What the heck is with this difficulty?

[Pondera the Radio Angel]

So, I pick easy to try and get my feet wet, but after doing some light raiding, the IJN hit atrociously hard with 3 carriers, 2 DDs and a battlecruiser around Johnston, and another 3 carriers, 2 heavy cruisers, and a battleship at the Aluetians with me unable to defend either point without getting my wildcats blown out the sky like they're mad of paper.

Okay, internet, how'd you survive long enough to actually see any of the bugs? If real life was how things were portrayed in VasP, I'm pretty sure we'd all be speaking Japanese right now. What the hell am I doing wrong?

[Tumble Trash᠌ ⁧⁧ Official]

♥♥♥♥ start out with superior navy in beginning

[Pondera the Radio Angel]

Well, yeah, I get that, but that logic runs into a few problems. Namely that the IJN has every advantage imaginable.

1) they have better stuff and use it to win. A Kongo can simply keep out of a Colorado’s range and peck it until it dies and the Zero is superior in dogfights to the F4F.

2) they have more stuff. A battlegroup of 6 carriers in early 1942 is pretty hard to deal with.

3) they can replace losses more easily. Because of the war bonds system, the IJN start with most of the map taken. They get more money from their ports, have no border gore like New Caledonia and actually have a greater industry than the US which is not how it was AT ALL historically.

4) there is no US historical advantage. We can’t crack the IJN communication code to know where they’re going to move and attack. We can’t leverage superior production to drown them in our dead, we can’t goad japanese commanders into doing stupid things for the sake of honor, and they will never resort to kamikaze tactics to deprive themselves of their best pilots.

So really, thats a lot to deal with. I’m not going to say its impossible because some lets players have done it, but I’m left sitting here scratching my head as to how.

[IKEA]

try seending out your fleet to se if they find any easy picking, cargo ships, even raid east india like rabaul

[Pondera the Radio Angel]

Is that really that helpful? I mean, it’s probably really annoying to have your convoys whacked by Gatos by the IJN ports are already likely well supplied and they already have enough strength to crush me. This still doesn’t solve the problem of keeping them off Midway and Johnston Island.

[IKEA]

you can let midway fall and go for makin atoll and tarawa, and do a bit of back and forth,,

the more convoys you destroy the less they can move and resupply and the cost 100 warbonds each cargo ship.

you need to pick the fight you can win but run from them you cant win

[fragile]

Yeah the ♥♥♥♥ come at Midway and Johnston pretty hard. Sometimes you lose Midway, and thats ok, you can get it back. As the previous guy aid, don't sacrifice your carriers trying to defend johnston or midway if you find yourself outnumbered. Run away and fight another day. As was mentioned , attacking convoys is the easiest way to accumulate some points so you can start constructing more carriers ASAP. You just need like a single CA as a convoy raider. Also yeah they spend their points building more convoys and not warships.

With the speed at which carriers repair their aircraft, even if you lose most or all of your strike planes on the first encounter, you are right near your bases and can quickly go back to port and repair your planes and go for another attack. The ♥♥♥♥ will sail around with depleted air wings and are farther from their bases and you can usually launch another attack and another and wear them down before they get back to one of their bases.

Also a good use of your old U.S.battleships like the Colorado is for base defense. Once you get their initial damage repaired , sail a couple out to midway and maybe one out to johnston. Just one of them can take out a sizeable force that has CA,CL, and DDs. You can even try to run them at a carrier force if they get too close to you. They can take alot of hits and may be able to get close enough to use their guns before they are sunk and you can get in amongst some carriers and take them out that way. They are way too slow to put in your carrier task forces and too slow to go convoy raiding. BTW a Colorado has 16 inch guns and can out range a Kongo which has 14 inch guns.

I use subs also to attack carriers TFs. You will lose some subs but I have decent luck getting in the middle of their formations and getting off some shots on carriers. I like to use packs of at least 2 subs. You can send one or more running deep into the enemy formation and keep one on the outside at periscope depth , undetected. From their you can see all their ships and you can move your deep sub right into position next to a big enemy and then quickly get up to periscope depth and fire a spread and then go deep again. With 3 or more subs you can go back and forth rising and going deep between a couple subs and have the enemy chasing after you back and forth. When they chase sub A, you can attack with sub B, and so forth.

[Pondera the Radio Angel]

well, I did what you suggested and, even though I never managed to sink that damn triple carrier task force, I have a pair of other woes.

1) I'm having trouble with enemy fleet formations sneaking up on me and just BAM out of nowhere. I could swear that's what the kingfishers that I can't seem to stop my AI helpers from launching are for. Are they seriously just being useless and chewing up aviation fuel? Also, some advice on intel gathering operations would be greatly appreciated.

2) some of my subs are getting whacked by ASW patrols when they stray too close to islands. Going deep and trying to hide, as a submarine would, doesn't seem to help the situation. Once those birds have locked on, it's a death sentence. How do I avoid this happening?

[Allan]

@fragile Any tips on helping whittle down the fighters? I know the Wildcat is outclassed by the Zero, but I had a 24 and 16 fighter groups lose to 10 zeroes.

(I didn't micro the fight though. Maybe I should have?)

[fragile]

each ship that carries planes has a little white plane icon in the ship list along the left side. When the icon is white it is allowing automatic launching. When you click it , it turns grey and turns off the auto launching.

i like to micromanage the fighters during carriers fights. If you tell a fighter flight to attack, it attacks once and then goes home. You have to click attack over and over, unless you click on your fleet and click defend, then the fighter will keep attacking anything coming in toward your fleet. Yeah head to head the wildcat is not good.

The enemy AI sends out a flight of planes, fighters or strike planes, and they only will do their original mission and then go back to their fleet. They will not attack one thing, and then attack another and another. Unlike you, you can redirect your planes mid-flight, change targets, etc, so use that to your advantage. You can even pull away enemy fighters away by having them chase your fighters, which opens up their fleet to your stirke planes.

The beginning part of the game as the U.S., you are just scratching to survive until you get more carriers and better planes.

The AI launches scouts in all kinds of nonsensical directions. It's a pain but if your fleet is out in the front lines, you might want to take control of your scouts so you launch them ahead of your direction. The Kingfishers have crappy range so there is only so much you can do. If possible try to not get too far ahead of your where your Catalinas can scout. Send some throw away ships like destroyers out ahead, to scout and if they get sunk, no big deal and now you know you found the enemy. Of use subs for that too.

The ASW planes are deadly. Best advice, keep subs away from a wide arc around Minor ports and Major ports. They have the ASW planes. The basic ports won't. So its ok to take subs near Makin , Wake, Marshalls, Guam, etc. Sure you can get in close sometimes to those big ports but if their scouts find you, they are going to pound you.

If you do get attacked by ASW. Go into combat mode and control your sub. Try turning your sub before the attack , to try to throw off their aim. I have found that works sometimes.

[KevlarBurrito]

Early in the war, I'm talking more or less the exact time Pearl was attacked, the US had a number of subs deployed throughout the Pacific. When the fleet got smashed up at Pearl, these subs became one of the main striking forces of the USN until the fleets were built up. A common tactic was what was described above, however instead of 2 subs, they would form similarly to what the Germans did in the Atlantic, and form "Wolf Packs" of anywhere from 3 to 6 submarines. What would usually happen, is that a single sub would locate a convoy or task force, and radio to all near by subs who would all converge on that one area.

I just got the game, but from what I have seen, this seems to be a viable tactic to use.

[fragile]

Gooses More Ships and Planes Mod, if you play as US, you start out with a bunch of subs. Quite a few right by the Philippines. So you can certainly do alot of wolf-packing with his MOD.

[Davinci]

This is going mostly off memory, so some of this might not be exactly correct.

The (US) starts with three carriers that are in separate groups, so the first thing to do is to unite them all into a single Task-Force.

Station them behind Midway on what I would call the eastern side and wait on one of the IJN carrier forces to appear. The (AI) doesn't seem to notice when units are stationed behind of an Island, so use this to your advantage.

Launch all planes along with the planes from Midway at that particular carrier force, and then immediately send your carrier TF to Pearl Harbor to get fresh planes. You don't have to wait on your planes to return to the carrier. Most of them will be destroyed.

Your main goal here is to weaken the IJN carrier task force of it planes, you don't have to sink any of it's carriers.

Once you have reached "Pearl" and with a fresh squadron of planes, immediately go after that particular IJN carrier TF. This time your goal is to try to sink all of them.

Do the same thing when dealing with the other carrier task force. One weakness in the (AI) is that they will not retreat once they have lost most of its planes.

I don't even try to defend any of the (US) islands other than "Pearl Harbor" until I have destroyed both of the IJN Carrier-Task-Forces.

Another Exploit is to group all of your Supply-Ships at "Pearl" at the start of the game, and once you start to retake all of the Islands, you can dispatch your Supply-Ships behind your Carriers to keep them protected.