Obscure messages in Operations Report

[pbiggar]

What is the most surprising message you have seen in the Operations Report?

I am still surprised by the level of detail in this game. Today I noticed this message in the Operations Report after a surface combat engagement. After many years of playing this game I do not recall seeing it before.

Screenshot 2024-04-21 105746.jpg (4.12 KiB) Viewed 916 times

Please reply with your favorites.

[homer82]

I recently saw a report of two Allied DDs colliding and one sinking.
Seems the devs truly channeled Murphy: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, all at the most inopportune time.

[BBfanboy]

Some from the Ops Report and some from Combat Reports:

cargounloadexplosion.jpg (55.25 KiB) Viewed 838 times

AM-Sub Duel.jpg (68.6 KiB) Viewed 838 times

Buffalos Sink A BB.jpg (55.12 KiB) Viewed 838 times

DD blows up CA.jpg (21.14 KiB) Viewed 837 times

[BBfanboy]

A few more it wouldn't let me post with the first batch:

explosion during unloading.jpg (11.42 KiB) Viewed 835 times

One In A Million Shot.jpg (36.37 KiB) Viewed 835 times

Perfect combat.jpg (75.45 KiB) Viewed 835 times

Point Blank Range.jpg (63.44 KiB) Viewed 835 times

[BBfanboy]

And another one that it wouldn't include in the previous post: (note the % major damage in brackets on the right - how does it get that high!)

Zenyo Maru damage 113 major float.jpg (69.3 KiB) Viewed 834 times

[Don Bowen]

Just so you know, there is a message in there about a ship reported lost on mission that has never come up. I bet you'll like it when it finally shows!

[RangerJoe]

Just so you know, there is a message in there about a ship reported lost on mission that has never come up. I bet you'll like it when it finally shows!

Is there a message about destroyers capsizing during a storm? Three of them did so when Halsey was in command, the destroyers were low on fuel and thus top heavy. Or is that covered under the message that you mentioned?

[BBfanboy]

I had a ship grounded for 3 days while traveling along the eastern side of the Great Barrier Reef. It eventually got off with a little flood and systems damage. I guess you could call that MIA and then found again!. Or was that message about the old DD captured by the Japanese and then used in the IJN after some reconstruction?

[BBfanboy]

I had a message about "Decks Awash, Crew Abandon Ship" on HMS Prince of Wales at Singapore. Next turn the ship was in the Shipyard getting pumped out!

Several times I have had the message about "Damage Control Parties Trapped Below Decks".

Sometimes you see reports about "Sub XYZ Heavy Fires, Heavy Flooding" while it is submerged and under ASW attack. What must that be like!

Mysteriously, in the Ops Report, you sometimes get "(Ship type) (Name) Sinks At Sea" when there has been no combat involving it and no collisions or groundings. That happened to one of my TK a few hexes south of the Aleutians when it spontaneously ignited.

[RangerJoe]

I had a ship grounded for 3 days while traveling along the eastern side of the Great Barrier Reef. It eventually got off with a little flood and systems damage. I guess you could call that MIA and then found again!. Or was that message about the old DD captured by the Japanese and then used in the IJN after some reconstruction?

DD Stewart:

https://destroyerhistory.org/flushdeck/ussstewart/

[Don Bowen]

Considerable effort was expended in the game in an attempt to reproduce some of the “fog of war” aspects of naval operations, especially as regards submarine operations.

In World War II, submarines (and very rarely surface ships) would be dispatched on missions and simply never return. Lack of communication was no reliable indicator of potential loss of a vessel. Instead the only indicator of loss would be failure of the ship to return as expected. In this circumstance, loss could only be inferred by the vessel being overdue. The fate of the ship would be “Failed to return from patrol and is presumed lost”.

Attempts to work in such a process in AE ran up against the basic attributes of a player’s interaction and control over ships and task forces. Lists of both were available to the player, who could inspect the current status and give orders when so desired.

Were ships to be lost but their loss not reported until they “failed to return”, a problem arose with the Ship and Task Force lists:

• If a ship and/or task force entry were to be removed upon the loss of a unit but the loss not reported, the player could notice and consider the unexplained disappearance as a program bug.

• If the ship and/or task force entries were to be retained as dummy entries, the player might attempt to give commands to them. The code could very well accept such instructions, emulating a command radioed from headquarters, but not act upon the command. Again, a player would notice this non-compliance and suspect a bug.

Retaining dummy entries and having them appear to obey instructions was technically possible but opened up additional problems in handling and reporting them. It would also cause some issues in the generation of unit icons on the map. In the end it was just too much work for too little benefit.

I personally liked the idea, with the lists and displays showing the players what they thought was current information instead of the actual status. Something closer to actual fog-of-war. There is, in fact, a similar function in the game regarding losses and/or damage to enemy ships. During combat, incorrect or incomplete reports might be issued to one player about presence and combat damage to units of the other player. At a later date you might see messages like “So and so ship reported lost” or “So and so ship previously reported lost sighted at …”.

The only place such messages for a player’s own units can be safely generated is in operations that occur completely within a single turn. So the messages I referenced above relate to midget submarine operations. These are sufficiently rare that it may be a very long time until they are seen.

[btd64]

Great insight Don. Thank you ....GP

[Bern]

An ARD Inside itself:

ARD.png (35.35 KiB) Viewed 509 times

[Platoonist]

An ARD Inside itself:

That's a good one. Kind of the naval repair version of " Physician heal thyself".

[LargeSlowTarget]

ABSD means "Advance Base Sectional Dock" - a type of floating dry dock composed of multiple individual sections (pontoons) attached together in various numbers, depending on the lift capacity needed and hull length to be lifted. It was possible to detach a damaged section and put it into the remaining sections for repairs - therefore having the ABSD effectively "heal itself".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary ... D-1_01.jpg

[BBfanboy]

ABSD means "Advance Base Sectional Dock" - a type of floating dry dock composed of multiple individual sections (pontoons) attached together in various numbers, depending on the lift capacity needed and hull length to be lifted. It was possible to detach a damaged section and put it into the remaining sections for repairs - therefore having the ABSD effectively "heal itself".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary ... D-1_01.jpg

This makes the programming of that capability even more amazing! So many unique details in this game!