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ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Call it a day, every American fighter will be on CAP, the AAA is alerted, every ship capable of combat will be out for blood.

That said, you can go back slowly and maybe by stopping about 10 hexes away you can attack any ships coming out to try for a surface engagement.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

TFor the second time playing as Japan, I will be facing off against ITAKLinus, a highly experienced and capable player who has never lost a campaign.

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That's a curious titbit. Did it come from ITAK directly?

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On the Pearl strike, what was the altitude you were operating at? I sandboxed various things a while back (including strapping 60kg bombs onto the Zeros for extra hits) and I think 7-8k was the optimum altitude to avoid the masses of land and naval .50 cal fire.

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On the Pearl strategy overall, what are you looking to gain?

If you're thinking about taking Hawaii, or harvesting VP's then you'll want to stick around and sweep out the fighters.

If it's the perimeter you're wanting secured, then I'd start looking to shift south to screen Marshalls, Gilberts, Solomon's and Santa Cruz/New Caledonia ops. A favoured approach of mine is driving the KB down this way to get New Caledonia early.

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Any house rules? If strategic bombing is allowed, then I'd look to round of KB's run south with some firebombing of Australian industry, to be followed up with Nell raids from New Caledonia in due course. You'll net some nice permanent VP's for the rest of the game, and draw Allied fighter strength to Oz.

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It's also worth thinking about *how* you want to fight your war, as this will factor into considerations around engineering efforts, industry and aircraft R&D. What course are you considering to get to 1945? Do you want the big, trademarked "decisive battle" in 1943 that gets you through to '45, or are you considering the long, bitter grind to get you there?

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When he first approached me about playing against each other he detailed the pbems he has had thus far and to my best recollection none of them were losses. He has a lot of receipts too since he has done AARs on all of them in the European forums.

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I am keeping my options open this time - to be honest I haven't had time to really think through a plan past first phase yet. For now I am looking to inflict some serious damage on the enemy fleet(s), seize the SRA, and take key terrain for follow up operations.

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I will take a decisive battle in early 1943, preferably 1942 if I can get one. More likely I am looking to last as long as possible into 1945. I am prioritizing the final years.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Due to real life commitments, I haven't had the time to set my R&D in order until now. The last couple of days the R&D factories sat idling by with repairs off. Oh well, a couple of game days is surely not the end of the world. So having found some time to set my R&D, this is what I have decided on in terms of numbers of factories per researched aircraft:

12 Ki-84
10 Sam
6 George
4 Ki-83
4 Shinden
3 Judy
3 Jill
3 Grace
8 Zero
4 Peggy
2 Francis
4 Tojo
3 Oscar
3 J1N1-S
2 Ki-45d
2 P1Y2-S
2 Ki-102c Randy

I aim to add factories to the Ki-83 and Shinden in the latter years as and when they get freed up. I expect most of those to come from the Zero line where I am going big to get the M8 as soon as possible. Biggest struggle in terms of decision making here was with regards to night fighters. I haven't had the chance to experiment with them yet so the end result for night fighters is really a guestimate.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

I will be facing off against ITAKLinus, a highly experienced and capable player who has never lost a campaign.

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ORIGINAL: Timotheus

"a highly experienced and capable player who has never lost a campaign."

Please don't break his psyche too much, don't make him suffer. Make it quick.

Nippon autovictory in 1941, invade New York [:D]

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ORIGINAL: George Patton

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

I will be facing off against ITAKLinus, a highly experienced and capable player who has never lost a campaign.

Hi Desert Wolf. I will follow your match and both the AARs. I know Linus very well. We are on the same european forum and I played against him. The game stopped on november 1942 for some reasons, first of them were the autovictory unavoidable on 1.1.1943. I suggested to continue playing but he refused.
I know him well as player, because I'm following in other AARs.
He's an incredible player. The best skills are the speed with which moves its forces and the logistics, in which he is a master. He plans months ahead. As allied he played only for a couples of months because his opponents resigned after loosing a lot of assets by january or february 1942.
He will be a very tough opponent.

Be careful because he will not hesitate to sacrifice its forces, especially ships, to slow down your advance, particularly in the DEI area.

Good luck!

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

Thank you m_m and Lowpe for your feedback. Some responses:

1) On the M8 vs 5c, I am weighing up the M8s slight advantage in speed and considerable edge in maneuverability over the 5c's edge in firepower and range. The 5c of course also arrives a lot earlier. In my only previous game as Japan I never got to a point where I had them to use them but based on stats and my gameplay I lean more towards the M8.

2) I personally am a big fan of the Tojo. It served me very well up until my game ended in late 1943. I won't go huge on it with R&D, but it definitely has a place in my arsenal.

3) Yup, Peggy T is what I meant

4) Some good stuff on night fighters, I have modified my R&D on NFs accordingly and introduced a bit more diversity.

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ORIGINAL: Evoken

Both of you are really good players , good luck!

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Some further food for thought:

1) With R&D, my thinking tend to be along the line of focusing on the real "game changers" for the IJ air war. To that end, I think focusing on what the big "step changes" airframes rather than incremental improvements are best. The A6M2 to A6M5c falls in the "good enough" category of incremental improvement. The big step change is the Sam/Shiden. To that end, I like to limit myself to the 5c, get it at a decent time and then put the effort to add to the existing Sam/Shinden R&D to get that ball out the door.

2) I'd question what place it will have in a game where there's such a big investment in the Ki-84. If you were going for an all-out '42 auto-vic campaign then I'd see the value, but if you're looking to do something different then I'd argue for skipping the airframe. The '84 is all round much better, and with your investment in R&D for it, the Tojo won't really have all that much time in the sun. At that point I wonder what the point is and if you're not better using the factories for something else.

3) The Peggy T is one arm of IJA anti-shipping. Any plans for using the Lily dive bomber varients?

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ORIGINAL: RADM.Yamaguchi

I see very big research efforts on KI-84a and i wonder if it isn't overkill at some point.

When i ran my analysis and simulations it averaged:

01 = 12/09/43
02 = 10/20/43
03 = 10/01/43
04 = 08/31/43
05 = 08/11/43
06 = 08/01/43
07 = 07/27/43
08 = 07/19/43
09 = 07/12/43
10 = 07/07/43
11 = 07/03/43
12 = 07/01/43

I chose 8. I can see going to 9 or 10 to guard against some bad dice rolls but 12 seems a little overboard.

Just my experience. I could be all wrong. DYODD.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

2) I find that having the Tojo even for only those several months before Frank shows up as potentially invaluable. It's also a service 1 fighter that I would continue to rely on in certain sitations for the rest of the game.

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3) I plan on building the Lily dive bomber but it arrives early enough that I don't plan on allocating R&D for it. With the Peggy T I also want to get it as soon as possible to be able to train IJA on torpedo attack. With dive bombing I can use existing level bombers for that so the need is not as acute.

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ORIGINAL: RADM.Yamaguchi

I see very big research efforts on KI-84a and i wonder if it isn't overkill at some point.

When i ran my analysis and simulations it averaged:

01 = 12/09/43
02 = 10/20/43
03 = 10/01/43
04 = 08/31/43
05 = 08/11/43
06 = 08/01/43
07 = 07/27/43
08 = 07/19/43
09 = 07/12/43
10 = 07/07/43
11 = 07/03/43
12 = 07/01/43

I chose 8. I can see going to 9 or 10 to guard against some bad dice rolls but 12 seems a little overboard.

Just my experience. I could be all wrong. DYODD.

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

2) I find that having the Tojo even for only those several months before Frank shows up as potentially invaluable. It's also a service 1 fighter that I would continue to rely on in certain sitations for the rest of the game.

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

2) I find that having the Tojo even for only those several months before Frank shows up as potentially invaluable. It's also a service 1 fighter that I would continue to rely on in certain sitations for the rest of the game.

The Tojo is a very handy plane to have if the Allies make an all out fight of it early. And I think every JFB should plan on that, because you can adjust easily to a Sir Robin but you can't adjust to an early fighter without costing a lot of supplies.

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

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ORIGINAL: DesertWolf101

2) I find that having the Tojo even for only those several months before Frank shows up as potentially invaluable. It's also a service 1 fighter that I would continue to rely on in certain sitations for the rest of the game.

The Tojo is a very handy plane to have if the Allies make an all out fight of it early. And I think every JFB should plan on that, because you can adjust easily to a Sir Robin but you can't adjust to an early fighter without costing a lot of supplies.

I've always felt that the short-range on it really limits it's usefulness, especially outside of Burma.

An 8 hex range is fine for as confined a theatre as Burma, but largely limits the plane to a defensive role in other more expansive theatres. Challenging to use it in the Central Pacific, for example.

I think I'd rather have more Oscars that can be multi-role and lean on the Nicks (which you will likely build anyway to make use of the dedicated FB squadrons) for to back them up rather than spend R&D on a plane that has narrow use (both temporally and geographically) until the Frank appears in numbers.

The other consideration is that the Oscar has some value as a massed kamikaze airframe (not as good as the Frank however) while the Tojo doesn't really.

That said, happy to accept I'm the dissenting opinion on this one!

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ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Any plans for the Nick?

I see some success with fighters/fighter bombers on low naval attack.