Hello there - Air raid on ...

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ncc1701e
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Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by ncc1701e »

A good way to say hello to the Italians at the beginning of the war.

Concentrate your carrier fleet in Malta plus several BB/CA/DD and subs for protection. If the Italians have not detected your moves, declare war against Italy just before they are about to do it and perform an air raid on Taranto.

You can have some pretty good results the first and the next turn.
Air raid on Taranto 1.JPG
Air raid on Taranto 1.JPG (157.19 KiB) Viewed 611 times

Air raid on Taranto 2.JPG
Air raid on Taranto 2.JPG (145.07 KiB) Viewed 611 times
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stjeand
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by stjeand »

Sadly when I try this...I just get fleet spotted...

Rare for me to get a hit.
kklemmick
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by kklemmick »

stjeand wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2023 12:27 pm Sadly when I try this...I just get fleet spotted...

Rare for me to get a hit.
Same for me when I do this. Of course, stjeand just got me twice in our game with this.

I really, really wish there was less randomness in fleet combat. It feels like there's no strategy there, just luck.
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stjeand
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by stjeand »

kklemmick wrote: Mon Oct 16, 2023 8:02 pm Same for me when I do this. Of course, stjeand just got me twice in our game with this.

I really, really wish there was less randomness in fleet combat. It feels like there's no strategy there, just luck.
A lot was luck...

Bismarck...Midway...All were luck for the most part.
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MagicMissile
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by MagicMissile »

Probably like 18 months ago I did some tests on a UK strike on Kiel canal with 0 AA 2 AA and 6 AA. I did not have a huge sample but I think I did 30 tries on each. I got a hit rate of 17% with 6 AA and 25% with 2 AA and 32% with 0 AA. If anyone is interested :). So yes very often these strikes dont workout very well and possibly the chance to hit something is a bit too low.

And I agree that the random outcomes of both BoA and naval battles took some time to get used to but I think it is how it should be. As Stjeand said and I agree naval battles involved a lot of luck and decision making on a micro level that WP cannot portray.

I think we all agree that if the real war was a game then the Japanese player must have been drunk on Sake or something because he did not play very well on the first turn of June 1942. A good warplayer would not have spread out his fleet like that knowing that in general it is better to concentrate your forces. On top of that he had some bad luck with the spotter plane failing to see the US forces and other things and the rest as they say is history :).

/MM
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Shellshock
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by Shellshock »

MagicMissile wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2023 6:59 am I think we all agree that if the real war was a game then the Japanese player must have been drunk on Sake or something because he did not play very well on the first turn of June 1942. A good warplayer would not have spread out his fleet like that knowing that in general it is better to concentrate your forces. On top of that he had some bad luck with the spotter plane failing to see the US forces and other things and the rest as they say is history :).
It's interesting to note that throughout the war, even as their fleet weakened in numbers relative to the USN, the Japanese never lost their sad devotion to diluting their strength in complex, dispersed operations. For instance, in 1944 the Japanese again divided their forces into a welter of smaller unsupportive formations in the face of a superior enemy at Leyte Gulf. Three separate battle squadrons were to converge on the landings at Leyte, while Ozawa's carrier force acted as bait. Even if it had worked, the cost likely would have been a completely sunken fleet and a delay in US offensive momentum the only result.

Japanese operations in the early battles at Java and Coral Sea as well as later ops at the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz also featured multiple Japanese formations maneuvering without the ability to mutually reinforce one another.

For whatever reasons, intricate operations were endemic to the IJN because Japanese doctrine and fleet exercises often entailed these elaborate encircling maneuvers, usually at night unfolding like clockwork to trap the enemy. Maybe it was a Sun Tzu inspired: "be divinely mysterious, everywhere at once" influence on their thinking, but that rubbish doesn't work when the other side has been busy rifling through your mailbox. At Midway, concentrated brute force would have been the way to go even if it meant dragging the carrier Zuikaku and its shattered air group along. Any objective deemed worth taking should have involved every available flight deck.

I know warped and outdated institutional military ideologies are hard to simulate in a game, but they sure play outsized roles in the actual events. Especially when one side stubbornly sticks to them.
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stjeand
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by stjeand »

The difficult part is as stated many times there is no bonus to separating. You should surely be much harder to find but that never seems to be the case.

A fleet of 6 CVs with escorts is huge...1 CV with 2 escorts would be much more difficult to find.

But not sure of a solution to be honest.

Another thing would be...in this game IF there was the battle of the Coral Sea it would be a complete disaster for the US. Losing a CV vs a CVL is huge...BUT they knocked two Japanese CVs out of action for a year...so they missed Midway. In this game they are fully repaired in a month and back in action.
Hopefully that changes in the next iteration. As painful as it would be to have a CV with 30 Str take 18 damage and overall take 9 months to repair, that would be about right, AND have to be done in Japan proper so that takes even more time.
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MagicMissile
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by MagicMissile »

@Shellshock I agree with what you say. In the end a game is a game and we have hindsight and no doctrine or political consideration to consider but for sure Japanese execution of the war feels like it left a lot do desire.

@Stjeand Agree repair should take longer but maybe cost should be lower. It is crazy expensive repair ships :).
/MM
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stjeand
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Re: Hello there - Air raid on ...

Post by stjeand »

MagicMissile wrote: Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:07 am @Stjeand Agree repair should take longer but maybe cost should be lower. It is crazy expensive repair ships :).
/MM
ABSOLUTELY...cost would be cheap since you get to divide say a 500 point CV by 30...

So each point is about 17...then I think 40% of that, though could be wrong so 7 points per repair...

It would take a while but cost little.
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