3 questions for the war buffs

[Domhnall101]

1. how long should it take to land, reload, refuel a squadron? I am looking for a ball park rather than a break down carrier by carrier, nation by nation.

2. What is a good figure for general loiter time before a squadron need to refuel? Again generalities would be great.

3. I am assuming that larger ships that carry torps fire them for and aft only. Am I right or do the torp carring crusiers etc fire them to port and starboard? Both, neither does it involve pixies(please tell me no)?

[XAos]

1. An hour or 2, long enough that a full strike by every bomber on the carrier would be sent out in seperate "waves". Since the first planes launched could not afford to loiter till the last plane was launched.

2. Carriers usually attacked each other close to their maximum range. If only to minimise the exposure to the enemies counter-attack. So bombers usually could not afford to "Loiter". The Catalina was an exception with 10's of hours of flight time.

3. Torpedo carrying surface ships fire to port & starboard. The tubes are carried amidships and have to be "swung-out" 90 degrees to fire.
Only MTB's & Subs fire fore/aft.
"pixies" you might mean "nixies" (a water pixie) & the name of a post-WW-II ASW countermeasure. Not relevent to this game (thats a No.)

[mandt2]

Q #1 - Tough to say. It depends on the situation. I seem to recall that during the battle of Midway, the Japanese carriers were in a quandry. Having just rearmed for another landstrike on Midway when the American carriers were spotted. I believe the rearming for antiship was going to take them about 45 minutes.

Q #2 - It all depends on the plane, the payload, and the range to the target.

Q #3 - All surface ships that had torpedo launching capability did so using tubes that fired from their sides. Smaller ships often had swiveling launchers along the centerline that could fire to either side. Motor Torpedo Boats were the exception. Their tubes generally pointed foreward.

[Joisey]

My best estimate is a few minutes per plane, and round off to to an hour per 12-15 planes for recovery/repositioning on the flight deck/rearming/refueling.

There's a fairly definitive video on this subject here: http://www.zenosflightshop.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=LADYDVD&Click=97

If you want to spend the money to satisfy your curiosity. I haven't viewed the video myself.

Loitering time depends on too many variables to give a single answer. Variables include model of plane, air speed, wind speed, bomb load status, and whether air combat maneuvers are being made.

Some cruisers had swivel mounts amid-ships.

[Bigblue2]

My best estimate is a few minutes per plane, and round off to to an hour per 12-15 planes for recovery/repositioning on the flight deck/rearming/refueling.

The best my A-10 unit could do was 30 minutes for a single A-10 and we were humping. Fuel, ammo, bombs, rockets or missiles.

Back then, I would say about 5-15 minutes a plane. The problem was they didn't have a full ground crew for every plane. So 30-60 minutes do re-arm and re-fuel all the planes a carrier could handle; would seem reasonable. Then you have to figure the recovery and launch of all aircraft, probable 2 to 3 minutes each for recovery and 15-30 seconds for the launch of each aircraft. If the turns are supposed to 10 minutes then you would never get to launch your planes but once or twice in a battle.

The ability to launch aircraft every turn by your carriers seems to be geared towards making players want to take a carrier in the first place. While the penalty for using ground based aircraft seems to make sense for patrol aircraft (as they could really range out) it doesn't make sense for carrier based aircraft launched from land bases. They still could only fly their maximum range (which carrier aircraft often did) This seems to also be geared towards making carriers a worthwhile option. That's okay for a good beer and pretzel game which this is in spades, but if you wanted a more realistic game then all carriers should be off the board and could only be attacked by aircraft and a sub that could cross over the map and exit the opponents side. All aircraft both carrier and land based would have to spend one round re-arming.

[Domhnall101]

kind of in the range I was thinking. Big thanks for the info.

I forgot about nixies but I meant the little sods with and hang out with brownies and fairies... Long story. You do not want ot read.

[polish_horsy]

yeah...I think they should have given 1-turn re-arm counters to the carrier based aircraft and 3-turn re-arm counters to land based. That would have been much better IMO. Just change the 3 to 2, next turn to 1, and the following it can return. Planes would then only have 3-4 turns (carrier) or 2 turns (land based) of fighting essentially. Far more realistic for a 1- to 1.5-hour firefight they are trying to show.

Catch the planes re-arming on the carrier like Midway and turn the tide of battle. The problem they faced is carriers have to be so close to the action and cannot be out of harms way.

[Joisey]

yeah...I think they should have given 1-turn re-arm counters to the carrier based aircraft and 3-turn re-arm counters to land based. That would have been much better IMO. Just change the 3 to 2, next turn to 1, and the following it can return. Planes would then only have 3-4 turns (carrier) or 2 turns (land based) of fighting essentially. Far more realistic for a 1- to 1.5-hour firefight they are trying to show.

Catch the planes re-arming on the carrier like Midway and turn the tide of battle. The problem they faced is carriers have to be so close to the action and cannot be out of harms way.

That's a sensible suggestion, but it only works game-wise if you let the carriers get off the map. ;)

[Photoner Hawkwind]

I think the Japanese actually stated how long they took to rearm their planes in the Battle of Midway movie.

[unc_samurai]

The problem with the Japanese forces at Midway was their decision to change the bomber's payload twice, once from anti-ground ordinance to anti-ship and then back to anti-ordinance. Of course, if the U.S. torpedo and bomber squadrons had attacked any further apart the Japanese fighter groups providing CAP escort might have had time to re-organize and regain altitude. The Americans put themselves in a great position to win the battle with supremacy in pre-engagement intelligence; tactically they had to benefit from a lot of lucky breaks to earn such a decisive victory.

[Captain Hydro]

There are a few things in the Battle of Midway that aren't being taken into account:
1) The Japanese planes were already fueled so that was a non-factor
2) All of the Japanese carriers held back half of their planes to strike any US fleet foolish enough to show itself. These were arranged on the flight deck for launch and had to be moved to the hangers to let the returning strike land
3) Only part of the planes needed to be re-armed, since the Kate's were partially changed over to bombs to strike Midway at the request of the first strike's leader.
4) When the first bombs hit the Japanese carriers, bombs and torpedoes were still on the hanger decks, not in the magazines, contributing to the ship's destruction.
5) The Japanese fleet commanders assumed(until too late) that they were dealing with planes from Midway, not three carriers and Midway. This had them wrongly thinking they were safe from counter attack.
6) Since the Japanese only found the Yorktown, they felt that the bomb damage inflicted was enough to take her out of the battle, like their ships had been. The fact that the Yorktown's crew were able to get her up to 19 knots prior to the second attack, convincing the aircrews they attacked a second carrier, probably saved the Enterprise and Hornet from air strikes that would have gone against them as well.

[Barry Kendall]

Anyone interested in carrier ops in WW II is well advised to read "Shattered Sword," the new Midway book. It looks in great detail at the Nihon Kaigun's tactics, planehandling techniques, damage control methods and philosophy, anti-air defense techniques and much more.

It also traces in great detail the deterioration of the Japanese carriers from the first hit to their sinking.

In addition, the book reveals that the Zekes' biggest problem related to CAP wasn't losing altitude to go after the torpedo bombers, but rather the very small ammunition load they carried--perhaps five or six bursts' worth.

Another key point is a significant design difference between Japanese and American carriers. The radial engines of carrier planes on both sides required a 15-minute warmup before commencing launch. The Japanese planes had to be brought to the flight deck for warmup. However, the American carriers had large roll-up doors on both sides of the hangar deck. These doors allowed for ventilation on the hangar deck and made it possible for the air group to begin warming up even before they were brought to flight deck level for arranging for takeoff.

Therefore the launch time for American aircraft was less than for Japanese aircraft. The additional space this provided also allowed for easier arming on the American carriers.

One more thing: the American carriers embarked extra aircraft--Dauntlesses and some Wildcats--before departing Pearl for Midway. These aircraft were stored overhead above the hangar deck. There was not room to lower, arm and launch them while the other embarked squadrons were in service, but they permitted losses to be made up to a significant extent.

It is worth considering allowing an extra squadron to be purchased and embarked on the Enterprise/Yorktown class carrier, and allow it to be used if another squadron is lost. The operational air group remains at "3," but if the extra squadron is purchased, it can be used as a replacement. If I remember correctly, something like 27 extra planes were carried.

This practice was also used on the follow-on Essex class; both whole aircraft and replacement wings, tails and fuselages were suspended overhead (I've seen photos, and I believe there are some corroborating shots in the "Victory at Sea" series).

[Raptor]

I believe the short rearming time was to help compensate for the incredibly small size of the maps. If you were playing more realistic sized maps for carriers, the map size would be twice as big (at least).

[Rokossovsky]

I'm a military and naval history buff.

Never call me a "war buff."

My webpage -- which has 5 free mil/nav history boardgames, including Leyte Gulf Naval Chess Game -- has as its theme, "The more we learn about the Second World War, the better our chances it will be the LAST world war."

Lou Coatney

[XAos]

I looked up some of the details of carrier strikes.
The Hornet took nearly an hour to launch 16 B-25 bombers in the Dolittle raid. And they were already fully armed & on deck.
Enterprise usually required 1 to 2 hours to "launch" a strike. Again with planes fully armed & on deck at the start.

[polish_horsy]

I'm sure someone will come up with a house rule closer to reality. 1 turn to re-arm on a carrier and 3 to re-arm at an air-base is a start. Playing on a map 2x the size might help. Maybe give the smaller planes a range? I'm not sure hidden movement of carriers would ever work. Well, something in the middle anyway of the vast gulf between reality and the extreme simlification we have here (re-arm and launch an entire compliment of planes on a carrier in 10 minutes).

[Kaufschtick]

I think going down "reality road" in this game is a wrong turn. This game is clearly abstracted. So far, IMHO, they did a god job on it too.

[Captain Hydro]

I think to get the aircraft to work correctly, it will take a larger map and multi-turn re-arming. The small size of the map just seems to be causing numerous problems in all of the ranging situations, be it gunfire, torpedoes or aircraft

[zaarin7]

IIRC most naval games like Flat Top have a multi turn reload for aircraft and the turns are longer.

[Big Kahuna]

Well that may well be conventional wisdom, but in the new book Shattered Sword the IJN failure at Midway was purely and absolutely Yamamoto’s fault for sticking them way out with no mutual support with two contradictory missions against an unknown and drastically under estimated USN. Whether the IJN had or did not have planes ready, whether or not the IJN put did not put the GP bombs back into storage, whether Nagumo did or did not order multi-rearms or maybe none of the above seems to be contradicted in Shatter Sword.

It was more like the IJN bit off more then they could chew and got a butt whipping for it and while Yamamoto was still alive the blame could be placed in all other areas but where it really was: Command decision from the top, coupled with poor to no IJN damage control on the 4 older CVs.

[IXJac]

I don't see a problem with the aircraft in this game myself. Yes, aircraft recycle very quickly, but I see this more as the attacks of successive waves rather than the same aircraft continually attacking, landing, rearming, then racing back to attack again.

Historically carriers tended to attack their enemies in waves spread out over an extended period of time, and I see this as representing that. As it is I don't find carriers overwhelmingly powerful. Our experience to date has been limited, but both games where we've pitted a surface fleet (with some limited air support) against a carrier heavy fleet, the surface fleet has won the scenario.

[Captain Hydro]

The Japanese High Command made four major errors at Midway that they didn't make prior to Pearl Harbor:
1) They had no up to date intelligence on the US Fleet. It was presumed all the US carriers were still in the South Pacific
2) They divided their forces to the point the various fleets couldn't support each other, assuming the US fleet would come from Pearl Harbor after the Japanese ground forces had already landed
3) They underestimated the repair and supply abilities at Pearl Harbor
4) They didn't maintain radio silence on the operation. If they had, the US fleet wouldn't have been able to be in position in time to attack the Nagumo task force

[Dragonman505]

This is a complicated question. In this game a single stand of planes represents about fifteen aircraft of the type on the stand. Example, the St Lo only carried 15 - 20 planes depending the sizes of the planes. The Enterprise and Yorktown class carriers carried 45 - 50 planes depending on size. A squadron consisted of 45 -50 planes back then. Rough estimate one hour give or take a few minutes depending on crew levels and equipment availibility. None of this takes into account crashes on the flight deck (that almost always happened during combat ops), flight time to and from the target(s) and weather.

[zaarin7]

Also keep in mind that the IJN believed Yorktown was sunk along with Lexington at Coral Sea in May. Also remember that the IJN believed their code was secure. They knew Saratoga was in port repairing torpedo damage. They knew Ranger and Wasp were not in theator yet. So by what they knew and believed that meant they would only face Hornet and Enterprise. And if the attack had been a surprise and the USN responded they way they thought with just two carriers the IJN would have had the advantage of land based air.