Squadron suffers fatigue/casualties but no apparent activity.

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 2:02 pm

I was wondering if anyone from Matrix could look at a possible bug.

Problem.
First week of scenario 17 (PBEM). Air activity light for both sides. Japanese have their sole land based A6m2 squadron on escort/CAP (30%) at Rabaul. It has fatigue in the mid teens. The only "offensive" mission being flown that turn is a recon of Port Moresby from Rabaul by a squadron of Mavis flying boats. My understanding is that recon missions will never receive an escort. Since all my other attack and patrol a/c are flying search missions, I do not expect the A6m2s to do anything other than some light CAP work (I want them as rested as possible for upcoming operations).

The turn weather is Thunderstorms. The turn is resolved and the only Japanese mission that shows up during the turn resolution is the recon of PM. It involves 2 Mavis meeting the PM CAP of 2 allied fighter squadrons. This is only reported as a message (no combat display as expected). Allied air activity involves only searches and a ground strike at Buna.

In the following orders phase, I notice that I have lost a A6m2. I check the Rabaul A6m2 squadron and find that they have fatigue of 45+, have 21 ready a/c, 5 damaged a/c and have lost a A6m2 destroyed (+ high exp pilot). 22 of the 26 pilots had fatigue between 40 and 55.

What the hell could they have done? There were no Japanese missions reported that involved fighters (even aborted ones). There were no allied missions against Rabaul. Even if they suffered from the weather (6 a/c dam/dest

) while on CAP, how did they get 45+ fatigue? All other squadrons flying similar escort/CAP (30%) missions (CV fighters etc) ended the turn without even a damaged a/c and with their fatigue still in the mid-teens (including other ones at Rabaul).

Unfortunately, I do not have a save of the prior turn from my current PBEM but I have managed to recreate the problem in a test PBEM (A6m2s ended up jumping in one turn from 15 fatigue to 45 fatigue while on 30% CAP but this time, did not suffer any losses). Once again, the weather was thunderstorms. I did suspect that maybe the A6m2s in my PBEM were engaging B25s on search (hence, the casualties/fatigue) but in my test game I set it up so that no operational allied aircraft was in range of Rabaul.

Given I have only 4 effective fighter squadrons to play with, having the best of them unavailable for operations for 2-3 days is a bit of a set back for my plans.

Interested in having a look (Matrix)?

Any other players seen this?

mjk428 · Post by **mjk428** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 3:00 pm

I had a similar situation while playing the allied side. P-38 squadron was set for escort - cap 30%. All bomber squadrons were set to stand-down because of thunderstorms. During the resolution phase I noticed the message go by that the squadron was "unable to find target" over Rabaul. The only explanation I could come up with is that they tried to escort the recon flight I had going to Rabaul.

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 5:28 pm

I am assuming that recon missions, if that is the only mission flown, does not get considered for escort by the UV routines. That was from my reading of manual. It mentions only bombing missions as ones that may receive escorts.

Even if that wasn't the case, if the recon mission was really being escorted by my A6m2s, why wouldn't it trigger a combat when the escorted recon mission was intercepted by PM's CAP?

There was a report of the first recon mission of the day failing to find the target but no mention of A6m2s being involved.

The only facts I know was that a recon mission failed to find the target, other recon missions from the same squadron succeeded, the weather was thunderstorms and the A6m2s were on escort. How this could cause what happened has me stumped.

It's very difficult to keep Japanese a/c losses to acceptable levels without this adding to things.

It only became obvious because I had so few squadrons in action. It would be very hard to notice later in a scenario, when you can have 50+ squadrons operating across the map.

The last thing you want to happen under the current 2.2 patch is for your fighter squadrons to suddenly and for no apparent reason, accrue such high levels of fatigue. If a bomber strike turned up, they'd be near useless.

Mr.Frag · Post by **Mr.Frag** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 2:41 am

Before entering into a battle of wits, always ensure one is armed

Your tear line really applies to Japan's fighters ... perhaps they should have read it and mounted some real guns in the wings, and you will never stop them bombers as it sits now...On a side note, did you get replacement planes flown in to beef up the squadron that was understrengthed? They'll be your mystery flights...

Drongo · Post by **Drongo** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 2:11 pm

Posted by Mr. Frag

On a side note, did you get replacement planes flown in to beef up the squadron that was understrengthed? They'll be your mystery flights...

No, the squadron had been at full strength for days (with no combat and only light duties).

As I understand it, the only way you'll cop fatigue like that is if a remnant of the squadron joins up by flying from another base. Didn't happen. It had been at the same base since the start of the game.

Unless I've missed something, replacement planes and pilots don't physically "fly in" to a base. You just wake up one morning and find the Zero Fairy has come for a visit during the night.