Night Naval Attacks

[Hades]

I have some high XP divebombers stationed at Lugna and I'm trying to stop the nightly bombardments by setting the divebombers to night naval attacks. but none of the bombers attacked. is it possible to attack ships at night?

[frizt]

I don't think so.

[crsutton]

I have never seen it happen in the game-although SBDs at Lunga frequently bombed by moonlight. With only moderate success but still enough to curb Japanese operations when the moon was out.

[Hades]

Too bad. It sure would be useful.

[Admiral_Arctic]

I have had air units regularly attack at night but only later in the war when their experience is higher, and you are desperate for strike planes. I have only had success with float plane types like the Mavis. I guess if the other planes get enough experience they probably would attack too. (But my strike squadrons always are struggling to keep their experience levels up.)

The best success has occurred at my own bases during an invasion. A sub in the hex sometimes spots the TF but not always. I set them at 1k ft. Mavises won't attack naval targets during the day but they can do some good damage at night. Also later in the war you get the Dinahs to take up the naval recon role and there is lots of Mavises spare after they upgrade to the Emilies.

It sure puts a smile on your face when the 12-18 Mavises attack at night and hit some targets but you start yelling during the day phase when you lose 100 planes again trying to get through the CAP.

Just be patient, the experince needs to be up though.

[m10bob]

If units like "The Black Cats" can't attack at night effectively,do they contribute at all in an observation role at night??.So far,I've never seen any night observation by a plane??

[BillBrown]

Interesting, I have never put Cats on night patrol. Maybe if you had both Cats and SPDs on night missions, spotting and bombing it would be effective? Something to try out.

[Admiral_Arctic]

I'm pretty sure there isn't a night naval search by planes. Only surface ships, subs and coast watchers.

[BillBrown]

You are right, no naval search available for night missions.

[von Murrin]

Night attacks work like subs, only worse. I try it often for a few turns at a time if I think there'll be high value targets in range.
Out of about 10 games, I've done it well over 100 times, and I've bagged a few damaged AP's, MSW's, PG's and the like.

The only time it really paid off was when I wolfpacked some base force peeps and a few Aussies into the island NW of Buka (Green Is.?), took the base, flew in some PBY's, and sank the Zuiho the next turn and withdrew. Too bad I wasn't playing a human; the response would've been priceless.