No carriers? No sweat...

[henri51]

I am watching the AI play itself in the Guadalcanal scenario, and I discovered something interesting.

Earlier in the scenario, Japan lost 3 carriers and the Allies lost non, so I figured that Japan was cooked - wrong!

Both sides lost most of the surface fleets, but Japan still has one with a BB a couple of cruisers and a bunch of DDs. The Allies could only match this surface fleet by stripping all transport fleets of heavy ships, whcih is probably too risky, so its not doing it. Although the Allies have taken Guadalcanal, they are losing a lot of ships a bit furtherr North (Munda or something like that).

The reason is that (according to the manual) the Japanese surface fleet dashes in at night, sinks a couple of cargoes and transports, and dashes out again before daybreak, so the 3 US carriers off Guadalcanal to the East never get a chance to launch their planes at them, and the Carriers don't dare get nearer the Japanese surface fleet because a night attack against the carriers could spell disaster.

At this rate, the Allies will soon have no transport ships left, and in this scenario, I don't think they can replace losses of 3 or 4 ships a day for very long.

So appaently this is a good trick to know when when you dominate surface fleets and the enemy has carriers lurking near an invasion zone: just attack at night (by setting bombardment orders) and the carriers can go whistle Dixie...[:'(]

Henri