Torpedo Ordnance

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Brady
A Betty with a Torp (full load) had about the same Take Off run as a fully loaded P-38.

I presume theres more to an airfield than that - services and such. Otherwise why the administrative penalties? Torpedoes are specialised ordnance, hence why they have all these hoops to jump through. But if the hoops are for naught because they are easily circumscribed...

[Brady]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

ORIGINAL: Brady
A Betty with a Torp (full load) had about the same Take Off run as a fully loaded P-38.

I presume theres more to an airfield than that - services and such. Otherwise why the administrative penalties? Torpedoes are specialised ordnance, hence why they have all these hoops to jump through. But if the hoops are for naught because they are easily circumscribed...

Thier is, Torp Bombers would also have torps on hand 99% of the time given that was their reasion for existing, thats not the case in AE.

After countless hours playing both stock and AE, the Nettys in AE are way more restrianed than stock, in fact I generaly refer to them as neutered.

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

There are a dozen air HQs in the Japanese OOB more or less in the early war, plus all the command HQs on top.

How many do you need?  [&:]  Thats loads.   You're essentially swapping the scarce resource of level 4 airfields in WITP for the scarce resource of air HQs in AE (not so scarce at all, in fact, when you consider command radii).

I'm more receptive to the supply argument which might at least be in an issue in some CENTPAC island chain, but somewhere like, say, Malaya, or Burma, or Java, or even Timor, thats practically a non-issue.

A dozen? Try 5 that are at all usefull. You've got the 11th Airfleet and the 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 24th Air Flotillas (and based on initial location, the 24th is basically useless). So, you've got 4 Air HQ's and the Southern Army Command HQ. That's all. On top of that, the Air Flotillas can only handle one base at a time (range of 1 hex). So, three of your five HQ's can only deal with a single air base. The other only has a range of 3 or 4, so its also not terribly useful. The Southern Army HQ then is the only really useful one. When you said a dozen, I assume you're including the ones permanently stationed in the Home Islands or the China Theater. For all practical purposes, these are useless until the allies come knocking on the door of Tokyo.

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

Why would you need to put the entire unit hq there? I would bet you can probably effect the same thing with a HQ fragment no?

Fragments don't work. When you have fragments, you don't get the "Torpedo Ordnance" device. So, only the "parent" fragment will actually supply torpedoes.

[Icedawg]

I had another question related to this topic. Where are these base forces that have torpedo ordnance capabilities? The manual says there are base forces that can be used to supply torpedoes. Where are they? Or are they just limited to the allied side?

[Fallschirmjager]

Unescorted Betties get shredded now. In two of my PBEM games I have P-36 aces from shooting down unescorted Betties and Nells over the PI.
Just because you can send a HQ to an island and build a size 2 airfield does not mean you can domniate the skies. IJN bombers have to have fighter escort in order to be effective.
And even under escort they cannot prevent some fighters from penetrating the escort screen and attacking the bombers. Escorts do not stick to bombers like glue now. You have cordinating and altitude to think about now. And as dogfighting begins the escorts are pulled to different altitudes and away from the bombers which is realistic. In WitP it seemed like excorting fighters fought all of their dogfights and the game engine never accounted for this would effect the escorts being pulled away from escorting duty.
The air war in AE feels almost perfect IMO. Surface combat needs some fixes but they have pretty much nailed air to air combat.

[Sheytan]

Point is you dont need those HQs now do you? ANY HQ can support this function with sufficent supply, yes?

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

Why would you need to put the entire unit hq there? I would bet you can probably effect the same thing with a HQ fragment no?

Fragments don't work. When you have fragments, you don't get the "Torpedo Ordnance" device. So, only the "parent" fragment will actually supply torpedoes.

[Mynok]

Yes, but the Japanese need those HQs for lots of other things besides torp supply. The restrictions are a lot more effective than you are giving them credit for.

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

Point is you dont need those HQs now do you? ANY HQ can support this function with sufficent supply, yes?

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

Why would you need to put the entire unit hq there? I would bet you can probably effect the same thing with a HQ fragment no?

Fragments don't work. When you have fragments, you don't get the "Torpedo Ordnance" device. So, only the "parent" fragment will actually supply torpedoes.

Not any HQ, only Command HQs and a lot of them have a command radius of 1, so they are not real useful for providing torpedoes. There are a couple of Command HQs with more range but on small bases you will be using a lot of supply to launch torpedoes and you just don't always have enough.

[Sheytan]

8/12/41

56 total HQs for IJ.
---------------------------------------------------
25 of 46 land/naval restricted. I see only perma restricted HQs here.
A number of these HQ group have command radius of 9!!!


Fragmented HQs-
---------------------------------------------------
25th army-2-5/elements 4- Fragmented.

14th army-2-3/elements 2- Fragmented.



10 AIR HQ-ALL of these have 100 torp device stores as component
---------------------------------------------------
4 restricted total/-3 perma restricted-1 can be reassigned.

6 have HQ radius of 1.

4 have HQ radius of 4. Of these, only the 1st is perma restricted. One can be reassigned.


84 reinforcement HQs
---------------------------------------------------

There are 40 Air type HQs appearing as reinforcements.


NOTES-I did not look to see how many are withdrawls in this list however if you combine the

two fragmented HQ's you get 52 at start. Assume every HQ withdraws at some point, you are

left with a additional 28 HQs with a total of 80...HQ's for IJ by wars end.

[Sheytan]

Mynok,

I will conceed this, it may be that because of the desire to make the AI more combative vs WITP that I am seeing things in my game vs the AI that wouldnt take place in a PBEM game.

My experience in this was that I was attacked by betty bombers when I sent a SC TF to attack shipping at one of the Borneo ports. Although I was attacked by bettys from this port, and they employed torpedos, when I flipped sides to see IF a hq was present, the same squadron that had beat up my TF now displayed torpedos as the load out in red.

I am beginning to think my perceptions are being unfairly slanted as a result of concessions granted the AI to make the game more challenging.

At any rate you may very well be correct.

ORIGINAL: Mynok


Yes, but the Japanese need those HQs for lots of other things besides torp supply. The restrictions are a lot more effective than you are giving them credit for.

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

I had another question related to this topic. Where are these base forces that have torpedo ordnance capabilities? The manual says there are base forces that can be used to supply torpedoes. Where are they? Or are they just limited to the allied side?

I originally was going to allow BF to supply torpedoes, but it was thought that was making it too easy for torpedo supply. It was changed to Air Hq as the source for torpedoes.

However, the BF option was left in in case there was some reason to that it may be wanted in a user scenario.

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: Sheytan

8/12/41

56 total HQs for IJ.
---------------------------------------------------
25 of 46 land/naval restricted. I see only perma restricted HQs here.
A number of these HQ group have command radius of 9!!!


Fragmented HQs-
---------------------------------------------------
25th army-2-5/elements 4- Fragmented.

14th army-2-3/elements 2- Fragmented.



10 AIR HQ-ALL of these have 100 torp device stores as component
---------------------------------------------------
4 restricted total/-3 perma restricted-1 can be reassigned.

6 have HQ radius of 1.

4 have HQ radius of 4. Of these, only the 1st is perma restricted. One can be reassigned.


84 reinforcement HQs
---------------------------------------------------

There are 40 Air type HQs appearing as reinforcements.


NOTES-I did not look to see how many are withdrawls in this list however if you combine the

two fragmented HQ's you get 52 at start. Assume every HQ withdraws at some point, you are

left with a additional 28 HQs with a total of 80...HQ's for IJ by wars end.

I just looked through the initial Japanese OOB and only found a total of 19 HQ's that can conceivably influence air ops at the start of the war. Most of them are useless at supporting Nell/Betty torpedo use.

I think you're counting Army, Corps and Naval HQ's. They can't help with torpedo ordnance - only Air and Command HQ's can be used.

The only command HQ's are:

General Defense (useless as it is restiricted to the Home Islands)
Kwangtung (useless as it is restricted to North Asian mainland)
China Expeditionary (useless as it is restricted to China)
5th Fleet (uselss as it is restricted to Home Islands)

4th Fleet (nearly useless - command radius 1)

SE Area Fleet - useful (command radius 4 or 5)

Combined Fleet - very useful (command radius 9)
Southern Army - very useful (command radius 9)

Grand Total For Command HQ's 4.

The only Air HQ's are

11th Air Flotilla (useless as it is restricted to either Home Islands or North Asia, I forget which)
12th Air Flotilla (useless for same reason as above)
1st Air Division (useless for same reason as above)

2nd, 3rd and 5th Air Divisions (useless as a personal house rule prevents me from assigning naval torpedo squadrons to Army commands - I'm assuming torpedo ordnance can only be drawn from the air unit's chain of command)

21st-24th Air Flotillas (nearly useless - command radius 1)

11th Air Fleet - useful (command radius 4 or 5)

Grand Total For Air HQ's 5. (If you don't follow my house rule segregating army and navy units - 8.)

So, the total is 9 (or 12 if you don't use my house rule).

If you add to this michaelM's note about supply requirements, it's going to be pretty darned hard for me to get Betty's and Nells into newly captured airfields and have them operating with torpedoes.

I haven't looked at the reinforcement HQ's, but I suspect only a handful of the 40 Air type HQ's you found as reinforcements will be of much use - due to command restrictions and/or date of arrival. (Getting an Air HQ as a reinforcement in July of 1944 isn't going to help much.)

[Icedawg]

[/quote]

I can't see the abuse.
There are not that many Air or command hqs on either side, and they tend to be spread around the map.

Plus you need the supply available at the base:
for AF 4+, you 2 times (or 1 time with an air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 3, you 5 times (or 1 time with a air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 2, you 6 times (or 2 times with a air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 1, you 7 times (or 3 times with a air/command hq present) base's required supply


[/quote]

Where did you find this stuff in the manual? I looked through section 7 very thoroughly and couldn't find anything. I also did various searches with "supply" and "torpedo" and couldn't find it. Could you give me a page number or section title.

I'm glad you let me known about it as it greatly alters my plans for my Air HQ's. Thanks.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg
I just looked through the initial Japanese OOB and only found a total of 19 HQ's that can conceivably influence air ops at the start of the war. Most of them are useless at supporting Nell/Betty torpedo use.

I think you are overestimating just how many you need... Looks like plenty to me.

4th Fleet (nearly useless - command radius 1)

So thats Rabaul or Rangoon.

SE Area Fleet - useful (command radius 4 or 5)

So thats the Gilberts covered.

Combined Fleet - very useful (command radius 9)

And the Marshalls...

Southern Army - very useful (command radius 9)

And every airbase of note in the PI...

2nd, 3rd and 5th Air Divisions (useless as a personal house rule prevents me from assigning naval torpedo squadrons to Army commands - I'm assuming torpedo ordnance can only be drawn from the air unit's chain of command)

"Personal house rules" hardly count. So this is Timor, Java, and somewhere in SOPAC.

21st-24th Air Flotillas (nearly useless - command radius 1)

...one for the Aleutians, one for Truk, one for Saipan...

11th Air Fleet - useful (command radius 4 or 5)

New Caledonia? Australia? Malaya? I'm running out of places I need one at this point...

And there are reinforcements. Really, aside from the logistic challenge of placing them all, it's not much of a limit at all. It means another unit you must carefully position, thats it.

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

I can't see the abuse.
There are not that many Air or command hqs on either side, and they tend to be spread around the map.

Plus you need the supply available at the base:
for AF 4+, you 2 times (or 1 time with an air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 3, you 5 times (or 1 time with a air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 2, you 6 times (or 2 times with a air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 1, you 7 times (or 3 times with a air/command hq present) base's required supply


[/quote]

Where did you find this stuff in the manual? I looked through section 7 very thoroughly and couldn't find anything. I also did various searches with "supply" and "torpedo" and couldn't find it. Could you give me a page number or section title.

I'm glad you let me known about it as it greatly alters my plans for my Air HQ's. Thanks.
[/quote]

7.2.1.10.2.2 LAND BASED TORPEDO SUPPLY
The detailed supply needs is courtesy of me.

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

ORIGINAL: Icedawg

I can't see the abuse.
There are not that many Air or command hqs on either side, and they tend to be spread around the map.

Plus you need the supply available at the base:
for AF 4+, you 2 times (or 1 time with an air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 3, you 5 times (or 1 time with a air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 2, you 6 times (or 2 times with a air/command hq present) base's required supply
for AF 1, you 7 times (or 3 times with a air/command hq present) base's required supply

Where did you find this stuff in the manual? I looked through section 7 very thoroughly and couldn't find anything. I also did various searches with "supply" and "torpedo" and couldn't find it. Could you give me a page number or section title.

I'm glad you let me known about it as it greatly alters my plans for my Air HQ's. Thanks.
[/quote]

7.2.1.10.2.2 LAND BASED TORPEDO SUPPLY
The detailed supply needs is courtesy of me.
[/quote]

Okay, here's another "Manual writers are nincompoops!" tirade!

The detailed supply needs is courtesy of me.

Why do I not get this info in the manual?! [:@] This lack of supply requirements in the manual would have caused extremely elevated blood pressure, lots of profanity and the greying or loss of the few hairs I have left! I easily could have seen myself situating Nells/Bettys at some level 2 airfield with an Air HQ and adequate torpedo ordnance and wondering why my planes are not carrying torpedoes.

Why do I have to get crucial rules here in the forum?! Why are they not spelled out in the manual?! [:@]

[Icedawg]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

ORIGINAL: Icedawg
I just looked through the initial Japanese OOB and only found a total of 19 HQ's that can conceivably influence air ops at the start of the war. Most of them are useless at supporting Nell/Betty torpedo use.

I think you are overestimating just how many you need... Looks like plenty to me.

Yeah, I'm beginning to agree that there are enough, but without much room to spare. I initially hadn't recognized that the "Fleet" HQ's (4th, SE Area and Combined) were also Command HQ's. They really helped in planning my perimeter.

I think I'm going to be hard pressed though to provide Bettys/Nells for an invasion of India. There are enough to cover the historical perimeter, but beyond that, I'm not sure.

I was just trying to point out to Sheytan that there aren't nearly as many torpedo ordnance supporting HQ's as he thought (80+).

You can cover, but you can't really overlap much (in case you lose or key base or something).

[donkey_roxor]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg


I easily could have seen myself situating Nells/Bettys at some level 2 airfield with an Air HQ and adequate torpedo ordnance and wondering why my planes are not carrying torpedoes.

Aren't the supply requirements ONLY for the case when a Command HQ is supplying torpedoes? If there's an Air HQ in range, there's no supply requirement to arm planes with torpedoes, assuming the Air HQ already has torpedoes available.

Hence, in the example you give above (Air HQ available with adequate torpedo ordnance), the amount of supply there won't matter (at least for arming planes with torpedoes).

Edit: Although the way michaelm says it does sound like supply is required for BOTH the Air HQ and/or the Command HQ to supply torpedoes. I'm confused now.

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Icedawg
You can cover, but you can't really overlap much (in case you lose or key base or something).

It is true that if you zap the air HQ then you shut down a whole sectors worth of Netties, but thats almost impossible without a combination of dereliction of duty on part of the Jap player and blind luck on the part of the Allies.

In WITP you knew where the Netties were - the level 4+ airfields. If you could trash them you could advance without CVs, though it would be risky.

Now you don't know. They could be anywhere. And with a sufficient command radius, they could not be merely be anywhere, they could be everywhere. Bomb one airfield to crap and they could transfer to a nearby backup, still in range, and launch.

I really don't see how this is somehow a limit on torpedo use. There are plenty of air HQs you can use. No real shortage. You dont need Betties in the interior, and an HQ is the easiest unit to evac when things go south, being av support + supply. It's true that supply might limit their use, but really, thats a totally separate concern. Supply limits the use of everything after all, but torpedoes were supposedly worthy of a special extra ruleset to make them especially scarce.

Far as I can see it's not done that at all, it's merely given the Netties more flexibility as to where they can deploy, so it does, in fact, make them better.


That said, they do die like flies, so the changes aren't all in the Netties favour by any means. I just don't think the limited torpedo system is in practice a limit at all.