Matrix Games Forums

OK I just got whacked hard in my PBEM game. Had 3 CV's in one hex of Wolje (sp?) in a light blue hex. I had a 1052 rating (98%) for I believe sorties. Well I got jumped by 4-6 Jap CV etc. I only launched less than about 10% of my bombers. Any idea on where I went wrong. I don't really understand the sortie rating thing? I mean aslong as its a high % of my total my planes will fly sortie after sortie until they run out of supplies bombs which is reflected in the 98%. So why do I have to port if I have good fuel status and my sortie rate is high? I think I'm missing something here. Two of the three CV's (one was Brit) where at sea for a long period of time.....morale was good.....
I take it my planes didn't fly because I was in a coastal hex?
Should I not get around 100-200 sorties a day for this time period in the war?
I had the Saratoa and the Hornet get destroyed. Normally they see to counter attack nicely. I had all my bomber sqn's on naval attack and all the morales where in the 90's.
One thing I did notice that none of my 58 float planes seemed to help in raising the DL of the enemy fleets 3-5 hexes away. They were all on naval search? hmmm
Anyideas....

Ok first things firts:

- Where your CVs in one or several TF ?
- What where your squadron settings, each if possible ?
- Have you checked if your Cvs weren't overcrowded ? ( more than 10% plane over capacity )

Then we wil look after moral and meteo...

ORIGINAL: KERENSKY

Ok first things firts:

- Where your CVs in one or several TF ?
- What where your squadron settings, each if possible ?
- Have you checked if your Cvs weren't overcrowded ? ( more than 10% plane over capacity )

Then we wil look after moral and meteo...

Once again, I hope people will begin to realize that "MORALE" should have nothing to do with strike launching. The fact that the game has been modelled based on this fallacy should not make it a checklist issue,it should make it a "feature to be changed" issue.

What morale issue historically kept airgroups from launching during a carrier operation/engagement?[&:]

I bet Ron is making daily searches with "morale" as keyword... each and every time he finds a match he posts a complain about no flying pilots [:D] Sorry, Ron, just kidding [&o]

ORIGINAL: adso

I bet Ron is making daily searches with "morale" as keyword... each and every time he finds a match he posts a complain about no flying pilots [:D] Sorry, Ron, just kidding [&o]

It's just that morale has/should have nothing to with any of this aside from performance during a mission. Morale is a determining factor in a units viability as a frontline unit, but the player makes that determination by pulling the unit out or leaving it in. It is not the place of individual pilots/leaders to determine whether orders will be followed based on morale. Military command structure simply does not operate as a democracy. Totally flawed concept here but it is a central design parameter here.[8|]

I could agree w/you (morale at best could influence how aggressively a pilot should have pressed his run or dive) but I think everybody has your concept now [;)]

Ron. Agree 100%. The idea of pilots telling CO's "nah.., I don't feel like
making an attack today" is truely stupid. Poor morale might cause a re-
luctance to press home an attack, but not to fly one. And it really SUCKS
when you have squadrons ordered to fly a naval attack that decide they
don't feel like it today and then get pasted sitting on their airfields and die
anyway.

ORIGINAL: adso

I could agree w/you (morale at best could influence how aggressively a pilot should have pressed his run or dive) but I think everybody has your concept now [;)]

That's good. Too bad game designers don't. Seems like past game design has more impact on overall design than fact.

I agree with Ron on "Would morale really affect whether a air unit launches a mission or not."[X(][X(]

However, I can see where a unit with poor morale might take off, but may not aggresivally search for the target, and if they find the target, may not aggresivally and/or accuratlly attack the target.

How the designers set things up might not be realistically accurate, but it does add some sort of factor into the game other then 100% launch and 100% accuratlly attacking a target.

Maybe they should have made fatigue more of a factor on whether an air unit would launch, and called morale "dysentery" to reflect whether they could attack.

I think it has something to do with the maximum number of planes per strike. It is on page 130 in the manual. It could be so that your strike was divided into two parts because of this rule (one big an one small) and the small one launched first. Perhaps the other one didn't find the target or something.

ORIGINAL: Charbroiled

I agree with Ron on "Would morale really affect whether a air unit launches a mission or not."[X(][X(]

However, I can see where a unit with poor morale might take off, but may not aggresivally search for the target, and if they find the target, may not aggresivally and/or accuratlly attack the target.

How the designers set things up might not be realistically accurate, but it does add some sort of factor into the game other then 100% launch and 100% accuratlly attacking a target.

Maybe they should have made fatigue more of a factor on whether an air unit would launch, and called morale "dysentery" to reflect whether they could attack.

Granted, morale could mean more than just morale (operational readiness maybe...a mix of morale, fatigue, equipment state etc), but the player should have A)someway of better understanding the ramifications (if all aircraft are ready,they should be ready)and B)someway of manipulating it better (such as mission/target priorities and commitment level). Otherwise, get rid of morale affecting launch numbers.

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker
That's good. Too bad game designers don't. Seems like past game design has more impact on overall design than fact.

attack

Napoleon's fault IMHO... All those wargames where the morale impacts so much... Yeah, let Matrix designers alone and blame the old little Emperor [:D]

Myself, if the morale of my air units start getting low (>60), I put the unit on standdown until the morale comes back up, which it does fairly quickly (3-5 days). If morale seems to drop too quickly, I replace the leader with a higher leadership rating. This appears to help, but I'm not positive.

Also if morale is low, many of the units might be turning back due to "mechanical" problems long before encountering the enemy. I've heard this called "Rabaul knock"

I was in the Navy. Morale has nothing to do with much of anything. If they say fly; you fly. Morale is not even an issue.

According to Robert MacNamara, a study was done in the 8th Air Force about aborted missions. His group found that the majority of aborts by individual a/c for supposed mechanical reasons were false, and the crew just wimped out. Of course, this was probably earlier in the war. A group commander, LeMay (so maybe the 305th BG?) said that anyone that aborted would be court-martialed, and the aborts dropped precipitously.

Don't have any historical data to argue either side, but note that the assumption that the morale factor solely represents individual pilots deciding to fly or not, and/or wimping out on the way, may not be the whole story. The base commander may be deciding not to fly missions, or to limit them. "Hmm, half the group was wiped out by the AA yesterday. I'll stand them down for a day or two and let them recover."

I bet one can find lots of historical examples where air groups did not fly every day for 30 days straight

Getting back to the original question, did Matrix/2by3 take out the function that CV's launch with a penalty in shallow water or from a port or whatever the rule is/used to be in UV? Could that explain part of his problem?

ORIGINAL: erstad

Don't have any historical data to argue either side, but note that the assumption that the morale factor solely represents individual pilots deciding to fly or not, and/or wimping out on the way, may not be the whole story. The base commander may be deciding not to fly missions, or to limit them. "Hmm, half the group was wiped out by the AA yesterday. I'll stand them down for a day or two and let them recover."

I bet one can find lots of historical examples where air groups did not fly every day for 30 days straight

Not the base CO's job, it's the job of the HQ head honcho...chain of command.They didnot fly because they were ordered to stand down. If ordered to go...GO![8D]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Not the base CO's job, it's the job of the HQ head honcho...chain of command.They didnot fly because they were ordered to stand down. If ordered to go...GO![8D]

Ya know, Ron, I think you are almost to the point of quoting me word for word way back during that "Question about LBA" thread I started.