Painful Lessons Learned Thread

[Chaplain]

This thread is for "bragging" about your blunders, and what you learned. I'll start:

Do not send your Jap BB's to play tag with the coastal gun forts in Manila Harbor. I did, and the Ise is limping home in a shambles while the Hyuga picks up the survivors from 2 sunk DD's. Ugh.

[Hammer2001]

Dont pursuit the Japanesse TFs that attack PH on 12/7/41 with your carrier fleets. I tryed luck and had bad luck. They engage two days after and my CVs....well, I started another campaing.

[Maliki]

I think i'm going to have alot to add to this thread...as soon as my CD arrives[:D][:(]

[The Gnome]

Do NOT send out ASW Hunter-killer groups from Pearl until the IJN strike force is out of range. It's sad to see some good DD's go to the bottom after a 100plane airstrike.

[gunnergoz]

I too now know better than to send in bombardment TF's without air cover. The best, fastest surface TF can be chewed up in a heartbeat. And don't let your Air TF's get caught by surface TF's! (remember Samar?). Finally, YOU CAN NEVER BRING ENOUGH SUPPLIES AND TROOPS TO A CONTESTED LANDING. If you don't continuously dominate the air over your troops in a landing, they are lucky just to hold their own.

This game really does a good job of simulating the essentials. [&o]

[CTB123]

Don't leave your US carriers haging out near Wake in Dec of 41, with their DD's running low on fuel, waiting for a replenishment task force from Pearl Harbor to arrive which takes forever to get there, only to find you forgot to load fuel on to the tankers. [:)]
Tony

[Bladesss]

Dont trust the AI to pick good routes.
I ordered the Base unit at Victoria point to retreat to Rangoon. Assuming it would take the britich owned coastal trail. But the AI thinks the Jap owned rail line next to Bangkok looked better. So as the Base unit rides the single rail near Bangkok, the Imperial Guard Div (23,000 men) is trying to use the same rail going the other way. There is some argument over who has right of way, and the Base unit retreats.

Bladess

[dr. smith]

In the Marianas, don't get cocky and neglect to have a Surface Task group protecting the beachhead (instead having all Bombardment groups) in case a couple of IJN BBs sneak in at night and litter the waters with gyrenes. [:-]

Oops, I remember I DID have a SA group, they just MISSED every IJN ship!

[Sultanofsham]

ORIGINAL: Bladess

Dont trust the AI to pick good routes.
I ordered the Base unit at Victoria point to retreat to Rangoon. Assuming it would take the britich owned coastal trail. But the AI thinks the Jap owned rail line next to Bangkok looked better. So as the Base unit rides the single rail near Bangkok, the Imperial Guard Div (23,000 men) is trying to use the same rail going the other way. There is some argument over who has right of way, and the Base unit retreats.

Bladess

Yep. After this happend I ended up sending a couple of AK's down to pull them out.

[kev_uk]

Dont be complacent as the Japs about early Allied airpower around Malaya...just lost a DD to a Vilderbeest torpedo attack.

[Grotius]

Don't assume that the entire IJN carrier fleet is at Pearl Harbor on December 8. My attempted evacuation of a dozen transports and auxiliaries from the Phillipines ended in a spectacular failure. I'm loving it. [:'(]

[pad152]

Rangoon
My aircraft were getting hamered, so I send in a section of the AVG/A FG to the rescue, the first air attack after they splashed 12 Ki-27's, 8 Ki-43's and 7 bombers. The next turn the Japanese move in and take over the Rangoon[:(]. The aircraft replacement report now shows the AVG/A returning in 389 days!!!

Borneo
The Japanese twice tried to invade Kuching and failed, I had a surface TF of 2 CL's and 4 DD's on station at Potianak that could rush into to attack the transports and bombard any landed troops. I'm thinking this is just too easy [8|] i've sunk 4 transports 3 PC/PG's and destroyed 2 LCU's. The next time I get a sighting report of a TF of ship 8 ships heading into Kuching so I send in the Dutch Suface TF waiting on station, only this time the TF turns out to be 2 BB's 2 CA's and 6 DD's, bye-bye Dutch TF[:(].

The lesson is if you get away with something once or twice, watch out for the third time, sooner or later the AI will react. [:-]

[kev_uk]

The AI needs to understand things a bit better. Just wondering if it will be improved upon in a patch.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Chaplain

This thread is for "bragging" about your blunders, and what you learned. I'll start:

Do not send your Jap BB's to play tag with the coastal gun forts in Manila Harbor. I did, and the Ise is limping home in a shambles while the Hyuga picks up the survivors from 2 sunk DD's. Ugh.

If you send them to Manila I think they get pounded by CD's from bataan as well.

[IanLister]

Don't rely too much on history. I'm playing as allies v AI in the 42B campaign...Guadalcanal. Not wanting a repeat of Savo Island, I unified the CA/CL/DD task groups. As a result, the US marines attacking Tulagi did so without the support of San Juan and 2 DDs. Result: serious damage to APs, heavy casualties to landing troops, and three weeks later there are still bad guys on the island, although I have control of the base.[&:]
Then again, I didn't lose half the cruisers in the TF[;)].

In future, any landing will have all the support I can give it. Incidentally, I'm interpreting this series of events as an indication that amphibious ops are going to be more realistic, more challenging and more interesting than in UV - and I'm very pleased about that.[:)]

[von Murrin]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
If you send them to Manila I think they get pounded by CD's from bataan as well.

Confirmed. CD guns will fire at anything that moves through their hex. Manila is closed to the IJN until Bataan falls.

[Chaplain]

I also sent an unescorted task force to invade Johnston Island. How dumb can you get?

[byron13]

ORIGINAL: The Gnome

Do NOT send out ASW Hunter-killer groups from Pearl until the IJN strike force is out of range. It's sad to see some good DD's go to the bottom after a 100plane airstrike.

In fact, don't send anything out of Pearl. Just give everyone a day or two off to play golf. My cost: 3 CLs and 3DDs.

[nmzoomie]

I sent a surface combat task force in to singapore in order to kill some transports. The result was 4 destroyers vaporized by mines. Oh the humanity.[:(]

[Alikchi2]

Don't let your CVs get anywhere near Truk early in the game. Oh god, the Betties, the Betties...

*shudder* [:D]