Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum

Beanie (Norm) sent me a PM so I'm trying to get word back from his opponent to continue as new Allied High Command.
I'll try to do an AAR as this game will be different from others.

Please stand by,
Michael

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when I typed the search keyword "Portland" in this forum, I didn't get any records returned

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I'm ready to give up on PBEM for a long time again because the rewards don't seem to be worth the risks.

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I think Hans just enjoys twisting JFB tails.

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ps. I won't deny the last accusation is often true, but it is not the source of my passion on this point.

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

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ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Come on guys, you're grasping at straws.

The ship availability interface is a report interface that is independent of the map.

It doesn't tell you ships are building at a given location it tells you the ARRIVE at that locations.

Yes, perhaps the asterisk does have the meaning Lowpe speculates, but like much of the appendage documentation where the heck is it ever explained.

So, yea, you've made the point that if a player goes digging deeply enough into the data base they CAN glean the fact the ships are being built at these shipyards that are invisible on the map.

However, none of that satisfies my point that a GRAPHIC ON THE MAP is what is needed to give the player a proper heads up regarding his assets and the need to protect them.

Its a huge design shortfall.


I'm a designer. Its what I do for a living. Trust me to know when a design falls short of the mark.

Hans, by your logic, everything is independent of the map. Everything non-map is somehow a strawman argument...

The map doesn't tell you whether or not your bombers at that base (which you may not be able to see if you have too many groups there, because the mouse-over on the map is limited) are at a large enough airfield to fly at their normal ranges/payloads. It doesn't tell you whether or not you have torpedoes. It doesn't tell you whether or not the airfield is overstacked.

The map doesn't tell you if your TFs have fuel.

The map doesn't tell you how far that CV TF that you detected can move and then strike at you.

You need to open up other screens for all of these things,

I could go on and on and on and on and on...

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ORIGINAL: HansBolter

The point I am endeavoring to make and you are doing everything you can to avoid acknowledging is that an icon on the map with information about what is building in that shipyard would have gone a long way toward giving players a heads heads up about an asset that needs protecting.

The map gives me a heads up that there are aircraft factories at a given locale that needs protecting, but completely ignores alerting me to the presence of the construction shipyard.

How can anyone with functional gray matter between their ears fail to see that the presence of the icon would have been helpful?

How can you keep arguing against this?

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ORIGINAL: Bearcat2


In mid december [17th] 1941 there are some changes, there are 3 lines of controlled mines[ 156 mines, these are Army mines, they are maintained by Army boats] across the Columbia, not 7 groups. Defense command did not even entertain the notion that an enemy could get to Portland, they didn't think it was probable to get to Longview. In mid december 1941, the Army took AA troops from the Atlantic area and moved them to the Pacific theater to man AA units. Portland was one of first 4 to get AA. The Army did consider it possible that a TF could approach the coast under cover of storms and launch a air attack on Portland. There were no railway guns available for the defense of the Columbia. There were also 2 Eng Bn's [29th & 30th; actually companies] in Portland. There were by Jan 42' 2000 militia in Portland and 500+] in Astoria and 300+ in Longview

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ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

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ORIGINAL: Bearcat2


In mid december [17th] 1941 there are some changes, there are 3 lines of controlled mines[ 156 mines, these are Army mines, they are maintained by Army boats] across the Columbia, not 7 groups. Defense command did not even entertain the notion that an enemy could get to Portland, they didn't think it was probable to get to Longview. In mid december 1941, the Army took AA troops from the Atlantic area and moved them to the Pacific theater to man AA units. Portland was one of first 4 to get AA. The Army did consider it possible that a TF could approach the coast under cover of storms and launch a air attack on Portland. There were no railway guns available for the defense of the Columbia. There were also 2 Eng Bn's [29th & 30th; actually companies] in Portland. There were by Jan 42' 2000 militia in Portland and 500+] in Astoria and 300+ in Longview

Very rationale, and Which the OP failed to do ...

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ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum

It's the Allied turn, so I'll treat it like turn 2 and go through the whole map.
Lot's of stuff to do...click, click, click, etc.

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ORIGINAL: traskott

West Coast can be reasonabily well defended since january 1942. A good handle of the assets can make an USA invasion very difficult. 1 division per city plus 1 inf regt in coastal minor citys and end of the threat. The 7th Div which protects SF can be used as fire brigade too as it's armored and it make an initial assault VERY rough.

Obviously the allied must devote part of 8th December turn in turning ON all forts at WC/CDN

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ORIGINAL: patrickl

In real life 40,000 Japanese soldiers cannot stand in the way of US Army wanting to take Portland back. So Portland shipbuilding facilities should survive after the IJA got wipe out.

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

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ORIGINAL: patrickl

In real life 40,000 Japanese soldiers cannot stand in the way of US Army wanting to take Portland back. So Portland shipbuilding facilities should survive after the IJA got wipe out.

Except for the whole sabotage thing they could do.

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ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Silly that taking out Portland for one day, in Jan '42, somehow "kills" all the CVE's and tankers for the rest of the war.

As if the US couldn't build these ships elsewhere, as if they were planned to be built on Jan 1 '42. Like we'd be building liberty ships at 1x per hour (or whatever) in the Gulf coast.

Or "omg, Portland got invaded in Jan 1942, I guess that means we can't build a B17s in, idk, Omaha, or anywhere else. Them damn sneaky Japs ruining our unbuilt airplane factories!!!"

It's just a silly design decision. I'd say at best, give all those ships and planes a 1 month delay and have them come in on the East Coast.

Going for the West Coast on a "raid and destroy" mission is akin to loading up all the troops and making a beeline for Nomuea in the first week of game of UV.

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ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Silly that taking out Portland for one day, in Jan '42, somehow "kills" all the CVE's and tankers for the rest of the war.

As if the US couldn't build these ships elsewhere, as if they were planned to be built on Jan 1 '42. Like we'd be building liberty ships at 1x per hour (or whatever) in the Gulf coast.

Or "omg, Portland got invaded in Jan 1942, I guess that means we can't build a B17s in, idk, Omaha, or anywhere else. Them damn sneaky Japs ruining our unbuilt airplane factories!!!"

It's just a silly design decision. I'd say at best, give all those ships and planes a 1 month delay and have them come in on the East Coast.



Going for the West Coast on a "raid and destroy" mission is akin to loading up all the troops and making a beeline for Nomuea in the first week of game of UV.

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ORIGINAL: HansBolter

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ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Silly that taking out Portland for one day, in Jan '42, somehow "kills" all the CVE's and tankers for the rest of the war.

As if the US couldn't build these ships elsewhere, as if they were planned to be built on Jan 1 '42. Like we'd be building liberty ships at 1x per hour (or whatever) in the Gulf coast.

Or "omg, Portland got invaded in Jan 1942, I guess that means we can't build a B17s in, idk, Omaha, or anywhere else. Them damn sneaky Japs ruining our unbuilt airplane factories!!!"

It's just a silly design decision. I'd say at best, give all those ships and planes a 1 month delay and have them come in on the East Coast.



Going for the West Coast on a "raid and destroy" mission is akin to loading up all the troops and making a beeline for Nomuea in the first week of game of UV.

Thank you. It refreshing to get a corroborating opinion on juts how much of a weasel tactic this is.

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ORIGINAL: DRF99

I see this as an oversight or at least something that didn't make the cut in the design of the game, fair enough.

Using picket ships, "Sir Robin", Fortress Palembang, though they may not have been done in real life, could have been done given the political and military will. I see these as abstractions. Universal supply, off map movement file consumption, and aircraft replacements I see as a similar abstractions.

However, the capture of a port destroying ships that won't be built for years I see as an oversight. It's not something that would or could happen in real life.

If the game is ever updated, I would like to see construction shipyards. Capture would cause any ships under construction to be delayed by some amount for each day the city was captured and the construction shipyard could be damaged. At the same time, I can see political points being subtracted each day for certain events such as a Japanese invasion of the continental US, an allied invasion of Hokkaido, and similar events that would have been catastrophic politically in real life.

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna


...If Japan had landed in force in the PNW on sabotage missions and managed to "capture" what is the Portland hex in the game, even if only for a day... fine, I'll grant that the steel and other materials used to build those CVEs (and other ships) would have been diverted to other shipyards and the CVEs (and other ships) probably still would have been produced. But such an action would have had a lasting impact on the war, which is precisely what VPs are supposed to be an abstraction of. The psychological effect of a successful (even if only momentarily) hit-and-run mission by the Japanese in the war would have been immense. If the shipyards at Portland had been sabotaged, regardless of whether they'd been repaired, who knows what resources would have been devoted to protected CONUS deep into the war against any more end-run sabotage missions by Japan? Or the aircraft factories in Seattle? And the destruction of industrial assets is not an inconsequential matter, in any case - it would take months to retool or build additional factories to replace those lost, particularly aircraft factories...

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ORIGINAL: Alfred

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ORIGINAL: Lokasenna


...If Japan had landed in force in the PNW on sabotage missions and managed to "capture" what is the Portland hex in the game, even if only for a day... fine, I'll grant that the steel and other materials used to build those CVEs (and other ships) would have been diverted to other shipyards and the CVEs (and other ships) probably still would have been produced. But such an action would have had a lasting impact on the war, which is precisely what VPs are supposed to be an abstraction of. The psychological effect of a successful (even if only momentarily) hit-and-run mission by the Japanese in the war would have been immense. If the shipyards at Portland had been sabotaged, regardless of whether they'd been repaired, who knows what resources would have been devoted to protected CONUS deep into the war against any more end-run sabotage missions by Japan? Or the aircraft factories in Seattle? And the destruction of industrial assets is not an inconsequential matter, in any case - it would take months to retool or build additional factories to replace those lost, particularly aircraft factories...

You are greatly underplaying the dramatic real world economic disruption which would have occurred. There was no industrial slack elsewhere in the USA to simply allow relocation of this ship production easily with only a relatively small delay in production.

1. There was a reason why only 6 new automobiles were built during the war in the USA. The steel, aluminium, labour etc was needed for war production. Civilian demand for automobiles was still present. So what other suitable civilian or wartime production could be further curtailed to provide the resources to fully accommodate the loss of Portland.

2. Yes, even the USA economy was limited as to the number of suitable sites for construction of capital class ships. If there were so many virgin green sites available for plonking down these shipyards, why were they not built at the time? Why wait until well into 1943 and later to lay down these keels when these virgin sites apparently could have been built starting on 8 December 1941. Why build ships sequentially in a shipyard if they could all be built simultaneously; 1 capital ship per shipyard would have seen all Essex class carriers operational in April 1943, all Iowa class battleships operational in late 1943, all the Montana class battleships completed and operational in 1944. Then of course why wait for all the smaller fry such as the Fletchers, the landing ships, the Gato and Balao class subs to come in dribs, when with all this implied virgin green sites available for building shipyards they could have come in all at once the lead vessel of the class had been completed.

3. Labour is a critical input into the construction of ships. Forget for a moment the immense difficulties which surround constructing the construction facilities elsewhere, obtaining the necessary skilled labour would be a huge obstacles. Japan capturing Portland not only entails the destruction of the shipyards but also the loss of all the skilled workers employed in the shipyards. Unless someone is going to put forward the fantasy argument that any American territory which was captured had the entire population evacuated simultaneously as the territory was lost thereby maintaining full industrial production literally up to the last minute and making the skilled labour immediately available to work elsewhere.

Alfred