The Sun In My Eyes - EOS from the Allied Perspective

[Yava]

I am keeping an eye on this one... so far it's colorful and interesting [:)] and it is fun to be able to read both views.[;)]

[goodboyladdie]

ORIGINAL: Yava

I am keeping an eye on this one... so far it's colorful and interesting [:)] and it is fun to be able to read both views.[;)]

Likewise Admiral Yavinsky. I enjoy yours and Dixie's. I'll try to keep it colourful and interesting (without turning the air blue!). [:)]

[goodboyladdie]

I haven't got time to complete the turn or the AAR today. Here is what I have so far.

The exodus continues. So far I appear to have been lucky. B-17s bombed Johnston Island and destroyed a Betty and hit the runway 7 times. I have flown B-17Es equipped with 1000lb AP bombs in from CONUS. Last turn they attempted to bomb BB Hyuga at Johnston Island. They missed and one bomber was damaged.

I am thinking of sending a second faster convoy to PH with supplies. The slow convoy has only loaded 20% so far.

[goodboyladdie]

This is what remains at PH. California was disbanded with 17 float damage this turn after her abortive escape attempt. The AKs will start to ship the heavier parts of the 4th Marine Def Bn to Lahaina. Oglala will start to mine PH. I will probably send back some DMs to start mining outlying islands.

Maryland, West Virginia and Jarvis have started the long slow journey back to SF. Hopefully they'll make it.

[goodboyladdie]

Lady Lex did not fly any strikes against the CAs. The KB has turned up heading South West so it's time to bug out. I am thinking of heading for Suva, but am also tempted to head East to start back to PH.

[goodboyladdie]

This is just a taster of what is in store when I get a chance to do the rest. The Kuching and Brunei ambushes have made the ship loss balance sheet a little healthier...[:)]

[Mistmatz]

Take care with moving CV's to far away from WC/PH, they need a lot of gas which is short on the pacific islands in the beginning (at least it is in CVO).

[goodboyladdie]

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

Take care with moving CV's to far away from WC/PH, they need a lot of gas which is short on the pacific islands in the beginning (at least it is in CVO).

It is certainly a problem. There are some APs heading for Suva and I can always top up from them. This is why I am tempted to go East. The trouble there is I can't afford to run at high speed for too long. The TKs heading out of the West Coast with fuel for the Islands and Australia are a little too far away and I cannot really afford to get low on gas in case Mike guesses the right way.

[goodboyladdie]

I have found the CVE KB. Last time Mike got in amongst my ships fleeing Manila, but ran out of sorties. This time I think he is taking the precaution of reloading/refuelling before he attacks. Every tf is at best speed to try to clear the area. Hopefully my B-17Ds at Cagayan will have better luck against CVEs than they had against CLs. Those 250lb bombs are only good against transports. I have most air units in the area on Naval attack. I hope he only has Claudes aboard as at least that will give my bombers a chance to get lucky hits.

[goodboyladdie]

I was so intent on getting past the "tf stall bug" that I suffered from target fixation at Brunei. The Exeter/Danae tf hit his Kuching invasion tf East of Kuching and damaged a PC (x2), an AP and an AK. Force Z bombarded Kuching causing 137 casualties and destroying 8 guns. On the way out they came across the tf retreating from the Exeter force in daylight. They sank 2 (4) PCs, 1 AP and 1 AK. They damaged another AP and 4 AKs. 153 casualties occurred when the AP/AK sank.

Boise and Houston ran across a single AK and sank her and then came across Mike's Brunei invasion force. They sank 2 (4) MSWs, 2 APs and 1 AK. They damaged 1 (2) MSWs, 1 (2) PCs, an AP and 6 AKs. (plus 375 casualties and 16 guns). The only trouble is Brunei fell and he has flown in air units already. Aunties Betty and Nell are sure to come calling so Boise and Houston are making off to Batavia at high speed. I did not run East as his CVE tf will be at the end of the speed run to Tarakan. A Dutch B-10 unit will bomb Brunei AF in the hope of stopping some flights. I expect the unit will be decimated. The T-IVAs at hit another AK at Brunei with a torpedo.

[Yava]

Some nice hits on the invasion forces... it should slow him down a bit and think more about keeping some bigger ships close enough to interfere thus keeping some useful units busy with escort duties... [:'(]

[goodboyladdie]

That was the point of the exercise as well as to inflict as many transport casualties as possible to slow him down later. It may cost me my two big US cruisers though because Brunei fell at an inconvenient time. His subs are doing similar damage to me but I just do not have the ASW escorts. I'll post more on that tomorrow...

edit: Thanks btw Admiral Yavinsky. Sorry mate I was in a hurry last night and forgot to say it.

To save a post I'll put the sub musings here. The picture below demonstrates the problem:





He is being very aggressive with his subs. I am going to pull all of my four stackers in to big ports with repair yards asap because I really need that early ASW boost. Once I hit the SOBs I need to start making sure they stay hit. This turn was the worst so far:

22,54 RO-65 torpedoes TK P.P. Buisman
SS I-4 hit by 2 Flower Class Corvettes at 139,48 (no fire)
40,60 I-164 shell and torpedoes an AK laden with Australian troops (95 casualties) All local ASW assets are after this one!
33,64 I-123 torpedoes Dutch ML despite presence of (damaged) USS John D. Ford ((ML sunk)
37,121 I-6 torpedoes AK
21,47 RO-24 torpedoes small TK after earlier hitting her with 3 shells
21,47 RO-67 hits the TK A.A. Penning with torpedoes in two seperate attacks.

There were a couple more ineffective sub/ASW attacks, but you get the idea...

[goodboyladdie]

The air ambush in China at Wuhan did not come off. When I moved the "French" volunteer squadron (all the pilots are Chinese) to reserve at Chungking I lost a pilot and his replacement is pants so I will have to try to restrict moves. I have all my bombers on recon to gain experience. At the moment supply does not seem an issue, but I'll keep a close eye on it. There are another two good ambush targets but none of my fighters have the range. I only build 12 ROC P-43As I think, so it is a slow process to get them to my best squadrons. They have fixed P-66 production, so I will not get any until April I think.

CL Tokiwa (Kota Bharu) and CL Kashima (Legaspi) both took two bomb hits again today, but still with no fires or visible damage. An AP at Kota Bharu was hit later in the day by two bombs and they definitely caused heavy damage [:)]. The pre-production B-24Ds went to the AP Heavy Bomber squadron which I moved from Manila to Soerabaya. I did this because the B-17Ds the unit had were only carrying 250lb GP bombs. The B-24s still are not carrying AP bombs, although they do have 500 pounders and a range of 32 so they should give me a long reach. I wil get the unit into B-17Es asap to see if I finally get my 1000lb AP capability. A second squadron (only 33 exp) of Dutch B-10s will be bombing Brunei to try to help Boise/Houston get away.

A Jap deliberate attack at Canton failed (1780/45 Jap casualties, 115/5 Chinese). Forts at HK were reduced to 3. A Chinese attack at Hangchow failed with 512/15/1 Chinese casualties to 279/8/1 Japanese.

As you can see China is a bit of a jumble...

[Mistmatz]

Are you guys with EOS affected by the ship building issue? There has been a problem identified in the scenario forum, maybe you should chack that out. Okami and me we are doing another restart because of this.

[goodboyladdie]

Oh No! I will draw Mike's attention to it as it would affect the Japs. If this is bollocksed up again I am through with RHS!

[Mistmatz]

The real pain is with the japanese in the beginning, they need to enter so much stuff. But please check that this issue really applies to EOS, as I'm not sure about that. Just wanted to inform my fellow RHS beta testers. [;)]

[witpqs]

If you are looking to consider another restart, you might also want to take a close look at the P-38 maneuverability stats. The way he's got them rated they are sort of like a fast ME-110. Obviously they weren't, but since the formula used calculated it that way, real life test documents were ignored. [:(] In a RHSCAIO (CVO optimized for AI) me vs Japan AI when P-38's arrived I found them about as good as P-40's. It's difficult to give hard facts anecdotally, but that's how they seemed to perform. Caveat Emptor.

[goodboyladdie]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

If you are looking to consider another restart, you might also want to take a close look at the P-38 maneuverability stats. The way he's got them rated they are sort of like a fast ME-110. Obviously they weren't, but since the formula used calculated it that way, real life test documents were ignored. [:(] In a RHSCAIO (CVO optimized for AI) me vs Japan AI when P-38's arrived I found them about as good as P-40's. It's difficult to give hard facts anecdotally, but that's how they seemed to perform. Caveat Emptor.

I got involved with the discussion about the P-38s way back. I did not agree, but Cid would not accept pilot anecdotes as valid evidence when he had a formula. Mossies, Beaufighters and P-61s were shanked a bit also, but not to the same degree as P-38s. It was just another thing to put up with...

The uber flak and the low allied replacement experience are slightly bigger issues in my view, but the P-38 having it's wings clipped is right up there. The ridiculously low endurance of some cruisers sucks too. There were some short range cruisers, but there were also some with very long legs. If Mike is willing to carry on with slow building TKs I would, but you've got to wonder how many other "discoveries" are out there. Having said all that, the feel of the mod is really different and the map is a thing of great beauty. If somebody could switch Cid's ears to receive mode for a few of the more persistent gripes it would probably be better than CHS, but at the moment it isn't. I am enjoying it though and it would be a shame not to explore it further. AND I really want to keep hold of Mike as an opponent for when AE comes out!

[witpqs]

If it were only anecdotes about the P-38's I would have begrudgingly accepted that. But someone found actual flight test documents where the USAAF flew (certain models of) P-38, P-40 (IIRC), P-47, and P-51. They gave specific technical results and also comparative results - how the P-38 stacked up against the others.

Choosing to ignore that hard evidence (scanned images of the actual WWII test reports) was like proclaiming the bumblebee does not fly because the math says so! (BTW, a few years ago they figured out how a bumblebee does fly.)

At one point (quite a while ago) the bomb load for the 4E heavies were set really low. I was unable to prevail in trying to get them set appropriately. Literally a year later they were finally changed back. When many Allied planes weren't producing, he insisted they were. Many other examples. Maybe someone can get him to listen, but I can't. I have tried. Personally I just switched back to CHS (so-called 'experimental' version to help fix flak and air combat).

[ny59giants]

You should be able to use your barges at Chungking to supply your LCU's 1 hex NW of Ichang as they march towards it. I started them moving from day 1 and they had excessive supply before they got to Ichang. You should be able to roll those bases up using your barges to supply them.
 
However, I found the lack of engineers in China able to build and repair AF's really frustrated. You have combat engineers in your infantry, but they don't build. [:(]  The Chinese LCU's have some serious AV once they fill out. You should be able to be pretty aggressive in China and prevent any major pull out of units by Mike.
 
I do agree with you on the reduced cruiser ranges. How can some of your DDs have greater endurance than a CA/CL??[&:]  Before AE was announced, I was working on getting Brian to put his mod on this map. It is very nice "eye candy." [&o]