Stupid Amphibious Question

[Chaplain]

Do frogs have thumbs ... ?
[:D]
Wait, no, seriously - I've figured out how to inflict pretty serious air and naval damage on Turn 1 in the Big Enchilada playing as the Japanese. What I'm having less success with is opposed amphibious landings. Do I need to include actual HQ units in the initial opposed landings? I'm in tune with bombardments and aerial pounding, but will it make a big difference if I land the HQ's with the first wave?

[gts2096]

put an AGC with the amphip HQ on it in your landing force. the HQ does'nt go ashore as i have found out in scn 6 as the allies, but it adds to the success of the landing. also, use LCI's LST's and LSD's as your first wave landing craft. they have a "amphib" rating greater than AP's.

[Desertdaddy]

Getting your troops off loaded fast is very important. LST, LSD, LCI all do it fast while APs are slower. While the invading unit is split between many ships and subunits its disruption is pretty high. Once it’s completely ashore notice that the disruption should go down a bunch. I try and carry the 1st wave invasion troops in ships like LST, LSD, LCIs; while the support troops like ART, ARM and ENG come ashore from the APs. But watch out as the LST, LSD, ect have to come in close to drop off their troops and are more susceptible to CD guns.
Also make sure the Admiral in charge of the transport TF is rated for invasions, not just a regular surface commander

[gts2096]

almost forgot. include LCIG's in the first wave also.

[Cap Mandrake]

Do frogs have thumbs ... ?

I cant find this in the manual. Maybe Mr Frag knows.

[Desertdaddy]

LCI(G) right now don't seem to work, I did a bunch of testing with them and only got 1 to ever fie out of 15 invasions. I believe they are being looked at to see why they don't fire their lovely 4.5 rocks. Currently adding them to your invasions force only help as it give the CD guns more targets to shoot at instead of the troop carriers.

[Damien Thorn]

If I put AP and AK ships in the same task force will teh computer know to load the troops on the AP and load cargo on the AK? I haven't tried it yet but I'm thinking, if this is not the case, each time I will have to make two task forces (one troops and one cargo) and merge them together. That would be a real pain.

[Desertdaddy]

It’s a pain but I load my units 1 at a time onto small TFs then join them so I can control what troops go into what kind of ships. I once had a TF with 8 LST and tried to load 2 small ARM battalions into. Way more then enough capacity for both. The computer split one of the ARM units into 8 smaller unites and loaded it while leaving the other unit back at home. It might be pain but loading the correct type of troops into the correct assault ships will save lives down the line during the invasion. Don’t let the computer load all your support personnel into fast unloading ships while your front line fightesr are still stuck on the APs.

[mavraam]

ORIGINAL: Desertdaddy

Getting your troops off loaded fast is very important. LST, LSD, LCI all do it fast while APs are slower. While the invading unit is split between many ships and subunits its disruption is pretty high. Once it’s completely ashore notice that the disruption should go down a bunch. I try and carry the 1st wave invasion troops in ships like LST, LSD, LCIs; while the support troops like ART, ARM and ENG come ashore from the APs. But watch out as the LST, LSD, ect have to come in close to drop off their troops and are more susceptible to CD guns.Also make sure the Admiral in charge of the transport TF is rated for invasions, not just a regular surface commander

According to one of the other posts, you can greatly reduce the affect of CD's by including some big boppers (BB's, CA's) in your invasion force. By having them integrated instead of in a seperate bombardment TF, they do a better job of suppressing CD's. Otherwise, those CD's do some NASTY things to your unprotected LXX's! [X(]

[Desertdaddy]

A successful invasion is not as simple as just loading the troops and hitting the beach; as the Allies learned at Tarawa. There are many small parts that go into an invasion and I think this game is doing a great job of modeling it. Whether it be unloading rates, fire support, unit disruption caused by landing at the wrong spot. Remember back in PW just load up as many troops as you need and dump them on the beach. If you got a good random roll you took a few casualties, if you got a bad roll, you go clobbered.