@35:35 Just note what is going on the air battle. Your fighter escort is fighting the enemy cap. Your attack planes are free from those attacks. That's a coordinated strike of escort and attack at work.
Thanks a lot Richard. It was a bit of a more sticky wicket than I thought I was agreeing to when I accepted the battle, and didn't expect to be fighting the French fleet.
For myself normal CV attack method is co-ordinate by the one carrier. the fighters will arrive with the attack. the fighters mostly keep the CAP off your attack. The larger co-ordinate with multiple carrier I only use rarely such as for an initial blast at a enemy formation of multiple CVs.
The time penalty of 2 hours for cordinating a multi-carrier strike is so long, it is really difficult to justify doing one. The enemy could be 50nm away from the (imprise) last know location of the target.
@36:05 Note on torpedo bomber attacks. Attacks by torpedoes never show immediate hits. Bombs do torps don't. What will tell is in the next 1-3 ticks of the game if a torpedo hit is reported. Think of the attack run being them flying in close and low enough to loose the torp then the plane peels away. The torp then needs those few ticks to finish the distance while the target may be evading. The more TB that get to the launch point in the run the bigger the "spread" of torps and more likely hits will be.
@21:00 the individual report directions were at the moment of sighting so can be varied from overall course. Its more useful to draw an imaginary line through several reports to get an overall course.
Tricky when the courses can be in opposite directions. I think circling they most recent reports to give a rough location and taking note of any consistent reporting in terms of size of force or direction of force is as good as you can get. Of course, if the courses align, that would be brilliant.
16:00 "Fighters doing a brilliant job (which they were though your torpedo bombers were doing just about as well in air to air!) strike aircraft have really lost their edge." Not entirely fair! They had just hit a battlecruiser, a carrier and a destroyer and went on to hit the battlecruiser another three times (at least according to the reports!) Not a decisive victory but a clear one non-the-less. Just had a similar opportunity to teach the French navy a lesson with the Royal Navy turning up with ten fleet carriers, two light carriers and three battlecruisers to the French having three fleet carriers, six light carriers four battleships and two battlecruisers. And it rained all day. Nice you got to play with a dead calm sea for a change!
Last youtube in our chats you mentioned not able to use micro strikes due to a bug. Not sure if thats a thing. You can manually set the number of planes when you ready. You can select multiple groups and change each number before you hit "ready". So you can already set a group of 2-4 fighters and 4 attack planes for a micro strike.
I get a technical read access message when I right click on a squadron to change its number or weapons load. I keep forgetting to send the file to Fredik to include in his next round of bug fixes.
@@RvTWargames I think it was in the Pacific where pilots reported an oil tanker as a CV, bit closer but despite having ship silhouettes they seemed to be hilariously unreliable.
Why does OKW teleport your fleet without telling you where? Congrats on the most successful engagement of the KM in, well, history. There will be inquiries in Paris, but the Blockade goes on. I wish there was a way of coordinating with OKH to break it. Impressed by CAP (roleplaying a gunnery officer on der Tann).
I'd like to think it was the OKM, but with that particular high command structure, who knows! I feel like all I need is one lucky break to really knock around one of these two fleets! But will I get them before they get me?
At approx 16:23 I saw bomb hits on a BC and CVL - difficult to know if it was done by strikes on the main body or scout force. At 18:09 there were 3 reported bomb hits on a BC!
@@RvTWargames Your DBs took a disproportionate number of AA losses (compared to the TBs), it would be nice if they used MASMs instead of dumb bombs to reduce the casualty rate.
On your reports, you are keying in on report type, not report time. I would delete everything more than an hour old, no matter what the enemy force composition was. I would also put a pin on the map for each confirmed strike that you execute. Over time, this will give you a solid course and speed for the main battle line..assuming you continue to attack the same targets.
After forming up strikes with a few fighters with the strike if I have fighters left over I sometimes send the extra fighters as their own. fighters are faster so if they aren't escorting slower planes the fighter only group gets there first. They will duel the CAP. Some of the CAP may be weakened and maybe new ones launched. hopefully my strike arrives while the enemy CAP is still recovering. IF I massively over power the enemy you can fighter bash their CAP. Its a possible use for smaller older CVs or CVL to be fighter only so that they do the fighter bashing to let the large CVs get more strike planes through.
I'm just a bit nervous about denuding my CAP to do fighter sweeps because you can tell when you are going to be attached. If I'm not spotted then that would be different ... but even then!
In addition to what Dickie said, if you massively overwhelm the enemy fighters then that means that your strike force is massively underwhelming. Why? Because the battle generators likes to make balanced battles, therefore it tries to balance the number of CV on both sides. Assuming equal aircraft complement on both sides, this necessarily means that you'd have to have a greater proportion of fighters to strike aircrafts, therefore a lower number of strike aircrafts (they're already not doing much for Dickie even when coordinating an entire carrier division, so they basically won't do any damage if you decrease their numbers, even with had previously reduced the enemy CAP). And even if you sent the same numbers of fighters (as escort of a strike) that the enemy has on CAP, you'd still be at a disadvantage because the enemy has HAA, and later it'll have SAMs.
Indeed. But the direction of the wind was the direction in which the fleet were travelling back to Norway, so shouldn't have caused a significant diviation in course.
@@RvTWargames "checks Google Doc Tech Tree list" Its under Heavier then Air tech. Quote "Fighter Type aircraft on attack missions will use Rockets on Medium Loadout" Unlocks in 1943. Can't say iv used them myself but its a thing. So you MIGHT already have it. I would assume Jets can use them too, would be ODD if they couldn't.
@35:35 Just note what is going on the air battle. Your fighter escort is fighting the enemy cap. Your attack planes are free from those attacks. That's a coordinated strike of escort and attack at work.
Yeah. Nice to see but only two "AMC" and DD bomb hits.
That was a good victory from a very difficult position. well played
Thanks a lot Richard. It was a bit of a more sticky wicket than I thought I was agreeing to when I accepted the battle, and didn't expect to be fighting the French fleet.
For myself normal CV attack method is co-ordinate by the one carrier. the fighters will arrive with the attack. the fighters mostly keep the CAP off your attack. The larger co-ordinate with multiple carrier I only use rarely such as for an initial blast at a enemy formation of multiple CVs.
The time penalty of 2 hours for cordinating a multi-carrier strike is so long, it is really difficult to justify doing one. The enemy could be 50nm away from the (imprise) last know location of the target.
@35:57 The HAA firing report is highly accurate on the ship type. The AMC report is iffy. Far more likely the AMC is one of the CLV firing HAA.
Or the actual CV that was lost.
@36:05 Note on torpedo bomber attacks. Attacks by torpedoes never show immediate hits. Bombs do torps don't. What will tell is in the next 1-3 ticks of the game if a torpedo hit is reported. Think of the attack run being them flying in close and low enough to loose the torp then the plane peels away. The torp then needs those few ticks to finish the distance while the target may be evading. The more TB that get to the launch point in the run the bigger the "spread" of torps and more likely hits will be.
Technically true. But they didn't achieve anything, poor things. I hope I never get reincarnated as a torpedo bomber pilot or observer.
Perfect pre-bedtime watching. Thanks, Dickie! Glad this series has a while to go yet as well.
Hold on to your hat for episodes 45 & 46 (uploaded this coming week). I feel the war is starting culminate.
@21:00 the individual report directions were at the moment of sighting so can be varied from overall course. Its more useful to draw an imaginary line through several reports to get an overall course.
Tricky when the courses can be in opposite directions. I think circling they most recent reports to give a rough location and taking note of any consistent reporting in terms of size of force or direction of force is as good as you can get. Of course, if the courses align, that would be brilliant.
16:00 "Fighters doing a brilliant job (which they were though your torpedo bombers were doing just about as well in air to air!) strike aircraft have really lost their edge." Not entirely fair! They had just hit a battlecruiser, a carrier and a destroyer and went on to hit the battlecruiser another three times (at least according to the reports!) Not a decisive victory but a clear one non-the-less.
Just had a similar opportunity to teach the French navy a lesson with the Royal Navy turning up with ten fleet carriers, two light carriers and three battlecruisers to the French having three fleet carriers, six light carriers four battleships and two battlecruisers. And it rained all day. Nice you got to play with a dead calm sea for a change!
Nice over match for your RN. How very British for it to be raining all day.
A fine escape! Your strike on the BCs was clearly enough to make the French think twice - recriminations in the ranks of the MN m'thinks ...
Had they but known how vulnerable my fleet was to big guns!
@@RvTWargames shaky N2 clearly cuts both ways!
Indeedy!
Last youtube in our chats you mentioned not able to use micro strikes due to a bug. Not sure if thats a thing. You can manually set the number of planes when you ready. You can select multiple groups and change each number before you hit "ready". So you can already set a group of 2-4 fighters and 4 attack planes for a micro strike.
I get a technical read access message when I right click on a squadron to change its number or weapons load. I keep forgetting to send the file to Fredik to include in his next round of bug fixes.
The Joffre sunk is likely the AMC hits reported.
Yes. Though why such egregious missreporting between an AMC and a fleet CV!
Big ship with no big guns
You're generous to the spotters.
@@RvTWargames I think it was in the Pacific where pilots reported an oil tanker as a CV, bit closer but despite having ship silhouettes they seemed to be hilariously unreliable.
You're right, hilarious, except for the admiral, but slightly more forgivable from a distance.
Why does OKW teleport your fleet without telling you where? Congrats on the most successful engagement of the KM in, well, history. There will be inquiries in Paris, but the Blockade goes on. I wish there was a way of coordinating with OKH to break it. Impressed by CAP (roleplaying a gunnery officer on der Tann).
I'd like to think it was the OKM, but with that particular high command structure, who knows!
I feel like all I need is one lucky break to really knock around one of these two fleets!
But will I get them before they get me?
At approx 16:23 I saw bomb hits on a BC and CVL - difficult to know if it was done by strikes on the main body or scout force. At 18:09 there were 3 reported bomb hits on a BC!
Nail biting to really know, isn't it!
@@RvTWargames Your DBs took a disproportionate number of AA losses (compared to the TBs), it would be nice if they used MASMs instead of dumb bombs to reduce the casualty rate.
Still throttled but not enough missiles (even though my doctrine is set to high)
But the CV sunk was due to two 1000lb bomb hits though so DBs leading the way
I think it was more due to the good fortune of hitting while fuelled planes were on deck. IIRC
On your reports, you are keying in on report type, not report time. I would delete everything more than an hour old, no matter what the enemy force composition was. I would also put a pin on the map for each confirmed strike that you execute. Over time, this will give you a solid course and speed for the main battle line..assuming you continue to attack the same targets.
After forming up strikes with a few fighters with the strike if I have fighters left over I sometimes send the extra fighters as their own. fighters are faster so if they aren't escorting slower planes the fighter only group gets there first. They will duel the CAP. Some of the CAP may be weakened and maybe new ones launched. hopefully my strike arrives while the enemy CAP is still recovering. IF I massively over power the enemy you can fighter bash their CAP. Its a possible use for smaller older CVs or CVL to be fighter only so that they do the fighter bashing to let the large CVs get more strike planes through.
I'm just a bit nervous about denuding my CAP to do fighter sweeps because you can tell when you are going to be attached. If I'm not spotted then that would be different ... but even then!
In addition to what Dickie said, if you massively overwhelm the enemy fighters then that means that your strike force is massively underwhelming. Why? Because the battle generators likes to make balanced battles, therefore it tries to balance the number of CV on both sides. Assuming equal aircraft complement on both sides, this necessarily means that you'd have to have a greater proportion of fighters to strike aircrafts, therefore a lower number of strike aircrafts (they're already not doing much for Dickie even when coordinating an entire carrier division, so they basically won't do any damage if you decrease their numbers, even with had previously reduced the enemy CAP).
And even if you sent the same numbers of fighters (as escort of a strike) that the enemy has on CAP, you'd still be at a disadvantage because the enemy has HAA, and later it'll have SAMs.
* NEVER tell 🙄
Don’t forget your carriers have to keep turning into the wind. That’s probably why they’re losing ground on the cruisers.
Indeed. But the direction of the wind was the direction in which the fleet were travelling back to Norway, so shouldn't have caused a significant diviation in course.
Exactly! The carriers have to turn INTO the wind, i.e. back to the southwest.
Oh yeah. That. 🤦
Hmmmm, ya know if memory serves your Fighters (and jet fighters) CAN carry Rockets to conduct attacks with, if you have that Tech Researched.
Don't think I've seen rockets yet.
@@RvTWargames "checks Google Doc Tech Tree list" Its under Heavier then Air tech. Quote "Fighter Type aircraft on attack missions will use Rockets on Medium Loadout" Unlocks in 1943. Can't say iv used them myself but its a thing.
So you MIGHT already have it. I would assume Jets can use them too, would be ODD if they couldn't.
Good to know!