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I KNOW this issue has been brought up before.....

But I really wish it was possible for a compromise to be made here, and it seems quite within reality of what happened during the actuall war.

I wish that we could assign a base to naval and level bombers for the Naval Attack mission.

That way, the planes would be told to ONLY strike at enemy ships that were at or around that base, friendly or enemy, and NOT to launch any strikes anywhere else.

During the war commanders DID tell their strike squadrons not to go near certain enemy bases because they KNEW what would happen if the planes did.

The limit Naval Attack mission ment that planes could be held back to make strikes aganist critical areas without having to rest all of them and thus make your first line of defense again a enemy invasion -- the land based air strike -- useless.

This would prevent another one sided slaughter as just happened to me AGAIN in my game with Drex -- all my planes, carefully rested after havy battles, going after some lowly LST's at a friendly base FAR from Lunga when I REALLY wanted them to go after some transports unloading troops at a island MUCH closer to Lunga -- and getting blasted out of the air by the enemy CAP while the troops land and build a base.

If it's too late to have this in UV, can we PLEASE have it in WITP?

Yup, I agree.........time for the last and final patch to come out! (But not at the expense of slowing down the release of WiTP).

I must agree here also..When the latest patch came out,I was under the impression the admirals/generals would have *some* control over what got hit,but last night,this was proven in a very concrete way to *not* be the case at all..I had a fleet with 4 carriers and when the sun came up,5 enemy groups were located within strike range..the greatest threat came from a battleship group *IN THE VERY NEXT HEX*(!!!!!!!!)..Of course,I'm sitting there waiting for my planes to be sent "next door",(if not to sink,at least to slow down or split up that threat),but instead,all those planes could think to do was go after a bunch of Japanese landing craft(empty!) approx 9 hexes away!!!!!!!!!!!
Seems to me,if we can't delegate an exact ship to hit (in a given fleet),at least we ought to be able to delegate which fleet will be hit!!!!!!!!!!)..
If we can't get this fixed,is anybody out there able to do a mod on this??

Originally posted by SoulBlazer
I KNOW this issue has been brought up before.....

But I really wish it was possible for a compromise to be made here, and it seems quite within reality of what happened during the actuall war.

I wish that we could assign a base to naval and level bombers for the Naval Attack mission.

That way, the planes would be told to ONLY strike at enemy ships that were at or around that base, friendly or enemy, and NOT to launch any strikes anywhere else.

During the war commanders DID tell their strike squadrons not to go near certain enemy bases because they KNEW what would happen if the planes did.

The limit Naval Attack mission ment that planes could be held back to make strikes aganist critical areas without having to rest all of them and thus make your first line of defense again a enemy invasion -- the land based air strike -- useless.

This would prevent another one sided slaughter as just happened to me AGAIN in my game with Drex -- all my planes, carefully rested after havy battles, going after some lowly LST's at a friendly base FAR from Lunga when I REALLY wanted them to go after some transports unloading troops at a island MUCH closer to Lunga -- and getting blasted out of the air by the enemy CAP while the troops land and build a base.

If it's too late to have this in UV, can we PLEASE have it in WITP?

I agree the target acquisition pprogram still needs tweaking. It wouldn't have been so bad for you except I quickly shifted a couple of full fighter squadrons in as a surprise.

Originally posted by SoulBlazer
... going after some lowly LST's ...

'lowly LSTs'?? Watch your language, as long as I am on this forum!

Of course you are absolutly right regarding the naval targets issue. I'm almost groaning with pain when I have to watch my planes attacking unimportant targets far away and ignoring the enemy TFs nearby directly threatening my forces. Something should be done here.

LST

It seems to me that historically commanders generally followed the "nearest threat is the greatest threat" rule, particularly in light of the general inaccuracy of naval search information. Of course, reports of carriers always took precedence. I think that this needs to be built into the UV target selection system to a greater degree than it currently is.

One thing that I think is skrewing up the system is the recent tweak that discourages strike aircraft from attacking targets with a heavy CAP presence. Yes, I know that many (myself included) asked for such a modification in light of the silly waste of LBA flying to their doom at a heavily defended Rabaul, but something got lost in the process, IMHO. I have run a few simple tests and this does seem to have a significant effect. For example, if you put a TF somewhere without CAP cover, the strike aircraft come swarming in like sailors to a hooker. Stick a couple of squadrons of fighters over the same TF, and suddenly, they're a safe as in mama's arms, with the strike planes out wandering around looking for easy pickings elsewhere (and often farther away).

I'm not sure what the solution is, but maybe it's just a matter of toning down the previous "fix."

The AI is hopeless. It can not make a plan and without my input how can it possibly know what I want. I'm down to using Alfs and Jakes because so many of my planes have been lost of futile sorties. Even if they hit- so what. I'm trying to defend Buna, BeauGUNville, and Lae in Nov 1943 against the Allies. The AI keeps sending over-escorted missions to PM. Three to six Sallys takeoff with 40 Zeros at attack MSW or DD. The Sallys miss but get damaged by flak and the Zeros loose 10-16 operational. I'm loosing 40 planes a day to operational losses when very often there no aerial resistance.

We should be able to nominate which general target type (AP, CV, Heavy SC, Light SC, etc) and also have a range circle. You can click on the range for the whole base. So if you set it to 10 hexes, they don't fly further than that. You can change the circle as the battle moves. Your opponent might count the number of hexes from Rabaul to PM and then stay one hex outside. Good on him. At least I still have my airforce and it is fresh. At the moment you put everything on high alert, but the opponent hangs back and you loose all your planes attacking a single DD at Lunga or PM. We could also have a directional arrow pointing in the hex spine of favoured mission courses.

Nearly everyone here is playing PBEM because we hate the computer opponent and its antics. But we are still stuck with the AI's lack of imagination, priority, and my general plane of action. All my ships can be heading for Lunga for a counterstrike and the ships need the support of the Bettys. But in which direction does our hero chose to send the planes??? How many ships (mine and the enemy's) have been saved because seriously damaged ships do not have follow up attacks launched against them?

I agree that something should be done to enhance the attack system.Some type of additional choice should be done.Range attack circle, direct target selection (which I prefer) or target type priorisation.

Even with priority orders, there should still be mistakes and slaugthers. Because they happen in real WWII.

Ships are not seen, or not reported, or seen as something else. Or planes flying to attack something find other ships.

For example, pilots escorting kamikazes in the Philipinnes reported several times cruisers sunk by the suicide planes, while the ship attacked was a barge or a PT.

The only thing that should be there is to reduce the aera where a given unit may attack, so excluding other dangerous aera.

In defense, my Japanese long-range bombers are not on Naval attack, but on Naval Search, 20-30 %, or rest.

If there is an invasion convoy coming, he will still be there the next day and the planes will attack it 95% of the time. OK, troops would have gone ashore in the mean time but without supplies they would not be so dangerous. Also, the naval search planes are likely to have seen it coming.

If any other TF is coming, I keep my bombers on the ground, because there is no real danger.

Forward bases may have some Vals to deal with it. But subs, mines and ships will deal with most of the raids.

How about when your Bombardment TF sprints in from 20+ hexes away, uses up all its op points, and gets slaughtered the next day becuase it's stuck at the Destination Hex? It's not a "Patrol/Do Not Retire" problem, the TF was set for "Retirement Allowed".

It just happened to me again, and has happened to a couple of my PBeM partners...

Hi all,

IMHO, the one and only answer is that we get user adjustable arcs (i.e. that
we be able to set range and area) of both search and attack.

This way we would get almost 100% control (though Ai would still choose in
selected area).

If that, hopefully, is done the UV (and WitP) would be even better...


Idea of how to "fix" the "Naval Search" and "Naval Attack"

showthread.php?s=&threadid=30931


Leo "Apollo11"

Originally posted by Admiral DadMan
How about when your Bombardment TF sprints in from 20+ hexes away, uses up all its op points, and gets slaughtered the next day becuase it's stuck at the Destination Hex? It's not a "Patrol/Do Not Retire" problem, the TF was set for "Retirement Allowed".

It just happened to me again, and has happened to a couple of my PBeM partners...

I got no problem with this. Sometimes, for various reasons, surfaces forces did not clear the area in time and payed the price. This was a historic reality so why not in the game as well. The game would not be very much fun if you were guaranteed a clean getaway all the time. You take the risk, you gotta be willing to pay the piper. No problem there.