Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Bif1961

Good luck is always welcomed on your side and helps when plans meet reality and have to be adjusted on the fly. Good luck and have fun.

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Southeast of Johnston Island

Aboard the I-18, Commander Otani’s eyes widened as he studied the composition of the American task force ahead of him through the periscope. Despite the heavy destroyer presence, he skillfully maneuvered his boat between the Porter and the Flusser and launched 8 torpedoes at the prize in the center. Three torpedoes slammed one after the other into the Lexington, raising large water sprouts over its side as they tore ugly gashes along its side. Shortly after the third torpedo impact, an explosion ripped through the mighty ship as the aviation fuel went up in flames.

Otani took the I-18 sub deep and waited out the destroyer counterattack before the tin cans raced back to assist their stricken charge.

Are you now going to engage in a maskirovka and retitle this thread to "Revenge of the Lexington"?

Alfred

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101




Luckily for me, the Lexington's aircraft all went down with her, so I don't have to worry about them avenging their mothership.

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Well, if there are lots of small task forces with no CAP, do you break your carrier air units into thirds to attack as many as is possible? Kates with bombs at 1000 feet save the torpedoes and work very well against lightly armored or unarmored targets.

Did you also magic move and/or are moving to capture a base to position AKEs, ADs, and AOs? This could be useful for your carriers.

Don't forget night search.

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ORIGINAL: CV10

Good luck Desertwolf! I play as the Allies and don't have much to offer in the way of advice, but I'll be following your AAR closely.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Well, if there are lots of small task forces with no CAP, do you break your carrier air units into thirds to attack as many as is possible? Kates with bombs at 1000 feet save the torpedoes and work very well against lightly armored or unarmored targets.

Did you also magic move and/or are moving to capture a base to position AKEs, ADs, and AOs? This could be useful for your carriers.

Don't forget night search.

I gradually split up my KB in three to go after the shipping in different areas around the coastline of southeastern Australia. I used up the torpedoes of 4 of the carriers and kept 2 on bombs only as a reserve. I did use the magic move of the first turn to get this far south with the KB as well as AOs but not with the other support ship types. I certainly have the intention to eventually capture bases in New Guinea, the Solomons, etc. though.

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Task Force Z destroyed.

I-boat nails a Fleet Carrier. Do you happen to know what the moon percentage was if it happened during the night? Allies typically expose their carriers too early when they cannot protect themselves from I-boats sufficiently. Happy hunting. One tactic I like to pursue early on is the Iboat rush. Surround those Pacific Islands you know that will be re-supplied (ports 2 or smaller), and have 4-5 Iboats rush in a patrol the base from 3 hexes distance with a glen doing night search. You maximize your DL...fireworks almost always follow (check those Iboat Captains).

Another is to make a task force of 2 subs and assign a Commander to give you a chance at good leadership rolls.

Well done.

Not sure about the Oz gambit with the KB. Good search for the Allies and more 4E and empty repair yards...but will they use them properly? Time will tell, and it is good to see differing tactics.

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Well, if there are lots of small task forces with no CAP, do you break your carrier air units into thirds to attack as many as is possible? Kates with bombs at 1000 feet save the torpedoes and work very well against lightly armored or unarmored targets.

Did you also magic move and/or are moving to capture a base to position AKEs, ADs, and AOs? This could be useful for your carriers.

Don't forget night search.

I gradually split up my KB in three to go after the shipping in different areas around the coastline of southeastern Australia. I used up the torpedoes of 4 of the carriers and kept 2 on bombs only as a reserve. I did use the magic move of the first turn to get this far south with the KB as well as AOs but not with the other support ship types. I certainly have the intention to eventually capture bases in New Guinea, the Solomons, etc. though.

I was not asking about the carriers, although that is also important, but the Kates and the Vals.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Industry Investment

I would like to seek some thoughts and advice on whether to increase heavy industry in the home islands. I don't plan to spend supplies on LI, but assuming I am successful in seizing all the oil fields in the SRA, should I be investing in HI to make use of it? I am also planning to increase a bit of HI in the SRA itself but not sure by how much. What works best for you guys?

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ORIGINAL: Alamander

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Industry Investment

I would like to seek some thoughts and advice on whether to increase heavy industry in the home islands. I don't plan to spend supplies on LI, but assuming I am successful in seizing all the oil fields in the SRA, should I be investing in HI to make use of it? I am also planning to increase a bit of HI in the SRA itself but not sure by how much. What works best for you guys?

Remember that HI uses fuel, so any expansion depends upon how much you intend to use your fleet. Do you intend to go far beyond the historical conquest area into SoPac, Ceylon, or further? If so, you may not want to do much expansion, if any. If you intend to capture some extra fuel, however, such as at Ledo, then a small expansion may be in order even if you go beyond the historical expansion.

Your best bet is probably to expand in Manchuko and central or northern China: areas that will be hard to strategically bomb until very late. A little expansion at Singapore can be helpful as well, since it is likely not to be taken until after you have recouped more than the supply cost of expansion, and it reduces the amount of fuel transport necessary.

I generally don't expand on Java. Others may, but I tend to use all the fuel from Java, Balikpapan, and Tarakan for the Pacific fleet, so I rarely have excess in Java. I tend to run the Indian fleet on Bangkok fuel as long as possible, and everything from Sumatra goes to the home islands, via Singapore, to fuel the heavy industry. For this reason, a little expansion at Singapore makes sense for me. Your mileage may vary depending upon how you organize your economy.

If you use Manila as a fuel depot, a small expansion there is not completely out of the question, if you move on the Phillipines early, rather than bypassing it. It is an inevitable target of almost every Allied advance, but if you can't hold it long enough to make it profitable, supply issues will be the least of your concerns.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Industry Investment

I would like to seek some thoughts and advice on whether to increase heavy industry in the home islands. I don't plan to spend supplies on LI, but assuming I am successful in seizing all the oil fields in the SRA, should I be investing in HI to make use of it? I am also planning to increase a bit of HI in the SRA itself but not sure by how much. What works best for you guys?

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Industry Investment

I would like to seek some thoughts and advice on whether to increase heavy industry in the home islands. I don't plan to spend supplies on LI, but assuming I am successful in seizing all the oil fields in the SRA, should I be investing in HI to make use of it? I am also planning to increase a bit of HI in the SRA itself but not sure by how much. What works best for you guys?

I can guarantee you that all the advice received will be to not invest where the break even will not eventuate. Classic argument will be a 1000 day break even on LI investment.

Except for my advice which no one ever seems to follow. The ROI is much more complex than the simplistic approach undertaken by the usual suspects.

Firstly, the first thing to notice is that when in doubt, adopting real world considerations will usually not be disadvantageous in AE.

Secondly, when it comes to real world military considerations, adopting a McNamara business spread sheet approach is often the wrong approach. Vietnam enemy body counts were always very much in favour of the Americans. The 1968 Tet Offensive destroyed the Vietcong presence in the South. And yet who ultimately won that conflict. Or how about the huge Chinese death toll in Korea, and yet that poor ROI resulted in pushing back the UN forces from the Yalu and ultimately a satisfactory armistice for the communists. Or consider the 3rd Reich's investment in brown coal to oil. No economist ever said that generated a good ROI ... and yet well before the loss of the Romanian oilfields, the Luftwaffe and Panzers could not have operated without such an unsatisfactory investment.

Thirdly, in AE the most common reason why the Japanese economy implodes in the late war is not due to Allied action but to Japanese decisions. It is extremely rare to find that before 31 August 1945 - the key cut off date for a Decisive Allied Victory - all of the industrial production facilities of the SRA have been recaptured by the Allies. The usual situation is that the Allies are in position to (a) directly target industry in the Home Islands, and (b) choke the sea borne convoy paths from the still Japanese held SRA industrial production facilities back to the Home Islands. The net result is that continued processed goods production in the SRA would be possible if only Japan had invested there beforehand, with little regard to the spread sheet approach.

Let's look at some of the important considerations which are never factored into the spread sheet by the usual suspects.

1. Supply is a wasting processed good. It will always be consumed by any LCUs located at the base, even if they do absolutely nothing.

2. Supply depots can be easily, and quickly destroyed by Allied air and sea bombardments. However such Allied activity cannot ever destroy any recently produced local supply before it gets distributed to the military asserts located in situ.

3. Even if the magical highway is set up, considerable supply and fuel (not to mention the cost in sunk ship VPs) is expended in shipping raw materials back to the Home Islands from the SRA. There are huge savings to be had if the raw materials can be consumed locally. These saving are never, I repeat never, inputted into the spread sheets.

4. Reducing the need to provide substantial rear area ASW protection for the raw material convoys releases substantial Japanese military assets to be deployed on the frontlines. Not to overlook all the supply and fuel expenditure involved without necessarily making any meaningful contact with Allied forces in these rear areas. Bonus points if these Japanese units can be fed by local production.

5. In 1944 the Mariana airfields allow for targeting the industrial facilities on the Home Islands. They are not so well situated for striking at the captured SRA industrial facilities. Even less well situated are any captured bases in the Kuriles, they are pretty much limited to targetting Sakhlin and Hokkaido. Of course if no investment in the SRA had been made by Japan, these geographical limitations don't count, the Allied player can just operate on auto with strategic bombing of the Home Islands involving his entire strategic force. Not so easy when the strategic forces can't be concentrated against a single geographic area. Especially when the Allies earn no strategic VPs for bombing the SRA.

6. It is much harder to damage Light Industry than it is to damage Heavy Industry. Plus there are many more locations in the SRA where Light Industry is found rather than Heavy Industry. Combining dispersal and hardness (plus the lack of any strategic VP generation) makes it quite an involved process for the Allies to knock out SRA in situ supply generation.


There is a lot more to conducting military operations than the bean counters with their spread sheets realise. That is the case out in the real world, and it also applies to AE.

Alfred

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If you drop the Kates to 1000 feet, they work pretty well with bombs against soft targets.

For LI, consider building up Fusan to pull more resources there that can easily be shipped to Japan.

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ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

IIRC, the Yamatos cannot be reloaded by a level 7 port unless there is enough Naval Support there as well. Even the Iowas require a Level 8 port to rearm, with an ammo load cost of 2700 or so vs 3200 or so for the Yamatos.

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ORIGINAL: DanielAClark

So...the industry choice boils down to centralized vs distributed supply production and coordinating resource flows.

Centralized is simpler to conceptually control, but harder on sealift or transport capacity, which is limited...?

Distributed offers advantages long term but requires more planning work to be successful?

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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

If you think that you are going to need more supplies in China, then expanding industry in northern China and Manchuria will provide you the supplies. No shipping needed other than the initial cost. Those supply sources should be safe until the Soviets are activated, so don't send Stalin any rotten sushi early. The expansions there will also not give the enemy VPs for their destruction.