Alessandro S. wrote: Thu Feb 19, 2026 1:12 pm
I think the issue of aborting patrol is that the missions require ammo.
PT is am motor torpedo boat mission.
Surface combat is a mission looking at gun power
These ships do only have AA guns and are not suitable for either torpedo or surface combat. They will break off mission from lack of ammo in the TF.
Looks like these boats are only suitable to escort ships in cargo missions.
The operations report should hold a text line telling the TF did cancel their mission from lack of ammo if they did.
For refueling this is done when entering a hex. ( returning to a port ) but I did not think of TF patrolling inside a port hex.
I added auto refuel for when TF stay in the port hex for patch 3 onward.
If you go to Palamos as an example in the Tutorial scenario, because it has few ships. Send any cargo ships to Barcelona. With just two
PB type ships at anchorage (C.16 and C.17). In the ship details their devices are listed as just one 7.0mm AAMG each. This is said to face A, which I think means they "face" all directions, and presumably can be pointed down at the surface and used to fire on targets on the surface?
They are both described as "Patrolboat" and if we go to create a Task Force at Palamos we are given six options for the missions that are available from there, in other words, the missions that the game thinks just those two ships alone could fulfill:
Surface Combat
Bombardment
Amphibious
ASW Combat
PT Boat
Escort
Amphibious on their own makes little sense, when neither have any troop/cargo capacity, but I suspect it thinks PB's are suitable for escorting Amphibious TFs. So it doesn't block them having that mission.
Bombardment and ASW also makes little sense if their AAMG cannot be used to fire on land targets and subs. But again the game might thinking in terms of using these ships as support/cover for other warships to protect them from from attack by air.
They are, of course, fully loaded with ammo at the start of the game. And they will never encounter enemy planes in this scenario to use that ammo, unless you send them to Mallorca later in the month. Ammo does not appear to the issue.
The issue, I thought, is whether you can give "Patrolboats" the PT Boat mission if they are only armed with AAMG's. Either there is a bug in the mission, or there is some hidden mechanism we don't see anywhere in the manual, or these are mis-labelled in the scenario files as "Patrolboats".
To note the AI control of the TF's that is mentioned is nowhere directly covered in the Manual. There is no mention anywhere what the Port Auto Defense option On/Off does in the port anchorage window. But we do see in 19.14:
Upon detecting an enemy Task Force, a Base nearby may automatically launch small craft like PT-Boats, HDML or motor torpedo boats and midget submarines for self-defense.
But how that works is not explained, even to say that you need to have the Port Auto Defense On. So my suspicion was that you have the Patrol Boats with a PT Boat mission in the port and do not set it to go anywhere. They are NOT set to patrol the port hex only. That is not what we are saying, they are set with no patrol route. But I have not actually seen that result in the TF being launched against an enemy TF.
Despite being small ships they appear to have no fuel at Palamos and don't get any more from Palamos (civilian). They have a zero cruise speed and endurance at the start of the scenario. But moving them to Barcelona they get their max fuel and they have a cruise speed and endurance. But still they won't leave the port to carry out a PT Boat mission to patrol in the Balearic Sea. But they also will not carry out a Surface Combat mission either, and every turn cancel any patrol route you give them. So the issue seems wider than just whether the PT Boat mission has this special AI mode not covered in the Manual. They definitely have all their ammo and fuel.
However, assigned to a TF of ALKs with a Cargo mission, they are happy to escort the AKLs, and leave Barcelona.