Surface Combat

[Mart777]

I have been playing the game a while now and not being an avid manual reader would just like to ask about surface combat.
Is there a simple way to get my warships engaged, they seem to run around the ocean into hexes close but missing the enemy, who also have thier own agenda to follow.
I resign myself to surface combat against ships in harbour that I can assault during a shore bombardment mission.
Thanks for any help in advance.

[Miller]

Daytime surface combat is very rare in UV simply because it puts the opposing fleets at the mercy of air-power (so is historically accurate). The only daytime action I have witnessed is when one side comes across a fleet of cripples and finishes them off...

I good way of initating night action is to assign a fleet an aggressive commander and station it perhaps 1-2 hexes from a friendly port that might be bombarded, then set the fleet to 'react to enemy'....

[Mart777]

I managed to get surface action against a carrier battle group, it was busy sinking 3 of my carriers. I vectored about 5 surface groups to the area around the task force and managed 1 shell hit on a carrier by my battleship. This was during the Guadalcanal scenario where they seemed to sit in one spot a while. I was the Japanese.

Thanks for the tip about base defense it should come in useful. I will go back to the bigger scenarios and give it a go.