Harbor Defense Motor Launches

[vettim89]

Well I want Junk fleets to run up and down the river systems in China. Imagine the fun

[vettim89]

Don, I just loaded my DBB 29B game. HDML cannot go into ASW TF. You have to put them into SC or Escort types.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Don, I just loaded my DBB 29B game. HDML cannot go into ASW TF. You have to put them into SC or Escort types.

I recall some discussion on this, but no details. You can use surface combat TF too.

[Alfred]

HDML have 2 active uses (apart from passive use intended to soak up enemy TF OP or ammo).

1. Place them in a local minesweeping TF. They will keep harbours clear of mines and with their useful DC can sink Japanese midget subs (and enemy fleet subs too) which try to penetrate into the harbour.

2. Place them in Barge/Landing Craft TF as escorts. Their presence will keep the subs from surfacing and again with their DC, they can sink any subs encountered. The short range of HDML is not a problem because barges themselves don't have better endurance, and landing craft can refuel HDML en route.

Like everything in the game, there is always a use for any particular asset. HDML are simply coastal craft. They are part of a "brown water" navy. They are only useless if one attempts to use them in a "blue water" navy operation.

Alfred

[oldman45]

Alfred you are right on here. If my ASW planes even think they saw a sub near a major port, I will put HDML's or YP's into TF's and just sit in the harbor. Got more than one mini sub this way.

[bradfordkay]

Don, if you created the Southern Cross to supply a "leaper colony", did you include Brady's "woden hulled fleet" for the Japanese player? [:'(]

[Mistmatz]

ORIGINAL: vettim89

Well I want Junk fleets to run up and down the river systems in China. Imagine the fun

RHS in vanilla WitP had that. Kinda nice. [:)]

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Don, if you created the Southern Cross to supply a "leaper colony", did you include Brady's "woden hulled fleet" for the Japanese player? [:'(]

Yup, some of it.

You should see the Australian Army Fleet.

But for a number of reasons the scenario is for my own use only.

[bradfordkay]

You tease...

BTW: I am really enjoying DaBigBabes as my AI game (which, of course, does not get as much playing time as my stock PBEM). Thanks for all your work!

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

You tease...

BTW: I am really enjoying DaBigBabes as my AI game (which, of course, does not get as much playing time as my stock PBEM). Thanks for all your work!

Yeah, I guess I did....

[LeeChard]

I use them to soak up attacks. Might be a bit gamey but it works.

[LargeSlowTarget]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
But for a number of reasons the scenario is for my own use only.

[jmalter]

Martin Clemens, in 'Alone on Guadalcanal', details the use of native canoes between his station at Aoba & Florida/Tulagi, crossing the soon-to-be 'Ironbottom' Sound at night. thus, accurate intel on Tulagi's AA capability was delivered to the USN, thru the Ferdinand (coast-watcher) radio net.

and he tells of using auxiliary schooners, after the USMC landing, for local re-supply & personnel transfer. prior to the Japanese invasion of Tulagi, they used these boats to evacuate Chinese merchants further to the south-east, and to 'repatriate' groups of native workers back to their home islands after the copra/rubber plantations shut down. during the Japanese occupation, they had been hidden in a mangrove swamp at the south-east end of Guadalcanal. one of them suffered some floatation damage, 'cos its shaft seal failed.

but this kinda stuff is a little too fine-grained, even for AE.

ETA: still, it'd be nice to have a coastal schooner, mebbe to infiltrate a few Oz commandos into the harbor at Singapore!

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: vettim89
Well I want Junk fleets to run up and down the river systems in China. Imagine the fun

Not to mention every lifeboat and liferaft and guy swimming in the water after an engagement. [:D]

[Mac Linehan]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

HDML have 2 active uses (apart from passive use intended to soak up enemy TF OP or ammo).

1. Place them in a local minesweeping TF. They will keep harbours clear of mines and with their useful DC can sink Japanese midget subs (and enemy fleet subs too) which try to penetrate into the harbour.

2. Place them in Barge/Landing Craft TF as escorts. Their presence will keep the subs from surfacing and again with their DC, they can sink any subs encountered. The short range of HDML is not a problem because barges themselves don't have better endurance, and landing craft can refuel HDML en route.

Like everything in the game, there is always a use for any particular asset. HDML are simply coastal craft. They are part of a "brown water" navy. They are only useless if one attempts to use them in a "blue water" navy operation.

Alfred

Alfred -

Read the above last weekend, but the full significance (usefulness!) didn't sink in till rereading.

Thank You for the clarification, Sir!

Cricket Mac

[GaryChildress]

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan

ORIGINAL: Alfred

HDML have 2 active uses (apart from passive use intended to soak up enemy TF OP or ammo).

1. Place them in a local minesweeping TF. They will keep harbours clear of mines and with their useful DC can sink Japanese midget subs (and enemy fleet subs too) which try to penetrate into the harbour.

2. Place them in Barge/Landing Craft TF as escorts. Their presence will keep the subs from surfacing and again with their DC, they can sink any subs encountered. The short range of HDML is not a problem because barges themselves don't have better endurance, and landing craft can refuel HDML en route.

Like everything in the game, there is always a use for any particular asset. HDML are simply coastal craft. They are part of a "brown water" navy. They are only useless if one attempts to use them in a "blue water" navy operation.

Alfred

Alfred -

Read the above last weekend, but the full significance (usefulness!) didn't sink in till rereading.

Thank You for the clarification, Sir!

Cricket Mac

Many motor launches don't even have DCs. A couple types have only a single machine gun. [X(]

[vettim89]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

ORIGINAL: Mac Linehan

ORIGINAL: Alfred

HDML have 2 active uses (apart from passive use intended to soak up enemy TF OP or ammo).

1. Place them in a local minesweeping TF. They will keep harbours clear of mines and with their useful DC can sink Japanese midget subs (and enemy fleet subs too) which try to penetrate into the harbour.

2. Place them in Barge/Landing Craft TF as escorts. Their presence will keep the subs from surfacing and again with their DC, they can sink any subs encountered. The short range of HDML is not a problem because barges themselves don't have better endurance, and landing craft can refuel HDML en route.

Like everything in the game, there is always a use for any particular asset. HDML are simply coastal craft. They are part of a "brown water" navy. They are only useless if one attempts to use them in a "blue water" navy operation.

Alfred

Alfred -

Read the above last weekend, but the full significance (usefulness!) didn't sink in till rereading.

Thank You for the clarification, Sir!

Cricket Mac

Many motor launches don't even have DCs. A couple types have only a single machine gun. [X(]

Images of Telly Savalas trying to ward off the German Armored attack in a crippled M4 with nothing but the 0.50 cal AA MG.

[Blackhorse]

Images of Telly Savalas trying to ward off the German Armored attack in a crippled M4 with nothing but the 0.50 cal AA MG.

"I can still ram 'em!" . . . ah, the Battle of the Bulge, one of the best of the badly-done war movies. Savalas was much more realistic in Kelly's Heroes. [:)]

On the topic of fictional machine-gun armed dispensers of physically-impossible justice, I recall an old Rat Patrol episode, where the jeep's crew fashioned a molotov cocktail out of an iodine bottle in the medicine kit, and tossed it at a pursuing German halftrack. The iodine bottle exploded, ripping a hole through the armored hood, and destroying the engine.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Many motor launches don't even have DCs. A couple types have only a single machine gun. [X(]

Care to nominate the HDML which don't have depth charges?

In the official campaign scenarios only the two S class don't have depth charges, and none are present in the scenario. All the Admiralty and Thornycraft classes do have depth charges and those are the classes the allied player receives.

Alfred

[Reg]

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

ORIGINAL: nate25

EXCLUDE ship types? Banish the thought! [:)]

If three natives were running supplies b/t Lunga and Tassaforonga in an outrigger, I'd like that craft modeled in the game. Just my obsessive side I guess.

Thanks,
Nate

kudos to you but I can definitely live without having to issue orders to native outriggers.

Speaking of outriggers, I always liked this one I ran across a while back. I wonder if Don would consider adding these.... (VTIC [:D])

http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/J03321