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FeurerKrieg -> RE: May 10th, 1943 (4/2/2009 10:24:03 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: leehunt27@bloomberg.net
If you don't mind me asking Feurer Krieg, can you talk about some of the strategic lessons, victories, blunders etc in your campaign so far? I am just starting a CHS game right now (after an 18 month break from WiTP) as the Japanese and trying to ramp up a slow start into a decent push. What were the decisive moves, the regrets and what not? Always good to talk strategy part way in :)
Hi Lee -
Happy to discuss.
In general, I don't think I have made many strategic blunders, just tactical ones. Other might see it different, and they are free to comment!
On the strategic side: I think keeping the KB in sitting at anchor in the Pacific has worked well. The US can't attack without bringing everything they have, and meanwhile, the KB ships are all at 3 or less system damage, 85% of the pilots are above 75 experience, and all ships (including surface ships) are fully upgraded. Will all that help in a big fight? Maybe not, but it can't hurt.
One could say I should have not taken Midway, Line Islands and/or Johnston, but I would disagree. Each of those assaults by the US took time and cost them ships and pilots. To be fair Johnston cost me carriers, but that was a tactical error that I'll speak to below. If I hadn't taken those places, it is quite possible the US would have spent that time attacking the Kuriles, or maybe the Gilberts/Marshalls before I had them built up.
The biggest benefit to this strategy has been that I was able to cut off Australia from the US Carriers. Therefore, there has not been any offensive threat to NG, Solomons, New Caledonia, or the southern DEI at all. With no threat, I have been able to keep my assets high in Burma and the eastern Pacific. Japan often has a 4 or 5 front war to deal with - I've been able to keep it down to mainly 2 fronts thus far. This has allowed me time to get divisions and brigades on the critical bases that I showed in a map a few posts back - the bases the Allies need to take to escort bomber raids on the Home Islands.
Another of my 'broad' goals has paid off well - avoid attrition battles. In Burma this can be seen I think. The enemy fighters have to come to me to engage and because of that I have a very high recovery rate of pilots. I can afford to lose airframes, but not pilots. So if the enemy bomber kill some frames on the ground, not such a big deal, given that my pilots that get shot down in the air are often rescued. I can only hope that enemy pilots are not rescued as often, but I don't have any way to know if that is the case.
Finally - the other big part of my strategy - removing China - paid off very well. I haven't had to worry about shipping lots of supplies or troops or air units into China and those assets have been able to be channeled out to our two main fronts. LCUs are starting to come out of China now as well, and those will be helpful, given many of them are 99 exp units.
Tactically I have definitely made some mistakes and learned from them. The biggest was the carrier battle at Johnston. Because this mod has lowered torpedo accuracy, I should have replaced my Kates with either fighters or dive bombers before that battle. If the divebombers get some hits, slowing the enemy flattops, then Kates can be swapped in and attack on the second day to finish off the enemy ships. Our second carrier battles in the Line Islands show the results of removing the torpedo bombers - we lost no ships in that engagement.
I regret losing two CA's at Kendari early in the war also, but I think at the time the loss was worth it. The rapid seizure of the DEI was essential to my overall plans in the Pacific, and if I had to do it again, would probably not change anything there.
A minor error was neglecting to shut off my Hitachi engine factories right away, now I have 167 in the pool that are worthless.
My CHS pointers would be (at least for scen 160):
A) Don't fight unless you 1) have to or 2) can get really good kill to death ratios
B) Swap out torpedo bombers unless you are hunting transports
C) Keep the US away from Australia as long as possible
D) Secure the DEI right away.
E) Pick either the Philippines or Singapore and throw most of your stuff there. Don't try to take both simultaneously - you can take the two faster if you do it sequentially.
F) PLAN PLAN PLAN. Plan out the first 9-12 months of the war, with some contingencies in place for when things don't go as planned. Without such planning, it just isn't possible to move fuel and supplies to where you will need them, as well as getting troop lift capacity in place. Start shipping fuel and supplies out of the HI from day 1.
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