landing. If you have an amphibious TF enroute to it's landing site, create a new TF from it and transfer all the ships. This will clear the offending control.