The Shipwreck of Their Hopes: Good'Guyz (aka "The Allies")

[n01487477]

Sorry to hijack the thread for a moment ...

ORIGINAL: Nemo121
...
In my game vs Damian I used to be able to show CVs and transports etc and tease him with an incipient attack. He would then attack and lose hordes of ships and planes as they ran into a buzzsaw of a trap I'd created from 2nd echelon bases. After a few such incidents Damian has learned and recently turned down several opportunities for decisive battles. John3rd will fall for such teasing and should keep falling for it until the point where his navy is impotent is reached. That'd be the strategic and operational nous of how I'd go after him.

I know you are using me to highlight how best defeat JohnIII, and I agree with everything you say, but I take exception at the "lose hordes of ships" ... "planes" yes ... I lost a bucketload, but so have you 27,798 V 28910 ... [;)]

Any chance of a turn my good man to run headlong into danger and lose those ships [:'(]

[Nemo121]

Damian, ah you're back. I'll get a turn your way.

As to me losing a lot of ships. Absolutely . It has been as bloody as hell. My point was simply that that sort of teasing op ( which no longer really works on you ) ould work on John and keep on working.

You are taking more than your tithe... as you'l see once we finish and you get to read my side of the AAR.

[jrcar]

A few thoughts as Allies...

NO piece of land is important. If the Japs want it let them have it. Delay the if you can, but don't loose forces you don't need to.

Maintaining the integrity of your ground forces IS important. That means don't stick out even Divs on an island. The MINIMUM is about 400 AV and level 4 forts... if you can't do that, don't until you are ready! Put a couple of engineer units and build the forts. Once ready move in the 1-2 Div into their new home.

Train your aircraft hard from day one. DON'T commit them until they are 60-70 in their skill (A-A for fighters). Again you need mass. One base with 50 is MUCH better than 2 with 25.

The aim is to delay as much as possible. Strike where they ain't... but if you don't know where they are don't go there.

Places that are nice to hold are Darwin PM and Fiji/Noumea... but NOT essential to hold. Don't reinforce them until to can generate enough mass.

I agree on Brisbane. I also send forces to Darwin and Alice springs. If you hold Brisbane and Alice you are good.

Perth is tricky. Easy for the Japanese to take unless you reinforce... but you don't have much... Makes a long logistic tail for them... and cuts off supplies and fuel (or you transit to Melbourne). In the end again DON"T LOOSE units trying to hold somthing that you can't have 400 AV and level 4 forts.

Send as much supply and fuel from The middle east to Australia as soon as you can. India (except for Burma) doen't need it, so get it moving NOW.

Use small frces to cause delay, then concentrate the rest into a couple of key well defended locations.

Let them over extend, then go around them later. BUT you can only do this if you haven't lost your infantry formations.

I ship everything I can from the US to PH. Serves two purposes, defends the island, and it is 5 days sailing closer to where you eventually want to go. When in doubt ship to PH is my motto

Any "spare" ships should be moving supply and fuel to PH. Escort the troop and fue carrying convoys, the supply convoys don't unless you have a spare escort... loosing ships and supply isn't important, troops and fuel is important.

Send you convoys DEEP, yes it adds time, but it is SAFE. Having the stuff arrive is better than loosing it to a CV raid or to subs.


Keeping your fleet out of sight will slow him down... in partcular if you get a couple of minor but safe victories (which indicates you could pop up and will use your assets). Just hiding is sort of OK, but you need to demonstrate you will come out to play, if you can get an advantage.


Finally on aircraft your replacements are so low do not use them unless you can generate mass (40-60) or it is very safe.

Good luck!

Rob

[PzB74]

Was hoping you would defend the ever lasting glory of the Evil Empire Fish! [:D]
Looking forward to follow your exploits, good luck and enjoy.

Hehe, wonder if you did the same psycho analysis of me somewhere Nemo!-)

[kfmiller41]

I'll bet he has one on every player he has ever played against

[Nemo121]

I'd second what jrcar says about aircraft and pilot skill. Personally I find the Hurricane II to be a literal buzzsaw of a plane. The first Hurricane II unit I received now has 33 kills in return for 4 planes lost after only about 10 days of active combat. Don't deploy P39s into the front-line - I intend to use them purely for night CAP over my bases where enemy fighter action won't be an issue. Height reigns supreme. Put a few Buffs or B339s low to draw the Zeroes down and then let your P40s and Hurris swoop down on those Zeroes. If you can do that you can get a better than 1:1 exchange rate for the fighters.

If you have 25 fighters vs 25 Zero escorts that will usually end up with most of your fighters either being damaged or running out of ammo etc by the time they finish with the Zeroes. There won't be enough left to maul the bombers. If you defend with 50 then you'll still have 25 fighters left ready to hit the bombers and your A2A results will tip in your favour. E.g. A 1:1 exchange rate with fighters + a 6:1 exchange rate vs the bombers will average out to a 3:1 exchange rate overall. In the greater scheme of things it doesn't really matter whether you're killing fighter or bomber pilots just so long as you kill lots of Japanese pilots.

FlAK... FlAK is very effective. Don't think you have to defend every base. I have found that heavy FlAK concentrations do very well indeed in thinning out the bomber herd. It is quite a good feeling to see enemy sweeps close on empty air and then 3 of the 30 enemy bombers come down in flames because of FlAK. Easy kills. FlAK also throws off the enemy aim such that those losses are to almost no gain.


You MUST preserve the USN but use it for hit and run raids aggressively. If enemy reconnaissance isn't up to snuff ( I think ny59 will cover everything carefully but John3rd won't ) you may be able to get in, sink a few ships and get out with reasonable losses. Use CAs and CLs as you get them back as better versions in 43/44... What you sink doesn't matter. What matters is forcing the enemy to send CAs and BBs to cover their forward bases to protect them against your CA raids. Then since they must cover their CAs and BBs against your CV raids they'll end up sending fighters out to those bases too. All of the above ends up drawing enemy forces away from the Schwerpunkt and into subsidiary actions. ANything which does that is your friend.


As to your defences. jrcar is right. Read his AAR and possibly mine. It is all about picking your ground and then reinforcing it to the point that the enemy has to commit massive forces over a long period of time in order to overcome that redoubt. Minimum force is about 1 division + level 4 forts just as jrcar says. If you really want to hold it though I'd be sure to put in at least two divisions and lots of AAA ( or >50 fighters with A2A Exp >65 pilots ) to protect against aerial assault.


PzB, no you're safe ... and not as obvious as John3rd in any case. Miller41, absolutely correct, how else would I predict what they're going to do and then use that against them/provide them with information which leads them to make the choices I want them to make? [8D]

[Fishbed]

What I don't like with you guys is that your nice advices may make me look dumb once I'll tell you about the strategy I picked up (which is actually quite close to yours, honest!). Apparently everyone here wants to kick John's butt, I wonder what he did to all of you or your pets! [X(]

[desicat]

Having watched John's actions over the past few years I agree with a lot of what has been surmised here. He tends to strike deep and often takes certain campaigns for granted in attempts to throw forces possibly a "Bridge Too Far".

I wonder what Nemo thinks about the possibility of John not committing enough to the Philippines, is it possible to reinforce or send a few supplies to the PI to slow the Japanese advance assuming they under resource their landings there? Japanese players ofter treat the PI as a prison camp, can one make them pay in AE?

[Nemo121]

I would imagine that ny59 is handling the Phillipines... with the forces possibly tasked to John3rd once Manilla falls. It'd make sense that once Manilla falls the troops from the Phillipines might be freed up to invade Darwin and reinforce an invasion of north-eastern Oz.

If ny59 is invading the Phillipines then it'll be a slow, certain attack which will succeed and will have enough troops committed. I don't see the possibility of major strategic errors in the Phillipines really. If John is running the navy you might find convoys being assigned too few escorts.


He'll like to put all the big shiny stuff which makes bangs up front where it can do "exciting, aggressive, active stuff"... He won't like to commit DDs to escort his supply and support convoys... There'll be lots of raiding opportunities into his rear. If you hit the schwerpunkt you'll find it solid and iron, the follow-on forces are likely to be very weakly screened though.

[jrcar]

I disagree on the P-39, some of my best units fly it You are so short of fighters that you need to learn to use it effectively.

The trick is to have 2 units flying high cap 18-30k (P-40, Kittyhawk, Hurricane) with the P-39 at low level (10-12k). The high level cap tends to tangle with the escorts, while the low level hits the bombers... that 37mm gun wrecks bombers

Even against Zero the P-39 does ok... when the pilots have a high A-A experiance and defensive experiance.

While I said two units (50 fighters) are the minimum, you really need around 100 fighters to really hurt a KB attack. Again you can only afford a few bases to do that.


Also early on I use the patrol aircraft as transports (with maybe 10% serach). While knowing where they are is useful, there isn't much point unless you can do something about it! In the DEI and OZ you need to move those restricted units around to try and create some tougher locations (lots of small bases get over run, but if you can get 200 AV behind 3 forts you will stop them until they bring an div). This delays and disrupts their planning.

Oh and give your subs aggresive commanders, it really helps!

Get some BF (Cagayan, Manila, Caviate) out of the Phillipines, you NEED them. And in real life many of these specialist personnel were evacuated... by B-17 and PBY.

I also fly in some forces from elsewhere to Manila. an extra 100 AV can help.

If they don't attack the PI in strength (not many players do at the moment) then that gives you time to prepare, and you need to make a nuisense of yourself.

Cheers

Rob

[Nemo121]

jrcar, but every P39 squadron in the front lines is a rear area squadron which arrived with P40s or P38s or P400s which isn't at the front line.

E.g. Once you get 27 P39s you can upgrade a P40E squadron sitting in CONUSA on training duty and free up 27 P40Es as replacements for your front-line fighter units. So, relatively speaking you are far better to substitute P-40Es on the front line for P39s. Obviously if you have 100s of unused P39s and no P40Es/Bs or P38s sitting around in CONUSA in training units then send the P39s to the front. It'll be a while before the Allies are in such a position though. Maybe in your game you don't have better airframes dawdling in San Fran but in the early months the Allies certainly do. I, for example, have all my P38s and a whole horde of P40Bs and a few Es sitting in CONUSA training newbie pilots while a couple of P39 units are near the front. I am, understandably enough, trying to swap the P39s into CONUSA while bringing the better fighters out west.

[khyberbill]

I am, understandably enough, trying to swap the P39s into CONUSA while bringing the better fighters out west.

I used to do that too until a recent patch made that more difficult. In my first game started after the last hotfix and patch, I could not swap out P-38s for P-39s on the West Coast, if the P-38s (or P40s) were scheduled for withdrawal.

[Capt. Harlock]

a rear area squadron which arrived with P40s or P38s or P400s which isn't at the front line.

You want the P-400 in the rear areas: it's really a P-39 with a smaller cannon.

[khyberbill]

I also fly in some forces from elsewhere to Manila. an extra 100 AV can help

Is Manila the best place to hole up in PI? It is my preference but others have indicated Clark is better. I would think that nothing tops the urban hex advantage.

[Nemo121]

The 37mm cannon so rarely hits anything that I prefer the 20mm-armed versions. 20mm is more than enough to handle Netties and Lillys/Sallys ( maybe we should take to calling them Sillys ? )

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: khyberbill
Is Manila the best place to hole up in PI? It is my preference but others have indicated Clark is better. I would think that nothing tops the urban hex advantage.

As was pointed out to me some time ago, the Manila hex is 'light urban' in WiTP:AE, making it less defensible than 'heavy urban' terrain.

Can't answer your question about best place to defend though. As allies versus the AI, I held Manila and got liquidated in mid-March. One of my PBEM opponents (he's allied) held Bataan until mid-February against me. Granted, I put more effort than historical into taking Luzon. The terrain combined with the duration of the defense really banged up my IJ troops too. They'll need some time to recuperate before I can use them elsewhere.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock

a rear area squadron which arrived with P40s or P38s or P400s which isn't at the front line.

You want the P-400 in the rear areas: it's really a P-39 with a smaller cannon.

What's that old saw about the P-400? It's a P-40 with a 'zero' on its tail.

[jrcar]

The problem is replacements. There is no point having all your front line being P-40, then after one combat having no aircraft left due to a lack of replacements. I prefer to have 20-40 in the pool to replace losses when you need to. There just isn't enough P-40.

I agree in swaping some of the West coast units out to released P-40, but seriously I haven't had a problem using the P-39 and P400 as front line aircraft when trained and used appropriately.

Training is the key combined with mass to generate at least fighter parity when engaging the Japanese.

Cheers

Rob

[kfmiller41]

I have not found any allied fighter in early 42 that works well, but as has been mentioned it is just training and replacements alot of the time.

[Nemo121]

Miller41, ANY Allied fighter can do well if flown by a good pilot... One of my 2nd-ranking pilots with 4 kills is a dutch B339 jock. As near as I can figure it his kills are ALL Zeroes as no bombers flew on the days in which he got kills. This guy has more than 70 A2A skill so is a top notch flier.

jrcar, well I think pilot experience is the key also ( I'm sure you agree ).... Right now I'm in the fortunate position of being able to put P40s into action as quickly as I can transport and fill out squadrons with suitable pilots in the combat zone ( I also maintain a little reserve just to help replace losses although mostly I try to put replacements planes into the squadron itself to help keep up with a sudden spike in the tempo of combat ). If that changes then P39s it is [8D].