Matrix Games Forums

Hi,

I am relatively new to the game and have a few questions to the more experienced people here.

1. What is the best way to train air units? Should I put them on training or rather have them do some easy mission? What is the exp. level where training will have diminishing returns?

2. How should I train my sea units? Is it enough to just send them on cruises? If yes: is it worth to send out ships that have a decent day exp, but crappy night exp? Will they gain any night xp?

3. And something different: Should I use SC/PG/PC type ships to escort transports? Or are they slowing the transports down with their need to refuel on the way?

Thanks a lot!

BlackVoid wrote:Hi,

I am relatively new to the game and have a few questions to the more experienced people here.

1. What is the best way to train air units? Should I put them on training or rather have them do some easy mission? What is the exp. level where training will have diminishing returns?

2. How should I train my sea units? Is it enough to just send them on cruises? If yes: is it worth to send out ships that have a decent day exp, but crappy night exp? Will they gain any night xp?

3. And something different: Should I use SC/PG/PC type ships to escort transports? Or are they slowing the transports down with their need to refuel on the way?

Thanks a lot!

The following is by no means a definitive "best" way to do things but it has worked for me. There may be better ways.


1. Rest your air until they are high 90's morale before you do anything with them.
I believe the maximum skill an air unit can be trained to is 60.
Up to this skill level the Training mission works well - after you will need to find a different mission to raise skill. Training tends to fly the units with the fewer sorties.Training at 30% seems to work well, mixed with another mission like Escort or ASW every other turn to rest the novices and give the higher skill flyers a workout.
After the majority of the flyers reach 59 skill you might like to switch to other missions.
For Fighter/Bombers I like to find a base away from enemy sweep range and put them on 30% escort.
For fighters Escort at 20-30% gives a solid workout without wearing them out.
All level bombers of shorter ranges I put on ASW at 30%
All long range bombers like the B17's build up nicely on 30% search mission.
You will notice some squads mysteriously being reinforced with extra pilots.
You will need to be carefull with these novices as they often have low skill.
An occasional 10-20% training mission edges these guys up in experience.
The extra pilots enable you to put heavier workloads on the squad later, eg 50% flying instead of usual 30%.
I like to get the majority of bombers above 60 skill before sending them on a bomb run.

Review your air units and rest them where you see the majority reaching double figure fatigue.

2. SC's train well by escorting convoys. They also guard convoys while they train.
The subs prefer to attack the transports so this is probably the safest way to train your SC's.
I've never bothered trying to train other ships up by sailing them around, although it does help a bit (up to 55 skll level...above 55 skill is hard to accomplish this way).

3. I've never really noticed transports being slowed down much by the need to refuel the escorts, though I suppose it must slow them down a little.
Try and put the slower escorts with the slower transports and visa-versa.
Eg, Put your PC's and slower MSW's with your AK's and put your faster escorts with the faster transports.

1. My way of training bomber pilots is to set them on ASW patrol 100%. Their gain experience by having nearly no losses. If trained up to 70 they are more effective.

2. I train only small ships like DD´s and SC´s by forming large subhunter groups. Take 15 ships, some DD´s with high ASW level (right click on them in the ship selection; levels are between 1 and 10) and add SC´s. If submarines spotted by air send these groups in this hex. Your crews get most experience in battles.

3. If you expect submarines you should use small escorts, your opponent gets just 1 or 2 victory points for them. The sub can´t attack at the surface and you have the chance to sink it. If only level bombers could attack your ships (Bettys, Mitchels etc.) take only 1 ship TF´s and the bombers takes no notice of your ship. Dive- and torpedo planes bomb single ships.

BlackVoid wrote:
1. What is the best way to train air units? Should I put them on training or rather have them do some easy mission? What is the exp. level where training will have diminishing returns?

The best way to train patrol, float and bomber squadrons is to put them on recon. Unfortunately this is not always possible, since you need at least enemy occupied beach (dot) to fly recon mission, but if there is a one within a range, do it. For in-game exp. modifier recon mission is of the same exp. value as bombardment or naval attack mission and pilot can receive up to 10 points (the best I saw during my tests) for flying just 1 recon mission, 3-5 points per mission on average. This method of training, besides the best results it gives, also provide little operational loss ratio, pretty low average fatigue and acceptable morale (only 4 pilots as maximum fly on a given day, next day they rest while new four pilots fly and so on, when first four pilots have to fly again they already have low fatigue). Usually unit with 50 exp. level can be trained up to 60-65 within a 10 days of constant recon, not very realistic to me so I train them every second or third day, mixing recon sorties with ASW and naval search which of course don’t give good results fast.

As Japanese transfer your rookie bomber unit to Kavieng and fly recon mission to Kiriwina, Woodlark or use actual enemy bases for training purposes, but don’t forget to set altitude to 25000-30000ft, you don’t really need to meet CAP fighters. Now your unit is providing you with every day data on enemy (btw constant recon is as effective as single low altitude reconing) and undergoing training course. After one month of such training unit is usually ready to see enemy, average exp. level should be over 70. This strategy will be paid back greatly in 1943, when you’ll have enough pilots capable to strike effectively at night, although it still will be massacre in daylight.

If you play as USA, train your B-17s that way, when replacement a/c will start to come in september you’ll already have full set of cracked (and alive) pilots in every trained unit, then any IJN base is yours.

Supply transport missions work similar, but this is pure bizarre. SOPAC Cargo Airlines Ltd. ???

BlackVoid wrote:
2. How should I train my sea units? Is it enough to just send them on cruises? If yes: is it worth to send out ships that have a decent day exp, but crappy night exp? Will they gain any night xp?

Yes they will gain some night experience as well, shakedown cruises with transport TF give best results, especially if it’s newly commissioned warship, while escorting transport CA,CL, DDs, all ships which tend to travel at high speeds on their normal missions and receive heavy op. damage because of it, travel at very moderate speeds and you don’t have to dock them for repair for many days after shakedown cruise.

BlackVoid wrote: 3. And something different: Should I use SC/PG/PC type ships to escort transports? Or are they slowing the transports down with their need to refuel on the way?

All small auxiliary vessels have very limited endurance and their generally slow down a convoy while retrieving fuel from merchants. Check ops points ships use in sea and you can figure out who fuel whom. But this is minor problem, you must use all available SCs, PGs, PCs, even if they don’t have real chances to depthcharge sub they can spot enemy and prevent actual attack. More ships more chances that sub will be spotted and will be driven away.