76 Rule the Waves 3 | Germany 1935 | Exposed Carrier Battle

[@b1laxson]

@50:29 I'm pretty sure you read the French fleet movements backwards. Their ships are shown at their end points. There are time stamps on the trail with the lower numbers in the north east. Its still good to look at those tracks to get an idea how hard it is to predict where an enemy CV force is going to be. Getting and keeping contact for strikes is the hardest part of CV on CV fights.

[@b1laxson]

Helping others teaches you. this time its me learning. I hadn't ever thought to sort the air tab by type to figure out what is going on with my massive amount of colony airfields.

[@akarinnnnnn]

I agree with you about the unrealistic deployments and doing roleplaying to make up for the shortcomings of the generator. However consider that you are supposed to be blockading France. You can't really say that you're blockading France if you keep your fleet confined to Iceland and the North Sea. From a role playing point of view you are simply enforcing the blockade.

[@RvTWargames]

Fair point!

[@b1laxson]

ON CV battle recon. It is still good to ADD manual flights on top of the auto arcs. First main reason is that if your recon does get close to their CVs their CAP may kill the recon plane. Second is you can somewhat guess the enemy CVs are somewhere ahead of you PLUS the enemy CVs must start moving into the wind so add some manual recon flights with that bias.

[@rbfishcs123]

11:05 - not many players care about minelaying / mine defense, but for some reason I do. Hopefully in future iterations of RTW they add some more flare / game mechanics into mines to becoming a little more interesting. Even nowadays, most modern navies still maintain minelaying + Mine defense capabilities in surface fleets (and probably for submersables as well).

[@b1laxson]

Pro Tip: @31:36 you need to also adjust for how their CVs, like yours, must turn into the wind a lot. That course appears to be their desired heading. Their actual will be that + into-wind. Thanks to the speed of jets there is far less time for them to get away from where they were spotted.

[@richardprivate5568]

Great day off work. RvT uploads RTW3. Awesome

[@RvTWargames]

Don't you love it when a lazy day comes together!

[@TinyDragonLair]

As far as the carrier conversion stuff goes, I believe if your CV is under 40,000 tons, a heavy jet fighter takes up 1.5 capacity. There was either a pop-up or a CV tech that explained it. Other than that, I think all other jets are 1 for 1, it just eats up a lot of displacement to initially convert over to jets and you usually have to take your air complement down.

[@b1laxson]

Yeah my own game in 1950s got that message of a CV under 40,000 tons about the big jets (HJF and JA). I forget if it was a 1.5 cost or no go.

[@b1laxson]

Neat idea on on spreading out a DD squadron as bait for enemy air attacks. On keeping the DD in position... you could just lower the DD speed below 15 knots. Also your base CV speed was at 18. So they speed up to make 30+ for air ops then turn to your desired heading but SLOW to that 18. You could speed up the CV base speed. Note: the DDs with the CVs will run out of fuel faster.

[@RvTWargames]

In the end I had to lower it to 12kn!

[@bjornhellgate3985]

Really looking forward to seeing your 124ac carriers in action, i have had those things annihilate entire fleets before

[@RvTWargames]

Well that would make a refreshing change from the diffident battles I'm having just now!

[@bjornhellgate3985]

@@RvTWargames It is very funny never getting visual range on a ship only indication of a battle going on being "Enemy UNSIGHTED hit by missile" and then finiding out the only survivors was 2 destroyers getting lucky

[@b1laxson]

Pro Tip: When sending out strikes I sometimes add a recon plane or pair to the same spot or one father out (to get a flying out and flying back scan). Not sure how much this helps as the main attack may be reporting anyway. A fan of 3 recon flights, left-center-right, can help figure out enemy movements. LFJ can be used for these.

[@RvTWargames]

Interesting idea. Certainly worth it with bigger carriers. Feel a bit constrained with only 44-46 planes.

[@b1laxson]

@@RvTWargames you can send a single fighter to do it. Its a bit cheezy in early 1940s due to the limited navigation assets a single pilot plane can do over open ocean. Single pilot recon planes were a thing, like recon spitfires, but were mostly for over land where there is terrain to assist figuring out your location. Mid 1940s and into 1950s there is alot more navigation aides that the realism is better for a fighter recon flight. also if doing recon close to a suspected enemy CV you might want to send it as 2 planes not 1 for better odds of getting report back through their CAP attacks

[@b1laxson]

@46:50 On Dawn you might wanted to have turned your CAP level back up.

[@TinyDragonLair]

Right as I was about to go to bed, Mr RvT posts a new video. Guess I'm staying up for another hour to watch! :)

[@RvTWargames]

Memo to Self: Be sensitive to US time zones! Some of my viewers are easily led astray!

[@b1laxson]

When trimming down the flights being flown to steer north on the search tab you never selected "no search" which is one of the options. Instead you turned off the double search.

[@rmdomainer9042]

It is a pity they do not tell you which scout is under CAP attack. Very complicated to figure out which minute dot disappears in the next turn. CAP presence is usually a sign for me to send a strike directly into that grid. On a clear day they always seem to be able to find a high value target.

[@b1laxson]

@16:10 my assessment is that its not an attack of 3 MB but your CAP is trying to kill a lone recon MB three times. This is actually bad news as they have spotted your carriers before you spotted them.

[@jaywerner8415]

Id say that CV battle went pretty well all things considered, you have 4 Fleet Carriers and they had 2 Fleet Carriers and 3 CVLs. Your Pilots are getting some Real Combat XP which is always good. And honestly your bombers did pretty well, not GRATE mind you but not too many causalities if I was reading those logs correctly (like 1 or 2 bombers per combat roll). But hay the Heavy AA guns are getting WORK done on those Medium and Patrol Bombers. Aw.... those 3 new CVs with 128 Aircraft Capacity, that would explain the 12,000 Reichsmark deficit yes. And 1 of them coming out drydock in December shortly followed by the other 2 a few months later in 1955. NICE!

[@RvTWargames]

Yes, I hope the pilot experience is growing much faster under combat conditions rather than swinging the anchor in Wilmshaven. And now they have Jet Attack to play with, they might be less vulnerable. Very much looking forward to 1955 if the French are still in the war! (Which I doubt).

[@jaywerner8415]

@@RvTWargames Now if only your Scientists could figure out how Missile Blind Firing Works. The more I think about it that is such a weird way to phrase it, but that will let you shoot missiles at Radar contacts. (no visual ID required)

[@antonisauren8998]

And you were right, that accepting those battle in the Bay of Biscay is mostly pointless. Just dozens aircrews lost on both sides without much result as neither of you were able to mount up large strike package. Auto strike shies away from sending all it could at once. In first sortie only half of carriers spot value is used with dozen HJF idle and the rest used as escort.

[@stevejones5824]

Your current CVs have small CAGs/Squadrons, limiting your striking power, as you rightly observe. When your new super-CVs get commissioned how will this impact your Flug composition and roles? I feel that the new CVs could form a single "Strike" Flug with squadrons weighted for attack and escort whilst your existing CV squadrons reorganise for Fleet CAP/search. This would give you a potent alpha strike (with decent follow up strikes). There is a risk however if the battle generator doesn't give you the correct forces, so maybe mixed CV Flugs?

[@RvTWargames]

I was mullin over the same idea. Does depend on the battle generator serving up all the Flugs. Perhaps I should organise mixed flugs, with a strike CV and a CAP CV in each. Obviously I couldn't coordinate a big strike from two strike carriers, but it would ensure I didn't have the strike flug appear without CAP! Perhaps when the new CVs are all built that will be easier to organise.

[@akarinnnnnn]

​@@RvTWargames I would experiment with that if you can like on a separate save. I did this in a playthrough and the generator would frequently straight up ignore my mixed carrier divisions and make new homogeneous divisions for battles. This was a couple versions ago though

[@RvTWargames]

Good idea.

[@gracegood3661]

Been thinking the same... Dickie your not creating sufficient mass in your strikes. Yes the conversation to heavies was an error in that your penny packeting the squadrons. When the Euro carriers join the fleet have them as the offensive element and the cap and specialist go back to the old faithfuls. One other point if I may. Detach the BC force and go straight at the enemy group. Give them another problem beside your air strikes- having to maneuver a carrier force when a naval rifle carrying capital ships are screaming in at you line a head at 28 knots makes your day get very complicated very quickly. Have the BC hanging with your carriers makes them very big and very expensive SAM platforms, a waste.

[@b1laxson]

On accepting all battles. Don't. You're supposed to be Admiral enough to recognize a bad situation or one that doesn't match your strategic nor operational goals. That said this carrier battle >is< in your favor and IMHO should be accepted as you did. # factor which you didn't discuss is this is a CV battle and you have 4 CVs vs 2 CV. While your air crews are poor skilled I suspect (not yet having watched the battle) that the numerical advantage will still give you the lead. CV battles, like all battles, can snow ball where early fighting you wipe out any planes or even a carrier such that they have nothing left to fight you. E.g. round 1 you 4 them 2; round 2 you 3 them 1; round 3 you 2 them none, round 4 profit.

[@jaywerner8415]

At least according to the Game Manual, Putting JETS on NON-JET Carriers: You can do it, but each Jet takes up 1.5 Plane space. So in simple terms 2 Jets on a Non Jet CV take up 3 Hanger Space. So if I'm doing the Math right if you CVs had 60 plane capacity you could get 30 Jets on them? (pulls out calculator) 1.5 times 10 is 15, so 20 Light Jets would take up 30 space.... Huh, my brain is confused. And your Carriers used to have what.... about 100 capacity? 100 divided by 1.5 is 66.6(13 6s)7. So.... Yeah My brain can't calculate that. That said.... lets say you have 90 Hanger space, you would have 30 Torpedo and 30 Dive Bombers and like 20 Light Jets (1.5 times 20 is 30). That all being said, your Converted Fleet Carriers are barely holding more planes then a CVL for practical purposes. So, their is an argument to be made about just EATING the Hanger Space penalty till you have all Types of Jets then just building a new Jet Supercarrier.

[@RvTWargames]

Actually, I went back and checked. Strasser had 74 aircraft capacity pre-jet. Dividing 1.5 by 74 = 49. Its current capacity is 44. So 5 extra aircraft for some reason (perhaps I had to lower the number of aircraft for other weight saving reasons). So it probably doesn't make any real difference.

[@b1laxson]

Your math left out the special squadron which use 1/6th the hanger capacity

[@RvTWargames]

Oh yes, those odds and ends.

[@jaywerner8415]

@ Hmmmm, I think you did lower them just a little bit when you converted them (cus that stuff is HEAVY), I should probably go back and check.