Damaged ship task groups

[swagman]

What do people think of how damaged ship task groups are managed in UV. By these, I mean the task groups which automatically detach when a vessel has sustained a certain amount of damage.

I have several issues with the current model, which seems to be a legacy of Pacific War. These issues come from what I think are AI failings. The AI cannot and does not know the strategic intentions of the player, and so applies detachment rules which I think are in error.

#1 High value units: a damaged carrier or battleship is as likely to detach as a damaged subchaser. That means a precious carrier is left in the middle of a battle zone protected by a single destroyer. There should be a Task Group type for this action, with a player having the option to add extra vessels without them detaching to protect this asset. All that can be done now is to assign another carrier group to follow the damaged one.

#2 Setting Destination: A detached TG chooses the most direct route to its home base, regardless of whether this is through the middle of an enemy fleet. The player should have some control over the route taken by a detached TG

[pasternakski]

See the discussion on the WitP threads on how this has been changed for that game. We can only hope that the improvements will be back-fitted onto UV.