Defeating Perfidious Imperialists-Nemo(J) vs Trollelite(A) No Trolls

[mlees]

Any update? Pwetty Pwease?

[Rob Brennan UK]

GL Nemo , hope you have an enjoyable game (and win [:D]).

Looking forward to another good read you usually supply in spades [8D]

[Capt. Harlock]

I advised him twice to make them active. He was adamant that they not be active unless I activated them by attacking them or dropping the Manchukuo garrison below the required level.

I have to admire him. Historically speaking, if the Soviets are active against the Japanese, then the Germans have to be allowed to take Moscow, and that is impossible to simulate in the confines of WitP. I think this falls into the category of "militarily possible".

[Nemo121]

Ok we've finally kicked off... I held the turn back cause of his exams and then on the 21st my net went down. It has only been back up today so he's only had the turn from today... I'll be posting the combat reports only initially and will get into talking strategy after we've moved onto the 2nd page. I'll talk about it openly and without delay though as IF someone were to peak then, frankly, they'd only be ruining the game for themselves --- plus I think that if you execute strategy properly and with sufficient concentration you should usually still be able to win even if you hand the enemy your plans a week or month before the offensive kicks off.
 
Mini-KB will hit Palembang. I'm landing there on Day 2 and there are two CLs I don't want interfering with my plans.
KB proper will hit Hawaii
All my army bombers will hit Manilla and Clark
All of my Bettys and Nells will hit Singapore. Even armed only with 250Kg bombs they should pummel PoW and Repulse sufficiently to ensure neither is battleworthy by the end of the day.
 
 
So, with that said, the initial targets for invasion are:
 
1. Phillipines- I'm parachuting troops into 3 bases in Northern Phillipines in order to secure my rear areas when I land at Vigan ( I want an uncontested landing and since San Fernando is a clear hex I'd LOVE to lure the Phillipino troops north into contesting it... by landing at Vigan I might lure them north if Trollelite plays incautiously ). I'm also landing 2 divisions at Naga in order to invest Manilla ASAP and give the Allies the choice of holding north of Clark Field or consolidating in Manilla but preventing them from holding at Clark Field as if they get routed from there while I have troops in the Manilla hex they will all retreat into the Bataan peninsula where I can use them for bomber practice.
 
In total I'm trying to take the Phillipines quickly and with an initial landing force of some 5 divisions - with another 5 divisions in the 2nd wave which will arrive within 2 weeks. My goal is to have the Phillipines cleared by the end of December.
 
 
2. Borneo - Kuching, Singkawang, Tarakan, Balikpapan, Amboina and Kendari will all be hit on Day 1... only with small forces but they will still be hit. On Day 2 I plan to surprise the Allies by landing a half division at Palembang with a view to getting an uncontested landing zone for my troops when it comes time to invade the DEI after Malaysia has fallen.
 
 
3. Malaysia - About 500 AV will be in place to advance down the peninsula from Singora by 12th December. By that same time 6 division equivalents will be online at Mersing and will hopefully have cut across the peninsula isolating the defenders in Singapore from the rest of the Allied forces in the Peninsula. This should help Malaysia etc fall quickly whereupon my forces will move on to DEI and India proper. I am forward-loading Naval HQs to help with repair efforts in order to keep the pace of my advance up.
 
 
4. Hawaii- I will land on the islands around Hawaii ( Johnston, Palmyra, Kona, Hilo etc ) and take them and then reduce Hawaii via a conventional bombing campaign. I'm committing KB to this area but have only committed 2 BBs and 3 or 4 cruisers to this mission as I really want to lure the Allied fleet out and destroy it on the high seas. By being too strong I'll force them to turtle up, by being weak they might come out and fight me.
 
 
5. 5 of my divisions are out of place near Hong Kong so I'm committing a lot of fighters ad divebombers to hitting the defenders there so as to free those 5 divisions for deployment to the Phillipines and/or Malaysia --- whichever is going best at the time.
 
 
6. Alaska... I'm committing some training regiments to the invasion of Alaska... This is mostly a subsidiary landing which has a small chance of success but really exists to force the Americans to split their reaction between Hawaii and Alaska.
 
 
7. China --- pin them back into the interior and then bomb the living snot out of them.
 
 
8. Pacific. Take Caledonia by coup de main. There are no significant Allied recon assets in the area so I felt justified in sending fast APs and AKs from Truk, Saipan etc to Koumac and nearby areas in order to gain footholds. I've also paradropped a few guys onto Lunga as a distraction while my main paraborne landing ( supported by 50 transport planes ) goes in at Kavieng.
 
 
My transport planes are getting a serious workout around China and Japan as half of them form an air bridge from Japan to the Phillipines to airlift aviation support assets into the Phillipines ( I didn't have enough transports to move my troops AND aviation support on Day 1 so I prioritised troops ) and the other half lift my first Airborne Regiment into jumping off position for their first mass raid into enemy territory. I'm using the SNLF Airborne troops ( 20 AV or so each in 3 units ) as "commandoes" to take and hold beachheads preparatory to my main landings etc while the actual IJA Raiding Brigade is used en masse like ordinary paratroops.
 
 
There are no landings on non-base hexes, no landings by submarines and no "blocking force" landings by parachutists. I also didn't land on Palembang on Day 1 as I felt it was too close to Singapore to be within "sprint" range of the fleet's forming up location. On the other hand Amboina, Kendari and Balikpapan are far away from a major fleet base and within 2 days sail of a forming up location south of the Phillipines and east of Mendano so that was more doable. I've also taken care to place mini-KB in an area where it cannot stumble across any enemy shipping at sea on Day 1 as I don't want to ambush helpless ships at sea.
 

Trollelite has asked for and received permission to issue orders to the USN CA in the Phillipines and the Boise. He has undertaken to issue no orders to any other TFs at sea or rebase any of his planes etc... We'll see what happens when the turn gets run.

[Gen.Hoepner]

Is it really wise to take Jonhston Island? I've done it against Cantona and i discovered fast enough how tough is to defend it against the 4Es coming from PH...
 
Also, concentrate on Luzon will slow you down a lot in the rest of SRA...wouldn't be better to avoid Luzon and use those 5 divisions to conquer directly Darwin and northern Oz?

[Nemo121]

Well a couple of reasons:
 
1. I've giving him some weaknesses to hit on his response to the first turn. My reason being that I want to get a feel for his play style at an acceptable cost early on. Knowing his analytical abilities and style by seeing what his responses are to some pretty obvious gambits early on will help me in the long-term. That's worth some losses.
 
2. Johnston is an easy run-in for his CVs IF he wants to be ueber-aggressive. I have a plan to make that cost him if he tries to do it...
 
3. Other invasions are also weak in order to test out his quotidienne response. Vs jagdfluger I don't have to do this as |I know him well. Vs a new opponent I always do this.
 
4. Johnston won't be bombed from PH as PH will be quickly and irrevocably reduced by my own bombers operating out of Kona, Hilo and KB itself.
 
5. By basing Mavis flying boats out of Palmyra on 8th December 1942 I will help force the US CVs north or south-west ( where they can do no serious harm ) and away from the run south-east which is a route which would endanger many of my transport assets.
 
 
 
As to Luzon etc... Well, I don't want to min-max too much. My aim with this game is to show that good strategy beats flashy exploitation of loopholes any day of the week. So, strategy, operations etc are subjugated to my over-arching goal for this game.

[ny59giants]

I see Luzon from one of two perspectives. Either overwhelm it quickly like you are doing or by-pass it and just bomb it to death. The historical approach means that Manila may last too long and just tie down forces that could be used else where. This coming from a AFB. [;)] 
By the time it falls, you should have a general idea of his playing style and can use that large force to your advantage - Australia, Burma/India, etc. Plus, it secures your LOC back to Japan.

[Nomad]

Anything happening? I am really interested in this one.

[Nemo121]

Strangely enough no... I've sent the file some 3 or 4 days ago but now I have a request from Trollelite to email him all the art files for the scenario ( which should be included in the download ). Ah well, I've sent them ( all 20Mb or so ) so we'll see what happens.

I'll be pretty peeved if this doesn't continue as I put quite a bit of time into getting my first turn together and coming up with a slight twist on my usual opening.

P.s. I've managed to lose the link to the site which hosted my scenario before. If anyone has it OR is willing to host the files ( about 50 Mb or so in total including all maps and art ) please drop me a line... Now that it is all tacked down I would like to make it available to the people who have been emailing me looking to check it out.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Roger Neilson II

and so it goes on.....

This guy is a cheat as well as a jerk..., I can't understand why anyone would want to play him.

[Ron Saueracker]

I'm not surprised he is still invading the privacy of this thread. I think he must be a kid or close to it. I'd delay posting in the AAR by about a week minimum, and keep strategy down to after the fact, unless of course you use his lack of character against him and post false info as to your intentions.

I also bet he bails as soon as something goes awry.

[Gen.Hoepner]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

I'm not surprised he is still invading the privacy of this thread. I think he must be a kid or close to it. I'd delay posting in the AAR by about a week minimum, and keep strategy down to after the fact, unless of course you use his lack of character against him and post false info as to your intentions.

I also bet he bails as soon as something goes awry.

Com'on guys, that was an old screenshot by Roger...i think that after that they clarified the fact that this is a forbidden AAR...

[Ron Saueracker]

It was an old one? Hmmm...well, he gets the benefit of the doubts (many) then![;)]

[TenChiMato]

well frankly guys I do not like the smell of this.

Is this an AAR or a 'kill the troll' party? Sure there is much to tell about some of his "on the edge" tactics, and maybe yes he started with some provocative posts but do we need to follow on?

I hope that the only things that will prevail in this game between Trollelite and Nemo are fun and respect.

[heenanc]

I find the games he's in very interesting. His game plan is strange but interesting.

[mlees]

Is this an AAR or a 'kill the troll' party?

He's just the flavour de jour.

A couple months ago, it was Marky.

[hades1001]

People are willing to play against him because only the player know he is not cheating.
 
If he was, his opponent wiil found the first second.
 
I'm playing against him now, and I update my plans almost every day, nothing wrong with it yet.  
 
Again, please don't do it in this thread as someone did in General's thread.
 
To nemo, if you don't trust your opponent, better not to start the game.

[Nemo121]

Ok, the game has begun... I'll be posting a more general AAR as posting the combatreports turn by turn would just take too long. Unfortunately for some reason the first turn file didn't generate a combat report so I don't know how my strikes went. I do know that Vals and Kates are missing from KB so KB obviously flew against Pearl and I also know that torpedo bombers flew from Mini-KB and hit Palembang ( there are two CLs there I want to put out of commission ).
 
Overall something like 490 Allied planes have been destroyed ( over 50 of these being A2A kills ) with just over 100 Japanese planes joining them ( about 2/3rd of these were lost over PH ).
 
 
I've taken Jolo in the first rush and have also taken Johnston. G4Ms and Zeroes are making for Johnson ( to seal off the western escape route from PH ) while Kates and Vals make for Jolo to prevent escape for the US Navy in the Phillipines.  Total Allied losses for Day 1 comprise some 60 ships but include nothing bigger than a DD or SS.
 
My only major damage suffered is as follows:
1 x CVE took a bomb hit south of Singapore.
1 x CA took a mine hit off Pearl Harbour
1 x AP took some torpedoes on the way to balikpapan.
 
 
All in all very acceptable losses, the Allied sub fleet has been pretty much crippled and that'll help in the coming months. I'm not sure about the shape of their BBs though, I think they may be in much better shape but I can't be sure since I don't know what my Kates hit.

[Nemo121]

Well, what do you know? I've got mail from Trollelite after he saw the results of the first turn... Since he has asked me to make a post about it I'll quote the relevant section from his mail.

I expect you to post a message on your aar, to state our game has nothing to do with official scenario or CHS, as the strength ratio are totally different. This is a complete different scenario.

Trollelite has told me that while he was aware that the Japanese were greatly enhanced he was not aware the Allies were "weakened" (his words, not mine... As far as I am aware the Allies aren't weakened at all, they are at historical strength and as close to real as El Cid's research can make them... In fact they're strengthened a bit above the historical for Trollelite ). The issue he points out as evidence of their weakening is that the SBD replacement rate is only 33 per month.... Well, in my game vs jagdfluger it is only 22 per month... I made the Allies STRONGER than they are in my game vs jagdfluger in order to help the Allies out so if Trollelite thinks the Allies are weak in this game then he'd get the shock of his life if he took my place in my game vs jagdfluger.... and I think I'm not doing too badly in that game, 1/3rd of the IJN is already beneath the waves.

Anyways, as per his "instruction" I'm happy to agree with him that this game is based on RHS:EOS and NOT on CHS or stock. I believe I have been clear on that all along and anyone who has followed this mod's development OR ever chatted about playing a game with me would realise that I've never pretended that this is based on stock or anything. It should be borne in mind though that the Allies in this version of the mod are significantly strengthened above what I have to play with vs jagdfluger and the Japanese are weakened in terms of the forces they can field prior to July 1942 so Trollelite will face a more favourable force correlation than I've been facing vs jagdfluger.

I wish him luck but hope this isn't the beginning of a pattern.

[Gen.Hoepner]

So Nemo, i don't get the point here.
Is he refraining from going on? If not, i don't understand why he asked you to post this statement...i don't see what does this change if he's not "quitting"...[&:]