RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN.

RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN. (Full Version)

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Alfred -> RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN. (8/14/2010 6:29:00 PM)
Or the explanation could be a lot simpler viz that your opponent is still just trying things to learn how they work in AE and is not attempting to maximise his play. Alfred

Nemo121 -> RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN. (8/14/2010 7:41:15 PM)
Well, anything is possible but from his communications via email it is clear he is playing the game and not just conducting random testing. If I thought he was just doing testing in-game I'd resign. I have no stomach for that sort of malarkey.

BBfanboy -> RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN. (8/15/2010 6:45:07 AM)
Hi Nemo 121 et al! I have just read all 20 pages of this AAR - loving the great strategy and incisive analysis of risks/opportunities! Many thanks for taking the time to instruct us newbies. [&o] On another note, you mentioned some time back that you thought Japan had about 12 CAs. There are actually 18, four of which are the smaller 6-gun Aoba class. Six additional CAs could account for some of the heavier opposition by SCTFs you are seeing. As for CLs, Japan has 20 of the old ones and builds 4 of the modern Agano class and one Oyodo during the war. I think they start to appear in 1943. Two of the old ones are rated as training cruisers only good for 18 knots or so. The game seems to model the historical US gunnery in night battles in which all the US ships aim at the biggest radar blip [usually the closest] and leave the rest of the enemy force unengaged. This often means one Japanese ship gets clobbered but several US ones take significant damage or "torps up the chuff"![X(]. I don't know of any way of getting around this other than perhaps choosing very competent admirals? Having many more ships than the enemy just seems to mean that some will not get into firing position at all during the battle ....[:(]

Nemo121 -> RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN. (8/15/2010 12:39:03 PM)
On the 10th April 1942... Well the Marblehead TF intercepted the damaged enemy transports from the previous night but somehow they managed to get away. The other CL TF comprising radar-equipped CLs and DDs didn't intercept anything at all. Ah well, sometimes luck goes against you. C'est la guerre. I-158 clobbered the AD Rigel I was sneaking into Palembang to support the reloading of torpedoes on my DDs so it looks like I'll have to try again with another AD... this time relying on escorts rather than stealth to get in. ANOTHER midget submarine ( Ha-12 ) is sunk at Kwajalein today. Seriously does this base spawn midget submarines or something? It is getting beyond a joke. [8D] 58 Oscars sweep Palembang again. My fighter force only mounts a limited response due to base overstacking ( although that is intentional on my part as I prefer to have my fighter squadrons only commit a portion of their force each turn in order to preserve my force should a bit of a disaster befall me some day. Well, that and the fact that with smaller fighter squadrons the current stacking rules work against the Allies. 5 x 16 plane squadrons = 80 fighters. The IJAAF can host 220 fighters on the same size base without triggering overstacking. I think this is a significant flaw in the game design as it creates an imbalance which is actually the opposite of reality. In reality the Allies had better administration and could run more squadrons from a given field than the Japanese. In any case I am confirmed as having lost 5 fighters and the IJAAF is confirmed as having lost 5 Oscars. I'm sure a few more will be ops losses as they make the long flight home though so, again, I should be coming out with 1.5:1 loss ratio in my favour. The F4F-4s were a bit of a disappointment as it seems the Sea Hurricanes made most of the kills. I'll keep VF-3 and VF-42 in the fight for a few more days just to see how they do longer term. I think I may also begin pulling out the smaller RAF squadrons to see what sort of CAP I can put up if I confine Palembang to just hosting my 5 largest squadrons. Medan gets pounded, again, by over 120 bombers and a small IJN force shows up around Talaud launching a half-dozen B5N1s which torpedo one of my xAKs unloading engineers at Talaud. Time to mount some LRCAP again methinks. In terms of ground combat there were two significant fights in China today. In the first.... Ground combat at Nanchang (85,54) Allied Deliberate attack Attacking force 29916 troops, 114 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 1240 Defending force 5444 troops, 46 guns, 89 vehicles, Assault Value = 142 Allied adjusted assault: 1141 Japanese adjusted defense: 81 Allied assault odds: 14 to 1 (fort level 3) Allied forces CAPTURE Nanchang !!! Combat modifiers Defender: forts(+), preparation(-), experience(-) Attacker: Japanese ground losses: 1999 casualties reported Squads: 35 destroyed, 24 disabled Non Combat: 119 destroyed, 25 disabled Engineers: 23 destroyed, 1 disabled Guns lost 8 (8 destroyed, 0 disabled) Vehicles lost 85 (85 destroyed, 0 disabled) Units retreated 2 Allied ground losses: 285 casualties reported Squads: 1 destroyed, 28 disabled Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 7 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Assaulting units: 99th Chinese Corps 70th Chinese Corps 100th Chinese Corps Defending units: 22nd/B Division 17th JAAF Base Force That looks like the end of this component of the 22nd IJA Division. It has been forced back twice now and is only a shell of its old self. The long arm of the twin encirclements of Changsha is now almost complete with the capture of this base. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at 81,58 Allied Deliberate attack Attacking force 8489 troops, 37 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 317 Defending force 2246 troops, 27 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 74 Allied adjusted assault: 120 Japanese adjusted defense: 125 Allied assault odds: 1 to 2 Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+) Attacker: leaders(-) Japanese ground losses: 224 casualties reported Squads: 1 destroyed, 22 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 7 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Allied ground losses: 161 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 10 disabled Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 16 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Assaulting units: 73rd Chinese Corps Defending units: 102nd Infantry Regiment Hmm, it may be that a shock attack combined with some ground attacks by my bombers - the 15 bombers I have in the China theatre - might shift this defending Regiment. I'd like to push them back towards the coast at Wuchow etc in order to help protect the flank of my forces marching for Canton. I don't see any huge forces at Canton but I'm sure I must be mistaken. I have 3 Corps heading there which shouldn't be enough to force out even a regiment but should be enough to pin them down and protect my forces encircling Changsha from being surprised by amphibious landings in the south. I am receiving intel reporting that more troops ( including tank regiments ) are making for Northern Sumatra. I have 4 convoys between 2 and 5 days out and by the time they are done unloading I'll have added another 400 AV to my defensive AV and will be confident enough of holding, particularly as I'll have quite a few engineers along to help out.

Nemo121 -> RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN. (8/15/2010 1:08:06 PM)
I've been having a look at my forces in Burma and while I don't want to weaken things too much I have been looking at the trails running from Moulmein down to Thailand proper. I don't expect to break through... In fact breaking through might actually be harmful to my plan but I have two more Indian divisions about to enter Burma, have about 600 AV tied up behind my lines guarding rear area bases and am beginning to think to myself that if I combined them with a division from my blocking force in eastern Burma ( which is preventing the IJA force which reacted to my initial counter-attack from Burma from entering Burma ) and one of the two divisions guarding against the Imperial Guards Division moving north to Moulmein from Tavoy then I could push a 1,000+ AV force into Thailand and force Mike to commit another portion of his reserve. This would lessen his ability to react to any landings I might make in Malaysia proper. Basically he has taken 500 AV from his reserve and committed them to hold Hankow, another 700 AV to attack Onnekotan Jima, 400 AV to try to clear Mindanao and about 600 to 700 AV to take northern Sumatra. That makes a total of 2,200 AV. Since the SRA comprises about 5,500 AV or so that leaves another 3,000 AV uncommitted and available to guard against my attacks from the Marshalls, my drive into Mindanao via Talaud, any other major Chinese incursions and anything I can conjure up from Burma. Since by the end of the month I intend to encircle 5,000+ AV at Changsha that'll require a committment of force from the SRA to break that siege. If I can complicate his task by stalemating him in Mindanao, which I'm trying to do, AND in Northern Sumatra, which I'm committing 400+ AV to do AND by making him commit 1,000 AV to defend southern Thailand from a force coming over the jungle trails then I am going to rapidly deplete his SRA reserve and make it impossible for him to gather up sufficient forces to try to rescue both the 5,000+ AV in China and the Malaysian peninsula. He can do one or the other but not both. And whatever way he chooses to jump will grant me a large strategic victory... Essentially it'll be a win/win situation for me so long as I can ensure his SRA reserve is sufficiently depleted. Well, when I started the post I wasn't sure what I'd do. Now I'm sure. It is definitely time to gather a force and push through the jungles into Thailand proper, threatening Bangkok with capture. That'll make him commit more of his reserve and leave him with too little available to counter both strategic conundrums I'll hand him.

Nemo121 -> RE: Another bloody day for the USN and IJN. (8/15/2010 9:49:40 PM)
So, today I ordered 1200 AV and a couple of HQs to begin the move towards Bangkok.... The aerial losses list was also very interesting. It looks like I lost 8 fighters in the air over Palembang in return for 17 Oscars - 13 A2A and 4 ops losses. 2:!. I'm pretty happy with that. China is the theatre which keeps on giving. I think Mike must have put an Oscar unit in Nanchang as well as a Dinah unit since today my ops losses for Japan included 46 Oscar Ics ( 4 ops losses from Palembang and a 42 unit Sentai of Oscars at Nanchang ) and 13 Dinahs ( a chutai's worth ). So, not bad at all, I killed a total of 59 Oscars and 13 Dinahs today. The IJA is moving on Medan. I only have about 250 AV there so I'm pulling back in order to receive reinforcements from the British convoys unloading at Sabang. The IJA is also moving on Cagayan. I am low on supplies there with only 400 tons of supplies in the base so I have ordered my transport aircraft ( DC-3s etc ) to begin flying supplies in from Manado. With a little luck I can fly in enough supplies for the Filipinno troops there to hold long enough for some of the US Army and USMC Regiments to begin transitting into Mindanao once Talaud has its first airfield built to allow fighter CAP of the convoys as they transit into Davao. That's really about it. I'm pulling back to defensive terrain in northern Sumatra with a view to drawing more IJA troops into the region, continuing to attrit his forces in China and continuing to try to create the CAP chain I need to protect convoys making for Mindanao. Two SC TFs are going to hit Singkawang tonight as I've spotted some enemy DDs, PBs and xAKs there while the Marblehead TF is finally going into port to begin receiving its much-needed upgrades. Another AD, this time escorted by a PG, has been ordered to make for Palembang from the Cocos Islands. If I can keep this attrition rate up ( 2:1 vs Oscars and 3 or more to 1 for Zeroes ) I just may be able to hold onto Palembang. We'll see how it goes.

Nemo121 -> Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/16/2010 12:55:05 AM)
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Apr 11, 42 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Submarine attack near Bassein at 51,52 Japanese Ships SS I-162 Allied Ships xAK Texan, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage I'll say this for Mike. His subs do always tend to come back. I avoid them for a while but he always notices, moves them around and finds my new routes. I'd say 1/4 or so of all my losses have come to his subs. Sometimes I was running risks and got hit but more recently I've been able to afford escorts and he still gets his hits in. xAK Texan is sighted by SS I-162 SS I-162 launches 4 torpedoes at xAK Texan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Night Time Surface Combat, near Singkawang at 56,88, Range 2,000 Yards Ah, night raiding TFs, how I love thee.... 3 PBs, a subchaser and 3 xAK(L)s. Not a bad haul for a night's raiding. By morning these ships were all back within CAP of Palembang again. He had been here for over a day so I think he unloaded the unit he was transporting. I imagine all I sank were half-empty freighters unloading a few supplies. Japanese Ships PB Bisan Maru #3, Shell hits 1, and is sunk SC Ch 18, Shell hits 3, and is sunk xAK Mexico Maru, Shell hits 2, Torpedo hits 3, and is sunk xAKL Hakuyo Maru, Shell hits 18, and is sunk xAKL Hanakawa Maru, Shell hits 16, and is sunk PB Naruto Maru #3, Shell hits 14, and is sunk PB Tokotsu Maru, Shell hits 12, and is sunk Allied Ships CA Exeter, Shell hits 2 DD Arrow DD Decoy DD Electra DD Express DD Paladin DD Panther Reduced visibility due to Thunderstorms with 17% moonlight Maximum visibility in Thunderstorms and 17% moonlight: 2,000 yards Range closes to 8,000 yards... Range closes to 7,000 yards... Range closes to 6,000 yards... Range closes to 5,000 yards... Range closes to 4,000 yards... Range closes to 3,000 yards... Range closes to 2,000 yards... CONTACT: Japanese lookouts spot Allied task force at 2,000 yards Japanese ships attempt to get underway CONTACT: Allied lookouts spot Japanese task force at 2,000 yards At 2,000 yards there weren't many misses and the IJN TF was rapidly despatched. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Palembang , at 48,91 Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid detected at 36 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 12 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-43-Ia Oscar x 11 Allied aircraft H81-A3 x 7 Sea Hurricane Ib x 2 Martlet II x 5 P-40E Warhawk x 23 F4F-4 Wildcat x 2 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-43-Ia Oscar: 2 destroyed Today was the first day my new fighter squadron COs were in charge and it showed with even more lopsided losses than normal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 161st Infantry Regiment, at 136,48 (Onnekotan-jima) Weather in hex: Partial cloud Raid spotted at 32 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 11 minutes Japanese aircraft G4M1 Betty x 21 No Japanese losses Allied ground losses: 8 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Aircraft Attacking: 21 x G4M1 Betty bombing from 15000 feet Ground Attack: 2 x 250 kg GP Bomb, 4 x 60 kg GP Bomb Also attacking 201st(Sep) Infantry Regiment ... Also attacking 161st Infantry Regiment ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Palembang , at 48,91 Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 27 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 27 Allied aircraft H81-A3 x 6 Sea Hurricane Ib x 2 Martlet II x 5 P-40E Warhawk x 21 F4F-4 Wildcat x 2 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 2 destroyed Allied aircraft losses P-40E Warhawk: 1 destroyed I estimate I lost perhaps 2 or 3 planes in total but the IJAAF looks like it lost at least 8 planes. Pay attention folks, better squadron COs really does pay off. There was a HUGE difference in the bounce ratios today compared to other days. Previously the second raid was always bouncing my pilots. Today even though my pilots arrived in dribs and drabs they still managed their fair share of advantageous positioning and bounced the enemy Oscars repeatedly. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 46 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 15 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 18 No Japanese losses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 16 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 4 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-21-Ic Sally x 20 Ki-21-IIa Sally x 5 Ki-30 Ann x 25 Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 12 Ki-48-Ib Lily x 24 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21-Ic Sally: 2 damaged Ki-21-IIa Sally: 2 damaged Ki-48-Ib Lily: 2 damaged Allied ground losses: 6 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Guns lost 2 (1 destroyed, 1 disabled) Airbase supply hits 1 Runway hits 3 I'm quite happy to let him bomb this. My guys are pulling out of this clear hex terrain and back to the jungles where the defensive bonus of the terrain will be to their benefit. I had hoped to hold Medan but the way Mike closed the airfield prevented me flying troops in. It seems that even flying boats can't fly troops in if the airfield is closed... which is weird. So, instead of flying in 60 to 70 AV per day for 3 days I couldn't fly in anything at all... That 200 AV was the difference between staying and fighting and running as the IJA closed in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 73rd Chinese Corps, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 24 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 8 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 9 Ki-36 Ida x 17 Ki-48-Ib Lily x 12 Ki-51 Sonia x 21 No Japanese losses Allied ground losses: 13 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 73rd Chinese Corps, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 49 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 14 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-30 Ann x 12 No Japanese losses Allied ground losses: 4 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 40 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 12 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-48-Ib Lily x 18 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-48-Ib Lily: 2 damaged Runway hits 14 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 31 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 8 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-21-IIa Sally x 18 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21-IIa Sally: 3 damaged Allied ground losses: 6 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Airbase supply hits 1 Runway hits 16 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 18th Chinese Corps, at 85,50 (Hankow) Weather in hex: Severe storms Raid spotted at 12 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 3 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-48-Ib Lily x 11 No Japanese losses Aircraft Attacking: 11 x Ki-48-Ib Lily bombing from 5000 feet * Ground Attack: 2 x 100 kg GP Bomb -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 23 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 6 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-21-IIa Sally x 24 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21-IIa Sally: 1 damaged Airbase hits 1 Runway hits 6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at Onnekotan-jima (136,48) Japanese Deliberate attack Attacking force 13246 troops, 86 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 783 Defending force 6455 troops, 116 guns, 157 vehicles, Assault Value = 219 Japanese adjusted assault: 126 Allied adjusted defense: 247 Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 3) I'm loading another Regiment for the Aleutians and am bringing supplies in also. I'm going to see what I can do to try and wriggle some more supplies ( and a fighter squadron ) in. Mike has it closed down pretty well though and apart from flying supplies in by PBY ( which won't be enough to sustain me ) I amn't sure what I can do without risking more xAKLs. Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), preparation(-), experience(-) Attacker: Japanese ground losses: 1219 casualties reported Squads: 6 destroyed, 56 disabled Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 62 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Allied ground losses: 314 casualties reported Squads: 1 destroyed, 27 disabled Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 11 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled Assaulting units: 64th Naval Guard Unit 61st Infantry Group 62nd Naval Guard Unit Guards Mixed Brigade 65th Naval Guard Unit 63rd Naval Guard Unit 48th Engineer Regiment 67th Naval Guard Unit Defending units: 201st(Sep) Infantry Regiment 1st Marine Raider Battalion 161st Infantry Regiment 1st/102nd Infantry Bn /1 205th Field Artillery Battalion 47th Construction Regiment Bobcats USN Naval Construction Battalion 42nd Construction Regiment 111th USN Base Force /9 C Det USN Port Svc /1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at Talaud-eilanden (79,97) Allied Deliberate attack Attacking force 3760 troops, 28 guns, 93 vehicles, Assault Value = 197 Defending force 141 troops, 0 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 2 Allied adjusted assault: 55 Japanese adjusted defense: 1 Allied assault odds: 55 to 1 Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), disruption(-), preparation(-), fatigue(-) supply(-) Attacker: Japanese ground losses: 50 casualties reported Squads: 6 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 0 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled And this brave little independent company is finally wiped out. The reason I celebrate this is that it will prevent Japan getting free intel about my ship comings and goings at Talaud in the future. Assaulting units: 1st Motor Brigade 3rd Motor Brigade 19th Australian Battalion 2/10th Armoured Regiment 754th Tank Bn /1 803rd Engineer Aviation Battalion Defending units: 1st Indpt SNLF Coy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at 86,42 Allied Bombardment attack Attacking force 24840 troops, 110 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 962 Defending force 30737 troops, 254 guns, 32 vehicles, Assault Value = 1082 Assaulting units: 43rd Chinese Corps 93rd Chinese Corps 27th Chinese Corps 5th New Chinese Corps 15th Chinese Corps 9th Chinese Corps 8th New Chinese Corps 14th Group Army 15th Group Army Defending units: 35th Division 3rd Ind.Mixed Brigade 11th Division -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at 81,58 Allied Shock attack Attacking force 8367 troops, 37 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 311 Defending force 2086 troops, 27 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 60 Allied adjusted assault: 162 Japanese adjusted defense: 85 Allied assault odds: 1 to 1 Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), experience(-) Attacker: shock(+), leaders(-), disruption(-) Japanese ground losses: 323 casualties reported Squads: 2 destroyed, 28 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 23 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Allied ground losses: 18 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Close but no cigar. On the other hand I suffered 18 casualties to 323. I'll attack again tomorrow and should have reduced him enough today to get the 2:1 I need tomorrow to push him back again. Assaulting units: 73rd Chinese Corps Defending units: 102nd Infantry Regiment -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st Indpt SNLF Coy Wiped Out at Talaud-eilanden by attrition!!! In whatever alternate history books would have been written about this war carriers would have gotten less coverage than raiding TFs. The work of the raiding TFs operating out of Palembang has really been excellent. They aren't exactly facing the IJN's cream of the crop as I think most of that is tied down guarding CVs and Truk and Badeldoab but they really are making IJN operations around Singapore a real headache. In other news the number of engineers at Djambi has gone up from 9 to 94. That should help it move from a Level 1 to Level 3 runway ASAP. I'd like a level 3 as I'd like to sweep Singapore with 100 fighters and still be able to commit 50 torpedo-bombers carrying torpedoes to the port attack mission. The IJN BB and CA I damaged a couple of weeks ago are in Singapore harbour and I'd love to sink them with multiple torpedo strikes. Level bombers won't cut it for those targets but torpedo bombers will do nicely and my RAF torpedo bombers are really, really well-trained by now.

Nemo121 -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/16/2010 1:06:36 AM)
BBfanboy, Thanks for the post... In WiTP and AE I think the magical number of ships for an SC TF is 8. Based on some very detailed statistical testing in WiTP ( done by someone else whose name I forget right now... If anyone remembers please pipe up, they should get the credit for their evidence-based work ) and my own in-game testing SC TFs with 2 main combat ships and 6 escorts - ideally 6 DDs but possibly 2 CLs and 4 DDs if you want extra punch vs enemy CLs for a BB TF - seems to work best. I sometimes deviate from this but generally speaking you'll see my SC TFs always hovering around 8 ships. 2 CLs and 6 DDs or 1 CL and 7 DDs or 2 BBs and 6 DDs or 2 BBs, 2 CAs and 4 DDs. Sometimes if I think the enemy will have lots of DDs I might go for 2 BBs, 2 CAs and 6 DDs. Generally though 10 is the maximum I would ever go for unless I'm just going for the "horde of DDs" approach. That is, however, rare. Obviously if the enemy TF comprises 4 BBs then I would go with a 4 BB TF myself 99% of the time + escorts ( 4 to 6 DDs ). Raiding TFs are a bit different but if I think I'm going to hit serious combat then I will stick with the 8 ship TFs. I think it is also VERY much worth choosing competent admirals. Since these were night combats I chose aggressive Royal Navy admirals who were unafraid to close with the enemy. My reasoning was that at long range Long Lances can still kill my ships but I'd hit nothing whereas at short range everyone would have a good chance of hitting everyone else and so I'd cause naval attrition ( which is, if you remember, one of my main goals for early 1942 ). It seems to have worked out pretty well with enemy losses being pretty equal to mine overall - which is a win for me as my replacement potential is just so much higher. I also seem to be forcing him to escort things much more heavily which also spreads his strength and actually makes my raiding even more effective. Personally I think he should just flood Palembang with CLs and DDs until my raiders are killed. Hell, even a few CAs can fit up the river there. He'd take losses but without clearing out that hornet's nest I don't think he's going to make much progress in this region. IJA army losses have now risen from under 400 when the Chinese offensive began to just under 900. So that's 500 points x 3 squads destroyed per point = 1500 squads destroyed. That's a lot of HI to be diverted in rebuilding those units and that HI is coming right out of his aerial and shipbuilding budget --- which can only help me. I think I'll have an opening in May 1942 into June 1942 when I'll get some good fighters ( F4F-4s, P-38s and Hurricane IIcs ) but by mid-June I should be expecting to see Tojos in the air. From what I've read those will easily be a match for my F4F-4s, P-38Es and Hurricanes. Hopefully by mid-June I'll be properly ashore in Malaysia and so securely lodged that he can't dislodge me again.

BBfanboy -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/16/2010 3:30:37 AM)
Glad to see someone else has already done the leg/data work on the optimum SCTF size and composition. TLAR [that looks about right]![:)] When I mentioned admirals it was in the context of trying to get allied ships to spread their fire around at several enemy ships and not overkill just one. Case in point - in you first two battles with Fuso & Yamashiro practically all the hits were on Yamashiro even though she was toast after the first round. That left Fuso unattended and it was likely Fuso that killed your battleship in round two. Don't know if there is a way to manage the programming so that your ships shoot at the most dangerous opponents, not the nice bright fires of the already doomed.[:-] Force composition and good admirals do not seem to guarantee appropriate fire distribution. It may be a hard programmed FOW function for which there is no work-around but if anyone has had any success in avoiding the "All for One" tendency I would like to hear it.

Xxzard -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/16/2010 4:12:28 AM)
The War Plan Orange basic tips guide, (based on the original WITP combat routines) always recommended a combat TF size of 8. Considering that in WPO, surface combat is practically the only way to destroy the enemy, and therefore received greater attention, I would consider this a valuable piece of information.

Nemo121 -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/16/2010 10:34:33 AM)
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Apr 12, 42 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Night Air attack on Palembang , at 48,91 Weather in hex: Clear sky Japanese aircraft Ki-21-Ic Sally x 20 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21-Ic Sally: 1 destroyed, 6 damaged In the end 2 Sallys were downed by FlAK tonight. Tomorrow, if they come again they'll find a few of my remaining Buffaloes in the air seeking what kills they can get and, most definitely, disrupting the bombers' bombing runs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Submarine attack near Eureka at 208,70 Japanese Ships SS I-2 Allied Ships xAP Maui, Torpedo hits 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 161st Infantry Regiment, at 136,48 (Onnekotan-jima) Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 25 NM, estimated altitude 16,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 8 minutes Japanese aircraft G4M1 Betty x 22 No Japanese losses Allied ground losses: 14 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on TF, near Davao at 79,91 Weather in hex: Thunderstorms Raid spotted at 25 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 7 minutes Japanese aircraft B5M1 Mabel x 3 No Japanese losses Allied Ships xAK Edward Luckenbach, Bomb hits 1 Hmm, I think these Mabels are operating out of Jolo. I had thought they were from a CVE but I think Jolo looks to be their base. That's fine though, overnight I have flown in some 50 fighters to Davao so the merchant ships there should have a strong CAP tomorrow.... I am looking to unload two Base Forces and a few thousand tons of supplies. Once that's done I can work on extending my CAP and bomber coverage into Mindanao proper. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 73rd Chinese Corps, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 12 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 3 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 11 Ki-30 Ann x 17 Ki-36 Ida x 17 Ki-48-Ib Lily x 3 Ki-51 Sonia x 21 No Japanese losses Allied ground losses: 43 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Overcast Raid spotted at 43 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 12 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-21-IIa Sally x 24 Ki-30 Ann x 25 Ki-43-Ib Oscar x 26 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21-IIa Sally: 1 damaged Allied ground losses: 14 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Airbase hits 1 Runway hits 2 The CD gun unit at Medan can't move but everything else will be gone by tomorrow. Unloading at the northernmost base in Northern Sumatra is going well and I've flown a P-40E squadron in to provide CAP. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 73rd Chinese Corps, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 29 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 9 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 8 Ki-48-Ib Lily x 9 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-27b Nate: 1 damaged Allied ground losses: 7 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 73rd Chinese Corps, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 35 NM, estimated altitude 11,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 11 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 8 No Japanese losses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 18th Chinese Corps, at 85,50 (Hankow) Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 25 NM, estimated altitude 6,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 7 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-48-Ib Lily x 11 No Japanese losses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 102nd Infantry Regiment, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 48 NM, estimated altitude 6,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 16 minutes Allied aircraft A-29A Hudson x 3 No Allied losses Japanese ground losses: 6 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Kwajalein Island , at 132,115 Weather in hex: Thunderstorms Raid spotted at 30 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 6 minutes Allied aircraft A-20A Havoc x 12 A-29 Hudson x 5 Allied aircraft losses A-20A Havoc: 6 damaged Japanese Ships SSX Ha-9, Bomb hits 1, and is sunk Runway hits 6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tarakan at 68,91 My bombers operating out of Balikpapan had a reasonably good day. About half of them turned back when they failed to meet up with their escorts. Tomorrow I'll try again and just in case the bombers don't do well I'm sending two CL and 2 DD into Tarakan tomorrow morning. That should take care of the Japanese convoy. Weather in hex: Partial cloud Raid spotted at 18 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 5 minutes Allied aircraft Hudson III (LR) x 3 B-26 Marauder x 6 Allied aircraft losses B-26 Marauder: 1 damaged Japanese Ships xAKL Bunzan Maru xAK Aki Maru, Bomb hits 1 xAK Banshu Maru -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on Singkawang , at 56,88 Weather in hex: Overcast Raid spotted at 46 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 13 minutes Here's the big news of the day... Mike tells me he had his fighters on sweep and secondarily on CAP. I don't trust secondary missions and his fighters didn't fly CAP at all. The end result is that my B-17s got a free run at his airbase and destroyed 45 Oscar Is and Zeroes as well as 16 Netties. I lost 2 B-17s to FlAK damage on the journey home. My results were this good because I have a DL level of 9 vs Singkawang. Japanese aircraft no flights Allied aircraft B-17E Fortress x 30 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 5 destroyed on ground G3M2 Nell: 4 destroyed on ground A6M2 Zero: 3 destroyed on ground Allied aircraft losses B-17E Fortress: 5 damaged Japanese ground losses: 18 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Airbase hits 8 Airbase supply hits 5 Runway hits 79 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tarakan at 68,91 Weather in hex: Partial cloud Raid spotted at 49 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 19 minutes Allied aircraft A-24 Banshee x 6 No Allied losses Japanese Ships xAK Koyo Maru, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires Japanese ground losses: 36 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 2 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Guns lost 2 (1 destroyed, 1 disabled) Aircraft Attacking: 3 x A-24 Banshee releasing from 4000' Naval Attack: 1 x 1000 lb SAP Bomb 3 x A-24 Banshee releasing from 2000' Naval Attack: 1 x 1000 lb SAP Bomb Heavy smoke from fires obscuring xAK Koyo Maru -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on Singkawang , at 56,88 Weather in hex: Overcast Raid spotted at 20 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 6 minutes Japanese aircraft no flights Allied aircraft B-17E Fortress x 12 Japanese aircraft losses A6M2 Zero: 5 destroyed on ground G3M2 Nell: 1 destroyed on ground Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 3 destroyed on ground Allied aircraft losses B-17E Fortress: 3 damaged Airbase hits 9 Airbase supply hits 4 Runway hits 32 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on Singkawang , at 56,88 Weather in hex: Overcast Raid spotted at 49 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 13 minutes Japanese aircraft no flights Allied aircraft B-17D Fortress x 6 B-17E Fortress x 4 Japanese aircraft losses A6M2 Zero: 2 destroyed on ground G3M2 Nell: 1 destroyed on ground Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 2 destroyed on ground Allied aircraft losses B-17D Fortress: 2 damaged Airbase hits 2 Runway hits 28 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tarakan at 68,91 Weather in hex: Partial cloud Raid spotted at 35 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 9 minutes Allied aircraft B-26 Marauder x 3 No Allied losses Japanese Ships xAKL Zuiho Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage Japanese ground losses: 24 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 5 destroyed, 7 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Guns lost 24 (8 destroyed, 16 disabled) Vehicles lost 15 (7 destroyed, 8 disabled) Mike normally CAPs these sorts of TFs very well which is why I normally don't hit them too much but I think the bad weather in the area today played havoc with his plans... It kept his fighters at Singkawang grounded - which allowed me to blow them up on the ground -, kept his TF uncapped and meant that even though my medium bombers and Banshees didn't link up with their escorts they didn't get punished for it. In short I got lucky today. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tarakan at 68,91 Weather in hex: Partial cloud Raid spotted at 21 NM, estimated altitude 10,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 5 minutes Allied aircraft B-26 Marauder x 3 No Allied losses Japanese Ships xAK Banshu Maru, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires Japanese ground losses: 102 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 10 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Guns lost 28 (10 destroyed, 18 disabled) Vehicles lost 7 (7 destroyed, 0 disabled) Hmm, another engineer or base force by the looks of it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Submarine attack near Taihoku at 88,62 Japanese Ships xAK Somedono Maru, Shell hits 7 Allied Ships SS Swordfish, hits 2 xAK Somedono Maru is sighted by SS Swordfish SS Swordfish attacking xAK Somedono Maru on the surface Smith, C.C. decides to submerge SS Swordfish due to damage This attack featured a total of FIVE dud torpedo hit messages. Hit! but No Explosion just kept flashing up time after time. Roll on working torpedoes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at 86,42 Allied Bombardment attack Attacking force 24850 troops, 110 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 963 Defending force 30814 troops, 254 guns, 32 vehicles, Assault Value = 1088 Allied ground losses: 6 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Assaulting units: 5th New Chinese Corps 15th Chinese Corps 43rd Chinese Corps 9th Chinese Corps 27th Chinese Corps 93rd Chinese Corps 8th New Chinese Corps 14th Group Army 15th Group Army Defending units: 3rd Ind.Mixed Brigade 35th Division 11th Division -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at 81,58 Allied Shock attack Attacking force 8318 troops, 37 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 307 Defending force 1841 troops, 30 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 41 Allied adjusted assault: 204 Japanese adjusted defense: 81 Allied assault odds: 2 to 1 Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), experience(-) Attacker: shock(+), disruption(-) Japanese ground losses: 409 casualties reported Squads: 21 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 27 destroyed, 2 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Guns lost 1 (1 destroyed, 0 disabled) Units retreated 1 Allied ground losses: 131 casualties reported Squads: 1 destroyed, 9 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled Well, that's this regiment pretty much wiped out. It'll take months to rebuild. Defeated Japanese Units Retreating! Assaulting units: 73rd Chinese Corps Defending units: 102nd Infantry Regiment Canton looks like it has 8 units there. I've ordered a bombardment attack tomorrow. I expect it to reveal Canton is far too heavily defended to be taken and will then dig in/pull back a little so I can divert troops to the Changsha region. I'm 2 days away from encircling Changsha so things will get very bloody up there very quickly.... In other news Japanese pressure in northern China has forced me to pull back along two axes. The IJA is mounting a determined drive towards Hankow with a view to relieving it. I think this might well come down to my taking the town to the south of Hankow a couple of days before the IJA relief column pushes my forces out of Hankow.... Of such small margins is victory sometimes made. Either way it is going to be close, very close.

Nemo121 -> Palembang, tarbaby (8/17/2010 1:06:53 PM)
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Apr 13, 42 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Night Air attack on Palembang , at 48,91 Weather in hex: Partial cloud Japanese aircraft Ki-21-Ic Sally x 17 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21-Ic Sally: 1 destroyed, 10 damaged Night bombing hits nothing and is costing him about a 10% casualty rate. That's fine by me. My night-time CAP didn't even fly though which is a bit disappointing. I was hoping for some easy training kills for that squadron. Aircraft Attacking: 17 x Ki-21-Ic Sally bombing from 15000 feet Airfield Attack: 4 x 250 kg GP Bomb Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 21,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 13 minutes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASW attack near Tarakan at 67,91 Japanese Ships DD Karii Allied Ships SS KXVIII SS KXVIII launches 4 torpedoes at DD Karii KXVIII bottoming out .... Sub escapes detection -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Cagayan , at 79,89 Weather in hex: Heavy rain Raid spotted at 44 NM, estimated altitude 20,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 14 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-21-Ic Sally x 78 Allied aircraft F4F-3 Wildcat x 2 No Japanese losses No Allied losses Allied ground losses: 4 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Airbase hits 7 Airbase supply hits 3 Runway hits 25 The F4Fs are leaking CAP from Davao where they and some 50 other fighters provided a strong CAP for elements of two US Base Forces and a ship carrying about 5,000 tons of supplies which are unloading. With a little luck the supplies will allow the Filipinnos at Cagayan to hold the IJA division off and buy time for more significant reinforcements to make for Davao and begin flooding the island with considerable numbers of troops. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 73rd Chinese Corps, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 25 NM, estimated altitude 11,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 7 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 9 Ki-30 Ann x 17 Ki-48-Ib Lily x 12 No Japanese losses Allied ground losses: 42 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 6 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Severe storms Raid spotted at 26 NM, estimated altitude 21,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 8 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 18 No Japanese losses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Medan , at 46,76 Weather in hex: Severe storms Raid spotted at 10 NM, estimated altitude 19,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 2 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-21-IIa Sally x 24 Ki-30 Ann x 25 Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 12 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-21-IIa Sally: 1 damaged Runway hits 1 Also attacking Medan Coastal Gun Battalion ... Also attacking Medan ... Also attacking Medan Coastal Gun Battalion ... Also attacking Medan ... Also attacking Medan Coastal Gun Battalion ... Also attacking Medan ... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 4th Chinese Corps, at 77,59 (Canton) Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 40 NM, estimated altitude 18,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 13 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 1 Ki-36 Ida x 8 Ki-51 Sonia x 18 No Japanese losses Allied ground losses: 6 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 4th Chinese Corps, at 77,59 (Canton) Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 44 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 13 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 8 Japanese aircraft losses Ki-27b Nate: 1 damaged Mike REALLY doesn't want to lose Canton does he? Lots and lots of fighter and bomber sorties to lower the adjusted AV of my troops there. He needn't worry though, I don't have enough to force my way in and take the city. I might have enough to attrit him gradually though so I'll bring in a few more Corps and then try attritional attacks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 25th Chinese Corps, at 77,59 (Canton) Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 49 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 22 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 1 Ki-36 Ida x 12 No Japanese losses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 25th Chinese Corps, at 77,59 (Canton) Weather in hex: Light cloud Raid spotted at 40 NM, estimated altitude 19,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 13 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-51 Sonia x 6 No Japanese losses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 73rd Chinese Corps, at 81,58 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 23 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 7 minutes Japanese aircraft Ki-27b Nate x 8 No Japanese losses -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on 102nd Infantry Regiment, at 81,59 Weather in hex: Clear sky Raid spotted at 48 NM, estimated altitude 10,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 16 minutes Allied aircraft A-29A Hudson x 3 No Allied losses Japanese ground losses: 10 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on Kwajalein Island , at 132,115 Weather in hex: Light rain Raid spotted at 29 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 6 minutes Allied aircraft A-20A Havoc x 12 A-29 Hudson x 6 Allied aircraft losses A-20A Havoc: 7 damaged Airbase hits 1 Runway hits 9 The FlAK here is still damned strong. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on Palembang , at 48,91 Weather in hex: Severe storms His Oscars were grounded by bad weather and damage to the airbase as Singkawang but Zeroes flying from Singapore did make their presence felt today. Raid detected at 24 NM, estimated altitude 19,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 7 minutes Japanese aircraft A6M2 Zero x 26 Allied aircraft H81-A3 x 8 Sea Hurricane Ib x 4 Martlet II x 6 P-40E Warhawk x 27 F4F-4 Wildcat x 16 Japanese aircraft losses A6M2 Zero: 5 destroyed Allied aircraft losses P-40E Warhawk: 2 destroyed Add in the ops losses on the way home and this should be roughly 2:1 in my favour. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tarakan at 67,91 Weather in hex: Moderate rain For some reason my SC TF ( CLs and DDs ) doesn't seem to have made contact with these forces at all. I'm not sure what has happened. In any case this meant that instead of my fighters and bombers having milk runs vs ships which had been forced out to sea and away from their CAP by my SC TF they had to fight their way through strong CAP. Fortunately I had made some allowances for this and losses weren't too bad. Raid spotted at 48 NM, estimated altitude 10,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 16 minutes Japanese aircraft A6M2 Zero x 20 Allied aircraft Hurricane IIb Trop x 25 P-40E Warhawk x 4 Hudson III (LR) x 8 B-26 Marauder x 6 Japanese aircraft losses A6M2 Zero: 4 destroyed Allied aircraft losses Hurricane IIb Trop: 2 destroyed P-40E Warhawk: 1 destroyed Hudson III (LR): 1 destroyed, 2 damaged B-26 Marauder: 1 destroyed, 2 damaged 4 for 5 plus a few damaged planes. Not too bad at all. Japanese Ships xAK Sugiyama Maru xAK Aki Maru, Bomb hits 1, on fire -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tarakan at 67,91 Weather in hex: Moderate rain Raid spotted at 27 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 10 minutes Japanese aircraft A6M2 Zero x 7 Allied aircraft Hurricane IIb Trop x 7 P-40E Warhawk x 6 A-24 Banshee x 13 Japanese aircraft losses A6M2 Zero: 3 destroyed Allied aircraft losses Hurricane IIb Trop: 1 destroyed P-40E Warhawk: 1 destroyed With the CAP weakened the Hurricane IIs and P-40Es manage to protect the Banshees from being engaged at all. Japanese Ships xAK Sugiyama Maru, Bomb hits 3, heavy fires, heavy damage DD Karii xAKL Unyo Maru, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires Their 1000lb bombs prove highly effective and Sugiyama Maru and Unyo Maru look to be in real trouble. Aircraft Attacking: 6 x A-24 Banshee releasing from 3000' Naval Attack: 1 x 1000 lb SAP Bomb 4 x P-40E Warhawk sweeping at 29000 feet * 3 x A-24 Banshee releasing from 4000' Naval Attack: 1 x 1000 lb SAP Bomb 5 x Hurricane IIb Trop sweeping at 36000 feet 4 x A-24 Banshee releasing from 2000' Naval Attack: 1 x 1000 lb SAP Bomb Note the issue I had previously highlighted re: sweeping vs escorting and the better results one gets in terms of co-ordination and also loss ratios. Heavy smoke from fires obscuring xAK Sugiyama Maru -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Tarakan at 67,91 Weather in hex: Moderate rain Raid spotted at 30 NM, estimated altitude 15,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 11 minutes Japanese aircraft A6M2 Zero x 1 Allied aircraft P-40E Warhawk x 2 A-24 Banshee x 8 No Japanese losses No Allied losses Japanese Ships xAK Aki Maru, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage xAK Sugiyama Maru, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage Heavy smoke from fires obscuring xAK Sugiyama Maru -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Palembang at 48,91 Weather in hex: Severe storms The IJNAF made a significant effort over Palembang today. Unfortunately it appears the weather at Singkawang limited the number of Oscars which could sweep the area and so my fighters made pretty short work of the bombers which did show up. Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 15 minutes Japanese aircraft G3M2 Nell x 19 Allied aircraft H81-A3 x 7 Sea Hurricane Ib x 4 Martlet II x 5 Buffalo I x 1 Hurricane IIb Trop x 2 B-339D x 1 CW-21B Demon x 1 75A-7 Hawk x 1 Hurricane IIb Trop x 1 P-40E Warhawk x 1 P-39D Airacobra x 3 P-40E Warhawk x 16 F4F-4 Wildcat x 13 Japanese aircraft losses G3M2 Nell: 9 destroyed Some bombers aborted when no fighters showed up as escorts but of the 14 who ried to make attacks all 14 were shot down. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Palembang at 48,91 Weather in hex: Severe storms Raid detected at 22 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 7 minutes Japanese aircraft G4M1 Betty x 16 Allied aircraft H81-A3 x 5 Sea Hurricane Ib x 4 Martlet II x 3 Buffalo I x 1 Hurricane IIb Trop x 2 B-339D x 1 CW-21B Demon x 1 75A-7 Hawk x 1 Hurricane IIb Trop x 1 P-40E Warhawk x 1 P-39D Airacobra x 3 P-40E Warhawk x 15 F4F-4 Wildcat x 13 Japanese aircraft losses G4M1 Betty: 3 destroyed Again, some elements of the raid aborted but the rest all got shot down. Over 30 Netties were downed by this point in the day. This is why he cannot prevent my naval movements around the DEI. Every time he increases his strike group range they sortie against Palembang or Balikpapan and run into a buzzsaw which downs 20 to 30 Netties in a day. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Petropavlovsk at 143,49 Weather in hex: Heavy cloud Raid spotted at 38 NM, estimated altitude 7,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 16 minutes Japanese aircraft A6M2 Zero x 13 B5N2 Kate x 7 No Japanese losses Allied Ships APD Little, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk APD Colhoun, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk Aircraft Attacking: 7 x B5N2 Kate launching torpedoes at 200 feet Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo That's it. No more APD runs. When I get my next CV in a few weeks time I am sending it to this area to cover a proper resupply/reinforcement convoy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Palembang at 48,91 Weather in hex: Severe storms Raid detected at 40 NM, estimated altitude 17,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 14 minutes Japanese aircraft G4M1 Betty x 29 Ki-43-Ic Oscar x 19 Allied aircraft H81-A3 x 4 Sea Hurricane Ib x 4 Martlet II x 3 Buffalo I x 5 Hurricane IIb Trop x 2 B-339D x 4 CW-21B Demon x 3 75A-7 Hawk x 1 Hurricane IIb Trop x 4 P-40E Warhawk x 3 P-39D Airacobra x 3 P-40E Warhawk x 15 F4F-4 Wildcat x 13 Japanese aircraft losses G4M1 Betty: 4 destroyed, 8 damaged Ki-43-Ic Oscar: 1 destroyed Actually about 6 Netties were downed - 4 by fighters and 2 by FlAK. Allied aircraft losses P-40E Warhawk: 1 destroyed Allied Ships HDML 1096, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk HDML 1062 HDML 1097 HDML 1063 My CA and CLs and DDs had suffered so much system damage sprinting through the storms last night that I moved them out of the area yesterday for repairs. This saved them from the attention of 23 Netties today... Quite a lucky break for me. I could have lost a CA and at least 2 CLs to those leakers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ASW attack near Manado at 75,99 Japanese Ships SS I-168 Allied Ships xAK Jalapalaka xAK Barpeta AM Whippoorwill SS I-168 is sighted by escort I-168 bottoming out .... AM Whippoorwill fails to find sub, continues to search... AM Whippoorwill fails to find sub, continues to search... AM Whippoorwill fails to find sub, continues to search... AM Whippoorwill fails to find sub, continues to search... AM Whippoorwill fails to find sub, continues to search... Escort abandons search for sub -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sub attack near Tarakan at 67,91 Japanese Ships xAKL Unyo Maru, heavy fires, heavy damage Allied Ships SS KXVIII Captain of SS KXVIII elects not to launch torpedoes at this target Sub escapes detection ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ground combat at Onnekotan-jima (136,48) Japanese Deliberate attack Attacking force 20443 troops, 149 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 747 Defending force 6295 troops, 116 guns, 157 vehicles, Assault Value = 202 Japanese engineers reduce fortifications to 2 Japanese adjusted assault: 254 Allied adjusted defense: 529 Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 (fort level 2) Combat modifiers Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), experience(-) Attacker: Japanese ground losses: 2096 casualties reported Squads: 8 destroyed, 146 disabled Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 94 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled Allied ground losses: 410 casualties reported Squads: 3 destroyed, 41 disabled Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 47 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled Vehicles lost 16 (2 destroyed, 14 disabled) Hmm, definitely need to bring in more troops and a few thousand more tons of supplies if this place is to hold. Now, let's see if I can actually do this in the face of those enemy CVEs + Junyo. Assaulting units: Guards Mixed Brigade 48th Engineer Regiment 64th Naval Guard Unit 65th Naval Guard Unit 63rd Naval Guard Unit 62nd Naval Guard Unit 61st Infantry Group 67th Naval Guard Unit Defending units: 161st Infantry Regiment 1st Marine Raider Battalion 201st(Sep) Infantry Regiment 1st/102nd Infantry Bn /1 111th USN Base Force /9 Bobcats USN Naval Construction Battalion 47th Construction Regiment 205th Field Artillery Battalion 42nd Construction Regiment C Det USN Port Svc /1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at Medan (46,76) Japanese Bombardment attack Attacking force 10711 troops, 84 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 539 Defending force 331 troops, 13 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 8 Assaulting units: 22nd Recon Regiment 4th Ind. Engineer Regiment 56th Engineer Regiment 15th Ind. Engineer Regiment 21st Infantry Regiment 56th Infantry Regiment 56th Recon Regiment 148th Infantry Regiment 23rd Ind. Engineer Regiment I bugged out just in time. Tomorrow Medan will fall but my troops will be 92 miles up the road in a forested hex with the first elements of 3 British Bdes arriving as reinforcements. Defending units: Medan Coastal Gun Battalion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at Canton (77,59) Allied Bombardment attack Attacking force 20590 troops, 119 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 672 Defending force 14011 troops, 135 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 410 Allied ground losses: 6 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Assaulting units: 4th Chinese Corps 25th Chinese Corps 49th Chinese Corps Defending units: 66th Infantry Regiment 20th RGC Division 68th Ind.Infantry Battalion 1st Ind.Inf.Group 1st Sasebo SNLF Coy Canton Special Base Force 47th JAAF AF Bn 1st JAAF AF Coy 2nd JAAF AF Coy [n] Hmm, only the 66th Infantry Regiment and the SNLF Company are likely to be highly experienced. The AF forces and the RGC Division are likely to be pretty poorly experienced. Balancing that is the fact that he has almost certainly been building forts at Canton and benefits from a massive x 3 terrain modifier. Still, it may be possible to attrit these poorly experienced troops somewhat while I wait for another 600 to 1,000 AV to arrive and give me a chance of actually achieving something worthwhile. He should be able to stop me by bringing in more troops but those have to come from his SRA reserve and thinning that out is a major strategic goal of mine so even not taking Canton serves my purposes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ground combat at 86,42 Allied Bombardment attack Attacking force 24872 troops, 110 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 964 Defending force 30858 troops, 254 guns, 32 vehicles, Assault Value = 1089 Allied ground losses: 8 casualties reported Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled Assaulting units: 15th Chinese Corps 9th Chinese Corps 27th Chinese Corps 5th New Chinese Corps 43rd Chinese Corps 93rd Chinese Corps 8th New Chinese Corps 14th Group Army 15th Group Army Defending units: 35th Division 3rd Ind.Mixed Brigade 11th Division The picture below shows the front line trace in southern China. Significant movement has been possible because it was so lightly held by both sides that once a break occurred it wasn't possible to have the forces on hand to stop the exploitation phase. In other news while I don't really usually bother with sigint, preferring to rely on my sense of my opponent's intentions, I have found it to be rather fascinating in the past month... I've seen LOTS of IJA forces being sent to Pelelieu, The Marianas and northern Borneo... They look like defensive dispositions to me. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. The only thing which kind of makes sense is that Mike has decided to kick me out of the Kuriles but apart from that he is resigned to the current front line trace in the Pacific. To be fair to him with KB in its current dominant state he could hold his current line against seaborne invasion for at least the next year to 18 months unless I pulled something sneaky. Sadly for him operation "sneak a huge number of troops into Mindanao and retake the Phillipines and Malaysia" is already in full swing. [image]local://upfiles/10809/5148786F0D484F758DC7A7241AD84B0B.jpg[/image]

Capt. Harlock -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/17/2010 8:29:37 PM)
quote: Submarine attack near Taihoku at 88,62 Japanese Ships xAK Somedono Maru, Shell hits 7 Allied Ships SS Swordfish, hits 2 xAK Somedono Maru is sighted by SS Swordfish SS Swordfish attacking xAK Somedono Maru on the surface Smith, C.C. decides to submerge SS Swordfish due to damage This attack featured a total of FIVE dud torpedo hit messages. Hit! but No Explosion just kept flashing up time after time. Roll on working torpedoes. I much fear this game is going to be over by the time the U.S. torpedoes get the bugs worked out. Interesting little artillery duel, though.[:D]

Kwik E Mart -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/17/2010 10:03:21 PM)
nemo, are you only posting favorable combat reports? [;)] well done...you seem to have a good grasp of the mechanics so far...

Nemo121 -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/18/2010 12:32:58 PM)
Harlock, I doubt it... As the Japanese perimeter shrinks it will get easier and easier for them to defend. If Japan were constrained to just the Home Islands and Korea / the Kuriles ( to allow the movement of resouces from Manuchkuo to the Home Islands ) I think Japan could last a long time so long as they stopped building naval ships and just focussed on building ground weapons and airplanes ( which are relatively cheap ) IIRC you can build about 120 fighters a month for the cost of building a single DD for that period of time and 120 fighters will tend to do a lot more for your defensive war effort than a single DD. Japan might no longer be able to win but I think that a determined defence from this early stage would result in the Allies being confined to a ground offensive in Korea and then starving the Home Islands out - which isn't really the ideal thing an Allied player is looking to do. Kwik-E-Mart, Nah, I wouldn't do that. I will say though that if I lose 3 or 4 ships and sink 3 or 4 of his in a day then as far as I'm concerned that's a victory for me so I may tend to gloss over some of my own ship losses - as they don't hurt me nearly as much as they hurt Mike. That may give some people the wrong impression I suppose. In other news here's the aerial losses for yesterday. My guys had a good day, downing 37 Zeroes and 30 Netties in the DEI. That's a lot of dead naval aviators. My losses were spread between the Dutch P-40Es, American P-40Es, British Hurricanes and USN F4F4s.... I always do my best to spread my losses between different arms of service/nationalities so that I can maximise my staying power and avoid crippling losses in a single airframe type /nationality. Most of the Hurricanes and 5 P-40Es below died escorting the B-26s and Hudsons which hit his shipping at Tarakan while the remaining P-40Es and Martletts died in the skies over Palembang butchering the Zeroes and Netties there. [image]local://upfiles/10809/2634BEB97E3D4E64BA6A68DA5F01F926.jpg[/image]

Nemo121 -> RE: Raiding TFs, the gift that keeps on giving.... (8/18/2010 12:34:28 PM)
Fixed.

BBfanboy -> RE: Loses (8/18/2010 7:21:22 PM)
The Zero losses to ops [186] are incredible - more than the next two highest combined. Do you have a feel for what is causing this? Long CAPs? Flying/landing in bad weather? Inexperienced pilots?[&:] I know these guys belong to your opponent but you seem to notice a lot of details that influence trends so I thought I'd ask.

Nemo121 -> RE: Loses (8/18/2010 10:25:04 PM)
Well, from what I can see ops losses are caused by a number of things... I think it is best to consider bombers, fighters and other plane types ( recon, transports, flying boats ) separately. Bombers: Ops losses are caused by long range, small airfields and airplane damage. Of those I think FlAK is the most important as an awful lot of IJAAF and IJNAF ops losses are occurring on days that major bombing raids happen. In these raids a lot of the bombers get hit by FlAK or hit by my fighters but not destroyed in the air over the target. These planes are then recorded as ops losses. Whenever he used to hit Palembang or other significant bases if I show down 10 bombers while they were over the target I could be assured another 3 or 4 would show up as ops losses that day. So, I think most of the bomber operational losses are actually due to planes being damaged over the target and crashing on the way home or when they reach their own airfield. Fighters: Again, ops losses are caused by long range, small airfields and damage. Routinely when Mike commits 40 Oscars to the skies over Palembang I shoot down 4 or 5 over Palembang but damage, perhaps, 30 of the remaining 35. As those Oscars struggle all the way to Singkawang or Singapore ( about 350 miles away ) it isn't surprising that a similar number as were confirmed as going down over the target are forced to ditch. I've taken great pains to make my stands and ambushes over bases at a great distance from his bases. My reason for this is that I wanted to get the maximum number of "cheap kills" possible. What I mean by this is that I wanted to get the benefit of damaged IJAAF and IJNAF planes becoming destroyed IJAAF and IJNAF planes. If defending a base some 300 miles from his base vs 100 miles from his base mean that insteaf of 1 ops loss on the way home he suffered 5 then my total "kills" for the day would go up from 6 kills ( and dead pilots - assuming I shot down 5 in the air over the target ) to 10 kills. That's a 66% improvement in my kills. Others: Well, there's very little I can do to cause ops losses to his recon, transport etc planes except to try to keep him at arms length and invite him to use them at maximum range. One other outlier: For some reason when I caught an entire Sentai of Oscars on the ground at Nanchang and killed them all 42 planes showed up as ops losses, as opposed to ground losses which I was expecting. So, that's my read. I see his Zero, Oscar and Netty ops losses increasing on days that we've had a lot of aerial combat and a lot of damaged planes are trying to make it home. Apart from those days his ops losses in those plane types aren't really noticeable - a plane or two every couple of days -. On the days we've had major aerial combat over Palembang I might see 5 Zeroes and 5 Oscars showing up purely as ops losses. If you look at today 30 Zeroes were downed in the air while 7 were ops losses. I'm sure all 7 of those Zeroes came from the Daitai which swept Palembang and got brutalised by my CAP - hence those ops losses were directly attributable to damage from my CAP.

BBfanboy -> RE: Loses (8/19/2010 2:33:21 AM)
Thanks for the analysis - TLAR. Re: the 42 Oscars, I wonder if they were just about to launch and had their engines running [operating] and therefore were "Op Losses"?

Nemo121 -> RE: Loses (8/20/2010 3:37:12 PM)
BBfanboy, I don't think the game goes into that level of detail ( thank goodness, it is already really straddling the line between just right and too detailed ).... Today, 14th April, was a quiet day.... I hit a ship bringing engineers into Brunei with B-26s operating out of Balikpapan. 6 flew and I got a good 500lber hit. Most of my pilots in those groups have 70 Naval bombing skill and even from 6,000 feet they achieve good results. Elsewhere nothing much went on except that the IJA took Medan. They will probably move north now but if they do they'll find themselves facing the 3 British Brigades which I've offloaded and which are just straggling into the base north of Medan. So far my move into Northern Sumatra has gone well with 50 fighters covering the ships and a small SC TF being formed to interdict IJN reinforcement convoys to Medan. I plan to post a "tripwire" sub there and once it spots an enemy convoy I'll run the CL-led TF down and kill the tankers. SIG INT REPORT FOR Apr 14, 42 1/10th Garrison Unit is loaded on a Ansyu-C Cargo class xAK moving to Canton. Well, that's more troops from the SRA reserve and more PP spent reinforcing China and fewer points and troops left to reinforce the DEI/Malaysia. Lastly, Vals buzzed Davao but didn't launch any attacks. I am taking this to mean that KB has finally unmasked and is preparing to move against my forces in the Mindanao/Balikpapan/ Ambon triangle. That's ok though as I'm quite happy to push 100 fighters into the front in order to attrit KB again. I'm going to start bringing up the fighter reserves and deploying them to counter any deep penetration of my operational depth... I don't think a strategic penetration is on the cards though... Right now Mike is being rather tentative.

Nemo121 -> RE: Loses (8/22/2010 7:14:28 PM)
15th April: There was very little fighting today at all. Both IJN and IJA forces instead concentrated on some moves against previous targets ( Medan, Mindanao ) while the US Navy continued its massive flow of manpower and logistics to the southern DEI - In the past week alone over 30,000 troops have entered the region with another 50,000 embarked and due to arrive over the next two weeks. Djambi airfield is building up nicely and should be a Level 3 airfield by the end of the month ( which would be, just, sufficient, for my purpose...) The real news of the day is that it looks like MIke is pulling back from Sian - I currently think he is pulling back from the direct route because he wants to try the indirect route via the northern pathways. Lots of rivers and the farther he attacks the better my supply routes get and the worse his do so that suits me fine. He'll make progress since my forces on the northern route have supply problems but I'll bleed him as he advances and can shuttle reinforcements in to hold a river line as I retreat no problem. The bigger news is that Changsha is finally surrounded. The Chinese own the hex on the road to the east of Changsha. The IJA still owns the hexside heading directly east of Changsha - which seems a bit strange to me - but in order to prevent anything too weird I am launching a Corps-sized attack supported by my engineer regiments and am ordering 2/3rds of the Corps which closed the encirclement to head into the Changsha hex proper while another Corps ( 450 AV ) races east through Changsha to reach the encircling Corps. Since I think something squirrelly is going on here I'm maximising my chances of a good outcome by undertaking 3 independent courses of action, each of which should firmly trap the IJA and allow me to free troops to move further eastward from Changsha. Question though: Palembang is 7 hexes from Singapore... I have a lot of USN fighters with a maximum range of 7 hexes. Will they fly: a) escort and b) sweep missions out to extended range? Everything I know about the game says, yes.,.. Here's where things get complicated though.... I have a lot of RAF fighters which "could" go to 7 hexes with fuel tanks but that'd be extended range... So, is there some hidden penalty which makes planes less likely to fly an extended range escort mission if that extended range is due to carrying additional fuel tanks? I don't remember it being mentioned anywhere but it is probably best to ask about these things ;-). The more fighters I can get to sweep from Palembang the fewer I'll have to "waste" escorting a strike from Djambi and the more dive-bombers I can load Djambi with for the actual strike missions. [image]local://upfiles/10809/920AEC3D2132420881215FDFE1112D8D.jpg[/image]

Nemo121 -> RE: Loses (8/22/2010 10:19:26 PM)
On another note the whole concept of the air model in the game has been attracting my interest recently and I'd like to kick off a discussion about it in this thread... I don't want to do it in the main forum since then it would tend to go downhill very quickly, break up into factions and just degenerate into meaninglessness. With that said not everyone who could have good ideas for this happens to follow my AAR daily ( shocking, I know [:D] ) so if anyone reading this thinks someone would be able to contribute meaningfully and constructively then please feel free to invite them. Basically I've been wondering how one would improve the air model. My basic premise is that the AE air model is already an excellent model. It produces results which are, to me, believable. Sometimes 3 unescorted Bettys get through 500 fighters and put two torpedoes into a carrier and sometimes other weirdnesses happen but most of the time it corresponds to the 95% of the bell curve and, hell, without the other 5% ( 2.5 top and 2.5 bottom ) it wouldn't be realistic either. I think The Elf and others need to be hugely congratulated on their work. Now, with that said there are issues and some of them significantly impact the game. My idea is to try to not just identify the issues but by iterative design ( which I'll oversee cause it is my thread and someone has to make the calls on what goes in and doesn't ) also come up with increasingly "better" solutions to them. I'll kick off with the 3 main problems I see with the air model and suggest my solutions to them. For purposes of this discussion I think we can convert any on-map fixes I've made for EA and assume they can be coded in as off-map fixes. 1. Allied production is fixed. In EA I've helped ameliorate this by creating major bases around Stanley Island which feature huge supply sinks ( which get bigger over the course of the war ) and which feature a number of airplane factories also which begin the game with 0 functioning and 100 disabled factories. The end result is that if the Allied player wants to boost P-40 series production then he needs to ship in the base monthly supply requirement ( say 100,000 tons per month ) + 100,000 tons of supplies in order to repair the aircraft factories. A round trip to Stanley from San Fran takes about 100 days ( including loading and unloading ) which means that you would need to permanently commit 300,000 tons of shipping just to meet the base supply needs and then another 100,000 tons on a one-off basis for the repairs you wanted. Fail to commit the shipping and the supply sink deteriorates and the aircraft factories begin to get damaged. BY mixing factories from early, middle and late-war and across types ( bomber and fighter ) I can force players to keep feeding an island rather than just abandoning it because "it only builds bombers, I don't want more bombers" or "it only has planes from 42 in it. I only care about the most modern planes. I'll leave it to die and ship the supplies elsewhere." Long story short by forcing the Allied player to commit significant sealift to this task I can somewhat model the diversion of resources to other areas which would have allowed more fighter be made but at a cost to the Pacific. I can't do anything about warships and divisions which arrive in CONUSA but at least it provides a strategic choice. Lose 1/3rd of your cargo capacity in the Pacific in 1943 but have twice as many top-flight fighters and bombers to fight the enemy with. Can you make THAT trade-off work for you? I suggest that some similar quid pro quo could be programmed in using PP whereby ships and divisions had a PP cost and if they were delayed or cancelled then one could use the PP so freed up in order to "purchase" increased production of a plane series. ( P40s, P47s ). This could represent the sort of bargaining which did go on between the ETO and PTO. "Give me more landing craft and I'll give you more planes" etc... It isn't perfect but I think it would be an improvement on the current system where the Japanese get a lot of freedom and the US very little. 2. At present there is NO use for bomber destroyer type planes in AE whereas in real life they were very useful indeed and Germany in particular made many fighters which were terrible vs other fighters but were excellent vs bombers. A code change I would like to see is that we, as COs, be able to select the primary target for each of our fighter squadrons with a simple toggle on/screen in the squadron screen. This would toggle between fighter and bomber and possibly "let CO decide". If set to fighter this squadron would ALWAYS seek to engage enemy fighters first if any were present. If set to bomber this squadron would ALWAYS seek to engage enemy bombers first. If set to CO decide then a mix of the ratio of fighters to bombers, the mission and aggression would determine. E.g. when defending CVs most squadrons would be tasked to defeating the enemy bombers and only the minimum number necessary would peel off to engage enemy fighters. When defending some unit on the ground over Burma the COs might decide to assign enough fighters to keep the enemy escorts fully occupied and only commit a much smaller portion of their force to the "anti-bomber only" role. The idea would be to avoid the sort of slaughter which occurs when Nicks and other bomber destroyers who in reality tried to get through to the bombers CHOOSE to, instead, dogfight with the nimble, escorting P-51s and P-47s. it isn't believable and it reduces the utility of a large number of otherwise useful planes. At present I get really tired of seeing my planes always ALL tangle with ALL the escorts before even looking at the enemy bombers. It simply didn't happen this way in real life. Units were assigned the task of occupying the escorts while others were tasked with pouncing the bombers immediately. 3. Altitude in aerial combat.... Out of time right now but I'll get to this. So, basically, what am I missing out which needs changing in air combat and how could you improve on what is already written there... Apologies for leaving it half done but some work needs doing ;-( Obviously once any fighters on the anti-fighter role had finished off escorts they would dive on the enemy bombers and vice versa for fighters assigned the anti-bomber mission.

pat.casey -> RE: Loses (8/23/2010 12:18:08 AM)
On points 1, 2, and 3 I largely agree. I'm curious to see how your ideas in #1 play out as well; knowing your preference in mod design I suspect that a number of the islands represent production "traps" of one sort or another :). I'd add my $0.02 as well. 4) Low efficacy of allied (and japanese) mediums in an anti-shipping role. Sure, poorly trained high altitude bombers can, and do, miss nimble targets like ships, but highly trained crews coming in to skip bomb a transport convoy should slaughter it (see the bismark sea). This leads to some weird gameplay phenomina and an over reliance on specialist torpedo squadrons for a generalist anti-shipping role. Letting trained crews skip bomb and giving them a significant accuracy bonus in that role would be useful (I know WITP had this mechanic, dunno if it carried over successfully into AE). 5) Excessive survivability and efficacy of allied heavies in a base suppression role. Changed to improve anti-bomber mechanics might help here, but another useful mechanic might be to model doctrine e.g. it'll cost you 10 pp every time you ground attack with heavies since that violates strategic bombing doctrine. 6) Low efficacy in general of allied mediums. Fix I think would be to improve their accuracy in low altitude strikes and up their survivability vis a vis fighter attack. Flack should still be a threat, and only upping accuracy at low altitude means they can't be used to smart-bomb defended bases this way, but they can, and should, hit lightly defended targets hard. 7) Balanced training ... historically the late war allied could turn out trained replacements. The Japanese could not. In the game, any player can keep churning out quality replacement pilots as long as they can stand the tedium of on-map training. Relatively easy fix here would be for units on training missions to burn fuel in significant qualtities which would make it progressively harder for a japanese player to train as their economy contracted.

medicff -> RE: Loses (8/23/2010 1:50:01 AM)
quote: At present I get really tired of seeing my planes always ALL tangle with ALL the escorts before even looking at the enemy bombers. It simply didn't happen this way in real life. Units were assigned the task of occupying the escorts while others were tasked with pouncing the bombers immediately. IIRC the code already has programmed that a portion of the defending CAP is reserved for bombers only if a larger ratio than escorts. I am sure there is a random factor involved as well Pat

DOCUP -> RE: Loses (8/23/2010 8:48:01 AM)
Nemo I like the idea of number one. I would like the ability to mess around with some of the allied production (I am the allied commander). Number 2 I don't have much knowledge on. But I do like the option of mess with fighters or bombers. 3. well since you haven't said anything I'll put in what I think. Not all planes did well at max alt. some performed better at lower or med. Each pilot would play to his planes strenghts. My thoughts are if a plane was better suited for med alt it would perfrom better at that alt than at max, depending on what opponent it is faceing. Just my thoughts docup

Capt. Harlock -> Air Model Mods (8/24/2010 2:05:15 AM)
quote: Nicks and other bomber destroyers who in reality tried to get through to the bombers CHOOSE to, instead, dogfight with the nimble, escorting P-51s and P-47s. It's amusing to see a P-47 described as "nimble" but I can see your point. I think the ratio of CAP vs. escort fighters needs to be taken into consideration with a random modifier -- it's possible for a small group of outnumbered CAP fighters to evade the escort, e.g. if they come from "up-sun". Point #1 sounds like a terrific idea. I've enjoyed playing around with Allied airframe production extensively when I played "Pacific War".

modrow -> Timeo Nemo et dona ferens (8/25/2010 10:57:24 AM)
Nemo, as ever so often, you catch me between two fires - on the one hand, I want to see this interesting discussion re. influencing the air war thrive, which it does not really right now - after all, some of these aspects may influence your mod. On the other hand, as usual I am short of time and have not thought all of these aspects through. Still, an attempted caveat, relating only to 1). At first, when I read your idea it sounded well to me. Naturally. Great, I'm gonna get my choice of more planes, and paying in supply (which is probably in current scenarios not much of a concern for the Allied). Who does not want that to happen ? Then, concerns started to grow. One of the main problems as Allied player is IMHO that especially at the beginning of the game the lure to just retreat, sit back and wait for overwhelming power to arrive is just too big to really resist. This, however, keeps you from doing the things you ought to do. I fear the option you mention would tend to increase this danger, because you would be tempted to start dropping supplies ASAP and devote the assets you have to that purpose, then wait until the factories are repaired, reserves are built and then you are ready to strike - or not, because the assets used for supply shuffling to your factories should have been used to create a sound logistical basis for your advance route. At the same time, during that phase you may be tricked into thinking that your air assets are to be more abundant, so maybe you will be more likely to get involved in fights that you should not. It takes a lot of discipline to sit back and let yourself be bombed, that need for discipline -which many of us, including myself, don't always muster- would increase. Thus, your offer may lead the Allied player away from the real questions he ought to answer. Let the shortage of airframes help you to make you chose your fights wisely and prepare and conduct them properly. If you want to stop the evil empire from outproducing you, use your available assets to deny it the raw material needed and let it choke. It's possible, your own AAR shows it. As Allied player, don't cry for better tools for the job, just learn how to use the tools at your disposal adroitly (even though it's difficult, I for one cannot). Once I have mastered that task, I'll be ready to use other options offered. Note that none of these concerns is real. I'm just shaping my forum personality, in case an opponent should read all my posts ;). Just give me those factories, so I can ruin myself. Just my thoughts Hartwig

topeverest -> RE: Timeo Nemo et dona ferens (8/26/2010 12:51:07 AM)
Nemo, Been silently reading for a time. Thought I'd jump in on your recent questions. Regarding your three major questions 1. Allied fixed air production. Understand your concept. IMHO, Even if there were huge supply dumps required to attain or maintain various replacements, say it is 30 AK per 100K per month as a rough rule of thumb. Most allied players have upwards of 20M SP's by late summer 42. Even if it takes 60 large AK's and some escorts to execute, I'm not sure what material effect we have other than nuicence unless it is very, very large. It would be much easier to reduce the initial (potentially permanently) supply / fuel awards to the USA and allies elsewhere for global effect. Cutting by at least 50% could be achieved and not hurt the allies at all. Another option would be (if possible) to set delay dates for incremental supply awards. It also is feasible to reduce PP's or increase the delay of allied units. Then there also is the obligatory mandatory withdrawl that turns into a future upgrade airframe. Fact is allied production is fixed and historically modeled to reasonable detail. Lots of mods out there, but not really a solution. 2. Agree that IRL, a small number of interceptors could engage escorts and allow the remainder of the interceptors to get through without incident. My 2cents would be heavily weighted to the warning time, altitude, and intiative of the intercepting unit. Agree this should be part of the routine. Way too easy to guard the attack aircraft. 3. Altitude issue with air combat - agree problems exist. Heard several really inciteful solutions to this dilema. Cant credit the authors, but the one latched on to is: Limited O supply by airfield size. This would have 2 effects altitude soft ceiling by airfield size unless air HQ present and 3x supply available at base. Penalties for going over the cap are pilot fatigue graduated based on how far over the soft ceiling they fought (along with some random element...similar to overstacking atolls / islands) Seperately and much more difficult to implement is the argument of visibility of the air battlefield and how stratospheric operations in many weather cases were impossible. This would have the potential practical maximum CAP, sweep, and bomb altitude set (and unit potentiallty reassigned) during the mission. An even more complex version of this is multiple cloud layers / the impactg of failed radar intercept, etc. Let me just state the current model is much better than stock WITP. BTW, thanks for the numerous AAR's. You are a seasoned wargamer with experience against multiple opponents and across many genres. More importantly, you have a solid grasp on many sophiticated military concepts that are well out of the reach of the average gamer. Finally, your profession and person lends itself well to the proposition of continuous improvement, meticulous execution, determined flexibility, and incremental challenge. What I like most is your willingness to share your ideologies, strategies, and tactics. I am not exagerating when I say it is a fool who would read your AAR's and not pay very close attention. Drive on, Admiral. As an aside, IMHO, treatment by some inside this AAR of 1eyedjacks has been a bit rough. It is now clear that he shows inexperience, inflexibility, and is overmatched. It is also is clear to me that he is adapting...and learning, but it wont be enough this time around. His next opponent might find him armed with far more tools in his gaming arsenal. Thanks again.

Nemo121 -> RE: Timeo Nemo et dona ferens (9/3/2010 1:24:46 AM)
Argh, latin, sadly the extent of my classical education was to simply read the old Roman, Greek and some of the more intersting Sumerian myths etc so my translation of this is pretty poor. I make it "Fear Nemo ( or possibly nobody depending on whether you're going for the translation... I think you mean it as the nick though as that makes more sense ) bearing gifts". Is that right? My other translation is "Fear nobody and bring gifts" but that makes a bit less sense and isn't a bastardisation of the infamous "Fear Greeks bearing gifts" which I think is what you are alluding to. As to the discussion: 1. Variable Allied production. No-one seems to disagree with this. 2. Allowing a toggle for "engage fighters" or "engage bombers" doesn't seem too controversial. There is some element of this already in the game but it doesn't seem to discern between bomber destroyed type planes and dogfighting specialist planes. To put it in Luftwaffe terms it makes it as likely for your Me-210 to engage escorting P-51s while the underarmed Bf-109s tackle the B-17s as for your nimble Bf-109s to engage the P-51s while the Me-210s go for the bombers. In real life a CO who mixed those two roles up would have been sent to the Russian front in a penal battalion. 3. Altitude - not fully explored yet. I'm not convinced it is as large a problem as people make out. In the last turn I had Hurricanes and Dutch P-40Es escorting Hudsons against an IJN convoy near southern Borneo. They ran into Zeroes. The end result was 5 P-40Es and 2 Hurricanes downed in return for 13 Zeroes. And don't forget that those Zeroes were on CAP while my guys were ALL escorting, not sweeping, escorting. I did a few tricks with plane height etc to draw the Zeroes down and give my Hurris lots of diving attacks. It was hard on the P-40Es but they are pretty expendable. In any case while escorting vs Zeroes on CAP I got just under a 2:1 kill ratio in spite of the fact that all of my escorts were at heights below the Zeroes. Also I'd point out that in terms of co-ordination I got 100% of the squadrons assigned to escort to escort and I had Hurricanes from two different RAF groups co-operating with Dutch P40Es from the Dutch Air Force escorting Australian bombers from yet another HQ. In total I got a co-ordinated strike with units from 4 different HQs. To be fair I tried to co-ordinate with F4F3s from a 5th HQ also but they only arrived late to the party so the co-ordination wasn't perfect. It is weird though but I just amn't seeing the co-ordination issues others are. I don't fly fatigued or with low morale though but even when using units from different HQs and nationalities I am getting good results. Suggestions from the crowd [8D] : a. Low efficacy of Allied mediums in the anti-shipping role.... Are you really seeing that? I've got to say that apart from nimble DDs and APDs any IJN merchant ship which gets within B-26 or Hudson range of my bases stands a fairly good chance of being sunk. Out of the last two convoys I attacked with about 20 bombers I got hits on 4 merchants and it looks like I sank at least 2 and caused the other 2 to put into harbour for significant repairs. I don't have much experience with skip-bombing though so can't say how effective that is. But my mediums at 6,000 feet are pretty lethal. To be fair I don't commit them until they have > 70 Skill in Naval Bombing. That meant that I didn't run any bombing missions for about 2 to 2 and a half months but once I've been running them I am getting a bomb hit for every 6 to 7 B-26s committed to action, which isn't bad and means a 25 plane raid ( 3 squadrons or so ) is getting about 4 bomb hits across 3 ships when they launch a proper raid. That's enough to force the enemy convoys away ( or to feature heavy CAP ). Could anyone provide info re: skip-bombing with > 80 low naval attack experience crews? I think 80 Exp is the cut-off for getting good results so it'd be interesting to see what the results are there. I amn't far enough along in my game to know. b. I think the point you make about PPs for violating doctrine is an innovative solution pat. The problem is that, in general, I would be against anything which constrains players from coming up with innovative solutions. So, while I think it is good I think that it would be a minefield to have a situation in which using forces in anything but "the right way" gets penalised. After all who would say what was right and what was wrong? It might be clear when it comes to B-17s attacking ground troops but what about the greyer and greyer areas? Also, it would be impossible for the game to actually recognise some of the non-doctrinal employments. E.g. Embarking ordinary infantry on a transport sub could be a perfectly logical thing to do if evacuating an island but what about reinforcing an island? It didn't happen in real life but that doesn't mean it mightn't make sense in-game? What about reinforcing troops who have a beachhead on an island you've already invaded? Again it didn't happen but it seems reasonable and non-gamey to me. Should we penalise that? I just think it would be too much of a minefield albeit a good idea in terms of creating some cost to actions. c. Hmm, Allied mediums already pack more of a punch than IJAAF mediums. I'm not convinced that historically speaking they underperform in the base attack role... My guys have done a great job at Kwajalein and other places in closing them when I've concentrated them sufficiently. It has taken quite a few of them but from my reading that seems reasonable. d. Training. Ok, here I agree. I forgot to say that my simple work-around was to create several large on-map "training squadrons" which were perma-restricted and had no significant upgrade paths. This meant that these squadrons were really only useful to train pilots. In the longer term my solution would be to create a system where you could assign pilots to a "specialisation" academy and train them up at a cost in supplies ( not fuel since supplies model aviation fuel for both sides ) per pilot assigned. By setting some broad limits automatically as follows: a. You would have a school for each skill and would assign your pilots from your replacement poool to these schools on a % basis. E.g 50% go to fighter finishing school, 30% to naval bombing finishing school, 5% to navsearch, 5% to recon, 10% to ground bombing. b. The computer would then automatically assign the replacement pilots to these "specialisation academies" in the ratios you decided. If your ratio doesn't add up to 100% then the % left over just builds up in the replacement pool. c. You would then assign the "Graduation Skill" for each academy and when pilots reach that skill in that academy they would "graduate" to the general pool. E.g. for the fighter academy you could set your graduation skills as being 70% A2A skill and 60% general skill. Once the pilots reach that level they auto-graduate to the general pool. d. For each squadron in service you could also set the skill or multiple skills which would be the minimum acceptable for a pilot to be drafted in E.g. You could set Netty groups to only accept pilots with naval torpedo skill > 70%. These squadrons would then, each turn or every several turns, check the general reserve for pilots which meet their minimum skill level and would then draft them into the squadron. This would, IMO, be the simplest system which maintains the power of the current training model whilst cutting down on the ENDLESS clicking. I'm willing to do it but it isn't really stimulating. People could still do on-map training the way they currently do for that extra boost but this would allow most players to just automate their training requirements ( 50% fighter pilots, 30% naval attack, 10% ground attack etc ), set the skill %s they wanted as a minimum for their pilots in each of the skills germane to each of those specialties and then automate the graduation of those pilots from training and their assignment to front-line squadrons. By making training burn fuel it would realistically represent the cost of training to Japan ( and the Allies ) and would hamper Japan if Japan's supply situation was poor. It wouldn't however, penalise Japan if Japan was doing well. I'm concerned that some of the solutions I've read on the forum ( not this thread ) are thinly veiled attempts to penalise Japan no matter how well-managed it is and this goes against the game philosophy I would find agreeable. medicff, Agreed. I am, however, not at all convinced that the code is programmed to look at which intercepting fighters are nimble dogfighters and which would be best rated as "bomber destroyers" - e.g. Ki-45 etc and allocates them appropriately. Right now I think you are likely to see Ki-45s selected to tangle with the escorting Hurricanes while nimble single-engined Oscars get tasked to go after the bombers. Even the IJAAF didn't think that was the best way to go about things. When all they had was Oscars thats what they used but if heavily-armed twin-engined fighters were available they were tasked for the bombers whenever possible - based on what I've read.... and common sense. Hartwig, Of course there are temptations and traps. Giving something they want and think they need - but really don't - tends to lead them down the path of grabbing as much of what they want, but don't need, as possible to the exclusion of all other possibilities. As always one will need to examine the objective reality of the situation. Sometimes what you want, and have always thought you needed is not at all what is really required. Children think they need chocolate, as much chocolate as possible on Christmas Day. By lunchtime they often end up vomitting they've eaten so much. What they craved and felt they needed was rejected as poison by their stomach which was wiser than their mind. Unfortunately your stomachs don't play AE, your minds do. Will they have the discipline to do what needs to be done to gain the advantage that is offered or will you engage in a self-defeating glutony? On the other hand, in some situations you've got to use it or lose it. So, with a good plan the converse might just work out also. EA will, as ever, be about choices.... Some good, some bad but none immutable and few always one thing or the other. As always the person who best melds military strategy with economic strategy will win - for certain values of winning. Either way you'll get the factories - although in a manner organised to create additional problems and force either profligacy or the careful selection of phases of increased production at the expense of other phases of fallowness. topeverest, Interesting contributions. I am envisioning multiple bases, each with significant supply requirements phased over time such that a base which required 100,000 tons of supply per month to break even in 1942 might require 200,000 in 1943. Multiply that by 5 and suddenly by 1944 if you want boosted production you've got a requirement of 1.5 million tons of supplies delivered per month - in a journey which takes several months and thus requires a multiple of 1.5 million tons of shipping committed. Can the Allies really afford to lose 3 million tons of AK shipping from their total without significant impact on amphibious invasions in 1944? I think not. Maybe some will find a way though and if they do they deserve the fruits they'll reap. The issue is less the supplies. I don't think that's the bottleneck at all really. The issue is assault shipping and spare shipping to ship supplies and troops to the Pacific. If you have 500 fewer 6,000 ton AKs available for your Pacific endeavours in 1944 are you going to find your ability to supply future offensives/transport base forces etc hugely limited? I think so. I think that you'll have to commit more APs to shipping support troops and that lessens the tempo of your advance. Perhaps you can compensate for this with the 200 extra fighters and 200 extra bombers per month? Perhaps not, but it is an interesting choice for you to make. Also, if you get the calculations wrong you could get no benefit for a huge cost and punishing errors severely also appeals to me. I don't think we should let poor play go unpunished. I think that if someone doesn't think through something in EA then they should fail and fail miserably.... but if they do think it through and balance their own military strategy with their economic strategy and win the game within the game that the economy is then they should get a significant benefit from it and should also feel a sense of achievement. You only get that achievement if what you beat is damned tricky. So that's my goal really. I'm tweaking it at the moment but right now I think there are sufficient blind alleys etc that someone who doesn't plan 18 months ahead is going to find that the nirvana of responsive Allied production will be lost to them or only gained at such ruinous cost to their amphibious invasion fleet capacity that they wish they'd never heard of it. OR, perhaps, someone will utterly outsmart me, point out a flaw in my thinking and beat the game within the game --- in which case they deserve their gains... and I'll patch it ;-) O2 supply eh? I hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure how realistic an issue it would have been in real life. Isn't that, after all, a job for aviation support squads? I have gone through phases with the air battle. Initially I thought height was king, then I experimented a bit and realised I could negate height advantages after the first couple of passes through positioning 2nd echelon planes at higher altitude ready to dive down on the Zeroes who just dived on my sacrifices and then, lastly, I realised that even if I ceded the total height advantage I could gain victory through phasing of heights even when all heights were below the maximum Japanese height. In short what matters is the differential between your lowest flight and highest, not the absolute difference. It took me a couple of weeks of air combat to realise that but it is true. Yesterday's combat in which I downed double the number of Zeroes ( well, 13 vs 7 ) despite my planes being on escort missions and all being at lower height than the Zeroes was, I think, a good example of that. It is a bit weird that my game is going so differently than most Allied games but I would suggest two reasons for this: 1. I've ruthlessly allowed the IJAAF and IJNAF aerial supremacy until my pilots were fully trained. Squadrons with 60+ A2A skill are only barely airworthy IMO. My USAAF etc squadrons are now ONLY accepting graduates with >70 A2A skill. 2. Using relative height differentials within my own fighter groups to create advantageous positioning for most of my fighter groups even if ALL groups are below the height of the IJAAF or IJNAF groups has, I think, allowed me to gain an advantage which others aren't using. It seem most people are trying to counter Oscars flying at 36,000 feet by flying everyone they have as high as possible albeit still under 36,000 feet. This is actually probably the worst thing they could do as they then tend to fly all at the same altitude and give the Oscars etc the same advantage over them all while ensuring none of the Allied airgroups have any advantage over the Zeroes. I do think there are some code issues which my solution might exploit - namely that the IJAAF unit in such a situation tends to dive on one Allied group en masse and usually tends to go for the lowest group as they are the ones they have most advantage over. It is a case where the code seeks the greatest advantage and then exploits it ( which is good ) but that very reliability can be used to gain the Allies an advantage in round 2. It isn't 100% but it is close enough that when I run into the IJAAF and IJNAF I am getting 1.5:1 to 2:1 exchange ratios most of the time now even though quite a few of the planes I'm putting up are markedly inferior. With that said I do have aces flying P-39s who have shot down several Zeroes and Oscars. So, more recently I think the height issue is a problem BUT there are workarounds and a proper code solution would have to go pretty deep to solve some of the legacy code issues which creep in in terms of target selection etc. Caveat: I don't see the inside of the code but I can see how it plays out and extrapolate from that. I'm sure the code works slightly differently than my extrapolation but my extrapolation is good enough to get exchange rates in A2A combat which others aren't seeing so I'd say it must be pretty close to the truth or else I wouldn't be getting those exchange rates. As to the AAR etc. Well, I'm glad you enjoy the AAR. I write it to spark interesting discussions as that's what I enjoy/find relaxing so I'm glad you find it interesting. As to 1EyedJacks... Well, while I'm uncomfortable with the whole idea of holding oneself up as being a good player etc, especially when it is simply the basics being applied without preconception... and something anyone could do. I will say that it is easy for anyone to look "bad" when they find their OODA loop overstretched. Once that happens one begins making more and more mistakes. Does that mean one is a bad player? No, even the best generals etc will make mistakes once their OODA loop is overstressed. I think that has happened with Mike. With that said I think he is gaining experience and has a plan. I think that he will learn from the game and bring those tools to other games. Just as we all have to do whether we win or lose. I've certainly made several serious errors in this game and have learnt from them. So, hopefully, I'll be better in the next game and won't make as many mistakes in that game. It is a continual process we should all be doing. None of us are so good we can't get better.

Nemo121 -> RE: Timeo Nemo et dona ferens (9/3/2010 1:34:22 AM)
In other news: 1. I sank an IJN DD and xAK near southern Borneo with a CL-led raiding TF. 2. I'm running another 6,000 tons of supplies into Davao to help Mindanao hold. 3. Manado is rapidly building up. It has 600 AV, 1000+ support squads, 500 aviation support, a level 4 airfield, level 2 port ( going to level 3 ) etc. The Elaud base just east is building to level 1 airfield and once it hits that I'll use it to hop fast AKs into Davao for reinforcement/supply purposes. 4. My huge USN/RN upgrade work is about 2 weeks from finishing in Soerabaja. Once that is done I'll hve dozens of modernised DDs, CAs, CLs etc with which to invade Malaysia. 5. The encirclement of Changsha is complete. 5,000 IJA AV are trapped. Another IJA division is making for Canton and more SRA troops are making for China according to my SIGINT. By the time I hit Malaysia his strategic reserve may be rather bare. That's the plan in any case. 6. I have a CL-led TF in northern Sumatra and have spotted him unloading a tank regiment there. So, the CL-led TF will go in tomorrow to butcher that TF. 7. Djambi is building up nicely and by month's end it should be ready to stage a proper raid. I'm looking at mounting some 350 bombers from my secret jungle base, some 150 fighters from Djambi and another 200 or so bombers/dive-bombers from Palembang. By the end of the day I would expect Singapore harbour to be littered with sunk ships, including most of the rapid reaction force which could intervene in Malaysia. Apart from that I have a division's worth of troops in CONUSA which I'm deciding where to send while Mike is raiding the Aleutians with his CVEs/CVLs seeking reinforcement convoys. I'm using this gap, which I've been expecting, to run 2 x xAKLs into the Kuriles to drop 3000+ tons of supplies off at my troops on Onnekotan Jima. That should let them hold out for another month by which time I'll have fighters and other forces available to push through proper relief efforts. We've had a few air battles and basically they've gone about 2:1 in my favour over the last few days. I've also managed to use medium bombers to hit a few more xAKs around Borneo and generally create trouble for him there. Enough trouble that he shouldn't be wondering what the other 600+ bombers are doing sitting on the ground anyways. I haven't seen KB in about 3 weeks. I think they are around Formosa but can't be sure. They could also be 15 hexes off the coast of San Fran for all I know... Mike is hiding them better now which is good. It creates uncertainty for me and if I was the sort of person to actually think the enemy's plans would trump mine I'd be pretty worried right now. As it is my view is that whenever they spring up I'll lose some ships but, strategically, they are unlikely to do anything vital... So long as they don't achieve anything strategically important I can swallow some ship losses.

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