Deja Vu All Over Again - apbarog(J) vs OPilot(A)

[apbarog]

15 Jan 43

The Hurricane horde swept over 2 Japanese artillery units near Magwe. Blens and B-25Cs at 4000 feet destroyed over half of both fresh units, and disabled the rest. Today I've moved several fighter units to Mandalay and have them on range 2 CAP, which will cover these units, as well as others. The overall plan in Burma is now a fighting withdrawal to the south of the plains. Can't defend in the clear. I do plan on pounding Allied units when they enter the clear terrain. This will be part of a big fight with the Hurricanes and P-40s. Oscars at Rangoon are in the process of upgrading to the IIb model, which has armor.

In the far north of China, Japanese armor tried to eliminate a small remnant of the 259th Chinese Brigade. Despite shock attacking and getting 74 to 1 odds, and the Chinese being in movement mode, the Chinese unit was not eliminated. It did take 147 casualties, all destroyed squads, but the unit still exists. And it retreated into a mountain hex without a road. More time needed to track it down. And with armor, it will probably move to another hex before the tanks get there. I'm sending another small unit from the Urumchi area to go around further to the west and be ready for the Chinese if it pops out of the mountains on that side. It's just a tiny fragment, but I plan on leaving all of the captured bases in northern China except for Urumchi, which has a garrison requirement. That tiny Chinese fragment could recapture any of those unoccupied bases.

Near Akyab, the 7th Indian Division kicked the Japanese 1st Medium Field Artillery Regiment out of the jungle and into the clear near Magwe.

xAK Tone Maru, hit by a torpedo yesterday southeast of Truk, had to be scuttled today, as expected. The damage, including FIRE, got out of control. It was too far from any bases to have a chance.

[apbarog]

16 Jan 43

Dutch sub KXV hit big transport xAP Teikyo Maru north of Brunei. The ship is part of a big task force moving to China from Singapore to pick up unrestricted units. 2 torpedoes hit the ship. The ship then separated into its own task force, and was attacked again by KXV, with 2 more torpedo hits, sinking it.

Gove. P-38s and bombers.
Exmouth. Spits strafing troops.

I was ready in Burma for some LRCAP and the Allies didn't fly. Allied troops now showing movement out of the jungle into the clear near Magwe.

[apbarog]

17 Jan 43

Japanese subs have had a hard time finding US task forces in the Aleutians. I found the light cruiser task force that has bombarded Adak. It was moving along the Alaskan coast in the shallows, west of Kodiak. It appears that OPilot is using the coastal route there. I don't know if the ships are west or eastbound, but they found I-176 in the shallow water. DD Farenholt got 2 depth charge hits and then DD Lardner got 2 more, sinking the sub.

Spotted Allied task forces northwest of Mornington Island, which is northwest of Normanton, Australia. I'm guessing that they are headed one more hex to the northwest, to an Allied dot base. OPilot has been using a creeping strategy, building up airbases forward and controlling the air with P-38s and heavy bombers. He did so at Mornington. The task forces appear to have transports, and could go to Gove, but I think the target is the Allied dot base. I have a big task force hiding 4 hexes northwest of Merauke, never spotted there. One light cruiser and many destroyers. I noticed that the task force is led by a terrible commander, the captain of the CL, so I split that ship off and will sprint patrol the destroyers to the dot base. Great leader now leading the task force.

Part of OPilot's efforts in that area has been to hit the Japanese airfields. Gove is out of action and was bombed again today, hit by 50 B-24s. B-17s hit Daly Waters and Katherine. Both have moderate damage.

[apbarog]

18 Jan 43

Japanese destroyers rushed to Groote Eylandt, south of Gove, and found 2 task forces.

Night Time Surface Combat, near Groote Eylandt at 82,130, Range 12,000 Yards

Japanese Ships
DD Kuroshio, Shell hits 1
DD Oyashio
DD Natsushio
DD Hayashio
DD Shiranui
DD Amatsukaze, Shell hits 1
DD Tokitsukaze
DD Arashi
DD Hagikaze, Shell hits 1

Allied Ships
CL Adelaide, Shell hits 2
DD Stuart, Shell hits 4, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD Vampire, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
DD Vendetta, Shell hits 1

The fight went down to 2,000 yards and then slowly increased to 10,000 yards, where it hovered for some time. It was a long surface battle with poor gunnery on both sides. Torpedo hits on destroyers aren't seen every day, and I'll take it.

I expected to find ships landing enemy troops at Groote Eylandt. Found 2 tiny ships instead, and they were taken care of quickly. The YO was loaded with fuel.

AM Horsham, Shell hits 7, and is sunk
YO-14, Shell hits 4, and is sunk

Groote Eylandt is an unbuilt Allied dot base. The only reason I can come up with for moving a YO there is to refuel raiding ships as far forward as possible.

Porpoise spotted the Japanese destroyers as they rushed towards Darwin. Porpoise was hit with a depth charge. The destroyers had just enough fuel to do the mission, but they must have expended more due to battle. Now they are out of fuel 3 hexes from Darwin. The light cruiser that separated from the task force will rejoin and hopefully pass around enough fuel. Zeros will fly LRCAP over the task force, just in case.

Gove was hit by Beaufighters and B-25s. The base continues to be wrecked.

Near Port Hedland, a Japanese cruiser force was attacked by 5 B-25Cs bombing at 1000 feet. 5 Zeros were on LRCAP, and 4 of the bombers were shot down, 1 by flak. 3 managed to bomb but all bombs missed. Mini-KB was spotted in its ambush position west of Carnarvon, and the Dutch cruiser task force was not to be seen. The carriers will now go to Koepang and leave OPilot thinking that they may be lurking west of Australia.

The A6M5 Zero was accelerated to 1/43, which is now. We gained 12 days. All carrier Zeros have been or will be upgraded to A6M3a's and A6M5s.

[apbarog]

19 Jan 43

Beaufighters hit Daly Waters, doing minor damage. B-17s and B-25s hit Gove, doing moderate damage to a base already with heavy damage.

Japanese brigades moved into Sining, north of Lanchow, in northern China. The base probably has too many Chinese in it to take, in the mountains with forts, but without supply. An artillery attack showed fairly even forces. Supply is difficult to get to the troops here. Air transports from Sian are helping. I'll try a deliberate attack after resupply and see if this is possible or not.

Bomber units that have been in China are moving to Burma. As soon as the Allied troops pop out of the jungle into the clear terrain, the air war is on. It will be an air war unlike anything OPilot and I have had before, against each other. We just don't fight all out attritional fights in the air. I am going to. 3 Oscar units at Rangoon have upgraded to the armored IIb model. They might live a little longer than the Ic and IIa models.

KB, with a mix of average Zero pilots, elite and poor dive bomber pilots, and elite torpedo bomber pilots, will leave Truk and move towards Nauru. I'm starting to get the feeling that the US may be doing something soon. Got heavy SigInt at Suva, which hasn't happened in a long time. Where are the USMC divisions? It's January 1943!

YEA! I can put in the Bold codes to get bold text and not have the page automatically scroll to the bottom! One good thing with the new forum.

[apbarog]

20Jan 43

I-123 torpedoed and sank PG Tulsa near Horn Island. The sub had dropped mines already and was going past Horn Island on the way to Truk.

Liberator IIs hit Port Blair for the first time. Minor airbase damage. Every day is somewhere. Today it was Port Blair. And B-24s hit Mandalay. I have Rangoon stacked with fighters. OPilot hasn't gone there yet.

All of the Burma Hurricanes swept over the hex with the 8th Medium Field Artillery Regiment and another unit that was moving east. Clear terrain.

Morning Air attack on 9th Ind.Hvy.Art. Battalion, at 57,45 , near Mandalay

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid spotted at 20 NM, estimated altitude 4,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 6 minutes

Allied aircraft
Blenheim VD x 16
B-25C Mitchell x 32

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
Guns lost 8 (5 destroyed, 3 disabled)
Vehicles lost 21 (18 destroyed, 3 disabled)

The artillery was completely eliminated. It only took 2 days of bombing to do so. Can't defend in the clear, and leaving the plains is costing me. I hope to inflict some damage when the Allies leave the jungle.

[apbarog]

21 Jan 43

I-22 had sneaked up the river near Astoria, hoping to catch a CVE coming out of the shipyard. The sub had been in the river for awhile. Amazing that the locals saw nothing. But I just noticed that the hex it was in, although up the river past Astoria, isn't really on the river route to Portland. (I think it is Portland with the shipyard). The sub has been sitting in a cul de sac. So I moved it today to go closer to Portland. But it had to move through Astoria to get there, and SC-637 found it and caused heavy damage to the sub. It is SYS 58 and FLOT 62 and it a long way from home. Odds are, it doesn't make it. I thought of the movie "The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming", as having a sub in such a position reminded me of that movie.

Japanese cruisers bombarded Erromango, northeast of Noumea, doing port damage but no damage to the 1st Marine Raider Battalion there.

KB was spotted. Scorpion fired 6 torpedoes at Hiryu near Nauru Island. All missed. KB will now move towards Tulagi. I liked it better when KB was invisible.

3 Japanese brigades attacked way up at Sining in northern China. Got a 1 to 2 attack, didn't touch the level 1 fort. 1102 Japanese casualties and 759 Chinese. There wasn't a supply malus for the Chinese either. We'll attack here again at some point.

[apbarog]

22 Jan 43

LCM 532C hit a mine and probably sank at Groote Eylandt. It was a tiny ship. I haven't seen troops at the island yet. OPilot could be bringing in small amounts of supply ahead of the troops. Don't know. Since I just raided the island with destroyers, and sank some ships there, he didn't expect mines, which were just laid.

I'd moved Oscar IIa's to the Aleutians, and 20 of them surprised 9 B-24Ds at Adak. How'd it turn out? 4 Oscars lost and no B-24s even damaged. Flak damaged 2 of the bombers but none were lost, not even as ops losses. The bombers missed the port in moderate rain. The futility of fighting the heavy bombers with inadequate fighters.

My first Tony unit is moving from Japan to Burma. Short range so many hops required. My second unit just upgraded at Harbin and will rail to Hanchow, where it will form up and then also head to Burma. The early Tony has armor at least.

[apbarog]

23 Jan 43

Japanese cruisers bombarded Erromango, causing 23 casualties to the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and doing minor port damage. Part of the Yokosuka 3rd SNLF dropped in on Erromango, and it didn't go well. The Marines Raiders have forts, supply and no disruption.

Ground combat at Erromango (120,156)

Japanese Shock attack

Attacking force 301 troops, 4 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 22

Defending force 1009 troops, 0 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 41

Japanese adjusted assault: 1

Allied adjusted defense: 37

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 37 (fort level 2)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(-)
Attacker: shock(+), leaders(-)

Japanese ground losses:
105 casualties reported
Squads: 1 destroyed, 15 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Allied ground losses:
19 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Assaulting units:
Yokosuka 3rd SNLF /1

Defending units:
1st Marine Raider Battalion

So I won't be able to duplicate the success I had at adjacent Tanna. I'll just keep bombing and bombarding to keep the base from building an airfield. If the Marines get worn down and out of supply, I may try again. I will try to force some supply to the paras using a couple of xAKLs.

S-30 fired 2 torpedoes at xAKL Heiwa Maru at Majuro. Both missed. The ship is doing a resupply run to the small base.

36 B-17Es from Norfolk Island hit Koumac, doing heavy airfield damage. I'm protecting La Foa and Noumea at the moment.

47 B-24Ds hit Gove, doing minor damage to a base already out of action.

[apbarog]

24 Jan 43

Japanese cruisers bombarded Erromango, causing 30 casualties to the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and doing minor port damage. The ships did do some minor damage to sub Haddo. OPilot has had subs at Erromango constantly, probably bringing in supply. Many B-17s bombed the Japanese paras at Erromango, causing some casualties and a very high disruption level. The 1st Marine Raider Battalion then shock attacked, with modifiers on the Japanese for disruption, preparation, fatigue and supply. The attack went off at 24 to 1. The Japanese had 34 casualties and the Marines had 18. Tinas will continue to drop supply to the paras. I'm not bombarding today.

Nashville, Phoenix and Boise bombarded Adak Island, causing 228 casualties and doing minor base damage. Destroyers didn't bombard this time, and the ships didn't hit any of the 150+ mines there either.

Grouper hit an xAK near Ominato. That's a deep water hex northwest of Ominato, one that has to be moved through. I have PBs permanently patrolling there, and have air ASW in the area. The good news is that the ship already made it to Ominato despite having fires, and will survive.

OPilot went after Mandalay. He'd seen my heavy fighter presence there for 2 days. Round after round of 16 Hurricanes swept, as expected. They all came in at 33,000 feet, higher than any of my planes can fly. 22 Oscars, 14 Tojos and 35 Nicks were protecting Mandalay and 2 hexes every direction from it. Each round of Hurricanes had initial success getting the bounce, then the fight was more even. But then the B-24s arrived, and the remaining fighters did not do well against them. Fighters were shot down by the bombers, and only 1 B-24 was shot down, and it was by flak. Mandalay's base is now heavily damaged despite my defense. So much for an extended fight from there. I'm abandoning it as an airbase and pulling back my aircraft south. I'll use Rangoon and Toungoo primarily.

Over 50 B-25Cs hit Lashio, doing heavy damage.

Near Mandalay, an Indian division had popped out of the jungle. It attacked 1/3 of a Thai division that did make it out of the jungle in time. The 7th Indian Division attacked the third of the 6th RTA Division, got a 32 to 1, and caused 1141 Thai casualties, with just 160 for the Indian division. I had many bombers set to hit that hex for 2 days but nothing flew, presumably due to weather.

Growing discouragement. And the US hasn't even begun an offensive anywhere yet. As it is, the heavy bombers are winning the war for the US.

Tonys are on the way to Burma. That will help only in more squadrons there. I need Burma to become a quagmire for the Allies, after they clear the Burma plains and have to enter the jungle to the south. I have a tank division at Rangoon, an infantry division at Toungoo, and 2 divisions on the Burma Road heading to Burma. Those are the divisions not at the front already. Most of the Japanese strength is on the coastal road south of Akyab, and those units are pulling back to the south.

[apbarog]

25 Jan 43

Cruisers San Francisco, Minneapolis and New Orleans bombarded La Foa. I didn't see them coming. That's OPilot's normal method of operation. If I see a task force get in range of a possible bombardment, they turn around and don't come. It's when I don't see them that they do show up. This bombardment was a strong one, causing 420 casualties and doing moderate damage to the base and to the port. Koumac is still recovering from B-17s. All planes are now moved to Noumea. It'll be next, and my smaller cruiser force is headed to Rabaul for repairs.

Sallys, with heavy fighter escort, bombed the 7th Indian Division in clear terrain near Mandalay. Around 200 casualties caused. This will only work once. If I want to continue, it will have to be with heavy fighter sweeps, going up against all those Hurricanes. With my fallback strategy, I need a bit more time before loading up Toungoo.

B-17s and Bettys traded bombing runs on troops at Erromango. Neither side hit any troops in moderate rain. The 1st Marine Raider Battalion shock attacked there again, and got better results this time. 22 to 1 odds and 61 Japanese para casualties. Just 8 Marines lost. The Japanese paras were out of supply despite Tinas assigned to drop some. Maybe they didn't fly. I'm writing off the remaining paras and will rebuild the mostly intact parent unit at Luganville.

Musashi just arrived at Nagasaki. It was a few weeks late to be able to join sister ship Yamato.

[apbarog]

26 Jan 43

Cruiser Salt Lake City bombarded Japanese paras on Erromango, causing 24 casualties. Escorting destroyers did not participate. The task force was in range of Bettys from Luganville at the end of the day, but alas, I'd changed the bombers over to ASW yesterday. Foiled by myself again.

The 1st Marine Raider Battalion shocked attacked at Erromango again, getting 6 to 1 odds and destroying 12 squads, most of the para fragment there. The rest died to attrition later in the day.

Everything that OPilot is doing, and has been doing, has been just a nuisance. He's nibbling at the edges with bombardments that usually allow his ships to get back to heavily capped bases by daylight. He's creeping forward here and there, building bases forward, and using his heavy bombers just about every day.

There's going to be a big offensive sometime. I just don't know where or when. When he does come, it has to be big. I'm expecting an invasion somewhere with follow-up leap-frogging invasions all ready to go. He could go big in the Aleutians and/or Kuriles. More likely, the Tabiteuea area is barely defended. The Marshalls including Kwajalein could be taken quickly. If he wants to somehow rescue China, he could go big in Burma or south of Burma, with a landing meant to cut off Japanese troops in Burma. There's just a lot he can do with all those US Marine divisions that I've never spotted in the war yet.

For now, I just get frustrated with the nuisance raids and heavy bombing.

26 Jan 43 - Burma CROPPED.gif (420.9 KiB) Viewed 1153 times

[apbarog]

27 Jan 43

Tuna hit xAKL Katsura Maru with a torpedo at Paramushiro-Jima, sinking it. The ship was unloading supply.

I've had bombers and fighters at Katherine for days, ordered to hit the building base south of Gove. Weather prevented flying today.

P-38s swept La Foa, which had just been bombarded by cruisers. 8 Zeros were on ranged CAP from Noumea, and 6 were shot down. No P-38G losses. P-38s swept at 34000 feet. Not even the new Tonys can reach that, going to 33000. A stacked CAP can mitigate high sweeping losses, but that just isn't possible everywhere. B-17s hit La Foa and did minor damage.

Allied troops in Burma attacked northwest of Mandalay. This Thai unit is the last one trying to leave the jungle northwest of the clear terrain. It will leave the jungle today or tomorrow.

Ground combat at 58,44 (near Mandalay)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 8478 troops, 94 guns, 93 vehicles, Assault Value = 262

Defending force 1986 troops, 12 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 85

Allied adjusted assault: 67

Japanese adjusted defense: 89

Allied assault odds: 1 to 2

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), fatigue(-)
Attacker: supply(-)

Japanese ground losses:
77 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 13 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Allied ground losses:
33 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 10 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Assaulting units:
45th Indian Brigade
22nd (East African) Brigade

Defending units:
6th RTA/A Division

[apbarog]

28 Jan 43

DD Le Triomphant is back, south of the Gilberts again. Spotted near Vaitupu.

My raid on Groote Eylandt finally flew. 13 A6M3 Zeros swept at 32,000 feet and found 15 Spitfire Vc Trops at the same altitude. 11 Zeros were shot down and just one Spit was lost, and it was an ops loss. 23 Lilys and 15 more Zeros arrived and found 10 Spits still flying. The Japanese were bombing at 6,000 feet, and the Spits never really got to the raid. Just minor damage done with 100kg bombs though. Kind of a waste. Groote Eylandt will build to a big bomber base, and heavies from there will bomb Darwin. I may do more cruiser bombardments in a week or so, after repaired ships get back to the area. Mini-KB is resting at Koepang.

48 B-24Ds bombed Milne Bay, doing moderate damage in the rain.

[apbarog]

29 Jan 43

AM Arnidale is sweeping my mines at Groote Eylandt.

Grayling hit xAKL Juyo Maru with 2 torpedoes at Buna, sinking the ship. Supplies were unloading.

Sad story. Destroyer Murasame hit a mine at Erromango on 28 Nov 42. It was SYS 27/FLOT 70-62/ENG 13-9/FIRE 0. It made it to Luganville, where the 70 FLOT damage was brought down to 62. Murasame then traveled slowly to Tulagi, where it spent 18 days reducing the SYS damage to 0. Murasame then headed to Japan, with a 34 day journey. Yesterday, it was about a day's travel south of the entrance to the Inland Sea near Osaka. I noticed that it was on the direct SW to NE path to the entrance, and I've been avoiding that direct route. So I gave it a waypoint to move one hex to the east, hitting the coast, then swinging west along the coast and north into the Inland Sea. Well, Murasame took the direct route today instead, and in the last deep water hex before the entrance, sub Peto spotted the damaged ship. Peto fired 4 torpedoes and all missed. Then Peto fired 4 more. 2 hit and 1 was a dud. But one hit was enough with 62 FLOT damage. The ship sank. I really enjoy the game within the game of saving ships, and this was a failure that played out over 2 months.

It's discouraging but it says how great this game is that I care so much.

[apbarog]

30 Jan 43

Found mines in the Malacca Strait. DMS W-22 got to work clearing them. British sub Trusty was seen recently in the area, so I checked.

Mandalay got the treatment.
16 Hurricanes swept. Don't know where the other Hurris were. Must have been grounded by weather.
33 B-24Ds
36 B-25Cs
12 B-25Cs
12 B-25Cs
9 B-24Ds
28 Liberator IIs

Mandalay was heavily damaged, but only the heavy rain prevented complete destruction. Air support had been pulled out of Mandalay and all of the bases in the plains area of Burma. OPilot can bomb at will. I'm leaving Thai units and minimal supply there.

3 DB-7s, 16 Vengeance, 16 more Vengeance and 16 Blens hit the 6th RTA/A Division near Shwebo. The Thai unit popped out of the woods and got pounded.

It is notable that the Allies are doing some new recon in the Marshalls. Kwajalein, Tarawa and Nauru Island have just been looked at. I'd just split a division at Truk that had been in China, and thirds of it are on the way to Tarawa, Nauru Island and Ocean Island.

[apbarog]

31 Jan 43

I dropped parts of a unit at Trinkat and Car Nicobar, using APDs. These are the last unoccupied Allied bases in the Andamans. If OPilot comes to the Andamans, I want to know it.

Always interesting when a sub attacks a sub. Even better when you are the attacker. I-23 hit Pompon with a torpedo near Nanumea, sinking the sub, judging from the audio immediately after.

S-44 sank a patrol boat near Roi-Namur.

28 Liberator IIs hit Katha, doing moderate airbase damage to a field I don't care about.

[apbarog]

1 Feb 43

Yesterday, we had the rarity of a sub versus sub battle. Even rarer, now we've had 2 in 2 days. I-36 torpedoed Dutch sub KX near Exmouth. The sub reported fire and heavy damage, but no sinking audio afterwards.

Magwe got "the treatment" and I didn't care. All of the Hurricanes swept. Heavy bombers went after the remaining oil. Medium bombers hit the airfield. The oil is now 53 undamaged and 247 damaged. Something I've thought for a long time, and something that Lowpe mentioned recently in his AAR, is that it seems that the last industry targets are harder to hit than the first, as if the remaining ones are harder to select for hitting than early ones.

For example, when Magwe's oil was undamaged, it had 300 undamaged oil. The early strikes were crushing. Now that most of the oil is damaged, the damage done is less to the remaining oil, with similar bombing raids. I'm losing fewer oil now, not protecting the base, than I did early on with fighter protection. Can't prove it. Just a theory. But one that I believe in.

P-38s and B-17Es hit undefended Noumea, doing moderate base damage. As it has appeared that I've stopped defending New Caledonia with fighters, I moved 2 Zero squadrons back to lightly damaged La Foa, with a ranged CAP of 1, covering Noumea.

I'm moving a division from Singapore to Batavia. The division had been in China. I will use that division to help the division that has been pinning all those Dutch at Bandoeng, and I'll try to wear the Dutch down. I know that the Dutch are out of supply, but they had supply for close to a year, so the forts could be very high. And it is mountainous terrain. But I don't want an Allied invasion of Java to come rescue the Dutch. There's 40,000 Dutch there that I do want to eliminate. I bomb them every day, but results are very poor. I'll know with my first ground attack if this was a good idea or not.

[JanSako]

It would be completely realistic if the chance to hit any remaining functional industry point would be getting smaller the more of the total gets destroyed. Respect to the devs if it is coded that way!

When there is 300 oil wells, hitting any of them will damage it. Next day the same field only have half of them still functioning, how does the pilot know which one is still working?

Now that maybe only 20% are still functional, it gets even harder to hit them, IRL the planes would be mostly trying to hit any concentrations of wells & really only hitting any working ones more or less by accident.

That last well sitting between a bunch of trees 3-4 miles away from the main oilfield? They may never hit it...

[apbarog]

It would be completely realistic if the chance to hit any remaining functional industry point would be getting smaller the more of the total gets destroyed. Respect to the devs if it is coded that way!

When there is 300 oil wells, hitting any of them will damage it. Next day the same field only have half of them still functioning, how does the pilot know which one is still working?

Now that maybe only 20% are still functional, it gets even harder to hit them, IRL the planes would be mostly trying to hit any concentrations of wells & really only hitting any working ones more or less by accident.

That last well sitting between a bunch of trees 3-4 miles away from the main oilfield? They may never hit it...

I have not read that this is how it works, but it's my opinion that it does work this way. It is realistic and I like it.