ORIGINAL: ChezDaJez
ORIGINAL: Tristanjohn
You're mistaken. Breaking up a large transport TF in port reduces losses to enemy air attacks, as it's intended to.
A large transport TF in port is still inport regardless of what TF it is assigned to. Assignment to a TF was an administrative procedure IRL and did nothing to protect individual ships in port. The attacking player had no way of knowing what TF they were assigned to and could care less. The argument that the ships are spread out over a 60 mile hex that someone else said doesn't wash either as aircraft flying at 10,000' have over a 100nm visual range and would still spot the majority of them.
A lot of stuff that's been said doesn't wash. Almost eveything Gary has programmed doesn't wash. I can't do much about either, but I try.
Don't get me wrong. It's not the single ship TFs I object to so much as it is the inability of the air model to allow a large strike force to target more than 1 TF.
Now you're talking, but there's more to it than that.
Individual ships in a port, whether assigned to 1 or 100 TFs shouldn't make a difference as to how many ships the attacking player can engage.
Agreed.
Its unrealsitic to expect a carrier strike force composed of 27 Vals and 27 Kates to attack 1 ship out of XX amount in a port. In reality, the aircraft would swarm the port, attacking any ship in sight.
Precisely. Now go tell Gary. [8D]
Take the example of Truk Lagoon. The US attacked it with TF58 composed of 6 CVs and 6 CVLs totaling some 300 bomber and torpedo planes. Did the US think they could only attack 1 ship because they only had 1 strike force? Of course, not. They went in and blasted the place. 45 ships were sunk and 27 damaged.
In the game, you can only attack as many TFs as you have air groups. Attacking with 2 carriers means that can attack a mximum of 2 TFs, regardless of how many ships are in them.
Not quite true. Once in awhile the air routines will break up the attack groups into two or more smaller packages, and each of these packages will then be able to select its own target. But usually this doesn't happen, and, again, unrealistically, all the planes will likely swarm the same target. Indeed, we even see this at sea where the second-phase attack groups fly to a hex and somehow can't find their target. Well of course not, it was sunk hours ago! Yet sometimes there are still other ships in that hex, even in the same TF as the sunk ship! It's dumb all the way around. On the one hand the air model is too powerful, and on the other it couldn't grope an elephant in a bag.
How many times during the combat replay have you seen the message "Unable to locate target" displayed time after time once the initial target has been sunk. The combat routine does not allow these other aircraft to seek out and attack anything else.
Hmmm. Are you copying me or am I copying you? [:D] I should have read the entire post before responding, but I'll leave my remarks stand as I wrote them. They deserve to be read many times. Hopefully many times for
meaning. (Are you reading this, Gary?)
That's a limitation of the game and breaking ships up into single ship TFs to achieve this effect is gamey IMO. In the example above the US would have only been able to hit a maximum of 12 ships if they were in single ship TFs. Is that realistic?
It might be gamey from your point of view; from my point of view it is even worse to allow the model to practice common butchery over the sea.
Single ship TFs fleeing a port during an attack is one thing, if that's what they are doing. Breaking up ships into single ship TFs to avoid air attack while continuing to unload is gamey because it is taking advantage of a known limitation of the game.
Not to do this thing is to allow the system to run amok with the crazy air model, an equally bad thing in my estimation.
I see it as being little different than operating along the edges of the map board. After all, that too is a limitation of the game.
It's not the same at all. What would be true to say is that in both cases we can and should take steps to
correct the situation the best we might. That's common sense.
People complain they have to do this to combat the effectiveness of the Betty. What is it about the Betty that is ahistorical? Its range? The torpedo it carries? Its ability to attack an undefended merchant on the open sea? It can cause havoc when there is no CAP.
First of all, that's a pretty bogus argument in our case. Over Port Moresby I have very effective CAP, so effective, in fact, you haven't bothered to attack during the day for three weeks. Right? In fact the last time you came in it was with everything you had, including
all of your carriers and everything Rabaul could send and you
still couldn't break the defense. Indeed, I ended up hitting your carriers three times with bombs on counterattack!
Look. The model allows too many bombers to slip through. That's because of a lot stuff that isn't right with the model--and in this instance even in lieu of the outrageously erred CAP rules your bombers still came through in strength. The model is plain wrong. Not that many bombers would leak through given the amount of CAP I have over Port Moresby--at least not if that CAP were effective, and mine surely has been. Except it really
hasn't been in game terms has it?
And in real life would you expect a handful of American and Australian level bombers with a measly escort (what did I have for an escort, five or six planes at most?) to be able to go out and score three hits on carriers? Of course not. Again, the model is whacked.
But forget all that. Let's take an historical case of ships "in port" when a large formation of Bettys attacked. Let's see what happened in real life.
The perfect example is off Lunga Roads, 7-8 August 1942.
On 7 August there was effective CAP from
Enterprise and Saratoga[/i] and the first high-level attack (1315 hours) by two-engine bombers proved fruitless. A second wave around 1500 then hit. These were dive bombers, 16 of them, and from what I can tell the CAP was less effective as these bandits sneaked through without warning from the coastwatchers up the Solomons chain. In any event, in total they recorded one hit, on
Mugford, which killed 22 sailors but did little actual damage to the vessel. So much for Japanese prowess in the air on 7 August 1942.
Morison gives Japanese losses (attested to by Admiral Yamada after the war) as 14 out of the 43 bombers (including both attacks), along with 2 "Zekes" (A6M2s) out of the 18 sent along as escort. American losses included 11 F4Fs and one SBD. (I make it 60 fighter planes that provided CAP at one time or another during these attacks, plus six SBDs off
Wasp which had been assigned to bomb Tulagi but instead joined the fracas over the channel.)
Next day, 8 Augsut 1942.
There was CAP up this day as well, but it was totally ineffective CAP as it turned out, and all of the Bettys got to make their runs. So what happened?
First of all, Admiral Turner had more advance warning on the 8th, some eighty minutes in fact. And so he ordered all of his tranpsorts and escort ships "in the harbor" to work up steam and start maneuvering. This time the Americans were better prepared.
Three fighters off
Enterprise tangled with four of the Bettys as they came in low over the eastern cape of Florida Island. The rest of the bombers were free to make their runs and were opposed solely with anti-aircraft fire and ships maneuvering for their lives.
One accidental hit on destroyer
Jarvis (damaged, not sunk) and one burning Betty that crashed on
George F. Elliott. She burned out of control due to a frightened crew and was eventually lost.
This was the extent of Allied casualties on 8 August 1942.
Sources differ on the number of Japanese bombers which pariticipated in the attack. Morison gives 26 in total, with nine returning to Rabaul. He claims the Japanese admitted to this after the war. I know that TIMJOT for one likes to cite some other source, quite possibly Frank and/or Lundstrom. Whatever, this variance runs only to a few planes. Everyone agrees as to American casualties.
But in the game the results would have been more like six or seven or eight or nine bomb hits on 7 August and something on the order of twelve torpedo hits and five or six ships sunk the next day. (Can you imagine in the game, with just three Wildcats on CAP, how your Bettys would run wild?)
Big difference.
Why?
Because 1) the model has bombers as being too effective, especially torpedo bombers with their accuracy and durability against AA fire, and 2) does not intelligently handle the attacks of bombers vis-a-vis an equally intelligent disposal/handling of the ships in the target hex, all the while the CAP rules are at once strange of conception and ineffective for the most part. At Lunga Roads the ships were prepared to defend themselves as best they could on 8 August and this defense (one of evasion and AA fire) proved to be effective without appreciable CAP. But the model doesn't rocognize this history. The model has it that anything a Betty sees a Betty sinks, more or less.
Sorry, I can't buy the arguments you make. Almost nothing in Gary's model coincides with history. What should that tell us about his model? And to my way of thinking that suggests changes are required.
Whose fault is that?
Gary's. [8D]
The Allies feared its ability and tried not to operate where it was a threat unless they had CAP.
Wrong. The Allies operated where they needed to operate in order to prosecute the war. Sure, they always tried to give CAP support, and did what they could. But even when, like at Lunga Roads, that CAP was ineffective it is
still the case that we didn't see slaughter over the sea by those Bettys.
But it seems to me that the majority of complaints come from the Allied players, at least until the tide turns their way.
I don't care about what other people say. My complaint is with the
entire system. And I'll be bitching just as loud and just as long when when our PBEM game rolls into 1943 and 1944.
You don't hear them saying "I won't use the B-17 against shipping because it is too effective."
That's yet another error in the system. There are many. Almost too many to itemize.
But one has to use his assets sometime, yes? And no one said you couldn't use your Bettys on naval attack, or your Nells at extended range when they carry bomb loads, etc. And both of these planes, at least when they're loaded with torpedoes, are more effective in the anti-shipping role by an order of magnitude over B-17s, even as over-modeled as the B-17s happen to be. Of course the reason for that is that Bettys and Nells themselves are over-modeled. The entire air system is over-modeled.
Let me say that again.
The entire air system is over-modeled.
So what's unfair? How are the Allies taking advantage of anyone?
Both sides enjoy (or are inflicted with, from my point of view) overly-powerful air assets.
Again, go tell Gary. He designed this simulation, I didn't.
Nope they continue to use it. We are now in May 42 in my PBEM game. In April alone, I several MSWs and PCs to B-17 attacks while conducting Minesweeping or ASW tasks. Is that gamey? No, unrealistic maybe but not gamey.
You're right, it isn't gamey. It's just the Allied player putting his planes up to good effect. That the system has it completely wrong re the hits is unfortunate. I'd rather B-17s didn't hit much shipping. I'd also rather Bettys didn't do as much damage as Gary lets them do. But my wishes count for nothing.
Someone mentioned that the assigning aircraft to Naval search will alleviate this problem. Maybe at sea, but it won't do anything in a port except subject small groups of search planes to enemy CAP without benefit of escort. And search planes rarely attack anything as it is.
I tend to agree with this, but then I've never thought of putting an entire squadron on 100% naval search, either. This other guy says it works. Why not try it yourself and see? If it
did work then
that would be about semi-gamey. [8D]
But again, it wouldn't be your fault, it would be Gary's fault. It's a bad simulation.
I know the game has many flaws which reduces the authenticity of its historical simulation to simply game status. Exploiting the flaws to achieve ahistorical results further degrades it.
For serious players it isn't a question of exploitation but rather
correction.
But there is unrealistic and there is gamey. Using units in the same manner as RL even though their effectiveness is overstated is not gamey, using a tactic to take advantage of a flaw in a combat routine is.
Well, in a nutshell what you argue for is to just play Gary's dumb simulation the way he tells you to play it. Anything else is "gamey." I would rejoin that the simulation itself gives inherently "gamey" results.
Basically I disgree with you, and I'll tell you why: I want something better.