Shipping totals fixed?

[HansBolter]

Are the troop and cargo transport shipping numbers fixed for the scenario?

Whe I launched my invasion of France I was unable to put to sea the entire force I had intended due to a lack of troop transports. Several cops went inwithout an HQ standing offshore and not a single tank division was able to be included.

On the turn following the invasion I had only enough troop transports to transfer two units from England to France.

I'm presuming this is because I was nit careful enough with my troop transports across the course of the campaign. As trips were transported I would bet messages of ships being hit and was told how many troop looses I incurred, but was never once told how many ships I had lost.

I actually tried using the dreaded Commanders Report to find some info on my shipping losses only to discover that shipping losses don't seem to he important enough to be included in it.

Nor could I find any info on shipping reinforcements. Apparently, the Liberty ships rolling off the spillway every three days are all being sent to the Pacific as none appear to be sent to Europe.

Additionally, I could find no warnings in the appendix strategy guides to harbor my shipping and avoid losses or my hopes for an invasion of Europe will go up in smoke.

Can someone point me to a solution to these problems, or am I just gonna have to wrote this game off as a total piece of crap?

[Denniss]

The losses screen should also display lost ships. In the production menu you should be able to see availabe ships although i dont know if they are all available for your invasion, they may be split into multiple sea sectors.
To avoid ship losses fly lots of naval patrols

[HansBolter]

Naval Patrols seem to all be handled automatically by the AI.
I have yet to find where I have any control over them.

I'm also never shown where they are being flown.

[HansBolter]

I did finally manage to find shipping losses listed under Ground Units at the very bottom of the list, where no one in his right mind would ever think to look.

I did not, however, find any indication of shipping production in the Production interface. It does list the total number of each ship type in the current pool, but I could not find any indication of shipping production, either under the Ground Units (based on shipping being idiotically lumped in with Ground Units in the Losses listing) or under the Special Category that is the catch all for anything not Land or Air.

[Platoonist]

Naval Patrols seem to all be handled automatically by the AI.
I have yet to find where I have any control over them.

I'm also never shown where they are being flown.

If I recall you select an Air HQ, click F7, find some suitable level, torpedo or patrol bomber squadrons and then set a target hex and radius like most air missions. Assuming they aren't on automatic already.

F7.jpg (56.38 KiB) Viewed 562 times

[Platoonist]

I also always found this extensive thread on the subject of naval patrols by Harrybanana very helpful. Obviously much more insightful and detailed than anything in the game manual.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... &p=3919616

Probably the most valuable advice I got was to set Auto Naval patrols to Off / No for the most part.

[HansBolter]

Thank you for the explanation.
Apparently, I need to learn how to get Naval Air Patrols off of the automatic setting and start controlling it myself.

[TechSgt]

Since the sale weekend, I have found this game to be interesting as you learn about some aspect of it being handled by AI, then discovering later in the game the AI is not as 'good', so you then add an additional item to take care of.

Handling the Air portion cannot approach the intricacies of 'Bombing the Reich", but when you are down to which day of the week, and the squadron, and its fittings, it can be taken pretty close to that level.

Imagine if the Naval portion, were to get to the same level as 'War in the Pacific'.

[Platoonist]

Imagine if the Naval portion, were to get to the same level as 'War in the Pacific'.

There was talk at one time of a more detailed naval module. There was also talk of joining this game up with War in the East. I don't think either will ever happen at this point.

[TechSgt]

After losing a few ships, and the folks and materials loaded aboard them, I figured the naval patrol needs looking into.

So, setting up NP boxes from the embarkation ports to the landing beaches seems to make sense. It also seems like supply would also be affected. Better supply the more you control the sea hexes?

[Denniss]

It actually helps if the cargo ships reach their destination and are not sunk by subs or aircraft