Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Munda sounds like "An Island Too Far"

quote:

ORIGINAL: princep01

Reek, unlike JeffK, I do not think Munda was an island too far (good line though, Jeff:)). If anything, you are using bazookas to kill roaches. Munda and most of the bases south of Rabaul have been evacuated for the most part as he completes his withdrawal to his new MLR. Most do not offer much land resistance, though air attacks are obviously a real threat. That last try was a doozy. Nice job with the parry. I think you shattered his sword... but he'll have a new one very soon. You have correctly identified where the new MLR is and I am sure you are reconning the heck out of the bases in the area. Anything short of the new MLR should be an easy grab (but recon, recon, recon).

Of course you must exercise reasonable planning and take suitable procautions to protect your fleet assets, but I do believe you could speed the tempo of operations in the southern and central Solomons and mop up the remanents of his forces there. You are wise to use the LBA CAP as you have, but I would think a little more risk is appropriate. Speed the planning of your island hopping in this area by planning multiple landings simultaneously (that doesn't nmean simultaneous landings necessarily).

Good luck with Munda and Chosueil. I hope you are already looking at landings beyond those.

quote:

Reek, unlike JeffK, I do not think Munda was an island too far (good line though, Jeff:)).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Crackaces

quote:

Reek, unlike JeffK, I do not think Munda was an island too far (good line though, Jeff:)).

Players had similar comments in my thread when I decided to attack Tarawa early in '42. But these players did not understand the underlying thinking behind the strategy and thus the apprisal is made from what they would do in the situation and not the strategic plan as it is unfolding. That is the problem with 100 different inputs.

I am enjoying watching this develop ...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

GJ, in my game vs. Miller, by 1944 the Allies were invading strongly held Japanese bases. For instance, Ternate had 50k troops that had been digging in for three years. I think Manado, Morotai and Ambon also had in excess of 20k troops well dug in.

I found that the Allied invasion forces were able to pretty quickly overcome those garrisons, even when the numbers were relatively equal. IE, I don't recall the Allies having 2x or 3x the number of troops as you'd typically wish for an offensive operation. I think the keys were that the Allies controlled the air and were able to heavily bomb the enemy positions, disrupting enemy units and probably making supply a real issue. (The quality of Allied '44 troops might also have factored in, though I wasn't paying attention to that at the time).

I was frequently suprised that early 1:1 or even 1:2 attacks resulted in roughly equal casualties or more IJ casualties. Forts also dropped steadily. So, where I was expecting to take big hits, I actually could see that the Allies had enough troops on hand to defeat the enemy, even if doing so sometimes took a week or two or three (to reduce forts and finally overcome the defenses).

What I'm saying is this: Don't let a 25k or 50k or 75k garrison give you a case of the yips. If you really need a base, and if you can assert control of the air, you can take a base with roughly the same numbers (or as many more as you can reasonably bring to bear).

quote:

Rader is doing this wrong. He is fighting his defense over foreign territory against
obviousely better pilots and planes on equal numbers which doesn´t achieve anything
besides increasing the pilot quality gap.
And he does it for weeks already.

This may happen when you fight alone against 100 brains.
I don´t want to lessen your achievements GreyJoy, but am I the only one who thinks that
there is a bit too much help from top notch players around to stil call this
"The power of inexperience"?

LoBaron

quote:

In NG we keep on pounding his advancing columns at Salamua...the 16th Army, strong of 2 Inf Regiments and 1 SNLF Bde is moving to reinforce the 15th Army, composed of the 5th Division and an Inf rgt...The skies over this region are ours for the moment...Rader isn't contesting them...also because many of his AFs are closed by our 4Es... We'll need all the air support we could get to break this line...but we'll succeed!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

GJ, in my game vs. Miller, by 1944 the Allies were invading strongly held Japanese bases. For instance, Ternate had 50k troops that had been digging in for three years. I think Manado, Morotai and Ambon also had in excess of 20k troops well dug in.

I found that the Allied invasion forces were able to pretty quickly overcome those garrisons, even when the numbers were relatively equal. IE, I don't recall the Allies having 2x or 3x the number of troops as you'd typically wish for an offensive operation. I think the keys were that the Allies controlled the air and were able to heavily bomb the enemy positions, disrupting enemy units and probably making supply a real issue. (The quality of Allied '44 troops might also have factored in, though I wasn't paying attention to that at the time).

I was frequently suprised that early 1:1 or even 1:2 attacks resulted in roughly equal casualties or more IJ casualties. Forts also dropped steadily. So, where I was expecting to take big hits, I actually could see that the Allies had enough troops on hand to defeat the enemy, even if doing so sometimes took a week or two or three (to reduce forts and finally overcome the defenses).

What I'm saying is this: Don't let a 25k or 50k or 75k garrison give you a case of the yips. If you really need a base, and if you can assert control of the air, you can take a base with roughly the same numbers (or as many more as you can reasonably bring to bear).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

GJ,

Unless I missed something, you just announced a major new axis of advance into Bali and Java. Have you abandoned the idea of reaching the PI via NG or is this a part of your original plan? I ask because 3 Marine Divisions is a lot to prep for a new advance. I know you have discussed a 2 pronged advance, but I assumed you were proceeding a la the historical Operation Cartwheel, i.e., via the Solomons and PM, then along the northern coast of NG.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel



It's not for me to opine whether GJ is better than he used to be; opinions on that are clear in this AAR. The more interesting issues, for me, deal with Nemo's points vis a vis the national objectives a situation such as GJ's presents in a Scenario 2 game where India is in Japanese hands. In two major AARed games now--yours with QB and this one--we have seen that India can represent more than an attractive setting for auto-vic. If the Japanese player chooses he can treat India as an economic engine. If he chooses to pay the garrison price he can source HI from there which exponentially increases his force mix elsewhere.

In this game, rader seemingly produces aircraft for the main purpose of "disposing" of pilots which would otherwise consume HI in the pilot pool. This HI savings allows him to build ever more aircraft, with a "wheat" injection of HI from India. If his low-grade pilots in his increasingly R&D-sophisticated aircraft kill Allied planes, great. GJ owns no Fur Farm; his aircraft are finite. If they don't, still good, since the incessant combat at good Allied loss ratios makes GJ think he's accomplishing something when in fact he is giving rader the one thing he can't manufacture--time.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zeta16

quote:



In this game, rader seemingly produces aircraft for the main purpose of "disposing" of pilots which would otherwise consume HI in the pilot pool. This HI savings allows him to build ever more aircraft, with a "wheat" injection of HI from India. If his low-grade pilots in his increasingly R&D-sophisticated aircraft kill Allied planes, great. GJ owns no Fur Farm; his aircraft are finite. If they don't, still good, since the incessant combat at good Allied loss ratios makes GJ think he's accomplishing something when in fact he is giving rader the one thing he can't manufacture--time.

Is this true, I have never heard this. I thought it was automatic HI withdraw, I mean some HI should be used the pilots need to learn something before getting into a plane.

It sounds like gaming the game engine, at this rate there is going to be more Japanese pilots than all the Allies had in the whole war.

quote:

ORIGINAL: House Stark

I like the Java idea if it continues to remain lightly garrisoned. Whether you win or lose, Rader has to throw everything he can at you because if you take Java, then most if not all of his oil sources enter 4E bomber range. And if you can get some forces ashore there are is some pretty defensible terrain as well that could make your troops difficult to evict quickly. And even if he has unlimited airframes, he has limited squadrons to put them in. And provided you continue to preserve your CVs, you could even keep a CV TF in the Solomons when the time comes just to maintain the pretense that your navy is still focused there.

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

quote:

Rader is doing this wrong. He is fighting his defense over foreign territory against
obviousely better pilots and planes on equal numbers which doesn´t achieve anything
besides increasing the pilot quality gap.
And he does it for weeks already.

The basic premise that Rader is 'doing something wrong' might itself be flawed. The facts are that he has been losing masses of aircraft on a steady basis for about a year of game time now. The ability to produce incredible amounts of planes due to the extra HI in India and China has already been detailed by much more experienced voices than mine in previous posts.

quote:

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

quote:

Rader is doing this wrong. He is fighting his defense over foreign territory against
obviousely better pilots and planes on equal numbers which doesn´t achieve anything
besides increasing the pilot quality gap.
And he does it for weeks already.

The basic premise that Rader is 'doing something wrong' might itself be flawed. The facts are that he has been losing masses of aircraft on a steady basis for about a year of game time now. The ability to produce incredible amounts of planes due to the extra HI in India and China has already been detailed by much more experienced voices than mine in previous posts.

There is a major difference between losing hordes of a/c (which scen 2 makes the Japanese perfectly capable of) to
losing hordes of a/c with no other gain than training the Allied pilots. The experience and skill gain by shooting
down several 100´s of planes per turn, while Raders pilot skill level drops (he is probably losing +50% pilots per plane
destroyed), is invaluable. He artificially creates a pilot loss rate of maybe 15-20:1. This alone is probably worth
more than any allied pilot training program.

The quality gap is already very obvious now, and it will grow at an increasing rate during ´44.
No ´45 Tony model will help Rader if the skill gap increases further, personally I think he has already
reached a point of no return.

Even in case he is saving his exoerten for the late war fight and throws in low skill pilots as he can afford
it, he is producing allied experten at a rate GJ would never be able to achieve by training.

This is the mistake I was referring to, and its a grave one IMHO.

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffK
ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

GJ, in my game vs. Miller, by 1944 the Allies were invading strongly held Japanese bases. For instance, Ternate had 50k troops that had been digging in for three years. I think Manado, Morotai and Ambon also had in excess of 20k troops well dug in.

I found that the Allied invasion forces....