One thing I find irritating, but I am probably wrong here, is to see PTs cross 200 miles of open water, including some real ocean stuff, quite deep, to go and fight in ennemy waters.
Some experts here will probably correct me and tell me this is historical, and I suppose so many RL advantages of the allies are not implemented in the game that it all balances out in a sense, but still..
I would just think it natural for PTs to have a radius from a friendly base of say 3 hexes where they can cross ocean hexes, and otherwise be limited to shallow waters, something like this.
Did PTs really just cross taht type of water like that ?
Anyway great Ambush Greyjoy, too bad the weather wasn't with you...
Well, i agree on general terms. PTs should be allowed only in shallow waters... but the code allows them to move just like any other TF and they have enough endurance to be able to move easily up and down from Darwin to Lautem...
I have to admit that against Rader i used them very effectively sending them from Lunga up to Shortland Island... so i cannot really complain now if i got treated with the same medicine
I don't have a problem with PTs travelling a fair bit as long as they do it on shallow waters, ie up and down the Solomons or east-west along the Babar to Java route.. What I have a problem with is their crossing of 120 to 160 miles of deep water with no land in sight..
Well I suppose if you are ok with it, fair enough, and it might look a bit sore loser to point it out to QBall now.. although with the supplies and AS issues in this mod, you are at more than an disadvantage compared to stock...
All well done with this defensive stand. Every time he comes you'll lose something Japan can't afford to lose, but if you keep trading that material for time and the ability to further back-load your defensive positions, it should be worth it. Much worse is to lose nothing and have two Allied bases capable of building to level 8 fields in 4E range of Balikpapan and Soerabaja.
Not only will it take a while for him to gather another bunch of troops and transports capable of this kind of move, this could really make him think twice about doing anything on the cheap again. And in that way you may have stopped several moves with one defensive stand. He also has to wonder a bit more about what he's seeing with naval search and recon. Keep up the deception! The more smoke and mirrors you can create the fewer DDs you'll need. (At least that's what I keep telling myself. I'm up to 42 lost now, but in 1/44. Too many![:(])
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
I don't have a problem with PTs travelling a fair bit as long as they do it on shallow waters, ie up and down the Solomons or east-west along the Babar to Java route.. What I have a problem with is their crossing of 120 to 160 miles of deep water with no land in sight..
Let try and understand ..do you believe this was an imposed policy of WWII or phyisically impossible? Because depth of the waters has nothing to do with the phyisical possibility of a PT boat floating/sailing [&:] .. people sail the ocean blue in one man sail boats and quite successfully [8|]
The PT boat historically stayed close to shore because of a limited fuel supply .. not because as soon as they got into ocean waters some disaster would occur . unless your cut in half by a IJN destroyer ... [;)]
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so"
I don't have a problem with PTs travelling a fair bit as long as they do it on shallow waters, ie up and down the Solomons or east-west along the Babar to Java route.. What I have a problem with is their crossing of 120 to 160 miles of deep water with no land in sight..
Let try and understand ..do you believe this was an imposed policy of WWII or phyisically impossible? Because depth of the waters has nothing to do with the phyisical possibility of a PT boat floating/sailing [&:] .. people sail the ocean blue in one man sail boats and quite successfully [8|]
The PT boat historically stayed close to shore because of a limited fuel supply .. not because as soon as they got into ocean waters some disaster would occur . unless your cut in half by a IJN destroyer ... [;)]
It's more of a question. What I meant is that I kind sort of understand them traveling a fair bit on shallow waters along island chains, as I can rationnalize that imagining small fuel/supply dumps on the coast, a bit like Coastwatchers. Something too small to be deemed a base but that the engine could rationalise that way.
But in ocean hexes obviously you can't rationalise it that way. I don't know, what is your take on it ? Again if everybody is fine with it than cool, I am not an expert at all, it just looks/feel weird to have PTs tangling with jap BBs 200 miles north of their nearest base after having cross a big body of deep water.
Sure, but than in Nw NG this would be the typical coast hugging / base or island hoping use of PTs with which I have no issue what so ever.
My point is that PTs should be a massive PITA in the Solomons or for example here, once the allies had secured a base or two in the island chain. But coming all the way from Darwin seems a bit far fetched...
The B-25D1 is classified in-game as Attack Bomber. That means that when set to 5,000ft or less it will use 'low' skills and (AFAIK) automatically drop down to strafe flak and such.
The various altitudes versus attack profiles versus skills used got revamped a number of patches ago. Nowadays you really have to train the crews on 'low' to have Attack Bombers be effective, otherwise they have to go up where the 4EB play.
PT Boats are a PIA for the Japanese. Once they have a close base the Allies can produce an almost unlimited number of them. The only real cure is DD's and that is something GJ does not have a lot of. waves of these pests just chew up ammo and ops points
Today I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat, do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. - Yasser Arafat Speech to UN General Assembly
I can't speak on pt boats in particular, but I am a fisherman (do it for a living), and I can tell you that boat size isn't the limiting factor in traveling the oceans, fuel is. So assuming the pt boats could refuel under way, they could conceivable cross the entire pacific from SF to Tokyo or even farther. The only other limiting factor would be weather, severe weather could swamp the pt boats, and I'm not sure the game models weather effects on any ship at sea other than cold weather zones. Speaking from experience, I've fished as far out as 400 miles from port on a 48ft trawler for 8-14 days at a time, in good weather and not so good weather, and I'm here to write about it. Just something to think about.
edit: Another thing to keep in mind is that the PT boats primary advantage was surprise. It was small, and against the back-drop of an Island were had to detect both visually and on radar. Once in the open water the PT boats lose this advantage, and their only advantages are speed and maneuverability, And if you are busy dodging gunfire it's hard to aim a torpedo straight enough to hit anything. Torpedoes of WW2 ran in a straight line, and had to be aimed in such a way as to intersect with a ships projected path. It would be virtually impossible to properly aim a torpedo while weaving and dodging to avoid gunfire, and as a result pt boats that lost the element of surprise were not very effective. This is why pt boats generally hugged the shore, to prevent early detection, and not because they were incapable of traveling open oceans.
I have moved newly arrived MTBs/MGBs from Karachi to Burma by having them follow a larger ship for refuelling purposes. They had no problems and accumulated less system damage following a slow xAKL than they would cruising at their usual lowest speed.
However, I think the game may model at-sea damage a little differently when in severe storms. Fast ships like DDs and any ship with flotation damage seem to have an increase in damage if there were severe storms in the hex. Certain AMs that bob like corks seem to be nearly immune from at-sea damage.
No matter how bad a situation is, you can always make it worse. - Chris Hadfield : An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth
GJ: Once again, you wreaked havoc on an Allied fleet, albeit failing to administer the coup-de-grace. On the bright side, both of those were strategic victories and will slow down the pace of the Allied advance. You chewed up a lot of amphib and ground forces this time, as well. Well done, Sir.
PT Boats: These things are quite limited in fuel, which to me is working just fine. Gmoney is right. The only thing I'd revise in the game is making them more vulnerable to severe weather on the open seas, which is no doubt beyond the likely scope of WITP-AE. WITP 2, on the other hand...
I can't speak on pt boats in particular, but I am a fisherman (do it for a living), and I can tell you that boat size isn't the limiting factor in traveling the oceans, fuel is. So assuming the pt boats could refuel under way, they could conceivable cross the entire pacific from SF to Tokyo or even farther. The only other limiting factor would be weather, severe weather could swamp the pt boats, and I'm not sure the game models weather effects on any ship at sea other than cold weather zones. Speaking from experience, I've fished as far out as 400 miles from port on a 48ft trawler for 8-14 days at a time, in good weather and not so good weather, and I'm here to write about it. Just something to think about.
edit: Another thing to keep in mind is that the PT boats primary advantage was surprise. It was small, and against the back-drop of an Island were had to detect both visually and on radar. Once in the open water the PT boats lose this advantage, and their only advantages are speed and maneuverability, And if you are busy dodging gunfire it's hard to aim a torpedo straight enough to hit anything. Torpedoes of WW2 ran in a straight line, and had to be aimed in such a way as to intersect with a ships projected path. It would be virtually impossible to properly aim a torpedo while weaving and dodging to avoid gunfire, and as a result pt boats that lost the element of surprise were not very effective. This is why pt boats generally hugged the shore, to prevent early detection, and not because they were incapable of traveling open oceans.
As I understand it fishing trawlers are made to withstand severe weather, have a deep draft and thus good bouancy and less roll than something shallow like a PT. I certainly wouldn't like to meet a 20-30 foot swell in a 78-80 foot PT boat with a 5-6 foot draft. I would think those boats would have a tendency to roll severely in any weather at all, and also not be capable of their high speed runs in any kind of rough water simply because they'd be coming out and crashing down between every swell to the point the human crew would be incapable of anything, if indeed the boat was still afloat.
This is from a complete non-seaman, so please correct my (mis)-understanding if there are some completely off-base comments here. Although I don't ride in them often, I do look at a lot of boats and it seems anything built for rough weather and open ocean has a deep draft or something to steady the boat (a deep extending keel), as well as to cut through oncoming water and keep the heading true.
In game I we're probably going to have to deal with PTs doing a lot of things they may not have been able to do well, but that is true for many elements and usually works both ways.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
Aircraft Attacking:
6 x B-25D1 Mitchell bombing and strafing from low level
Naval Attack: 6 x 500 lb SAP Bomb
Wow! Amazingly effective attack by 6 unescorted B-25's. Those boys are dy-no-MITE! He has been training them for a bit. Amazing they even took off without escort like that. He has evidently created an elite skip-bombing B-25 squadron.
depends on what you see as elite. As the Allied, I have all my medium USAAF bomber pilots trained to 70 low nav and 70 grd (as a result of this they also got 70 def and 50-55 exp) when they join a squadron later than 6/42. With all the excess fighter and bomer squadrons this is no prob at all and getting to 70 skill only takes 6-8 weeks on average. Add in that attack bombers attack with full bombload at low level and you have your ship killers, 70 lownav is all you need and getting them above 70 with training takes forever so it would be a waste of a pilot slot in a training squadron IMO.
I agree that PT boats weren't able to withstand heavy seas, but neither was the fishing boat I mentioned. we only drew 4ft of water empty (we were never really empty while fishing though) and had to use 'birds'-giant planers-for stability in rough waters. One thing to keep in mind though is that unless you are in stormy weather, waves offshore are generally gentle swells with a long interval (time between waves) and it is actually calmer in 1000+ft of water than in 100ft of water in the same conditions. 10 foot swells with a 5-6 second interval are a lot easier to deal with than 6 foot waves with 3-4 second intervals you find near shore. That being said, I agree-pt boats caught in sever weather should be in trouble, but so should destroyers/LST type ships. And for the record, before the war the US realized that the pt boat designed by ELCO was not stable enough in rough seas, and ordered a redesign of the PT boats specifically to improve their rough sea capabilities. This site has some general information on pt boats and links to books with more information- http://www.ptboats.org/20-01-05-ptboat-001.html
http://www.hnsa.org/doc/pt/doctrine/part1.htm another good read-this is the actual 1942 tactical ops manual issued to PT commanders in ww2. I also found on submarines issued in 1944, haven't yet found one from before that time.
At Moa the allies are doing their max effort to maximise their progress there. Already 4 units and 3,000 men on the island, with mines and PTs already in place[:@]
His subs seem immune to my mines, while his are deadly against my own subs
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TF 116 encounters mine field at Moa (74,116)
Japanese Ships
SS I-169, Mine hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
However, a HUGE LRCAP from Bathrust appeared over Moa (very LRCAP indeed!) and claimed 20 zeros and nearly 20 Helens, along with 5 Jakes...OUCH!
But we gave him the same medicine, ambushing his milky runs over Mitikyna in Burma, shooting down 98 enemy planes[8D]
A mixed day, with the KB hunted by not less than 30 subs near Sorong....
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Night Naval bombardment of Taberfane at 82,117
Allied Ships
CA Minneapolis
CA Chicago
CL Nashville
CL Achilles
DD Shaw
DD Hughes
DD Bancroft
DD Taylor
DD DeHaven
DD Cony
DD Chevalier
Japanese ground losses:
380 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Non Combat: 4 destroyed, 29 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 12 disabled
Guns lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)
Airbase hits 5
Runway hits 48
Port hits 7
Port supply hits 1
CA--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Myitkyina , at 64,42
Weather in hex: Light cloud
Raid spotted at 20 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 6 minutes
Japanese aircraft
N1K1-J George x 38
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 52
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 22
Allied aircraft
P-66 Vanguard x 3
Beaufort I x 9
Blenheim IV x 33
Hudson IIIa x 3
Hurricane IIb Trop x 4
Hurricane IIc Trop x 45
Wellington Ic x 3
P-40E Warhawk x 18
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Afternoon Air attack on 9th Port Maint Engineer Battalion, at 74,116 (Moa)
Weather in hex: Partial cloud
Raid spotted at 19 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 5 minutes
Japanese aircraft
Ki-49-IIa Helen x 25
Allied aircraft
P-38G Lightning x 14
F4F-4 Wildcat x 6
Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-49-IIa Helen: 8 destroyed, 2 damaged
No Allied losses
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Afternoon Air attack on Lautem , at 72,115
Weather in hex: Thunderstorms
Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 24 minutes
Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 38
A6M5 Zero x 1
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 1
Allied aircraft
Beaufighter Ic x 9
B-17E Fortress x 6
B-17F Fortress x 12
B-24D Liberator x 11
B-24D1 Liberator x 11
B-25C Mitchell x 9
B-25D1 Mitchell x 8
Ok guys, it's getting serious now. We're counterinvading Moa. We can't wait no more. Already 5,000 allies, 13 guns and 20 vehicles are present. Nearly a regiment strong. We have to act. Tomorrow we'll be landing the 8th Division, along with 2 ind. Eng Regiments and 2 tank regiments. I had to work with what i had at hand, so it won't be a perfect amphib solution. A fast transport TF, supported by 2 amphib TFs. Tanaka will lead the operation, while Nagumo CVs will be guarding against the allied intervention...which will arrive, for sure.
We'll have to fight against waves of PTs and against the allied cruiser TFs that every night guard the approaches of Moa. We'll do our best...if we let him build that base it's over.
Today he bombed Lautem with 100 4Es, in order to keep it close. Tomorrow he will attack Alor...i'm sure of that and Dili too.
The good news of the day comes again from Burma. After yesterday ambush over Mitikyna he tried to make me pay for the insult and came sweeping Mandalay with P-40Ks and Hurricanes...boy that was a bad idea. My crack Tojos and Georges (The first at 31k, the latters at 20k feet) ate the enemies alive, shooting down 23 hurris and 15 P-40s, for the loss of 2 Tojos and 1 George and not a single pilot WIA or KIA[8D].
the CV Akagi was targetted by an enemy sub near Sorong...luckly he missed[&o]
Tomorrow 20 of my subs will be guarding the southern approaches of Moa. I know he will come sweeping with heavy SAGs. I cannot stop him, but this time he will have to face my BB/CAs, along with the KB's planes and the LBAs... the KB is still 460 planes strong, so it's still able to give some headhaces to Brad....
i hate to risk my assets...but it's now or never...
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ASW attack near Moa at 74,117
Japanese Ships
SS RO-62, hits 10
Allied Ships
CA Minneapolis
CA Chicago
CL Nashville
DD Taylor
DD DeHaven
DD Cony
DD Chevalier
DD Shaw
DD Hughes
DD Bancroft
SS RO-62 is sighted by escort
DD Shaw attacking submerged sub ....
DD Hughes attacking submerged sub ....
DD Bancroft fails to find sub, continues to search...
Escort abandons search for sub
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Sub attack near Moa at 74,117
Japanese Ships
SS I-10
Allied Ships
APD Litchfield
AVD McFarland
APD Lawrence
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Sub attack near Boela at 81,109
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Morning Air attack on Mandalay , at 59,46
Weather in hex: Severe storms
Raid detected at 43 NM, estimated altitude 34,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes
Japanese aircraft
N1K1-J George x 33
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 39
Allied aircraft
Hurricane IIc Trop x 16
No Japanese losses
Allied aircraft losses
Hurricane IIc Trop: 6 destroyed
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Morning Air attack on Mandalay , at 59,46
Weather in hex: Severe storms
Raid detected at 38 NM, estimated altitude 32,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 12 minutes
Japanese aircraft
N1K1-J George x 32
Ki-44-IIa Tojo x 34
Allied aircraft
P-40K Warhawk x 24
Japanese aircraft losses
N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed
Allied aircraft losses
P-40K Warhawk: 7 destroyed
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Morning Air attack on Lautem , at 72,115
Weather in hex: Heavy cloud
Raid detected at 77 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 23 minutes
Japanese aircraft
no flights
Allied aircraft
Beaufighter Ic x 2
B-17E Fortress x 17
B-17F Fortress x 13
B-24D Liberator x 24
B-24D1 Liberator x 44
B-25C Mitchell x 6
B-25D1 Mitchell x 3
Japanese aircraft losses
A6M5 Zero: 1 destroyed on ground
N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed on ground
B5N2 Kate: 1 destroyed on ground
wow.. looking forward to that momentous battle.. I fear it will end up a damp squib, with your transports turning away and dispersing because of the heavy opposition, or not bein able to start unloading because of all the OPs spent.
Oh my! This is going to be interesting! You have a good mobile reserve there. You may already be doing this, but could you make a false invasion with some xAKL a day before the real deal, just to see what he's bringing and also to take some of it off the board? Either way it's a risk. You could go with deceipt and lose assets for nothing, or go all-in and lose troops on ships.
Tough to call, but I'm sure you have some surprises as well as a good amount of force to get this done.
As a side note, with the KB in the area you should also bag a ton of whatever PBY/Dakota transports he's been using to get troops onto Moa.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
I support the use of picket ships.. Dare I say if he is sending PTs 200 miles through blue water from his bases, the use of a few picket ships shouldn't lead to an overreaction, or at least spark a legitimate discussion.
Just something to think about.
