Dissapearing unit during airlift

[cverbrug]

Hello

i have the following problem. We are playing pbem for a week the stadard WITP big scenario, and i was airlifting the 21 aviation unit from tainan to legaspi.

Half it had already transported on december 13th, as you can see in the enclosed game file (i have to email it, this forum does not support upload of game files it seems.

The next turn, the 14th, the unit has dissapeard although notihing special 'happende'. It is not anymore in legapsi, and also the mother unit has gone from tainan.
Where is it?
Can i get it back?
is this a kown bug, and how to deal with it?
Christophe

[michaelm75au]

Yes, this is a known issue.

The workaround is to pause the airlift before transporting the final bit of the unit.
Hopefully will be resolved in next official patch. [Don't know when]

Michael

[Thilo]

Does this also happen with units beeing Picked-Up or ist the Pick-Up-routine OK and useable?
Have used both in the past and have lost some units but don't know if it was only when air-transporting.

[rtrapasso]

Can i get it back?

Not likely you can get it back (unless back up and you run from a turn before it was lost, pausing per michaelm's suggestion. Be sure to check this each turn, as i have found the "parent" unit can switch back and forth between locations without explanation...

As for the other, i think a unit can also be lost by sub or other ship transport, although fortunately this hasn't happened to me for a while... This can occur especially when the ship carrying the parent fragment is hit.

[bradfordkay]

It's definitely a problem with either Air Transport delivering or "Picking Up" troops. The trick to the work around is to halt the transport orders once more than 50% of the unit has been delivered to its new location. After a day (or so), the unit at the destination will now be the parent unit (say, 101 RN Base Force) and the unit at the loading location will be the subunit (101 RN Base Force/1 or 1/101 RN base Froce or 101/1 RN Base Force - something like that!). You can then reinstitute the transport orders.

Be careful, because I have had the parent unit status revert on occasion - so watch carefully when using air transport. If the parent unit is the last portion being transported, then tendency in WITP is for the whole unit to disappear.

It is possible that a similar problem exists when using sea transport. If the unit is divided among different transports and the ship carrying the parent unit is sunk, it has been reported that the rest of the unit has disappeared. I've never seen this, to the best of my knowledge.

[Thilo]

Thanks.

[dtravel]

A LCU can disappear because of any form of transport or movement. I have seen it happen to a unit that was being transported by ship with the entire unit on board a single ship that was never even attacked. It loaded fine, began unloading fine, the ship finished unloading the unit, began unloading supplies and the unit was gone.

The bug is most frequently reported in relation to air-transport but there are steady reports of units disappearing just moving from one hex to another on their own.

[Ranse]

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I have encountered this problem, also. In one game I lost three parachute and one base aviation units during airlift. Mine happened when I had part of the parachute unit at one spot after airlift, and the main part disappears from the transporting base. I sent transports out to pick up the airlifted parts, but they either disappeared from the ship at sea or when it unloaded at home base. I have not seen this happen as the Allies, and I think it happened pre 1.6. I hope this bug is quickly fixed. The transported base unit disappeared at the base it was transported to, but the base still recognised that some unit was there, but it was hidden and I could not access it nor did it support the base in any way.

[rtrapasso]

A LCU can disappear because of any form of transport or movement.

Heck, an LCU can also disappear while sitting still!! Plenty of complaints of this happening.

Aside from moving and sitting still, LCUs are OK, though...[:'(]

[Hornblower]

Ditto. i've lost- that i know of- an army corp HQ, the bulk of a PA inf division and a base unit. As near as i can make out, if the parts of the unit can be found at 3 locations at once the whole unit vanishes. In my case i air transported the unit from point a to point b. so part is at a, and part is at b. i then loaded up the heavy equipment on AK's to be transported. so at that moment it is at A at B and on ships. the turn after that happens the unit is lost. At least thats what i think.... [&:]

[GordoNZ]

I airlifted the 55th Division to Akyab and much to my shock the Division disappered. The troops are still in Akyab but the unit is not. There is a blank space under the unit list when you hover the cursor over Akyab. (This happened many turns ago)

Then last turn something very strange happed. Some Allied bomber unit bomb the 55th Division but it had to fly to the middle of the indian ocean to do it.[:D][&:]

Oh well

GordoNZ

[BPRE]

Be careful when you load units on Transports. It's happened to me a couple of times that part of a unit wasn't loaded before the TF left port. Since I normally have double the space I need the ships weren't fully loaded.
One of those times the part left behind consisted of only one single disabled squad. This was still the parent part of the unit.
I transported the rest of the unit for quite a long distance and during the transport that single squad died and the parent unit disappeared.
Immediately after unloading the transported parts disappeared and that was it.
Just like GordoNZ mentions I got the blank line under the unit list when I hovered the mouse over the ground unit sign.

/BPRE

[medicff]

Just to add to the above. I have been using work around for quite some time but this time beyond my control. I had a fragment at Brisbane and parent was bombed attacked to end in Gasamata. Next turn parent finally disappeared, fragment listed in Brisbane and could hover over but as soon as clicked upon, went to another unit, graphic error on screen (several base icons disappeared) and click upon map graphics restored but fragment gone. (forever? only the bits know). So if parent vanishes on own (lack of supplies or whatever, not defeated or surrendered in combat) then fragment disappears as well. Interesting.......[&:]

[Mr.Frag]

Mechanics are like this:

Parent unit exists as one record

Fragments are formed and occupy slots with a pointer back to the Parent unit

During reconstitution of the unit, the fragment records are zapped

There are various routines that will promote a fragment to a parent in the event the parent gets killed.

In some cases, the parent record is being set to have a delay of 19999 which also means not used outside of the promote routine. (vanished parent)

Once this happens, it is only a matter of time until the fragments get reconstituted to the parent and also become unused (19999) (vanished fragment)

The bug (and it's an elusive little bugger!) is what is tripping the 19999 of the parent outside of the promotion routine (which replaces the parent). It is possible there are a couple of spots where this happens (as with all bugs, never assume that you fixed it cause the same code probably exists in more then one place)

This is why "sticking a 1 day pause in air transport" or "ensuring units are loaded over more then one ship" generally (not always - if it was that simple, it would have been fixed long ago) get you around the problem. It ensures that the promote routine *always* gets a chance to fix the problem at least once.

[Nick E]

I've sent several subs to a base that's about to fall in order to evacuate the base force. If the parent dies while all of the fragments are on board subs, will I lose those fragments?

Edit: suppose I disembark 2 fragments on 2 different bases, and keep a couple of fragments aboard subs. Will the unit disappear under these circumstances when the parent's base falls?

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Nick E

I've sent several subs to a base that's about to fall in order to evacuate the base force. If the parent dies while all of the fragments are on board subs, will I lose those fragments?

Edit: suppose I disembark 2 fragments on 2 different bases, and keep a couple of fragments aboard subs. Will the unit disappear under these circumstances when the parent's base falls?

If all the fragments are aboard ships or subs and the parent unit is destroyed, count on the entire unit disappearing. This can also happen if, say, you are transporting an entire division, and the ship carrying the "parent" fragment is torpedoed or bombed. The entire division can disappear...[:@][X(][8|]

Results on the second situation are more problematic. The unit should survive (one of the fragments AT A BASE will be redesignated parent). As for the fragments on the subs (or ships), they may or may not disappear. IIRC, i've had it go both ways.

[michaelm75au]

Be careful that the parent LCU does not die off due to fatigue (see manual 14.4, second last paragraph).

The whole unit may then become subject to Mr.Frag's mechanics.

Michael

[Nick E]

14.4 states that when a unit's fatigue level gets "high", elements of the unit will become disabled. What exactly is "high"? Over 30? Over 50? What is the minimum amount of fatigue necessary for elements to become disabled?

[Nick E]

When the parent unit died at the base, one of the fragments on my subs became the parent! They are all scheduled to unload at the same base at the same time, any chance of the unit disappearing?

[BPRE]

It's looking good since it became the parent but I think you will have to wait and see to be 100% sure.

/BPRE