Rise of the Sheep! JocMeister(A) vs. Obvert(J)

[poodlebrain]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Nope you didn´t miss anything. [:)]

Bombardments seem almost immune to mines. He lost 3 "Es" to them though.

I don't think ships conducting bombardment missions are immune to mines. I think the chances of hitting a mine decrease as bombardment range increases. If you select a higher bombardment range you will decrease your chances of hitting a mine, but you pay the consequence with reduced effectiveness of your bombardment unless you have good spotting.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: poodlebrain

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Nope you didn´t miss anything. [:)]

Bombardments seem almost immune to mines. He lost 3 "Es" to them though.

I don't think ships conducting bombardment missions are immune to mines. I think the chances of hitting a mine decrease as bombardment range increases. If you select a higher bombardment range you will decrease your chances of hitting a mine, but you pay the consequence with reduced effectiveness of your bombardment unless you have good spotting.

Although sometimes a waste of mines, but I find mining the entrance hex before the target base hex to be an effective determent.
There is some modifier about bombardment that changes the probabilities, but putting 300 or so mines in a probable hex
involving entry will more likely snag a capital ship in my experience and discourage further forays

It only takes once to prove how the algorithm works ... [;)]

[EHansen]

I think Crackaces is right about this and all missions. I put mines in Palembang and the hex adjacent to it. My opponents amphibious TFs hit mines in the adjacent hex but unloaded without incident at Palembang.

TF 94 encounters mine field at 49,90

Japanese Ships
DD Wakatake, Mine hits 1, heavy damage
xAP Kobe Maru, Mine hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
xAP Hakusan Maru, Mine hits 1

Japanese ground losses:
29 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled



---------------------------------------------

TF 185 encounters mine field at 49,90

Japanese Ships
PB Nako Maru #2
xAK Hakubasan Maru, Mine hits 1
xAK Aso Maru, Mine hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
xAK Mexico Maru, Mine hits 1, on fire

Japanese ground losses:
34 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 3 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

2 mines cleared


---------------------------------------------

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock

Nope you didn´t miss anything.

Bombardments seem almost immune to mines. He lost 3 "Es" to them though.

And apparently, the three CA's managed to dodge all the Allied submarines as well.[X(]

Well, the subs are within Erik ASW patrols so they all have a 10/10 DL which makes them almost completely non effective. [:(]

[JocMeister]

Regarding mines,

I´m not sure about bombardments and mines. To my knowledge and as far as I can remember I have never had a bombardment run suffer damage to mines that were in the same hex as the bombardment.

Good advice Crackaces. I´ll put the mines there instead!

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]24th May -45[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Interesting turn.

------------------------
Korea
------------------------
Erik makes an "all in" attack at Moppo via sea. Mixed results. I had dashed in two DE TFs that did very well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Moppo at 100,54, Range 8,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
SC Ch 28, Shell hits 7, and is sunk
SC Ch 29, Shell hits 8, and is sunk
SC Ch 32, Shell hits 6, and is sunk

Allied Ships
DE Samuel B. Roberts, Shell hits 1
DE Richard M. Rowell
DE William Seiverling
DE Silverstein

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Time Surface Combat, near Moppo at 100,54, Range 9,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
PB Chitose Maru #2, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
PB Hirota Maru, Shell hits 1
PB Kogyoku Maru
PB Kogane Maru, Shell hits 4, heavy fires, heavy damage
PB Konsan Maru, Shell hits 1
PB Manyo Maru
PB Nanrei Maru, Shell hits 5, heavy fires, heavy damage
PB Nishimi Maru, Shell hits 14, heavy fires, heavy damage

Allied Ships
DE Samuel B. Roberts
DE Richard M. Rowell
DE William Seiverling, Shell hits 1
DE Silverstein, Shell hits 7, heavy fires

Following that the Yamatos come in and clear out all the remaining PTs. Only 3 DDs for escort now. He must be really suffering from lack of it. They do a completely fiasco of bombarding the AF.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Naval bombardment of Moppo at 100,54

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
PBY-5 Catalina: 10 damaged
PBY-5 Catalina: 1 destroyed on ground
P-47N Thunderbolt: 21 damaged
P-47N Thunderbolt: 4 destroyed on ground
Thunderbolt II: 1 damaged
Thunderbolt II: 1 destroyed on ground
Spitfire VIII: 8 damaged
Spitfire VIII: 4 destroyed on ground
F4U-1A Corsair: 6 damaged
F4U-1A Corsair: 1 destroyed on ground

Japanese Ships
BB Musashi
BB Yamato

Allied ground losses:
417 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 18 destroyed, 8 disabled
Engineers: 20 destroyed, 5 disabled
Vehicles lost 2 (2 destroyed, 0 disabled)

Airbase hits 6
Runway hits 10

BB Musashi firing at Moppo
BB Yamato firing at Moppo

I´m all happy with this as the day dawns. I still have a very good CAP up as Erik sends forth the entire Japanese Air force again. He sweeps Moppo and the adjacent hex where the Armor are moving through. Some more motorized support are disabled but the Tanks themselves are immune.

The defenders over Moppo do great shooting down 82 planes for 16 own losses. At this point I´m still very pleased with the day. And then...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Naval bombardment of Moppo at 100,54

Allied aircraft
no flights

Allied aircraft losses
Spitfire VIII: 75 damaged
Spitfire VIII: 12 destroyed on ground
Thunderbolt II: 38 damaged
Thunderbolt II: 3 destroyed on ground
P-47N Thunderbolt: 115 damaged
P-47N Thunderbolt: 12 destroyed on ground
F4U-1A Corsair: 29 damaged
F4U-1A Corsair: 6 destroyed on ground
PBY-5 Catalina: 8 damaged
PBY-5 Catalina: 2 destroyed on ground [X(][X(][X(]

Japanese Ships
BB Hyuga
BB Ise
BB Yamashiro
BB Fuso

Allied ground losses:
1493 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 23 destroyed, 58 disabled
Engineers: 47 destroyed, 114 disabled
Guns lost 6 (2 destroyed, 4 disabled)

Airbase hits 13
Airbase supply hits 2
Runway hits 49

BB Hyuga firing at Moppo
BB Ise firing at Moppo
BB Yamashiro firing at Moppo
BB Fuso firing at Moppo

Not good. The airfield is still open with only 22 runway damage but I got 90% of the planes stuck on ground with damage. How Erik managed to get them to bombard during the day I don´t know. I can´t do much about this. No doubt Erik will try and set every bomber in range to strike the AF tomorrow. I will just have to eat it as I refuse to do the "disband" trick Erik has been doing. Can´t very will be annoyed with him doing the "trick" if use it myself.

So its a good chance I´ll lose a good amount of planes tomorrow. That is unless Erik switches the planes over to Nav Attack as my Fleet now approaches.

While this sucks it presented me with an opening I have been waiting for. More on that further down.

------------------------
China
------------------------
Its looking better and better here. My main army are now only 2 days from the Canton stack. This will seal off the hexside and isolate them. After that I will just have to make sure no hexside is opened from the outside.

Erik did not dare attack but did an bombardment instead.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ground combat at 81,55 (near Pingsiang)

Japanese Bombardment attack

Attacking force 108337 troops, 1212 guns, 271 vehicles, Assault Value = 3503

Defending force 35345 troops, 576 guns, 1883 vehicles, Assault Value = 1807

Japanese ground losses:
340 casualties reported
Squads: 5 destroyed, 19 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 3 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
28 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 6 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 7 (1 destroyed, 6 disabled)
Vehicles lost 3 (1 destroyed, 2 disabled)

Assaulting units:
8th Ind.Mixed Brigade
92nd Infantry Brigade
69th Division
22nd Division
131st Division
27th Division
22nd Ind.Mixed Brigade
68th Division
61st Infantry Brigade
132nd Division
71st Engineer Regiment
36th Division
67th Ind.Infantry Battalion
15th Division
110th Division
62nd Ind.Mixed Brigade
31st Engineer Regiment
22nd AA Regiment
1st Mortar Battalion
52nd Ind.Mtn.Gun Battalion
17th JAAF Base Force
North China Area Army
101st AA Regiment
15th AA Regiment
China Expeditionary Army
31st Mountain Gun Regiment
6th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
130th Division
11th Ind. Field Artillery Battalion
11th Field Artillery Regiment
75th Field AA Battalion
72nd Field AA Battalion
10th Ind. Field Artillery Battalion
14th Medium Field Artillery Regiment
2nd Ind. Mountain Gun Regiment
21st Mortar Battalion
12th Army
52nd JAAF AF Bn
9th Ind. Field Artillery Battalion
11th Army
2nd Rocket Gun Battalion
51st Ind.Mtn.Gun Battalion
15th Ind.Medium Field Artillery Regiment
74th Field AA Battalion
38th Army
56th JAAF AF Bn

Defending units:
19th Motorised Division
254th Armoured Brigade
Gardner's Horse Regiment
Guides Cavalry Regiment
18th Cavalry Regiment
Provisionl Tank Brigade
255th Indian Tank Brigade
3rd Cavalry Regiment
11th PAVO Regiment
50th Tank Brigade
17th Motorised Division

No chance he can dislodge them in x2 terrain. Not after the pounding he has taken from the air and the obvious lack of supply (no AA).

I also set about slowing the relief force down with good result.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Afternoon Air attack on 63rd Division, at 82,53 , near Changsha

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid spotted at 31 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 10 minutes

Allied aircraft
Liberator B.VI x 9
PB4Y-1 Liberator x 5

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
337 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 16 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 28 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled


Also attacking 35th Division ...
Also attacking 32nd Division ...
Also attacking 35th Division ...
Also attacking 32nd Division ...

Only 3 divisions. I should be able to quite easily stop that. If I can strike 12 more IDs from the Japanese OOB that would be a good day indeed. Fingers crossed!

------------------------
Strat bombing
------------------------
Eriks massive focus in Korea has opened up some very promising opportunities here. Stay tuned... [:)]

[koniu]

How Erik managed to get them to bombard during the day I don´t know.

Only way i know to have day bombardment is to have bombardment TF arriving to bombardment point during day move phase with stay on position order.

Biggest risk of that move is that bombardment is happening at end of day after both air phases so bombarded TF is risking being annihilated by planes before he manage to open fire.

Of course first You need to have planes on naval attack

[Encircled]

Very aggressive T/F commander?

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]25th May -45 Daylight raid on the HI!!! [/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Its not very often things happen as planned. Today was such a day. A absolutely stunning result! [&o][&o][&o] This might have been the most important day of the war.

------------------------
Background
------------------------
As I mentioned in my earlier post I´ve been waiting for some circumstances to fall in place. With 80% of the Japanese Air Force doing work over Korea and CAPing bases on Kyushu the opportunity finally showed itself. Even the weather cooperated. I noticed for quite some time that there have been very few fighters stationed around Maebashi and Tsu. These two places has to two largest Frank factories in the HI. Almost 200 factories. Over 50% of total production.

These are obvious targets yet there were neither much fighter OR much AA guns in place. I figured Erik would rely on a "ranged CAP" from Tokyo and Osaka to bleed over. But with the speed of the B29s and low altitude I was hoping I could get away with it.

Turns out I could! [:)]

[koniu]

You can also focus on engine production.
Not like plane factory, hitting engine production will have impact on plane production of few model at once. OF course it will not impact production from day one(depend of engine reserves) but in long term it should be better that hitting single plane factory

Ha-43 (A7M2, Shinden, B7A2, Ki-83, N1K5 etc)
Ha-45 (Ki-84, Ki-67, N1K2 etc)

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]25th May -45 The strike!!! [/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

The sweeps open up the day as planned for once striking Tsu first! Eriks CAP is caught off guard down on 10 and 15k. [&o]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Tsu , at 110,60

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 25 NM, estimated altitude 35,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 6 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zero x 18
A6M5b Zero x 5
A7M2 Sam x 16
J2M3 Jack x 12
N1K2-J George x 18
Ki-43-IV Oscar x 13
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 20
Ki-61-Id Tony x 4
Ki-61-II KAI Tony x 16
Ki-100-I Tony x 5
Ki-102b Randy x 4

Allied aircraft
P-51D Mustang x 25

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M5b Zero: 1 destroyed
A7M2 Sam: 1 destroyed
N1K2-J George: 1 destroyed
Ki-43-IV Oscar: 2 destroyed
Ki-44-IIc Tojo: 1 destroyed
Ki-100-I Tony: 1 destroyed
Ki-102b Randy: 2 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
P-51D Mustang: 4 destroyed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Tsu , at 110,60

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 35 NM, estimated altitude 33,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 9 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zero x 14
A6M5b Zero x 3
A7M2 Sam x 16
J2M3 Jack x 7
N1K2-J George x 13
Ki-43-IV Oscar x 7
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 13
Ki-61-Id Tony x 4
Ki-61-II KAI Tony x 13
Ki-100-I Tony x 3

Allied aircraft
P-51D Mustang x 24

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M5 Zero: 2 destroyed
A6M5b Zero: 1 destroyed
A7M2 Sam: 1 destroyed
J2M3 Jack: 1 destroyed
Ki-43-IV Oscar: 1 destroyed
Ki-44-IIc Tojo: 1 destroyed
Ki-61-Id Tony: 1 destroyed
Ki-61-II KAI Tony: 2 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
P-51D Mustang: 3 destroyed

These are followed by two more P51 sweeps. After that the first bombers came in. The CAP is severely weakened when they come in.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Tsu , at 110,60

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 65 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 22 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zero x 2
A7M2 Sam x 6
J2M3 Jack x 3
N1K2-J George x 6
Ki-43-IV Oscar x 1
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 4
Ki-61-II KAI Tony x 5
Ki-100-I Tony x 3

Allied aircraft
B-24J Liberator x 26
B-29-1 Superfort x 7
PB4Y-1 Liberator x 11

Japanese aircraft losses
A7M2 Sam: 1 destroyed
Ki-100-I Tony: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
B-24J Liberator: 11 damaged
B-24J Liberator: 1 destroyed by flak
B-29-1 Superfort: 2 damaged
B-29-1 Superfort: 1 destroyed by flak
PB4Y-1 Liberator: 1 destroyed, 6 damaged

Ki-84r Frank factory hits 23 [&o]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Tsu , at 110,60

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 76 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 26 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A7M2 Sam x 2
J2M3 Jack x 3
Ki-27b Nate x 1
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 3
Ki-61-II KAI Tony x 1

Allied aircraft
B-24J Liberator x 30
B-29-1 Superfort x 8

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
B-24J Liberator: 6 damaged
B-24J Liberator: 1 destroyed by flak
B-29-1 Superfort: 4 damaged

Ki-84r Frank factory hits 9 [&o]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Tsu , at 110,60

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 25 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A7M2 Sam x 2
J2M3 Jack x 2
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 2
Ki-43-IIb Oscar x 1
Ki-43-IIIa Oscar x 2
Ki-61-II KAI Tony x 1

Allied aircraft
B-29-1 Superfort x 43

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
B-29-1 Superfort: 7 damaged

Ki-84r Frank factory hits 28 [&o][&o][&o]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Tsu , at 110,60

Weather in hex: Heavy rain

Raid detected at 72 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 24 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A7M2 Sam x 2
J2M3 Jack x 2
Ki-61-II KAI Tony x 1

Allied aircraft
B-24J Liberator x 27

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
B-24J Liberator: 1 destroyed, 5 damaged
B-24J Liberator: 1 destroyed by flak

Ki-84r Frank factory hits 6

Smaller strike take out a further 19 points of Frank Factories! [&o]

And as if this wasn´t enough for a good day the first strike go in over Maebashi! Here the bombers go in first but in a unprecedented coordination the bombers go in almost as one!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on Maebashi , at 113,59

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid detected at 77 NM, estimated altitude 8,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 24 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A7M2 Sam x 20
J2M3 Jack x 3
J2M5 Jack x 36
N1K2-J George x 11
Ki-44-IIc Tojo x 4
Ki-84a Frank x 4

Allied aircraft
B-29-25 Superfort x 113
B-29B Superfort x 87

Japanese aircraft losses
J2M5 Jack: 1 destroyed
N1K2-J George: 1 destroyed
Ki-44-IIc Tojo: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
B-29-25 Superfort: 4 destroyed, 12 damaged
B-29B Superfort: 2 destroyed, 6 damaged

Ki-84r Frank factory hits 66 [X(]
J2M5 Jack factory hits 19 [X(]
J7W1 Shinden factory hits 15 [X(]
J2M3 Jack factory hits 43 [X(]

Some smaller strikes follow but hit nothing. Still its a spectacular result!!! [&o]

------------------------
Damage assessment
------------------------
I don´t really know yet exactly what kind of damage I managed to do. 1 hit doesn´t mean 1 point of factory. Sometimes I have hit with 5 hits and knocked out 30 factory points. I will just have to wait for the turn to see. But this might have knocked out half of Eriks Frank production including a good number of Jacks and even some Shindens!

Even if damage is less then hoped it will have a profound effect on the air war. This was a once in a life time opportunity. It won´t come back as Erik cannot afford another strike like this. He will have to put a day time CAP over his factories. Not only Tokyo and Osaka and he will have to do so in force. 100 fighters won´t do it. Even 200 might not. This strike is going to change the air war no doubt about it. He can no longer have 2000 fighters on Kyushu attacking into Korea and thousands of fighters on Escort for his Naval bombers.

Things will change from now on. No doubt! And I will try and take full advantage of it. [:)]

------------------------
Allied losses
------------------------
No doubt the will be grim. Still I can´t be anything but happy with this strike. Those factories are gone for good. [&o]

EDIT: As can be seen in the screen at least some of the fighters that showed up wasn´t even on CAP but training.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: koniu

You can also focus on engine production.
Not like plane factory, hitting engine production will have impact on plane production of few model at once. OF course it will not impact production from day one(depend of engine reserves) but in long term it should be better that hitting single plane factory

Ha-43 (A7M2, Shinden, B7A2, Ki-83, N1K5 etc)
Ha-45 (Ki-84, Ki-67, N1K2 etc)

Good point. I have been targeting the Ha-43 plants as can be seen in the screenshot (52 damaged at Maebashi). But with this one chance strike I decided to attack the factories themselves.

With a little bit of luck Erik hasn´t kept the factories running but shut them off once he felt the pools were "good enough". Say 500 planes or so. Now even if he turns them on he is only going to get 50% of the Frank production (hopefully).

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]25th May -45 Rest of the world. [/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

While the strike on the HI obviously was the news of the day some other things happened.

------------------------
Korea
------------------------
No strikes against Moppo today. [&:] Wonder if Erik set all the bombers to Naval attack as my Navy approaches. Not sure how much of my planes have repaired as I havn´t gotten the turn back yet.

It will be a bit of a dancing here from now on I assume. Erik admitted that the daylight bombardment wasn´t intentional. Good to know. That will make him very wary to repeat the bombardment. From now on my Navy will be in range to strike if it repeats itself. I´ll work on the principle to try and interfere with the bombardments as much as possible. The goal will be to force bombarding ships to eat OPS on PTs, subs, and Fletchers. Hopefully having them end up within strike range from the CVs.

I´ll move slow and deliberately here. No need to rush. I still have 95k supply in Korea.

I had hoped to keep Erik in the dark about my CV strength perhaps making him believe I was beaten. Sadly a stry Ann strike blew the cover.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morning Air attack on TF, near Shanghai at 94,55

Weather in hex: Moderate rain

Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 5,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 11 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-30 Ann x 9
Ki-36 Ida x 8

Allied aircraft
Corsair II x 36
Corsair IV x 107
Hellcat I x 47
Seafire L.III x 4
F4U-1A Corsair x 194
F4U-1D Corsair x 362

Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-30 Ann: 2 destroyed
Ki-36 Ida: 4 destroyed

No Allied losses

The bombardments at Masan goes better now. Only reason I can think off is Erik running low on supplies. I won´t turn these off. Ever. Burn supply, burn!

Ground combat at Masan (102,54)

Allied Bombardment attack

Attacking force 58341 troops, 1368 guns, 1168 vehicles, Assault Value = 3074

Defending force 157789 troops, 1928 guns, 472 vehicles, Assault Value = 5398

Japanese ground losses:
133 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 9 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
149 casualties reported
Squads: 12 destroyed, 16 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 13 (5 destroyed, 8 disabled)

------------------------
China
------------------------
Everything going as planned here. I shift focus to the relief force pinning them in Combat mode.

------------------------
HI Strike
------------------------
Erik and I had a short email exchange after the strike. He wrote this:

Good thing you didn't do this 5-6 months ago!!! Then it would have really been devastating. Not so worried now.

I´m not sure I´m buying that...we will see if he really is that nonchalant about the losses next turn. I think I will see a big CAP over his factories starting next turn. Which would indicate that he is indeed quite alarmed by the situation.

[Lokasenna]

I've had bombardment occur during the day phase rather than at night. I'm not sure how I got it to happen, but I could go back and find it in my email, I'm sure. It was in a Guadalcanal game. I don't believe I had remain on station set. I think what happened was the TF started 8 hexes out (its mission speed), but had to refuel on the way in so didn't make it in the night movement phase. They bombarded Milne Bay during the day movement phase and I believe ended up several hexes away (4-5 towards Rabaul) at the end of the turn.


Also, I've had bombardment TFs hit mines. Not often, but a couple of times. I'm not sure setting the distance higher helps at all.

[jeffk3510]

Bombardment occurs during the day if the taskforce is set to remain on station I believe... retirement allowed has them go in during the night phase.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Also, I've had bombardment TFs hit mines. Not often, but a couple of times. I'm not sure setting the distance higher helps at all.

I would be very surprised if it did. I think this is another one of those "received knowledge" items in forum culture, that the closer the range spinner is set the higher the chance of hitting a mine.

Why? Michael added the bombardment range spinner in an early patch. It can be done since the algorithm concerns specific shipborne weapons (in iteration) with range and accuracy data in the DB already. But the ship is in a hex that has no internal structure. It's just a hex. So are the mines. Mines are of linear density in the hex. So even if the ship, in the bombardment display, walks in the range to the beach as it fires, in reality it's just the weapon data walking in. The ship is just in the hex code-wise. And so are the mines, with all their original probabilities and randoms they had before Michael added the spinner.

So far as we know. [:)]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

Also, I've had bombardment TFs hit mines. Not often, but a couple of times. I'm not sure setting the distance higher helps at all.

I would be very surprised if it did. I think this is another one of those "received knowledge" items in forum culture, that the closer the range spinner is set the higher the chance of hitting a mine.

Why? Michael added the bombardment range spinner in an early patch. It can be done since the algorithm concerns specific shipborne weapons (in iteration) with range and accuracy data in the DB already. But the ship is in a hex that has no internal structure. It's just a hex. So are the mines. Mines are of linear density in the hex. So even if the ship, in the bombardment display, walks in the range to the beach as it fires, in reality it's just the weapon data walking in. The ship is just in the hex code-wise. And so are the mines, with all their original probabilities and randoms they had before Michael added the spinner.

So far as we know. [:)]

One or more developers has written in the past that defensive mines in a base hex are presumed to be in the vicinity of the base. How exactly that is coded is, of course, unknown. I suppose it's even possible that the statement was mistaken, but I doubt it. From there it is a presumption that a shorter-range bombardment would bring a greater chance of hitting a mine.

Further, even outside bases it seems clear (but as usual maybe not! [:D]) from various in-game/in-report messages that the game abstracts mines in 'mine fields'. Details, again of course, unknown. It seems like a ship has to first encounter a mine field, and then might encounter a mine. Hostile mine fields get located and cause the enemy-colored dot to appear on the map. It seems like when laying mines that either each ship or at least each TF will lay a different mine field. I have not gathered and retained evidence for anything in this paragraph, but I'm pretty confident it is essentially correct.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

Bombardment occurs during the day if the taskforce is set to remain on station I believe... retirement allowed has them go in during the night phase.

I´ll try it out! [:)]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

One or more developers has written in the past that defensive mines in a base hex are presumed to be in the vicinity of the base.

Have you got a cite?

And even if that is true, in a 40 NM-wide hex is there any real tactical difference between 2000 yards off the beach and 8000?

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: witpqs

One or more developers has written in the past that defensive mines in a base hex are presumed to be in the vicinity of the base.

Have you got a cite?

No, and I haven't searched the forum. It wasn't one of those technical explanations that I've learned it's better to snip 'n save for later reference.