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OK, so I am in the Santa Cruz scenario and I manage to meet the Jap bombardment mission after (woops) they have managed to complete their bombardment. I meet them with the Washington group at long range. Despite getting into contact they ALWAYS manage to break contact.

Fine, says I, both sides are about the same speeds, lets hurt them a bit with some airpower, then we'll catch 'em.
Nup, I manage to sink 3 of the ships and damage most of the others in this group but for the life of me, no matter that we meet in 5 more surface engagements, can I close and fire. Why?
Also, Washington has 16" cannons - why do they not have the range?

I caught up with the japanese transports in the Midway scenario after slaughtering the jap flattops like a wolf among sheep [:D] but found the same thing happening with them continuing to break contact even though their speed was only 10 kt vs my 33 kts.... [:@]

This really isn't a surface action game. Still, these occasions do arise, so some rules of thumb:

1) Stuff can withdraw, so a successful conclusion is ALWAYS in doubt.

2) The IJN appears to have huge bonuses built in for night combat.

3) Combine items 1 & 2 above, and it should be a central tenet of U.S. strategy to NOT pursue withdrawing IJN task groups with an eye toward surface action. Nothing good will come of it.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

1) Stuff can withdraw, so a successful conclusion is ALWAYS in doubt.

2) The IJN appears to have huge bonuses built in for night combat.

3) Combine items 1 & 2 above, and it should be a central tenet of U.S. strategy to NOT pursue withdrawing IJN task groups with an eye toward surface action. Nothing good will come of it.

I think this is rather poor reasoning, my situation was during both daytime and night. I cannot grasp how a transport task force with a speed of 10kts can outrun my task force of 33kt ships. If I want to mop up with a surface action and have a speed advantage it should be my choice to engage. I continued to pursue them for 2 days with combat initiated over a half a dozen times with them (Japanese) disengaging every time.

ORIGINAL: wobbly

OK, so I am in the Santa Cruz scenario and I manage to meet the Jap bombardment mission after (woops) they have managed to complete their bombardment. I meet them with the Washington group at long range. Despite getting into contact they ALWAYS manage to break contact.

Fine, says I, both sides are about the same speeds, lets hurt them a bit with some airpower, then we'll catch 'em.
Nup, I manage to sink 3 of the ships and damage most of the others in this group but for the life of me, no matter that we meet in 5 more surface engagements, can I close and fire. Why?
Also, Washington has 16" cannons - why do they not have the range?

Think of this as both TGs sighting each other at long range, and the AI controlled formation deciding that it is an in inferior position, making a smoke screen and retiring behind it. Its very hard to force an unwilling naval opponent to stand and fight, ask the British who chased the Italians round the Med.

If you can catch your opponent at night, then you have a much better chance of forcing an engagement, but as has been pointed out, if you are playing the early war USN, you may not like the result.

Gregor

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

....making a smoke screen and retiring behind it.
Gregor

I was going to ask if this could be factored into the game?

I caught an episode of "Dogfights" on the History Channel last night showing the battle of Taffy 3 with its CVE's vs the Yamato surface group at Leyte and smoke featured prominently in the tactics of surface vs air.

What an amazing series graphically though.

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

Its very hard to force an unwilling naval opponent to stand and fight, ask the British who chased the Italians round the Med.

That's right regarding the willingness (or unwillingness) to stay and fight, but a given force was able to stay shoulder to shoulder with a retreating force, if max speeds did match.
May I ask the British who chased the Germans (Bismarck and other capital ships) round the Atlantic/channel/North Sea, even round the east coast of South America (Graf Spee), too? [:D] [;)].

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

[I was going to ask if this could be factored into the game?

I caught an episode of "Dogfights" on the History Channel last night showing the battle of Taffy 3 with its CVE's vs the Yamato surface group at Leyte and smoke featured prominently in the tactics of surface vs air.

And Samar Island is proof that slower transport/CVE task forces really should not be able to break contact from most high speed surface ships. All the heriocs of the Taffy 3 escorts aside, the Yamato group could have continued to close with the CVEs and engaged them, and there was not a heck of alot the CVEs or surviving escorts could have done, had no the IJN commanders lost control of the battle and convinced themselves they had bitten off more than they could chew.

ORIGINAL: NimitsTexan

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

[I was going to ask if this could be factored into the game?

I caught an episode of "Dogfights" on the History Channel last night showing the battle of Taffy 3 with its CVE's vs the Yamato surface group at Leyte and smoke featured prominently in the tactics of surface vs air.

And Samar Island is proof that slower transport/CVE task forces really should not be able to break contact from most high speed surface ships. All the heriocs of the Taffy 3 escorts aside, the Yamato group could have continued to close with the CVEs and engaged them, and there was not a heck of alot the CVEs or surviving escorts could have done, had no the IJN commanders lost control of the battle and convinced themselves they had bitten off more than they could chew.

Your chance to flee is based on your speed, so slower or damaged vessels are by no means guaranteed to get away.

Gregor

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

ORIGINAL: NimitsTexan

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

[I was going to ask if this could be factored into the game?

I caught an episode of "Dogfights" on the History Channel last night showing the battle of Taffy 3 with its CVE's vs the Yamato surface group at Leyte and smoke featured prominently in the tactics of surface vs air.

And Samar Island is proof that slower transport/CVE task forces really should not be able to break contact from most high speed surface ships. All the heriocs of the Taffy 3 escorts aside, the Yamato group could have continued to close with the CVEs and engaged them, and there was not a heck of alot the CVEs or surviving escorts could have done, had no the IJN commanders lost control of the battle and convinced themselves they had bitten off more than they could chew.

Your chance to flee is based on your speed, so slower or damaged vessels are by no means guaranteed to get away.

Gregor

Aha - this is what I wanted to hear. It wasn't borne out in this particular scenario as I definately hit the opposition with airpower in an attempt to slow them down. In my instance they always escaped despite their wounds.
Knowing that I can get to pick on some damaged ships (at some time) is at least 'something'.

How about adding the ability to detach units?

How is a TG's max speed "generated"/computed in the game, if let's say a CA (within a BB group) had been damaged, unable to keep up with the formation?

The standard procedure on (both sides) was that the flagship (along with the other capital ships and the majority of its escorts) would have been withdrawn (to prevent its loss), while the crippled ship would have had to make it out on its own or with a really small escort, most likely. No?

*bump*

Gregor?

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

ORIGINAL: Gregor_SSG

....making a smoke screen and retiring behind it.
Gregor

I was going to ask if this could be factored into the game?

I caught an episode of "Dogfights" on the History Channel last night showing the battle of Taffy 3 with its CVE's vs the Yamato surface group at Leyte and smoke featured prominently in the tactics of surface vs air.

What an amazing series graphically though.

I agree with "Dogfights".

This episode is being repeated next Thursday on History Television.

ORIGINAL: GoodGuy

How about adding the ability to detach units?

How is a TG's max speed "generated"/computed in the game, if let's say a CA (within a BB group) had been damaged, unable to keep up with the formation?

The standard procedure on (both sides) was that the flagship (along with the other capital ships and the majority of its escorts) would have been withdrawn (to prevent its loss), while the crippled ship would have had to make it out on its own or with a really small escort, most likely. No?

You can detach units that the scenario designer allows you to, those that aren't so designated have to be scuttled. We're forced into doing this because we can't rely on people to obsereve constraints that their historical counterpart would have to. A player with total control over TG composition could easily render the game unplayable by creating a cloud of 1 DD TGs that would defeat the purpose of the sighting routines. As I said before in answer to another post on this subject, while we could try and create routines to defeat this sort of unfair and cheesy gameplay, it's much better for all concerned if we just cancel the war in the first place.

Gregor