Hunting the Hibiki: Q-Ball (Allies) v Cuttlefish (Japan)

[d0mbo]

Q: have you lost any subs to enemy aerial ASW?
 
 

[Dave3L]

AND his subs put the Enterprise in the body and fender shop for several months as well.

[Q-Ball]

Quick update; had to find my AAR on page 2 because I haven't been sending turns, as work has been kicking my A**. So I haven't been able to continue the advance against the Empire. And I work for a Japanese company! I sense a plot here.......[:@]

Combat Report, Nov 10,11, 1942

Action is a bit slow prior to some movement by the Allied powers.....

Burma: We are almost ready for another attack on Lashio; the airstrip is trashed, which means that he can't repair forts. Last attack was 1-2 and dropped a fort, let's see if we can get 1-1.

Once Lashio is clear, we will be dropping the Chindits on Tayung Gyi.

Ellice Islands: 2 Regts and a Bn are loading up to clear the Ellice Islands. The main objective is to set-up a seaplane base. 3 CVEs will provide CAP against Bettys at Tabiteua, and I don't expect KB at all; it's in the SRA.

[Q-Ball]

OK, important question for the gallery.

This attack in Burma is going well. So well, it's clearly ahistorical. At this point, I have over 2500 well-supplied AV in several divisions pressing on the Japanese. I have 3 more divisions on the way to open another front from Akyab. This despite sending 3 Bdes and 2UK division all the way to Australia to help there. The British Indian Army is huge, well supplied, with piles of airbase and engineering support, and almost more aircraft than I can cram in the 4 size-8 airbases near the front.

If the British had all this in 1942, why didn't they just crush the Japanese in Burma? The answer of course is that there were huge logistical challenges, and that many of the Indian Divisions I am using weren't really ready for prime time in late 1942. It wasn't that easy, otherwise the British would have done it. Safe to say this is very skewed. Historically, the British couldn't mount an offensive on this scale until late 1944, and even then it was after the Japanese impaled themselves on Imphal and Kohima, greatly weakening their position.

Cuttlefish's Burma front is close to collapse. Lashio is down to ZERO forts, and the last attack was 1 to 1. If that falls, he will be fortunate to escape with the 3 divisions north of Shwebo. I expect to be banging on the gates of Rangoon around the New Year, and planning an invasion of Thailand after that. All this against 5 IJA Divisions, which is probably more than the Japanese ever had in Burma. Anytime the IJA air shows itself, it is instantly bombed/destroyed by the RAF. The Wehrmacht in 1944 had more air support.

So, now what? Do I halt? Find a self-imposed House Rule? Looking for suggestions, because I don't want to screw this game up.

Also, is this changed significantly in Patch 2?

[Canoerebel]

I would simply address this with Cuttlefish.  Players will feret out little imbalances as we work deeper into this new, vast, complex, entertaining, and somewhat raw game that we love.  Cuttlefish may have some opportunities the Japanese didn't have in real life so that he wants you to proceed, or he may politely ask you to hold off, or he may ask you to push so that you can test the game's parameters a bit all in the name of providing good data that the developers can consider as they work on future patches.
 
It's wonderful (and typical Q-Ball) that you would take this step instead of just driving the dagger home in the name of winning.

[Chickenboy]

Glad for the update. Had I known it was on p. 2 of the AARs, I would'a 'bumped it' up, as this is one of my favs.

So many things in AE (like WiTP) are or can be a little 'off'. Go with it. This is your war, prosecute it as best you can, where you can with what you have. It is what it is.

Other posters will tell you that the IJN has an ahistorical benefit re: submarines or that the USN is hamstrung re: replacement pilot quality or carrier aircraft throughout 1942. Some will reiterate that China is catywompus and too easily 'rolled' by the IJA in 1942. Yup, that's life. Don't sacrifice your advantages on the altar of history. If it ain't completely FUBAR, it's fair game.

Maybe IRL the Indians had their defenses 'deeper' in India and were unwilling to go on the offensive as you are suggesting. So what? Even if it is without the 'benefit' of history, it's not gamey to use them in the manner you're suggesting.

If I may offer a note of caution: those 25 exp. Indian Divisions may not be as useful as you're suggesting. They are only marginally more useful than the Charlie Romeo Alpha Papa Burmese divisions / regiments / rabble that you were stuck with to defend Burma in 1941. You will need beaucoup numerical advantages to push around a quality division like the Imperial Guards.

Surprised that you're experiencing the same level of success in the air in Burma. Defensively, the IJAAF should be able to hold their own in Burma if Cuttlefish felt it necessary for them to do so. [&:]

[Smeulders]

Question, are you using the restricted Indian units ? Quite a lot of their divisions are attached to restricted commands, maybe a HR that you have to buy these out before committing them to Burma would have an impact ?

As for the difference after patch 2, I've posted the link already, but to me the number aren't saying too much yet, maybe we'll have to wait for someone who started after patch 2 to go the offensive in Burma to see what the effects are.

[vlcz]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
This attack in Burma is going well. So well, it's clearly ahistorical. At this point, I have over 2500 well-supplied AV in several divisions pressing on the Japanese.

Are you using units from (R) HQs?.... If you are doing it is the same boat as japan launching the full manchukuo army (except 8000AV for the garrison) against china without paying PP... we need land frontiers implemented (and I think this is in the works)

If you are doing that with "free" troops so soon.....then maybe there are too many free troops

[Mike Solli]

Q-Ball, I've been seeing what you describe in Burma in several AARs.  Not only Burma either.  The Southern SRA comes to mind too, as well as the Aleutians/Northern Japan.  It seems like the Allies are bouncing back far too quickly.  Not sure why though.  Maybe larger garrison requirements for India would help?  I certainly don't like all the dot hex max airfield sizes though.  That seems unrealistic.  Gotta ponder this some more.

[BrucePowers]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

OK, important question for the gallery.

This attack in Burma is going well. So well, it's clearly ahistorical. At this point, I have over 2500 well-supplied AV in several divisions pressing on the Japanese. I have 3 more divisions on the way to open another front from Akyab. This despite sending 3 Bdes and 2UK division all the way to Australia to help there. The British Indian Army is huge, well supplied, with piles of airbase and engineering support, and almost more aircraft than I can cram in the 4 size-8 airbases near the front.

If the British had all this in 1942, why didn't they just crush the Japanese in Burma? The answer of course is that there were huge logistical challenges, and that many of the Indian Divisions I am using weren't really ready for prime time in late 1942. It wasn't that easy, otherwise the British would have done it. Safe to say this is very skewed. Historically, the British couldn't mount an offensive on this scale until late 1944, and even then it was after the Japanese impaled themselves on Imphal and Kohima, greatly weakening their position.

Cuttlefish's Burma front is close to collapse. Lashio is down to ZERO forts, and the last attack was 1 to 1. If that falls, he will be fortunate to escape with the 3 divisions north of Shwebo. I expect to be banging on the gates of Rangoon around the New Year, and planning an invasion of Thailand after that. All this against 5 IJA Divisions, which is probably more than the Japanese ever had in Burma. Anytime the IJA air shows itself, it is instantly bombed/destroyed by the RAF. The Wehrmacht in 1944 had more air support.

So, now what? Do I halt? Find a self-imposed House Rule? Looking for suggestions, because I don't want to screw this game up.

Also, is this changed significantly in Patch 2?

I am concerned about this also. In Canoerebel's game where he is invading northern Japan in early 43 in the winter. I don't think that would have been doable in the northern Pacific in winter...

[Canoerebel]

I'm not concerned about it - it wasn't Winter - it was March and winter effects had just ended.  More importantly, my opponent and I had equal knowledge that winter ended beginning March 1 and therefore we both were aware of what that meant. 

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

OK, important question for the gallery.

This attack in Burma is going well. So well, it's clearly ahistorical. At this point, I have over 2500 well-supplied AV in several divisions pressing on the Japanese. I have 3 more divisions on the way to open another front from Akyab. This despite sending 3 Bdes and 2UK division all the way to Australia to help there. The British Indian Army is huge, well supplied, with piles of airbase and engineering support, and almost more aircraft than I can cram in the 4 size-8 airbases near the front.

If the British had all this in 1942, why didn't they just crush the Japanese in Burma? The answer of course is that there were huge logistical challenges, and that many of the Indian Divisions I am using weren't really ready for prime time in late 1942. It wasn't that easy, otherwise the British would have done it. Safe to say this is very skewed. Historically, the British couldn't mount an offensive on this scale until late 1944, and even then it was after the Japanese impaled themselves on Imphal and Kohima, greatly weakening their position.

Cuttlefish's Burma front is close to collapse. Lashio is down to ZERO forts, and the last attack was 1 to 1. If that falls, he will be fortunate to escape with the 3 divisions north of Shwebo. I expect to be banging on the gates of Rangoon around the New Year, and planning an invasion of Thailand after that. All this against 5 IJA Divisions, which is probably more than the Japanese ever had in Burma. Anytime the IJA air shows itself, it is instantly bombed/destroyed by the RAF. The Wehrmacht in 1944 had more air support.

So, now what? Do I halt? Find a self-imposed House Rule? Looking for suggestions, because I don't want to screw this game up.

Also, is this changed significantly in Patch 2?

Yes, two issues. It should take a little longer to train up the Indian army, and it should cost PP to enter Burma before 1943. Reason is that the whole country was in a near mutiny in 1942 and I doubt politically if they would have sent any forces very far away. Plus the loyalty of Indian troops were in question. I was able to train most Indian army units from level 20 to level 50 by May of 1942. (although most are not near full strength)

Two, they absolutely must make it harder for supplies to flow over rough and jungle terrain. I am seeing this effect in the game everywhere. The reason the Indian army had to wait until 1944 is the only way to really support a North Burma campaing was by air transport, and there was not enough in India until 44. No way they could move the supply between India and North Burma like it happens in game. My Japanese opponent just marched overland to PM from Buna with a large force and took it. Supply just did not factor in. It is almost like they need two types of trail. Paths such as the one that crossed the Owens Stanley range and then dirt roads such as were found in Northern OZ. Any path should send only a trickle of supply to reflect the lack of vehicular traffic.

And just practically prohibit the flow of supply over any terrain that is not clear or regular forest.

While we are at it. Much more disruption and fatigue for moving over jungle rough and mountain hexs. Infantry only and perhaps two miles per day for rough jungle and one mile per day for alpine.

However, one can't come without the other as the poorly trained Indian units would be very vulnerable to an overland attack by Japan if the supply issue still existed.

For now a short term fix might be to require the Allied or Japanese player to pay PP to enter Burma or India just as most of us do in China. I don't know about the Japanese side but the Allies are usually very short of PPs in early to mid 1942 due to the need to replace leaders and send restricted units to the South Pacific. I know I don't have the PPs in mid May to pay for units to leave India.

While I am at it, give big armor bonuses to Allied armor and motorized units in clear and desert terrain. I am getting tired of these Northern Oz invasions. 400 Grant and matilda tanks would cut through any Japanese army as soon as it left the protection of the coast.

[SqzMyLemon]

This brings to mind something I've thought about as well, but does not directly relate to the land unit issue being dealt with right now. I've noticed a lot of Allied players are using the British ships that are required to withdraw at some point very aggressively with the mentality of "hey, they have to be withdrawn anyway, so why not try and sink some Japanese assets in return, if they get sunk...so what." Historically those ships were meant for duties elsewhere, as we all know the Pacific was not the major theatre of operations on everyone's mind at the time. Many of these ships required to withdraw were needed for operations in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. I'd like to see a PP penalty instituted for the loss of any ships required to withdraw, or even have to be replaced by withdrawing a ship of equal value as the old "War in the Pacific" board game made you do. There should be a prohibitive cost for these tactics.

What the game cannot represent is the "Political" reasons why things were not done. Everything is not black and white. India had to be defended, Australia, New Zealand and other countries HAD to be defended. The British couldn't send their entire fleet/army to the Far East without severe political ramifications at home and among their Allies. The Allies couldn't strip every unit out of key areas leaving a token defence and say to those remaining you're on you own, the civilian populations would have freaked. How many countries do you know could willingly give up bases and cities leaving the civilian populations to wither and die? Any democratic government that did that would have a revolt on it's hands.

I'm learning that this entire game is ahistorical, the Allied player has the benefit of hindsight and can use all his forces aggressively to cause any number of unpleasant situations for the Japanese as Q-Ball and others have done, without any sense of the political ramifications that would occur in real life that made these operations impossible to undertake during those times. An aggressive Allied player can pick and choose where he halts the Japanese onslaught, or makes the price so high to pay that it effectively neuters Japanese capabilities in the future. The Japanese player is far more restricted, you HAVE to conquer Oil/Fuel bases, you have to ship resources to the Home Islands, you have to manage production. You can't dream up and implement an invasion of the U.S. because you then have no Oil/Fuel for the Home Islands and your economy crashes. A good Allied player will always be in a position to thwart Japanese expansion at a time and place of his choosing.

All this being said, Q-Ball your strategy and management of your forces has been masterful and you are to be congratulated. You're an honourable opponent realizing that you have Cuttle on the ropes somewhat and willing to back off for the sake of continuing a challenging game for both players. I totally agree with Chickenboy though. If you can dream up an operation and the game lets you do it, it's fair game. Until the game design itself can make ahistorical operations prohibitively costly for a player, this is the nature of the beast. Don't be surprised if you start having trouble finding players willing to play the Japanese in the future though. [:D]

[Mike Solli]

Something just dawned on me (since I really know very little about the Allied side of things).  vlcz asked a question above that I didn't catch until crsutton's message.  Are you moving restricted units into Burma?  If that's the case, then I see a real issue.  No restricted unit (on either side) should be able to move over a national border.  That was a problem I ran into in an old WitP PBEM.  Chinese units flooded into Burma totally overwhelming the Japanese.  Just a thought....

[Mike Solli]

Something just dawned on me (since I really know very little about the Allied side of things).  vlcz asked a question above that I didn't catch until crsutton's message.  Are you moving restricted units into Burma?  If that's the case, then I see a real issue.  No restricted unit (on either side) should be able to move over a national border.  That was a problem I ran into in an old WitP PBEM.  Chinese units flooded into Burma totally overwhelming the Japanese.  Just a thought....

[Canoerebel]

By late '42 the Allies probably have enough PP to "un-restrict" many of the restricted Indian units.  I know that I do in my game.  So the problem may need even more treatment than just paying PP to move restricted units.

[Smeulders]

Hey Lemon,

You make a couple of good points, especially about the ships due to be withdrawn. It does seem that this is hard to get right. On the one hand discouraging the sacrifice of the withdrawing ships is a good thing, I can't imagine a general saying "you're probably going to die on this mission, but otherwise I'll have to send you to another theatre". On the other hand having to withdraw an equivalent ship doesn't really work either, as that might mean the pacific is left with too few ships of a particular class. Imagine that I have 10 DD, 5 due to be withdrawn, for some reason I lose all 5, the admiralty probably won't ask me to withdraw the other 5 instead, it's simply impossible to leave the complete British pacific fleet without escorts.

I hope I can reassure you that in our games, the ships due to be withdrawn will not be sent on (near) suicide missions. That said, I do think that this is sometimes hard to judge. If you're expecting a surface bombardment by strong IJN forces on a base and there are RN BB nearby, when is it then gamey to use them, 1-10 is probably gamey, it's a 1 day delay of the bombardement at best, not a good trade for a BB and 1000 sailors, but what odds do become acceptable ? I think it's a call of the players themselves in each situation.

The other problem, not defending politically important targets doesn't seem too much of a problem. I haven't seen any AAR where major population centres were left wide open for the Japanese to take (Calcutta has fallen a few times it seems, but hardly due to Sir Robins). Burma and Northern Australia do seem to be taken against a token defence some times, but I'm not too sure that's really an unrealistic strategy.

[veji1]

It is to bad thought that the game can't consider national borders as an impassable territory for restricted units, ie you would be free to use your indian units throughout india and to defend Imphal and allia, but they just could'nt cross to Burma until bought...

[witpqs]

I agree with Smeulders, the only solution for this one (and many similar issues in a game/simulation this complex) is to find an honorable opponent and agree on non-gaminess, spelling out whatever the two of you think should be spelled out.

[SqzMyLemon]

My intention was not to imply that gamey tactics were used on the part of any players, I just want to make that clear. I was just trying to point out that by being a game, players are free to utilize their forces in any matter of ways which will always lead to ahistorical outcomes. Unless the game can somehow penalize players that stretch the historical realities of the time too far, or in some cases even reward players who keep within the confines of the historical context, these issues will be just that, issues. We don't have to deal with any of the real life consequences of decisions that governments at the time had to wrestle with.

It's all good Smeulders, I realize that it's unrealistic to expect a player to not use what forces he has availbale to give the best chance of success in a combat situation. I agree it isn't practical to replace a ship required to withdraw with another one in it's place either, so I think a PP penalty is best. The intention is to withdraw the ship/unit intact, and if it by the fortunes of war gets sunk/destroyed, some other method of having to make up for that is required.

witpqs, I completely agree, but would like to add that the game can help in this as well as far as incurring penalties if it's learned game play is becoming unbalanced. The house rule system seems to be able to address many of these issues, and open discussion on these subjects will make us all aware of potential pitfalls to balanced game play. Following these AAR's is a great way to learn so we can make the game experience as enjoyable as possible for everyone.

Just my 2 cents, I still love the game!

Sorry to interrupt your AAR Q-Ball, on with the show!