Transports?oilers

[goodwood]

Why do transports and oiler go to idle status before the completion of their unloading tasks? They have not been subject to any air attacks. the ports are Cairns Rockhampton and Townsville. Is this a bug? Sometimes Oiler revert to their home base before completing trip to their destination, has antone else experience this?
Ron

[wobbly]

yes, I've had this. It can be a right pain! Simple work around is to change the homeport of the fuel tf to the location you want the fuel to be deposited. I also find replenishment TFs wont unload fuel - if so change them to a transport TF.

[Zulu]

What I *think* I have learned so far about transports is the following:

1) when you order them to load (at the starting port), immediateley also set a destination. Then set a home base to the base you want them to return AFTER they have unloaded. Of course you do this, only if the base you want them to return is different from the base they started out in first place.

2) I also set the transports to "patrol/do not retire" if: (a) I want the transport to try to go through no matters what; (b) they are reasonably far from enemy threat. If I do not do this, I sometimes have trasports heading back to homebase before unloading because an enemy CV had been spotted perhaps very far away. This is generally reasonable, but sometimes, it is obvious the enemy CV will be busy doing something else and you want to override the understandable tendency of the transport commander to chicken out. I revert them to "retirement allowed" when they are close enough to the target base if I want them to make a run during the night, unload and run out before daylight. If not, I let them to patrol / do not retire, but I think that in this case you have to remember manually to tell them to go back home once they have unloaded.

3) Playing as the US, if you have Japanese sub doctrine on, I understand Jap subs will not attack your transports. Therefore (at least against the AI), it seems to me you can send out detachments of 1-2 transports alone, without sub fear and without escort. It also seems to me that if you send out a lot of groups of 1-2 transports rather than a large convoy, they are less prone to get targeted by the (AI) planes. So much for the big convoy theory which was so popular in the Atlantic. Of course, if they are without escort, they do not have a lot of AA fire to answer an air attack...


4) if they get bombed along the way, you may want to check again their orders. I am not sure what happens in these cases, but (probably depending on the damage they have taken), they may decide to go back home.

Overall I like the way the game allows the player to manage transports and I have not encountered any major bug yet.

Regards,

Zulu

[BPRE]

Hi Zulu,

1) when you order them to load (at the starting port), immediateley also set a destination.

It's very important that you set the destination before you give the loading
command.
From the manual v 2.00, paragraph 8.21:

Important note:
Before the loading command is given, a destination hex should be set; if one isn't,
as soon as the TF finishes loading, it will commence unloading (it thinks it's arrived
at it's destination!).

I remember that this caused me quite a bit of problems in the beginning before I got
used to it and I wasn't the only one having problems with it.
It can really destroy a well-planned, coordinated, amphibious attack when you're
biggest unit starts unloading immediately after being loaded and all the other TFs
set sail towards the enemy.

As for your thoughts regarding "patrol/do not retire" I agree with you and try to
do the same. Easy to forget though.

It also seems to me that if you send out a lot of groups of 1-2 transports rather than a large convoy, they are less prone to get targeted by the (AI) planes.

I'm not 100% sure but I think the search planes have less chance to find only
1-2 ships compared to bigger TFs. So it's probably just as likely that they will
attack when they find the ship/s.
As an example I managed to hurt Yorktown quite bad a few hexes away from
Gili-Gili in a recent game (scenario 17). Together with a DD it was moving back
towards Noumea at the speed of only two hexes per turn and managed to pass
3-4 hexes south of Gili-Gili and move for maybe 5 turns before I actually found
her with search planes. The remains of the original TF (Lexington 3-4 CAs and
5-6 DDS) were found every turn halfway back to Noumea.

Regards
BPRE

[wobbly]

Splitting the transport TFs into little units can have two (off the top of my head) ditractions:

1. Coordination of the troops (if you are moving troops) you are trying to unload - especially in an invasion hex. I often find, even though I have enough load capacity to take the units I have chosen, that if I am close up to the threshold of the TF lift capacity, that the TF will add extra ships to itself (including damaged ships) or that it wont take all the men you intended. You can stop damaged ships from being auto-added but doing so can mean not all the troops go! Remeber you can't tell what the AI is going to do in load operations until it processes the turn - if it does it wrong it will muck your time-table up while you sort out the mess!

2. Surface combat TFs. If the enemy manages to intercept your transport TFs (usually in an invasion or re-supply a base hex) they will attack each TF and will likely do far more damage than they will against a large TF with a few escorts. Typically in a surface engagement (surface comabt vs transport) the surface combat will return fire from defending escorts and also manage to hit 1-3 transports. If you have split the 25 ships Tf into 8 TFs of 3 the only thing stopping you taking massive damage is the enemy running out of ammo!

[Toro]

IIRC, small task forces are less suseptible to being spotted, but if they are spotted, they'll still get hammered. Might be a moot point when considering the end result (in many cases), but don't think that a small trans/cargo/oiler TF won't get attacked.

I also believe the Japanese sub doctrine doesn't exclude APs/etc from being attacked, only that J subs will target combatants if the AI has its druthers.

[raven66]

when making a task force can you use oilers or tankers for supplies / troops too ?

[BPRE]

raven66,

TKs and AOs will only load fuel. Other cargo ships can also load fuel but only at half capacity or less. See manual paragraph 8.21 for more details.

Regards
BPRE