[Eumerin]

The USN used dazzle schemes for probably a year and a half (or less), and even then compliance was somewhat erratic.  Pacific fleet implemented the schemes in late ’43.  The Atlantic fleet waited until the following year.  Then in early 1945 the fleet started painting over the schemes.  The primary opponent had changed from ships to airplanes, and dazzle was believed to be less effective against aircraft.  Having said that, the erratic bit still applies, and some ships apparently were still painted that way in the Pacific on V-J Day.

 

Anyway, here’s that site I mentioned that covers the USN camo schemes (including but not limited to dazzle).

 

http://www.usndazzle.com/index.php

[Eumerin]

For the USN, there’s a website that a guy put together that provides info on the camo schemes that the Navy used each year (and notes that PACFLEET and LANTFLEET used different schemes).  The site also provides the official dazzle diagram where appropriate.  Destroyers get a class scheme, but iirc everything from light cruisers on up that had a dazzle scheme has an entry.

 

Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the site off the top of my head.  But an internet search will probably turn it up.

 

IIRC, he’s also got a note that dazzle schemes in the USN frequently only lasted until the ship arrived in its theater of operations, and promptly got painted over.

[Eumerin]

And while we are at it, the DD for the B17 is very much over the top. Wouldnt it be “more realistic”, or better playable that the carpet bombs hit better, because they may bombard a greater field. 16DD with heavy are for every ship a death sentence … (statistical 4 to 5 crits, that hurts lots, even on big ships)

Historically, B-17s never successfully scored a direct hit on a moving warship. There were near misses, but no direct hits. And while a near miss could still be very deadly on land due to shrapnel, and the concussive force caused by the blast (iirc, Fritz Bayerlein reported that Panzer Lehr Division had tanks flipped upside down by bomb blasts during the carpet bombing that took place toward the end of the Normandy Breakout), that wasn’t the case when dealing with armored warships on the water. Warships are generally more heavily armored than even a tank, and weigh considerably more. Further, the water around the hull absorbs some of the shock of the blast from a near miss.

[Eumerin]

They weren’t in the beta ship list, either. I asked the writer about their absence from the beta ship list when he was posting in the game thread over on DakkaDakka (back before the game was released), but he either somehow missed the intent of my question, or creatively redirected it into a non-answer. At the time, I just figured, “Well, it’s the beta list, and they weren’t that important of a class during the war. They’ll show up in the final.” So I didn’t push the matter.

In any case, as you noted, they’re easy to shoehorn in as they’re based on another carrier that’s in the game. And their historical profile is low enough that a lot of people don’t even realize that they’re missing.

Plus, it’s not as if the IJN has a *shortage* of carrier designs…

[Eumerin]

It probably helped that Pearl Harbor was out of reach of the IJN outside of an extraordinary (and extremely risky) effort. That succeeded in December, 1941, but at that point the Americans hadn’t yet realized that they were about to enter a war, and thus weren’t on their guard. Subsequent attacks against Hawaii required closer bases, such as Midway. Until such a base was available, ordinary precautions – which had been neglected prior to the attack – would likely have sufficed if the Japanese had been daring enough to try another raid on the port. Also, even if a Japanese fleet did manage to attack the harbor again, it would have been at the very end of its logistical chain, and in danger of getting cut off when it attempted to return to friendly waters.

Taranto, on the other hand, was right up against the Med, and well within the normal operational range of the Royal Navy. As such, taking precautions against another potential surprise airstrike made sense. It was risky to put a carrier within range of Italian land-based aircraft. But it wouldn’t require any particular extraordinary effort to conduct further raids of the type.

Of course, in a counter-example, it’s useful to note that when the US returned the favor to the Japanese with the Doolittle Raid (which did very little practical damage, but was a complete surprise and a psychological blow), the Japanese overreacted in their attempt to prevent any such raids in the future.

[Eumerin]

?

The reason why the USN could stay at Pearl Harbor had nothing to do with torpedoes. It’s because the Japanese were focused on crippling the ships, and put less emphasis on the infrastructure – particularly the oil storage tanks. That would have been a dive bomber thing. And the reasons that caused the Japanese to deprioritize the tanks were just as likely to occur no matter who performed the attack.

Ignoring the oil storage tanks wouldn’t have mattered if the carriers had been caught in port during the attack, which is no doubt why the IJN didn’t put emphasis on them.

[Eumerin]

I’d say torpedoes are the deadliest weapon in the game! I think if you play a few matches you’ll see that ships can and do close to short range, especially destroyers, and that devastation results. Destroyers and cruisers can torpedo a battleship or fleet carrier off the table in a single attack. Ignore torpedoes at your fleet’s peril!

Agreed. Torpedoes are the reason why the Mogami-class cruisers in the starter cost more than twice as much as USS Portland. No, you shouldn’t necessarily rely on a torpedo hit. But your opponent *cannot* afford to ignore the possibility that one of your destroyers will slip through his screen and get off a successful torpedo shot against one of his capitol ships. Because if that happens, it’s gonna hurt.

[Eumerin]

Awfully inconvenient time to put a pause for reasons that they should have known about beforehand. We’ve got only half of the aircraft boxes out, those boxes are not (for the most part) aimed at the ocean that saw the vast majority of carrier combat, and the US still doesn’t have anything but fighters.

In a year, it won’t matter. But it’s a bit inconvenient right now.

[Eumerin]

So…

It’s been about a month and a half now since the last release announcement, including the German and British aircraft boxes. I would have expected to see the next release announcement – including aircraft boxes for the US and Japan – to show up by now. Wonder why the delay?

On the positive side, the store page can now be sorted by nationality. Nice! This cuts down tremendously on the amount of store items that players need to search through to find what they want.

[Eumerin]

Ship cards come with the ship models.

My understanding is that ship stats – independent of the cards – can be found in the full rulebook.

[Eumerin]

Early April will see the announcement of another Pearl Harbor victim – the battleship USS Utah.

[Eumerin]

I’m pretty sure it should work as it scales up for Korea and potentially could to modern area too.

Early Vietnam, maybe. But I suspect that missiles will kind of throw things off-kilter somewhat once they move beyond the very early heat-seekers. You also need to figure out a system to handle radar both for long-range detection and for radar-guided missiles like the Sparrow. In short, while dog-fights can still happen, there’s now a strong focus on detecting the enemy and shooting him down before he even knows you’re there.

[Eumerin]

The USN is still missing any dive bombers or torpedo bombers. So with that in mind, I predict that the upcoming US Aircraft box will contain 1 B-17 stand, and 4 stands each of Wildcats and Brewster Buffaloes.

😛

On a more serious note, I second the comment made by Hobbs. The Atlanta-class light cruiser would be a good addition (USS San Diego was an extremely important ship of this class). I would also welcome at least one escort carrier for both the USN and RN. Given that there’s now both a convoy box, and submarine boxes for each of the major navies, a CVE for convoy duty seems like it might be a good addition. And finally, I’d like to see an Independence-class light carrier.

[Eumerin]

You can get 1/1800 aircraft models on Shapeways. I’d check there first if you’re interested in unbased aircraft.

[Eumerin]

The Strasser would have been pretty much the same as Graf Zeppelin had it been completed. As such, it would be a pretty low priority for a new ship model.

Right now, I’m still waiting for an announcement of actual US bombers. So far, the only planes released for the USN are Corsairs and Hellcats. I’m also looking forward to the lighter ships – more destroyer classes, and the various light cruisers, heavy cruisers, light carriers, and escort carriers that were present in the fleets.

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