Debacle in the South Pacific!

[neuromancer]

I've been playing a post Midway scenario vs. the AI for a while now. And despite initial problems involving bombing runs and Tokyo Express bombardment against PM (I lost more darn B17s that way...), plus a lucky sub crippling my Battleship before it could do anything particularly useful (not that said sub survived the vengence of the BBs escorts), I had generally been doing pretty well.

I had one carrier skirmish, his air groups got shot to hell plus damge to all his carriers, and my two (Saratoga and Enterprise) were moderately damged and withdrew for repairs. So we'd been sans CVs for a while.

I got Hornet and Wasp, who proceeded to aquit themselves admirably, smashing several IJN surface battle groups, sending a BB to the bottom, and many (MANY!) more ships limping home for repairs. The Japanese land based level bombers were a shadow of their former self (although their numbers of fighters were simply impressive), many a transport had gone to the bottom (although I had taken significant surface asset losses myself including 2 CAs and a CL), although only 5 IJN subs were sunk, this seemed to have been adequate to scare away any further submarine harrassement. Guadalcanal had fallen to an invasion of an Australian division, plus a USMC division, supported by heavy bombers and surface assets. And I was forming up to invade GG.

In short the game was going pretty well. I figured the game was already decided, it was merely the formalities of actually accomplishing victory. Being as it was only September 42, I was rather disappointed really.
I figured oh well, the AI was pretty good, but it is just an AI.

Suddenly my recon units spot an IJN carrier group of two fleet carriers and a CVL near GG. His carriers had not been heard from since the original skirmish with Saratoga and Enterprise.

So his carriers putting in a surprise appearance near New Guinea was a development. Pretty sneaky too for them to get that close without being detected.

'Ah!' I thought, 'something for my carriers to do!'

Hornet and Wasp had just docked in Australia to refuel and give the crews a little shore leave, but I sortie the carrier group as soon as the enemy was detected, in relatively close proximity.
The nearby land based air fdecided that the carriers weren't very important, and so went off to bomb the crap out of a lone minsweeeper and two transports (thanks... ya dweebs), but I figured 'the carriers can handle it. Probably end up in drydock for theoir trouble though'.

The carriers engaged. Planes were launched.
I knew things were going badly when maybe 2/3 of the planes that should have been there actually appeared. Even though I had something like 60 Wildcats, less than 20 escorted the attack runs, and maybe another 25 were actually acting as CAP).

I assume that those pilots wouldn't actually say 'nah, I don't feel like flying today. I'll just stay here in my bunk while we get bombed by the enemy'. More likely they hadoperational losses, or got lost, or something.

Anyway. My fighter escorts shoot down nothing, but several of my Dauntlesses are shot up and about half of the Air Group runs from the battle (they would have been shot for cowardice in he face of the enemy, except it turned out not to be necessary).

Finally the attack run begins. I barely scratched his carriers, denting a light carrier and putting a large hole in the deck of one of his two fleet carriers.

And then his air strike comes in. My fighters, who had been superb in previous engagements, suddenly find that they launched without ammo. And the Kates and Vals are allowed almost unrestricted access to the carriers below.

Both Wasp and Hornet are pounded into scrap metal, and new homes are made for the South Pacific sea life.

Eep.

Suddenly the game is no longer even remotely in the bag!

- - - -

I think I know why it happened. There was a certain degree of bad luck involved, no question. Both my carrier and nearby land based planes performed very badly (assuming they participated at all), that was obvious - and his seemed to perform particularly well (hit a lot, and out of 16 ships in my task force, his bombers all do runs against my carriers and 1 DD).

But my air groups were relatively fatigued with moderate morale. Now I've had air groups perform admirably at these levels, apparently I had been lucky before - or unlucky this time.

And of course, his planes were fresh.

So now they suddenly find they cannot hit their targets, they cannot even find the battle, and in the face of the enemy my pilots suddenly remember that they left the iron on.

Bad, very bad…

The game suddenly becomes much more interesting.

[marky]

hmmmm

shot for cowardice?


thats wat the russkies did to their troops that retreated - (the dummies)

how come there havent been any patches to fix all this crap?

[pasternakski]

ORIGINAL: marky
how come there havent been any patches to fix all this crap?

Patches to fix what? You go into battle, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Some days you're the hustler, and some days you're the hustled.

Seriously, though, this appears to be a game against the AI. It cheats. When you're ahead, it cheats even worse.

[marky]

all the bugs


ive been amazed at the amount of bugs looking thru these forums

and ive been lookingthru em, looking at everything since i got the damn thing

and the computer always cheats [:'(]

everyone knows that lol

lmao

[Shadow of the Condor]

In terms of CAP (I discussed this with Quark off-line during our game) I think what a lot of folks fail to remember (including me) is that if you put a squadron of 24 planes on 100% CAP, there is a chance they all won't participate. Planes on CAP aren't there from sunup to sundown. They have to rotate. Now, assuming enough raid warning is given (radar helps,of course) there's a better chance more CAP designated planes will actually intercept.

What triggered this is when Quark tried to take Townsville as the IJN and we would have multiple combats in the same hex. I was getting frustrated that there were always 50 Zeroes on CAP intercepting my SBDs, et. al, while at the same time Quark was wondering where his 100 Zeroes were. [:)]

Marky, I feel for you not being able to actually play the game. Been there myself. I hope you can get it going very soon.

(As far as the AI I plead ignorance. I played scenario 1 twice and haven't played against the AI since.)

Btw, gentlemen, excellent AAR! Keep it going [:)]

[Philwd]

[/quote]

while at the same time Quark was wondering where his 100 Zeroes were.

LOL!! You bet I was wondering. I finally chalked it up to morale and fatigue having dropped from 99 and 0 to ~60 and 20. Unfortunate thing was it went from perfect CAP coverage to 33% showing up in just 1 turn. Left my big CVs just hanging there. In fact Kaga, Zuik and Shoho never did repair all their damage from that day. Even though I did use them in subsequent operations.

Quark

[neuromancer]

Yes this was against the AI way back when, and while the AI probably did cheat a little, experience has shown me since then (this was quite some time ago, I was surprisaed to see posts here after all this time) that 50 - 65 morale and 35+ fatigue is a recipe for disaster when going up against CV groups.

I don't think there was any 'bug' involved. Overconfidence on my part, perhaps some cheating on the part of the AI, a little bad luck, and - as said - the way morale and fatigue work that I hadn't really understood.