Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: crsutton
and as added air protection for slower TFs such as CVEs.

It sounds counter intuitive but I prefer fighting Japanese BBs with light ships. They do not hit much at night either.

Agree. Late war I find a major use for old BBs, and this is CVE TF flag. There is simply no better protection to thin skinned tuna cans than a layer of Great War Steel.

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

The use of old BBs in an amphib TF has a disadvantage seldom mentioned.

While most modern amphibs can reach 15kts cruise speed, the old BBs are tied to 12kts. So by adding them to a well chosen TF you increase the time to target by 20%, which, depending on the total time to target, can have a notable negative effect on troop fatigue and might increase the danger to tip off the invasion plan. This effect is enhanced by by the high fuel consumption and low bunker capacity of most of the old ships. Also, the reduction in cruise speed increases probability of sub attacks.

So whether the benefit of adding BBs outweights those drawbacks depends on the situation.

Well if you plan things right [:)], you have the Amph TF which has the BBs in it within one turn of the beach before you add the BBs in. So you should not run the BBs in the TF until right before the invasion so you do not have to worry so much about the BBs slowing the invasion down.

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

The use of old BBs in an amphib TF has a disadvantage seldom mentioned.

While most modern amphibs can reach 15kts cruise speed, the old BBs are tied to 12kts. So by adding them to a well chosen TF you increase the time to target by 20%, which, depending on the total time to target, can have a notable negative effect on troop fatigue and might increase the danger to tip off the invasion plan. This effect is enhanced by by the high fuel consumption and low bunker capacity of most of the old ships. Also, the reduction in cruise speed increases probability of sub attacks.

So whether the benefit of adding BBs outweights those drawbacks depends on the situation.

It is possible to control the speed a task force moves at by putting in an anchor ship. So for example, if I wanted to include the BBs in an amphibious TF, but still have it move at 15kts, I would build my amphibious TF as normal, and then add two ships with a maximum speed of 15kts. Then I would order the amphib TF to move at full speed. You have to babysit such a TF each turn, because the anchor ships will accumulate system damage, and might hit the point that their top speed drops off. That is why I include 2, if that happens the damaged ship goes into an escort TF and turns back.

ORIGINAL: heckler

That was unintentional. Actually I want to make things more difficult. [8D]


Jokes aside, to assume that a generic question relating to a very specific situation will produce simple answers is the best method to see the wrong ships getting trashed in combat animations.
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I think I'm coming from a place of "you don't know what you don't know". I was indeed hoping for a simplish answer tied to mechanics-something like "yes, there is an excellent chance a Surface Combat TF will engage the enemy force and keep them off your transports" or "the enemy will likely still engage the landing TF, so you need combat ships embedded to fight from within that TF"

I certainly wasn't expecting greater detail in how to best load out my Luganville (2nd effort, guh!) invasion force with the minimal information I provided. Being late 1942, the majority of ships involved with be xAP and xAK, with a pretty fair quantity of ships to spread the load and hopefully unload fairly quickly.

Great conversation and I truly appreciate all feedback. I've learned so much following the forum-thanks guys and keep it coming!
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Well, fom my experince, it is hard to tell, i runed one turn 4 times, in all cases amhibious TF was covered by SAG in same hex, in 1 case it was night action against ATF, socodn day action agaisnt ATF and 2x daily against SAG.
So har to tell , but generaly speaking i think it is best think to do amphibius landing in terrible weather (if you fear enemy naval ships) - with early radars chance to dect you are relative low and bad weather increase stealth , but OTOH is make greater losses during uloading due to drowning.¨
Well, it depend on your style, but i think putting most heavy unit (e.q. 1-2x bb/c)a to AFT to soak up dmage in case that ATF is dicovered and to have punching power, and then have SCG made from rest (bb/ca/cl/dd) with hope thy will engae enemy first .
Having set reaction range for SAG and good naval search helps to detect enemy and increase chance that SAG will enage first.

ORIGINAL: Amoral

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

The use of old BBs in an amphib TF has a disadvantage seldom mentioned.

While most modern amphibs can reach 15kts cruise speed, the old BBs are tied to 12kts. So by adding them to a well chosen TF you increase the time to target by 20%, which, depending on the total time to target, can have a notable negative effect on troop fatigue and might increase the danger to tip off the invasion plan. This effect is enhanced by by the high fuel consumption and low bunker capacity of most of the old ships. Also, the reduction in cruise speed increases probability of sub attacks.

So whether the benefit of adding BBs outweights those drawbacks depends on the situation.

It is possible to control the speed a task force moves at by putting in an anchor ship. So for example, if I wanted to include the BBs in an amphibious TF, but still have it move at 15kts, I would build my amphibious TF as normal, and then add two ships with a maximum speed of 15kts. Then I would order the amphib TF to move at full speed. You have to babysit such a TF each turn, because the anchor ships will accumulate system damage, and might hit the point that their top speed drops off. That is why I include 2, if that happens the damaged ship goes into an escort TF and turns back.

Might be a sub-par solution for 1 day/turn games. Although I would not use it as it a) ties the TF max speed to the max speed of that slow ship, and b) potentially creates all kinds of weird or unwanted TF behaviour (hello mid-term refuelling).

For 2 day/turn PBEM I would consider it an absolute no-go as the impact of those negative factors increase by an order of magnitude.

ORIGINAL: heckler

So I'm going to be amphibiously landing in the face of air and naval resistance (Iknow, I know...)-I think I have two choices and would like some input...

Am I better off putting the combat ships in a Surface Combat TF, or leave them embedded with the transports?

My advice is that you should break your WitP-AE habit and take up heroin or methamphetamines instead. You might live longer. [:'(]

Cost too much. I'll stick with AE [:)]