Tocaff vs bigred

[bigred]

Tokyo Rose keeps talking of great victories in the future. The IJN must have something left or is this more idle threats.

[tocaff]

August 8,1943

New orders arrive assigning Lt. Sato to the CV Soryu, commanded by Capt. R. Yanagimoto.  Sato reads the orders, packs his gear, sighs and is off again.  There will be no meeting today as planned with cousin Umi though a message will be passed to him by a crewmember of the Yamato with leave today.

The rumors of the continued Allied attacks are making the men of the Imperial forces antsy as they continue to sit and await orders that they know will have to come sooner than later.  Maybe relief of the Solomons or a strengthening of New Britain?  Lae would be a likely place for the IJN to send troops in an effort to retake PM, Buna & Dob..........Each enlisted man has his own ideas and grumbles about the brass.  Some things are the same in all militaries around the world.

Upon arrival aboard the Soryu Gyou is ushered into the exec officer's presence and is informed that he, Gyou, will begin training immediately in the art of carrier ops.  Once he is squared away he will report to each of the 3 COs of the Zeros, Vals & Kates to become acquainted with them, their needs and how things work.  Tomorrow he will report to the bridge and start his new training in the handling of the ship for launching and recovering planes. 

[bigred]

8-13-43: The invasion of Buka is underway. 180 miles from Rabaul. The IJN ensign is correct, the USN is steaming freely in the Coral Sea. Again because of early fleet damage, not enough troops have landed in the initial assault to push out the japs.

On another note, the f6f hellcat has made its appearance and awaits trial by fire. Too bad there seems not to be much left to shoot. I understand the f4u is a better rated plane in this game.

Because of low morale and fatige, the b17air fleet out of PM assigned to neutralize the Kavieg airbase have been given the same night mission. Already at 77% damage, use of night raids shoud maintain the damage level.

points-ij 15497
us 14246
Just a few more japanise ships!!! Tulagi and Lunga should put me over. Unless I go for Rabaul and get a decisive!

[RGIJN]

while touring on all these vessels to make war, did Lt. Sato already chose a favourite he´d love to die on...?

[tocaff]

Nope Gyou is just an example of the shuffle that can and does happen all to often in the military.

During the Viet Nam War my friend was approached by an officer and told that they needed duece & 1/2 truck drivers.  He asked where is the engine to which my friend answered in the front.  He was told that he passed the test and was now a driver.  About 2 weeks later he was asked a similar question about food and became a cook, a very good thing for his buddies.

[tocaff]

August 15, 1943

Lt. Sato has much to learn but many lessons can't be by doing as enemy subs are spotted lurking in the waters around Truk Lagoon so the big carrier stays put. New rumors abound as some Bettys & Nells have been attacking enemy shipping in the Buka area.  Surely this is impossible as it's so close to Rabul!  Where is our air power everyone is wondering.  No new orders are issued as the IJN rides at anchor in the military world of hurry up and wait.

[tocaff]

Well after fighting with UV and trying to load a massive invasion force onto transports for about 7 game turns I gave up and surrendered. 

I apologize to BR for this, but I just can't deal with this loading bug anymore.  It's no fun having to load each individual ship, which was:

Taken from a previously formed TF (all transports had this done)
Given a command to load a specific unit
Put into a new TF
Given sailing orders
Ship sails with only a part of the capacity filled by the unit, empty or no supplies.

I did this repeatedly, but never got my force loaded the way I wanted and then those that did load properly were at sea waiting, burning fuels that I couldn't afford.

ENOUGH!

[decaro]

The "loading bug" seems to be worse in PBEM than vs. the AI.

Has anyone ever posted this to the CF wish list as a correction, or to the "bugs" section of UV?

[bigred]

Sorry this is over. I am surprised at the hits on this AAR. Grateful for all your comments...

[tocaff]

I'm sorry too.  BR and I had an email discussion about continuing, but I had already unveiled Plan 123143 to him and it was no longer an option for me as a result.  In any event we will be having a rematch in the near future, switching sides, as I enjoyed the game and found him a good opponent who doesn~t make the same mistake twice.

[RGIJN]

very sorry about the premature end of your game too! Enjoy these AARs...[:(]

One thing I was wondering about: your "plan 123143" obviously is deriving from its very goal - to outreach the End of 1943 and the game alive...?!? [;)] Correct speculation?

[bigred]

We really should play on. I am not sure his idea was going to work.

Last year I was at WiFCon(World in Flames) and was playing on table 2. Table one was the "Big Board" on the wall. Mike Cobb(vietnam vet) was Japan and Andrew Raider(MIT student) was Germany. Raider is the World champion. In 1940 Raider invaded and conqured England before the end of 41. The allies moved production to India, then concentrated on Japan and knocked Japan(Mike Cobb) out of the 9 day tournament by the end of 42.(Tuesday) On Thursday the allies where concentrating on Germany(Raider).
The young student Raider said "I want to quit, I can't win." The old grizziled grognard Cobb, just back from a round of golf said, "You are not going to quit, You are going to suck it up because you had your fun in the first half of the game, now it is the allies turn to have fun." Profound words from a 60year old man to a student.

[tocaff]

BR had about 6-8 months of fun so nobody was denied. 

Plan 123143 was the invasion of Luganville by 4 IJA Divisions with a huge amount of supplies.  This fleet was supported by all units of the IJN.  Aircraft were not flying so as to not give away the approach.  An indirect route was to be taken and then a dash to the target.  It was assumed that once the fleet was sighted it would be 2-3 days out from it's target.  This time frame wouldn't allow enough time for the Allies to redeploy with enough force to stop the assault.  With well over 1700 assault points it's a tough thing to stop the actual attack itself and the auto victory only requires 1 day in control of the base with 2X the needed supplies.  The IJN was expendable so planes and surface units were there with the purpose of running interferance with any naval or air force that tried to intervene.  Remember 1 day is all it takes so even if there was a US division there the attack would've been at about 8 or 9 :1 odds with combat engineers doing the forts.

Always bring the kitchen sink when going for an auto victory.  For the Allies to prevent this picket ships should be stationed backed by PBYs on search.  Remember it takes 2 to 3 days to redeploy air assets and then they might need a rest.  Naval forces are at least 3-5 days away and unless there's LCUs already loaded to sail that's not even an option due to the time frame.

In short Plan 123143 is a very workable plan as long as you wait for the Allied player to attack bases far enough away from Luganville to make the return trip lengthy (Shortlands is a good rule of thumb for a minimum).

[HansBolter]

Interesting plan Todd. Now I know what to keep my guard up against.

Although speaking from a position of inexperience, it doesn't seem logical to discount your enemies air simply because it will become fatigued by staging into position.

If I have the luxury, I usually stand squadrons down for 2-3 days after a long transfer so they start their intended missions rested. In an emergency situation where they are needed right away that luxury of rest gets tossed out with the bath water. Even the longest range stages (PM to Luganville or Noumea) typically result in about 35-45 fatigue.

Surely, in a do or die, game is gonna end situation, squadrons with that level of fatigue are gonna get thrown into the fray.

[tocaff]

I don't discount the enemy air.  I do say that all I need to do get there and the loses in the 2 to 3 days that I'm landing will be absorbed by the huge amount of ships involved.  Don't forget that I bring the KB along so there are juicy INJ targets as all I care about are the APs and their cargo of troops & supplies.

[RGIJN]

This feint "just" depends on two things, namely surprise & luck. You HAVE TO to approach undetected and it´s imperative that your opponent doesn´t have stocked LCU´s at Luganville by the chance... Needless to say it´s an all-or-nothing move. If you fail it´s game over[:(]
But if everything is according these preconditions a sudden death is almost inevitable. It seems I need to save Todd´s plan somewhere deep into my UV brain...

[SuluSea]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

Interesting plan Todd. Now I know what to keep my guard up against.

I have to agree, I'm learning this game on the fly and have only taken on the AI. Reading the AARs have really given me some insight on how to play against a real body how much of it I'll remember is TBD at a later date.[;)]

Read like it was a good match.