Matrix Games Forums

I am playing a PBEM game as the Japanese. Historical first turn Pearl Harbor strike and I launched a second strike on Pearl on the 8 of December. I got a lot of reports saying heavy damage and on fire on several American BB during the strikes. We are now on the December 21 1941 turn and I have not gotten confirmation of any ships sunk at Pearl Harbor... I tried sending recon missions from submarine's float planes in the area over Pearl but to no avail... Is this a normal FOW thing or was I so incredibly unlucky as to not destroy a single American ship during the Pearl Harbor attack ?

You have just awoken the giant... [8|][:-] Have you seen the size of PH shipyard? They can repair the Titanic during their lunch time while working on all USN BBs at the same time. I bet you were unlucky and sank nothing.

Normal FOW.... thingy thingamajig.

Information about ships sunk is greatly subject to FOW. Players get better at having a feel for things with experience, but even experienced players can be fooled or prone to getting their hopes up.

There are a few tools that can help - the timing of sinking sounds is a clue (though not so much when you have many ships damaged during a turn, as at Pearl on Dec. 7). Also, if a cruiser or BB gets hit and the proper number of float planes is listed on the Air Losses report the next day, that's a clue. (Ditto for aircraft carriers: if CV Junyo takes two torps and three bomb hits on June 15, 1943, and the Air Loss table shows 15 Zeroes, 10 Vals and 23 Kates destroyed "On Ground," that's an indicator Junyo might've gone down.)

Eventually, ships confirmed sunk do show up in the Operations Report, sometimes days, many times months, and occasionally years later. That's when you get the credit for the points.

What Canoerebel said! The bigger the ship, the longer it generally takes for the enemy to admit the loss.

Also, the ships "sunk" at PH were mostly brought back up and into service later in the war. The game abstracts this by making it very difficult to sink in a big port, and thus the ship has the potential to be repaired over time. It's a long time though.

On average you'll be lucky to sink one BB in the first strike. If you stay for more days you'd have a chance to sink a few more, but you do risk something in staying.

My current IJ opponent stayed for about 4-5 strikes over a week and sank a few BB (not saying how many exactly, but more than one). [:)]

Yup, in my allied PBEM my opponent sunk one BB at Pearl in the opening turn, all the rest survived. Yet it is 9.1943 and I have 4 BBs in various states of repairs/upgrades (60-120 days) on the West Coast. Some of the BB upgrades are rated for 120-180 days - as was the case of total rebuilding of the battleship superstructure, 5inch/51 and 5inch/25 switched for 5inch/38, radars and new 40mm/20mm suite.

So do not cry for a single BB down. It will take up to mid-44 to have the rest back in fight (although more deadly).

So?

I started one PBEM game using historical first turn (so nothing was changed in the strike package), and the Kate's didn't even bother to use torpedoes! Needless to say, there wasn't much damage at all, let alone to the BB's.

ORIGINAL: Uncivil Engineer

So?

I started one PBEM game using historical first turn (so nothing was changed in the strike package), and the Kate's didn't even bother to use torpedoes! Needless to say, there wasn't much damage at all, let alone to the BB's.

IRL, not all the Kates carried torpedoes. At least one group carried the 1760 lb bombs (16" shells with bomb fins) that sank Arizona.

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

What Canoerebel said! The bigger the ship, the longer it generally takes for the enemy to admit the loss.

Yeah. Including the EXACT! numbers of embarked planes destroyed on ground on the very same day...