Morocco, Algeria and Tunsia

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

I think you're misunderstanding the naval search rules.

You only get surprise points for guys included in the combat, not guys in the sea zone.

Say the Italians have a NAV in the 2 box and a fighter escorting it, while the British have a CL in the 4 box, a convoy in the 0, and a hurricane in the 0 protecting the convoy.

They search, in good weather. Say the Italians roll a 3 (finding) and the British roll a 9, not finding. The Italians then get to select which box or boxes they find, and don't have to include the 4 box; if they pick the 0 alone, the Italians will have a net surprise total of 9.

About the only way the fighter could be involved on anything less than the Italians terms is if the Italians have a convoy of their own in the sea zone AND the British roll a 1 on their search roll.

If anything, the lone CL in the 4 box increases the British risk, especially if the Italians don't have a convoy presence. It can't hurt the planes on its own, and the 40% chance that it finds trouble and then gives the Italians another chance to roll and find and hit the real target, the convoys. In a few similar situations, I've actually perversely used my surprise points when I've had them to avoid combat and killing the CL, hoping to keep it around to increase the odds of catching the convoys.

[IKerensky]

No I understand well.

But with the CL in the 4 box, you lower the chance the Italian are the only on to find, and if the CW roll 4 or less, then surprise is denied for the Italian and they can't choose to include the CP in the fight.

[paulderynck]

True - for one round. But if the CL and the Italian NAV find and fight, then likely that CL will be aborted or worse. But it is true that in that event the Italians have to find twice in a row, likely changing a 50% chance (or less) to a 25% chance (or less) of getting to the CP.

But it's not all roses for the CW, there is a subset of possibilities where the NAV misses, and the CL finds with insufficient surprise to call off combat, then gets aborted and the Italians get a second try at searching - that whey would not have had, if the CL had not been present.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

On the other hand, unless the CL, if it finds, can abort or kill the NAV (phenomenally unlikely, even with maximized surprise), it does very little to hurt the Italians attepts to strike, and increases their odds of catching the convoy.

If we have navs and fighters in the two box, good weather, enemy convoy, chance of finding is 40%.

If we add in a British cruiser to the 4 box, (let's pretend there's no Italian convoy presence for the moment, because that would enormously complicate the calculation, even though it's quite likely for real game play.) We've now created 4 distinct possibilities for any given search: Nobody finds, Italians find and the British do not, British find and the Italians do not, and both sides find.


Odds of both sides missing each other are .6 *.6 for 36%

Odds of Italians finding and the British missing are .4 * .6 for 24%

The British finding and the Italians missing are again 24%, for the same reasons as above.

Odds of both sides finding are .4 * .4 for 16%


So while the odds of the Italians having an unqualified success and hitting the convoy points are at a 16% deficit, given that it's essentially impossible for the cruiser to hurt the planes, and that there's a very high likelihood of fighting with the cruiser ending with the cruiser leaving the sea zone (bouncing the second search roll back to the original odds), you've actually increased the likelihood of eventually being able to hit the convoys by a fair amount.


I personally wouldn't recommend sending that cruiser up into the 4 box unless there was a real chance of him actually attacking something successfully (say if the Italians have their own convoy in the area)

[Courtenay]

The problem with this calculation is that if the CW finds the Italians with four surprise points, the CW can pick "avoid combat", and the combat ends right there, which is what the Allies want. So let's do redo the calculation:

Chance of both sides missing: 36%
Chance of the Italians finding and Allies missing: 24%
Chance of the CW finding and avoiding combat: 21%
Chance of the CW finding, Italians missing, and CW can't abort: 3% (Allies 3 vs Italian 5 or Allies 4 vs Italian 5 or 6.)
Chance of both sides finding and another round of combat: 15%
Chance of both sides finding and the Allies aborting combat: 1% (Allies roll 1, Italians 4; Italians have four surprise points, Allies eight, combat ends.)

Let us assume that the CW CL will have something happen to if it has to fight. Then the second round of combat is simple: 40% of the time, the Italians find, 60% they don't, so that 18% chance of a second round of combat (15%+3%) turns into a 7.2% chance of the Italians finding the convoys, and 10.8% that they don't. Thus with the CL in the four box, the chance of the Italians finding the Allied convoys in at least one round of combat is 31.2%. This is opposed to the simple 40% if the CW cruiser is not there. Thus a CL in the four box decreases the chance of Italian success by 22%. Of course, that Allied gain comes at the expense of the possibility of something happening to the CL, but that is how the navy earns its pay.

[Mike Parker]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

...Of course, that Allied gain comes at the expense of the possibility of something happening to the CL, but that is how the navy earns its pay.

You must be ex air force

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

I actually hadn't done the mathematics in that level of detail. I'm a bit humbled, that I made a calculation error like that.


However, I question one assumption you make, namely that in the 18% chance that some combat between the cruiser and the navs must be risked. The Italians don't HAVE to call an air, at that point, combat becomes a surface, but since the Italians don't have any ships in the sea zone, no damage is inflicted and you go back to rolling.


I'm not sure this helps them any, mind you, and tonight I'm going to sit down and do the math properly, but if you're more likely to catch that convoy with the continued presence of the cruiser, I don't want to kill it, so I'll pick a combat type that won't hurt my bait.

[Majorball68]

You have to be careful sometimes, initiating a Naval Combat can go bad if you get poor search rolls and your opponent gets a good one. More so when you have convoys in the sea area. Despite having most of your Naval Power in the sea area if it is not in the box that gets hit goodbye convoys! You could actually be doing the enemy a favor by initiating the combat in the first place.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Majorball68

You have to be careful sometimes, initiating a Naval Combat can go bad if you get poor search rolls and your opponent gets a good one. More so when you have convoys in the sea area. Despite having most of your Naval Power in the sea area if it is not in the box that gets hit goodbye convoys! You could actually be doing the enemy a favor by initiating the combat in the first place.

Agreed. If you can't have the worst result possible, try to avoid it from happening. When convoys are in a sea area it might be wise to avoid combat than to press forward and giving the enemy another go at finding those convoys...

[Courtenay]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

However, I question one assumption you make, namely that in the 18% chance that some combat between the cruiser and the navs must be risked. The Italians don't HAVE to call an air, at that point, combat becomes a surface, but since the Italians don't have any ships in the sea zone, no damage is inflicted and you go back to rolling.

The NAVS are rarely at risk. A single cruiser will be on the leftmost column of the AA chart, so will never have enough surprise to affect a single NAV. (If it did, it could abort the combat, instead, a much better result for the Allies.) Against two NAVS, there will be times when the cruiser could roll lowest of six dice, which give a 1 chance in 21 of aborting a NAV. Against three or four NAVS, the odd could increase all the way up to 1 in 13. Those figures assume that the CW uses its surprise to increase its AA column; it is much more likely that the CW will decrease the Italian air-to-sea column instead, in which case two NAVs are completely safe, and three or four NAVs have the 1 in 21 chance of being aborted. And I don't often have three or four NAVS in the same sea box.

If the Italians don't get ever get rid of the cruiser, the chance of them damaging the convoys drops from 31.2% to 29.3%.