Timing the U.S. offensive (Full Version)

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adsoul -> Timing the U.S. offensive (2/18/2005 12:33:53 AM)

Assuming that everything went more or less historically in terms of losses and geographical conquests, when you allied fanboys would launch your first offensive in Pacific (I mean excluding China, DEI, Burma and so on)? I'm not especially interested in time but in "clues" that state you have an edge (f.e. CVs ratio, air superiority, score). I know that the question is almost too generical to be answered but I'm interested to learn from your experiences in PBEM.

Thanks in advance.



Gen.Hoepner -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/18/2005 1:19:30 AM)

I'd say : as soon as KB is involved somewhere go and scrumble some places very far away.
Seriously: I'd keep on raiding in the central pacific, even risking some of my earliest CVs, untill July 42. At this date i'd go for the first atoll invasion ( Marshalls ar best)



Gem35 -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/18/2005 3:47:11 AM)

/agree go where KB is'nt. as far as launching offensives back into the PI or DEI, I would say it had better be planned well and have plenty of fighter cover to deal with Jap LBA. If you wait long enough(late 43 and after) KB won't matter, just load up with uber carrier groups and lay waste.



dpstafford -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/18/2005 10:23:46 AM)

In a word: P-38's !



mogami -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/18/2005 11:41:35 AM)

Hi, Before I even consider it
1. A6M2 bonus expired
2. All CV fighter groups F4F-4
3. CV upgrades complete
4. Escort upgrades (AA) complete
5. All main bases secure
6. Bulk of Japanese ground forces commited (SAA begins with 12 Div and 5 Bde)
7. IJN has wore it's self out and is in need of yard periods.
8 enough 4k or smaller AP to transport assault units (6k AP can carry support troops that will land after base captured)
9. Airgroups in range for transfer to objective as soon as airfields repaired. Groups will have been trained and rested and have HQ and aviation support in 2nd wave
10. Objective is in range of friendly LBA and I have control over target.
11. repair and support (AD/AS/AV) ships in size 3 or larger port close to objective but secure form enemy LBA
12.A reserve is close at hand if needed.



Yamato hugger -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/20/2005 2:38:18 PM)

I move the AVG to deal with the A6M advantage. I put them at the spearhead. I usually hit the Marshals in Feb/Mar 42 just to kill some stuff. Hit and run. But make damn sure you know where the Jap carriers are before you do it. If the Jap keeps his carriers near the "front", not much you can do until Jul/Aug/Sep but wait.

As the Jap, I usually keep at least 4 carriers in or near Kwaj. As defensive forces there, to react to convoys headed to/from Australia, and sometimes hit and run raids at Pearl, just to make sure the allies doesnt have all his planes on training hehe.



AirGriff -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 2:20:46 AM)

Couple of questions for some of your replies.

1. Should I try and put troops on Lunga early Feb '42 and my opponent's not really pushing hard right now, though the PI are almost through, so I expect to have some more company in the S. Pacific soon. I'm just sorely tempted to jump in there while I can, but I don't want to lose quality units like my Marines when he comes calling with everything but the kitchen sink.

2. With reference to upgrading to F4F-4's. Can someone tell me the advantage to that upgrade? The stats on the plane are pretty much identical unless I've missed something important.



general billy -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 3:06:55 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: AirGriff

Couple of questions for some of your replies.

1. Should I try and put troops on Lunga early Feb '42 and my opponent's not really pushing hard right now, though the PI are almost through, so I expect to have some more company in the S. Pacific soon. I'm just sorely tempted to jump in there while I can, but I don't want to lose quality units like my Marines when he comes calling with everything but the kitchen sink.





1. You can pretty much do whatever you like, but the question is whether you can hold whatever if the japs launch a major offensive, Feb'42 to me is still abit early, as mogami mentioned best to wait until u are fully prepared.
In one of my games my opponent is going straight for the south pacific cutting me off directly off from Austrailia, what can I do, nothing, for if I try to reinforce those bases, I will be trapped. Better to wait out the storm. Ive seen people try and reinforce areas which in the end results to heavy losses, u want to avoid winner takes all battles, and slowly build up and hit hard, when the right time comes, perhaps you can send in delaying forces, that will slow the japs down.



esteban -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 4:45:57 AM)

I would concentrate on preserving what you absolutely MUST HAVE, not what would be nice to keep.

Even if the Japanese take every island in the South Pacific between Pearl Harbor and Australia and New Zealand, can he hold them? You should make him work for those south pacific islands. Commit enough troops that he has to send divisions, or at least brigades, to take the important targets. Yet, make sure you keep enough of the parent units for those troops around that you can replace the losses to those units.

Keep patrol planes operating in the area, and your carriers ready to intervene if he sends in his ships without carrier support.

Putting a division or two on Guadlcanal in Febuary is probably serving them up to the Japanese though. With the Phillipines falling, he can raise 3-5 divisions of his own, plus reserves if he wants to spend the PPs on bringing troops in from Japan or Manchuria. He would probably hit Lunga sometime in March or April, and there wouldn't be a lot you could do to stop him.

A kind of dirty secret in this game is that you really don't NEED pretty much all the islands between Australia/NZ and the West Coast. That might even be said of Hawaii.

Your convoys to Australia can skirt the souther edge of the map, and still get through. You can base your U.S. fleet out of Perth, Sydney and Brisbane. Even the repair yard at Pearl Harbor won't be missed all that much. The big cost to you will be in the efficiency of shuttling cargo and ships in need of repair/upgrade back and forth along the southern edge of the map. This is not too bad actually, because in terms of merchant shipping, you have far more than you really need, unless you just get slaughtered early on in the SRA.

Even if the Japanese take Samoa, Noumea, Canton and even Pearl, they will get a chunk of VPs, but no resources. They will also get an incredibly long supply line to defend, as far as possible from their major bases. And taking all that territory should be relatively costly, especially the assault on Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile, the Allies have time to build up their bases in Australia and India. The Japanese can interdict some of your convoys if they commit their carriers, but if they just send surface raiders, they risk getting jumped by your own carriers.

The only way the Japanese can truly cut the Oz/US lifeline is by taking the Solomons, Noumea and the North Island of New Zealand.



AirGriff -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 4:28:13 PM)

Thanks guys. Perhaps I won't throw those marines into the frey just yet after all. I'm still waiting on him to reveal his grand strategy before I can make mine. He'll soon have those PI and Singapore troops to a front and then I'll have a pretty good idea what to hit and not to hit.

A little off subject, but what about those F4F-4's?



Hoplosternum -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 4:49:35 PM)

Airgriff,

The F4F-4 has 6 MGs not 4 like the F4F-3s (18 vs 12 firepower iirc). So it's not just the same but shorter ranged [:)] Firepower appears to have quite a big impact on the number of kills/damaged you seem to get. So I would recommend the upgrade as the range only changes the rebasing, not the combat radius in this case.



Tom Hunter -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 5:03:25 PM)

I am fighting everywhere all the time. My losses are huge but Blackwatch is taking pretty severe attrition. Right now my problem is that he has stopped attacking the British and that is slowing my attrition.

I have troops in PM under siege and in Guadal Canal under siege by air and sea but no Japanese land units there. He has a big (300-400) plane bomber force that he uses to gain air superiority over either PM or GC for a few days. While one is down the other comes back up.

I will point out that he has lost baby KB. At the start of the war to April there are 4 strong Air Combat capable TFs:

1: Kido Bhutai
2: The US CV TFs
3: Baby KB
4: The Royal Navy

Since Baby KB is gone I now have the second and 3rd strongest TFs and that gives me certain capabilites that I would not have if it was still around.

Its kind of a chicken and egg problem if you defend in depth you are unlikely to sink Baby KB or any other Japanese CVs. If you defend forward you will suffer huge losses but you create circumstances that are much more likely to result in serious damage to the Japanese CV fleet.

As to when I will go on the offensive, I can't say for security reasons.

I do think the question: When will you launch your first offensive in Pacific (I mean excluding China, DEI, Burma and so on)? is a bad question. My offensives are linked. Even China matters, if the Chinese can figure out how to destroy a couple of Japanese divisions that will pull Japanese resources West. Even if they threaten to do so it will force the Japanese to move more air support to China. If the Brits act up at the same time then the general flow of Japanese strenghth will be West and that creates an opportunity for the Americans to make a move.

The allies have as many 9 axeses of attack to use against Japan. At the start of the war the Japanese can block all of them as time goes by they can block 8, then 7 and so on by 1945 its unlikely they can block more than one if that. The questions for the allied commander is when can I attack on so many of the axeses that the Japanese cannot stop all of them? How can I attack in a way that reduces the risk of failure? and even more important how does Tom come up with 9 axeses of attack? Since my opponents can read this I am not going to say.[sm=00000947.gif]













PS what do you think of the totally inappropriate smiley?



BraveHome -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 8:56:09 PM)

The smiley reminds me of Axis political posturing just before declaring war on us....



Hornblower -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/23/2005 9:54:09 PM)

The earlier posts, make good points. I’m in march’42 at the moment. I’ve used the USN CV’s to hit the marshals- knocked out 54 IJN planes on my last raid. While the ABDA dies with there boots on, I use the time, and IJA/IJN distraction to build up my south pacific forces and those in OZ. I plan on avoiding the KB till they get dented by LB’s or till they move to take a position that I deem to important to loose. I’m currently am moving a RCT and a base force to Baker island. Once I build up the airfield, I plan on basing some LB-30’s or B-17’s there with fighters to hit the tarwa area. I plan on moving on the canal once I have sufficient forces to take, hold it and then exploite it. Also, I’d like to bleed the IJNAF first to lessen the effect of those torp carrying betties. All that being said I plan on limited moves till say july/August then I will move on the solomons. I [b]WANT to get the IJAAF and IJNAF into battle of attrition, have them fight at a location that I can use my b-25’s, a-20’s etc, and my fighters to ground them down. Allies have a massive bomber advantage, that must be used. And I currently hold Timor, and if I can hold it, I will use that as a base to hit the DEI, which will give me two fronts I can use my landbased air.. Use your bombers. Put your B-17’s and B-24’s at 20,000 feet and force the Japs to defend at that altitude or else watch there base slowly go by the wayside. Bombers, Bombers, Use your bombers. And when the P-38’s make an appearance use your bombers to force the Zero’s and Oscars to come up to your level and face them.



janushm -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/24/2005 12:19:13 AM)

just attack when it feels right...and until then. damage him. hurt him. keep him on his toes. raiding japanese outposts is fine but it wouldnt alert me if it didnt do any real harm. [like sinking 3CL's Damaging a bunch of DD's and other ships at tarawa]. i did a few local counter attacks along the australia-US highway to keep it clear.



mogami -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/24/2005 12:30:22 AM)

Hi, It is like fighting a forrest fire. You have to clear a ring or path in front of the fire of material that will burn. Don't throw logs on the fire by moving units into it.
Leave a space where Japanese offensives will burn out without hurting you.
Evry unit that you move within reach extends the distance the Japanese can advance because now you have weakened your rear areas.
It is hard to sit back and watch 200 Japanese troops capture an empty base but if you had sent 2000 men to defend it the japanese would have sent 20,000.
Your trying to be ready for when he sends those 20,000 and finds out (too late) that it is not enough.
The Japanese have a limit to what they can defend that is far less then what they can capture early on.

The Allied player has to insure that
1. He fights hard enough to delay Japanese advance
2. He keeps the Japanese point ratio below 4 to 1 prior to 1 Jan 1943. If the Japanese do not win the game via auto victory in 1943 they will never get an auto victory. They can't get 4-1 without the Allied player feeding their offensives. So 1942 is for stopping the Japanese advance 1943 is for first Allied offensive and 1944/45 is for winning the war.
Of course the Allies will look for an opening in 1942 where they can combine an offensive with establishing the end of Japanese expansion but this action has to be justified. The Allies will have to have stalled the Japanese at some place and this counter offensive is a means of exploiting this defensive success. Just loading transports and plopping a LCU on a Japanese held base is not an offensive if the Japanese reaction wins the resulting battle. A failed Allied offensive will result in extending Japanese expansion or delaying a valid Allied offensive and this delay could lose the war (dependig on how many VP you gift to the Japanese)



Hornblower -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/24/2005 1:39:06 AM)

Mogami- I agree with your logic. And no use in taking some place if you can't hold it. For instance i have Nouema well stocked with air assets, supplies, fuel and the 2nd Marine division in route. Japan has rabaul, and shortlands. everything else in between the two is untaken. I could take the canal now, but i know i can't hold it- so not gonna take it now. But doesn't the allied player have to pick some spot @mid 42 to pick a fight to try to bleed the IJNAF? The understanding of course is the the allied player has a reasonable chance of winning the fight. (don't just fight to fight) Be it Burma, NG or the solomons?



mogami -> RE: Timing the U.S. offensive (2/24/2005 2:06:28 AM)

Hi, The Allies pick the spot by watching the Japanese and predicting where they will go and be over extended. If the Japanese send 6 divisions to Solomons they are not over extended if opposed by 1 Allied division. If the Japanese send 400 aircraft they are not over extended if opposed by 200 Allied.
The hardest part of being Allied is letting the Japanese over extend.

There is only 1 way to proceed. The Allies go 1 base at a time per Theatre and insure that they can defend 1 base absolutly.
Northern HQ
West COast HQ
Central Pacific HQ
South Pacific HQ
SouthWest Pacific HQ
Austraila HQ
Southeast Asia HQ
China HQ

First you insure there is one base that will always remain yours.
Then you start on a second base per HQ
Then a third

The Japanese have over extended when their offensive targets one of these bases.

By natural progression the Allied offensive begins when the Japanese have been defeated or when all reamaining Allied bases are secure and a Japanese base is now the point of contact.

Of course the Allied player does not need to defend every base. When you have a base that protects others behind it you leap frog your material forward.



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