DJAndrews
Posts: 305
Joined: 1/26/2003
From: Toronto, ON, CA
Status: offline
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Hi Mogami, I have a question and some comments for you in a related, but slightly different vein. I recently completed a scenario 17 game as the Japanese against the computer (mostly) but since this was my first long game, I regularly checked the Allied side to see what was going on and what the response and tactics of the computer were.
My overall approach was to send back only very badly damaged CV, BB and CA (+50) and only the CS, CL and DD's that were damaged to the point where their speed dropped below 17-18 mph (nauts?). These latter vessels were committed to full time raiding of the shipping lanes between PM and Bris/Townsville and Luganville/Noumea, in conjunction with all my subs and periodic carrier hit-and-run raids. This approach was adopted early in the game after the Lex and the Yorktown were sunk with all their aircraft, giving me an early advantage. The convoy-attack tactics sunk a lot of transports (in total about 60-70, I think)with relatively few losses in either ships or planes (Kates are marvelous against unescorted transports and CL/DD use torpedoes like mad when they're not being shot at by the big guys).
An autovictory resulted at the begining of '43. During the entire game I sent back about twenty ships including 2 CVs, 2CVLs, 1 BB and about 6 CAs. The only ships I received (other than the June/July build) were an empty CVE and 5 DDs (in mid December). At the time of the attack on Luganville, all my CVs, BBs and CAs had Sys damage between 20 and 35. The CVs were jammed with aircraft from the carriers that had been sent home, though. They were slow but they packed a punch.
At the time of the invasion the supply situation was critical at both Luganville and PM. There were no supplies (except for those inherent to the units) at Luganville and only about 10 K at PM. There were 250 planes at Luganville and 300+ at Efate. After the initial day's bombing and bombardment, the Luganville planes were interdicted using only unescorted Bettys and Nels from Lunga, leaving only Efate and Noumea for the carriers to deal with. This wasn't because of airfield damage (at least not entirely). There was a lot of damage but not enough to ground the planes, so the supply situation must have had something to do with it.
The base fell in about a week even though it was relatively well garrisoned (two Rgts of the Americal and a total of +25K troops, with a fort level of 7, I think). I noticed that where a deliberate attack might be expected to bag 50-200 well supplied troops, losses climbed to about 1000 a turn for unsupplied troops. The AI tryed to re-supply/reinforce with FT and C-47s. The FT got through, but it was too little, too late. The C-47s were intercepted.
At PM the massive bomber horde was kept in check because of the supply-related penalties. Long range bomber raids on Woodlark (my forward base in the area) were limited to about 50 Forts and Marauders (presumably because of the double supply rule). Raids of that size can be softened substantially by a strong cap. At games-end, Woodlark had only been shut down for a total of two days and about 50 Fortresses had been destroyed, mostly through operational losses.
Now, I realize that many of these tactics will not be nearly as successful against a human opponent (convoys will be harder to intercept, DDs will be added to the convoys, supplies won't be allowed to drop so low, bombing will be held until the P38s are available for long-range escort, etc., etc.) but given the fact that I only received 6 relatively useless ships in the entire game, isn't it worth keeping damaged, low-value combat vessels for such things as raiding, short-range FT, convoy protection, etc.? Even if you just force the allies to divert DDs to protect convoys, you've accomplished something. The Japanese will be hard pressed to deal with either the quantity, or later on, the quality of US ships, in any case. If you go after combat vessels you'll lose too many planes (to flak) and small ships to be able to mount any kind of defense later on, even if you are relatively successful against ships. Once your fighter pool is gone you may as well go to bed and pull the covers over your head.
Attacking the other major Allied advantage (logistics) seems to be a better use of Japan's very limited resources. If he can't reach you, he can't hurt you. It may not be in the samarai spirit, but it may save the homeland.
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