Currently at work.. so this is brief update... otherwise been busy yet again in RL.
We have now reached 19th of February 1946 so not many turns left to do.
Currently not much happening... There is an huge ground combat raging at Mukhden but I doubt I will be able to conquer the place within the gametime. Some 700 000 Russians are clashing againts 370 000 Japanese soldiers.
Allied Carriers are at sea and hunting enemy transports. Some have been spotted and sunk. I doubt Dave has much left in terms of airpower at the moment.
Burma is peaceful. My troops are resting. Same goes for the troops involved in Operation Olympic. These guys have fought hard. If the game would continue into summer of 1946 than I have nodoubt that I would seize Malaya and propably most of the Japanese home islands too.
Overall.. it has been hard fight and I do feel somewhat tired with the Witp at the moment. (Propably has a lot to do with RL situations) ..and it has taken around 2 years to reach this point we are at.
I will post the final result once this is done. The turns are swift since not much to do. I guess the most intresting part is to hear what Dave has to say. I have no ideas how Japanese have felt or what views he has regarding this long journey.
So, stay tuned... this will be an open AAR once the game ends.
Aztez (Allies) vs Erstad (Japan)
Moderators: wdolson, Don Bowen, mogami
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Rob Brennan UK
- Posts: 3685
- Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2002 8:36 pm
- Location: London UK
RE: Mid February 1946
When is the end date ? i always thought it was aug 46 ( im probably wrong though).
At least Olympic was historically accurate in the casualty estimates the US made before balking at the idea [;)]
At least Olympic was historically accurate in the casualty estimates the US made before balking at the idea [;)]
sorry for the spelling . English is my main language , I just can't type . and i'm too lazy to edit 
Early March 1946
Rob: I checked and the scenario 16 will end in March 1946. [:)]
Yeah.. it has been costly in Russia, Burma, Kagoshima and Iwo Jima areas. Those places will have a lot of graveyards to say at least.
...current game date is 6th of March 1946.
The battles at Mukhden and Hungnam are stalemate. These bases wohn't be captured in game time despite heavy ground assaults. At the moment supplies are running low again so I need to start shipping in some into Russia.
In Burma and Kagoshima troops are still resting and would soon be ready for action again if the game date would allow this.
Last turn CV Shangri La and CV Essex were hit hard by Kamikazes near Davao. Both ships heavily damaged and 2 CVE's also hit badly. Too early to tell whether any of these ships will sunk.
I have kept bombing Japanese industry... and there is not much left to bomb. Only industries left are positioned near Sapporo.
...that is an short summary of latest developments.
Yeah.. it has been costly in Russia, Burma, Kagoshima and Iwo Jima areas. Those places will have a lot of graveyards to say at least.
...current game date is 6th of March 1946.
The battles at Mukhden and Hungnam are stalemate. These bases wohn't be captured in game time despite heavy ground assaults. At the moment supplies are running low again so I need to start shipping in some into Russia.
In Burma and Kagoshima troops are still resting and would soon be ready for action again if the game date would allow this.
Last turn CV Shangri La and CV Essex were hit hard by Kamikazes near Davao. Both ships heavily damaged and 2 CVE's also hit badly. Too early to tell whether any of these ships will sunk.
I have kept bombing Japanese industry... and there is not much left to bomb. Only industries left are positioned near Sapporo.
...that is an short summary of latest developments.
RE: Early March 1946
Just got back home from business trip so time to do an quick update.
Game date is 15th of March 1946
I'am running low on supplies in Russia, Iwo Jima area and Burma. The Chinese supply situation isn't great either. I can only imagine how bad this is for Dave's troops which have been isolated from longtime.
The main offensive at Mukhden has stalled due to the supply shortage. The Red Army really consumes huge amount of supplies. I have no doubt that I could seize Manchuko in due time but the game ends before I can resupply my men.
The operation Olympic has been halted at Kagoshima. Actually most of my divisions are recovering very swiftly and would soon be ready for action.
My CV Fleet is retreating towards CenPac. Quite a few ships are damaged but I still do have awesome firepower available. There are replenishment Tankers on their way to Iwo Jima.
In Burma B29's visited Singapore... yes the bulk of the IJA airforce is now wiped out but the losses were high too. Allthough these losses are acceptable in terms of what was achieved.
I have NO idea where his remaining carriers are at... so I will not go into wild goose chase to flush them out.
Game date is 15th of March 1946
I'am running low on supplies in Russia, Iwo Jima area and Burma. The Chinese supply situation isn't great either. I can only imagine how bad this is for Dave's troops which have been isolated from longtime.
The main offensive at Mukhden has stalled due to the supply shortage. The Red Army really consumes huge amount of supplies. I have no doubt that I could seize Manchuko in due time but the game ends before I can resupply my men.
The operation Olympic has been halted at Kagoshima. Actually most of my divisions are recovering very swiftly and would soon be ready for action.
My CV Fleet is retreating towards CenPac. Quite a few ships are damaged but I still do have awesome firepower available. There are replenishment Tankers on their way to Iwo Jima.
In Burma B29's visited Singapore... yes the bulk of the IJA airforce is now wiped out but the losses were high too. Allthough these losses are acceptable in terms of what was achieved.
I have NO idea where his remaining carriers are at... so I will not go into wild goose chase to flush them out.
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Rob Brennan UK
- Posts: 3685
- Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2002 8:36 pm
- Location: London UK
RE: Early March 1946
I've seen it stated that Russia is supply short, how this is possible in 45 is very open to question. The soviets pre-planned the manchuko invasion meticulously so i doubt irl they had a supply shortage at all. v odd game mechanic assumption there [&:]
16 days to go ! amazing. It'll be fun swapping passwords and seeing the enemy's side when its all over (just in case save the second to last turn ).
16 days to go ! amazing. It'll be fun swapping passwords and seeing the enemy's side when its all over (just in case save the second to last turn ).
sorry for the spelling . English is my main language , I just can't type . and i'm too lazy to edit
RE: Early March 1946
"I have NO idea where his remaining carriers are at... so I will not go into wild goose chase to flush them out."
Have you tried looking down near the map ledgend...? [:D]
Actually, it would be nice to have the end-game available for download (with passwords) for everyone to see. Altho, if you're like me, you use the same password for all your agames, so that might be problematic. [:-]
-F-
Have you tried looking down near the map ledgend...? [:D]
Actually, it would be nice to have the end-game available for download (with passwords) for everyone to see. Altho, if you're like me, you use the same password for all your agames, so that might be problematic. [:-]
-F-
"It is obvious that you have greatly over-estimated my regard for your opinion." - Me
The enemy speaks
Tales from the dark side…
Now that we’re basically done, aztez opened the AAR to me, and I’ve read it through. It’s kind of fun to see we have a small, but vocal fan-base!
Thought I’d give some comments from my perspective.
First, this has been a lot of fun, and I’ve really enjoyed having Jari as an opponent. We both seem to have a similar balance between “We’ve both put multiple years into the game and we owe it to each other to take it seriously” and “We’ve got families, jobs, and other commitments, and this is just a game.” He’s a great opponent, and I would recommend him.
We’ve also been able to work together as our understanding of the game and mechanics advanced. Two examples (both of which get some mention in the AAR): Aztez felt using single ship task forces to supply isolated bases exploited the game mechanics; while I did not fully agree with the reasoning after a few rounds of discussion it became obvious it was more important to him than to me, so I agreed to go with a minimum of three. Late in the game, the China front was stable and the Red hordes were pouring over the border, so I asked for some relief on our house rule that PP need to be paid to move troops from China to Manchuria (the IJA isn’t going to hold slumber parties in Peking while the Russkies are coming), he agreed, and I moved about four extra divisions north. If you’re going to be playing a game that takes the length of Witp, you better be able to talk through/work out any concerns. (Almost like marriage J)
In terms of the overall ebb and flow of the game, I feel like I had the upper hand through most of the early years, and quite honestly thought I would coast through the last year or two trading space for time, and end in a pretty happy spot. While I’m a good tactician, my strategic sense is not as strong, and I failed to realize that Aztez would see the same factors and consider other options. He made exactly the right choice that he could not afford to take his time, and went right for the jugular and succeeded. In addition to failing to fully appreciate the risks of the “direct approach”, I made a couple of key blunders. One which has already been chastised on the form is the decision to keep KB around Wake “just one more turn.” I had already been successful in exacting a toll, and if I had pulled back I could have slowed things down for a while. No excuse on that one, just poor judgment. Another was under-reinforcing Iwo after Wake fell. I should have realized that at that point, nothing mattered more than those inner islands and, given no HR on stacking limits, dumped a couple of divisions each on those islands. Here, the excuse is that I - correctly - figured that direct drive to Iwo without capturing Marcus or someplace like Pagan would be incredibly expensive. I was right about that, but I didn’t fully appreciate that although the price was very, very high to take Iwo, the advantage it provided to Aztez was much higher. The loss of Iwo, putting much of the HI in LBA fighter range, was really the turning point of the war.
By March of 46, pretty much all of the HI had been bombed back to the stone age. I started running out of various planes around mid to late 45, and by the end of the war pretty much had nothing left except for around 600 Randy’s. Supply was also a problem, ended with about 1.4M supply, which sounds like a lot until you divide it into around 300 bases. In fact, the reason that Mandalay fell was that I let the supply on the Asian continent drop a little too low, and those guys went out of supply. If I had done better at balancing supply, I think Mandalay could have held out indefinitely.
If I had held Iwo for another three months, both my supply situation and the amount of industry left in the HI would be much better off.
A couple of game mechanics comments
- The point system seems out of whack for what most of us consider a “naval“ game. Between us, we ended up with 210K points. About 1/3 were for strategic bombing, mostly Aztez’. Another 1/3 was air point losses, split between us. Only about 10% was for naval losses. Not saying that’s wrong, but it feels funny.
- Obviously, A2A is way too bloody, no big shock there. I’ve started a NikMod CHS game, but I’m too early in to see if that’s better.
- Generically, the pace of air operations seems too high. Perhaps the rate at which aircraft are readied should be reduced, or else ops losses increased - especially for fatigued pilots.
- Ubercap. Nuff said. Even though it works both ways (benefits IJN early and USN late) it’s still a problem.
- Kamis should have a better chance of getting through, particularly in small numbers. Historically, they sunk around 35 ships and damaged close to 370. One source says 14% of Kami’s survived CAP and flak to hit a ship. Won’t happen with Ubercap and Witp’s A2A model. The high altitude Kamis are a poor workaround to this, would be better to have all kamis have some chance of being intercepted but have some fraction of leakers get through. (BTW, given the historical vs. Witp performance, I don’t see high altitude Kamis as gamey at all).
Now that we’re basically done, aztez opened the AAR to me, and I’ve read it through. It’s kind of fun to see we have a small, but vocal fan-base!
Thought I’d give some comments from my perspective.
First, this has been a lot of fun, and I’ve really enjoyed having Jari as an opponent. We both seem to have a similar balance between “We’ve both put multiple years into the game and we owe it to each other to take it seriously” and “We’ve got families, jobs, and other commitments, and this is just a game.” He’s a great opponent, and I would recommend him.
We’ve also been able to work together as our understanding of the game and mechanics advanced. Two examples (both of which get some mention in the AAR): Aztez felt using single ship task forces to supply isolated bases exploited the game mechanics; while I did not fully agree with the reasoning after a few rounds of discussion it became obvious it was more important to him than to me, so I agreed to go with a minimum of three. Late in the game, the China front was stable and the Red hordes were pouring over the border, so I asked for some relief on our house rule that PP need to be paid to move troops from China to Manchuria (the IJA isn’t going to hold slumber parties in Peking while the Russkies are coming), he agreed, and I moved about four extra divisions north. If you’re going to be playing a game that takes the length of Witp, you better be able to talk through/work out any concerns. (Almost like marriage J)
In terms of the overall ebb and flow of the game, I feel like I had the upper hand through most of the early years, and quite honestly thought I would coast through the last year or two trading space for time, and end in a pretty happy spot. While I’m a good tactician, my strategic sense is not as strong, and I failed to realize that Aztez would see the same factors and consider other options. He made exactly the right choice that he could not afford to take his time, and went right for the jugular and succeeded. In addition to failing to fully appreciate the risks of the “direct approach”, I made a couple of key blunders. One which has already been chastised on the form is the decision to keep KB around Wake “just one more turn.” I had already been successful in exacting a toll, and if I had pulled back I could have slowed things down for a while. No excuse on that one, just poor judgment. Another was under-reinforcing Iwo after Wake fell. I should have realized that at that point, nothing mattered more than those inner islands and, given no HR on stacking limits, dumped a couple of divisions each on those islands. Here, the excuse is that I - correctly - figured that direct drive to Iwo without capturing Marcus or someplace like Pagan would be incredibly expensive. I was right about that, but I didn’t fully appreciate that although the price was very, very high to take Iwo, the advantage it provided to Aztez was much higher. The loss of Iwo, putting much of the HI in LBA fighter range, was really the turning point of the war.
By March of 46, pretty much all of the HI had been bombed back to the stone age. I started running out of various planes around mid to late 45, and by the end of the war pretty much had nothing left except for around 600 Randy’s. Supply was also a problem, ended with about 1.4M supply, which sounds like a lot until you divide it into around 300 bases. In fact, the reason that Mandalay fell was that I let the supply on the Asian continent drop a little too low, and those guys went out of supply. If I had done better at balancing supply, I think Mandalay could have held out indefinitely.
If I had held Iwo for another three months, both my supply situation and the amount of industry left in the HI would be much better off.
A couple of game mechanics comments
- The point system seems out of whack for what most of us consider a “naval“ game. Between us, we ended up with 210K points. About 1/3 were for strategic bombing, mostly Aztez’. Another 1/3 was air point losses, split between us. Only about 10% was for naval losses. Not saying that’s wrong, but it feels funny.
- Obviously, A2A is way too bloody, no big shock there. I’ve started a NikMod CHS game, but I’m too early in to see if that’s better.
- Generically, the pace of air operations seems too high. Perhaps the rate at which aircraft are readied should be reduced, or else ops losses increased - especially for fatigued pilots.
- Ubercap. Nuff said. Even though it works both ways (benefits IJN early and USN late) it’s still a problem.
- Kamis should have a better chance of getting through, particularly in small numbers. Historically, they sunk around 35 ships and damaged close to 370. One source says 14% of Kami’s survived CAP and flak to hit a ship. Won’t happen with Ubercap and Witp’s A2A model. The high altitude Kamis are a poor workaround to this, would be better to have all kamis have some chance of being intercepted but have some fraction of leakers get through. (BTW, given the historical vs. Witp performance, I don’t see high altitude Kamis as gamey at all).
RE: The enemy speaks
Congrats to both players! [8D] Finishing a full campaign is quite an accomplishment, even with 3-day turns. It's great to have an AAR with a documented Operation Olympic.
Feel free to add a summary to your entry in the List of AARs:
tm.asp?m=1562758
Feel free to add a summary to your entry in the List of AARs:
tm.asp?m=1562758
RE: The enemy speaks
Hi,
The last turn has been sent so this is pretty much the end. It has been very long journey.
Nothing significant has happened since the last update. I did conquer on base in Russia but that is pretty much it.
I will try to post some screenshots tomorrow if I have enough time.
You really should look into Russian supply situation already Rob,it will become an issue sooner rather than later. This is especially when the infantry divisions upgrade. As for how historical accurate this is... well I think you are correct. This really was not an issue RL in WW2.
I did send my password to Dave via last turn. So, he is free to see how my arrmies were placed.
Hmmm, never thought about that Feinder. I have no objections to sent the last turn file with password. I just have currently 1 PBEM ongoing with Chuck and it has been very slow going due to RL restrictions .. and I always use diffrent passwords. So, basically I don't see any problems with your suggestion.
As for the game... well nice to hear comments from Dave. It has been rough and long ride. Dave's comments really revealed what I thought.. not much Supply left... not much airpower left... I used a kind of Soviet doctrine with the game in later years. (That is Nemo's prefered trademark) ... I wasn't going anywhere.... so went for the kill at Iwo Jima... intresting to hear that Dave wasn't prepared for this and albeit costly it ulmitimately doomed his industry and airpower along with his Navy. The Wake Island battle was one of these bloody campaings through Central Pacific!
My flanks in most fronts were not solid... If Dave could have seized ie. Christmas Island in the CenPac with counterstrike my operations would have been in all sort of troubles. I had high stack number of units placed there but those were mostly supporting troops and I don't know whether my opponent noticed that.
I really don't know how many troops we lost in Burma but the total amount is very high!
I do also want to thank Dave for the game. He really is an gentleman and I can highly recommend him as an opponent. It has taken almost 2 years to reach this date.
As Dave said we both have similar situations and commitments to our families. So, it has eaten a lot of spare time to do this.
We encountered bugs, game mechanics issues, etc but both players were flexible and we got around them. As both players should if they wish to reach the end. So, hat of to my opponent.
VSWG: Thank you! Appreciated... as I stated I feel somewhat jaded with the game now that I finally have seen the real end of it.
Yes... the operation Olympic propably could have been more of an success had Dave made some mistakes there. Currently my armies were ready roll on towards other Japanese cities. The capture of Kagoshima was horrible for the infantry divisions participating. I think Dave would have in all kinds of trouble there in summer of 1946.
As for who won the game.... well... I would say Dave in an way... than again his armies would have been in bad shape sooner than later... so.. take your pick... personally I think we both won since the game actually ends! [:)]
The last turn has been sent so this is pretty much the end. It has been very long journey.
Nothing significant has happened since the last update. I did conquer on base in Russia but that is pretty much it.
I will try to post some screenshots tomorrow if I have enough time.
You really should look into Russian supply situation already Rob,it will become an issue sooner rather than later. This is especially when the infantry divisions upgrade. As for how historical accurate this is... well I think you are correct. This really was not an issue RL in WW2.
I did send my password to Dave via last turn. So, he is free to see how my arrmies were placed.
Hmmm, never thought about that Feinder. I have no objections to sent the last turn file with password. I just have currently 1 PBEM ongoing with Chuck and it has been very slow going due to RL restrictions .. and I always use diffrent passwords. So, basically I don't see any problems with your suggestion.
As for the game... well nice to hear comments from Dave. It has been rough and long ride. Dave's comments really revealed what I thought.. not much Supply left... not much airpower left... I used a kind of Soviet doctrine with the game in later years. (That is Nemo's prefered trademark) ... I wasn't going anywhere.... so went for the kill at Iwo Jima... intresting to hear that Dave wasn't prepared for this and albeit costly it ulmitimately doomed his industry and airpower along with his Navy. The Wake Island battle was one of these bloody campaings through Central Pacific!
My flanks in most fronts were not solid... If Dave could have seized ie. Christmas Island in the CenPac with counterstrike my operations would have been in all sort of troubles. I had high stack number of units placed there but those were mostly supporting troops and I don't know whether my opponent noticed that.
I really don't know how many troops we lost in Burma but the total amount is very high!
I do also want to thank Dave for the game. He really is an gentleman and I can highly recommend him as an opponent. It has taken almost 2 years to reach this date.
As Dave said we both have similar situations and commitments to our families. So, it has eaten a lot of spare time to do this.
We encountered bugs, game mechanics issues, etc but both players were flexible and we got around them. As both players should if they wish to reach the end. So, hat of to my opponent.
VSWG: Thank you! Appreciated... as I stated I feel somewhat jaded with the game now that I finally have seen the real end of it.
Yes... the operation Olympic propably could have been more of an success had Dave made some mistakes there. Currently my armies were ready roll on towards other Japanese cities. The capture of Kagoshima was horrible for the infantry divisions participating. I think Dave would have in all kinds of trouble there in summer of 1946.
As for who won the game.... well... I would say Dave in an way... than again his armies would have been in bad shape sooner than later... so.. take your pick... personally I think we both won since the game actually ends! [:)]
RE: The enemy speaks
Here's the official game end screen - although it's bugged! Should be a Japanese marginal victory (allied decisive moving two levels for getting into 1946 and one more level for a-bombs) or a Japanese decisive if it remembered the earlier autovictory.
Guess we'll just have to start over
Guess we'll just have to start over
- Attachments
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- end.jpg (130.08 KiB) Viewed 639 times
RE: The enemy speaks
Well done to both! 
Matrix should reward you - at least buy you a pizza or something. [:)]
It'd be interesting to see the final intel screen & the IJ industry screens.
Matrix should reward you - at least buy you a pizza or something. [:)]It'd be interesting to see the final intel screen & the IJ industry screens.
RE: The enemy speaks
Major, major congratulations to both of you for finishing! Yes, it would be very interesting to see the final intel & industry screens. Above all, I second the motion for Matrix-sponsored pizza! 
RE: The enemy speaks
Thanks guys...! [:)] ...We actually encountered the final bug there is to find... when I click "View End Game Status" the game drops me into to the main screen of the game! [8|][:D] ....so that is definately not working.
I "talked" to Dave and we wohn't be uploading the game files since Dave uses same password and also has few ongoing PBEM's. So, sorry Feinder! I don't see anything wrong about posting some screenshots from industry, etc...
...but basically what I need is to get my opponents password [;)] ...since really would like to see few things out.
I "talked" to Dave and we wohn't be uploading the game files since Dave uses same password and also has few ongoing PBEM's. So, sorry Feinder! I don't see anything wrong about posting some screenshots from industry, etc...
...but basically what I need is to get my opponents password [;)] ...since really would like to see few things out.
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Rob Brennan UK
- Posts: 3685
- Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2002 8:36 pm
- Location: London UK
RE: The enemy speaks
Congratulations ! [&o]
what an epic journey, and thx for sharing it with us. I do think matrix should give you both prezzies (Christmas soon) [:D]
what an epic journey, and thx for sharing it with us. I do think matrix should give you both prezzies (Christmas soon) [:D]
sorry for the spelling . English is my main language , I just can't type . and i'm too lazy to edit