Do you like WW2 grand strategy naval wargames?

[metadigital]

So there are nighttime bombardments, then? Cool.

[alanschu]

Yeah. The game prefers to do nighttime naval bombardments, as it lets the ships run away the next move phase, so as to distance itself from land based aircraft.

 

There's also nighttime air attacks, but I've had such little success with them that I rarely do them. Though one time I did get a torpedo into an aircraft carrier, usually I come away with zero hits. Well, usually I come away with out any contacts whatsoever.

 

Apparently if there is a ship on fire at night, the chances of getting attacked goes up dramatically, both from ships in the same hex, and planes flying night missions.

 

 

EDIT: And it seems luck is back on my side. A Catalina spotted a Carrier near New Guinea, so my B-24 Liberator squadron loaded up with 2000 lb GP bombs, and blew it to smithereens!

 

 

And I just got word that CV Akagi, which was part of the assault on my now sunk carriers, just sunk near Truk. Woo!

Edited January 12, 2007 by alanschu

[Calax]

And I just got word that CV Akagi, which was part of the assault on my now sunk carriers, just sunk near Truk. Woo!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

does it say that because it was within sight of one of your units or does it sometimes just randomly say "Ship X sunk due to battle damage sustained at X date"

[alanschu]

Unfortunately, I have God's eye view of the sinking of ships.

 

 

I write it off as being intelligence coups, since there is a SigInt screen that reports various troop and ship locations, and occasional movements as well, incorporated right in the game.

[metadigital]

I think that's a fair enough trade-off: you either get to know how well you're doing by hearing status reports from both sides, or you play with Fog and don't get any info until the end (either very good or very bad ).

[alanschu]

A bit of me would like all the information to be hidden, so that I don't know what I'm going up against. This is what happened with Midway. Yamamoto though that the Americans were down to just two Carriers, because it thought that the Yorktown had sunk at the Coral Sea.

 

But at the same time, I get a small euphoric feeling when I see that I have sunk a large fleet carrier

[metadigital]

They should have the same system as the sports news on tv: "If you don't want to know the score, look away now ..!" )

[alanschu]

Well, the problem is that it's logged in the "Sunk Ships" screen. There was a couple carriers that I hadn't realized I had sunk (mostly because I'm alt-tabbed during much of the turn phase, and I just let it do its thing in the background).

 

But I wouldn't want to get rid of that screen, because there's a fair share of ships that are confirmed kills (such as that tanker that gets hit with 15 1000 lb AP bombs).

 

 

In game news, April 1943 marked another time for many refits, so my Navy is sitting back undergoing upgrades. Most battleships have become giant AA platforms, and my destroyers are now equipped with the Mk9 Depth Charge, which is teardrop shaped to sink faster. Hence, it's more accurate. I'm also getting my first wave of Destroyer Escorts, which will be used to both escort (duh!) convoys, but also make Hunter-Killer groups. They are armed with Hedgehogs, in addition to a combination of Mk7/m1 and Mk9 depth charges (the Mk7/m1 are a bit less accurate, but are packed with 3 times the TNT, so if they hit...look out!).

 

 

At the moment, all US based carriers are at Pearl Harbour, with the exception of a single Light Carrier still at San Francisco.

[metadigital]

I do get a perverse sense of enjoyment at reading the destructive power of munitions. :">

[alanschu]

Hehe, me too.

 

 

It's nice to be on the other side of Hedgehogs. The last time I encountered them was in Silent Hunter 3, and wooo-eee did they suck. Only explode on impact, so they never lose track of where I am, unless they hit me!

[alanschu]

Well, for the most part I've been laying low, but I did want to have one last bit of fun. I'm waiting mostly for the Hellcat to become active, as it's a significant improvement over the Wildcats my carriers currently have.

 

But I just sent out a huge carrier Task Force for one quick patrol. It consisted of 4 fleet carriers (Saratoga, Lexington, Essex, and Enterprise), and two Light Carriers (Independence and Princeton). 4 Destroyers and 5 light cruisers round out the escorts. I put William Halsey in command, since he has capable Air Skill, and is extremely aggressive. And wouldn't you know it, just south of Guam, I found CV Soryu. My attack was able to punch through well enough, shooting down a few Zeros and getting 17 1000 lb bombs to hit, and 2 torpedoes. At the same time, his strike force made a play towards my fleet, but they were chewed up by the large CAP protecting the fleet. No hits sustained on my part. The Soryu is sunk, and her flight crew gone with her.

 

A big success for the Allies. I also sent out a surface fleet consisting mostly of refitted old battleships. They hope to do some convoy raiding themselves, and the Halsey's Task Force will provide air cover for them.

[metadigital]

Are the battles auto-fought? Can you zoom in and micro-manage the battles, like in Rome: Total War?

[alanschu]

No. It's a large scale strategic game done at the macro level. You can watch some little animations, but I find they take too long so I just let it autoresolve really quickly and give me the details.

[metadigital]

Right, so it isn't possible to manually override a weaker general's strategy with your own, to help achieve a better result. That is good; one of the "advances" I didn't hold to in the Civ franchise, specifically from Two to Three and Four, was the protracted battle setting and concomitant unit health status (which mercifully could be toggled off).

[alanschu]

What do you mean? I loved the unit health status in Civ. It makes the whole "Man with Stick beats Tank" so much less likely. It's not like I'd be controlling them doing elaborate flanking maneuvers or anything.

[metadigital]

Because I liked beating tanks with my man-with-a-stick? "

[alanschu]

My favourite was when I tried attacking the man-with-a-stick militia man with a battleship...and lost.

 

I'm not sure what he did. Toss his stick into the main battery, causing a jam and explosion on the ship, for a series of unfortunate and highly unlikely chain of events, blowing up the ammo magazine and subsequently putting a big hole in the ship. Or something.

[metadigital]

Well, the British navy have lost a couple of ships in battles, though, not against men with sticks ... I recall a particular one (with German battleship, though) and the postmortem I watched indicated that the UK ship was in breach of safety regs; apparently is was quite common to not keep an air-gap between all the constituent links in the chain from storage of the munitions to the guns, which caused a stray spark form the gun to ignite the entire load of munitions. Apparently, this was common lexa-non-scripta practice for the navy, as it allowed the teams to speed up the reloading process significantly. I guess the reason for health and safety regulations was brought home with such incidents ... :D

[alanschu]

Was that by any chance the sinking of the Hood?

[metadigital]

Um. Not sure. Maybe.

 

David Bruce Banner. "

[Calax]

Um. Not sure. Maybe. 

 

David Bruce Banner. "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

wasn't that the name they gave the hulk so he didn't sound gay? in the tv show.

Edited January 15, 2007 by Calax

[alanschu]

Yes. It was from a different thread. You see, Meta knows that that was something that he knew, that other people didn't know. So because he wasn't sure if it was the sinking of the Hood (since the Hood was sunk by a hit in the ammo magazine by the Bismarck), he tried sidestepping the issue by giving an example of something obscure that he DID know.

 

It's all very elementary really.

[alanschu]

THe offensive into Burma has paid off extensively. I have been able to capture Rangoon, which mean Moulmein and Tavoy were soon to follow. From Rangoon, I am using B-17s and B-24s to mine the harbours of Bangkok, and other Japanese Ports in the Gulf of Siam.

 

Unfortunately my shore bombardment on Saipen was less successful. There are many large coastal guns, and they were able to inflict many hits on the ships, particularly the smaller ones, and it was enough to make the Task Force leader call off the attack. No ship is in danger of sinking, but some gun emplacements have been damaged. In any case, it's back to Pearl for repairs.

 

Hollandia is being quite built up along the northern New Guinea. My plan is to make it a raiding base, where planes and raiders can inflict heavy damages upon ships heading to Truk and Rabaul. The only issue is getting fuel there is going to be a bit of a hassle. Going straight there from Hawaii involves running a gauntlet of Japanese airbases, whereas a trip to Australia, and around western New Guinea, will just take a very long time. Oh well, the small price of time to inflict (hopefully) heavy attritional losses.

[metadigital]

I've seen a map of the merchant navy ships sunk in the Atlantic and it is almost beyond comprehension just how much was lost.

 

Back to night missions: I wonder if you can send out day bombing missions, like the US did into Germany (while the Brits stuck to the much safer night flights)?

[alanschu]

If I want I can send out day bombing. I typically do, because the results are greatly increased.