Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Chickenboy, I'm still torn with the PDU thing. I'll ask Ted, though he didn't care one way or the other last time.

Anyway, I've been thinking of my numerous mistakes this game and what to do differently next time.

Here's the initial list off the top of my head. Comments are welcome.

1. Conversion of Yusen-A (7) and Husimi(15+) to AK immediately.

2. Conversion of all Ansyu-C to PB immediately.

3. Convert all AK (above and Yusen-S) to AK-t immediately.

4. Combine elements of land units as soon as possible. I didn't do this in this game because I wanted to have the ability to task organize. Unfortunately, it resulted in many of the smaller units being trashed in combat. I think losses (and possibly disruption) would be lower if the divisions are combined before major combat.

5. Faster invasion timelines, especially in the DEI. Q-Ball and Chickenboy harped on me incessantly to speed up my timeline. They were right.

6. Take Ambon early! They harped on me to take this base in the initial round of invasions. I did't take it until late January. Japanese control of this base with Netties & recon there will cause more Allied shipping losses and cut off the northern DEI very effectively. I won't make that mistake again.

7. Take Singapore faster. I made two crucial mistakes here. I ran out of supply (stupid!). I'm going to send supply convoys from Japan at the beginning of the war this time. Too much supply is far better than too little. Second mistake was to not have enough ground strength. Here's my intent for initial invasions. I'll need some help tweaking this because I'll need to figure out how to get at least another division to the DEI.


Thanks. I look forward to your comments.

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ORIGINAL: Xargun

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Pretty sure that Shikoku resources do not need independent pickup, Mike. They are magically transported across the water, IIRC. Hey, it frees up a bunch of your shipping!

Do we have confirmation of this ?

Xargun

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s

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Inqistor, I guess I was unclear. I will use the Nates in the frontline until they are replaced. Actually, I plan on upgrading 1 chutai to Oscars immediately. There are enough Nates in the pool to fill out all the Nate units in the 3 & 5 Air Divisions. The concern is that there won't be any spares to replace losses until I get enough Oscars to upgrade other Nate units. It's something I'll have to live with.

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Good point on the 1E bombers & level 2 airfields. I was unclear here too I guess. I will use them until they are upgraded. Initially, they are very effective against Allied merchant shipping but become less effective as the merchant shipping becomes more scarce.

quote:

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

The Seikan Tunnel connecting Honshu and Hokkaido was only opened in 1988.

A 3.6km single-track railway tunnel was completed in 1942 as a fixed link between Kyushu and Honshu. Another single-track tunnel was completed in 1944. The double-track Shin Kanmon Tunnel was completed in 1975.

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ORIGINAL: Wirraway_Ace
Mike,

I do not convert to AK-t. My rationale: when the amphib bonus runs out, you need every AK to move heavy equipment and off-load it rapidly on the beach or small port. The infantry can simply be loaded onto a large number of xAKs and xAPs; it takes about 30 to offload all the infantry squads of an IJA division in one turn, but you have plenty of these to conduct Corps sized ops. Save the AKs for your artillery, armor and engineer vehicle that simply won't offload over the beach from an xAK or xAP.

my 2 cents
Mike

Created by the amazing Dixie

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ORIGINAL: erstad

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ORIGINAL: Xargun

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ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Pretty sure that Shikoku resources do not need independent pickup, Mike. They are magically transported across the water, IIRC. Hey, it frees up a bunch of your shipping!

Do we have confirmation of this ?

Xargun

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s

Yes. Use the "r" key - you will see there is an in-game major road connecting Shikoku to Honshu.

Created by the amazing Dixie

quote:

ORIGINAL: inqistor

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Inqistor, I guess I was unclear. I will use the Nates in the frontline until they are replaced. Actually, I plan on upgrading 1 chutai to Oscars immediately. There are enough Nates in the pool to fill out all the Nate units in the 3 & 5 Air Divisions. The concern is that there won't be any spares to replace losses until I get enough Oscars to upgrade other Nate units. It's something I'll have to live with.

Actually, I am saying, that it is worth considering running NATEs production for a short time. They have nothing in the upgrade path, so factories will be damaged during conversion. That way, if you leave them on production, you will have extra 30 NATEs at the end of month, if you will change, you will have only about 12 OSCARs, hardly enough to even convert something. And remember, that it is good to have reserve planes, as they will come into repired planes place.

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Good point on the 1E bombers & level 2 airfields. I was unclear here too I guess. I will use them until they are upgraded. Initially, they are very effective against Allied merchant shipping but become less effective as the merchant shipping becomes more scarce.

Hmm, and why are they actually more effective, than normal level bombers? In WITP they were DB, but I do not think in AE they dive, or even glide, so they should have similar hit ratio, as SALLYs (even worse, because medium bombers carry more bombs).

quote:

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

The Seikan Tunnel connecting Honshu and Hokkaido was only opened in 1988.

A 3.6km single-track railway tunnel was completed in 1942 as a fixed link between Kyushu and Honshu. Another single-track tunnel was completed in 1944. The double-track Shin Kanmon Tunnel was completed in 1975.

So, there was no land connection between islands before war?

Created by the amazing Dixie

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

The comments about Nates make sense, but I view it somewhat differently. I want to get my Oscar production increased as quickly as possible. But, if I do keep the Nate factory producing Nates for Dec, 41 and then convert it, I'm a month behind in producing Oscars for it and lose 30 Oscars in Jan 42. That's a Sentai of Nates that won't get converted to Oscars in Jan.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Now the Ryujo. She carries 48 planes (or is it 53 - for some reason that number sticks in my mind). Anyway, she carries 27 torpedoes. Here's the problem. I don't want her to have 27 Kates. That's too many. What if she has 18? After one round of torps, she'll have only 9 left. Will an 18 plane daitai sortie with half with torps and half with bombs for a naval target? I guess that's the question. If not, she'll have to carry 13 Kates and 35 Zeros. I guess that's ok. I'd like some more Kates though.

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Now the Ryujo. She carries 48 planes (or is it 53 - for some reason that number sticks in my mind). Anyway, she carries 27 torpedoes. Here's the problem. I don't want her to have 27 Kates. That's too many. What if she has 18? After one round of torps, she'll have only 9 left. Will an 18 plane daitai sortie with half with torps and half with bombs for a naval target? I guess that's the question. If not, she'll have to carry 13 Kates and 35 Zeros. I guess that's ok. I'd like some more Kates though.

I don't know the answer here for a fact, but I suspect that they will go out partial. I only say that because many times I have ended up with 0 torps on a CV, but didn't have an even number of planes to have flown them all. Does that make sense?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

The comments about Nates make sense, but I view it somewhat differently. I want to get my Oscar production increased as quickly as possible. But, if I do keep the Nate factory producing Nates for Dec, 41 and then convert it, I'm a month behind in producing Oscars for it and lose 30 Oscars in Jan 42. That's a Sentai of Nates that won't get converted to Oscars in Jan. By the end of Dec 41, I expect to have about 100 Oscars producing a month. With 3 factories producing, I'll have produced about 60 Oscars. I will have upgraded a Nate sentai to Oscars and have an extra 30-40 Nates in the pool.

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1E bombers. It's not that they are more effective than 2E bombers. They can fly from level 2 airfields, which makes them valuable at the start of the war. There are a lot of level 2 airfields that can be used by them to support operations.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Wohoo! It's finally done and off to Ted! Now is my turn to wait. Shouldn't take too long though. He really doesn't have much to do though.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Pax, make sure you run a test turn to see what mistakes you may have made. I ended up making about a dozen changes. Most were minor but my major invasion base in the Philippines is now changed from Lingayan to San Fernando.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

... I'm also going for Mersing. If that goes well, Ted should have no more than 400 AV to defend Singapore. The rest will be trapped north of Singapore. I'll take more merchant casualties but in the long run, it'll allow the capture of Singapore much more quickly.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I was curious to see what the 5 CVs do against Pearl. I ran a test twice. Once it did basically nothing but lost only 1 Val. The second time it sank 2 BBs, heavily damaged 5 more and the last had moderate damage for the loss of 2 Kates. Both times it sank 2-3 DD/CLs. Curious that so few planes were lost.

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ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

I'm moving this over to the "real" AAR.