Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: jay102

I guess there are two different styles of convoy composition as Allies.

Big convy like 100 ships, well escorted by major combat ships. They need time to gather and organise, less threatened by enemy subs and surface raiders, but a juicy target for KB.

Small convoy, 1-20 ships, no need to gather and can depart freely. They are easy target for enemy subs and surface raiders but it's not lethal to lose some of them.

Personally I like big ones, as millions of small TF scattered on map make me feel out of control. What's your opinion?

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ORIGINAL: spence

This entire thread seems a paradox to me.

I play Allies pretty much exclusively.

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1) Is this a failing of the situation caused by game mechanics? (IRL the sub commander who failed to report the position, course and speed of a sighted convoy would have been a candidate for a GCM - if he had time and opportunity to set up an attack he had time after he got away to report to his command what he had found).

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2) If the subs are indeed finding single merchies then there should be single merchies spread out all over the ocean and they should be much easier to find. In WWI the solution to the U-Boat Problem was the convoy and because of the primitive state of ASW at the time its most important contribution was to simply collect all those merchies into one place and make the rest of the ocean an empty wasteland for the submarines to hunt in. On the off chance that a U-Boat found the enemy its commander faced 1:100 odds.

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3) Is the Japanese Player so blessed with adequate lift/tonnage that he can afford to have his merchies collect dust in some (relatively) safe port? It is the opinion of every military analysis of the Pacific War that Imperial Japan started the war with too little merchant tonnage to support its effort, that diversion of general merchant tonnage to direct military purposes severely hurt the IJ war effort and that every single loss of a merchant hull was more than Japan could afford starting on Dec 7, 1941. I'm sure that attending to every Maru every turn would be tedious but it sure seems that simply ignoring one of the most significant strategic problems faced by IJ during the war is the wrong approach.

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Having played both sides, the IJ merchant marine situation is bad, but not critical.

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2) If the subs are indeed finding single merchies then there should be single merchies spread out all over the ocean and they should be much easier to find. In WWI the solution to the U-Boat Problem was the convoy and because of the primitive state of ASW at the time its most important contribution was to simply collect all those merchies into one place and make the rest of the ocean an empty wasteland for the submarines to hunt in. On the off chance that a U-Boat found the enemy its commander faced 1:100 odds.



Err...not really.

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ORIGINAL: spence

3) Is the Japanese Player so blessed with adequate lift/tonnage that he can afford to have his merchies collect dust in some (relatively) safe port? It is the opinion of every military analysis of the Pacific War that Imperial Japan started the war with too little merchant tonnage to support its effort, that diversion of general merchant tonnage to direct military purposes severely hurt the IJ war effort and that every single loss of a merchant hull was more than Japan could afford starting on Dec 7, 1941. I'm sure that attending to every Maru every turn would be tedious but it sure seems that simply ignoring one of the most significant strategic problems faced by IJ during the war is the wrong approach.

It seems to me that the IJ Players on the forum should be addressing this question on a regular basis since the answers should have a much much more immediate impact on every operation they attempt.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

You are probably seeing the effects of the Magic Resource Highway in the game. JFBs speak of it in hushed tones. "Stuff" flows overland from Malaysia-ish to Korea-ish without needing to go on the water. Some Japanese players report in the forum they don't use it and instead do the historical thing and put it all on ships, especially tankers. If they don't it's impossible to wage even a semblance of the USN's submarine war and the Japanese player has lots of merchants to spare for late-war troop retraction, even if they, as most report they do, turn off merchant construction pretty early.

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

You are probably seeing the effects of the Magic Resource Highway in the game. JFBs speak of it in hushed tones. "Stuff" flows overland from Malaysia-ish to Korea-ish without needing to go on the water. Some Japanese players report in the forum they don't use it and instead do the historical thing and put it all on ships, especially tankers. If they don't it's impossible to wage even a semblance of the USN's submarine war and the Japanese player has lots of merchants to spare for late-war troop retraction, even if they, as most report they do, turn off merchant construction pretty early.

Doesn't work so well, and there don't seem to be any hushed tones in the Japanese AARs that talk about it. Check my Wild Sheep Chase sometime in 42 and there is a long drawn out attempt to make this work, which ended in complete failure by the way. I don't think it's possible to move all of that stuff over land, and if it was the fuel is still subject to spoiling. Maybe it works against the AI, but not in a PBEM?

So I shipped all of the oil/fuel from the DEI and a lot of resources, plus shipping a lot of supply/troops back down. A lot of players do this, but there is still a surplus of ships and that is probably due to the ones in the standard game scenarios having a bit too much cargo capacity. Babes have limited the capacity of all ships in some of their mods. In game I'm also pretty sure Japan doesn't have to haul everything they had to in the war. (I know these ships don't have to haul replacement aircraft, guns, tractors, or any of the other stuff that magically appears as replacements).

Now this is also true for the Allies. Look at the glut of ships after about mid-43. Suddenly you're swimming in them. Well, there are some things the Allies hauled that aren't in game as well. At the time there was seen to be a need for all of those ships. If there is no need in the game, then we are missing some of the 'stuff' that was hauled in the war.

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ORIGINAL: Spidery

Does fuel suffer spoilage on moving?

From the beta notes:

"95. Gameplay Change: Removed the wastage of resources/oil/fuel during overland
movement."

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ORIGINAL: Spidery

Does fuel suffer spoilage on moving?

From the beta notes:

"95. Gameplay Change: Removed the wastage of resources/oil/fuel during overland
movement."

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(I know these ships don't have to haul replacement aircraft, guns, tractors, or any of the other stuff that magically appears as replacements)

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

You are probably seeing the effects of the Magic Resource Highway in the game. JFBs speak of it in hushed tones. "Stuff" flows overland from Malaysia-ish to Korea-ish without needing to go on the water. Some Japanese players report in the forum they don't use it and instead do the historical thing and put it all on ships, especially tankers. If they don't it's impossible to wage even a semblance of the USN's submarine war and the Japanese player has lots of merchants to spare for late-war troop retraction, even if they, as most report they do, turn off merchant construction pretty early.

Doesn't work so well, and there don't seem to be any hushed tones in the Japanese AARs that talk about it. Check my Wild Sheep Chase sometime in 42 and there is a long drawn out attempt to make this work, which ended in complete failure by the way. I don't think it's possible to move all of that stuff over land, and if it was the fuel is still subject to spoiling. Maybe it works against the AI, but not in a PBEM?

So I shipped all of the oil/fuel from the DEI and a lot of resources, plus shipping a lot of supply/troops back down. A lot of players do this, but there is still a surplus of ships and that is probably due to the ones in the standard game scenarios having a bit too much cargo capacity. Babes have limited the capacity of all ships in some of their mods. In game I'm also pretty sure Japan doesn't have to haul everything they had to in the war. (I know these ships don't have to haul replacement aircraft, guns, tractors, or any of the other stuff that magically appears as replacements).

Now this is also true for the Allies. Look at the glut of ships after about mid-43. Suddenly you're swimming in them. Well, there are some things the Allies hauled that aren't in game as well. At the time there was seen to be a need for all of those ships. If there is no need in the game, then we are missing some of the 'stuff' that was hauled in the war.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

OK, I did go read a bunch of your AAR. Began in June and read/skimmed through page 25 just about into October 1942. Other than brief mentions of the attempt in June where it was pointed out that a lone Chinese unit controlled a hexside on the path so it wasn't open, I didn't see a long discussion. There was some exchange with Squeeze about using loading takers to "goose" flows into Fusan from possibly Chinese sources, and speculation that the large fleet withdrawals at Singers was keeping flows from exiting there that month, but I didn't see other. Was it later?

Aside, I had never read the China negotiation portion of either of you two's AARs. Without commenting on the strat bombing ban (!!) I did think your map of potential Allied 4E bombing from Ledo was pretty creative. Not only the assumed ranges (Ledo to Canton!) or that you left out minor industrial centers like Shanghai and Port Arthur, but that you tried to argue that 4Es would fly 20 hexes from Ledo into CAP. Ever. I can't get mine to fly into air superiority from ten hexes.

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

OK, I did go read a bunch of your AAR. Began in June and read/skimmed through page 25 just about into October 1942. Other than brief mentions of the attempt in June where it was pointed out that a lone Chinese unit controlled a hexside on the path so it wasn't open, I didn't see a long discussion. There was some exchange with Squeeze about using loading takers to "goose" flows into Fusan from possibly Chinese sources, and speculation that the large fleet withdrawals at Singers was keeping flows from exiting there that month, but I didn't see other. Was it later?

Aside, I had never read the China negotiation portion of either of you two's AARs. Without commenting on the strat bombing ban (!!) I did think your map of potential Allied 4E bombing from Ledo was pretty creative. Not only the assumed ranges (Ledo to Canton!) or that you left out minor industrial centers like Shanghai and Port Arthur, but that you tried to argue that 4Es would fly 20 hexes from Ledo into CAP. Ever. I can't get mine to fly into air superiority from ten hexes.

It's kind of a sporadic discussion, but certainly not 'hush hush.'

Here is one of the major posts with replies on and off down that page:

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=3062465


I aso admit I have learned a lot during this game, my first real PBEM, and so my thinking about a lot of things has changed.

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Only problem is that it was critical. It was critical from the 1st day of the war. It was short by a million tons to meet Japan's peacetime needs: in peacetime though, merchies from other countries could fulfill those needs. A few captured merchies didn't come close to making up for the rest of the world's merchant fleets deciding they didn't want to work for Japan anymore. Every loss made a critical situation worse.

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If the Japanese Player is using convoys of multiple merchies plus escorts and such a convoy is spotted the system should report it just as the commander of the sub was required to do (that is best estimate of number of ships, course, and speed). I think it is a game mechanics/system problem that such reports are not forthcoming. And recon aircraft routinely finding scores of merchies sitting in harbor is not the same as scouting out the IJ "convoy routes".

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Assuming you're not 90 years old and since convoy operations have not been right at the forefront of academic/military studies for 20 odd years or so perhaps you'd like to enlighten the community here about your qualifications to dismiss the study of so many of the Naval Professionals who set their pens to paper in the past.

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

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ORIGINAL: obvert

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ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

You are probably seeing the effects of the Magic Resource Highway in the game. JFBs speak of it in hushed tones. "Stuff" flows overland from Malaysia-ish to Korea-ish without needing to go on the water. Some Japanese players report in the forum they don't use it and instead do the historical thing and put it all on ships, especially tankers. If they don't it's impossible to wage even a semblance of the USN's submarine war and the Japanese player has lots of merchants to spare for late-war troop retraction, even if they, as most report they do, turn off merchant construction pretty early.

Doesn't work so well, and there don't seem to be any hushed tones in the Japanese AARs that talk about it. Check my Wild Sheep Chase sometime in 42 and there is a long drawn out attempt to make this work, which ended in complete failure by the way. I don't think it's possible to move all of that stuff over land, and if it was the fuel is still subject to spoiling. Maybe it works against the AI, but not in a PBEM?

So I shipped all of the oil/fuel from the DEI and a lot of resources, plus shipping a lot of supply/troops back down. A lot of players do this, but there is still a surplus of ships and that is probably due to the ones in the standard game scenarios having a bit too much cargo capacity. Babes have limited the capacity of all ships in some of their mods. In game I'm also pretty sure Japan doesn't have to haul everything they had to in the war. (I know these ships don't have to haul replacement aircraft, guns, tractors, or any of the other stuff that magically appears as replacements).

Now this is also true for the Allies. Look at the glut of ships after about mid-43. Suddenly you're swimming in them. Well, there are some things the Allies hauled that aren't in game as well. At the time there was seen to be a need for all of those ships. If there is no need in the game, then we are missing some of the 'stuff' that was hauled in the war.

I don't know what you did differently than the other folks in the past who have spoken of this working. There's no reason it shouldn't work. Individual "slugs" of fuel or resources aren't labeled with their point of origin. I doubt the game has memory to spare to ever try to do that. All the game knows is the quantities in the nodes each base can see. Then it applies the spinners and the stockpile settings and it hauls. The point about spoilage is a good one, however.

The Allies don't haul a lot of RL stuff just as Japan does not. Years ago I posted here a link to an article about Port Hueneme and all the construction supplies loaded and shipped from there for use by the Seabees. It was over 20 million tons and 200,000 men.

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The key phrase is peacetime needs. People don't need cars and other consumer goods when there's a war on.