Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: beppi

The reatreat in India is very very strange. No gains for Reader from my POV. He just could have fought a classical delay fight, he has the troops to substanial delay any allied advance. How is the VP ratio right now ? Might it be possible, at least it was my first thought, that reader wants to avoid a auto victory in 1945 ? I have to admit that i did it sometimes too, to not exploit a strategic mistake of my opponent, just to extend the game and to enjoy it longer. It just seems so strange, he did not even test you combat strength.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Commander Cody

Beppi: Greyjoy mentioned once that they are both disregarding auto-vic. I think Rader is more interested in doing better than real life.

I too am puzzled by Rader's movements, but then again I was earlier as well when he crossed the LOD. The guy may be a genius for all we know. The Moose stumbled onto Rader's brilliant pilot-sacrifice HI-saving scheme.

Anyway, I can't say enough about this AAR. I am as impressed with Greyjoy's irrepressible good nature as I am with his frequent malapropisms, not to mention his ability to forge his own path while receiving a sea of advice.

Cheers,
CC

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

Whether Rader is a genius or not remains to be seen. He does have very distinct ideas about the mechanisms of the game and how to use them, and he does want not only to do better than real life as the Japanese, but in my opinion he wants to WIN. I think this might be defined for him as still fighting hard by the end date in 46.

Look at his AAR Taming the Bear about his game with Jzanes. For views on bombing look at the several threads started recently by him on 4Es hitting troops. He is in mid-45 and frustrated by the way Jzanes is defeating his best laid plans with very historically possible (if politically questionable) 4E bombing. Not upset at Jzanes, just at the fact that he feels there is nothing he can do to combat the strength of the combined Russian and US advance using 4E as the main softening weapon. According to Jzanes he also is moving back forces from the DEI to rear positions to try and stall into 46.

In that game he is also by most standards doing incredibly well. He mentions at one point early on that he cares nothing about auto-victory, and that his invasion of Russia was simply for trying to survive longer in the late war.

In this game he will use all of what he is learning there about the situation in 45 to improve on his position (one of the reasons why I think it will be difficult for GJ to attack on the same axis into the DEI as was used by Jzanes). This is what is happening in India. He is choosing a position before GJ forces him into one. He will most likely stay out of the clear at all costs. He will also probably learn a lot about defending massed 4E attack on the HI in the next months there and begin to apply that to the game with GJ.

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ORIGINAL: USS America

Hmmm..... with the evacuation of Japanese troops in India, the waters of the Bay of Bengal and off Malaya might be very good hunting grounds for Allied subs...

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ORIGINAL: Powloon

Firstly I've just spent a week reading this AAR (not really helped my productivity at work!) and just wanted chime in to say congratulations on toughing this one out! It has been a great read and vastly helped me take my own newbish footprints into the grand campaign.

I was wondering if you are able to decouple you carriers from the Solomans? As I imagine if you can get them into the Indian Ocean at the moment you would play merry hell. I'm guessing from the time of the game and the trashing you have done of KBs air groups even if you did bump into KB which might be sheperding his convoys out of India you would stand a good chance of coming out victorious.

Obviously feel free to ignore as it looks like your not lacking advice from eminently more experienced players.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SBD

Jan 28, 29, 30, 31 1944

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Call me fool but i don't get Rader's strategy.... He moved everything back to Kohima (northern Burma!!!!).... my paras conquered Lahore and Dehli, while our troops are strat moving to occupy these key positions... not a single air mission conducted by the japs to interdict my movements...

Seems that Rader wants to leave the whole India in my hands and move the whole front back to Burma...

Well...we keep on advancing.... now, while some tanks units will secure Ralpawindi and northern India, the bulk of my army is moving to Dehli, where we're gonna organize again and get ready for the next jump...

I think Rader may be responding to the clock. He sees that the game's into '44 already & in 11 short months it will be '45. He has experience in his other game playing against the late war allies & knows what they can do. So he feels uncomfortable leaving a large # of troops in a forward position that could get flanked. Therefore he's consolidating his position.

Just my guess at what he's thinking. Of course there's also a chance that there could be some sort of ruse involved.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alfred

If Rader has set a trap for a tactical riposte, he has chosen very poor terrain for it. Last screenshot on previous page shows Japan has abandoned every base north of Cawnpore and Delhi was already in Allied hands.

To set up a trap Rader would have done best to:

(a) hold the Allied advance at the tri base area (Lahore, Amritsar, Sialkot)
(b) work around the Allied flanks, using excess troops from the tri base area plus Rawalpindi, to move on Multan which would have had much lower fortification levels than the tri base area bases (which allowed for plentiful of excess Japanese forces)
(c) advance his Jodhpur troops to Hyderabad (Sindh)
(d) advance along the coast from Ahmedabad to Karachi

This would still allowed him the additional option of a direct landing at Karachi.

Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
...
I don't think this is a trap...i'm keeping Karachi well garrisoned anyway, with a corp of 2000 AVs in strat mode at Multan...just to be sure...
...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

quote:

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
...
I don't think this is a trap...i'm keeping Karachi well garrisoned anyway, with a corp of 2000 AVs in strat mode at Multan...just to be sure...
...

If this corps is meant to counter a possible invasion of Karachi by sea you may want to move it to Hyderabad (the one next to Karachi) as you cannot STRAT move them into a contested hex (at least that's how I remember it).
This means you would have to move overland for a few hexes, so I would at least get rid of those strat move days and maybe even the days for changing mode from strat to regular move.

But as posted earlier I highly doubt he'll be around for small tactical battles. He is following his strategic goals.

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

It seems if you're going to sweep you might have to prepare a massively overwhelming attack. On the offensive it's so easy to be surprised and have results that negate several weeks of positive gains, especially with losing the pilots. Sorry about that one. The other thing is that this makes some good pilots for him. Assuming many of the ones who got the kills survived that is.

quote:

I didn't post the whole combat report. I had 75 P-47s, 75 P-38Hs and 56 Hellcats from Rekata. Air HQ was present.... despite that every single group went in separetly...many groups even got separated on their own with several planes flying before the bombers and some more after the bombers...a mess. I never am able to make my sweeps coordinated and that's a pain...while generally his sweeps have always been well coordinated.

quote:

Weather in hex: Thunderstorms
Weather in hex: Severe storms

quote:

ORIGINAL: obvert

quote:

I didn't post the whole combat report. I had 75 P-47s, 75 P-38Hs and 56 Hellcats from Rekata. Air HQ was present.... despite that every single group went in separetly...many groups even got separated on their own with several planes flying before the bombers and some more after the bombers...a mess. I never am able to make my sweeps coordinated and that's a pain...while generally his sweeps have always been well coordinated.

Yeah, you'd think that would be enough. Hmm.

quote:

Weather in hex: Thunderstorms
Weather in hex: Severe storms

Maybe this had something to do with the separations. Does Rader have a better Ij weatherman, too? Can you build one of those with extra HI?

quote:

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

There are a number of factors that result in lack of coordination of sweeps in what I believe are the order of impact of those factors:

1) Plane types (specifically differences in cruising speed) – same plane type coordinates better; the closer the aircraft types are in cruising speed the greater the chance of coordinated strikes;
2) Altitude – if you send planes in at different altitudes they will tend to go in uncoordinated, all at the same height and you have more odds of a coordinated large strike;
3) Weather – the worse the weather (i.e. rain, thunderstorms) the greater the chances for the strikes to be uncoordinated;
4) Range to target – the further away from the target hex the various squadrons are, the greater the odds of it being uncoordinated;
5) Origin – if all the planes are launching from the same base, greater chance of coordination;
6) Air HQ being present at the origin base;
7) Other factors like squadron leader statistics, squadron morale.

It appears you ordered Kittyhawks from Munda, and P-47s, P-38s and F6Fs from Rekata Bay.

It looks like you had three squadrons P-47s, three squadrons P-38s and two squadrons F6Fs (at least) at Rekata Bay – what airfield level is it? Do you have any other squadrons there (e.g. dive-bombers, patrol planes)? It could well be that your airfield was overstacked – resulting in sweeps also not going in coordinated.

The F6F’s cruising speed is quite a bit slower than the P-47D and the P-38Hs (200mph as opposed to around 250mph). This could have been a factor too.

I think in this case the following happened that counted against you:

1) Different plane types
2) Poor weather
3) Very poor die roll