Some Quick Questions

[Rogue187]

OK. I am once again doing my annual restart of the game. My goal is to play a game past the end of December 1941 and not wait 8 months to start a new game! Is it the fact that December 7th is once again a Sunday? Maybe. Or the fact that I went to Pearl Harbor 2 weeks ago? More maybe. Or the fact that I have been reading a lot of WWII books? Probably. All of the above? Most likely.

Anyway, a couple of easy questions. The grand campaign, turn one. I am playing around with my aircraft on the West Coast and see that many have a (S) and (R) on them. Now I know that the (R) means command restricted and that I would have to pay political points to change their commands so that I can move them. But what does the (S) mean? I haven't seen an answer to that to that yet.

ASW vs Searching. From what I have heard, its better to set your planes to naval search at low altitude since they will hit subs anyway and not take the hit for using true ASW patrols. True or false? Also, set the PBYs to bombs and not torpedoes.

Shorthand for LCU on the main map. When I hover hover the 35th Infantry Regiment I see: A92, G29, F1, E8, and S144. I figured out A92 is the assault strength and S144 is the support. What is G, F and E? Also looking at the TOE. I have USA Rifle Squad (30) x 61. What does this mean? 30 squads? 30 disabled squads? When I look at the break down of the TOE, it shows the total rifles as a combination of both values.

Thanks!

[Quixote]

ORIGINAL: Rogue187

OK. I am once again doing my annual restart of the game. My goal is to play a game past the end of December 1941 and not wait 8 months to start a new game! Is it the fact that December 7th is once again a Sunday? Maybe. Or the fact that I went to Pearl Harbor 2 weeks ago? More maybe. Or the fact that I have been reading a lot of WWII books? Probably. All of the above? Most likely.

Welcome back

Anyway, a couple of easy questions. The grand campaign, turn one. I am playing around with my aircraft on the West Coast and see that many have a (S) and (R) on them. Now I know that the (R) means command restricted and that I would have to pay political points to change their commands so that I can move them. But what does the (S) mean? I haven't seen an answer to that to that yet.

The S indicates Static. Basically, these air units are permanently restricted to their theater, and can not be bought out regardless of political point expenditure.

ASW vs Searching. From what I have heard, its better to set your planes to naval search at low altitude since they will hit subs anyway and not take the hit for using true ASW patrols. True or false? Also, set the PBYs to bombs and not torpedoes.

When starting the game, you are usually better off using Naval Search than ASW as the Allies since you don't have many pilots with enough ASW experience yet to do anything. Later in the game, it will depend on location, resources, training, and what you are trying to accomplish as to whether you choose ASW or Search.

Shorthand for LCU on the main map. When I hover hover the 35th Infantry Regiment I see: A92, G29, F1, E8, and S144. I figured out A92 is the assault strength and S144 is the support. What is G, F and E? Also looking at the TOE. I have USA Rifle Squad (30) x 61. What does this mean? 30 squads? 30 disabled squads? When I look at the break down of the TOE, it shows the total rifles as a combination of both values.

G is guns, F is flak, and E is engineers. (30)61 means you have 91 total squads, 30 of which are currently disabled. TOE doesn't care about disablements (or the current state of the unit at all), it's just showing you the TOE if you allowed the unit to take it's full replacements.

Thanks!

[Rogue187]

Thanks for the info! So I have loaded up the December 8th grand campaign and have spent half an hour tooling around with the airplanes in the US. A couple of things came to mind. These static/restricted air groups, are they worth wasting my time on? I sent most of them to training in the hopes that why they withdraw, their pilot experience will return to the pool and it won't be a total loss if and when they return. I heard that setting them to 100% training with 0 distance will save on operational losses. Any truth in that? Also, do you guys try to specialize air groups? Do you put some bombers on airfield attack, with others on naval or port or land attack? Do you pick them randomly or do you have a selection process? When I was working on the fighters, CO's over 70 aggression I put on sweep while the rest were on escort duty. On carriers, how many planes do you put on training? Also, I know that the SBD's were used for scouting and bombing (Scouting 3, Bombing 6, etc) How many of these planes do you employ in the scouting role? I have the scouts set to 30% naval search with the bombers at 0%. Finally, banged up ships at Pearl Harbor. Fix them there or send them to the West Coast?

[Rogue187]

One other question from back in the War in the Pacific Non-Admiral's Edition Days. Carrier aircraft. I remember there were problems with having aircraft assigned to a carrier, transferring them off, then bringing them back. FOr some reason, they never seemed to work right after that. I know that was one of the problems that were fixed in this game, but I have never forgotten that bug. Is it still a problem? Heck, I will still see from time to time that loading bug. When you tell your transport group to load cargo, it loads it, then starts unloading it for whatever reason once it reaches 100%. That is super annoying.

[btd64]

Yes, use them to train pilots. But you have to remove them from the Squadron manually. Some of those Squadrons can be withdrawn and you keep the planes, Pilots and get PP's. Yes on the 100% and 0 distance. Yes I train different groups depending on the airframe. B-17's airfield, ground etc. Depending on the scenario I move the CV's to a safe place and train the hell out of the pilots. SBD's naval, naval search and some on asw. I set SBD's up to 50% search depending on how many CV's in the TF and threats. Ships at PH, Well it depends on how much damage and what ships. DD's fix fairly quick. BB's I set them to pierside to fix as much sys damage and other damage as possible. Check the upgrade dates and duration in days the upgrade takes. If it is a long upgrade time, fix the system and other damage as much as possible, under 40 for flotation damage, and move to Alameda for repairs. As you fix the other ships move others from pierside to shipyard....GP

[btd64]

ORIGINAL: Rogue187

One other question from back in the War in the Pacific Non-Admiral's Edition Days. Carrier aircraft. I remember there were problems with having aircraft assigned to a carrier, transferring them off, then bringing them back. FOr some reason, they never seemed to work right after that. I know that was one of the problems that were fixed in this game, but I have never forgotten that bug. Is it still a problem? Heck, I will still see from time to time that loading bug. When you tell your transport group to load cargo, it loads it, then starts unloading it for whatever reason once it reaches 100%. That is super annoying.

If the TF has no destination and it is not set to Do Not Unload, it will unload as soon as it finishes loading. The air unit thing I haven't seen since witp 05....GP

[geofflambert]

Once you have properly trained pilots in ASW, use them in that role in certain areas and choke points. You will get many more hits than when searching. Carrier crews also need to develop that skill but it has to follow search, naval bombing and naval torpedoing and until you have a sufficient surplus of well trained crews to train. For land based units, I train air crews exclusively in ASW, and I consider it very important to set aside squadrons to do nothing but, as long as you put them in the right places. Because they only go out half as far when doing ASW vis-à-vis search, their search efficiency is much higher. The most important areas to do ASW are close to shore so the range reduction is mostly immaterial. Choke points and major ports, cover those. Wait until substantial sub activity appears there.

But yes, planes on search will attack both ships and subs, but if they aren't properly trained in ASW (level 60 or above) it won't make much difference. They won't get many effective hits. That goes for anti-ship as well. Your search planes will use bombs in order to maximize the range regardless of what you order, but against shipping and subs bombs are just fine. Some units will attempt to attack submerged subs if they think they see them (like those Japanese units with magnetic detectors (which didn't work very well) and may use depth charges. Much more useful was radar for catching the subs on the surface.

It's been said that the ASW planes are most important for alerting surface ASW patrols, but I disagree. The aircraft that spots the sub is much more likely to get a hit than a surface unit which may not even find the target later. As the Japanese, and in part because their ASW technology was inferior, and American subs were superior as far as how deep they could go, I almost never sink a sub with a surface vessel. The US ships will be much better at finding a sub and mounting a successful attack, but not until sometime in '43.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: General Patton

ORIGINAL: Rogue187

One other question from back in the War in the Pacific Non-Admiral's Edition Days. Carrier aircraft. I remember there were problems with having aircraft assigned to a carrier, transferring them off, then bringing them back. FOr some reason, they never seemed to work right after that. I know that was one of the problems that were fixed in this game, but I have never forgotten that bug. Is it still a problem? Heck, I will still see from time to time that loading bug. When you tell your transport group to load cargo, it loads it, then starts unloading it for whatever reason once it reaches 100%. That is super annoying.

If the TF has no destination and it is not set to Do Not Unload, it will unload as soon as it finishes loading. The air unit thing I haven't seen since witp 05....GP

That's true most of the time, but not all of the time (I forget frequently), and I've no idea why. [&:]