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I have been having serious trouble lately keeping multiple TFs together. I recently assembled an Armada and set all ships, including 3 CV TFs to follow the slowest TF. All TFs were topped off with fuel and they weren't going that far anyway. Still my TFs ended strung out all over the place. Any ideas why?

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I have been having serious trouble lately keeping multiple TFs together. I recently assembled an Armada and set all ships, including 3 CV TFs to follow the slowest TF. All TFs were topped off with fuel and they weren't going that far anyway. Still my TFs ended strung out all over the place. Any ideas why?

Try setting the "home ports" to someplace fairly close by... if you are (say) in the SWPAC and your home ports are in SF, then the TFs keep thinking they are going to run out of fuel, and start turning around/stringing out.

It also has to do with having to refuel escorts.  If you have a flush-deck DD with 4000 endurance, compared to one of the 8000 endurance ones, that flush-deck is going to top off 3 - 4 times (costing you a hex or three) before the 8000 endurance one will.

While those little 1200 endurance MSWs are very versatile (with both ASW and MSW capabilities), they're real turtles for any convoy going any real distance (their range is only about 15, and they'll top off once for that!).

-F-

I've been using the "follow" option to control "Armadas" since late '04 and with very few issues. I did spend a lot of time practicing before I tried it in PBEM. Every now and then 1 TF will lag, but that is like maybe 2% of the time.


The lead TF can pretty much have any orders, but the following TFs have the follow order and the "Patrol" order. When the "Armada" is a carrier force, I set all of the TFs to the same react distance. If there are some slower groups in the carrier force armada, I set the react fairly low, like 1-2-3 .. because I have found that slower TFs, like Jeep Groups, won't react as far as FCTFs.

I set the homebase to be anything that is in the direction I want to withdraw, but I'm not sure homebase setting is causing your problem. Further diagnosis would probably be aided by more detail on the example in question.

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I have been having serious trouble lately keeping multiple TFs together. I recently assembled an Armada and set all ships, including 3 CV TFs to follow the slowest TF. All TFs were topped off with fuel and they weren't going that far anyway. Still my TFs ended strung out all over the place. Any ideas why?

Try setting the "home ports" to someplace fairly close by... if you are (say) in the SWPAC and your home ports are in SF, then the TFs keep thinking they are going to run out of fuel, and start turning around/stringing out.

That is a good point. In the most recent case though all were set to a nearby home port. I am certain of it.

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

I've been using the "follow" option to control "Armadas" since late '04 and with very few issues. I did spend a lot of time practicing before I tried it in PBEM. Every now and then 1 TF will lag, but that is like maybe 2% of the time.


The lead TF can pretty much have any orders, but the following TFs have the follow order and the "Patrol" order. When the "Armada" is a carrier force, I set all of the TFs to the same react distance. If there are some slower groups in the carrier force armada, I set the react fairly low, like 1-2-3 .. because I have found that slower TFs, like Jeep Groups, won't react as far as FCTFs.

I set the homebase to be anything that is in the direction I want to withdraw, but I'm not sure homebase setting is causing your problem. Further diagnosis would probably be aided by more detail on the example in question.

Some great suggestion so far. Thanks Robert, Feinder and jwilkerson

THe problem may well be that I may not have had all my CV TFs on Patrol. Since they were ordered to follow a transport TF I figured there was no need. I have also found that TFs set to follow get easily confused and if the AI can't figure out how to do it, it drops that order.

This would match very closely what I am seeing. The fast moving CV groups may have reached the destination hex first, even though set to follow and not knowing what to do dropped there orders and headed for home.

I've had endless problems with multiple TF formations, mainly because of the almost complete lack of player input via the user interface. Even the most simple of commands for TFs...a return to another formation command after a mission instead of a homeport is impossible. I offerred a solution during development, a larger formation called a Task Group, to which TFs are attached (a mobile home port basically) but as with most ideas in beta, the idea would have meant major code changes so nothing was done to alleviate the problems or improve the interface.

Lately, I can't even get PTs to follow another TF.

Set the leader to "mission speed" and the followers all to "full speed"; that will take care of things.

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Set the leader to "mission speed" and the followers all to "full speed"; that will take care of things.

Interesting idea, sounds like that is a good thing when you absolutely have to keep the TFs together. Of course, if you are running multiple CV TFs, Surface TFs and transports on full speed for very long your going to need one heck of a replinishment TF. CV can suck a region dry of fuel in no time.

Yeah, that's a solution but it is too expensive most of the time. If you've got TFs that are drastically different in speed, run them as multiple "armadae" and just try to keep them close together. I do that for most invasions. Big invasions have too many disparate TFs to try to run as a single "Armada" .. maybe "carriers" and "assault wave" and "follow up wave" ... that was how I ran my last Java invasion.

Hum .. I'm trying to adopt your terminology .. sounds a bit archaeic .. but maybe I'm catchin' on.

Whatever you do, don't use cruise and mission speed in an effort to conserve fuel, at least in combat zones. Why? Well, if your ships are at cruise speed, they stay that way during combat, drastically increasing their vulnerability as the game engine does not assume they will go to flank when attacked.

Well I do usually fight my carrier battles at FULL SPEED .. but other speeds may be appropriate depending on the situation .. and the assumptions we've been given are not specific enough to be more specific [:)]

... two day turns are actually nice because then you can perform "hit and run" carrier raids, something not possible with one day turns.

In two day turn mode I have fought several carrier battles by advancing towards the enemy at high speed ... fighting the battle and then successfully withdrawing afterwards, almost like a real carrier battle! But it requires careful planning, hex counting, thinking about your home port. Would be nice if "home port" could be any hex in these cases.

And BTW my carrier battles are always "Armada" battles since I generally use 1xCV per TF .. .harder as the IJN as you don't have as many escorts, so maybe 2xCV TFs for them. But always a "gaggle". And they generally stay together - only when I try to pop in a Jeep TF do I get messed up. Jeep groups won't react more than 1-2 hexes so with them in the mix you gotta cut everyone else in the Armada's react back to 1 or 2.

If the threat isnt too high, set a form up point ( out of normal LBA, I dont count Betties as normal) then another 1 hex off the coast.
 
Make sure any covering CV or LBA are on LRCap to cover your Transport TF's.
 
I'm using TF with 2 x CV & 2 x CVL, the CVL are good for this task and also ASW (Allied side of course)
 
Its a bit tougher in the early years but then your convoys would be a bit smaller then.

To be sure to have the maximum cohesion with an armada, I am doing the following thing:
_ put the slowest ships with the escorts with the less endurance in the "leader" TF
_ refuelling manually all TFs outside enemy LBA range, then setting all to 'not refuelling' until the target is reached
_ for an invasion TF I will also set the ASW escorst and MSW with the lowest endurance as independent ASW groups following other TF. So if they refuel and lag behind, I may lose them to LBA but no precious troopship will be hit.
_ if I have enough CV or LBA to do so, I will provide LRCAP over the main convoys (one unit par TF). So if everything goes well, the CAP over the main gaggle will still be strong, and if a TF lags behind it will have some kind of cover.

I make sure the lead TF is not only the slowest, but also has the lowest identification #, on the theory that it can't hurt if it's move is processed first.

But bottom line I go back to what I did myself. Practice, practice, practice before you use in a real game. I took the May '42 campaign start and put both carrier forces out near Kwajalein with oilers and escorts, etc. and then saved .. and then ran lilerally hundreds of h2h carrier battles trying various combinations. Then I was finally ready to use the technique. Otherwise, your trying the technique first time in a PBEM and if you make a mistake you've impacted your game. Not something I wanna do. I believe in the "You Fight Like You Train" school of thought!

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I have been having serious trouble lately keeping multiple TFs together. I recently assembled an Armada and set all ships, including 3 CV TFs to follow the slowest TF. All TFs were topped off with fuel and they weren't going that far anyway. Still my TFs ended strung out all over the place. Any ideas why?

Try setting the "home ports" to someplace fairly close by... if you are (say) in the SWPAC and your home ports are in SF, then the TFs keep thinking they are going to run out of fuel, and start turning around/stringing out.

Hi, one of the little things I've noticed that also seems to effect the TFs is if I refuel everone before they leave port. Their OPs become varied which I believe somtimes causes them to spread out. I also try to wait a day, so that everyone is on the same page OPs wise. Worse case when they do slpit up I just speed up those lagging TFs. Like so many other things in this game I just chaulk it up to a commander fumbling his orders.

Not to mention the system damage you accumulate on those speeding to an fro.

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

But bottom line I go back to what I did myself. Practice, practice, practice before you use in a real game. I took the May '42 campaign start and put both carrier forces out near Kwajalein with oilers and escorts, etc. and then saved .. and then ran lilerally hundreds of h2h carrier battles trying various combinations. Then I was finally ready to use the technique. Otherwise, your trying the technique first time in a PBEM and if you make a mistake you've impacted your game. Not something I wanna do. I believe in the "You Fight Like You Train" school of thought!

I agree with this and it is now safe for me to divulge a bit more. What follows could be viewed as an informal operational report.

This was in essence a practice invasion, probably the last one the allies get. I was landing on Nanomea Atoll, which recon showed to be unoccupied and it was. Still, I brought a large invasion force because I was outside effective LBA range . I wanted to drop everything on the atoll at once and scoot to safety. The base is now self contained and can support itself until its own AF is up and running.

I had two transport TFs and one cargo TF landing an infantry regiment, base force and seabees unit. Escorting I had 5 carriers in 3 TFs. One CV TF (Hornet) was constantly lagging on the cruise from Fiji...crew must have had one heck of a hangover. [:D]

I ended up having to halt the invasion at a gathering point about 240 miles from the beach to get eveyone together. It cost me in the sense that my armada ([:'(]) was spotted by seaplanes...this potentially gave the enemy at least one more day to react. The enemy either couldn't or didn't want to engage though.

From that point the armada closed on the atoll and unloaded with only one problem. Although all transport TFs started unloading at the same time, the amount unloaded varied considerably. Most of the Inf Rgt made it ashore, but few of their supplies did. This was despite there being a seperate TF unloading supplies that turn. For some inexplicable reason only 70 supply points made it ashore. I wonder if this is because the supply convoy, which had a range of 4 had to travel 4 hexes that day to reach the beach, in essence arriving after the other transports.

Unloading still took 3 days...I think I didn't use enough transports. Upon completeing the unloading all TFs seem to take off seperately for home port and one TF left early before it finished unloading all its troops. Was the armada broke up, there was no getting it back together again. I had to move the TF that still had troops on board back to the atoll and Yorktown decided to tag along...and hit a mine.

I think more than 70 supplies made it ashore.
When being transported all LCUs have zero supplies. When landed they all took on supplies, which left 70 'spare' at the base.
If you look at the individual unit screens you should be able to count up all the supplies landed that turn.