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Bullwinkle58 -> RE: Nothing Up My Sleeve: Magical Moose Tricks--Bullwinkle58 vs.1EyedJacks (6/5/2013 2:12:51 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Doggie3
Hi Moose - newcomer to the game, latecomer to the AAR...
Some questions if I may:
1. Back during the defence of Singapore, you made some comments about using the motor launches in the defence and flying engineers in to defend. Is it seen as unfair for the Allies to add to the defences of the city?
2. Johnston and the Line Islands - can they be effectively defended or is it best to allow them to be taken and then interdict the re-supply efforts, and take them back later?
3. Submarine CO's - what do you look for in their ratings? I'd like to use my subs aggressively, but is high aggression necessarily the best to have?
Really enjoying the AAR...
Cheers
Thanks for that last. And welcome. Feel free to contribute any time.
This game is a little odd compared to most. We don't have any house rules. None. If you look at the first page of the AAR, as well as dig back in the pages of the Opponents Wanted sub-forum, I did a long treatise on why I wanted to play this way. My opponent's AAR is entitled to display this as well. So top-line nothing either of us does in the game is off-limits or "unfair" or that dreaded term "gamey." Off the table. There has been grousing a couple of times, most recently on night-bombing, but we press on and adjust. Just the night-bombing of Manpower I have done has made me dig into the whole area of strategic bombing trade offs in the game to a degree I never had before. It's not a magic elixir. But it can force adjustments on Japan they might not like. In war you are under no obligation to do ANYTHING the enemy might like.
Your quesitons:
1. Singers is a key objective for the Japanese. Every day it can be held by the Allies means something else Japan would like to be doing isn't getting done. I set out to hold it as long as I could while not sacrificing the defense of Palembang, which has even more strategic value. The MLs at Singers are made in the base's building yards; they poof into the OOB already at Singers. All I tried to do was use them to confuse the targeting routines so Japanese bombers would hit them instead of my supply ships. They are, after all, harbor defense assets. I used them that way. If I had sent them in from elsewhere that would have been perfectly fine too, but I didn't. They lived there.
I never sent in engineers except marching Malaysian engineers south into the city when the war started. This is smart, not unfair. Why leave them up-country to die for nothing? And they will die very quickly. The Allies must consolofate the assets they have as soon as possible else they will be destroyed piecemeal. Again, smart, not unfair. I actually flew some aviaiton support elements OUT of Singers and to Palembang when Singers no longer had any fighters and the air field was closed by daily bombing. You have to feed av support whether it's working or not. I needed them on Sumatra, so out they went.
If you re-read the flow of the siege I think you can see that the keys were three: Forts and the rebuilding of same, supply and the amounts I was able to insert due to IJN being elsewhere, and the lack of desire by Japan to Shock attack and take heavy losses to gain time. I have my own theories as to why Shock attacks were not used, but they weren't, and on several of the tries they would have gotten the job done sooner.
2. Johnson and the Line Islands. No 6000-man stacking limit island can be held, by either side, if the enemy really wants it. The question is how much do they want it? In this game Japan made an immediate play for these islands, as well as threatened Hawaii porper with invasion. I don't know what was up there and won't until the game is over and I read the other AAR. But you can tell reading here how much it discombobulated me. On the one hand Japan invested a lot in taking islands I have back now, at some expense. But it gained them time and made the whole USN stay home for five months. Only the Japanese player can judge if that's worth it to them in their plan. I think the big island of Hawaii was a landing target with an aim to get an LBA base in range of Oahu. If that had happened it would have altered the nature of 1942 for me to an even greater extent. It's my feeling, just a feeling, however, that the events around Hawaii got in the way of attention being paid to the PI and Singers. It remians to be seen how quickly Japan can complete the normal first phase objectives in Asia, such as taking Java and securing strong Oil resources. I'm doing my best to throw tables and chairs in the path of that as the Allies get stronger day by day.
3. For all naval COs I look for a strong Naval stat (except carriers; then it's Air.) A lot of the leader stat mechanics are under the hood and have never been disclosed. Some players, reading ancient runes from long-gone devs, will tell you they know what matters, but they don't.
For subs specifically I look at Naval, but also Aggression. This often means, early especially, that surface gun battles take place with lone targets. Some players like this, some don't take the risk. It might also mean they'll go into shallow water more, harbors more, maybe take shots at escorts or not--I simply don't know how the code works here and don't want to. But for subs I'll often choose the Aggression over even Naval depending on what patrol area I'm sending the boat to. I served in submarines and a lot of these guys are boyhood heroes of mine. So there's a RPG element with subs for me. If I have Mush Morton available he's going in the boat going to the worst possible place. He just is.
If you want to protect your subs and not lose many I'd say go for moderate Aggression stats in your COs. Focus on Naval skill.
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