RetLT Scenario issues

[RetLT]

1. The following beach hexes are secretly shallow water:

Row 48: 10, 14, 18

Row 19 9, 10, 11, 13, 14

2. The Japanese Hill and Trench squads play pistol shot sounds when they fire their Type 100 rifles.

[DRG]

IDK if this was how it was built or how things have evolved over a couple of decades but those hill and trench units show up as unit class "crew" and crew typically only have pistols and you cannot "buy" crews and crews have a fixed OOB index of 249 in all OOB's. It's how the game knows what to bail out of a tank. I can fix this easily enough but it's really weird. I'm thinking there was some " creativity" employed by the original designer with a temporary altered OOB as this was built before there was Scenhack

[DRG]

It's a minor point but I doubt PBY's were used for level bombing and I'm going to dig around a bit to see just what was available on the first day. More likely it was carrier aircraft

EDIT: Found it......
http://pacific.valka.cz/forces/tf52.htm

TG 53.7 - Guam Landing 44/07 - 44/08
CTG RAdm Van H. Ragsdale, from 07/27 RAdm Thomas L. Sprague
CVE
CarDiv22 (RAdm Van H. Ragsdale):

Sangamon (CVEG-37: VF-37,VT-37)
Suwannee (CVEG-60: VF-60, VT-60)
Chenango (CVEG-35: VF-35, VT-35)

CarDiv24 (RAdm Felix B. Stump):

Corregidor/UF,DF (VC-41)
Coral Sea (VC-33)
Kalinin Bay (VC-3)


Absolute for certain there were Avengers on those carriers

[RetLT]

I thought it was odd to be using long range float planes to cover an amphibious landing.

The scenario is difficult currently so some accurate strike aircraft and/or naval artillery would definitely help.

Good catch on the crews. I did not notice that.

[DRG]

When it was built he may have just wanted to use something different and PBY's qualify and was added to the game around that time. It had been updated for DOS v6 in 2003 but from what I can gather from the timestamps of it and the ones around it, it appears it was built using OOB's for DOS V5 or perhaps V4 and IDK what changes might have been made for V6 but my guess is it was those PBY's as they appear at the very end of the unit selection list separate from the main USMC units.

One other slightly odd thing about this one is the Japanese have an observer team that overlooks the beach but no indirect arty of any kind for them to spot for and there is mention in battle reports that "many casualties caused by both mortars and sniper fire."

Attached is my basic correction/ revision for that scenario. The Japanese "crews" are gone, the PBY's are replaced by Avengers each with different weapon loads (which means they will be used by the AI if it's played from the Japanese side ), the LCVP now use the updated icons instead of what was the one generic LC icon used back then and the shallow water on the beaches is gone.

I'm also looking into further info on this battle and it is looking now like LVT's were used instead of LCVP which would change things a bit but I have just started looking into that. This scenario was also built before barbed wire was added to the game which would also add a different spin to it

[Mobhack]

The original DOS code allwed you to buy crews IIRC. No use for anything. (It may be that you can change the type in the change unit code in the scenario editor, probably still can). But still notu use as they can only enter thier own bunker, gun or vehicle which they wont have.

Sometime way back when, removal of spurious crews was part of the "tidy-up" code I added (I think, its going back a looong time!). I think that is part of the save scenario cleanup code, but cannot swear to it, but I vaguely recollect that unassociated crews will be swept up somewhere.

So if those "flavour" items were C_CREW class then they should be removed.

If so and they have only now been removed by the tidy-up routines then it has been a long time since that particular scenario was ever saved!

[DRG]

Attached is a revision for consideration. The 2021 revision has the USMC in LVT's instead of Landing craft with a few more USMC infantry units and Avengers instead of PBY's for air support but to balance that added USMC mobility and firepower the Japanese have better defenses.*

This should be a different kind of nasty.

[DRG]

If anyone does play this out let me know if it's easier or harder with the USMC. The version *I thought* I had posted gave the Japanese a couple of mortars to give their observer team something to do but I was juggling two versions and ended up posting the one without the added Japanese mortars.

[RetLT]

I would add a mortar or 2 to the defenders.

I cleared the map in 16 turns losing only 2 LTVs and 45 men.

[DRG]

So it ended up being easier with the LVT's even with the Wire on the Japanese positions?

And yeah...... I really thought those mortars were in both versions I was working with.

I have looked at that area using a Venola map..... those hills were a LOT steeper in RL