OPilot
Posts: 28
Joined: 9/20/2012 From: North Carolina Status: offline
|
First, I want to congratulate apbarog on his total victory over the Japanese Empire. This 2-1/2 year journey was quite a learning experience. I am very competitive and I am not used to losing. I more than met my match with apbarog. I had intended to read the entire AAR before commenting but I only made it through November 1942 and realized that it would take at least another week to get through this very well written account of our game. I still intend to read it all but I am itching to start another game against apbarog as the Allies. I’m just hoping I can be a worthy opponent and not succumb to apbarog by an early Japanese auto victory. I’m sure apbarog will start a new AAR so you can follow along with our next war which will undoubtedly be as exciting as the last one. The one word that best describes this last war was “ACTION”. There was action, action, and more action throughout the entire war. Both of us made sure of that. I was always on the edge of my seat watching the combat replays. Everyday I looked forward to an email from apbarog and rushed to watch the combat replay. What was going to happen next? Before the Japanese were even thinking about going on the defensive, the Allies were on the offensive and never stopped until eventually invading Honshu. In fact, the Allies reached Japan so soon that there was no time for its economy to collapse as I have been told usually happens. When I started this game, I was concerned about Japan running out of fuel and HI points but that did not happen in our game. I decided that Japan needed to conquer as many oil centers and refineries as possible and begin shipping oil and fuel back to Japan. That drove Japan to bypass Luzon and go for Sumatra, Singapore, Borneo, and Java as quickly as possible. Burma was next because it had oil centers and refineries. Then, Northern China was in the cross-hairs. Bloated tankers were continuously sailing from Singapore to Japan. By August 1943, the Japanese empire had about 4,000,000 units of fuel most of which was in Japan. All heavy industries had plenty of fuel and were cranking out HI points and supply. By December 1943, there was about 5,300,000 tons of supply and 2,600,000 HI points throughout the empire. It was obvious that there would be no shortage of fuel, supplies, and HI points. Ship production was accelerated. Engine and air frame factories were expanded to use the excess HI points. Some HI factories were able to sit idle. At wars end, Japan still had 2,000,000 units of fuel. The economy could have kept going until the end of 1944 without running out of anything but the war did last that long. This might be the case for expending too much effort on the economy and not enough on preventing shipping from being lost. At times, ships were risked in an effort to bring more oil, fuel, and resources back to Japan. I learned that I am able to successfully run the Japanese economy and next I need to learn to better run the combat portion of the war. In our next war when I play as the Allies, there will not be any economy to deal with. Hopefully, I can better keep my eye on the rest of the war. Apbarog, look out! Here I come!
|