RE: Notes from a Small Island

RE: Notes from a Small Island (Full Version)

All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >> After Action Reports

Message

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/8/2019 4:01:20 PM)
Yes, John is right about the house rule. Nighttime airfield strikes or port strikes limited to 50 bombers. Erik also positions his AA well. He knows which bases are the likely targets. One of many unintended consequences of this house rule is that it allows Erik to spread out his nighttime bombers to every field in the Home Islands. No need to concentrate, since the largest raid he has to allow for is 50 bombers. 15 good night fighters and good flak is sufficient to ensure that no raid will work for the Allies (losses will be far greater than gains, and Allied pools are too limited for that kind of warfare).

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/19/2019 3:23:26 PM)
11/25/45 to 12/3/45 Cutting Corners: Due to real life matters (primarily my stepdad passing away and moving mom here), time was woefully short. To keep this game (and my other game, to a lesser extent) on the rails, I stopped watching the movie. The endless strategic bombing runs were just taking forever, even batting the escape key as fast as possible. When real life finally began to settle down (mostly) two weeks ago, I found that I couldn't stomach the endless replays at this point. I think I've watched one movie in the past 40 days. That's not optimal but it does allow me to play the game without bashing my head against the keyboard. Strategic Bombing: This continues to go pretty well. I've found a pretty good variety of raids that allow the Allies to score meaningful points with acceptable losses. Strat Bombing points are up to about 33k or 34k now. Tokyo and Yokohama are still relatively untouched. Most of the others are in bad shape. Whether this has the slightest impact of Erik, given all the time he had to gather fuel and resources, I dunno. But it has been a big help in advancing the score. The Allies now lead by something like 142k to 89k. About 53k. That means I'm roughly 36k short of victory with essentially zero chance of achieving that. Given that reality, the Allies are focused primarily on the conquest of China, which will offer alot of points for bases (especially Chungking) and enemy ground units destroyed (assuming they don't vanish into the mountains). A long time ago, I estimated the Allied lead would be 40k to 60k by the end of the year. That'll be the case. By the end of the war it might be in the range of 55k to 70k. China: With the fall of Shanghai and Hangchow, the combined Allied armies are mostly moving straight into the interior, making for Chungking. Erik has a strong blocking force at Chingkiang (or something like that, behind Changsha perhaps 8 hexes). His army is making a stand but doesn't have a prayer against what's coming. After that, the next stop is probably Chungking. I think he's having supply issues now. And I think he's plugged his fingers in so many holes in the dike that he doesn't have enough to fend off the main Allied thrust. Home Islands: Allied troops are prepping and gathering, but I don't know if I'll ever trigger this. Given time constraints and other realities (mostly associated with the strength of the enemy air forces), I'm pretty darned sure the cost would be prohibitive - that I'd lose so much that it would offset any gains.

tolsdorff -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/19/2019 4:25:50 PM)
From the popcorn-point of view, an invasion of the Home Islands should be a fitting end to a great late-stage game, no matter who would come out on top. Understandably, the points count for both you and Eric, but I still would love to see the outcome of such an undertaking. It could be of epic proportions.

BillBrown -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/19/2019 7:09:22 PM)
I agree that a home islands invasion would be interesting and informative.

HansBolter -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/19/2019 8:16:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BillBrown I agree that a home islands invasion would be interesting and informative. I think the only thing it would inform us of is how easily an overpowered late game Japan can be at fending off an invasion attempt. Just look at how effective the Kamikazes were already in getting through when a fraction of the IJ air force was involved. Even if the Death Star can muster a 2K CAP so many are going to get through the invasion force will be savaged. I respect CR's trepidation in treading into those waters. It was easy for me in an AI game because I had already beaten down the air force.

adarbrauner -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/19/2019 9:12:12 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Canoerebel Whether this has the slightest impact of Erik, given all the time he had to gather fuel and resources, I dunno. From now on, I don't think you'll let this happening again - at least, not without stong opposition

John 3rd -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/19/2019 11:40:55 PM)
You know...some people call the office trying to make contact, leave a message, and... Understand how busy you are! Been there and doing that.

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (11/22/2019 4:09:18 PM)
12/4/45 to 12/6/45 The War: The Allies break through the key blocking hex on the best route to Chungking. The Allied army is huge. I don't think Dave can put together a solid roadblock shy of Chungking, but that's just a guess. If so, the Allied army may reach the big base before the end of the year. The Strategic Bombing campaign continues to go pretty well (I was correct in thinking that it was best to delay things until proximity and overwhelming numbers would allow the Allies to score efficiently.) Other than that, things are quiet. I think Erik is chomping at the bit for an opportunity to attack. I'm loathe to give him the set piece he wants. So we're circling about, casting wary glances at the other, neither doing a great deal to force an issue beyond those currently existing. [image]local://upfiles/8143/45EA03CC49CD419F9B38C3F037E15E6B.jpg[/image]

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 3:10:28 PM)
12/7/45 to 12/27/45 Here at the End of All Things: The game doesn't end at the end of 1945. It just feels like it does. Score: The Allied lead is 161k to 89k, or 62k points. About 27k from auto victory. Many moons ago, I posted that the Allied lead would likely be between 40k and 60k by the end of the year, and between 55k and 70k by the end of February 1946, which is when the game ends (I think). So the Allies have outperformed what I had expected, back then. The war in China and the Strategic Bombing campaign have gone better than expected. China: The combined Allied powers eventually broke through the main enemy force barring the way to Chungking. That main enemy force is now retreating in tatters. The Allies army may cross the river and assault Chungking right at New Years Eve or New Years Day. I'm not sure if Erik has a strong reserve force or if he's really on fumes now. Supply is definitely an issue. There are a lot of points remaining in China - base points and enemy army points. I think the Chungking/Chengtu area will be secured within two weeks. As soon as Chungking falls, elements of the Allied army will move south, to work on the remaning large enemy pockets at Changsha, Hangkow and Canton/Hong Kong. Strategic Bombing: The Allies have 39.7k. The Allies lose a material number of 4EB but far less than points scored, so that the campaign has been efficient. Most enemy bases are battered now, though Tokyo, Yokohama and Kobe are still in pretty good shape, as are some of the big aircraft plants that don't have Manpower centers. The New Year Invasions: DS just escorted a bunch of assault shipping into the Pacific. Those TFs will evnetually go to Shikuka, for use in a possible invasion of the Home Islands. DS is now on its way back to China. The Allied army in China is mostly prepped for Korea. That invasion is also possible come the new year, once China is complete. But I Don't Know:�if it's worth taking the chance of coming within range of Erik's uber air forces, which I believe are indeed uber even though Japan's been battered for a year. It probably isn't worth taking a chance. But I haven't made any final decisions yet. Zzzzzzz: Erik hasn't engaged in any offensive activity in about a year. It's been a real snooze-fest, at least compared to the games vs. Dave and John III. He doesn't need to attack, but will do so with a vengeance when he feels the circumstances are right. He's been able to hole-up and rely on his denominator to keep the game afloat. So the war is two dimensional - ground war in China and strategic bombing vs. Home Islands.

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 3:21:56 PM)
12/27/45 Asia: The seat of the war. [image]local://upfiles/8143/2042D981642346288ED8AFB0D661EFC0.jpg[/image]

BBfanboy -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 3:57:59 PM)
With the Japanese may be running short of supply because they have built and researched so many aircraft. You also cut them off from a lot of resources when you moved on Hokkaido. So Eric may end up with lots of aircraft but no avgas (supply) to send them out. That could be part of the reason he is husbanding his offence. As for interminable replay times, it seems to be the Air to Ground segment that you find least useful. You can fix that by going into your preferences (second button from the left at the top of the screen) and set the time delay to 0.0. The animation will not show but you still get the combat report at the end if you have that selected.

jwolf -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 4:45:17 PM)
When you take Chungking, won't that trigger a massive re-spawning of the Chinese army? I wonder if the resulting supply drain will negatively impact operations elsewhere in China.

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 4:48:52 PM)
That's a good suggestion, BBfanboy. I haven't watched a movie in a long, long, long time. Perhaps once in the past 60 turns, and that was more than a month ago. That's not optimal but it is okay, under the circumstances. Even in my game with Dave I'd fallen into the habit of watching about one out of 20 replays.

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 4:50:03 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: jwolf When you take Chungking, won't that trigger a massive re-spawning of the Chinese army? I wonder if the resulting supply drain will negatively impact operations elsewhere in China. I'm not sure, since I wasn't around when Erik consquered China. I don't know if my predecessor retreated all the units out or if they were destroyed. I think it was mostly the former. So supply may not be a huge issue. And it may not be anyway. Lots of supply coming in through Russia, where Allied TFs are unloading each day.

HansBolter -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 5:09:03 PM)
I almost never watch the animations for air bombing except when ships are the targets. I 'escape' out of them, although I know you PBEM guys are loathe to use the escape key for fear of triggering a sync bug. The late 45 and 46 time period can become very tedious during the air phase. I have 1,200+ B29s, 1200+ B24s and 900+ B17Gs all targeting the same hex (Tokyo), not to mention several hundred Lancasters and Lincolns. The B17Gs for some odd reason I can not fathom, more often than any other land based airframe get huge coordinated strikes of 500-700 planes, while all the other types only manage coordinated strikes of 150-300 planes. The B17s are occupying the same base as the B24s (Hiroshima), but the B24s never get the large coordinated strikes the B17s get. This means there are an interminable number of straggler attacks of 6-9-12 planes that seem to drag on FOREVER. It gets to a point where I am escaping out of the combat reports along with the animations, not really caring how much damage the straggler attacks are doing, but just wanting to get the end of them.

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 5:13:04 PM)
Yeah, viewing the night air bombing routine is horrible during the late war. 300 strikes by three aircraft each is tedious beyond belief. By the way, the Superforts perform well at night. The Liberators do okay. The Flying Fortresses are useless but useful at helping clear out enemy CAP (IE, serving as ablative armor). The Lancasters are a liability beyond belief.

BillBrown -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 5:44:45 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: HansBolter I almost never watch the animations for air bombing except when ships are the targets. I 'escape' out of them, although I know you PBEM guys are loathe to use the escape key for fear of triggering a sync bug. The late 45 and 46 time period can become very tedious during the air phase. I have 1,200+ B29s, 1200+ B24s and 900+ B17Gs all targeting the same hex (Tokyo), not to mention several hundred Lancasters and Lincolns. The B17Gs for some odd reason I can not fathom, more often than any other land based airframe get huge coordinated strikes of 500-700 planes, while all the other types only manage coordinated strikes of 150-300 planes. The B17s are occupying the same base as the B24s (Hiroshima), but the B24s never get the large coordinated strikes the B17s get. This means there are an interminable number of straggler attacks of 6-9-12 planes that seem to drag on FOREVER. It gets to a point where I am escaping out of the combat reports along with the animations, not really caring how much damage the straggler attacks are doing, but just wanting to get the end of them. As a PBEM person I use the "z" key. It sets all the delays to 0 for that animation sequence. So the turn 1 PH attacks takes about 10 seconds. I do watch the Naval Attacks on my opponents, not my own. I rarely watch any type of ground attack( airbase, port, LCU ). I do not watch ASW attacks on my subs, but on the enemy's subs. I think I get most of the pertinent information that way.

HansBolter -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/19/2019 7:20:08 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Canoerebel Yeah, viewing the night air bombing routine is horrible during the late war. 300 strikes by three aircraft each is tedious beyond belief. By the way, the Superforts perform well at night. The Liberators do okay. The Flying Fortresses are useless but useful at helping clear out enemy CAP (IE, serving as ablative armor). The Lancasters are a liability beyond belief. I find the B17Gs to be the best performers at shutting down airfields, but meager performers on bombing ground troops. I never used anything but B29s on strategic bombing.

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/29/2019 3:17:39 AM)
12/31/45 Points: Allies lead by 63k, 29k from victory. I don't think there's any way in this wide world that the Allies can score 29k in two months, much less hold Japan to 0k. But I'll see what I can do to close the gap as much as possible. China: Here's where the Allies will harvest a lot of points. The main IJ army is at Chungking and out of supply. It's facing a humongous Allied army of roughly 13-14k AV. Chunkging won't last long. The Japanese have other armies scattered hither and yon at some good bases. After Chungking, those will be targeted. Strategic Air War: Erik has 1000+ AA at Tokyo. He's pulled back all his defenses to a main core of important bases. These are hard to get at efficiently. So I think the Allies will transition over to a major fighter sweeping campaign to see if it's possible to whittle down his defenses. I doubt it, because he has elite fighters and pilots. But I want to see if the economy might finally affect him. End-War Campaigns? China might be the final ground campaign, but I'm taking a hard look at Korea and the Home Islands. The Japanese High Command: No major offensive activity in more than a year, I believe. Erik's biding his time, hoping to launch massive, coordinated attacks against an Allied invasion/escorting armada. I'm still determined not to give him that opportunity. [image]local://upfiles/8143/A27537886F60489285581579EC984D5F.jpg[/image]

BBfanboy -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/29/2019 1:07:17 PM)
Still no A-bombs available? Something isn't working right if that is the case. A high level A-bomb attack might be the only way to get strat points out of Tokyo.

Capt. Harlock -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/29/2019 10:06:48 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: BBfanboy Still no A-bombs available? Something isn't working right if that is the case. A high level A-bomb attack might be the only way to get strat points out of Tokyo. As has been discussed in this thread, the use of a third A-bomb has significant penalties. Given the indifferent results of the first two, I wouldn't blame CR if he's decided to go with conventional strikes for the remainder of the game.

BBfanboy -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/30/2019 2:18:31 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock quote: ORIGINAL: BBfanboy Still no A-bombs available? Something isn't working right if that is the case. A high level A-bomb attack might be the only way to get strat points out of Tokyo. As has been discussed in this thread, the use of a third A-bomb has significant penalties. Given the indifferent results of the first two, I wouldn't blame CR if he's decided to go with conventional strikes for the remainder of the game. Somewhere I missed or forgot about the first two being used - I thought none had shown up yet as I remember that discussion! I plead old age!

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (12/30/2019 3:57:06 AM)
Yes, both were dropped. No. 1 in September for about 4500 points. No. 2 in late Nov. or early Dec. for about 8k points. Those were disappointing results. I won't drop any more, lest I fudge-up the victory level, which I think will be a draw, which makes sense to me.

Bif1961 -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (1/1/2020 2:07:11 AM)
So you are say the A-bombs were a bomb?

BBfanboy -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (1/1/2020 2:23:32 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Bif1961 So you are say the A-bombs were a bomb? Yes, someone wished CR "Good Luck" and it jinxed him; shoulda said "Break a Leg". [image]local://upfiles/35791/6BCBD417CE0044388170B75702FC634A.gif[/image]

Bif1961 -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (1/2/2020 5:20:49 PM)
Is everyone doing the Michigan Rag?

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (1/7/2020 12:40:25 PM)
1/5/46 This may have been the best day of the war for the Allies. The Allies took both Chungking and Kienko, displaying and mauling two important IJ armies. The IJA defenses in China are now fractured and isolated. There are still some major base points to be harvested and huge armies to be liquidated, meaning lots of points. It'll take time for movement and liquidation, but Japan can't stop anything here. Moreover, a good bit of the Allied army will proceed immediately to Shanghai or Korea, for future amphibious or ground ops. Of lesser note, a major Allied daytime sweep was effective vs. 1100 fighters at Hiroshima. There are enough P-51H models in the pools to permit this kind of activity from this point forward, supplemented probably by carrier or navy-land-based Corsairs. Strat Bombing continues pretty efficiently. Today's missions picked off little residual pockets at secondary bases. Erik's defenses are pretty much concentrated at Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima and a few other bases. A trial run vs. Tokyo a week back was horrendous, so I'll have to pick targets carefully (and hope that the Allied fighter corps might eventually take control of the air). With China now mostly in mop-up mode, Allied armies will retire to ports of embarkation (or Korea). It's likely the Allies will invade the Ryukus by the end of this month while also invading (or reinforcing Hokkaido) on the north side. An alternative under consideration is to shift most of the Allied troops to Korea and try to hammer my may through Erik's big strongpoints. [image]local://upfiles/8143/BFFBA42A317640CEAD38A0C5CDF22E06.jpg[/image]

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (1/7/2020 12:54:29 PM)
1/5/46 China: Allied victories at Chungking and Kienko unhinge enemy defenses on the continent. There are pockets all over worth liquidating, both for base points and army loss points. Trying to allocate between that opportunity and the opportunity to detach armies for use elsewhere is challenging. The air force can help with liquidation, though, especially when enemy armies retreat off-road. That's how I handled the enemy army booted from Peiping in northern China. [image]local://upfiles/8143/50B6F3B923A64502B024CC9009844A5F.jpg[/image]

Canoerebel -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (1/7/2020 12:57:49 PM)
For the first time, the AI reports that the Allies have "Major Victory" status. I think that might be true if the Allies achieve 2:1 by the end of February (or perhaps it's reduced to "Minor Victory"). No matter what the AI happens to report at games end, I'll consider this match a draw. Given the quality of the opponent and the starting position, I'm pleased with that. This has been a hard match, and I learned (somewhat to my surprise) that I could hold my own against Obvert. More thoughts along these lines later, when the game comes to an end.

RangerJoe -> RE: Notes from a Small Island (1/7/2020 3:08:38 PM)
I say that you are doing very well, way better than I would have. My condolences on the loss of your stepfather.

Page: << < prev 148 149 [150] 151 152 next > >>

Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.4.5 ANSI

0.671875