Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Truk can be tough once the forts are built large, but BBs can hurt the fort if they stand off far enough until the fort guns are disabled or they are out of supply.
I usually start with my BBs standing off at 18K and see how it goes. At that range Truk fort will rarely get a hit but will use lots of supply trying. I close in on subsequent bombardments by 2K intervals until the heat gets too much, then back out to the previous bombardment setting (+2K). It will take months of bombarding a couple of times a week to really suppress the fort. Keep bombing as well: fatigue becomes disruption becomes disablement becomes destroyed devices.

You don't even need to do this process.

Just look up the ranges of the guns that are at Truk. Order your ships to bombard from outside the range of the most numerous smallest caliber CD gun.

Although honestly, I mostly just set to 5K standoff and call it good. Works just fine. I haven't bombarded Truk that way, but I have done so to other heavily fortified bases (Saipan, for one, which has a similar coastal defense unit).

Some targets are nasty porcupines and as I recall Truk is one of those. Better to start farther out.

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Careful MakeePorn.

Is Truk invulnerable?

ORIGINAL: jwolf

Wasting time isn't so bad -- ships, on the other hand, are a different matter. And I wouldn't mind all the banged up ships so much, except that in return the defenders at Truk are taking just about no losses at all. Shells of caliber 14 and 16 inches do ... pretty much nothing.

If the goal is to engage the CD guns, then (perhaps unfortunately) you should try unloading via amphibious TF

ORIGINAL: rustysi

If the goal is to engage the CD guns, then (perhaps unfortunately) you should try unloading via amphibious TF

I think an air bombardment with the port as a target will accomplish this as well.

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: jwolf

Wasting time isn't so bad -- ships, on the other hand, are a different matter. And I wouldn't mind all the banged up ships so much, except that in return the defenders at Truk are taking just about no losses at all. Shells of caliber 14 and 16 inches do ... pretty much nothing.

This is not my experience, though of course it could be possible that even with high DL and spotter planes a bombardment might do nothing. It's worth noting that when a bombardment TF bombards, it is not really explicitly targeting the coastal defense units or even the defending LCUs at Truk itself - it is bombarding the base. Sometimes, ships will fire at specific units at the base. But not always.

If the goal is to engage the CD guns, then (perhaps unfortunately) you should try unloading via amphibious TF - that will dedicate all of the "bombardment" to counter-battery fire, which should take care of more guns. I can think of a way to "abuse" this mechanic with faux-amphibious forces - but really, I'd just think of it as an abstraction for targeting the defensive guns instead of the base with a bombardment. Just trickier to pull off.