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I am only playing for the 2nd time & didn’t reach April in my first game.

Admiral Somerville arrives 1 March, but CV Formidable (the ship that carried him) arrives Cape Town 15 March & takes about another 2 weeks to arrive Colombo, rather than arrive Combo 24th March. CV Hornet actually has an Admiral commanding her but you have to pay PP to give Somerville TF command.
The RN ‘secret bases’ at Diego Garcia & Attu seem incapable of refuelling/rearming 2 CV’s & 4 Rubbish class BB in 2 days- they can’t even dock.
FAA 820 sqn only has 9 albacore instead of 12 & 827 is missing entirely – total shortage 15 TB.
The Albacore does not have ASV 2 SS Radar.

The net effect is the one Admiral you can’t be in Admiral’s edition is James Somerville & you have 0 chance of launching a night attack with TB on the Japanese Strike Force (Somerville missed out as the Japanese were late turning up & he went to refuel, but when they turned up 2 days later he was able to put to sea again).

I’m guessing, but the only reason I can think of for an emasculated RN is game balance, that even a miniscule chance of losing a Japanese CV early in the game is too much, am I correct?

There are no White Scout Car’s in the game & the Glosters under Colonel Bagot don’t raid the US supply depot for China in Rangoon in March & convert themselves into a Recce Btn & provide the rearguard for Burcorps, this is just flavour, but is sadly missing flavour.

Feel free to use the editor and then enjoy witnessing Formidable with Somerville aboard getting sunk 99 times out of 100 without her radar-equipped doing any harm to KB - because it takes very experienced pilots to hit ships at sea at night.

LargeSlowTarget wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2026 6:54 pm Feel free to use the editor and then enjoy witnessing Formidable with Somerville aboard getting sunk 99 times out of 100 without her radar-equipped doing any harm to KB - because it takes very experienced pilots to hit ships at sea at night.

The books I've read agree with you, but a: How do I equip the Albacores with ASV 2 radar? & b. create a mini scenario just featuring ships used in the indian ocean raid & c. what o i do to enable DG & Addu to refuel CV & BB?

dpt182 wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2026 7:20 pm & c. what do i do to enable DG & Addu to refuel CV & BB?

Seems like a Replenishment task force with some well-laden fleet oilers in the same hex would do it. Otherwise, you could go to the locations tab of the editor and edit their port build size up substantially from two and maybe have a lot of engineers on the construction job of port expansion from the get-go.

dpt182, you need to become familiar with the editor - the editor.exe files are in the Scen folder.

You can use a Grand campaign scenario as a base and tailor it to you needs and save it in an unused slot.

It is possible to define in the "Scenario" tab a limited area of the map to be used for your "Indian Ocean Raid" scenario.

Then you would need to modify the ships, air units and land units available in the selected map area to your scenario's needs.

You can add an ASV II radar to the Albacore quite easily. The device exists already, you just need to add it to the "weapons" of the Albacore aircraft in the "Aircraft" tab.


Then you need to select the "Air Groups" tab and run the "Set Air Groups" update function in the "Tools" menu in order to update the weapons slots of the actual airgroups that are using the Albacore.



For Addu atoll, increasing the potential port size is an option, but it is not historical.

In AE, the "port level" is an indicator of the port infrastructure - piers, wharves, jetties, quays, docks, cargo handling equipment, storage space for cargo and supplies, fuel tanks, repair shops and maintenance facilities etc.

The "base T" at Addu was not a genuine port and had very little such "port infrastructure" represented by the port size in AE.

It was a "protected fleet anchorage", with fixed installations limited to defensive measures like coast arty, AA, search lights, anti-submarine nets etc.

There were few port installations as such, port services were mainly "floating" and provided by repair ships, depot ships, oilers, station tankers etc.

Handling cargo relied heavily on lighters.

Eventually a small fuel depot and a maintenance shop for small craft like boats, launches and lighters was added during the war.

So, in order to render Addu operational as a fleet "base", you should station tenders of various types (AR, AD, AG, AS) and oilers (AO) at Addu.

Bo Rearguard wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2026 11:09 pm

dpt182 wrote: Thu Oct 01, 2026 7:20 pm & c. what do i do to enable DG & Addu to refuel CV & BB?

Seems like a Replenishment task force with some well-laden fleet oilers in the same hex would do it. Otherwise, you could go to the locations tab of the editor and edit their port build size up substantially from two and maybe have a lot of engineers on the construction job of port expansion from the get-go.

In port you don't need to use your precious AOs - just disband a loaded tanker or two in port and they will refuel anything. Rotate with other TKs as needed.