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Japanese AI takes Trincomalee. Oh goodie! I can clobber his merchant fleet as he tries to resupply it.

Create Air Combat TF at Colombo, create surface combat TF at Colombo. Both set to react. There is a smaller surface combat TF sitting on Trincomalee and not moving; being replenished each turn.

Here comes the Japanese transport TF! 2DD and 15MCS. Both of my forces react. The airstrike sinks 2 of 15 merchies. The surface combat sinks 3 in 2 rounds, then the 12 knot merchant ships withdraw and escape my 32 knot cruisers. Nice.

Then the transport TF and its remaining 10 cargo ships settles into the Trincomalee base hex and unloads oblivious to the other task force sitting there the entire time.

It is totally unrealistic for a resupply task force to make it into Trincomalee under this scenario. Why can a 12 knot merchant ship withdraw from 32 knot cruisers? They should have all been pummeled right there. Add to that the CV task force has sighted and attacked the ships so every ship captain in the Indian Ocean should know where to go and sink them.

I love this game but sometimes it can be so darn frustrating.

Originally posted by stretch
Japanese AI takes Trincomalee. Oh goodie! I can clobber his merchant fleet as he tries to resupply it.

Create Air Combat TF at Colombo, create surface combat TF at Colombo. Both set to react. There is a smaller surface combat TF sitting on Trincomalee and not moving; being replenished each turn.

Here comes the Japanese transport TF! 2DD and 15MCS. Both of my forces react. The airstrike sinks 2 of 15 merchies. The surface combat sinks 3 in 2 rounds, then the 12 knot merchant ships withdraw and escape my 32 knot cruisers. Nice.

Then the transport TF and its remaining 10 cargo ships settles into the Trincomalee base hex and unloads oblivious to the other task force sitting there the entire time.

It is totally unrealistic for a resupply task force to make it into Trincomalee under this scenario. Why can a 12 knot merchant ship withdraw from 32 knot cruisers? They should have all been pummeled right there. Add to that the CV task force has sighted and attacked the ships so every ship captain in the Indian Ocean should know where to go and sink them.

I love this game but sometimes it can be so darn frustrating.

The merchies would head off in all directions as soon as your warships appear. Your cruisers could split up to try to catch them all, but then they would risk being defeated in detail if an enemy surface combat TF appeared. So what you're seeing is the resupply TF scattering, and your cruiser TF picking off stragglers but not being able to pursue everything.

Communications failures were common in all services, right through the war. Your second SC TF may not have gotten the word, for whatever reason. There were plenty of possible reasons why a message might not be received, or might not be received in time to do anything, from atmospheric conditions to equipment failure to operator error.

Originally posted by CynicAl


The merchies would head off in all directions as soon as your warships appear. Your cruisers could split up to try to catch them all, but then they would risk being defeated in detail if an enemy surface combat TF appeared. So what you're seeing is the resupply TF scattering, and your cruiser TF picking off stragglers but not being able to pursue everything.

I'd agree with that, but then why are the transports allowed to essentially regroup and complete their mission unabated? The only instance of something like this I can think of off the top of my head was convoy PQ17 (England to Murmansk). It was attacked by German air and surface forces, scattered and nearly totally destroyed. Most of the losses occurred after the convoy scattered, victims of aircraft and subs.

I don't know if there's a way of reflecting this kind of situation in the game without changing lots of things, though.