ORIGINAL: crsutton
As for your bad luck with your ships getting caught, I personally believe that this randomness should be part of the game. Neither side should have perfect control over operations as it would make for a very boring game and not be very historical. For whatever reason, sometimes a TF should just get fouled up and caught with it pants down. As the Allied player it has happened to me any number of times. But in real life operations for both sides went wrong as well and they had to pay the piper. Quite frankly, if every bombardment came off perfect and every fast transport convoy worked to perfection, I would quickly find the game tedious and look for something else to play. I think Grigsby planned for the game to have a certain element of chaos in it and consider this feature to be one of the most brilliant aspects of the design.
As for bombardments. These are the rules I use. Keep it simple-use direct paths and no waypoints. Good but not aggressive commander. Set to zero reaction range. Avoid max range run ins-give yourself a little cushion. Make sure that no ship in your TF has expended OP points before the mission. Use ships with little or no damage. Sweep with PTs or surface TFs if you have them to spare. High detection level on your target and at least one scout seaplane group set to recon the target at night as you run in. I rarely have a bombardment TF fail. I have noticed that if the target is a land unit not in a base, the bombardment TF seems to stay and do a day bombardment. I generally avoid this but if you do it. Make sure you have plenty of fighters on LRCAP over the TF. In fact, if I can spare it, I always put at least one fighter unit on LRCAP over a bombardment TF regardless. Then if something does go wrong, you have some protection.
And yes, I am checking your AAR for updates every day...[;)]
I agree with much of what you are saying crsutton. It's just the timing of the randomness. Just too many things are happening beneficial to my opponent at my expense and it's happening far too often. That's really all I'm trying to point out. I'm all for randomness and chance, but make sure it affects both sides. The one turn he moves planes to Lunga is the turn I get burnt. And if they were still there this last turn, they should have been hit with a bombardment, now I bet they are removed during the next turn.
I'll have to tweak my bombardments and possibly select a prestaging area from which to strike from in a direction more beneficial to me. My bombardments to this point had been trouble free, so I do think I have a sense of what I'm doing. I just don't like being forced to put my ships at risk when I shouldn't have to. A further quick comment about the routing issue and the submarines. I'm all for the risk the Allied submarines pose, but my issue is this, I know they are there and I have a perfectly viable approach to the target without having to travel through this kill zone. I'm now forced to travel through the enemy submarines in order to perform my operations and I don't have to like it [:D]. I could argue what if it was a mined hex, that I knew was mined and I had the ability to travel around the hex and avoid the mines on the way to the target I should be able to do so. What you and michaelm are proposing is that I go through that minefield even though I don't have to because of a faulty routine. I'm not trying to game the system or do anything sneaky. I'm just playing and trying to operate my forces with as little risk to them as possible. I know things won't always go well, but I also know there's a much greater chance now since I can't move them to avoid obvious known enemy concentrations.
I just can't catch a break lately and now I've lost control over how I can move my forces in order to perform a bombardment. The options for me have gone from limited risk to high risk now and my opponent hasn't had to change a thing. I know pixel warfare isn't fair, but it seems pretty one sided lately.
Glad you are still following along! Pax seems to have forsaken me
. If the game would just cooperate I'd have some good news for a change and the war could move forward. [:D]
I know I talk too much and lately it's been negative, but I'm doing everything in my power to change that. So far no love.
. If on the other hand something goes wrong for the Allies and they lose something bigtime, nope, not a chance for a redo...no more freebies until things even out a bit here. [:D]
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