Carrier air group broken

[mc3744]

"The group size should be 21 but is set to 11 and there are no fragments to be combined. The aircraft in reserve are only there because I withdrew another Val group to try and artificially bring the group strength back up. I have two other groups with the same problem.
We started at v1.21 and now are at v1.5."

The above was sent to me by a PBEM's pal. Anybody know how to fix this?

[Bradley7735]

I've seen this in my game vs the AI sometimes. I've seen it on CV's when there aren't any replacement aircraft (in the pool) to fill out the group. It will fill up to the normal level over time. How much time? I don't know.

I think this has to do with the special coding that CV groups have (they change over the years of the war).

Do you have any Vals in the aircraft pool?

[mc3744]

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735

I've seen this in my game vs the AI sometimes. I've seen it on CV's when there aren't any replacement aircraft (in the pool) to fill out the group. It will fill up to the normal level over time. How much time? I don't know.

I think this has to do with the special coding that CV groups have (they change over the years of the war).

Do you have any Vals in the aircraft pool?

I'll have to ask for the pool. I'm the Allies, that's my opponent.

[freeboy]

It is one of the strange things the game can do with fragments.. I HATE this in my old patched games.. good luck

[mogami]

Hi, What are the current allowed sizes of the other 2 Akagi groups (The torpedo squadron and fighter squadron) Hoew many ready ac do they have. Are there any non Akagi squadrons deployed on the CV. How many total ready AC? And finally is Akagi damaged?

[Mr.Frag]

Send me a save.

[pasternakski]

One of the lessons I learned the hard way in UV and carried over to WitP is that you mess around with carrier group assignments at your own peril. If you leave things alone, the game is designed to flesh out your carrier groups in the most efficient way possible within the conditions given. When you start assigning additional groups, transferring originally assigned groups to land bases, and so on, the game just gets confused and you suffer the consequences.

[Mr.Frag]

One of the lessons I learned the hard way in UV and carried over to WitP is that you mess around with carrier group assignments at your own peril. If you leave things alone, the game is designed to flesh out your carrier groups in the most efficient way possible within the conditions given. When you start assigning additional groups, transferring originally assigned groups to land bases, and so on, the game just gets confused and you suffer the consequences.

Absolutely ... we've attempted to trap as many bugs that can happen from this as possible, but the general end result is you'll get screwed up sizes. Even worse is if you happen to not have them on the CV when a group size/change happens.

[freeboy]

ok, I am crying in mmy beer, my groups are so broken at this point , the only thng I can do is make the best of a really strange situation.. cutting off the large groups by using take no reps...
I wonder if this is connected to my mystery air group orders situation where west coast fighters magically get escort to nowhere missions???

[mc3744]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Send me a save.

I just mailed my friend and told him to send the save.

Thanks [:)]

[Bobthehatchit]

ORIGINAL: pasternakski

One of the lessons I learned the hard way in UV and carried over to WitP is that you mess around with carrier group assignments at your own peril. If you leave things alone, the game is designed to flesh out your carrier groups in the most efficient way possible within the conditions given. When you start assigning additional groups, transferring originally assigned groups to land bases, and so on, the game just gets confused and you suffer the consequences.

Had that in my last game nearly lost Enterprise in a CV fight the tbf's ended up off the carrier half upgrade to the next model (m to f?) i never managed to get then back on the carrier at all. Never take cv groups off a carrier unless its definately sinking and never go into cambat with upgrades on either!

[Spectra]

I'll say that I've seen similiar behaviour on Japanese carrier groups before.
Zuikaku took 2 bomb hits, which rendered her flight inoperable. Her groups tooks some losses during the fight.

Later, when she's in port, I looked into disbanding small groups of planes to replenish those losses, only to discover that the maximum size of the groups had changed, to match what was there, rather than the original...

Happy ending, though.. As soon as Zuikaku was repaired enough for flight operations, the group maximum sizes snapped back to their proper size....

Is the Akagi damaged??

[Hornblower]

Old UV trick was if you Jones-ing for Corsairs on your CV’s. Take the f4f’s off the Carrier and put them on land. 2 days later or so you have 36 Corsairs. Don’t know if its still works that way or not. I haven’t progressed that far in the Witp game yet. Still have @90 days to go before they make an appearance.

[DJAndrews]

Mr. Frag, was any progress ever made with this problem? I currently have 3 IJN CVs with the Kate squadrons reduced to 18 from 24, and two with them reduced from 19 to 13. I'm well on my way to the whole of the KB being equivalent to two-three US CVs.

I've never touched any of the squadrons in question (except to send them to land after their capacity had been reduced) and while some have been in combat, the Hiyo had its squadron capacity reduced two turns after leaving port for the first time without ever having seen action.

[Djordje]

ORIGINAL: DJAndrews

Mr. Frag, was any progress ever made with this problem? I currently have 3 IJN CVs with the Kate squadrons reduced to 18 from 24, and two with them reduced from 19 to 13. I'm well on my way to the whole of the KB being equivalent to two-three US CVs.

I've never touched any of the squadrons in question (except to send them to land after their capacity had been reduced) and while some have been in combat, the Hiyo had its squadron capacity reduced two turns after leaving port for the first time without ever having seen action.

Manual, chapter 19.4.1.
"On July 1, 1942, and thereafter, all Japanese Fleet Carriers have thier loadouts
changed to roughly 3/8 Fighters, 3/8 Dive Bombers, and 3/8 Torpedo Bombers."

I guess there is an error in the manual, for Kates it should say 2/8 , since in all my games Kate squadrons were reduced to 2/8 of the carrier capacity. Take Akagi for example: Capacity 72, 3/8=27, 2/8=18.
So, after June 1st 1942 your airgroops should be:
AI-I 27 A6M2
AI-II 27 D3A
Ai-III 18 B5N

In reality, my carrier groups never actually looked like that. Some CV squadrons grew to 27, some remained at 24. One Kate squadrons remained at 24, while other dropped to 18.
Note that I am talking about 72 capacity carriers here, for smaller ones numbers are different.
Also, those changes will not always happen exactly on June 1st 1942, that is the date when they should start to be able to change. However, even in early 1943 I still had some of the squadrons at their original number (24). I guess they will never change.

One of my carriers had it's Zero squadrons increase to 27, while Val and Kate squadrons remained at 24. On the other hand, on other CV Kate squadron dropped to 18, while Zero and Val remained at 24...

[DJAndrews]

Thanx, missed that appendix entirely. Nice to know which rule is screwing up.

It appears to be largely random with me. I have 24, 2@21, 3@18 and 2@13 Kates, and 27, 3@24,23,21 and 2@19 Vals and 4@24, 2@21 and 2@19 Zeros. If the intent was to change the mix and provide more fighter capacity and fewer bombers, it failed miserably. I lost bombers, yes, but gained no fighters at all.

Do you know what to do with all the Kates in reserve if your fighter and dive-bomber groups do grow to 27 or 24 each? some of the carriers will all exceed the 110% capacity rule unless you take one of the squadrons off.

[michaelm75au]

IIRC, the flight ops level is 115% of capacity - increased from UV's 110%.
This is to cater for the changes in CV group sizes during the game.

Michael