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How do you move aircraft from the West Coast to the combat area? I thought I'd be able to transport them by cargo ship but ever time a try to transfer to docked ship I get no ships to select, and there are plenty docked to handle it? Can't seem to figure it out from the manual,

thanks

Hello Seaforth7

1: Are the air groups in a restricted command? If their command has an '(R)' listed beside it, you must spend political points to change them to an un-restricted command.

2: I can never succeed in transferring to docked ship either. So, I select the TF I want to transport the ships, make sure that it is either a 'Cargo' TF or an 'Air Transport' TF, and select 'Load Troops'

Hope this helps.

Yes, they must be subordinate to an unrestricted command (anything without an (R)).

Any cargo, transport or air transport TF should suffice. Remember, one ship per air unit you want to transport.

When you want to move planes by ship, you set up a transport/air transport/cargo TF of 1 ship (or more if including escort DD/De etc)

You then Load the plane group way you load troops... selecting Load Troops but instead you load a plane group

Only time the transfer to a ship would be used is if you have a ship in a TF capable of
such Ie: a carrier...

Later in war you can use CVE's to move air groups around..

Some planes will have the range to transfer to a base in Hawaii and on to other island bases...
but thats mainly the Pbys, Big bombers, cargo planes, not short range fighters/db/tb's

One tends to forget how far actually Hawaii is from west coast.

Try to use AKVs since aircraft will arrive ready to fight.

thanks guys, comments very much appreciated!

cheers

Once you get the air groups to Hawaii, you need to develop all the little intermediate bases so you can "hop" to the South Pacific and Australia. Johnston Is., Christmas Is., Canton Is, Sauva, ect., should be expanded with base size development, engineers and avaition support (Pay attention to troop size limitiations on some of these bases). If I recall, B-25 Mitchell's can hop Hawaii -> Christmas -> Souva -> Australia (Brisbane). You can do one hop per day, so you can deploy them to Australia in a week. They may develop fatigue or damage airframes on the way, hence the avaition support.

Fighters you usually have to haul by ship to Australia. Later on, when the newer allied fighters arrive, you can hop some of them all the way to Australia. The key is to enable drop tanks, yeah I had a duh moment when I finally figured it out, to extend the transfer range of the fighters. P-38's and P-47's can be hopped in that manner. Later on you can move fighters into the Central Pacific also as required.

Just a note, early on, especially in PBEM, do not move anything extra beyond your requirements to these bases unless you move in infantry and artillery to properly defend them. The line of communication between Hawaii and Australia is a natural target for the Japanese player and they may come calling. I would not risk a CV battle over even Christmas Is. in 1942. You can make him work to take them if he wants, but that is all I would risk.

You can also forgo the transports for much of the trip. Use the off-map system to transfer from Eastern US to Cape Town, or, later, Aden, then one transpoort run to Perth or Colombo, etc. Going across the Pacific takes micromanagement and planning, supplies, and time to repair transit damage. I just Base Transfer them into the theater's periphery, then use ships for the last leg.

When transferring planes at near their longest ranges you are probably going to pick up some ops losses, try not to stretch them out too far.

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

When transferring planes at near their longest ranges you are probably going to pick up some ops losses, try not to stretch them out too far.

I never checked that; I tend to not sweat the small stuff.[:)] I'm not sure how that works when sending fighters from the US East Coast to Cape Town or Aden. They certainly can't make it one jump, so 'm not sure how the Ops loss code would work it out. What's the route? Brazil?

I DO know that the couple of times I've lost a full unit of bombers when that one (1) xAK they're on (in Mr. Weasley's magic camping tent I think), I suffered 100% Ops losses. So . . .

In fact they did fly to Brazil via the Caribbean and across to Africa. Remember those bases we swapped the tin cans for [;)]

I transfer a lot of aircraft to oz and India via cape town to cut down on ship losses. I have never suffered an oploss doing it that way.

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: SuluSea

When transferring planes at near their longest ranges you are probably going to pick up some ops losses, try not to stretch them out too far.

I never checked that; I tend to not sweat the small stuff.[:)] I'm not sure how that works when sending fighters from the US East Coast to Cape Town or Aden. They certainly can't make it one jump, so 'm not sure how the Ops loss code would work it out. What's the route? Brazil?

I DO know that the couple of times I've lost a full unit of bombers when that one (1) xAK they're on (in Mr. Weasley's magic camping tent I think), I suffered 100% Ops losses. So . . .

Hypothetically they go by ship, I was speaking about long flights over the pacific to islands and atolls. Sorry for the confusion.

ORIGINAL: oldman45

In fact they did fly to Brazil via the Caribbean and across to Africa. Remember those bases we swapped the tin cans for [;)]

I transfer a lot of aircraft to oz and India via cape town to cut down on ship losses. I have never suffered an oploss doing it that way.

good to hear about the Ops losses.

Were the African transfers only after Op. Torch?

ORIGINAL: SuluSea


Hypothetically they go by ship, I was speaking about long flights over the pacific to islands and atolls. Sorry for the confusion.

OK, gotcha.