Minewarfare Questions

[spence]

So do you lose a lot of ships to the mines or do your sweepers just clear them away?

You are, after all, given notice where the fields are; something your RL counterparts only learned when one or more ships went BOOM.

If you're not losing a lot of ships to the mining then you have no reason to complain.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: spence

So do you lose a lot of ships to the mines or do your sweepers just clear them away?

You are, after all, given notice where the fields are; something your RL counterparts only learned when one or more ships went BOOM.

If you're not losing a lot of ships to the mining then you have no reason to complain.

no, you don´t lose many but all the time you have a damaged one (not just AKs, most times CA, BB, DD). I have a houserule on that in my games.

[spence]

no, you don´t lose many but all the time you have a damaged one

Historical figures put Japanese shipping losses to the aerial mining program at around 1.8 million tons. That's one reason why the Japanese government was publishing recipes to the general population on how to prepare grass for dinner by the end of the war.

Talk about whining [8|]

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: spence

no, you don´t lose many but all the time you have a damaged one

Historical figures put Japanese shipping losses to the aerial mining program at around 1.8 million tons. That's one reason why the Japanese government was publishing recipes to the general population on how to prepare grass for dinner by the end of the war.

Talk about whining [8|]

Oh man, anybody listening on this forum? Just tell me how you lose a ship in a level 9 port after it has hit a mine? Tell me what you say if 75 % of all your CV, BB, CA and CL are out of action because they hit a mine laid at your main bases. No matter how many sweepers you send out every day. Every day at bright daylight there are coming in 200 - 400 4E bombers laying mines and you´re not able to do something.

The problem here perhaps is, that most people are playing in 42 and aerial mining isn´t even working, but if you play a game in 43 and your opponent isn´t bombing but only mining, then you need either a house rule or a change that formations of 200 - 400 bombers at BRIGHT DAYLIGHT can be intercepted by your fighters.

If you have ships attacked in a base hex, there are also fighters engaging. No matter if this hex is 60 miles.

But why should I say more, people are obviously blind. They tell me historical facts and the facts aren´t what happens in the game but they still say: hey that´s realistical or historical. Of course Japan lost thousands of ships due mines and I don´t have problems with mines, but if someone is exploiting it, then it´s just weird.

Anyway, I don´t play the AI and my opponents never had problems with houserules.

[el cid again]

They tell me historical facts

I used to have a neighbor in Tacoma Washington who served on the USSBS as a captain (navy). The USSBS was dominated by the USAAF - and yet IT concluded that air minelaying was one of just three reasons Japan would have surely surrendered by November 1, 1945 WITHOUT an invasion and WITHOUT atom bombs. The USAAF in fact stopped minelaying for doctrinal reasons - not because it was not effective - and it should have laid a lot more than it did. I regard objecting to air minelaying and then appealing to history as a bit ironic: history shows air minelaying was effective to a degree the imatiated mines of this game simply do not allow. I would prefer better game mechanics in lots of ways - INCLUDING MORE POWERFUL mine warfare rules. Not less. Mines are very efficient and it is only ignorance of them that prevents us from using them more. [I am an AAW guy who also got some unusual ground combat experience - but I managed once to go to a mine warfare school - and I have to tell you - the real problem with mines is mainly that they are not laid. It is hard to deal with mines - and there are fewer ways harder to stop them being laid then by unpredictable airplanes. You don't even know where they are going - IF you try to intercept you are very likely to find they turned around BEFORE the intercept point - since the mission location was not at a place you could predict.]

[el cid again]

In my limited experience in WitP and in UV the IJN MSWs do a pretty good job of cleaning up minefields.

Far too efficient. Matrix officially admitted (in UV days) that it felt mines should only be a harassment factor - and refused to contemplate what it knew were factual mine warfare capabilities.

[spence]

Inasmuch as historically Kavieng, Rangoon, Haiphong, the Yangzte River and several other ports and anchorages were closed to the IJN by aerial mining the best thing to do might be to get out of Truk. Mining even closed down the port of Palembang (didn't know the port was actually up a river a fair ways) for a month (supposedly by RAAF PBYs - wonder where they came from?).

I guess though that the game mechanics are working to push the Allied Player anyway and maybe even the Japanese Player into foregoing traditional bombing in favor of aerial mining and I'll confess that that would have been completely impossible in the USAAF/USN, IJN/IJAF of the 1940s (and today). I'm not in favor of allowing CAP interception though - given the state of Japanese fighter direction throughout the war they get far more effective interception than they deserve. But I guess I'll go for a House Rule with my opp - assuming that I survive til 1943 - something like bomber squadron/groups may only conduct aerial mining if they have experience of 80+. I jsut wish one could create some kind of special training program for this more or less special mission. That might handicap the Japanese a bit but then again I've never read or heard about any kind of effective mining program run by the IJN/IJAF.

[kbad]

I have noticed that when I send a MSW to conduct mine warfare in a friendly port, they seem to also clear the friendly mines. Anybody elso notice this.