Guadalcanal scenario: took Lunga & Tulagi, what now?

[Randy Stead]

Let's see if this works.

As you can see, Manley and McKean have supply aboard, but they are APDs, a different class of ship.

[Randy Stead]

Ballard is docked but I have no option to load supply.

[Randy Stead]

And I cannot load the tender in port, either.

Thanks for the upload instructions, BB!

[Randy Stead]

Could it be that Ballard is a tender that has no supply capacity? If I click load tenders the game loads other vessels, but not Ballard.

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Randy Stead

And I cannot load the tender in port, either.

Thanks for the upload instructions, BB!

That is strange because that ship should hold 170 in supply if I remember correctly.

By clicking where is says "Load Tender" it should but there is no cargo capacity showing on the ship screen.

[Maallon]

This seems to be a problem with Scen#4. The Ship has 170 Cargo Capacity in Scen#1(and likely also Scen#2), so it is able to load supply.
But in Scen#4 Cargo Capacity for the Ship seems to be simply 0. As far as I can tell, all AV Support Ships are affected by this, other support ships have Cargo Capacity though.

Can't tell you if it is a bug or intended for the Scenario. Maybe someone who knows more about the editor can shed some light into this.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Maallon

This seems to be a problem with Scen#4. The Ship has 170 Cargo Capacity in Scen#1(and likely also Scen#2), so it is able to load supply.
But in Scen#4 Cargo Capacity for the Ship seems to be simply 0. As far as I can tell, all AV Support Ships are affected by this, other support ships have Cargo Capacity though.

Can't tell you if it is a bug or intended for the Scenario. Maybe someone who knows more about the editor can shed some light into this.

They are useless as tenders without supply. A Database error no doubt.

[Randy Stead]

What? An error! This cannot be,; I've heard tell this game has no bug, only features.

[Maallon]

It seems like the smaller Scenarios have more "features" than the Main Scenarios [:D]

[Kull]

I said it before and I'll say it again. Guadalcanal is bugged. You found one. You'll find many more. Despite that, it's a pretty good learning experience, but the deeper you get into the weeds, the more of this you'll find. Stop trying to master this scenario, you'll just drive yourself crazy.

[RhinoDad]

Randy Stead

RhinoDad, I guess since you load the 12-7 turn the IJN do different damage than historic? I did that once just to see what happens and they only sank one BB, but of course mauled the rest. I think just for historical reasons I will start with the 12-8 game and then perhaps having survived the war will try it from 12-7. But since this game takes so long to play that is a very long "if."

The Pearl Harbour attack in game results in pretty much historical */- some small amount of chance. It seems to handle well the ability to raise the sunken ships and repair them as they did historically. In game terms a sunken ship is removed from game, but that was not the case with ships at Pearl. Have never played the Dec 8 scenario but I would surmise that you start with a bunch of damaged ships less Arizona.

My thoughts are the Pearl Harbour attack results in less ships sunk in WitP AE than historically, to account for the relatively shallow harbor . Only the USS Oklahoma, USS West Virginia, and USS Arizona were actually sunk do to damage. USS California was just prematurely abandoned and had no reason to sink. USS Nevada was beached. The U.S. was able to refloat and repair all but USS Arizona. USS Oklahoma was refloated and could have been repaired but it was decided that it was less costly to just scrap it and rebuild if necessary. Historically the only one lost was the Arizona. Sometimes the game will result in a sunk Battleship but my experience is that it does not happen that often. But a magazine hit, as on the Arizona, is not that common either. But in game a sunk ship is a permanently removed ship, not one that can be repaired.

They did not have the personnel at Pearl to affect the repairs in harbour but the facilities did allow for refloating. So they refloated the ships and patched them up enough to make the trip to the west coast, where they had the yards and skilled labor to affect repairs in a timely fashion. Do to personnel shortages at Pearl they had to queue the ships up so torpedoed ships tended to be the last to leave.

If you repair your ships at Pearl historically. Non torpedoed ships put in yards until sea worthy, torpedoed ships pier side, then torpedoed ships until sea worthy the time line for repair/refit is amazingly accurate. With close to historical time for ships availability on west coast.

So you end up in game with more damage but less sunk than historically. Ships needing to be sent to west coast for repairs and refit before available and ready on west coast.

Just like historically, you will have the battleships repaired and refitted and ready for use on the west coast months to year(s) later. Time wise it works out rather historically for repaired/refitted ship availability.

In the game, just as historically you will need to do some repairs in Pearl and then ship them to the west coast after they are repaired enough to make the trip safely in order to regain their use. Depending on the outcome that can take numerous months to well over a year before your ships are repaired and upgraded. Resulting in something close to what it was historically; both in the near and longer term. The game although abstracting battle results does a impressive job of capturing the historical outcome.

By starting the Dec 7th scenario I am able to take a few actions on the part of the allies such as scheduling a few ships to head to resource areas where a convoy will be set up.

These were historical routes and the game starts up with these ships sitting in port unloaded and not enroute. So I get those ships, or like ones, moving on the convoy route, out to resource areas. With historical Pearl outcomes and ships now on historical convoy routes I believe that it makes it a more historical start than the Dec 8th scenario would be. Though it does lead to increased merchants sunk as some are headed to where the action will soon follow. (Although I have not played the Dec 8th scenario. I have only opened it and looked at the merchant ship set ups.) Although I am not sure if it is needed as the allied player, I will set up convoy routes and ship resources to their historical destinations. I will not just let the resources/supply languish because the game engine does not require me to do so.

I am a very historical player; aiming for realism and acting in accordance with the mannerisms of the times. So I believe from a historical perspective you can get a little closer to history by starting on Dec 7th.


Resources above used as in game Oil, Refinery, Resource, Supply(from factory)

[Randy Stead]

When I let the first turn run for my brother to see, three BBs were destroyed. A player could be technical and scuttle the ones about to die in order to cheat the IJN of a few victory points, but I feel honour bound to let them have the full points after all the work they put in for the first turn.

I am 53 turns into my second go of Guadalcanal. I had a rougher start than first go through, because I did not tinker with the invasion setup. This meant trying to get supplies and engineers in later when the IJN are marauding. I got clobbered a few times but did not Mulligan away anything, just lived with it. I even lost Wasp, again, damn it. The tables feel turned now as I have enough fighters and dive bombers at Lunga that between them and Hornet we are taking a heavy toll for any supplies that are moving. On New Guinea I've got Beauforts and B-26s doing low level attacks on ships coming into Buna. The subs are also picking off the Marus, so I expect the Nips are feeling supply pinches in places. I'm slowly building up for the push to take Buna, then work my way up the coast toward Lae. Political points are a choke point, so in spite of my feelings about that part of the game it is doing a good job of making me fight with what I have and having to take time to build up forces.

Saratoga and Enterprise are repairing at Sydney after getting chewed up in a carrier battle. Hornet is my only operational carrier at the moment and I have been using her to do hit and run on supply ships and the odd surface fleet while the IJN carriers are repairing or whatever they are doing at Truk. They surprised me because my patrols to the north of the Solomons was simply not available. Now I have Catalinas patrolling out of Tulagi and I have a chance at detecting stuff coming down from Truk. So for now, maintain the course, pick off their logistics and wait until I have three working carriers again.