Here come the Rebels! (Canoe v. Q-Ball)

[JohnDillworth]

Which shot glass has the poison in it? (Both?)

Come on moose! You know how hard it is get these 2 to the same party much less get along? A few Saki's and they start blaming each other for that whole Southwest Pacific thing. It will all end in tears.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Which shot glass has the poison in it? (Both?)

Come on moose! You know how hard it is get these 2 to the same party much less get along? A few Saki's and they start blaming each other for that whole Southwest Pacific thing. It will all end in tears.

Or poison. [:D]

[Mike Solli]

Here's a JFB point of view.  Yes, Japanese production can be manipulated in a way that Allied production cannot.  I don't disagree with anyone on that.  I don't want to argue whether it is a good or bad thing.  It's what we are stuck with. 
 
What I want to discuss is the long term ramifications of this.  Many people argue about the unfairness of this early in the game.  They don't think about the effects long term.  Japanese production is based on heavy industry points.  Yeah, there's oil, fuel and supply that are a part of it, but it's really HI that matters.  That's the limiting factor of Japanese production.  If the Japanese player puts all of his HI into engines and airframes, then he has to cut out something else.  The Japanese player starts with a surplus of all commodities.  If he doesn't take the SRA, that surplus dries up in less than a year.  Even if he takes the SRA intact, he still has to get stuff to the Home Islands to convert it into HI.  If there is no Allied interdiction of the SLOC, he's good.  Yeah, the sub torpedoes don't work initially.  They will.  I dread the day when the dud rate goes down.  My ships are going to sink like rocks.  That will reduce the amount of stuff that makes it to the Home Island HI factories.  Eventually, my surplus will disappear.  Suddenly, my fuel, supply and HI production will potentially drop.  I'm not looking forward to that.
 
There is definitely a limit to HI production.  Allied players will argue that the Japanese player can just increase factories to produce more HI.  Sure he can, but at a cost of supply to build factories and then more resources and fuel to use them.  All that is going to do is to make the point where the surplus vanishes happen sooner.  Then he has all those idle factories doing nothing. 
 
Gentlemen, I recommend you look at this game from a strategic viewpoint.  Yes, you need to plan tactically and operationally, but don't forget to plan strategically too.  What can you do now to make life a living hell for the Japanese player when your dud torpedoes vanish?  Maybe conserve your subs?  What about your carriers.  You know when they will arrive.  The Allies were pretty successful in conserving them in the early war.  Try some of the historical tactics.  Hit & run raids to kill off a few Japanese pilots.  Attack the odd Japanese outpost to wipe out a unit or two.  It adds up.  Prepare for the day when you have the strength to go where you want when you want.  Make sure you have that strength and haven't squandered it away.
 
Look at everything in terms of HI.  If you destroy a 1E fighter, you've just destroyed 36 HI forever.  You destroy 10 on the ground, that's 360 HI destroyed forever.  That's the limiting factor.  Do you want to make the Japanese player squirm?  Hit him where he won't like it.  Plan for an invasion of Java.  There's a substantial amount of HI there, along with oil, resources and refineries, not to mention some really nice airfields.  Take that island (or even half of it) and you'll see the Japanese player squirm and complain about how unfair the game is. Use  a couple of the airbases the Japanese player has politely built up for you and station some of your fighters and 4E bombers there.  The SRA would be in horrible danger immediately. 
 
Instead of complaining about how unfair the game is, try to work the game in your favor.  The Japanese player is simply trading supply now (inthe form of more HI factories) for more stuff faster.  The total amount really won't be any more than he would receive in the game.  He's just getting more up front.  You'll have your day.  He's just making it that much easier for you in the end game.
 
One last comment.  You don't like lots of Tojos apparently.  Let's say your opponent gets hot and heavy into Tojo produciton.  Ok, in mid to late 1942 there will be Tojos that run amok.  Let's say you can't shoot them down fast enough.  Avoid them!  So he has a bunch of Tojos.  How will they do against the later war Allied fighters?  He either uses them or complains about how unfair the game is and lets 500 of them sit idle in his pool. 
 
Canoerebel, sorry for all of this.  I sometimes get tired of people complaining about things they don't like.  They don't like the way things are in this game, but play to their enemies strengths.  Everyone needs to play to his own strengths and to his enemies weaknesses.  Example:  When I invaded Northern Australia in my game, my opponent sent me an email thanking me for opening up an nice bomb testing facility in Northern Australia for him.  Yeah, it is that.  I think that I'll gain more by controlling the bases in Northern Australia than I will lose from his 4E bombers.  We shal see.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

Perhaps it's the early date - we're in September '42 - but this is consistent with what I found in my previous PBEM game. Production seems to be out of balance in a major way. Or am I overlooking something?

A toast to unrealistic aircraft production!

This pictograph broaches several important questions. I'd better state these before CRSutton beats me to the punch:

1. Why are they both wearing lipstick?
2. Why does the guy in the blue uniform have a cooked scrambled quail egg on his cap?
3. That thing coming out of the box in the upper right-is that some sort of demonic jack-in-the-box?
4. They appear to be gazingly 'intently' into one another's eyes whilest toasting. Are they standing a little close too? Does the IJN / IJA have any sort of policy on these matters of conduct in 1942?
5. That IS a sword hilt at the bottom of the image, right?

It's these questions (and my prescription medication) that keep me going throughout the day.

[JohnDillworth]

This pictograph broaches several important questions. I'd better state these before CRSutton beats me to the punch:

1. Why are they both wearing lipstick?
2. Why does the guy in the blue uniform have a cooked scrambled quail egg on his cap?
3. That thing coming out of the box in the upper right-is that some sort of demonic jack-in-the-box?
4. They appear to be gazingly 'intently' into one another's eyes whilest toasting. Are they standing a little close too? Does the IJN / IJA have any sort of policy on these matters of conduct in 1942?
5. That IS a sword hilt at the bottom of the image, right?

It's these questions (and my prescription medication) that keep me going throughout the day.

Full disclosure. It is an ad from the 1930's from this site:
http://pinktentacle.com/2010/09/addictive-ads-1894-1954/

here is another one:

[JohnDillworth]

Full disclosure. It is an ad from the 1930's from this site:
http://pinktentacle.com/2010/09/addicti ... 1894-1954/

here is another one:

Actually, that particular picture is obviously post war

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy


2. Why does the guy in the blue uniform have a cooked scrambled quail egg on his cap?

Too big to be a quail egg.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

Here's a JFB point of view.  Yes, Japanese production can be manipulated in a way that Allied production cannot.  I don't disagree with anyone on that.  I don't want to argue whether it is a good or bad thing.  It's what we are stuck with. 

What I want to discuss is the long term ramifications of this.  Many people argue about the unfairness of this early in the game.  They don't think about the effects long term.  Japanese production is based on heavy industry points.  Yeah, there's oil, fuel and supply that are a part of it, but it's really HI that matters.  That's the limiting factor of Japanese production.  If the Japanese player puts all of his HI into engines and airframes, then he has to cut out something else.  The Japanese player starts with a surplus of all commodities.  If he doesn't take the SRA, that surplus dries up in less than a year.  Even if he takes the SRA intact, he still has to get stuff to the Home Islands to convert it into HI.  If there is no Allied interdiction of the SLOC, he's good.  Yeah, the sub torpedoes don't work initially.  They will.  I dread the day when the dud rate goes down.  My ships are going to sink like rocks.  That will reduce the amount of stuff that makes it to the Home Island HI factories.  Eventually, my surplus will disappear.  Suddenly, my fuel, supply and HI production will potentially drop.  I'm not looking forward to that.

There is definitely a limit to HI production.  Allied players will argue that the Japanese player can just increase factories to produce more HI.  Sure he can, but at a cost of supply to build factories and then more resources and fuel to use them.  All that is going to do is to make the point where the surplus vanishes happen sooner.  Then he has all those idle factories doing nothing. 

Gentlemen, I recommend you look at this game from a strategic viewpoint.  Yes, you need to plan tactically and operationally, but don't forget to plan strategically too.  What can you do now to make life a living hell for the Japanese player when your dud torpedoes vanish?  Maybe conserve your subs?  What about your carriers.  You know when they will arrive.  The Allies were pretty successful in conserving them in the early war.  Try some of the historical tactics.  Hit & run raids to kill off a few Japanese pilots.  Attack the odd Japanese outpost to wipe out a unit or two.  It adds up.  Prepare for the day when you have the strength to go where you want when you want.  Make sure you have that strength and haven't squandered it away.

Look at everything in terms of HI.  If you destroy a 1E fighter, you've just destroyed 36 HI forever.  You destroy 10 on the ground, that's 360 HI destroyed forever.  That's the limiting factor.  Do you want to make the Japanese player squirm?  Hit him where he won't like it.  Plan for an invasion of Java.  There's a substantial amount of HI there, along with oil, resources and refineries, not to mention some really nice airfields.  Take that island (or even half of it) and you'll see the Japanese player squirm and complain about how unfair the game is. Use  a couple of the airbases the Japanese player has politely built up for you and station some of your fighters and 4E bombers there.  The SRA would be in horrible danger immediately. 

Instead of complaining about how unfair the game is, try to work the game in your favor.  The Japanese player is simply trading supply now (inthe form of more HI factories) for more stuff faster.  The total amount really won't be any more than he would receive in the game.  He's just getting more up front.  You'll have your day.  He's just making it that much easier for you in the end game.

One last comment.  You don't like lots of Tojos apparently.  Let's say your opponent gets hot and heavy into Tojo produciton.  Ok, in mid to late 1942 there will be Tojos that run amok.  Let's say you can't shoot them down fast enough.  Avoid them!  So he has a bunch of Tojos.  How will they do against the later war Allied fighters?  He either uses them or complains about how unfair the game is and lets 500 of them sit idle in his pool. 

Canoerebel, sorry for all of this.  I sometimes get tired of people complaining about things they don't like.  They don't like the way things are in this game, but play to their enemies strengths.  Everyone needs to play to his own strengths and to his enemies weaknesses.  Example:  When I invaded Northern Australia in my game, my opponent sent me an email thanking me for opening up an nice bomb testing facility in Northern Australia for him.  Yeah, it is that.  I think that I'll gain more by controlling the bases in Northern Australia than I will lose from his 4E bombers.  We shal see.

Good points Mike. It all rings true and I really think that even with the Japanese flavaism that I see in the game, a good Allied player should prevail in the end as long as they stick to what you advocate. So, I don't mind too much about the balance issues. My only complaint is that I am 500 turns into my first campaign and some of the lessons of Japanese advantages have come to me the "hard way" That is, I planned my overall game on expectations of Japanese historical limitations that do not exsist. It took me a year and a half to adjust to the reality of what a good Japanese opponent can really do and I just did not have the advanced knowledge of what to expect. But in the end that made it more fun if not nerve wracking.

One point. I totally disagree with you about the Allied sub threat. Although Allied subs are fun to play with and can have some nasty kills, there is no way that an Allied player will be able to duplicate the real situation where the Allied submarine force placed an eventual death hold on the flow of Japanese merchant shipping. At least, not if you are playing an opponent that knows what he is doing.

Two reasons that I have stated in prior posts. One is poor targeting. The AI insists on tageting the most craptacular escort in a convoy over the more valuable merchant ships. So 50% of the time or more, my sups take a shot (usually missing) at the escort in a convoy and then get pounded by the remaining escorts. I can't tell you have many times I have watched valuable tankers skate away this way.

The other is that a competent Japanese player can tweak up his ASW efforts to the point that by late 1943 life at sea starts to get pretty deadly for Allied subs. In May of 1943 on any given day I would say that I have 25 or more subs either in the yard or slinking home with damage (mostly air attacks) and I have yet to face the deadly later war E class escorts that Japan gets.

This perhaps is the most frustrating aspect of the game to me. I can take the wierd sort of advantages that a Japanese player can create early in the game, but to me, if the Japanese player is not sweating out a serious Allied sub campaign in 1944, then this is a major defect in the game.

[Canoerebel]

Had to make a trip to Atlanta and back this morning and early afternoon, so I'm just now picking up where I left off this morning. When I returned and saw a bunch of posts, I was hoping for some good information about the air war oddities of AE...instead I ge a bunch of posts about Japanese soldiers wearing lipstick![:)]

Mike, you make some good points (and do so diplomatically, which is a disappearing gift in our world). Thanks. But don't worry about Allied subs. By the time the dud rates go down, Japanese ASW will destroy every sub in sight. From what I've seen in my game and many others, Allied subs are largely a non-factor against Japanese merchant shipping. (However, they can make their presence felt from time to time when they put a fish into a carrier or battleship).

I was aware that the air war was pretty wacky from my game with Miller. But while I had many suspicions about the wackiness, I had to also assume that my failure to engage in extreme pilot training was influencing my perception. In this game, though, I have engaged in extreme pilot training, though I dislike it immensely, and still find that the air war is wacked out in favor of Japan.

Yes, the game is the game. It's what we have, and if we love competition it is very enjoyable. But it was really deceptive advertising to name this game War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition. It should have been labeled Chess in the Pacific: Master's Edition. From now on that's how I will refer to this game, because it suffers from a severe lack of reality.

As anybody can tell from reading my AARs, I love this game and the competition it entails, and I recognize and appreciate the efforts that the creators went to, but touting this as a simulation of the Pacific war is misleading.

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

One point. I totally disagree with you about the Allied sub threat. Although Allied subs are fun to play with and can have some nasty kills, there is no way that an Allied player will be able to duplicate the real situation where the Allied submarine force placed an eventual death hold on the flow of Japanese merchant shipping. At least, not if you are playing an opponent that knows what he is doing.

Two reasons that I have stated in prior posts. One is poor targeting. The AI insists on tageting the most craptacular escort in a convoy over the more valuable merchant ships. So 50% of the time or more, my sups take a shot (usually missing) at the escort in a convoy and then get pounded by the remaining escorts. I can't tell you have many times I have watched valuable tankers skate away this way.

The other is that a competent Japanese player can tweak up his ASW efforts to the point that by late 1943 life at sea starts to get pretty deadly for Allied subs. In May of 1943 on any given day I would say that I have 25 or more subs either in the yard or slinking home with damage (mostly air attacks) and I have yet to face the deadly later war E class escorts that Japan gets.

This perhaps is the most frustrating aspect of the game to me. I can take the wierd sort of advantages that a Japanese player can create early in the game, but to me, if the Japanese player is not sweating out a serious Allied sub campaign in 1944, then this is a major defect in the game.

Interesting. Unfortunately, I never got that far in a game (either WitP or AE). Things were getting interesting in WitP when we switched to AE. My opponent is a sneaky SOB (I hope you're reading this Ted) and is scaring the hell out of me with his subs, and it's only May 42 in my game. I understand what you are saying about Japanese ASW. Maybe tweaking the crew experience subroutine would help. The starting Japanese PBs have crew experience in the 40s but anything converted to PBs start with crew experience in the teens. I guess the survivors would have decent experience by 1944. Not sure what the answer is, but as a Japanese player, I'm not looking forward to when the dud torpedoes go bye bye.

[witpqs]

IMO it's not the ship ASW it's the air ASW that is too effective.

[Mike Solli]

At what point in the war do you find that to be the case?  It certainly is not the case in my PBEM in May 42. [8|]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

At what point in the war do you find that to be the case?  It certainly is not the case in my PBEM in May 42. [8|]

No, I imagine not then. Look at cap_and_gown's AAR, I assume he's covered his ASW program in there. From comments I've seen him make elsewhere he started training legions of LBA in ASW from day 1.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

At what point in the war do you find that to be the case?  It certainly is not the case in my PBEM in May 42. [8|]

As soon as your opponent has the spare bombers to train them up in ASW. It really pays off for the Japanese player and once they establish their perimeter, they usually have the luxury and plenty of bomber units to do this. Meanwhile, I am always too short of bombers and patrol aircraft to spend much time training for ASW.

Japanese bombers rarely sink one of my subs but, they attack all the time and one hit will send a sub on the long trip home for repairs. This has been going on in my game since late 1942. I wonder what air search radar in American subs really does in game terms.

Oddly, I have had perhaps eight subs attacked and sunk by Japanese subs in my game! You would think the Japanese subs were the ones with radar.

My losses in subs has only been about one or two a month-about historical levels but the air ASW is a growing nuisance and it is my understanding that the later E class ships are very effective so I expect it to get worse.

[Cribtop]

I may as well chime in, with apologies to CR.

IMHO the Japanese COULD have had better pilot training, including rotation of vets home to teach lessons learned, etc. They also COULD have put together better air and surface convoy protection and ASW (easier in fact than in Europe in that there are no "air gaps" in the China Sea. The U-boats faced a rough to impossible time of it in '43/'44 for much the same reasons cited by CRSutton and others. The IJN never even really got good convoy escort doctrine together, hence the USN lived in the "happy time" for much of the war. Therefore these aspects of the game don't bother me much.

What does rankle, even as a JFB, is that I seriously doubt USN subs shot at DDs or PBs when tankers or merchies were present. I also have serious doubts that Japan could produce quality airframes in high numbers. They made lots of planes, but their industry was second rate and quality suffered badly. Hordes of Franks and Georges were made, but the teething problems, compounded by poor pilot training, poor maintenance, etc., made them far less effective than in AE.

In short, I like being able to correct the enormous mistakes Japan made so long as they were truly in her power to correct them. Some of the alleged problems in AE fall into this category and IMHO aren't problems at all. Some issues raised by AFBs, however, seem like real issues of veering off the realism table, and I'd be in favor of fixing those. Service rating helps some with the airframe issue, but it's not all the way fixed. Targeting by subs you would think could be altered.

[Canoerebel]

Chime in! I'm enjoying everybody's comments.

By the way, I just read FatR's AAR. I shuddered as yet another KB slaughter of Allied carriers (similar to what occurred in Cap & Gown's game).

This makes me very, very, very glad that I still have my carrier forces intact. I need to reevaluate any plans I have involving my carriers.

Back to the wacky air war topic, in addition to the production and pilot training issues that make Japan's airforce much more lethal than in the real war, here are some other factors that recently have received mention in other threads as having an impact:

1. Doesn't it require 70 exp. pilots for bombers to carry 1,000 pounders or heavier? It's going to be a rare engagement indeed in which Allied dive bomber pilots have that level of experience. If SBDs are carrying 500 pounders for most of the war, that puts the Allies at a disadvantage.

2. The Allies do begin the war with some decent carrier squadron pilots, but once the first big naval battle takes place with high pilot losses, the Allies may not reach that level of quality again for a year or perhaps two or three years. That's gruesome.

3. The Allies have a very hard time replacing SBDs and other naval aircraft.

4. The Netty factor - Japanese LBA can be lethal out to a range of, what, 15 hexes? The Allies cannot counter.

5. Anemic flak.

6. Anemic CAP. This idea has been dismissed as being without merit, but I still think CAP is far too porous from what I've seen in my games and plenty of other AARs.

These are some of the things that make it very difficult for the Allies to compete historically in the air war. Am I overlooking any others?

[lojishen]

Hi Canoerebel,
 
Long time lurker, first time posting.  First, I've really enjoyed your AARs, and this one has been fantastic.  Read it late into the night yesterday, and just now catching up.
 
I think you have played an almost flawless game to this point.  However, I wonder if accepting a siege in Bombay wasn't a mistake.  It still might end up well, but I'm not sure in hind sight it was a good risk/reward.
 
What did you gain by holding on to Bombay?  In my opinion, you gained an outpost roughly 6 hexes below the line that gave you extra reinforcements.  Holding Bombay isn't war winning, and offers minimal tactical advantages over mainting a MLR from Ahmedabad to Delhi.
 
What is the risk?  Well, if you lose it, you may lose enough AV to give Q-Ball the autovictory.  Even if it isn't autovictory, destroying that amount of AV in Bombay is a really nice bonus for Q-Ball's India adventure.
 
 
Holding the low risk line would have forced Q-Ball to come to you for the autovictory, giving you a really nice boost in reinforcements.  If Q-Ball chooses not to breach that line, he is still over committed to India and at danger of becoming entrapped.  Best case, he crosses the line, greatly boosts your forces, fails in the push, and is in a position to lose a ground battle in India.  Worse case, he withdraws and you quickly regain Bombay anyway.  That seems a much better risk/reward proposition to me.
 
While reading last night, I kept thinking to myself:  "no, don't get trapped in Bombay!  You are winning, and almost the only thing that would prevent that is a huge loss in Bombay.  You are giving Q-Ball a big fat juicy alternative target to impaling himself on the Ahmedabad to Delhi line with little benefit in return."
 
Interested in your thoughts and thanks. 

[Mike Solli]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Chime in! I'm enjoying everybody's comments.

By the way, I just read FatR's AAR. I shuddered as yet another KB slaughter of Allied carriers (similar to what occurred in Cap & Gown's game).

This makes me very, very, very glad that I still have my carrier forces intact. I need to reevaluate any plans I have involving my carriers.

Back to the wacky air war topic, in addition to the production and pilot training issues that make Japan's airforce much more lethal than in the real war, here are some other factors that recently have received mention in other threads as having an impact:

1. Doesn't it require 70 exp. pilots for bombers to carry 1,000 pounders or heavier? It's going to be a rare engagement indeed in which Allied dive bomber pilots have that level of experience. If SBDs are carrying 500 pounders for most of the war, that puts the Allies at a disadvantage.

2. The Allies do begin the war with some decent carrier squadron pilots, but once the first big naval battle takes place with high pilot losses, the Allies may not reach that level of quality again for a year or perhaps two or three years. That's gruesome.

3. The Allies have a very hard time replacing SBDs and other naval aircraft.

4. The Netty factor - Japanese LBA can be lethal out to a range of, what, 15 hexes? The Allies cannot counter.

5. Anemic flak.

6. Anemic CAP. This idea has been dismissed as being without merit, but I still think CAP is far too porous from what I've seen in my games and plenty of other AARs.

These are some of the things that make it very difficult for the Allies to compete historically in the air war. Am I overlooking any others?

CR, here's my take on your concerns. By the way, sorry for the hijack, but since you mentioned these... [:D]

1. I've heard that but never seen it in writing. Doesn't make sense to me at all. Historically, if the carrier had 1000 lb bombs and the distance wasn't too far, they carried them. Can't see how experience level should make a difference, but if it does, why 70? That's awfully high for anyone after the initial pilots get "culled" in battle.

2. The Japanese have the same problem. Their initial experience is in the 60-70+ range. As losses occur, their replacements usually use up the remaining 70 exp pilot that are land based. After that, it quickly drops to the 50s and continually downward after that. I'm talking experience here, not their skills. Proper on map training can keep the skill levels to the 60-70 level. That seems historical to me.

3. No comment. I really don't know anything about the Allied side of things, and that's intentional. I want to be in the dark as much as possible.

4. That is true, but fighters can't escort them that far. In AE, unescorted bombers get butchered. I don't really have a problem with Nell/Betty ranges. I rarely use them at those ranges. They're far more valuable to me alive. [:D]

5. Yup.

6. I keep going back and forth with this one. Early in the war, CAP was leaky. As the experience levels between sides widened, CAP got more destructive. I guess it all depends on the pilot stats. For me, it's hard to decide one way or the other.

[beppi]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Chime in! I'm enjoying everybody's comments.

By the way, I just read FatR's AAR. I shuddered as yet another KB slaughter of Allied carriers (similar to what occurred in Cap & Gown's game).

This makes me very, very, very glad that I still have my carrier forces intact. I need to reevaluate any plans I have involving my carriers.
And protect them well. If the situation does not favour you do not take on KB until you get
Hellcats. Then the tide starts to shift in your favour. As soon as you can put F4U-1A on your carriers CAP gets pretty decent. But Cap is not as strong as WITP. To kill a KB strike you need to at least have a cap:strike ratio of 2:1. And even this does not prevent some DB and TB to get through.

Back to the wacky air war topic, in addition to the production and pilot training issues that make Japan's airforce much more lethal than in the real war, here are some other factors that recently have received mention in other threads as having an impact:

1. Doesn't it require 70 exp. pilots for bombers to carry 1,000 pounders or heavier? It's going to be a rare engagement indeed in which Allied dive bomber pilots have that level of experience. If SBDs are carrying 500 pounders for most of the war, that puts the Allies at a disadvantage.
No your DB always will use 1000 pounders at normal range, later one get 2x250 as addition on normal. At extended most of the time they use just 500 pounders. I think at WITP(or was it UV ?) when EXP was > 70 you had a chance to drop 2000 pound bombs at normal range with DBs (not sure about it).

Your 4E and 2E bombers need a squad EXP > 70 to carry 1000 pounders or 2000 pounders on port attack (not sure about naval strike) but just forget it to get enough pilots.

2. The Allies do begin the war with some decent carrier squadron pilots, but once the first big naval battle takes place with high pilot losses, the Allies may not reach that level of quality again for a year or perhaps two or three years. That's gruesome.
If you have a good training program it is not that bad. As Navy Pilots start with quite high EXP you can train them to 55 XP which is usualy enough if they have 70 air 70 def rating. You can use your Float plane Squads at West Coast to train navy pilots. Aprox. 150 pilots space there which is enough.

3. The Allies have a very hard time replacing SBDs and other naval aircraft.
Yea that really sucks hard. You get a lot of Fighters/DB and TB later on (more than enough) but you lack patrol planes. (And all other planes until mid of 1943.

4. The Netty factor - Japanese LBA can be lethal out to a range of, what, 15 hexes? The Allies cannot counter.
I do not fear the Netties that hard. When you are in the defense phase until stay out their range and later just cap your units and pound their bases.

5. Anemic flak.
true

6. Anemic CAP. This idea has been dismissed as being without merit, but I still think CAP is far too porous from what I've seen in my games and plenty of other AARs.
For me CAP is quite ok, it might not be that slaughter which happen in RL for the later Carrier fights but usualy the Japanese XP is quite high cause of the pilot training. So not really comparable. And if you can put 500 fighters into the air your cap is quite ok. At least you will kill KB in the engagement quite sure and only lose some CVs.

These are some of the things that make it very difficult for the Allies to compete historically in the air war. Am I overlooking any others?
Air war just is quite nasty against an experienced opponent. You just do not have the frames to fight the Japanese endless stream of fighters and bombers until mid of 1943. Then it gets better. The production system produces to much planes early in the game and an acceptable amount later. It think only way to solve it is when the engines and the frames
cost HI and either the late war frames are cheaper (especial for example the wooden frames)
or each frame for example gets cheaper each month in production until with a limit. At least my opponent does not seem to be a heavy production optimizing guy so i still have quite a chance in early 43 in the air.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Chime in! I'm enjoying everybody's comments.

By the way, I just read FatR's AAR. I shuddered as yet another KB slaughter of Allied carriers (similar to what occurred in Cap & Gown's game).

This makes me very, very, very glad that I still have my carrier forces intact. I need to reevaluate any plans I have involving my carriers.

Back to the wacky air war topic, in addition to the production and pilot training issues that make Japan's airforce much more lethal than in the real war, here are some other factors that recently have received mention in other threads as having an impact:

1. Doesn't it require 70 exp. pilots for bombers to carry 1,000 pounders or heavier? It's going to be a rare engagement indeed in which Allied dive bomber pilots have that level of experience. If SBDs are carrying 500 pounders for most of the war, that puts the Allies at a disadvantage.

I think you're confusing LBA with carrier aircraft. I think for USAAF aircraft, your assessment is correct, but SBDs will carry 1000 lb'ers at 'normal' ranges in preference to 500lb-ers. Leastwise, that's my understanding.

2. The Allies do begin the war with some decent carrier squadron pilots, but once the first big naval battle takes place with high pilot losses, the Allies may not reach that level of quality again for a year or perhaps two or three years. That's gruesome.

Same same for the Japanese, perhaps moreso.

4. The Netty factor - Japanese LBA can be lethal out to a range of, what, 15 hexes? The Allies cannot counter.

Not to pick nits, but 17 for Bettys. So sorry. Zeroes can escort at extended range with droptanks to 14 hexes. You CAN counter if you wanna-load up your torp Catalinas en masse and escort them with P-38s. What sort of range would that buy you? I know, not entirely realistic comparison.

These are some of the things that make it very difficult for the Allies to compete historically in the air war. Am I overlooking any others?

Yes-the fact that the Allies are led by that gangster Churchill and his crony imperialist President Roosevelt. The Imperial Japanese code of Bushido, and our apparent liberal useage of lipstick for our warriors, makes all resistance futile.