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RE: Real Life Strikes

 
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RE: Real Life Strikes - 11/30/2007 12:55:25 AM   
mlees


Posts: 2263
Joined: 9/20/2003
From: San Diego
Status: offline 		Are you playing Japan in both of those games as well?

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Post #: 331
RE: Real Life Strikes - 11/30/2007 1:45:48 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: mlees

Are you playing Japan in both of those games as well?


Yes I am. The big differences are that both games are "non-historic" starts with PDU on. The game that is in mid-May is suffering from the fact that I used my old "Standard Set-up", which split lots of LCUs, attempted to attack everywhere at once, and paid no attention to pilots. The mid-March game is using my "New Standard" start, wherein I keep my LCUs together, conserve pilots, and attack in a systematic manner, mainly within my own air control.

So in the mid-May game I have captured most of the "historical conquests", with the exception of Timor (which isn't that important as long as I can keep the air bases closed), but more importantly my opponent stopped me cold at Mandalay, thanks to me not bringing enough troops to start, and him using AuTiger's philosophy of flying in everything that isn't "nailed down". The big improvement in this game over the AuTiger pbem is that I was able to "Pacman" all of the railine bases in China. My offensive then ran out of steam at Kweiyang where my opponent was able to pull together almost all of the Chinese LCUs and as well set up some very powerful air ambushes that cost me a lot of planes. So I've changed the axis of attack and am trying to capture Homan before my opponent can bring enough troops over to stop me. I ambushed the US CVs early in the South Pacific, but my opponent pulled a really gutsy move and later surprised the Mini-KB in the South Pacific with the Brit CVs!

In the mid-March game I cleaned out the Philippines quickly, as well as Malaya and Burma. I've got most of Sumatra in my control and have essentially neutralized the airfields at Batavia. My opponent is building up Timor and the surrounding islands in a very BIG way. He is trying the same in the South Pacific. As I've told my opponent, that has got to mean that there are some really big "empty spots" somewhere behind his Front Lines.

In China I waited about a month before I moved and then I did a massive overkill blitzkrieg along the Homan-Sian road. My opponent kept a lot of his troops in the field around China in an attempt to block in my troops, and he also wasted time and men trying to bother me at Canton. The end result is that I have all of the North East of China except for the very last base to the north. I've also cut the Burma Road, so I don't expect China to bother me too much in the future.

The biggest difference in the Mid-March game is the way that I've husbanded my planes. As I mentioned before, I'm essentially out of Nates and Sallys in the AuTiger game. In the Mid-May game I'm very low in bombers and have lost way too many fighters, although I'm not "behind" in air losses the way I am in the AuTiger game. But in this game I've kept my losses to a very reasonable level and I've even been able to replace all Claudes, and my Nates are sitting back training well behind my lines until I finally get Tonys and Tojos. Now all I have to do is keep thing under control.

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Post #: 332
Surprise Attack (AuTiger sneaks in a turn) - 11/30/2007 11:54:36 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		August 26, 1942 – The night phase started with some successful minesweeping by my MSWs. Then my "Big Surprise Attack" started. I had moved 240 of my best Sallys and Helens to Wuhan and set them to a low altitude night time attack on the air fields at Chungking, hoping to "strike it rich" among the hundreds of Allied planes that were sitting there.

My bombers flew! But only about half of them actually went. Never-the-less, 100 2E bombers at 1000 feet is nothing to laugh at. And they found their target and dropped their bombs! The flak was surprisingly light and the Daitais kept coming and bombing, coming and bombing.

So, what was the aftermath of this complete surprise? A handful of obsolete Allied planes were destroyed on the ground, a few troops were killed and a slight amount of damage was done to the air fields. That's it. It was almost as if my planes hadn't flown at all.

Then during the day phase my second big air attack flew, this time from Chengting against the airfields at Kungchang where my Intel had been reporting Allied bombers but no fighters. Never-the-less, I sent plenty of Zeros along with the 2Es.

The skies were empty of enemy fighters and my bombers once again had an easy run, this time at 5000 feet. They emptied their bomb bays against minimal flak and flew home. But what was the result? One ancient SB-2c destroyed on the ground and minimal damage.

All-in-all for the turn, my entire Army Air Force was able to only destroy 8 obsolete enemy planes on the ground.

Drop back five yards and punt was then the order of the day as I pulled my bombers back and redistributed my air units throughout China. I now have the 2Es resting and my second-string light bombers scheduled to go after a couple of Chinese units that are still out in the open.

In other news, AuTiger won the race to Lashio as one of his ground units arrived this turn. It will be a couple of weeks before my replacement LCU reaches the base, so I expect AuTiger to kick out my partial paratroop unit next turn. I've got no one to blame for this but myself – I should have never pulled back that piece of the Imperial Guard until the replacement unit arrived. This Game is very unforgiving of mistakes.

The good news of the turn was that my Supply Fast Transports made it safely in and out of their objectives this turn, so my outlying forces in the Western Aleutians are in slightly better shape at this time.

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Post #: 333
Emergency hiatus - 12/2/2007 7:24:56 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		An unexpected major family emergency has struck and I will be away and not gaming or anything else for at least a week.

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Post #: 334
RE: Emergency hiatus - 12/2/2007 5:54:09 PM   
USSAmerica


Posts: 18715
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From: Graham, NC, USA
Status: offline 		Sorry to hear that, Dive. 

Best of luck with the family!

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Post #: 335
RE: Emergency hiatus - 12/8/2007 4:16:31 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: USS America

Sorry to hear that, Dive. 

Best of luck with the family!


Thanks for the kind thoughts. Fortunately, thanks to some very quick action and a lot of effort I was able to get everything and everyone straightened out and so life is pretty much back to normal for all (or as best as can be under the circumstances).

So once AuTiger gets his current Real Life commitments under control the game will continue. (At least until the Admiral's Edition comes out... )

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Post #: 336
Back at it (for a day at least) - 12/11/2007 12:38:00 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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Status: offline 		August 27, 1942 – Well, we're back at it; at least for a day. Now it's AuTiger's turn to go off thanks to Real Life requirements. This turn wasn't terribly different from most of the recent turns in this pbem. My MSWs did a fair amount of mine sweeping during the night phase, but otherwise things were quiet.

And the day phase was also very quiet as AuTiger had the Allies sit back and watch the rain. So my forces had the day to themselves, and thus almost all of my second-string air units in China took off and hammered two Chinese units that were sitting out "in the open". One was the unit that had moved to the east of Hsinyang and the other was one that was sitting at 46,37 which is in the "countryside" between Hengchow and Changsha.

In both case I had also brought up some good troops, so in addition to hitting those two units with as much air power as possible I was in a position to kick both units back out of the blocking-positions that they occupied. And my troops performed as requested so those pesky troops are now back where they belong.

This now means that the Front in China is a little more under control, and if I am reading things correctly, there may even be an opening for me to try to extricate my trapped Division that is behind Enemy lines again. At the same time my siege of Yenen continued unabated. However, because I haven't been bombing Yenen from the air recently AuTiger was able to increase the air field size. This most likely means that the fortifications at Yenen are already up to level 9 and under those conditions I don't want to attempt any attacks unless I can first cut off the supply line to Yenen. But since my daily artillery barrages are causing lots of Allied casualties I'll hold off on any attacks for now and I'll leave my Infantry and Artillery units in place, although I may pull back my armoured units in order to "cause trouble" elsewhere.

And in other news, more end results of my early poor decisions in the game came to light this turn as a dozen more AR and a half dozen more AS conversions showed up. In reality, I really don't need those ships now, and they cost me a lot of supplies to convert them, so this has turned out to be a very costly misjudgement on my part. Oh well, at least I'm not doing the same thing in my newer pbems.

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Post #: 337
RE: Back at it (for a day at least) - 12/11/2007 2:13:27 AM   
ny59giants


Posts: 9869
Joined: 1/10/2005
Status: offline 		If you dont' play PBEM WITP to have fun and learn, then why play??

I just took over a game, making it my 3rd PBEM, as Allies playing Big B's mod (1 June 42). My opponent is trying to perform a small left hook on AB's extended map and has Akyab, Cox's Bazaar, and Chittagong (driving to cut off Dacca). It feels strange coming in and seeing what another player has left and being the "new" General/Admiral now in charge.  It's more exciting to me than my other games as it's a challenge to see if I can save India and make him pay for his "adventure."

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Post #: 338
China wars (revisited) - 12/13/2007 1:16:53 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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Status: offline 		August 28, 1942 – This was yet another reasonably quiet turn. The only night action was more minesweeping by my MSWs and the day action was primarily my air attacks in China again. AuTiger's obvious actions were limited to small air attacks on the trapped division in China and on Imphal.

I'm surprised that AuTiger hasn't tried to capture Imphal yet. If he waits too long my reinforcements will get there in time to save it. That will be quite the surprise. But if he wants to start a serious air campaign against Imphal he certain has the power in the region to do so. He has huge air balances in most of the Indian bases in the Bay of Bengal. This means that his air power in China is "manageable" from my perspective.

Thus, while the "cat's away" my "mice" are playing in China with lots of air-to-ground attacks. So my fighter pilots are getting reasonable opportunities to go from Absolutely Abysmal to Moderately Mediocre. I've also got my land units in fairly good shape so they are moving out once again in order to pressure the Chinese ground troops into backing off a bit. And Yenen continues to be hit daily with strong air and artillery bombardments.

Otherwise, I'm still reorganizing my forces and moving supplies, fuel, resources and oil all over the map. The surplus of ARs that I built, along with my overbuilding of Ports and Naval Repair facilities have brought one benefit in that my ships are all repairing very nicely and almost all of my ships are in the "green" and ready to cause more trouble. Also, two more of my CVs are just about ready to upgrade and should do so within the next game-week. This will put me into a position to bring a well-rested and nearly full-strength KB back into play. And I'm even setting up what I hope with be a small "distraction" before my main efforts restart. I need about one more month's "quiet time" and then I should be able to regain some momentum.

Now, if I can only increase the rate of build of Tonys quickly enough to replace some of my Nates before new Nate groups arrive as replacements. (I sure wish that I could order changes to those replacement units before they arrive.)

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Post #: 339
Bye-bye Imphal - 12/14/2007 4:57:10 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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Status: offline 		August 29, 1942 – This was another turn for minesweeping as first my MSWs went to work during the night then the Allied minesweepers went to work during the day. You can tell that neither of us have any confidence in using our subs in any role other than to lay mines.

The flying weather was fairly lousy in China this turn so most of my planned air attacks either didn't fly or only flew partially. The only exceptions were the attacks on the airfields at Yenen which did a good job and caused heavy damage. But this "freedom of action" that I've been enjoying is likely to end within a couple of turns because AuTiger captured Imphal this turn, freeing up his massive air force along the Indo-Burmese border.

A huge air attack preceded the actual assault on the base. Now those Allied planes are free to return to China and threaten my air bases again. Only one Chinese Infantry unit was present for the attack on Imphal, but since my defending troops were only a fragment of an airborne SNLF unit the battle was over quickly. So now I've set those retreating paratroops, along with the tardy reinforcements, back along the trail to Rangoon. Sometime in the next few months they ought to get out of the jungle, but in the meanwhile AuTiger will have more easy targets on which to train his pilots.

Now that my mistake at Imphal is done and over with I can concentrate on trying to correct my other many and varied mistakes before AuTiger takes advantage of them too. One thing that I am doing is sending out lots of small transport TFs to relocate my support forces. I didn't pay much attention to where I put support units during my initial expansion and so I now find myself with the "wrong" units in the "wrong" places. So, for example, I have lots of Army and Air Force base forces in forward bases where I really should have Naval base forces so that I can have some CD guns in place. As a corollary to this, many of my Naval BFs are sitting far behind the lines in bases which will not see an enemy ship for years to come. And I have most of my Special Base Forces with their heavy AA units sitting in back-water sites while I have little Army and Air Force BFs in important forward bases that are under threat of air attacks. I also have lots of engineering units sitting in bases that don't need any engineering. So I'll be busy for quite some time moving units around.

One aspect of the game that is working okay is that my naval forces continue to be repaired and are preparing for battle once again. Another CV received its summer 42 upgrade and will soon join the rest of the KB. If AuTiger gives me two more weeks I will be in a position to challenge him on the seas again. Of course, that requires AuTiger to hold off on whatever he is planning, and from the looks of the increase of ships in the Eastern Aleutians, I may not get the time that I want. Oh well, at least I am getting some good supply TFs into the Western Aleutians.

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Post #: 340
Allied bombers go back to work - 12/15/2007 7:10:13 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		August 30, 1942 - The night phase was quiet again other than some minesweeping, but the day phase brought a return to large scale Allied aerial bombardments, particularly in the Timor area. It is certainly frustrating to watch those massive attacks come in and to not be able to do a thing about them.

Sure, I am very slowly upgrading some Nates and Oscars to Tonys and Tojos, but it is taking a long time to repair the upgraded units, their experience is bad, and I am losing more planes and pilots than I am training thanks to operational and flak losses. And that's while flying at short range and against isolated LCUs. By the time I will be able to attempt to stand up to the Allied air attacks AuTiger will have new and better fighters in place.

There were two slightly encouraging occurrences for me in this turn. First off, AuTiger finally pulled back his troops from Hsinyang, which frees up my front-line bases in China again. And in Naval news, another of my CVs finally upgraded and is now being sent to join the rest of the Combined fleet in the Aleutians. It won't be long before I will be able to risk my fleet again.

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Post #: 341
Zeros vs the RCAF - 12/16/2007 3:59:03 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		August 31, 1942 - Allied "stealth subs" recently snuck into a couple of the smaller islands in the western Kuriles and laid fresh mines, so I've got to send out more MSWs to clean up the results. Fortunately none of my passing ships hit any of the mines. Otherwise the night phase was quiet as usual in this game.

There was a fair amount of air activity again this turn as my bombers hit Yenen repeatedly, as well as a number of Chinese LCUs that are still out in the open. My operational losses are still high, but at least it appears that it is the most incompetent of my pilots who are being killed off rather than my better pilots.

AuTiger continues to give his Chinese pilots practice against the trapped 34th Division, but this turn a number of my air units got the chance to practice against the Chinese unit that is keeping the 34th trapped, so AuTiger got some of his own medicine back.

The most interesting air action was over Umnak where a number of Bettys from Kiska, along with a strong escort of Zeros, flew against a supply TF. AuTiger had RCAF Kittyhawks on CAP and my Zeros did quiet well against them; shooting down six for the loss of only four Zeros; and my Bettys were able to drop bombs on an AK and an MSW escort. So this was a nice little message to AuTiger that my air units are "dead" yet.

Speaking of air units, I now have 3 Tojo Daitais, 2 Tony Daitais and 1 Tony Chutai in various states of repair and training. There are also three more Nate or Oscar units that are eligible for upgrade to Tonys once I build up a sufficient stock. (I am currently building Tonys at a rate of 110 planes per month.) This won't "turn the tide", but once I've got them reasonably trained they ought to balance things out a bit.

BTW - here is the Intel screen for September 1 so that you can see the current situation. Obviously, those 4000+ lost Japanese planes are the major source of my headaches at this time.





Attachment (1)

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Post #: 342
Sub vs Mine - 12/16/2007 8:05:28 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 1, 1942 - AuTiger enjoyed one of the Game's rarities this turn - one of my subs hit a mine at Umnak and promptly sank. Subs don't hit mines very often and you've got to be really unlucky to have a sub sink due to a mine hit. But that sort of defines this pbem for me.

Once again the day phase was primarily occupied by air attacks from many of my secondary air units in China. I'm taking lots of operational losses on a daily basis, but at least the experience levels of the "survivors" are slowly increasing. For whatever reason AuTiger hasn't been trying to ambush my air attacks. Never-the-less, I still expect to see his P-40s show up sooner rather than later.

Otherwise things continue to be reasonably quiet. I am even getting more FT TFs into the various bases in the Western Aleutians without problems. Who knows - maybe I will get the couple of week's worth of time that I need to go in and rescue my trapped units at Adak.

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Post #: 343
159 B-17s over Amboina - 12/18/2007 12:47:41 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 2, 1942 – There was yet another quiet night phase followed by a minimal amount of minesweeping during the day phase. Then the usual air attacks started.

AuTiger sent 159 B-17s against the Resources at Amboina. My AA didn't do a lot of good, but never-the-less a number of Forts were damaged and two became Operational losses. The damage to the Resources at Amboina was minimal. BTW - just as a reminder, we are playing "PDU Off", so there shouldn't be a lot of B-17s elsewhere at this time. (I hope! )

Otherwise, Allied Air stayed fairly quiet, except for the usual Chinese bombers attacking the trapped 34th Division. The Chinese bombers are being escorted by a fair number of P-40s, so I'm not going to try to ambush them.

And once again AuTiger didn't try to ambush any of my air-to-ground attacks in China. The airfields at Yenen were hit hard again, as were a number of Chinese LCUs in the Field. I continue to shift my planes around so that I don't leave too "tempting" a target in one place for too long and also to rebuild some units that get too low thanks to the constant Operational losses. To an extent I'm simply treading water, but with the Air Training model in the Game there isn't much of an alternative.

The most encouraging news was that my big "Tokyo" ("Adak") Express made it in, dumped off its supplies, and made it back home totally undetected. So my troops on Adak are much "happier" at this point. I'm also getting more forces into the Kuriles/Aleutians, so my plans are coming together quiet nicely, as is the reconstituted KB. Things have been quiet for quite some time, but if I get another couple of weeks without being bothered the situation will "liven up" significantly in the Aleutians.

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Post #: 344
RE: Back at it (for a day at least) - 12/18/2007 12:55:30 AM   
jwilkerson


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From: Kansas
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

August 27, 1942 –

<snip>

And in other news, more end results of my early poor decisions in the game came to light this turn as a dozen more AR and a half dozen more AS conversions showed up. In reality, I really don't need those ships now, and they cost me a lot of supplies to convert them, so this has turned out to be a very costly misjudgement on my part. Oh well, at least I'm not doing the same thing in my newer pbems.



Actually, not sure you can have too many AR .. well probably .. but a "bunch" are sure nice. I actually use the AR around in the home islands and send the Naval HQs to the forward areas. The Naval HQs are at less risk as they can be flown about via air and are harder to sink if riding on multiple boats. But you need a few AK too, so don't convert them all!
:)

As to AS, yup, not sure you need any more of those at all. I went for MLE and AR in my game with Moses, at least a dozen of each and while I probably have too many MLE, I'd be fine with another dozen AR !



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Post #: 345
RE: Back at it (for a day at least) - 12/18/2007 3:22:55 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson


quote:

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

August 27, 1942 –

<snip>

And in other news, more end results of my early poor decisions in the game came to light this turn as a dozen more AR and a half dozen more AS conversions showed up. In reality, I really don't need those ships now, and they cost me a lot of supplies to convert them, so this has turned out to be a very costly misjudgement on my part. Oh well, at least I'm not doing the same thing in my newer pbems.



Actually, not sure you can have too many AR .. well probably .. but a "bunch" are sure nice. I actually use the AR around in the home islands and send the Naval HQs to the forward areas. The Naval HQs are at less risk as they can be flown about via air and are harder to sink if riding on multiple boats. But you need a few AK too, so don't convert them all!
:)

As to AS, yup, not sure you need any more of those at all. I went for MLE and AR in my game with Moses, at least a dozen of each and while I probably have too many MLE, I'd be fine with another dozen AR !




I use the AS ships as "poor man's ARs" for the many subs that I get damaged. I'm pretty agressive with my subs and so I usually have lots of them back in port at any given time. (I don't like to send subs out on missions until they are down to a Level 1 Sys damage.)

But yes, I still have plenty of AKs - I was fairly careful with them during my expansion so I didn't lose a lot. They are presently very busy moving resources all over the map, as well as those few "spare" supplies that I manage to collect in my few supply-producing bases. (Having the Resource and Oil sites damaged in the majority of the bases that I captured causes me no end of grief.)

BTW - I find that the MLEs don't seem to work as I expected. As far as I can tell, it takes one MLE for every ML that you want to reload.

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Post #: 346
RE: Back at it (for a day at least) - 12/18/2007 4:17:59 AM   
jwilkerson


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

BTW - I find that the MLEs don't seem to work as I expected. As far as I can tell, it takes one MLE for every ML that you want to reload.


Hum,


I certainly don't find that. I put one MLE in the port and then base an ML TF out of that port and the ML TF rearms automatically everytime it RTBs.




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Post #: 347
RE: Back at it (for a day at least) - 12/18/2007 5:16:32 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson


quote:

ORIGINAL: Dive Bomber1

BTW - I find that the MLEs don't seem to work as I expected. As far as I can tell, it takes one MLE for every ML that you want to reload.


Hum,


I certainly don't find that. I put one MLE in the port and then base an ML TF out of that port and the ML TF rearms automatically everytime it RTBs.



I've tried that and my MLs refuse to reload. Is there a minimum Port size and minimum supply value that is required for MLEs to replenish ML TFs?

Thanks -

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Post #: 348
Sally vs Forts - 12/20/2007 2:43:58 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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Status: offline 		September 3, 1942 - There was "good" minesweeping and "bad" minesweeping during the night turn. Some of my MSWs removed more Allied mines from my bases, but one of the DDs in my Fast Transport TF hit a mine on the way into Adak and so they all turned back. But I've gotten a little tired of the situation there, and my troops have a fair amount of supply, so I'm sending in two more Fast Transports next turn, along with a bombardment TF, and I've ordered my troops to attempt a Shock attack. Maybe I'll get a pleasant surprise… (Yeah, sure!)

My air forces took off in a big way in China this turn, with lots of Sallys hitting Yenen and Changsha without any opposition. My second-string trainees also flew their light bombers and fighters all over China and hit plenty of Chinese troops in the field, albeit with limited results. On-the-other-hand, AuTiger sent 135 Forts against Amboina again this turn and essentially wiped out the Oil Industry, despite only getting "8" oil hits. AuTiger's gain was not without cost as a number of B-17s were damaged and he lost three more to Operational Damage.

Along with, or maybe despite, next turn's rather impulsive attack on Adak, my main forces continue to set up for a serious strike, which ought to occur in a couple week's time. (I know, I've been writing "a couple weeks" for a while now, but it's always hard to figure out exactly how long it will take to bring various and sundry forces together in one place for a major attack.)

BTW - I've been experimenting against the AI to see just what would be involved in a serious invasion of the Aleutians and Alaska. I essentially threw "everything" at the region, including the KB hitting Anchorage instead of Pearl Harbor. Even with the non-historic start and the associated initial "jump" for transports it still took me two weeks to capture the six western Aleutian islands and it is taking me another two weeks to grab the next islands including Dutch Harbor. And this is with the AI essentially ignoring what I am doing. It's a sobering lesson on how badly I underestimated the scope of the task when I tried to blitz AuTiger.

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Post #: 349
That didn't work - 12/21/2007 2:45:38 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

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Status: offline 		September 4, 1942 – This wasn't a very good turn as things continued to work out poorly in the Aleutians. Yet another DD hit a mine on the way in to Adak, which meant that the entire Fast Transport TF went home without unloading its supplies. (I am definitely NOT a fan of this particular bit of code.) Then, despite full preparation and a fair amount of supplies my troops did poorly against the Level 7 fort. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

In any event, there was a lot of air action this turn as AuTiger exercised his heavy bombers against my resource and oil sources while I continued to attempt to train my pilots against Chinese ground forces. So Liberators hit the Resources at Hanoi and B-17s hit the Base Force at Mandalay while my 2E bombers hit the airfields at Hengchow and Homan and my fighters and divebombers hit Chinese troops in the field.

For some reason, while my air-to-ground attacks continue to get larger, the effect that they achieve against the LCUs seems to be diminishing. On-the-other-hand, the damage levels at the air fields of the Chinese bases appear to be lasting a bit longer, so maybe the supply levels in China are starting to drop a bit.

AuTiger continues to bring troops into Yenen, so there is no longer any chance for me to capture the base, but my besiegers continue to score hundreds of casualties every turn with artillery attacks, so I'll leave my troops in place for now since there isn't anything better to do with them. However, I have pulled back my armoured units and I may risk them against the remaining Chinese troops along the central railway if I can find some decent infantry divisions so that I can mount a proper Combined Arms attack. In the meanwhile I'll continue to bombard those Chinese troops from the air.

Hmmm – come to think of it, I should order back my Engineering units from Yenen too, since they don't contribute to artillery attacks.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 350
The Battle at Adak continues - 12/22/2007 12:10:18 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 5, 1942 – My naval bombardment of Adak went off quite well this turn. My ships avoided the mines and any detection and hit the base fairly hard, although they didn't achieve a "nuclear" attack by any means. My follow-up air attack didn't do much, but together they ought to wake AuTiger up a bit. He is still building up the Eastern Aleutians a lot and I want to keep him occupied up there.

Despite the success of the naval bombardment I've decided that Adak is too hard a nut to crack at this time, so instead I am going to mount a massive Dunkirk-style evacuation of my troops. I'll cover the Evac with the entire Combined Fleet, so if AuTiger attempts to interfere with anything short of the entire USN I ought to get a fairly good local advantage. (And if AuTiger can defeat the entire IJN at Adak then he will have won the game fair and square.)

Not all my action in the North Pacific went as planned, as I forgot to reduce the maximum range for the Zero Daitai at Kiska that I set for PT-busting at 100 feet, so they flew off to Umnak and got whacked by the Canuck CAP there. Oh well, maybe I'll remember the next time.

AuTiger (or the weather) kept the big US bombers on the ground this turn so all of the air action in the Far East was thanks to my second stringers who flew in great masses all over China, but didn't accomplish a lot despite darkening the skies. At least they are now reaching the Moderately Mediocre level, and those pilots in the most worthless of all Crates – Nates – are almost reaching respectability. But it will be months and months before I get any Oscar IIs, so the only thing that I will be able to do with those Nate units is to continue to harass Chinese infantry units.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 351
Mine Wars - 12/24/2007 4:04:30 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 6, 1942 - The "big" news this turn was that a US sub finally hit one of the myriad of mines that I've laid all over the map. I'm attempting to cover all of my bases with mines, and not trying to bury any particular base in mines, and this has finally paid off in a small way. BTW - my MSWs continue to sweep Allied sub-laid mines in various places too. (Maybe the AE version ought to be called "Mine War in the Pacific"…)

The rest of the action this turn was air attacks in China. AuTiger continues to be relatively quiet and only his daily attack on the trapped 34th flew. Most of my planned attacks flew, including a number of big air attacks on the airfields at Yenen as well as ever increasingly larger air attacks on AuTiger's Chinese troops in the field. As I've observed recently, despite more planes flying ground attack missions the quantities of Chinese casualties isn't increasing.

In any event, I pulled back a number of air units this turn in order to rest them up and keep from providing too predictable a pattern for AuTiger to eventually counter. AuTiger has been flying F-5As over Canton on a daily basis, so he must be planning some action that direction. In any event, I pulled out my bombers from Canton and left my better fighters on CAP this turn, just in case AuTiger decides to send the 4Es in again. (I am also looking forward to seeing how my Tonys and Tojos do against unescorted bombers. )

In the North I sent the "rejuvenated" half of the KB out from Tokyo and off towards the northeast. My other plans are coming together in that region and I'm gaining confidence that I will be able to pull off my "Dunkirk". AuTiger finally moved some PTs back to Adak this turn, so I set a couple of fighter groups to 100ft Naval Attack (with their maximum ranges carefully curtailed) in order to "discourage" this. Hopefully, AuTiger will leave the PTs there one more turn.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 352
P-40s Dominate again - 12/25/2007 2:47:27 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 7, 1942 - We had our usual night phase in which the only thing that happened was that some of my MSWs swept some Allied sub-laid mines. For whatever reason, the Allied MSWs then swept Japanese sub-laid mines during the day phase. The rest of the action was in the air.

Things started out okay as my bombers hit the airfields at Yenen hard again. But then, as I had been expecting, AuTiger's P-40s showed up on LR CAP over Changsha. But despite being prepared I received yet another unexpected set-back as the P-40s continued their domination of the air, shooting down three as many A6M3s as P-40s were lost. The only good luck for me was that a few more P-40s were lost to Operational damage.

I'm getting really frustrated with the inability of my fighters and pilots to fight P-40s to a draw. I'm not certain if this is just a matter of an edge in experience of the P-40 pilots, an edge in performance over my planes, or a combination of both. My A6M3 Daitais had reasonably good pilots, but they just weren't good enough. And I can't train my Tojo and Tony pilots to reasonable levels quickly enough to bring them into the fray, and I'm not certain that even they will make a difference.

The only thing that worked out right for me this turn was that some of my Zeros at Kiska caught AuTiger's horde of PT boats sitting at Adak this turn, shooting up a number of them and sinking three. AuTiger has at least 30 PT boats grouped in two TFs of 15 a piece, so I will have to do a fair amount of shooting before I can work them down to a reasonable number. And once AuTiger starts to get the "infinite" PT boat replacements I'll have an even harder time.

Finally, AuTiger is moving masses of troops around China again, and so it is likely that I may get more units stuck out of position thanks to the movement rules. The note that I saw that said that land combat and movement won't be improved significantly in AE is the one aspect that will give me pause when I get tempted to buy the upgrade. I have a totally irrational hatred for land movement and land combat in this game and the thought of paying again for more of the same is not very appealing.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 353
Mines everywhere - 12/26/2007 4:37:06 AM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 8, 1942 - Despite daily minesweeping all over the map my forces continue to miss or leave behind plenty of Allied mines, and thus a number of my ships hit mines while on their way into friendly ports this turn. Oh well, at least no capital ships have hit mines for a while.

In the air war AuTiger pulled back his P-40s but beefed up his Spitfires in Central China. I don't have enough really good fighter units around to even challenge the Brits so I left them to patrol around Hengchow and did my usual daily plane movements while setting some new targets. I actually find doing this sort of thing every turn to be terribly boring, but I hate to have my planes ambushed so I have no choice since the bulk of my air units are not yet competitive enough to leave in one place for any length of time.

I goofed up yet another movement order in China so yet another of my units will be trapped soon. I hate the movement system even more than I hate playing hide-and-seek with my air units every turn. Oh well, maybe I'll be able to train more planes against the Chinese units when they show up.

AuTiger pulled his PT hordes back from Adak so my planes didn't get any more "freebies". So I sent some bombers in to hit Adak just to keep AuTiger awake in that region. It will still be some time before my plans gel together; it takes quite a while to pull together so much force in one place.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 354
Minesweeping everywhere - 12/26/2007 6:30:48 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 9, 1942 - Both sides were busy with the usual minesweeping during the night phase, and none of my ships hit any mines, so things went okay. I've got to think that my minesweeping crews have to be the most experienced sailors in the IJN by this time.

The air war was a bit subdued this turn as bad weather grounded many planned attacks. My main air-to-ground attack on a lone Chinese unit north of Wuchow did fly and those fighter units are starting to come around nicely, although none of them are ready to take on the AVG or other good US P-40 units yet.

Speaking of P-40s, AuTiger brought his P-40s back to Hengchow and Changsha this turn, but all they found were thunderclouds and patrol planes. AuTiger also has a huge number of auxiliary planes in Hengchow. I'm presuming that they are transports and that he is flying his troops all over the map again in response to my troop movements. The mass of Chinese units that showed up on the road to the southeast of Hengchow disappeared this turn, but that doesn't mean that they won't soon be harassing my troops that are to the north of Canton.

A lone Chinese unit showed up next to my "lost" armored unit that is sitting in the "bush" to the east of Wuchow. I am suspicious that AuTiger is planning to set up a P-40 ambush over that location in the expectation that I will send bombers in as I usually do. Therefore, I am not sending air attacks against that unit.

Instead I am attempting an ambush of my own. I've ordered all of those fighters at Canton - Zeros, Tonys, Tojos and Oscars - to fly LR CAP over the 34th Division in the hopes of catching those Chinese light bombers that have been hitting my troops on a daily basis, now that AuTiger had stopped escorting those bombers with his P-40s. If this works some of my planes ought to get some "easy" experience.

In the Far North, the big news was that the port at Kiska finally reached level 3, which meant that I could now dock my two heavily damaged DDs for emergency repairs. This also means that supplies and fuel will unload more quickly. My bombers hit Adak again, and the PTs stayed away, so things are coming along nicely in the region. What I have to be able to do is to convince AuTiger that I am mounting an extremely massive invasion of Adak while I am actually conducting an emergency withdrawal. It will be touch-and-go, but if I can pull this off I will be in a much better position since I have three Divisions and a Brigade stuck on Adak, and they will be much more of a threat if they are free.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 355
Another Lost Opportunity - 12/27/2007 6:02:27 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 10, 1942 - This was yet another quiet night phase with a little bit of minesweeping on both sides. The day phase was also fairly quiet thanks to bad weather throughout most of China, and thanks to AuTiger setting up a major attack for next turn.

Typical of my luck in this game, either AuTiger guessed that I would go after his Chinese bombers over the 34th Division, or else the weather grounded the bombers, so my attempted LR CAP ambush found nothing over the 34th. Of course, AuTiger also got to see the mass of Japanese fighters over the troops thanks to my recon flight, so the surprise is now gone.

That's an interesting question - should you send Recon when you are trying an LR CAP ambush or not? I have been assuming that Air Recon improves all attacks, including LR CAP. But in this case where no enemy planes flew, the LR CAP accompanied the Recon planes and gave away my plans.

In any event, the situation in China has changed in a very big way as AuTiger has moved over a hundred fighters, around 125 bombers, and around 225 auxiliary planes to Hengchow. AuTiger has been resting his bombers for some time now, so he obviously means to attack somewhere. The question is - where will the attack fall? (I'm assuming that those bombers are 4Es and as such will be essentially unstoppable.) Will he go after one of my major Chinese air bases or will he go after Resources, Oil, or even some of the western Home Island bases?

AuTiger has been reconning Canton every turn, and he did it again this turn. This recon trip showed my Tojos and Tonys on CAP. Will AuTiger attempt to hammer my nascent Army Air Force units at Canton? And what is he doing with so many air transports at Hengchow?

BTW - the LCU symbol at Hengchow is now "green" instead of the usual Chinese "yellow". What forces did he bring there - British Air HQs, British Base Forces, or American Paratroops?

So I agonized over what to do in China - pull back again or try to finally "get lucky". In the end I decided to see if my luck will ever turn positive. I moved around one hundred and twenty-five of my best bombers and the same number of my best fighters to Canton and set them to attack Hengchow next turn. This hasn't worked for me yet in this pbem, but maybe - just maybe - I will get a break. (I haven't won an important battle since I captured Port Moresby, which was months ago in game-time and real time, and I am totally frustrated by my inability to cause AuTiger to make any mistakes.)

BTW - funny enough, AuTiger wrote to me with this turn that the "Sync Problem" gave him a scare because it showed a major air attack that didn't really happen. I guess that the Replay showed one of my attacks on Yenen going after Hengchow instead. (I've got several carrier-air fragments that I can't re-grow and neither can I disband them into other naval air units, so I am assuming that these fragments are contributing to whatever causes the Sync problems in our pbem.)

So in addition to setting up my Bushido Charge against Hengchow, I moved my Tojos, Tonys and Oscars to various other air bases in China and set them back to doing ground assaults on Chinese LCUs in the field. The Tojo and Tony units only have experience in the mid-60s, and so with the Game Engine they would be totally slaughtered against AuTiger's experienced pilots in his P-40s, despite the difference in the airplanes. It is taking me way too long to build up decent second-generation fighter units and I don't want to throw them away at this time. BTW - just to keep AuTiger "honest", I still have massive air attacks planned against Yenen and some Chinese LCUs in the northeast of China.

China aside, things were quiet everywhere else, except for another air attack on Adak by my Bettys at Kiska. I subsequently moved that Betty unit back to the Home Islands for R&R and moved a fresh Betty unit in its place. AuTiger is keeping his PT boats back in the eastern Aleutians, so my other air units didn't get any practice.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 356
Sync Problems - 12/28/2007 2:02:30 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		I'm figuratively rubbing my jaw after it hit the floor while I reviewed AuTiger's Combat Report from the last turn side-by-side with my combat report. The Allied Combat Report showed four major air battles that didn't happen in my Combat Replay or Combat report. And what's worse from my p.o.v. is that the results were all in my favor in the Allied version! ( ) There were also changes in some of the land battles as far as the results went.

It looks as if a totally different "seed" was generated for AuTiger's Combat Replay than for mine. With his "seed", the weather effects were less and grounded air attacks on both sides flew. Also, land combat results were better for both sides - something that is typical of better weather. I've got to think that my old "un-favorite" aspect of the Game, "Advanced Weather" has a big part in the Sync Problem. Maybe that's why no one has been able to fix the Sync Problem - everyone has been trying to fix things related to fragments and so on and no one has tried to fix Advanced Weather.

Oh well, maybe AE will fix the problem. In the meanwhile, if I start any more pbems I will insist on having Advanced Weather set to "off".

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 357
Lighting up the Skies over China - 12/28/2007 9:21:34 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 11, 1942 - The night phase was totally quiet; even my minesweepers didn't sweep any mines. I've been seeing this a lot recent - my map shows a green mine "dot" at one or more of my bases, but when I send MSWs they don't sweep anything. I've seen similar things where enemy sub icons show up at a base and stick around for weeks and weeks, but no matter what TFs I send to the base - ASW or otherwise - there is no contact. I guess that those are "ghost" mines and subs.

The weather cooperated a bit and the main action this turn was in China as expected. First off my regular bomber attacks on Yenen flew as planned, and then the Main Events took place.

First off was my attack on Hengchow. AuTiger had P-40s, Hurricanes, Mohawks and Spitfires on CAP. Despite them my planes got through, although my Zeros took heavy losses. The results on the ground weren't bad, and included a B-17, but weren't spectacular either. Never-the-less, and despite my air combat losses, this was still the best air attack that I launched in a long time.

Next was AuTiger's turn, and his heavy bombers flew en masse against Wuhan instead of Canton as I had expected. They hit the airfields hard, but all I had there were Nates, Oscars and Babs, so the losses were tolerable.

None of my other planned attacks flew thanks to weather, and so the end results were as is shown in the screen capture of the Air Losses Table below. I'll call it a Pyrrhic Victory because I did cause a number of losses to the Allied side, but obviously I can't keep up taking the losses that I took on a regular basis. So I reorganized my air units again, pulled back the decimated ones, and planned my next set of attacks - weather permitting.

I am also very interested in eventually seeing what the Allied Combat Report looks like for this turn. Will the Sync Bug bite again?

Otherwise there was nothing notable in the turn.





Attachment (1)

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 358
Death by a 1000 minnow bites - 12/30/2007 10:00:46 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 12, 1942 - This turn can be summed up as:

- My mines didn't work
- My minesweepers didn't work
- AuTiger's mines worked
- AuTiger's minesweepers worked
- My troops ignored movement orders again
- My Air Patrols missed the largest Allied Combat TF on the face of the planet


The big news this turn was that AuTiger sent a mainly British bombardment TF to hit my base at the Andaman Islands. His TF missed my reasonably large minefield, but fortunately I had a Naval BF in place and two Allied DDs were hit hard by the shore guns. Although some Naval Patrol planes were destroyed on the ground and there were plenty of troop casualties, all-in-all the attack didn't do as much damage as it might have.

What ticks me off is that none of my many long-range Naval Patrol planes in the region spotted the TF, nor did my many submarines. Whenever I attempt to send out a bombardment TF AuTiger tends to spot it while it is still at home port, and then proceeds to blast it to bits from the air. I get tired of this sort of bad luck turn after turn, but I haven't come up with any way to get around it.

What did work this turn were my bomber raids in China that hit Yenen and Homan hard. AuTiger has pulled his planes back from his forward bases and is resting his air units out of my reach. I'm still busy trying to rebuild and train up my air units, so I'll just have to be satisfied with hit-and-run attacks instead of anything serious.

BTW - I've gotten tired of artillery attacks at Yenen so I ordered my troops to head back to my forward bases in Northeastern China. AuTiger will likely move his troops forward since he does that every time I pull back, but I'll just use the opportunity to train more fighters. I'll eventually move my better units from the Yenen siege to threaten the Chinese troops on the highway south of Homan and send them back to base. This is all pointless to a good extent, but it does give me the hope that AuTiger will someday finally make a mistake that I can jump on. In the meanwhile, at the other end of China, a good Division of mine has refused to move for the second turn in a row after "accepting" movement orders. I'm getting really tired of ground movement problems too. I sure wish the AE developers were advertising loudly how they are going to "fix" the issues like ground movement rather than how they are adding new complications to the Game.

(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 359
Happy New Year's Eve - 12/31/2007 1:36:14 PM   
Dive Bomber1

 

Posts: 670
Joined: 10/30/2006
Status: offline 		September 13, 1942 - This was a very ordinary turn where ordinary things happened:

- Minesweepers swept mines
- Subs laid more mines
- My bombers hit the airfields at Yenen
- The rest of my bombers didn't fly because of rain

AuTiger doesn't have to actively play - he just sits back and watches me lose 10 or so planes every turn due to Operational losses.

In any event - a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve to All!



(in reply to Dive Bomber1)
Post #: 360
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