A few newbie questions

[Smeulders]

Well, if we believe the algorithm that was posted earlier, then a short distance without any rail or roadlines shouldn't be a problem, certainly with all the open terrain in India. However, you can always try to bump supply requirements there and see what happens.

[wdolson]

Another wrinkle to the supply situation is that command HQs draw extra supply.  Where you have command HQs in India, some of your supply is probably flowing there.

Bill

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Naval Search or ASW 60%, Training 30%, Rest 10%.

NO!! [8D] I [and Castor Troy too] can really tell that there will be very high operational losses if you do that. Around 15, 16, 17 Catalinas per month. I used to do that, so I know what I am talking about. As a norm naval search should be 50% searching AND 50% RESTING = 3 or 4 operational losses per month [8D]

I wonder what are the pilots doing that have no mission ? Do they rest automaticly or make party ? Means do I need to put them on "rest" or do they rest anyway ??

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

If Darwin gets any fuel overland, it's such a small amount that it's negligible.  I've got a cruiser TF and 4 amphibious TF's there right now  to support my operations on Timor and the fuel supply is getting critical there.

Also, you can safely get convoys from India to Darwin if you use all three waypoints to do it.  Set two of them at least 12 hexes from the Java airbases, and third one right off the NW corner of Oz.  Don't set your TF to "safest route" or they'll head towards Sydney and come up from the east.  I use this method and the Bettys don't attack them.  Of course, I just had two merchant ships torpedoed when the stupid TF commander tried a more direct route (between Christmas Island and Java), but that was his mistake.

Agree. Darwin is a sea-supply situation, and should be. But this goes back to the OP and newbies in general. Logistics is just opaque, even after a year. How far up the east coast can I expect fuel to flow? How much? Is there any way to forecast in time to get tankers moving, or do I always have to look in the rear-view and react?

Mostly agreed.

Darwin should be sea supplied. But the east coast of AU also ? I mean I put the fuel to Perth and ?? (other major port west) but this fuel does not move to Sidney, Melbourne, Brisbane etc. Maybe the distance is just to big, the rail lines are intatct between the cities however. Also it would help to have a button "RESERVE fuel for ships", so that the industry does not eat all the fuel up and I cannot refuel my TFs. I have supplies enough in east AU but no fuel. So I don´t want the industry to use fuel to produce supplies that I don´t need at the moment there anyway....

Guess need to send more fuel from the US to the AU east coast then ? And send ships from Perth to the east.. Quite a hassle ....

[USSAmerica]

I've seen several posters confirm that fuel will move overland from Perth to SE Australia.  There are lots of factors that affect it, and it won't move every turn, but it should move. 

Also, I like the idea of Australian factories consuming fuel.  It adds not only a layer of realism, but increases the challenge for the Allied player to keep fuel moving forward.  I think it was a bit to easy to do in WitP. [:)]

[Alpha77]

I also want to turn off some of my industry. Only the JAP player can do this ? I can only switch between repair/do not.

Well not a major issue, but annoying. or maybe this will improve with game time ? Let´s say the rail lines will be built and new ones opened maybe ? Maybe some road transport will be added also in 43 and 44 ?

[Smeulders]

If you have problems with fuel not moving from Perth to the rest of Oz, then it's time to empty the Perth harbour and dock all the little DEI guys somewhere harmless like Tasmania. Ships in port will draw fuel to that location.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: USS America

I've seen several posters confirm that fuel will move overland from Perth to SE Australia.  There are lots of factors that affect it, and it won't move every turn, but it should move. 

Also, I like the idea of Australian factories consuming fuel.  It adds not only a layer of realism, but increases the challenge for the Allied player to keep fuel moving forward.  I think it was a bit to easy to do in WitP. [:)]

I played 1942 in my first game pre-patch where Perth was outside the draw boundary for Sydney. It was both easier and harder to manage fuel coming in from CT. I don't have a problem with some fuel going to the east coast, but I've taken that railroad from Perth to Adelaide, and even in 1985 it was one track, and a long, long trip. Pulling tank cars over it would have tied it up in both directions for other vital war materiel in 1942. There's no pipeline that I know of. So, a lot of fuel shouldn't get to Sydney from Perth. That's fine.

I think logistics work better now than at release. My main beef is the lack of a "stop" button where the player, planning a wartime op, could tell the log system to bypass a certain base when shopping for distribution.

An example. I have a defensive pile at Akyab with two full Aussie divisions and a bunch of Burma refuges. Since I can't seem to get supply even to Comilla, I sure can't get it to Akyab. So, I risked three RN carriers, two BBs, and a bunch of small combatants to escort a decent-sized supply convoy to Akyab (current port 2) to deliver 23,000 supply. Unloading took days. I sent empy xAKs home as they emptied to make more room at the docks. I re-split into five smaller TFs so I could get two ships at a time at the pier. I CAPPED my fighters unto 60+ fatigue, yet still took 50% float damage to a carrier from the endless Betty raids. But the supplies got ashore.

I'm going to be royally pissed if they auto-flow back to Madras.

I want a button![:)]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Naval Search or ASW 60%, Training 30%, Rest 10%.

NO!! [8D] I [and Castor Troy too] can really tell that there will be very high operational losses if you do that. Around 15, 16, 17 Catalinas per month. I used to do that, so I know what I am talking about. As a norm naval search should be 50% searching AND 50% RESTING = 3 or 4 operational losses per month [8D]

I wonder what are the pilots doing that have no mission ? Do they rest automaticly or make party ? Means do I need to put them on "rest" or do they rest anyway ??

You only need to put planes on rest if they will do something by default. For example, if you put fighters on 'Escort' mission and assign 30% to CAP, the other 70% might escort a strike or reinforce the CAP (usually you want them to!). To stop them doing anything, use some rest %. More practically, to stop fighters from escorting, set their range to 1 or 0 so they only do CAP.

Transport and Recon are great missions where Rest % helps. Transports will use 100% of planes every turn and eventually with high fatigue will have catastrophic ops losses. The same with recon. When you want to run continuous supply missions by air, set the transports to maybe 30% rest and monitor them. Might need 40% in some cases. For continuous recon, it depends on the size of the group. 50% to 70% rest seems right to get only the necessary number of recon planes over the target. If you allow more recon planes than necessary to go then you risk greater losses and recon planes are very few in number - preserve them.

[brian800000]

Guys, I can't tell you how helpful this thread (and forum in general) is. This would probably be unplayable for me without the help.

A few more questions:

21. There are a lot of meaningless bases in the game. For example, in Alaska. Is there any reason to build anything on these bases? My inclination is to just leave them at 0 ports and 0 airfields. They aren't worth any effort.

22. A question related to 21: There are a lot of allied bases that are at 0 port and 0 airfield that are inn the path of the Japanese steamroller. Some of these are in the path of what will probably become a battefield (for example, the Solomon Islands). Since I am unable to defend them all, I'm going to just pick a couple of strongpoints to fortify and leave the rest undeveloped. The concept being that I want bases that can support each other, but I don't want to develop airfields and ports that I can't defend properly and the Japanese can take to use against me. Am I making a mistake by not developing more?

23. This will be relevant for me later in the war, but how do you attack isolated bases? On the one hand, you need carrier support. However, you have to move your carriers into the range of LBA to attack them. Doesn't this leave them vunerable? To put it another way, if the attack didn't have the element of suprise, wouldn't the KB be in danger from LBA when it attacked PH?

[Torplexed]

21. Yes, there's really no reason to build up Fairbanks or Bethel. The Aleutians may need some attention as even the AI will sometimes try to grab Attu or Kiska. (Dutch Harbor or Amchitka are good bases to build up)

22. With a few exceptions all those 0 port and 0 airfield bases are as worthless to the enemy as they are to you. They take months of effort to build into anything useful (even more so for the Japanese) and are best abandoned to the enemy. Early in the war it's best to write off the Solomons altogether, especially against a human opponent. Fight for the places with potential for the counter-offensive as they are already built up to some degree. (Luganville, Noumea, Suva).

23. When the US fleet starts receiving the Essex and Independence class carriers in good numbers 1943, in addition to any pre-war carriers still around they become pretty formidable in a group together or in mutually supporting hexes. Especially with a superlative fighter like the Hellcat. With the advantage of mobility and initiative, it's far easier for the US to quickly concentrate carriers where needed than it is for the Japanese to concentrate LBA to counter them. Given an experienced enough group of pilots they should be able to fend off most LBA attacks. Plus, if you pick your target right you can often pound a base before it's LBA gets a chance to react.

[brian800000]

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

23. When the US fleet starts receiving the Essex and Independence class carriers in good numbers 1943, in addition to any pre-war carriers still around they become pretty formidable in a group together or in mutually supporting hexes. Especially with a superlative fighter like the Hellcat. With the advantage of mobility and initiative, it's far easier for the US to quickly concentrate carriers where needed than it is for the Japanese to concentrate LBA to counter them. Given an experienced enough group of pilots they should be able to fend off most LBA attacks. Plus, if you pick your target right you can often pound a base before it's LBA gets a chance to react.

Do you usually spread your carriers out in multiple fleets when they attack the same target (say if you have 5 carriers assigned to attack a base, do you have 5 fleets)?

[wdolson]

Early war the US has a strike coordination problem and you probably don't want more than 2 CVs in a TF.  Later that limitation gets better and you can concentrate TFs a bit more.  By 1944, you might want to concentrate carriers the way US task groups were organized with 3-4 CVs and 1-2 CVLs each.

If you put too many CVs in a TF, then the escorts won't be able to cover all the carriers.

By late 43 you will have a lot of carriers with large F6F squadrons on each.  Well trained LBA might be able to get a bomber or two through, but not much will get through that screen.

Bill

[Misconduct]

One thing I did was to improve coordination was put 1 CV and 1 CVL with a CL/CLAA, 5-6DD's per TF for the allies. This means you will have quite a few carrier task forces, now to better help this situation, for example now, if you have say 4 carriers, Make 1 carrier a "leader" and have every carrier's TF follow it. Say you want split into 2 groups (I made Yorktown and Lexington in charge of my groups) You simply split the carriers into 2 groups, one group following CV Lexington and another the CV Yorktown.

Basically the idea here was, I have say 6 allied carriers, I could split into 2 groups of 3 carriers each without really having to do much work (like sending each carrier TF individual).
When more carriers come out, simply add 1 carrier to each group. Just a thought

Edit: make sure your replenishment groups as allies have 2 groups, one trick is to have the "fast replenishment TF" follow your first Carrier TF, and slower the second TF. This way they will get re-fueled, just remember the second will always be the slower of the group.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

21. Yes, there's really no reason to build up Fairbanks or Bethel. The Aleutians may need some attention as even the AI will sometimes try to grab Attu or Kiska. (Dutch Harbor or Amchitka are good bases to build up)

Agree. I also build up and stock Kodiak a bit as a supply backstop to Dutch. Do patrols from there too. The AI loves to route subs right past the Aleutians and onto the southern Alaska and Yukon coastline.

[rockmedic109]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

21. Yes, there's really no reason to build up Fairbanks or Bethel. The Aleutians may need some attention as even the AI will sometimes try to grab Attu or Kiska. (Dutch Harbor or Amchitka are good bases to build up)

Agree. I also build up and stock Kodiak a bit as a supply backstop to Dutch. Do patrols from there too. The AI loves to route subs right past the Aleutians and onto the southern Alaska and Yukon coastline.

Let the Japanese land on Kodiak. Then bomb their base with chum and let the bears come in and feed. Not even an IJA tank unit is safe. The average brown bear outguns, outruns and is better armored than any IJA tank.

[brian800000]

Something odd I just noticed--I'm looking at repairing a ship, and the pierside time is substantially shorter than the shipyard time. Am I missing something?

[witpqs]

It just depends on how much you have there is terms of different resources. Repair ships and naval support help with pier-side, but IIRC they do not help with shipyard.

Shipyards are still vital because there are things that only they can do. An ARD + a repair ship can give not quite a mini-shipyard for repairing flooding damage, but real shipyards are still vital.

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: brian800000

Sorry, a couple more I forgot (these are big ones for me).

7. CAP percentages: what is the best percentage to use, and to what extent does it interfere with other missions? For example, if I make my primary mission to escort bombers on a naval attack and CAP at 100%, they obviously can't do both. Are my bombers unescorted or my base undefended? Or somewhere in teh middle.

While there is no one right answer, here is the formula I use the largest percentage of the time: 30-40% Cap, 10% on Rest. 10-30% on training. The training is useful to utilize the time when you aren't attacking or being attacked to improve the pilots, rest is essential for morale maintenance and fatigue reduction. Granted you should have more than one squadron based at a base for this to work.

8. What do you consider to be a healthy search team? If I really want to know what is going on out there at a sensitive base, how many planes should I devote to search?

Again here is formula I use. Minimum 9 plane group for LB, I DO NOT adjust ship based search planes, the AI handles them far better than I do.

Naval Search or ASW 60%, Training 30%, Rest 10%.

9. Odd FOW results for bases: if I hover over enemy bases on the other side of the world it will display details including the number of aircraft there. How can I be seeing this, or is it just inaccurate?

Never trust what you see. Even the combat reports...casualties are inflated for example. Some of it can be attributed to Signals intelligence, but it is still not accurate...safe to say that unless you send a plane to recon the base, the information is a guide at best, misleading most of the time, and completely inaccurate in the worst case. However, if you are getting lots of signals from 'Miri' for example, sending a sub patrol or two to the area might find a convoy there...etc. Its a case of 'use your best judgment'.

Shark7 -

This did not occur to me, the signals are placed in the sigint for a reason. Your suggestion seems very logical in hindsight, thank you.

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: brian800000

A few more questions:

15. It seems I can't go from the West Coast to Australia without running out of gas. The only major port between the two is PH. There is no way I should run all the west coast convoys to PH, right? The port would overload. Am I right in thinking I need to operate subsidiary ports in the Pacific to take the burden off PH?

16. Convoys between India and Australia seem to want to take a questionable rout along Java. If I reroute the convoys using waypoints, will the CS convoy led computers respect the waypoints on the way home?

17. Lets say I've set up a major distribution hub at Sydney. It is now awash in gas and supplies. I now set up subsidary hubs to the smaller bases. How do I keep those smaller bases from overloading with fuel and supplies?

18. Let me see if I understand Air Commands properly. Every base has an air command assigned. You see that when you click on the base. If you operate a plane from one air command from the base of another air command, you suffer a penalty. However, you can't even move the plane to that base if it is a part of a restricted Air Command. Then you need to transfer the plane to an unrestricted air command. The actual command units are useful as they provide support personnel. Is that about right?

19. For air units stuck in less combat likely commands (eg, the US), until I get the political points to transfer the units, they are really just training squadrons. I was planning on flying a little patrol/ASW, but mostly training and resting. Once the pilots get decent experience, I send them to the pilot pool. Is that the general idea?

20. The manual says that pilots over 80 experience can become trainers. Do I get any benefit from doing that?

15. Others have given you some good ideas here. I would add that you should, from the first week of the war, be cramming in supplies and fuel to PH. It's big enough that there won't be any spoilage. (See manual for those limits.) PH is the central hub of operations for the whole war, at least until mid-late 1944. Really fill it up with escorted CS convoys from your base of choice. I use SF, but you can mix up the start points. By 1944 you'll be hauling a couple of million tons of supplies and fuel every month westward to the front lines, and it's a shorter trip from PH than the WC. Fill PH up.

To answer you question, yes, using PH to refuel Oz-bound convoys is generally a good idea, although some combos of ships can make it without. As others have said, if you're getting red numbers, you can change the home base to an Oz base, but then you have to remember to send it back. You can use the Memo line at the top of the TF control screen to remind you ("Send me back to Pearl".) This little one-line memo space can be very useful as well when you're planning big invasions and need to keep dozens of TFs straight.

As far as PH overloading by re-fueling passing convoys, no, it won't, because a waypoint at PH with refuel set doesn't dock the convoy. It doesn't take pier space. There are fueling limits (See manual Section 9.3.3.2) but they're high for a large port like PH. I've never really harmed PH ops by having it refuel passing convoys. That extra fuel, going and coming, gives you about 4000 miles of slack range to use to route the convoy onto a safe path to Oz. In 1942 that can involve LONG doglegs to avoid Japanese islands.
As others have said, set the Refuel line in the TF to tell it what to do at the final destination. Early, you probably don't want to be Full refueling everything at Oz. Play with the different options. See manual section 6.2.13.1 for definitions of the various fueling options. Always realize that small ships can refuel in transit from big ships, so having some of your xAKs red when you leave is usually OK if there are others in green. You need to watch your ship mixes in the convoys partly with this in mind. Also, many of the early ASW escorts are very short-range. They'll have to suck fuel off their charges to get to Oz, which can make a waypoint at PH even more important.

16. Be careful with waypoints and auto-routing. Waypoints give you total control over where the ships go. The levels of auto-routing have limits. See manual section 6.1.2.1.2. The code only routes around KNOWN air threats. It doesn't avoid bases that might be packed with IJN surface raiders. Most importantly, it ONLY routes around known air threats. So, if you haven't reconned a base it's just a red base hex, and the AI will route as if there's no planes there, even if in reality it is a nest of Betties you don't know about yet. In particular, in 1942, be VERY careful of Tarawa, Baker, and Canton Islands. Waypoint FAR around them. If you set "Safer" for a convoy, and you haven't reconned those bases to see the planes almost certainly there, the AI will merrily drive your convoy right past them. Boomski.

Normal, Direct, Safer, and Safest can be very valuable labor-sving tools, but not in all cases. As you say, Java is another problem area. STAY AWAY from Java afer the AI captures it. There will be Betties and Nells everywhere. If you have to travel from India to western Oz, swing far out into the IO, and even then take escort, as the AI will carrier raid into the IO at random times under some AI scripts. If you have to go to Darwin from India, I'd make it two trips. India to Perth, Perth to Darwin. Don't try to cut the corner and go by Oosthaven, Batavia, Soerbaja, etc.

To observe waypoints in both directions, use the "Return Same Route y/n" radio button in the waypoint screen. When you do that, be sure the fuel budget still works to get them home.

17. Use the supply spinners to up or down the requested supplies. But fuel doesn't flow by itself, except for use by industry. You have to move it. Be aware that sticking a lot of fuel in Sydney will cause Sydney's heavy industry to suck on it to make supplies. You might want this in order to reduce how much supply you have to haul to Oz, or you might want the fuel there for naval ops. If the latter, you need to put fuel somewhere else. If it's in Oz, Sydney can take it for industry, generally speaking. You can put some in Tasmania, and a lot of players use New Zealand for a major fuel dump. Play with this too, and decide how you want to go. There's no one right answer, and that answer can be different in different game eras.

As far as overstocking small bases, review the spoilage rules at manual section 15.7. Tracker will give you daily spoilage numbers by base if you use it. The best way to avoid spoilage is to quickly build up ports and airfields at bases where you'll dump a lot of stuff.

18. Not sure what you're asking in this one. Be careful to distinguish Air Commands, which are HQ units with special powers, from garden variety base airfields, which support planes, but aren't air commands. Restricted versus unrestricted commands for aircraft is an important concept. Review the manual on that and play with it. Note there are permanent restricted commands (white) for planes and LCUs, and temporary restricted (yellow.) These you can change to unrestricted with PPs. So, some aircraft can't ever move out of their starting command, and others can be made deployable with PPs. The color tells you which.

19. Yes, that's the general idea. Play with this too, however. I use Range = 0 and 100% Training on training units, to keep fatigue down and max the skill and experience build rates. (But you have to watch fatigue every week or so.) On the WC, early, for those units which will be actually Searching and ASWing, and not just training, I still do 10% training. (This only is possible if you use search arcs, and we know now this week there are some code issues with those, so YMMV until the next patch.) Actually flying real missions builds up skills and experience very quickly, but you risk more Ops losses too. Trade offs.

20. Pilots over 80 can be transferred to TRACOM by clicking on the pilot's name when it turns yellow in the Pilot Replacement/Reserve Pool screen. TRACOM generally speeds up (a little) the training pipeline for pilots in school, which is normally a year. Generally (there are some pretty complex threads on this and I don't completely understand the mechanics) the pilots in the training schools don't get better, you just get them a little faster if you put a bunch of superstars in TRACOM. For the Allies this isn't really of much use. You'll be floating in nugget pilots throughout the war. You won't have enough planes for all of them, and you can't make more as the Allies. For the Japanese player, TRACOM can be more useful. For the Allies, it can safely be ignored. Some players stash really hot pilots there to save them for later-war, superior aircraft models. It's up to you. But TRACOM is not as big a deal as the General Reserve. That can be very useful for the Allied player to manage.

Bullwinkle58 -

Much of the above I had forgotten, some I did not know - very useful. Thank You Sir.

an enlightened Mac