Gamey PT boat tactic ?

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I'll buy that. But rather than say , "No you can never do that!", wouldn't it be better to say, you can only do that for a reasonable time? Isn't this what house rules are for?[&:]

Our game already had a good number of house rules but we all hadn't been aware of the "possibilities" created by the PT Tenders at the time given that AE hadn't been out that long. It was only after observing the tactic "in action" and seeing how effective it was (particularily in terms of draining enemy ammo levels) that I came to view it as i do. It was perfectly 'legal' not to mention a clever use of assets by our opponents. Future games will have it mentioned for sure [:D]

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

But....do they have a McDonalds' franchise?[:)]

http://restaurants.post-gazette.com/va/ ... -county/-/

[crsutton]

Perhaps but not enough to lose sleep over. He can't reload torpedoes at sea (can he?) this way so the only real effect the PTs will have is vs landing barges.

I do use subs to refuel my PTs at advance bases where bigger ships can't venture, but this is at friendly bases and like said, they cannot replenish torpedoes. (And it probably happened)

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I'll buy that. But rather than say , "No you can never do that!", wouldn't it be better to say, you can only do that for a reasonable time? Isn't this what house rules are for?[&:]

Our game already had a good number of house rules but we all hadn't been aware of the "possibilities" created by the PT Tenders at the time given that AE hadn't been out that long. It was only after observing the tactic "in action" and seeing how effective it was (particularily in terms of draining enemy ammo levels) that I came to view it as i do. It was perfectly 'legal' not to mention a clever use of assets by our opponents. Future games will have it mentioned for sure [:D]

Or you could just use your DDs to go and sink the tender. It has to be at most a couple of hexes away.

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58


Or you could just use your DDs to go and sink the tender. It has to be at most a couple of hexes away.

Armchair Admiral! [:'(]


(they probably had spares anyway)

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus


Armchair Admiral! [:'(]

Hey, it's what I do. [:)]

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

But....do they have a McDonalds' franchise?[:)]

http://restaurants.post-gazette.com/va/ ... -county/-/

My bet is that the McDonald's is in or near Accomac Courthouse, and not in Wachapreague. Accomac Courthouse is about ten to fifteen miles from Wachapreague. What is really surprising about the list on that link is that there isn't a single local seafood restaurant listed... [:(]

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: witpqs
... Using the technique to operate PT's at long range sounds gamey.

But didn't PT boats spirit MacArthur off Batan?

Does anyone know how far the PTs actually took him and his family and where they made landfall?

Yes....but the really interesting aspect of the flight was the condition of the boats......PT boat engines require a full refitting after a reletively short # of work hours and naturally such a luxery was not available after Dec7 around the PI's. As such by the time of Mac's flight the boats were in sad mechanical shape and could only go a fraction of their max speed....hence the reason why the crews were really worried about running into the enemy.

Problem in AE is that utilizing a tender....you can set up an insta-PT base at any dot hex and not only extend patrol ranges but do the "shuttle" attack tactic whereby PT TF's go in to a nearby contested base hex, shoot it up with enemy TF's (making them expend ammo in the process), the PT TF then retreats to the dot base....insta replenishes and repeats. If you have enough PT's....you can maintain a near constant barrage of PT TF's entering a contested hex. Even if they don't hit anything, the forcing of ammo expenditure forces the blue water surface TF's to retreat to re-arm. It's more than a bit gamey IMO, but legal within the game framework. The lack of degredation from such hard use is absent.

Tactic is so effective that an allied player can effectively 'contest' an enemy landing without risking any actual blue water warships.

Wasn't that what PT boats were designed to do? What your complaint is that it works as designed?[:D]

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I'm not convinced that this is gamey, any more than having subs continually patrol off a AS or having flying boats operate off a AV. These ships were mother ships. Is it gamey to consider planes off a carrier attacking? Of course not. They are doing what they were designed to do. There are many outrageous things that were done during the war that is considered gamey (that is not allowed) in this game. B-25's off carriers,subs refueling seaplanes,patrol planes attacking other patrol planes, are just a few of them. I don't see PT's operating offensively off a tender as being gamey or unrealistic.

Carrier raids tend to be short affairs lasting at most a day. Extended ops are available but one would nominally expect increasing levels of unservicability. Also, a home carrier represents not a tender, but a full airfield, complete with hangers that shelter, arm, service and overhaul the planes in question.

PT's are much larger and the service and maintenance of them involves more than simply tying up next to a tender, immediately reloading up and then setting off. In terms of the tactic i described. It stretches credability in that the tender is meerely serving as a rearming point in lieu of an actual naval base after which the PT TF's immediately set back off to attack the landing in question. (The current SYS damage system does not represent the wear and tear such an operation would cause).

To use a real game example. This was employed against Joe and I in an attack in Northern waters at Adak. PT Tf's continaully attacked us....causing us to lose off our ammunition while the PT TF's traversed as much as 120-180 miles of pen sea to return to a dot base...rearm, rinse and repeat. In real life....doing even one of these raids (battle and a 240 mile round trip through rough waters) would require not only advance planning but serious maintenance in the aftermath, assuming even no damage from actual combat.

But if instead they used DD's with AE's and AD's and maybe a tanker or two , would it still be "gamey"?

[aspqrz02]

ORIGINAL: m10bob
But....do they have a McDonalds' franchise?[:)]

No, you have to eat at the Island House Restaurant [:D]

(Google Earth is a wonderful thing!)

Phil

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: m10bob

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58




http://restaurants.post-gazette.com/va/ ... -county/-/

My bet is that the McDonald's is in or near Accomac Courthouse, and not in Wachapreague. Accomac Courthouse is about ten to fifteen miles from Wachapreague. What is really surprising about the list on that link is that there isn't a single local seafood restaurant listed... [:(]

I found the dozen or so Golden Arches Luncheon Clubs arrayed down the Eastern Shore on Google Maps, but I couldn't figure out how to link it in less than three complete lines of URL.

As for the Acc Courthouse vs. Wachapreague, what's the diff, really? [:)]

Yes, my hometown is Virginia Beach. You're welcome. [:'(]

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

ORIGINAL: m10bob

My bet is that the McDonald's is in or near Accomac Courthouse, and not in Wachapreague. Accomac Courthouse is about ten to fifteen miles from Wachapreague. What is really surprising about the list on that link is that there isn't a single local seafood restaurant listed... [:(]

I found the dozen or so Golden Arches Luncheon Clubs arrayed down the Eastern Shore on Google Maps, but I couldn't figure out how to link it in less than three complete lines of URL.

As for the Acc Courthouse vs. Wachapreague, what's the diff, really? [:)]

Yes, my hometown is Virginia Beach. You're welcome. [:'(]

C'mon, moose... you know that those eastern shore communities are all so insular that they'll get upset when you mix them up...

I grew up in tidewater Virginia... Cold Harbor and Urbanna... before moving to Georgia for college.

[m10bob]

Operating range varied greatly depending on speeds, surface conditions,
currents, and winds. At 35knots (approximately 30mph) the range might
be 360 miles. At 9knots a boat could cover 600 miles. If the boat ran
continuously at full throttle the fuel would be exhausted in six hours. Of
course, during a patrol the boat would run at varied speeds, first using a
moderate speed to reach its operating area, then crawling along on one
engine, thereby minimizing noise and wake. If the boat engaged the enemy
there would be brief periods of high-speed maneuvering, followed by more
crawling through the water, and then a return to base at cruising speed

(Got this from an OSPREY book I have..)

[steamboateng]

Normal maintenance for a diesel boat (even with 4 units) is still no more than an oil and filters thing. Spare injectors should be on board, and a relatively simple change out. I would think the real downside to forward basing is lack of spare parts. Running those puppies in the 34 knot range would couse lots of wear and tear, fuel dillutted oil sumps, dirty/worn injectors, worn fuel pumps, etc. Even the tender is going to run out of parts before long.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: steamboateng

Normal maintenance for a diesel boat (even with 4 units) is still no more than an oil and filters thing. Spare injectors should be on board, and a relatively simple change out. I would think the real downside to forward basing is lack of spare parts. Running those puppies in the 34 knot range would couse lots of wear and tear, fuel dillutted oil sumps, dirty/worn injectors, worn fuel pumps, etc. Even the tender is going to run out of parts before long.

The game treats PTs as diesel, however, in reality they (at least all the USN ones) were gasoline powered.

[steamboateng]

Sorry, that's the second time I got caught in that mix-up. I got to get that to stick in memory, .............PT's are gas engines..........PT's are gas engines............
The point being, however, that spare parts would be weak link in the maintenance chain for forward bases.
Thanks for reminding me, again, that it's more than gray hair that I'm afflicted with.[&:]

[Fishbed]

Wasn't there a story I've read over here, about some PT open ocean transfer between Palau and the Philippines, or something like that?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay


C'mon, moose... you know that those eastern shore communities are all so insular that they'll get upset when you mix them up...

I think you had to go out to Tangier Island to still hear the Elizabethan English. The main Eastern Shore had progressed to about 1880 by the 1970s . . .

Great to drive through, hell to be a teenager there.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay


C'mon, moose... you know that those eastern shore communities are all so insular that they'll get upset when you mix them up...

I think you had to go out to Tangier Island to still hear the Elizabethan English. The main Eastern Shore had progressed to about 1880 by the 1970s . . .

Great to drive through, hell to be a teenager there.

Some mountain communities in Virginia spoke Elizabethan English as well - at least until quite recently.

My wife went to high school with some guy who transferred in from a more remote area of the Virginia mountains - and he understood Shakespeare perfectly well, because that is what they spoke where he came from. [X(] [:)]

[spence]

Wasn't there a story I've read over here, about some PT open ocean transfer between Palau and the Philippines, or something like that?

The difference is that they didn't sail straight into a fight when they got where they were going. Crew rest/fatigue are a real and important factor on small combatants. The comment about blunt force trauma made earlier in the thread is very appropriate when discussing long duration voyages on boats (not ships, PT BOATS)



The same even applied to WWII submarines. When they were at battle stations everyone on board was at battle stations. The DDs/DEs/KVs/AMs overhead could fully function for ASW with half the crew sawing logs in their racks.