Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Frank

Put your bombers to 35000 feet. Make your high attacks weak (only 2 or 4 planes). He surely might not want to burn his precious fuel for nothing. You will make him think he cannot touch them after a while and might put his cap down. Then hit him with a low attack and put his airfield out of action for a while.

quote:

ORIGINAL: String

Hmm, August you say? I'd say fight. If you have large air support formations nearby with C-47's present then airlift them to Canton, faster this way. Catalinas can be used for this too.

Fast transport in as many marine CD batallions you can, also send in as many coastal AA units you can find in range. the 155mm gun equipped CD units are good too. Is Oglala around? If use her to start mining immediatly. Naturally, a division or two would be nice too.

Now I'd use the 4 old slow BB's along with the fast one as a bombardment guard at Canton so you can gather as many airgroups possible there, marines squadrons can be transported in via carriers etc.

quote:

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Great piece of intel, but like you said Canton isn't easy to defend. It isn't too close to other built up bases to make your lba effective and I imagine you can't have too much av support within range. You'd have to transport at least a division to throw back an invasion. Anything less is just IJN vps. Even then you'll eventually lose whatever you reinforce Canton with (depending on how stubborn your opponent is). Unless you can build up significant av support in the area before the invasion comes, not much point in defending it. Just my two cents.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

quote:

ORIGINAL: String

Hmm, August you say? I'd say fight. If you have large air support formations nearby with C-47's present then airlift them to Canton, faster this way. Catalinas can be used for this too.

Fast transport in as many marine CD batallions you can, also send in as many coastal AA units you can find in range. the 155mm gun equipped CD units are good too. Is Oglala around? If use her to start mining immediatly. Naturally, a division or two would be nice too.

Now I'd use the 4 old slow BB's along with the fast one as a bombardment guard at Canton so you can gather as many airgroups possible there, marines squadrons can be transported in via carriers etc.

I was thinking that, but I've lost track of Tophat's BBs, which are my biggest worry in any invasion. Since my surface combat ships don't have great experience they could get hammered by the Japanese and still not stop an invasion.

Thanks for the comments -

Dave

quote:

ORIGINAL: PzB

My Jap opponent gave an objective to most of his troops...90% of them are fictional.
So this may be a ploy to draw your attention in the wrong direction.

Suggest you watch your hiney

quote:

It all depends on the airfield size of Canton island. If it's 4-5 then things are easier, if it's less than things are harder. Hopefully you have some beauforts nearby, i don't think you have enough time to get them from australia. If you don't then hopefully you have some avenger sqdns around. if you don't then use disembark some from your carriers. 3 would be enough imho.

Now to the point.

He will probably try to start the invasion with an initial dash-in-bombardment-dash-out move to shut down your airfield there. This means at worst his fast battleships and perhaps Yamato if it has less than 4-5 sys damage (which I doubt). Otherwise he would have to come within range 4 of canton the previous day and that would mean torpedoes.

This means a night engagement of four of his paper BB's vs 5 of yours + accompanying cruisers. I'd suggest adding some of your newer CL's in the TF too, but try to keep it under 20 ships. 5 BB's 4 CA's 2 CL's 6 DD's would be my bet. Too large SF TF's tend to become ineffective. If you have DD's to spare then create one or two 6 DD taskforces with the sole purpose of harassment, give them a cautious commander so they'd disengage when raped... but If you happen to have PT's there then dont use DD's and use PT's instead.

Unless he is incredibly lucky he won't bombard anything after engaging those taskforces and some of his ships will end up with enough damage to be within torpedo strike range the next day.

With your airfields protected from the sea he has to move in his carriers, which means he has to strike at your airfield, which means that he will suffer awful losses vs your AA if you moved in as many AA units you could find (base forces are nice too) And he has to come within striking range of your bombers. He won't suffer many hits, or any at all most probably, but it will fatigue his fighters and dilute his cap. And THEN you move in your carriers and plaster him. Remember, he is far away from his big ports and with japanese damage control we all know what it means.

atleast that's the plan

quote:

ORIGINAL: wobbly

Homan - the Jap graveyard!!!

quote:

ORIGINAL: wobbly

Homan - the Jap graveyard!!!

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ORIGINAL: AmiralLaurent

Hi Dave, I mostly play Japan but about points my own point of view is the following:

_ Japan itself has more than 20000 strategic targets (couting ressource and oil centers, HI, various factories, repair yards) and each is giving you two points. So that is at least 40 000 possible points. A B-29 campain over Japan may score thousand of points each month.

That's assuming that B-29s will function in 1944/1945.

_ there is no limit about the air losses except the will of the Japanese player. Anyway at some time the Japanese player should hide away most of the times and Allied op losses alone will be heavier than Jap ones.

That's why I don't like to run non-stop air campaigns without any real objective.

_ every Japanese ship on the map will be eventually sunk by the Allied player. That is about 20-25000 points (around 6000 for warships of DD size and bigger, around 3000 for subs and more than 10000 for transports, plus all the naval auxiliaries).

That's my goal, and I can do it against the AI, but against a PBEM opponent it won't be a given.

_ it is very difficult to score much points by killing Japanese troops. Most of the late games have Japanese troop points still inferior to Allied ones.

I know what you mean, but I'm not going to talk about ground combat again...

_ you will score for bases by taking back Singapore, Rangoon, Manila and Hong Kong or by landing in Japan. Other bases will give you few points.

So there aren't any "secret" Japanese point hordes hidden away in bases anywhere. Too bad...

quote:

ORIGINAL: String

Also, be very mindful that the bases give points to both sides. So if you capture the base in 44 then not only do you gain its points but you reduce japanese points as well, so capturing bases that are worth a lot to japanese can become quite profitable

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

I just spent the time to catch up on your excellent AAR. Tophat is following a very different strategy from Mogami and I think you have a very good strategy for beating Tophat.

Tophat is playing this game very tough and very smart. His approach may not be "sexy" on the outside, but he has achieved what he wanted to date. And he has all of his forces available to capitalize on any mistakes by me. I've got to be smarter and more careful.

Okay, let me get my cards right out on the table - I want to win this game. I want a screen to pop up on my LCD that tells me that Japan has surrendered and that I have won this game on points. Mike Wood tells me that I can win a PBEM game if I can be the "cleverer" of the two opponents. So in what clever ways can I amass the points necessary to win?

First off, what do I have to do to achieve this? My opponent currently has just over 13,000 points. I have around 5500 points. We are in early August 1942. Where do I find between 40,000 and 50,000 victory points in the game between now and sometime in 1944 or at worst 1945, so that I can achieve a 3:1 or 2:1 victory? Of course, this assumes that I can limit the number of points that my opponent continues to gather himself.

I have the same problem with Mogami, but need even more due to my higher attrition in the early game. I think you have a better shot at winning than I do, but I have to stop Mogami getting 4 to 1 and it does not look like Tophat is really going for that. Anyway this is my thinking:

Capture and build up bases. Even the small bases run up VP if you turn them into bigger bases. It may even be possible to mine certain locations for VP. One important detail that I remember reading is that starving units don’t give VP to the other player. If this is true it means you need to make the Japanese go away by killing them, even if that is a slow process. I could see a slow moving rear area campaign by obsolete units to clean the Japanese up, harvest the VP and establish cargo cults by building up bases in pointless locations all in pursuit of extra VP. In total this could be worth several thousand points, so it bears consideration.

I agree. I've been building up bases steadily everywhere. Not only does this give me victory points but it also increases my ability to manage my units by giving me sizable bases everywhere I need them.

What about Japanese ships? Can I find 10,000 victory points in Japanese ships? Hmmm - assuming that the Japanese carriers and battleships are worth around 200 to 300 victory points apiece, there should be around 5K points there. And every 100 transports that I sink is another 2K points. So I obviously need to go "ship hunting".

I agree with this completely. Figuring out that you need to go ship hunting is difficult, but actually catching them is even more difficult. I don’t have a strategy for this yet but I am going to consider moves other than the traditional approach in the hopes of getting more points.

My feeling is that I won't be ready to go ship hunting in any serious manner until late 1943 when I have Hellcats and CVLs and can create some "death star" TFs of my own.

What about Japanese planes? Can I shoot down or otherwise cause my opponent to lose 10,000 victory points worth of planes? Right now my opponent has around 2K air losses compared to my 1.5K air losses. It's not a bad ratio for Summer 1942, but I have to bring it up a lot more. I need something more like a 5:1 ratio of Japanese to Allied air losses, rather than a 1.25:1 ratio. For this I need much better planes than I currently have available to me.

Or you need the Japanese pilot quality to decline. I’m not sure that can be forced though, Zeta kept his pilot quality high all the way to the end of the war. I have had good luck wrecking the Japanese airforce against less experienced people, but Tophat may be able to conserve his. I am not sure if the Allies can force the issue in the air or not.

Tophat is keeping his good air units in top notch condition. I'm deliberately avoiding them if I can. I can stand up to his regular units. My intention is to slowly develop "killer" units of my own that I'll eventually be able to use against Tophat's crack units. But the presence of those 80-90 experience fighter units is why I'm not starting any air wars of attrition at this time - I don't want the crack units to pave the way for average Japanese units to start to get experience against my aircraft. Pilot experience increases much faster when planes are being shot down then when ground troops are being bombed.

What about Japanese ground troops? Can I destroy 10K points worth of Japanese ground troops? Right now my opponent has about a 7K lead in ground troop points. I obviously have to stop him from gaining any more serious victories and start to figure out how to cause him much bigger losses. Japanese troops are hard to destroy - the best place to destroy them is on board sinking ships or on atolls where they go away upon conquest. What do I need to do to be able to sink his troops at sea and capture his atolls without suffering serious losses myself?

This is going to be a hard one, but it is something I expect to have to grapple with. In fact I could see game mechanics forcing me to attack the strongest Japanese positions on purpose, in order to get the VP out of them. I am not sure of this yet, but in the Lunacy game you may see the Chinese take a much more active role in island hopping than anyone would expect. They have a lot of guys and when they die it does not cost much. I’m not sure you will need to do this but it is something to think about.

I'm hoping that I can isolate and starve big masses of troops. But so far Tophat is avoiding the obvious and is refusing to put the bulk of his troops in malarial front line bases. So under the worse case scenario, I may well have to fight it out with crack units on non-malarial Central Pacific Islands.

What about Japanese bases? Are there 10K worth of Japanese bases available for me to capture? Right now my opponent has around a 1K lead in base points. Are there any Japanese bases that are, like the "USA" base, worth enough victory points to push me "over the top", and are any of them likely to be weakly defended in a similar manner to how "USA" is usually weakly defended or not defended at all? What do I need to do to capture the highest value Japanese bases at the lowest cost to me?

Tokyo is worth 15,000 if memory serves. Personally I am going to max every base that the British Empire owns just to get VP. The Brits have a lot of construction units and extra BFs that are already working on this.

It's too bad that there isn't any "special" Japanese base that is a game-winner like the "USA" base. I can see invading Sakahin and Hokkaido, but not the Kantu plain.

What about Japanese Industry and Cities? Are there 10K worth of Industry and Cities available for me to destroy? How much is outside of Japan proper? What means do I have to destroy them in addition to Strategic Bombing campaigns?

At a first glance, it appears to me that my opening strategy of this game - to minimize the points that the Japanese player can gain - is absolutely critical for me to continue with in order for me to have a hope of winning this game on points. But I still have to start to accumulate victory points in a much more effective manner. In my assessment of the situation, this means that I have to significantly increase my capability to severely damage the Japanese Military Forces while minimizing the opportunity for the Japanese to damage my Forces in return. I can't afford to "trade" units - I must always gain more victory points than my opponent in all exchanges. And in order to win, getting 3 or 4 to 1 exchanges isn't good enough; I must gain victory points at a rate of around 10:1 for the next two game-years in order to reach a winning ratio of points.

Astute observations, if I survive the early part of my Lunacy game your going to see the greatest victory point hunt in history. Your situation is better but I think your still touching on a very important point that has not received a lot of thought because few games have gotten to the late war.

What really worries me is my ability to gain points while not losing too many. I'm just not certain that the game mechanics will allow it. But it's up to me to find out.

Obviously, this means that I need to hold off on any serious offensive actions until the general capability of my most critical forces, my Navy and my Air, increases significantly. This means waiting for P-38s, Corsairs and Hellcats. This means waiting for the October 1942 ship upgrades and the arrival of CVLs and Essex class carriers. This means continuing to trade off marginally worthless "real estate" for time and position. This means building up all of my rear bases to the maximum possible while making it impossible for my opponent to trap and capture significant Allied Forces.

So this is the approach that I will continue with for now. I realize that this approach allows my opponent to build up fortifications in all of the captured territories which will make re-capture in the future more difficult. But if I can build up sufficient forces of my own and isolate significant forces of the enemy this strategy may still allow me to get the points that I need to win. At least, at this time I can't see any other routes by which I can achieve my end objective.

If anyone knows of other means by which I can gain large quantities of victory points from my opponent, I would appreciate hearing suggestions.

I am not sure how much the fortifications will really matter if you keep your early game casualties low. Lower casualties means you can be selective about killing, and possibly get a lot of VP by strat bombing Japan. That may be enough for you, though I am pretty sure it is not enough for me.

Thanks for the great comments!

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi