Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Hugely broad questions that would require volumes to respond, and then the responses wouldn't be tailored to your circumstances! Specific advice given now will be out of date tomorrow - because circumstances will change. So I encourage you to search for readable Allied AARs (Q-Ball vs. GreyJoy; GreyJoy vs. Kane) and pick up some ideas. Also, just trying things and getting your butt kicked is a good way to learn.

Those caveats in mind, here are a few short answers:

1. Singapore needs supply and ground troops. See if you can load up a bunch of xAK at places like Batavia, Soerabaja, Palembang and Balikpapan and send them poste haste. Your window won't be open long, but you might be able to ram in 25k, 50k, 100k, and that would be as good as gold. Your troops "up the Malaysia Peninsula" mostly need to bug out and get back to Singers (don't forget to prep them!). You might leave some behind to slow down the Japs in favorable terrain and to keep them from steamrolling right down to Singers.

2. Luzon is tough to defend in a meaningful way. Get most of your decent troops to Clark Field and, if possible, try to ram in some supply via xAK. Those will be suicide runs, but even ounce will help. If your opponent/AI is negligent, you might have some chances to do some spoiling attacks, but mainly Luzon is a passive theater - your troops just button up at Clark and take a licking until they die.

3. You're chomping at the bit to use your carriers. Every Allied player is. And most of us go and lose them post haste, weep bitter tears, and are tempted to quit. So first rule is: Don't lose your carriers! That means don't take snazzy chances unless you know exactly what you're doing (which generally means you know where the KB is - far away) and why. Oftentimes, hiding your carriers so that an opponent doesn't know where they are and has to allow for them to pop up everywhere is effective. Experienced player can make big use of carrriers early and often, but for a newbie, you mainly just want to keep them out of danger until around June 1943.

4. Yes, you'll get lots of supply at your West Coast bases. It comes from East Coast automatically.

5. Generally just hunker down, maximize your CAP, and don't move heavily damaged and vulnerable ships. They're better in port than risking getting whacked out of port. Now, you might consider "fleeing the coop" with lightly damaged ships that can still make good speed. Send them south or southeast or even send them sprinting to nearby ports in the chain (set to disband) so that all your eggs aren't in a single nest. But, often, I leave damaged ships in Pearl for months, until I'm sure the "coast is clear" and until damage is repaired enough to make a journey back to West Coast acceptably risky.

"Life is tough, it's even tougher when you're stupid" -SGT John M. Stryker, USMC

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ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Another good Allied source for you is Bullwinkle. He keeps a lot of those threads you're interested in on his Roladex. Let's call him.

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ORIGINAL: jzardos

Just wondering if anybody could help me with a few short and long term action items to do as allies after the Dec 7th, 1941 nightmare turn.

Some of my questions are around
- best way to defend Singapore
- bets way to defend Philippines
- what to do with CV fleets in action and CV in west coast.
- do I get more supply in west coast? Surprise to low supply levels there to start scenario.
- what to do with ships in PH (damaged and non-damaged), Japan makes a 2nd strike?

Any and all advice and or links to what I'm guessing has been asked before is much appreciated.

Thanks!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Hugely broad questions that would require volumes to respond, and then the responses wouldn't be tailored to your circumstances! Specific advice given now will be out of date tomorrow - because circumstances will change. So I encourage you to search for readable Allied AARs (Q-Ball vs. GreyJoy; GreyJoy vs. Kane) and pick up some ideas. Also, just trying things and getting your butt kicked is a good way to learn.

Those caveats in mind, here are a few short answers:

1. Singapore needs supply and ground troops. See if you can load up a bunch of xAK at places like Batavia, Soerabaja, Palembang and Balikpapan and send them poste haste. Your window won't be open long, but you might be able to ram in 25k, 50k, 100k, and that would be as good as gold. Your troops "up the Malaysia Peninsula" mostly need to bug out and get back to Singers (don't forget to prep them!). You might leave some behind to slow down the Japs in favorable terrain and to keep them from steamrolling right down to Singers.

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2. Luzon is tough to defend in a meaningful way. Get most of your decent troops to Clark Field and, if possible, try to ram in some supply via xAK. Those will be suicide runs, but even ounce will help. If your opponent/AI is negligent, you might have some chances to do some spoiling attacks, but mainly Luzon is a passive theater - your troops just button up at Clark and take a licking until they die.

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3. You're chomping at the bit to use your carriers. Every Allied player is. And most of us go and lose them post haste, weep bitter tears, and are tempted to quit. So first rule is: Don't lose your carriers! That means don't take snazzy chances unless you know exactly what you're doing (which generally means you know where the KB is - far away) and why. Oftentimes, hiding your carriers so that an opponent doesn't know where they are and has to allow for them to pop up everywhere is effective. Experienced player can make big use of carrriers early and often, but for a newbie, you mainly just want to keep them out of danger until around June 1943.

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5. Generally just hunker down, maximize your CAP, and don't move heavily damaged and vulnerable ships. They're better in port than risking getting whacked out of port. Now, you might consider "fleeing the coop" with lightly damaged ships that can still make good speed. Send them south or southeast or even send them sprinting to nearby ports in the chain (set to disband) so that all your eggs aren't in a single nest. But, often, I leave damaged ships in Pearl for months, until I'm sure the "coast is clear" and until damage is repaired enough to make a journey back to West Coast acceptably risky.

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

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3. You're chomping at the bit to use your carriers. Every Allied player is. And most of us go and lose them post haste, weep bitter tears, and are tempted to quit. So first rule is: Don't lose your carriers! That means don't take snazzy chances unless you know exactly what you're doing (which generally means you know where the KB is - far away) and why. Oftentimes, hiding your carriers so that an opponent doesn't know where they are and has to allow for them to pop up everywhere is effective. Experienced player can make big use of carrriers early and often, but for a newbie, you mainly just want to keep them out of danger until around June 1943.

Probably good advice for new players. For experienced players, Allied carriers can be a most unpleasant surprise to an invasion TF. I would be tempted to use them if an excellent opportunity arose, but they are extremely vulnerable to a surprise Japanese arrival of KB.

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

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5. Generally just hunker down, maximize your CAP, and don't move heavily damaged and vulnerable ships. They're better in port than risking getting whacked out of port. Now, you might consider "fleeing the coop" with lightly damaged ships that can still make good speed. Send them south or southeast or even send them sprinting to nearby ports in the chain (set to disband) so that all your eggs aren't in a single nest. But, often, I leave damaged ships in Pearl for months, until I'm sure the "coast is clear" and until damage is repaired enough to make a journey back to West Coast acceptably risky.

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ORIGINAL: Feltan

WRT the sub game.

Early on take special care to deploy Dutch subs and the S boats -- in '42 they will be the kill leaders if you use them wisely. With dud torpedoes, deployment of fleet boats is up for debate. You can deploy them on the approaches to the Japanese homeland via Pearl, or eventually Midway and just ignore the fact that a lot (hmm... maybe 75%) of the hits will be duds. I often use them for emergency supply runs to Singers and Bataan to try and prolong things a tad more, but just a tad.

Set up your key sub bases and if they don't have a shipyard use AR/ARD at them to repair light damage. At first the AS situation isn't too good, but later you will get so many of them that they will be begging for work.

Regards,
Feltan

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ORIGINAL: bruin

quote:

ORIGINAL: jzardos

Just wondering if anybody could help me with a few short and long term action items to do as allies after the Dec 7th, 1941 nightmare turn.

Some of my questions are around
- best way to defend Singapore
- bets way to defend Philippines
- what to do with CV fleets in action and CV in west coast.
- do I get more supply in west coast? Surprise to low supply levels there to start scenario.
- what to do with ships in PH (damaged and non-damaged), Japan makes a 2nd strike?

Any and all advice and or links to what I'm guessing has been asked before is much appreciated.

Thanks!

Excellent initial AAR/walkthrough here:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2564541&mpage=1&key=

My thoughts based on playing as Allies vs AI IJ (Against human this might not work):

- best way to defend Singapore
Don't - evac your forces out as quickly as you can. Wherever the Japanese are advancing, pick a defensive perimeter and hold it. No point holding singapore because you can't get supplies or reinforcements in. So fall back to where you can. My main holding line in the DEI is Timor (Koepang/Lautem). I also throw a lot of forces in Java (mainly Batavia since it is not a Malaria zone). Java is meant to be a speedbump (albeit a major one) in the Japanese advance to buy you some time to build up elsewhere. You could really hold Java forever against AI (but that makes things too easy). Evac Malay/Singapore forces and planes to Java, send troops moving into the area to Timor. You'll also want to send some supplies in early as it will be much harder to later.

- bets way to defend Philippines
I say defend Manila. I think it's better than Clark Field since Manila is heavy urban giving much higher defensive bonuses but not sure. I hold both Clark & Manila until all Phillipine forces have shown up, then concentrate in Manila and make sure to set all units objectives as manila. Supplies will be a massive problem. Best way to get them are 1. Hold a small force in Naga and send single ship transports with supplies into Naga to reinforce. 2. Japanese will land in several outskirt areas with minor forces, attacked them and you'll gain their supplies.

- what to do with CV fleets in action and CV in west coast.
I use them to defend bases against where the Japanese fleets will be landing. But make sure to KEEP out of KBs way!

- do I get more supply in west coast? Surprise to low supply levels there to start scenario.
They'll get there quickly.

- what to do with ships in PH (damaged and non-damaged), Japan makes a 2nd strike?
Put all your fighters on cap and pray. Another option I've done before, put together a task force or two of like 10 DDs, send them to attack the Japanese fleet. Once or twice I've scored a torpedo hit on a carrier. But what this does do is - instead of a 50% chance they attack Pearl again, it's now close to a 100% chance they attack your DD task force instead and you lose most of them.

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By the way, if someone wonders why I set all of my Dive Bombers and Torpedo Bombers, both land and on CVs to 13 000ft, explanation is this:

Escort fighters fly 2k above strike planes, so putting strike to 13k puts escort fighters to 15k. This is inside the optimum altitude band of Allied early war fighters. 15k is actually the highest altitude for max maneuverability of about all early war Allied fighters. Putting strike at for example 15k would put fighters to 17k and already above "best altitude". And putting attack planes to 10k would put them at 12k..which is sub-optimal too, while in best altitude band, they'd be lacking that extra 3k of altitude..and altitude advantage can be crucial.

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ORIGINAL: jzardos

Thanks for the link, great resource. But curious why both the DB and TB should be set to alt of 13k? Always thought the TB should be around 6k? Was I wrong this whole time? Or is it that at the same alt, they are protected better by the CAP at 15k alt? Also, should training be 100%? That does not wear down the pilots and morale? Maybe that does matter if they gain exp faster? Thoughts?

"To meaningless French Idealism, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality...we answer with German Realism, Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery" -Prince von Bülov, 1870-

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ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

You can put a sub base in the Aleutians as well. I think it is Adak can be built to port size 6. A good site for subs hunting the northern Japanese isles.

Midway and Wake make good spots for an Advanced Sub base. Wake will be a little more exposed if KB is still running around. You will want to move your advanced sub bases forward as the "front lines" move forward with your advance.

And use those fleet boats! Just because they have an enormous dud rate, they are still gaining experience. And they will still kill ships, even if fweer of them.

Dive bombing from 14K used to put your dive bombers in groups of 9 for their bombing runs. It was groups of 4 if set to 10K. When facing KB or other high value naval units, you want the higher alt; AAA hits them from the higher alt on in/egress making it safer and groups of 9 are more likely to have all your ordnance spent on high value units rather than a hapless xAKL. Conversly, if you are gunning for a lot of merchies, you want the lower alt so you can spread the love around to more ships.

Consider anything in Singapore as lost. Anything they can do is icing on the cake. The more supply, the longer they can hold out. Sir Robin down the peninsula with as much as you can.

Same is true for Soerabaja. Get them the supplies they need to die a glorious death and have movies made about them for the next 50 years. If you try to hold both Batavia and Soerabaja, you are splitting your forces, but I have a hard time just handing Batavia over. It's just too big. Make them pay for it.

Same for the Philippines. You can load up some units on single ship task forces the first day and send them to Darwin, but don't expect them all to make it. Only try to move non-combat units. Keep anything with a AV there to fight. Keep the B-17s long enough to bomb every port in range and bag a few at anchor. If you're lucky, you can hit a bunch of escorts which will make your sub battle much easier.

If Japan makes subsequent attacks on Pearl, there is not much you can do to prevent it. Subs might be able to bag a flat top but are more likely to just alert them to their presence with a premature torp explosion. But further attacks on Pearl is not a bad thing. It uses up precious naval pilots. Hitting an alerted Pearl is like wearing a shirt of flowers and smacking a bee hive when you're allergic to bees. We'll, maybe not quite that bad.....