Japanese Ship Repairs

[SoulBlazer]

I'm in kind of a quandry right now and not used to playing Japan. Hope someone can advise.

In a PBEM game right now, I recently have suffered some setbacks while trying to raid Luganville. Several carriers and battleships are now heavily damaged and will need to go back to Japan. I've been lucky in that the biggest ship I've lost so far is one heavy cruiser.

It's the middle of October 1942 and there is almost nothing left back in Japan -- 1 AV, 5 CL's, and a number of DD's and minor ships. Replesnishment rate is Moderate.

My question has to do with a few other lightly damaged ships I have at Rabul right now and did not send out on the raid -- a couple battleships and carriers that have Sys damage of around 20-28. Before, I was keeping these ships here because they could still fight. Now, I'm wondering, if I'm sending all these OTHER ships back, maybe these should go back also?

I'm thinking if all these ships go back, it will boost my rate back to High and the ships with minor damage should be available again before the end of the year and the lowering of the replenishment rate for Japan. I'm just not sure if ALL of these ships will be sent back to me. The Allies are weak right now, so I won't miss them, but I'd sure love to have my eight carriers and eight battleships around when April and May 43 kick around.....

Not sure what to do. Suggestions?

[Toro]

Hi Soul,

If you can afford them, send them back. 20+ sys damage is fairly heavy for a combatant (for any ship). The only concern I'd have is that you should keep some ships in the theater that have fighting trim as you never know what the Allies might be able to pull out.

[Drex]

That's right you never know!:D

[Mr.Frag]

You need to send them back now or risk never getting them back. By Jan '43, you can pretty much forget getting new ships as Japan as your levels drop even further.

You also might just want to stick them in port forever for repairs locally since you have pretty much every ship that you will every have by now ...

It's a risk either way ... send if back and loose it or port it and maybe the dice will roll your way for repairs...

[crsutton]

I think at this point I would send them back. Sys damage over 20 reallya begins to affect performance.

[m0ngoose]

I usually don't send anything back home unless they are 50% or higher so just stick your ships in a size 9 port and keep them in theatre.

The only reason to send ships back (for me) is upgrades or to deny the enemy possible victory points.

[Raverdave]

Originally posted by m0ngoose
I usually don't send anything back home unless they are 50% or higher

[m0ngoose]

<ahem>

Just the capitol ships I keep in theatre....



small boys, aux, transports, etc, all go back at 12% or more.

Happy?

:p

[Toro]

I was beginning to think... 'humm, maybe I should play m0ngoose..."

[Veer]

It depends: What are your plans? Offensive aimed at Auto Victory, or Defend till April/March?

If Defend

Send them all back. You might get your carriers and a couple of BB's back, but you ain't going to get 8X8 at one go. At best you'll atleast have a ready 'backup' in Tokyo to replace anything you might lose.
In the meantime keep a few crusiers and DD's around. But rely on LBA as your main defense. You should have 200+ Betty's and Nells by now. Build up the airbases at Dodbura and Lunga and you'll be all set. The allied player won't have anything till Jan. Ofcourse after Jan he gets a shitload of BB's and CVE's, plus the new Essex, so....

If Attack.

Keep everything. You may send some DD's back, but anything over 20 sys is lost for your campaign. You'll only need them till Jan1 anyway.

[Raverdave]

My rule of thumb is as follows:-


Subs with more than 10% go back.
CVs with more than 15% go back.
BBs, CLs and CAs...15% to 20% go back.
DDs will keep them around with upto 20% sometimes as high as 30% for convoy duty.
MSW also upto 20%.
All the rest go back with 20%.

Mind you if I have my back to the wall I tend to hang on longer before sending them back.

[CapAndGown]

Ironically, sending the DDs back may not be the way to go. DDs (and CA's and CL's) repair much more quickly than capital ships. It may make more sense to send the capital ships back and hang on to the DD's since they will be back in fighting trim much quicker. Anything that has had part of its armement shot off, however, should go back.

[Mr.Frag]

Anything that has had part of its armement shot off, however, should go back.

According to the manual, this kind of damage is repaired in any port size 5+ ... no need to send it back to get this damage fixed.

[Admiral DadMan]

Originally posted by cap_and_gown
...It may make more sense to send the capital ships back and hang on to the DD's since they will be back in fighting trim much quicker...

Remember, the number of DD's available can affect whether or not a capital ship is released.

[m0ngoose]

Admiral Dadman-

Are you serious about the DD's? There have to be some free to provide escort or some such? So basically if there are ONLY capitol ships available to be sent nothing is sent....

That kinda sucks....

[Mr.Frag]

Mongoose, have you ever seen DD's come by themselves?

The game seems to have 3 ship catagories:

< DD - released anytime in clumps or solo

> DD - released only as a complete task force with escorts

DD - only ship out as escort for the > DD task forces

It pretty much seems a really bad idea to have no DD's available to have task forces form to bring back your capital ships. I'm just guessing as it's not a rule listed anywhere, but this very much seems to be how things work ...

[Admiral DadMan]

Watch your releases.

I do not recall ever seeing DD's release unless they were escorting CV/BB/CA/CL ships. And I've watched the big ones sit around in Pearl/Tokyo when there were less than 4 DD's there, only to release the day that extra DD's became available.

I started a whole thread bitching about the release mechanism...