About attacking a enemy tf?

[Iron Duke]

Of the 13 aircraft shown (2 squadrons) none of the vindicators will attack because the are all doing missions such as search,asw,rest or train -see 100 under 'patrol' column.

of the dauntless's 40 percent are also already engaaged , which leaves about 2or4 available for naval attack.

How many fighters are available at pearl ?

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: MAARTENR

here's pearl harbour and great how you all help.

OK, from this screen shot, a few things stand out. VMSB-231/1 is set to 100% Patrol. What are the individual patrol levels that add up to 100%? Currently, these leave no planes in the group available to conduct Naval attack. They are all on some type of patrol, and they will do that before Naval attack. In the previous screen shot of this group, you had them set to only 40% Naval Search patrol, which would leave 60% (about 4 planes) available to attack. When did you change this setting?

Next, what other planes are at Pearl, particularly fighters? I see there are some fighter groups there, but what are their settings? If the target does have a CV, your bombers may not attack without escorts.

[Iron Duke]

too slow[:D]

[USSAmerica]

[:D]  3 posts at the same time with the same suggestions and questions.

[MAARTENR]

Here i got another.

[Iron Duke]

ORIGINAL: MAARTENR

Here i got another.

Look at the 'patrol' column the fighter squadrons have values of 100 and 90 with only one with a value of 0 , which means only that squadron of 11 a/c available for escort ,with 1 a/c from the squadrons on 90
The other fighter squadrons are all cap,lrcap.train or rest

[MAARTENR]

If i change the fighter to escort with none Patrol should it than work?
I'm learning but now some rest, till tomorrow.

[KenchiSulla]

If you want fighters to escort your strike you shouldnt give them LRCAP missions. Just set 20-30% to cap. THe other 70-80% is then free to escort.

Navy and Army dont like to work together.. although at times they might coordinate. Setting altitude the same as your bombers will also help

[John Lansford]

Your DB's aren't going to attack that CV TF because of several reasons. 

1) They won't attack without fighter escorts.  If the escorts have bad morale or low experience, or are all on LRCAP, they won't fly, so the DB's won't fly.
2) If the DB's have low experience, they won't attack heavily defended targets anyway
3) With only 60% of the squadron available, and only 7 planes flyable, you've only got 4 planes to attack.  Again, they won't fly with such a low % ready.
4) Supply may be a problem, airfield damage may be a problem too.

The subs have nothing to do with it.  The DB's don't care if the subs are there or not.

[tocaff]

Those planes at Pearl aren't going to attack a CVTF because according to the screen shot there are no fighters at the base to fly as escorts.

Get those fighters based at Lihue to Pearl by way of transfer and then set them to escort.

[Cmdrcain]

ORIGINAL: MAARTENR

Why cant attack even from Pearl Harbour, what's the problem?
See the picture

Group is on Naval SEARCH not Attack

Leader is low aggression (47)

Training is 40 so 40 pct of 7 are training so theres 3-4 available to attk..

Any target needs be 8 hex or less away

[MAARTENR]

So this have i got in the beginning of the game?

[Smeulders]

Hey MaartenR, are you by any chance a Dutch speaker (Maarten is a common Dutch name). If so, feel free to PM me some questions in Dutch, this might be easier for you.

[MAARTENR]

Is good i take contact. thanx.

[MAARTENR]

ORIGINAL: Iron Duke


Of the 13 aircraft shown (2 squadrons) none of the vindicators will attack because the are all doing missions such as search,asw,rest or train -see 100 under 'patrol' column.

of the dauntless's 40 percent are also already engaaged , which leaves about 2or4 available for naval attack.

How many fighters are available at pearl ?

Here's the picture. on other places i cant also attack with divebombers. Does this come becausse its beginning of the war and or the Da Babes mod?

[MAARTENR]

I've transfered some from another base to another. Also with Pearl Harbour and Georgetown. See the picture of Georgetown.
I've also take rest as secondary. And at the left top of the aircraft force i've changed automatic into manual.
I've done another scenario and i get the same, it depends of the start of the war i think. Paralised maybe.

[Djordje]

Allied air groups start the war with low experience and moral, and don't have full squadron numbers. That is one of the very important reasons for troubles you might be seeing.
What all others said in this thread is right, you have to create the best conditions possible for your squadrons to conduct naval attack mission, you can't select targets manually.

Of the many variables that can influence if naval attack is flying or not some of them take time (training for experience, rest for moral), while others you can influence directly (put better leaders, make sure to have enough planes on naval search to get good detection level of the target) and most importantly set orders for your squadrons right.

Here is simple check list, far from perfect but that should do for start:

1. Move every fighter and bomber squadron to Pearl Harbor from other bases nearby.
2. Set all fighter squadrons to 12000 feet, maximum range, turn "use drop tanks" if possible. What you need is that range of your fighters is equal to or exceeds range of your dive and torpedo bombers. Select "escort" mission, set CAP to 30% and all other patrol levels to 0%.
3. Set all dive and torpedo bomber squadrons to 12000 feet, with range that is equal to or less than fighter range. Select "naval attack" primary mission, "rest" as secondary mission and set all patrol levels to 0.
4. Set all patrol planes to "naval search", altitude 6000 feet, maximum range, patrol levels 100% search (note that once enemy TF is gone you should reduce search to 50% and maybe set range from extended to normal, to reduce operational losses, but just for this naval attack set it to 100% and maximum extended range).

Now if you have set everything like above you have done the most important things to create the best possible conditions for naval strike. If that enemy TF has 6 carriers in it (called KB in this forum) then you probably won't achieve too much as it is much stronger than what you have available, but the point is to learn basics about naval attack.

[MAARTENR]

So Djordje i cant select naval targets? Does it works like your saying. But when they are in naval attack they maybe attack with other squardons to do naval search and find enemy tf's.
Do i understand it?
I will study what your saying to get in mine mind.

[Djordje]

Here is how it works:
- Naval search missions are flown first, twice a day, in the morning and afternoon phase of the turn execution. You can see that if you look at combat report.
- If naval search mission discovers enemy TF it will increase detection level of it. The higher detection level, more chances you have to attack it. Higher detection levels also give you and your squadrons more information, detection level 1 just means "I saw some ships", while detection level 10 means "I saw 6 enemy carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Shokaku and 3 more, followed by 2 battleships and lots of smaller ships". Detection levels can be increased in few other ways, your submarines in the hex might attack enemy TF and that would increase DL, enemy CV TF might launch strikes and that increases DL too...
- Once search phase is complete there comes air attack phase, where game checks if the right conditions are met for the naval strike. It involves many checks against leaders, experience, morale and many other things you really should not bother your mind with at this time. What you should know that game engine gives priority to attacks on CVs, followed by BBs and then smaller ships, so if you are successful in detecting CVs then those TFs containing them will be the main target of your attack. This is why naval search and detection in general is really important, you might see several TFs on the map, but that is not the whole picture, if their detection level is just 1 you will not get as good results as if DL was 10.

Know that you will rarely get perfect results and that is why people want to be able to give command like "I want my every plane to attack this TF and only this TF". That will never happen in this game as that kind of decision is left to local commanders that are same as in reality far from perfect, so you should just focus on creating the best possible conditions for naval strike which is lots of naval search and the right orders for your squadrons. Same altitude for fighters and bombers is really important.

[MAARTENR]

Thanx no more headaches. hahaha. [:)]