Matrix Games Forums

Calling Allies:
could you send me some quantity data on my e-mail?
Italians already did that.

PM sent with highly classified data.

All data collected

Thank you guys!

There is no precedent in "historical ratios" for an Italian attempt to run an 80 STP convoy every week against both the French and Royal navies. There is no precedent for it because it could not have happened. You must have something approaching sea control to run supply "convoys" with success. Even small supply needs, such as Malta, required major efforts on the part of the British. The battle fleets must first establish control of the seas.

If you want to get to where you can try supplying that very large force in North Africa then you need to bring a very large air component from the Germans to make frequent, continuous attacks in the central zone. The Italian fleet must do its best to defeat the Allied navies, and you will need a lot of luck. You will also need a gigantic amount of STP, because what you are trying to do is very, very difficult.

I do not think this can succeed if the French Navy is still against you. In the game I am currently playing I am losing 10% to 20% of STP on many turns and I have hurt the Royal Navy far, far beyond historical losses. I have regular fleet dominance, absolute dominance, but raiders still hurt me many weeks. My Italians are lean, very lean, and I expect them to continue so for quite awhile. In a month I expect to be fully supplied by convoy almost every week.

To recap, I think your losses at sea are an accurate reflection of your situation. Supply by sea in your conditions should be impossible, and it looks like ToW has got it right. The large percentage losses you see are the correct result. You are going to have to fight without supplies from the sea for quite awhile.

I hate to tell you the bad news, but it would actually be bad for ToW if this were not the case. In the actual war the Allies were far weaker, and the Axis had major supply problems. If the Axis had the resources Gary deploys against you the Axis losses would have approached the ones you experience.

Chuck

The steady, annoying, and sometimes hurtful, loss of STPs is what we want to achieve, I think. Not the cataclysmic one time loss of a whole merchant marine fleet.

Given the current situation, with the French fleet in being, and both French and British ships in the Central Med, I would expect to be putting a real damper on supplies to NA. However, lots of things are abstracted in the game, such as air power. I'm bad at reading the reports, and understanding them, so I don't know if Choco has been hitting my navy with his Italian air force. I suspect so, since I do see hits on the fleet. However, there should be an intrinsic major advantage for the Italians, geographically, for their air punch, making the standing presence of my huge fleet in the Central Med impossible.

I was just reading in Purnell that as soon as the Italians entered the war, the British found it impossible to keep naval forces present in the Central Med with impunity, long before the Germans showed up.

So what we've done is lowered the hit possibilities against convoys by about 90%. Over the course of a 52-turn year (not the 30-turn year of RtV), hopefully the success of convoy attacks (especially raiders, which according to the consts.csv are twice as effective) will be historical.

There is no precedent in "historical ratios" for an Italian attempt to run an 80 STP convoy every wee

True

In the actual war the Allies were far weaker, and the Axis had major supply problems. If the Axis had the resources Gary deploys against you the Axis losses would have approached the ones you experience.

But then there was apparently no historical precedence for the Allies strong fleet seen in this game either - and probably for a good reason. I imagine they would have loved to deploy it in Italian airspace but had good reason not to do so.

I accept that we differ in opinion here. Maybe you are right and the current handling is good for the game and if all feel the current settings are ok, then we go with that.