Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

Taking out the Soviets would mean that the USA and the Anzacs would be pretty much alone except for the remains of the other Commonwealth countries. Unless the Soviets have moved engineers around, there are two bases pretty much alone along the rail line. Scovorodino and Mogocha are the bases. Bomb the NKVD units there and send in the paratroopers. I do not know if those bases get reinforcements and if so, when they get them. Recon all of the other bases and if they have resources or industry and are unoccupied, then paradrop on them.

Komsomolosk is vulnerable to an invasion up the river. Then the Soviets would be in a deficit of supplies and their only on map aircraft factories would be captured. Plant minefields on the turn that you declare war and have low Nav to attack any minesweepers.

Not having to garrison Manchuria and Korea other than against invasions would make it much tougher for the Allies.

You probably plan on buying out the Chinese units anyway, just send them north first.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Congrats Castor! masterful job thus far. Taking out SOV and bottling them up in the North would mean one less opponent in '45, assuming the game would ever get there.

can you post a shot of the WITP Chart tab to see how large your economy actually is? Thanks!

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

The 2000 AV garrison for Mudken is a database error. It should be 200 AV.

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Congrats Castor! masterful job thus far. Taking out SOV and bottling them up in the North would mean one less opponent in '45, assuming the game would ever get there.

can you post a shot of the WITP Chart tab to see how large your economy actually is? Thanks!

Thanks! Here's the economy overview.

Already decided not to attack the Soviets. The reason is simple, there is no need to and the risk is too high that it would take too long. When I was attacking India I didn't expect all the opportunities I had but with every stack of enemy troops destroyed the possibilities there grew bigger. Initial plan was only to seize the area around Calcutta and everything East of it while destroying as many Commonwealth units as possible AND destroying the Royal Navy. Now the task to kill the RN failed (except a BB sunk) as Mundy didn't give me more than one chance to do so and when KB was just next to the full fleet of the Royal Navy Kido Butai did literally nothing. Failing to kill the Royal Navy we literally killed the whole Indian/British Army on the subcontinent though and the enemy shouldn't have much more than a couple of bgds, base forces left plus the emergency reinforcements he received and they are all most likely on Ceylon or evacuated to Australia as the rest of the bases on the continent I didn't take seem all to be empty.

Would the plan have been to take all of India AND China AND attacking the Soviets I would have marched way faster in India, bringing the campaign to an end until 8/42 at the latest but that would have required way riskier moves. I am 100% certain I could knock out the Soviets completely given what I have available at the moment but not within what I would call an "acceptable timeframe". We have pretty much knocked out the USN with their loss of four CVs and countless other ships in mid 42 but Mundy will have enough stuff available to go on the offense by mid 43 and that's what I am expecting him to do. By then, it would be impossible to have destroyed the Soviets AND moved all those divisions worth 25,000 av plus all the support stuff to their new fronts and build up the bases. The way this campaign looks like one could think it was easy but it wasn't to be honest, my LOS is/was totally stretched and I had pretty much my whole Navy in operation for the whole year. I takes hundreds of ships to move a dozen divisions plus support from one end of the map to the other and then that fleet has to go back to pick up the next batch of troops. India is finished and so is China but bringing everything into position to be ready for an attack on the Soviets would require at least until mid March 43 and then I expect the campaign taking me another 6 months if nothing goes wrong. Pulling that Army out of Russia again would require another three months with the ships going back and forth so we would be in the absolute perfect situation by the beginning of 44. But that is 6 months too late and by the assumption the campaign goes as planned. Early 44 is too late!

No doubt the Soviets will steamroll me in 45 but hey, that's not in 1/45 but 8/45 and by then I have long stopped to think I can stop the Allied juggernaut. Yes, I would gain some industry (if not destroyed) and yes, I could use another couple of thousand av of ground troops against the rest of the Allied, but we're not talking about the 8000 av you have to use to garrison Mandchuko, it's way less as there are still bases requirering huge garrisons. Mukden has over 2000 av garrison requirement, so we would probably be closer to another 5000 av available for other fronts, so that's equal to some 12-13 IJA divs. A nice army, but not worth the risk. Every experienced pilot lost against the Soviets is a pilot less available against the USN which is the priority target of both the IJAAF and IJNAF.

Which IJ commander wouldn't immediately take the situation we face now when China and India are knocked out as well as a big part of the available USN in 42? We gained 1,500,000 tons of supply alone in Bombay, destroyed something like 5-6000 av (I don't even know how much it was in total) of Commonwealth troops while having a fully intact IJN, IJA and their air forces. We can take the Southern Area Army now and use those 10,000 av to move into defensive positions, another 7-8000 av from China within the next months too. That's a nice number of troops

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy

quote:

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

The 2000 AV garrison for Mudken is a database error. It should be 200 AV.

yeah, but it is still there...

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Congrats Castor! masterful job thus far. Taking out SOV and bottling them up in the North would mean one less opponent in '45, assuming the game would ever get there.

can you post a shot of the WITP Chart tab to see how large your economy actually is? Thanks!

Thanks! Here's the economy overview.

Already decided not to attack the Soviets. The reason is simple, there is no need to and the risk is too high that it would take too long. When I was attacking India I didn't expect all the opportunities I had but with every stack of enemy troops destroyed the possibilities there grew bigger. Initial plan was only to seize the area around Calcutta and everything East of it while destroying as many Commonwealth units as possible AND destroying the Royal Navy. Now the task to kill the RN failed (except a BB sunk) as Mundy didn't give me more than one chance to do so and when KB was just next to the full fleet of the Royal Navy Kido Butai did literally nothing. Failing to kill the Royal Navy we literally killed the whole Indian/British Army on the subcontinent though and the enemy shouldn't have much more than a couple of bgds, base forces left plus the emergency reinforcements he received and they are all most likely on Ceylon or evacuated to Australia as the rest of the bases on the continent I didn't take seem all to be empty.

Would the plan have been to take all of India AND China AND attacking the Soviets I would have marched way faster in India, bringing the campaign to an end until 8/42 at the latest but that would have required way riskier moves. I am 100% certain I could knock out the Soviets completely given what I have available at the moment but not within what I would call an "acceptable timeframe". We have pretty much knocked out the USN with their loss of four CVs and countless other ships in mid 42 but Mundy will have enough stuff available to go on the offense by mid 43 and that's what I am expecting him to do. By then, it would be impossible to have destroyed the Soviets AND moved all those divisions worth 25,000 av plus all the support stuff to their new fronts and build up the bases. The way this campaign looks like one could think it was easy but it wasn't to be honest, my LOS is/was totally stretched and I had pretty much my whole Navy in operation for the whole year. I takes hundreds of ships to move a dozen divisions plus support from one end of the map to the other and then that fleet has to go back to pick up the next batch of troops. India is finished and so is China but bringing everything into position to be ready for an attack on the Soviets would require at least until mid March 43 and then I expect the campaign taking me another 6 months if nothing goes wrong. Pulling that Army out of Russia again would require another three months with the ships going back and forth so we would be in the absolute perfect situation by the beginning of 44. But that is 6 months too late and by the assumption the campaign goes as planned. Early 44 is too late!

No doubt the Soviets will steamroll me in 45 but hey, that's not in 1/45 but 8/45 and by then I have long stopped to think I can stop the Allied juggernaut. Yes, I would gain some industry (if not destroyed) and yes, I could use another couple of thousand av of ground troops against the rest of the Allied, but we're not talking about the 8000 av you have to use to garrison Mandchuko, it's way less as there are still bases requirering huge garrisons. Mukden has over 2000 av garrison requirement, so we would probably be closer to another 5000 av available for other fronts, so that's equal to some 12-13 IJA divs. A nice army, but not worth the risk. Every experienced pilot lost against the Soviets is a pilot less available against the USN which is the priority target of both the IJAAF and IJNAF.

Which IJ commander wouldn't immediately take the situation we face now when China and India are knocked out as well as a big part of the available USN in 42? We gained 1,500,000 tons of supply alone in Bombay, destroyed something like 5-6000 av (I don't even know how much it was in total) of Commonwealth troops while having a fully intact IJN, IJA and their air forces. We can take the Southern Area Army now and use those 10,000 av to move into defensive positions, another 7-8000 av from China within the next months too. That's a nice number of troops

Wow. over 15,000 HI/day. wow.
5M fuel. holy crap.
15M resource.
This all translates into an incredible number of 3rd gen planes. Not sure what your RnD plan for fighters is, but whatever you have lined up, you will have a LOT of them. I would caution you: just do not over build 1st and 2nd gen planes. Build enough for what you need, but not more. Save that supply for 3rd gen AC's.

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy


3rd generation fighters won't be seen until mid 44 at the earliest. Main fighters for the most of the duration will be George of which production started in 12/42 and further R&D is fully running for the second model with service rating 2 and the Frank, which will be available in 5 or 6/43 I guess. Also with the Frank, focussing on the second model as it has a gunvalue of 16. As there was no extended airwar I didn't build thousands of Zeroes or Tojos, just what was needed for upgrades and a reserve in the pool. A6M5 is only built for carriers and all have been equipped already with a monthly build rate of only 119. Most important at the moment is the Frank, to finally face out the undergunned and too slow Tojo.

Sams will be seen on carriers, Shindens for point defense. IJAAF will go for Ki-83 due to the engine and the centerlined armament as well as the speed. But we're talking about late 44 early 45, the coming two years we will only see Georges and Franks (and Zekes on the carriers).

edit: forgot about the upgrade path of Frank factories. The -a model also upgrades to the -r so I will have to skip the -b, otherwhise the factories won't upgrade and I would have to spend a 250k supplies to repair them for the -b model. Which leaves the question if it's even worth it to R&D the -r as it's only 5 mph faster than the -a and has a 3k higher ceiling and the ceiling is still lower than those of Allied fighters so it's no improvement. Means all the Frank R&D is probably going into the Ki-83 and there the prob is the Ha-43 engine, which probably won't be available early enough.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

quote:

ORIGINAL: castor troy


3rd generation fighters won't be seen until mid 44 at the earliest. Main fighters for the most of the duration will be George of which production started in 12/42 and further R&D is fully running for the second model with service rating 2 and the Frank, which will be available in 5 or 6/43 I guess. Also with the Frank, focussing on the second model as it has a gunvalue of 16. As there was no extended airwar I didn't build thousands of Zeroes or Tojos, just what was needed for upgrades and a reserve in the pool. A6M5 is only built for carriers and all have been equipped already with a monthly build rate of only 119. Most important at the moment is the Frank, to finally face out the undergunned and too slow Tojo.

Sams will be seen on carriers, Shindens for point defense. IJAAF will go for Ki-83 due to the engine and the centerlined armament as well as the speed. But we're talking about late 44 early 45, the coming two years we will only see Georges and Franks (and Zekes on the carriers).

edit: forgot about the upgrade path of Frank factories. The -a model also upgrades to the -r so I will have to skip the -b, otherwhise the factories won't upgrade and I would have to spend a 250k supplies to repair them for the -b model. Which leaves the question if it's even worth it to R&D the -r as it's only 5 mph faster than the -a and has a 3k higher ceiling and the ceiling is still lower than those of Allied fighters so it's no improvement. Means all the Frank R&D is probably going into the Ki-83 and there the prob is the Ha-43 engine, which probably won't be available early enough.

OK, so pretty standard fighter progression, nothing wrong with it at all. So, just take it easy on the George and Franka. The Frank -r model is considered 3rd gen and pairs well with the Ki-83.
The A7M will surprise you, the climb and the speed differences from the George will show up.
Yeah, sad about how the Frank-b model isn't on the upgrade path, so you really can't build it. I did once, just for testing. A Beast for sure, but not better than the Ki-83 and costs almost as much to get it in RnD terms.

Try and get the A7M as fast as possible. Don't worry about how many RnD factories you have on it because you will love being able to produce so many so fast. It will go everywhere and you have ~600 in the KB alone to replace and you want that to happen ASAP … and then depending upon your HR's, but resizing the IJN fighter groups to 48/49 will require a lot more planes, and then of course you are going to use them ...