General Patrol/Attack questions

[jackyo123]

hi folks

have some general questions about how ai will react to various scenarios:


1> Will a patrolling aircraft on NAVAL SEARCH attack a submarine on the surface? If yes - is it altitude dependent? And will it also attack enemy surface ships that it finds?

2> Similar vein - if you have 50% of aircraft on naval search and it detects an enemy TF - will only the 50% of the group attack? will the other 50$ stay on the ground?

3> Conversely - will a plane - say a catalina - carrying bombs on an ASW mission that detects a surface TF - will it attack?

4> Is there any way - besides limiting the 'range' of a strike - to specifically order your naval attacks on certain task forces? For instance - a group of TF's are moving into buna, and I want to go for the 'phib convoy, which is a hex behind the escorts - is that possible?

thanks!

[Schorsch]

1.) If exp and leader(aggression) are high enough (60+) ONE plane will sometimes attack
2.) Only ONE plane will MAYBE attack
1+2) The group is split up in soloplanes while searching.
Also there will no animation be shown just a message in the bottom left list
3.) I dont think so.
4.) No

[jackyo123]

thanks - for #1 - is altitude or anything else a dependent? for intance, the manual says patrol craft on asw missions will only attack a sub if its at 100 feet altitude.

[rustysi]

There are many threads here that address these queries and in order to get the whole picture you're gonna have to search and read them. In a nutshell ASW searches should be run at no more than 2000' and Naval searches at 5-6k'.

[rustysi]

As a matter of fact just look at the FAQ's for newbies above (in the war room) and most of your questions will be answered better than I can do.

[msieving1]

ORIGINAL: jackyo123

thanks - for #1 - is altitude or anything else a dependent? for intance, the manual says patrol craft on asw missions will only attack a sub if its at 100 feet altitude.

I can't find anything in the manual about the effect of altitude on the chance of naval search or ASW aircraft attacking.

FWIW, US Navy patrol doctrine called for search altitude of 500 to 1,000 feet. In the absence of any landmarks, the only way to account for drift was observing the action of the wind on the surface of the sea.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: msieving1


...I can't find anything in the manual about the effect of altitude on the chance of naval search or ASW aircraft attacking...

Correct. One of the many "myths" regularly trotted out. Altitude is important for flak avoidance, not really relevant for searching.

Alfred

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: jackyo123

hi folks

have some general questions about how ai will react to various scenarios:


1> Will a patrolling aircraft on NAVAL SEARCH attack a submarine on the surface? If yes - is it altitude dependent? And will it also attack enemy surface ships that it finds?

A sub TF is still a task force. Aircraft on the naval search mission are conducting a task force search mission. They therefore may discover incidentally a sub TF and any TF which is discovered might be bombed by the spotting aircraft. Altitude is not really relevant.

2> Similar vein - if you have 50% of aircraft on naval search and it detects an enemy TF - will only the 50% of the group attack? will the other 50$ stay on the ground?

Only the spotting aircraft might attack using its extended range bomb loadout. Naval search is for spotting task force, naval attack is the mission to attack said spotted (non sub) task force, or ASW for a spotted sub task force.

3> Conversely - will a plane - say a catalina - carrying bombs on an ASW mission that detects a surface TF - will it attack?

No. It is not looking for surface task forces and therefore does not find them.

4> Is there any way - besides limiting the 'range' of a strike - to specifically order your naval attacks on certain task forces? For instance - a group of TF's are moving into buna, and I want to go for the 'phib convoy, which is a hex behind the escorts - is that possible?

You can never, under any circumstances, choose which enemy task force your aircraft flying a naval attack mission will attack. Read s.7.2.1.7 of the manual.

thanks!

Alfred

[Yaab]

ad 4. You could augment your chances of a successful attack against the amphib convoy.

a) stop any Recon/Naval Search missions overflying Buna (includes any mission with 360 degree search)
b) park a sub one hex away from Buna to give you detection of the amphib convoy.
c) fly Naval Search mission flying a narrow search arcs overflying the hex adjacent to Buna.
d) Good luck!

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Yaab

ad 4. You could augment your chances of a successful attack against the amphib convoy.

a) stop any Recon/Naval Search missions overflying Buna (includes any mission with 360 degree search)
b) park a sub one hex away from Buna to give you detection of the amphib convoy.
c) fly Naval Search mission flying a narrow search arcs overflying the hex adjacent to Buna.
d) Good luck!

Explain how this will assist in this specific situation.

He has task forces "entering" Buna. That means they are in the Buna hex. The amphibious TF is a hex behind. That means that in the next naval movement, which occurs at night and before night air operations, the amphibious TF will have traversed the single hex and have arrived at Buna.

Even if the word "entering" was misused by the OP and the escorts are 1-2 hexes away from Buna (any further away how does he know the enemy fleet is heading for Buna and not some other port), all the enemy TFs (escorts and amphibious) will be together at Buna by the time his airforce can sortie.

Alfred

[tiemanjw]

You can set a TF to naval attack mission and use the spinners to set a navs or asw percentage. In this way you can have 50% on search, and the other 50% on nav attack (not set to anything in the spinners). Then you can have half your squadron searching with half in reserve in case something shows up.

Alfred, I thought ASW search can spot surface forces but was less efficient/effective then nav search. I know I've read this but I don't know if it was in error. I do routinely get my asw groups reporting seeing something, but I can't be sure of what as the only places I have asw and not navs are places with little surface threat and lots of friendly traffic. Nothing ever comes from these sightings.

[Alfred]

ASW is looking specifically for sub TFs.  When you get those sightings of something it thinks it is a sub TF but the quality of the sighting is so poor it could be anything, such as wreckage.  That is why nothing useful comes from them.
 
The test is what do they do in the event they spot something.  A plane tasked with naval search, if the pilot is sufficiently trained (and thereby improving the quality of the sighting) may drop a bomb on the sighted task force.  A plane tasked with ASW, if the pilot is sufficiently trained may drop a bomb on the spotted sub TF.  The ASW plane never attacks a non sub TF.
 
Alfred