Matrix Games Forums

I hvae never sean any of my planes actualy make a night anti shiping strike, even when their set to this, what am I doing wrong?

They're rare and require high experience. In my experience only float planes do it, and I think a really good search result from the day before helps.

IJN could sure use this historical ability. This is exactly how the Battle of Rennel Island began...with a starshell facillitated night torpedoe attack on Giffen's cruisers (Chicago was hit).

Those were Betty's and Nell's that hit and eveuentaily sank the Chicago the next day I beleave. Ospery's Betty units of WW2 gives a good description of the incedent. The 701 and 705th Kokutai's, particapated in the atack.

Some threads these last weeks were about night naval air attacks.

They are possible (something I strongly doubted) but:

_ with very experienced pilots (90 and more exp), so only floatplanes pilots after months of patrol will be able to do that, bomber units will normally be at lower exp due to losses.

_ TF attacked should be spotted the same turn before night air phase.... or during this phase (and there is no night air search). So the TF can be seen by a ship or sub or a coastwatcher or a base (don't know if the last applies). Or you can force it in the following way: if you know or suspect that an enemy TF will be at a given base this night, send a bombing unit attack the port by night. Crews may see the TF while attacking the port, report it and the naval attack crews may attack.

Don't except much night naval air attacks before 1943. And don't except long range strikes or open sea strikes.

Originally posted by AmiralLaurent
Some threads these last weeks were about night naval air attacks.

They are possible (something I strongly doubted) but:

_ with very experienced pilots (90 and more exp), so only floatplanes pilots after months of patrol will be able to do that, bomber units will normally be at lower exp due to losses.

_ TF attacked should be spotted the same turn before night air phase.... or during this phase (and there is no night air search). So the TF can be seen by a ship or sub or a coastwatcher or a base (don't know if the last applies). Or you can force it in the following way: if you know or suspect that an enemy TF will be at a given base this night, send a bombing unit attack the port by night. Crews may see the TF while attacking the port, report it and the naval attack crews may attack.

Don't except much night naval air attacks before 1943. And don't except long range strikes or open sea strikes.

A little tip how to train your floatplane pilots high enough to fly Black Cat mission.

Pilot can get only 0,5 exp. points (on average) for every 10 naval search missions, for the same amount of combat missions, recon mission is among them, he can get about 7-8 exp. points (on average). So, if PBY unit of 12 pilots will fly recon mission every day during one month it will get about 10-12 exp. points. While unit which fly only naval search/ASW will get only 2-3 exp. points. Some pilots are getting +3 points for every recon mission. In one of my pbem games one pilot from VP-11 got 22 points for flying recon missions during 1 month. When your FP unit has exp.level of 85+, chances of night naval attack increase dramatically.

From what I’ve seen in my games I can conclude that TF can be attacked at night only when its DL is about 5-7. Reread point 14.1 Detection Levels in manual. When your calculations shows that enemy TF that within the range has DL higher than 6, set your PBY squadrons on night naval attack.

So the same would hold true for the Betty and Nell and Mavis and or Emily Unit's, the thing is that in the above example of the Nell/Betty atack on the Chicago, they timed it to occure just after the sun had set and came in from the east toward the west that way the ships were siluated aganst the light, then the second wave which actualy hit the Chicago( and other ships) came in as it was dark but the plane that had been shadowing the ships droped Navagation flare's (green and red) and droped Ilumanation flares to siluate the ship's, obviously these were very well trained crew's, they also flew quite some distance to make this atack.
So it could be argued from a historical prespective that the Japanese have an Inhearent capabality to effect this type of atack, at least seing it hapen a bit more frequently would be nice.

Originally posted by Brady
So the same would hold true for the Betty and Nell and Mavis and or Emily Unit's, the thing is that in the above example of the Nell/Betty atack on the Chicago, they timed it to occure just after the sun had set and came in from the east toward the west that way the ships were siluated aganst the light, then the second wave which actualy hit the Chicago( and other ships) came in as it was dark but the plane that had been shadowing the ships droped Navagation flare's (green and red) and droped Ilumanation flares to siluate the ship's, obviously these were very well trained crew's, they also flew quite some distance to make this atack.
So it could be argued from a historical prespective that the Japanese have an Inhearent capabality to effect this type of atack, at least seing it hapen a bit more frequently would be nice.

How frequently did it happen in real life?

If it is infrequent, then it should be so in UV I would think.

Hi Denisonh,
If you believe Morison Rennel Island was the first time the IJN used that flare attack but not the last. It was a new tactic specially trained for. I'm not sure how to capture something like that in the game but it would be nice.

Quark

Now I may well be going out on a lim hear conceptualy but to me it seams reasionable to asume that the Emily's and the Mavises would (or PBY's) actualy Shadow a fleat if it was deamed worthy of doing so, namely if it were to be withen strike distance for a given aircraft type, so if you had a groupe tasked to Night naval atack and the timeing was right they could vector in the atacker's, now I know this was done in the Atlantic and clearly it was done in the above example, it may already be a mechnisim of the game we dont see. Now it may be just my experence in the game is simply different but I have yet to see a night time Naval atack.

Originally posted by denisonh
How frequently did it happen in real life?

Quite common actually.

The following attachment is from the Official History of the RAAF and is only one example of many night attacks on shipping contained in the book.

Cheers,
Reg.

Hi;

I got 4 PBY's to make a night attack on some transports in Port Moresby's hex from Cooktown. Set to go in a 100 ft -did no damage but recieved none either. Left the same group on night attack missions for a couple of days but they never flew another attack. Given the number of attack aircraft the Allies have in Scen 19 and the probability they'll hit anything it was worth the try I guess. The PBYs experience was in the high 60's I think.

A PBY did manage to put a torpedo into the Akebono Maru (or some such) on the night of June 3, 42 at the Battle of Midway.

Hi, My best night attack was PBY attacking Japanese CV two hits on CVL 1 on CV. (Alt 2k but they make torpedo attacks so setting alt no so important. I just wanted them to be able to see the targets)