A few newbie questions

[Torplexed]

ORIGINAL: 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?

That's because depending on the size of the port, pierside repairs often won't fix things like major damage. It's simply calculating what items it can successfully fix at pierside (usually only system damage or minor damage). Depending on how badly beat up the ship is, when those pierside repairs are through you'll still likely be left with major flotation engine or weapons damage that will require a yard. The shipyard repair time is calculating how much time it will take to fix everything that's wrong with the ship.

[John Lansford]

I bet there's a symbol (#) beside the pierside repair time estimate; that means they can't fix everything damaged on the ship.  Pierside repair can deal with minor damage, but they won't touch the major damage unless there's naval support or a repair ship (AR) there.

RE: fuel transfer from Perth to the Oz east coast.  The fuel WILL flow eastwards, but all the little bases along the way will take their share first, so until they are getting their allotment, Melbourne and Sydney won't see any of it.  In my CG it's late '43 and I'm only now starting to see the fuel make it over to Sydney from Perth; it took that long to make Adelaide and the other bases happy.

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
RE: fuel transfer from Perth to the Oz east coast.  The fuel WILL flow eastwards, but all the little bases along the way will take their share first, so until they are getting their allotment, Melbourne and Sydney won't see any of it.  In my CG it's late '43 and I'm only now starting to see the fuel make it over to Sydney from Perth; it took that long to make Adelaide and the other bases happy.

I thought so. Also a poster above remarked that Perth has too much ships in harbour. But in Perth are only 2-3 AMs and some AKs - the fuel is needed in Brisbane and Sydney. But I shipped some in from the US meanwhile. Btw. it seems the litte bases near Perth really got a little share meanwhile - ca. 500-1000 fuel.

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
RE: fuel transfer from Perth to the Oz east coast.  The fuel WILL flow eastwards, but all the little bases along the way will take their share first, so until they are getting their allotment, Melbourne and Sydney won't see any of it.  In my CG it's late '43 and I'm only now starting to see the fuel make it over to Sydney from Perth; it took that long to make Adelaide and the other bases happy.

I thought so. Also a poster above remarked that Perth has too much ships in harbour. But in Perth are only 2-3 AMs and some AKs - the fuel is needed in Brisbane and Sydney. But I shipped some in from the US meanwhile. Btw. it seems the litte bases near Perth really got a little share meanwhile - ca. 500-1000 fuel.

I usually set up a CS fuel pipeline (excuse pun) from Cape Town to Perth. And then form small CS TFs to shuttle fuel direct to Sydney or Melbourne. And then distribute it by convoy to other Australian major ports.
The ships are usually borrowed from CT or other ports where there are a plenty supply of AK/AO/TK ships not actively employed.

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
RE: fuel transfer from Perth to the Oz east coast.  The fuel WILL flow eastwards, but all the little bases along the way will take their share first, so until they are getting their allotment, Melbourne and Sydney won't see any of it.  In my CG it's late '43 and I'm only now starting to see the fuel make it over to Sydney from Perth; it took that long to make Adelaide and the other bases happy.

I thought so. Also a poster above remarked that Perth has too much ships in harbour. But in Perth are only 2-3 AMs and some AKs - the fuel is needed in Brisbane and Sydney. But I shipped some in from the US meanwhile. Btw. it seems the litte bases near Perth really got a little share meanwhile - ca. 500-1000 fuel.

I usually set up a CS fuel pipeline (excuse pun) from Cape Town to Perth. And then form small CS TFs to shuttle fuel direct to Sydney or Melbourne. And then distribute it by convoy to other Australian major ports.
The ships are usually borrowed from CT or other ports where there are a plenty supply of AK/AO/TK ships not actively employed.

Yes Michael this is what needs to be done in this case if we want to have any fuel in the eastern ports (which we want). I am still in danger of JAP interception of some of these shipping lanes (may 42 and this is my first game guess I did not very good). So it would be better and logical that at least a portion would be transported overland. I mean there are rail lines - there is also a (major?) road to Darwin - but I can accept that road transport can not move these masses of liquids in 1942 in a huge country like Oz. But rail should.

Btw: Someone postet he has probs also in India - there the distribution works for me on land/rail.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan


Bullwinkle58 -

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

an enlightened Mac

You're welcome.

The refueling-as-a-waypoint piece I had to re-research. There are port size limts, etc., so PH can do an on-the-fly refuel, but small bases can't. There are dozens of mechanics like that in the game that I have to constantly refresh from the manual.

[brian800000]

I was crunching the numbers on cargo and fuel needs, and comparing them to the numbers of ships. I'm estimating that I'm short on TKs, but have a significant oversupply of AKs. I've read on the forum that I should be short on TKs, but it seems as though well more than half my AKs could be sunk before I'd notice. Have I messed up my math?

As it stands, I think I'll use every AK that can carry fuel to do that, even if it isn't the most efficient.

[Alpha77]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

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.

Thanks, I also have a CAP question. We have CAP and LR CAP - does CAP only protect the base hex ? If yes, does LR CAP also fly missions WITHOUT giving a target hex ? Let´s say I want to protect Akyab from Chittagong (sp?) is this possible ? I noted that a sometimes (but not always) my fighters fly against bombers attacking Akyab. I am not sure if I set them to normal cap or LR cap though, LR cap seems to cause huge fatigue. So I set them back to normal CAP. Will escorts also sometimes CAP ? Say the escorting mission encountered no resistance but enemy is sighted 1 hex away. Will the escorts try to fight this enemy ?

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

ORIGINAL: witpqs

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.

Thanks, I also have a CAP question. We have CAP and LR CAP - does CAP only protect the base hex ? If yes, does LR CAP also fly missions WITHOUT giving a target hex ? Let´s say I want to protect Akyab from Chittagong (sp?) is this possible ? I noted that a sometimes (but not always) my fighters fly against bombers attacking Akyab. I am not sure if I set them to normal cap or LR cap though, LR cap seems to cause huge fatigue. So I set them back to normal CAP. Will escorts also sometimes CAP ? Say the escorting mission encountered no resistance but enemy is sighted 1 hex away. Will the escorts try to fight this enemy ?

1. CAP primarily effect the base hex, but it MAY support targets as much as four hexes away; the amount of the support is a function of just about everything imaginable including, but not limited to leader leadership, leader aggression, fatigue, activity at base, HQ (air) influence
2. LRCAP protects only the targeted hex/unit and causes great fatigue; it should protect any in-range hex at "leader descretion" but I have never seen it happen so I always give it a target now
3. If you have a raid set for afternoon and there is an incoming raid on your base in the morning, all "idle" a/c MAY scramble in support of the CAP where "idle" includes escort, rest, train and anybody else not in the air. The same is true for an afternoon incoming raid where some a/c flew escort earlier; the "idle" a/c may scramble. If the incoming raid coincides with an outgoing raid then any a/c that either did not fly escort or returned early may scramble. For this reason I usually set no higher than 30%CAP and add some percentage to Rest if I want additional defenders (but other people do it differenctly)

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Alpha77

I mean there are rail lines - there is also a (major?) road to Darwin - but I can accept that road transport can not move these masses of liquids in 1942 in a huge country like Oz. But rail should.

The is one (1) rail line from Perth to the east. Not even two sets of rails side-by-side. One set of tracks. It was that way in 1985, so I assume it was no better in 1942. There are sidings in a couple of places to allow trains to pass, but they're rare too.

[John Lansford]

If you decide to run convoys between Perth and Melbourne along the south side of Oz, make sure they're escorted; the AI will send subs to patrol between Adelaide and Melbourne.

BTW, if you disband your ships at Perth, they won't drain your fuel reserves there.  Basically they are tied up at the dock and just sitting in port.  I've got zero ships in TF's at Perth yet cannot keep any fuel there at all, even after a 6 tanker TF unloads 70,000 units.

Darwin: the fuel use to move supplies/fuel along the road to that port is so high that no fuel will get there.  Fuel only moves long distances along rail lines.

AK's as tankers.  If you're short of tankers, grab 30 xAK's and load them with fuel.  You're stacking barrels of fuel on every deck, but you'll get more fuel to the port that way then if you don't use them, and you've got more xAK's as the Allies than you'll ever need hauling supplies.

[brian800000]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

If you decide to run convoys between Perth and Melbourne along the south side of Oz, make sure they're escorted; the AI will send subs to patrol between Adelaide and Melbourne.

BTW, if you disband your ships at Perth, they won't drain your fuel reserves there.  Basically they are tied up at the dock and just sitting in port.  I've got zero ships in TF's at Perth yet cannot keep any fuel there at all, even after a 6 tanker TF unloads 70,000 units.

Darwin: the fuel use to move supplies/fuel along the road to that port is so high that no fuel will get there.  Fuel only moves long distances along rail lines.

AK's as tankers.  If you're short of tankers, grab 30 xAK's and load them with fuel.  You're stacking barrels of fuel on every deck, but you'll get more fuel to the port that way then if you don't use them, and you've got more xAK's as the Allies than you'll ever need hauling supplies.

I was using Brisbane as my offload point in Oz--I was also going to use Brisbane as my starting point to transport fuel to Perth. From what you are saying, can I assume the fuel will make it to Melbourne? That would certainly make the trip shorter.

[Torplexed]

ORIGINAL: brian800000

I was using Brisbane as my offload point in Oz--I was also going to use Brisbane as my starting point to transport fuel to Perth. From what you are saying, can I assume the fuel will make it to Melbourne? That would certainly make the trip shorter.

You're far better off feeding fuel to Australia from both ends. To Sydney and Brisbane from the US West Coast. To Perth from the Middle East and Africa. (Abadan or Capetown)

[brian800000]

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

ORIGINAL: brian800000

I was using Brisbane as my offload point in Oz--I was also going to use Brisbane as my starting point to transport fuel to Perth. From what you are saying, can I assume the fuel will make it to Melbourne? That would certainly make the trip shorter.

You're far better off feeding fuel to Australia from both ends. To Sydney and Brisbane from the US West Coast. To Perth from the Middle East and Africa. (Abadan or Capetown)

I'm sure I'm completely missing something, but I didn't think you got oil in Abadan or Capetown. At least neither shows refinery or oil industries. Does oil appear as a part of out of game industries?

[Torplexed]

ORIGINAL: brian800000
I'm sure I'm completely missing something, but I didn't think you got oil in Abadan or Capetown. At least neither shows refinery or oil industries. Does oil appear as a part of out of game industries?

Abadan, the port represents a collection point for fuel refined from the British oil fields in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In the base display you'll see 21,200 fuel already there--plus the number to the right of the slash represents how much fuel it receives per day. 15,000 is a heathy amount. This graphic is from December 7th. A LOT of fuel will accumulate there throughout the game. Capetown numbers aren't as dramatic (only 250)but there is a lot of fuel there to start.



By the way there are similar /slash numbers for a lot of bases in the game. Particularly on the West Coast and Panama. They represent fuel refined in the Eastern US and Texas.

[brian800000]

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

ORIGINAL: brian800000
I'm sure I'm completely missing something, but I didn't think you got oil in Abadan or Capetown. At least neither shows refinery or oil industries. Does oil appear as a part of out of game industries?

Abadan, the port represents a collection point for fuel refined from the British oil fields in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. In the base display you'll see 21,200 fuel already there--plus the number to the right of the slash represents how much fuel it receives per day. 15,000 is a heathy amount. This graphic is from December 7th. A LOT of fuel will accumulate there throughout the game. Capetown numbers aren't as dramatic (only 250)but there is a lot of fuel there to start.



By the way there are similar /slash numbers for a lot of bases in the game. Particularly on the West Coast and Panama. They represent fuel refined in the Eastern US and Texas.

Oh--wow. I had noticed those (especially regarding supply), but not known what they meant and ignored them. That changes everything. I had been working out a complicated strategy to get fuel to India through Australia--and run fuel from Java until the very last minute after which hopefully enough tankers would be around. This is so much easier. Thanks!

[Torplexed]

You're welcome [8D]

BTW if you haven't already, check out Sadaukar's Grand Campaign tutorial in the after action reports forum in which he describes in detail all his opening moves, long term planning and strategy in a game against the Japanese AI. It could be pretty helpful even if you a few weeks into a GC....

tm.asp?m=2564541

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: brian800000

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

ORIGINAL: brian800000

I was using Brisbane as my offload point in Oz--I was also going to use Brisbane as my starting point to transport fuel to Perth. From what you are saying, can I assume the fuel will make it to Melbourne? That would certainly make the trip shorter.

You're far better off feeding fuel to Australia from both ends. To Sydney and Brisbane from the US West Coast. To Perth from the Middle East and Africa. (Abadan or Capetown)

I'm sure I'm completely missing something, but I didn't think you got oil in Abadan or Capetown. At least neither shows refinery or oil industries. Does oil appear as a part of out of game industries?

There is enough fuel at Abadan to supply India and OZ with all the fuel they need (unless you send major US fleet units into the Indian Ocean). I offload at Perth and it migrates to Sydney without loss and from there to anywhere you need fuel EXCEPT Darwin and the north coast. In fact, by 1943 I am supplying SoPac with fuel from Townsville instead of PH/West Coast. Now this works well against the AI since all you need is a light ASW escort for each fuel convoy into Perth; against a human be prepared to encounter surface raiders as well as subs along the way.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: brian800000


I'm sure I'm completely missing something, but I didn't think you got oil in Abadan or Capetown. At least neither shows refinery or oil industries. Does oil appear as a part of out of game industries?

Be careful. Move FUEL to OZ, never oil. Don't move oil anywhere as the Allies. Fuel organically appears in Abadan; it comes to CT either because you bring it from the US East Coast, or in the CD auto-convoys that can also bring supplies and devices for the pools. (Look in the LCU arrival queue to see when and where the CD convoys arrive.)

Supply Perth with fuel from CT and/or Abadan. Supply Sydney, Brisbane, etc. from either the US west coast, or Perth. Supply Darwin from Perth or Sydney/Brisbane.

Don't move oil. After the DEI falls, about the only source you have is Los Angeles, and it needs what it has to make fuel. As the Allies, forget oil even exists. It's one of the few simplifying rules for the Allies.

[brian800000]

ORIGINAL: Torplexed

You're welcome [8D]

BTW if you haven't already, check out Sadaukar's Grand Campaign tutorial in the after action reports forum in which he describes in detail all his opening moves, long term planning and strategy in a game against the Japanese AI. It could be pretty helpful even if you a few weeks into a GC....

tm.asp?m=2564541

I just read that thread, what a huge help. I've recently restarted, so this is very timely.