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I have a serious problem with my air units in a PBEM.
It seems whenever I move air unit to forward positions and set them to naval attack they are trashed by 150 4E planes before leaving the ground. I was wondering if when the Japanese player sends his turn to the allied can the allied player then see that there are air units at a base prior to making his moves?
As an example I have had no air units at Rabaul for weeks and subsequently no air attacks have come. The turn I move units in they are destroyed on the field by a morning attack.
This has also happened to me twice in Rangoon. I have ruled out plain luck as to my opponent guessing the right time to attack. Also why do Jap units never take to the air in the AM??????? All my air units sit there like ducks waiting for the afternoon!!. Is this some sort of first strike initiative given to the allies or something?

Unfortunately, your suspicion is correct. This problem is fixed in AE.

Well, so much for that little bit of decent Allied intel.
 
I hope AE also limits the ability of the Jap player to move Betty squadrons across the map in two moves, and then back to the other side in two moves, all the while flying strikes at 18 hex distances.

Yes this is a problem any Jap player faces - The Allied player knows your moves. [:@] When you think of the Allied bombers destructiveness and only half Jap cap can intercept them. It is totally not fair and it makes the Jap side almost unplayable at times. Even worse the Allies can see where you have moved, move their airunits after that some time moving the bombers hundreds of miles then fly them on the mission hundreds of miles more.

But hey it is my pet hate in the game I am playing.[:'(]

Both sides should have intel from the previous turn like the Japan side does now with perhaps a percentage chance of the Allied knowing on each base due to incept intel.

One of those things a new player doesn't know about until he loses 150 -300 aircraft on the ground.

I hope Terminus is correct and this is fixed in AE.

ORIGINAL: GordoNZ

Yes this is a problem any Jap player faces - The Allied player knows your moves. [:@] When you think of the Allied bombers destructiveness and only half Jap cap can intercept them. It is totally not fair and it makes the Jap side almost unplayable at times. Even worse the Allies can see where you have moved, move their airunits after that some time moving the bombers hundreds of miles then fly them on the mission hundreds of miles more.

But hey it is my pet hate in the game I am playing.[:'(]

Both sides should have intel from the previous turn like the Japan side does now with perhaps a percentage chance of the Allied knowing on each base due to incept intel.

One of those things a new player doesn't know about until he loses 150 -300 aircraft on the ground.

I hope Terminus is correct and this is fixed in AE.

From sigint books i've read, that bit is actually accurate... Allied SigInt could time it to attack Japanese planes AS THEY WERE LANDING when they were transferring into a base... or failing that, they would attack just after planes flew in... sad to see that they've made it more gamelike for fairness sake.

Yes this is a problem any Jap player faces - The Allied player knows your moves.

[8D] Its MAGIC isn't it.[8D]

Intel seriously needed an upgrade in AE...don't think it got any loving though.

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From sigint books i've read, that bit is actually accurate... Allied SigInt could time it to attack Japanese planes AS THEY WERE LANDING when they were transferring into a base... or failing that, they would attack just after planes flew in... sad to see that they've made it more gamelike for fairness sake.
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I would assume, though, that this was with air assets already in theater. Witp does allow the allies to transfer in 4Es from halfway across the map and still launch a strike. Part of the generic transfer/strike problem. Would be nice if a transfer took over some number of hours for the planes to become unavailable for the AM strike phase, and if over some additional number unavailable for either phase.

ORIGINAL: erstad

From sigint books i've read, that bit is actually accurate... Allied SigInt could time it to attack Japanese planes AS THEY WERE LANDING when they were transferring into a base... or failing that, they would attack just after planes flew in... sad to see that they've made it more gamelike for fairness sake.
[/quote]

I would assume, though, that this was with air assets already in theater. Witp does allow the allies to transfer in 4Es from halfway across the map and still launch a strike. Part of the generic transfer/strike problem. Would be nice if a transfer took over some number of hours for the planes to become unavailable for the AM strike phase, and if over some additional number unavailable for either phase.


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This can fall under a "trust your opponent" deal... I always stand down any squadrons whose transfer would take more than approximately four hours at cruise speed. I've been doing this since I first recognized this problem in playing the AI, and religiously follow this rule. I do not know if my opponent follows it, as it is not an agreed upon house rule, just a personal HR.

Well there is one tactic the Japs can employ that kind of evens it up. I operate ships very close to enemy bases and hiding them from air attack by putting them in a TF with "do not refuel" and "autodisband" set. During the allied player turn he will see a vacant port. During the Jap turn, you can take the ships out of port and do the same thing. The allied player will never see the TF or know they are in the port repairing or doing whatever else you plan to do with them. So sometimes this "disadvantage" can be used to help you.

As for the air units, I often put recon squadron out front as "bait" with fighters flying LRCAP from bases outside his bomber or at least his escort range.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Unfortunately, your suspicion is correct. This problem is fixed in AE.

Thank Thread............that was a bane to all of those of us who play as Japan..................I place my losses in the thousands of aircraft I've lost to this........of course with my usual aircraft losses....this is a mere drop in the ocean..............

I would assume, though, that this was with air assets already in theater. Witp does allow the allies to transfer in 4Es from halfway across the map and still launch a strike. Part of the generic transfer/strike problem. Would be nice if a transfer took over some number of hours for the planes to become unavailable for the AM strike phase, and if over some additional number unavailable for either phase.

i haven't seen this happen since early versions of WITP... usually, if you transfer in bombers, they just sit there for a turn... fighters will run CAP (sometimes), but unless the transfer is relatively short, bombers won't fly.

The problem you described wouldn't be an intel problem, but rather not using some sort of "op points" for air units... and i am not sure this is still the case, or at least it doesn't seem to USUALLY happen.

I noticed the fatigue levels jump after a long transfer.  Therefore, I normally set the air unit to "stand down" for a day before engaging.