Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

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ORIGINAL: TheElf

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

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ORIGINAL: TheElf

Lowpe, facsinating AAR. First time I've all the way through one in a day in years...

One question. Given the unique circumstances around Palembang, why have you not focused your Rikko units in the SRA to counter his resupply and reinforcement plans? It seems that is one aspect of your game that is missing. Even with the strength he has shown in Air Power to date, it seems an early Rikko scourge with good supply and appropriate HQs would have helped tremendously especially with his US Carriers out of the picture.

Anyway, keep it up. I can't wait to see how your R/D program pans out in Russia, and with the Heavies. Good luck!

~Elf

Honored., can't tell you how many times I have searched the forum for your posts concerning the air war. Unfortunately, my opponent has too.

I just haven't had the fighters present to really go wild with them. Probably a mistake. When you make a mistake as Japan it keeps biting you for the rest of the game. I didn't do a Mersing gambit, I didn't build Oscar Ic and Zero, I didn't r&d Rufe heavily, totally unprepared for war with Soviets..you get the picture.

It has all come back to hurt Japan.

In the early offing when you'd already sunk his two carriers it would have been an ideal time. Especially before he was able to reinforce his bases aurrounding Palembang though, I'd have run and Air Op from any base I could stage out of south of Singers where I could manage torpedoes. Extra fighters be damned. The Rikkos often operated without the luxury of escort owing to the long ranges they were required to fly.

In the early war (first 6 mos) the Rikko scourge is an ideal deterrent to reinforcing Singers by sea or any effort to play with your Surface toys.

It may not be too late.

The way I see it the alternative is to lose the war. Even if at the end of "Operation Xmas Elf" if your Rikko Units are decimated the risk might be worth the reward in terms of allied Ships sunk or Singers cut off. With Russia active you need to bring a swift halt to his efforts in the SRA and send a strong message that any messing about will garner a steep cost to him.

Just out of curiousity how healthy are your Rikkos and what airfiled might you be able to use to lock him down? If you are worried about his CAP at surrounding fields and your Fighter force is stretched too thin, you could bound your Naval search to areas that wouldn't include heavy CAPs and restrict your Rikkos range so they don't ventrue to far toward a heavily CAP'd base hex.

Just my thoughts...anyone else can weigh in.

I have a little over three hundred on Malaya from Victoria Point south to Kuantan. 36 at Bihoro, and 2 at Truk.

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

I think this is the repaired Allied Carriers making their way from Sydney to now Perth. Or it could be a large convoy of American troops. Most likely: both.

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

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ORIGINAL: TheElf

Just out of curiousity how healthy are your Rikkos and what airfiled might you be able to use to lock him down? If you are worried about his CAP at surrounding fields and your Fighter force is stretched too thin, you could bound your Naval search to areas that wouldn't include heavy CAPs and restrict your Rikkos range so they don't ventrue to far toward a heavily CAP'd base hex.

Just my thoughts...anyone else can weigh in.

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ORIGINAL: Lowpe

721 repair points needed to fix 1 point of system damage on the Haruna. There is quite a bit of Naval Squads here contributing to the repair, but here you can see what adding one AR can do. Imagine, having 10 here....those 10 would repair approximately 1.1 system damage a day.

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ORIGINAL: TheElf


Concentrate on one thing at a time. You still have Numerical and qualitative superiority, its just diluted across multiple efforts. Consolidate, refocus on short and long term goals and then surge your operations in support of those goals to accomplish the given task.

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ORIGINAL: Alfred


The main strategic reason why Lowpe has lost the initiative is that he is attempting to defend everything

The good news for Lowpe is that the loss of Palembang provides him with a good opportunity to land a crushing blow against Allied forces. It is possible to trap on Sumatra all those Allied forces.


4. Park the KB in the Java Sea. No matter how attractive its use elsewhere may seem, no matter how much operational damage the ships have, just park it there. Get the ships out of the shipyards if necessary.

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ORIGINAL: ALFRED
Again sacrifice ASW operations, you don't need them when you don't have convoys moving raw materials from the SRA to back to the Home Islands.

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

5. Stop any redeployment of China LCUs to Manchukuo.
There is no city in Manchukuo worth the Stalingrad treatment. A fighting withdrawal is in order, trading space for time.

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

Whilst AE is a game and not a true simulation, it usually does reward the employment of real military strategy and tactics.

I have always said that once the Japanese player loses the initiative it is only a matter of time before the game is lost.  But precisely because AE is a game a good Japanese player can maintain the initiative long enough that an Allied victory as measured by the game's victory points metric is unattainable.  Currently in this game Lowpe has lost the initiative but it is possible to regain it.  My recent suggestion on using SST was a tactical response (in itself insufficient) to try to regain the initiative.

The main strategic reason why Lowpe has lost the initiative is that he is attempting to defend everything.  This is never a sound military strategy, not even for the Allied player.  The hard strategic dilemma is determining what is expendable, unpalatable as it may be.  Just as important is in determining what is only an ephemeral success.

Years ago I explained in some detail to Bullwinkle why and how Japan could thrive even if it only captured Palembang in mid 1943.  This of course is a heretical thought to JFB players who almost without exception unthinkingly repeat the mantra that Palembang must be captured ASAP.  This game shows how a good Allied player can defeat the Palembang Gambit.  It has never made strategic sense to rush for Palembang when Allied airpower surrounds the oilfields.  Allied air dominance allows Allied warships to operate in the area and with that comes the opportunity to bring in land reinforcements.  In the real world a good military commander ensures that the enemy forces are defeated first before worrying about occupying terrain.

The good news for Lowpe is that the loss of Palembang provides him with a good opportunity to land a crushing blow against Allied forces.  It is possible to trap on Sumatra all those Allied forces.  This requires achieving Japanese air superiority by undertaking the following simultaneous actions.

1.  Kuching and Singkawang become airfield bastions.  Base Netties plus 1E bombers and fighters, if necessary remove them from any current ASW operations.  Until Allied fighters are decimated, limit range of bombers to cover Allied naval operations in the Java Sea to both interdict Allied naval bombardment of these airfields and to sever the Sumatra-Java SLOC.

2.  Speed up the capture of Singapore.  Retask the 15th Army to assist the 25th Army.  Burma can wait.  Excluding the Borneo based bombers all other area bombers are tasked with night time airfield attacks on Singapore.  Again sacrifice ASW operations, you don't need them when you don't have convoys moving raw materials from the SRA to back to the Home Islands.

3.  Forget about Palembang, it can be recaptured later.  Instead capture Medan, Langsa and Sabang.  They will not be strongly defended and it cuts the Burma/Ceylon - Singapore SLOC.  Use Japanese barges offensively from Malaya to capture them.

4.  Park the KB in the Java Sea.  No matter how attractive its use elsewhere may seem, no matter how much operational damage the ships have, just park it there.  Get the ships out of the shipyards if necessary.

5.  Stop any redeployment of China LCUs to Manchukuo.  The entire IJA in China must launch a General Offensive now.  Concentrate on capturing Wenchow (this requires an immediate reinforcement of the besiegers) and a single axis drive (2 axes if you have sufficient troops) straight at Chungking.  Disregard any Allied moves (be they air or land) in China which do not threaten your operations against Wenchow and Chungking.  By pass Changsha and Sian where substantial Allied forces are probably located.

6.  There is no city in Manchukuo worth the Stalingrad treatment.  A fighting withdrawal is in order, trading space for time.  Think of 1812 and the constant harassment on the flanks endured by the Grand Armee on the march to Moscow.  Unlike the Allied player, you can rebuild industry after its recapture.  Currently the Soviets are frontloading everything into the shwerpunckt; hit them from behind, hit them when they lose all those divisions later in 1942.  Whether it is April 1942 or August 1945 Japan cannot stand up toe to toe with the Soviet bear so concentrate on sniping at them with the in situ forces.  This is the one place where ASW operations can be justified as you need safety for your convoys in the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan; use the restricted air units here for ASW.

7.  The Australian 13th Bde (plus other relevant Australian units) has been spotted at Palembang.  This means West Australia has been denuded of its garrison.  Opportunity exists to sneak in (obviously after all that heavy traffic at Perth intel has ceased) a small kamikaze invasion convoy to capture Busselton and then move on to Perth.  This operation can be the end play of a travelling circus that captures en route lightly defended bases in Celebes and Timor.

None of this is without cost.  But you must exchange a defend mindset with an offensive mindset which says to the Allied player, successful Japanese offensive action will cause more harm to the overall Allied war effort than the opposite Allied offensive action will cause to the overall Japanese war effort.

Alfred

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

It's my impression that air ASW does fairly little until the pilots get trained/experienced up to a high level. Reassigning air units on ASW to the more presently critical use Alfred identified is right move, IMO. Yes, danger. Yes, "there will be blood".

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ORIGINAL: offenseman

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ORIGINAL: TheElf

Just out of curiousity how healthy are your Rikkos and what airfiled might you be able to use to lock him down? If you are worried about his CAP at surrounding fields and your Fighter force is stretched too thin, you could bound your Naval search to areas that wouldn't include heavy CAPs and restrict your Rikkos range so they don't ventrue to far toward a heavily CAP'd base hex.

Just my thoughts...anyone else can weigh in.

Aggressive and perhaps unexpected with the way people tend to guard those early game elite Rikkos. It is just the "stab him in the eye" move that might get a lot of results. I like it.

IN PERPETUUM SINGULARIS SEDES

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ORIGINAL: TheElf



Lowpe, please don't take any of this as criticism. You made a brave choice to take on the Russian Bear and I commend you for it. It is fun for us all to watch this develop, and you have been a brilliant player and an entertaining storyteller in your AAR to this point.

Don't get down on yourself!

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ORIGINAL: TheElf

That is why I suggest using discretion and bounding their ops so that Lowpe can hopefully mitigate their losses to an unusually strong ABDA air presence in the SRA. One way to do that is to focus Air power BACK in the Maylay peninsula and surge to reduce/occupy Obvert's fighter force. I would do this above overcommitting air power to Russia. Once you step in that mess you have to commit, but there may be time to regain the initiative in and around Singers, otherwise the situation is very bleak. You REALLY can't allow the allied player to be a thorn at Singers

A surge in air Optempo to in the SRA will likely not affect what is happening in Russia in any case, as their is little IJAAF Air superiority can do to stop the Russian Army. Could you take on the VVS, of course, and likely win, the real problem though is the ground actions. IJA units can still move to reinforce the line with the idea that after the SRA is secured, the Air power can be reallocated to a longer more balanced campaign in Russia.

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ORIGINAL: adarbrauner

Finally, isn' it time for Lowpe to confront Obvert regarding gamey flippings of bases in Manchuria to the American possession rather than Soviet solely ( this is terrible)? Maybe a corrective home rule, forbidding also the use by what already been acquired to American sovereignity (or an editor correction)?

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ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

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ORIGINAL: adarbrauner

Finally, isn' it time for Lowpe to confront Obvert regarding gamey flippings of bases in Manchuria to the American possession rather than Soviet solely ( this is terrible)? Maybe a corrective home rule, forbidding also the use by what already been acquired to American sovereignity (or an editor correction)?

American flags don't represent the formation of a US protectorate within Soviet borders. Territory isn't being given to the US or annexed by it. It's just a game mechanism that allows for the basing of US air forces. Given that Uncle Joe is currently fighting on two fronts I'm pretty sure he'd be ok with it.