Waw4t - West/Russia Bwheatley/Ara vs Japan/Axis 82nd/Bart

[abulbulian]

BTW: I apologize if I came across rude in previous posts.  Not trying to be at all.  So use to messing around with Bill that I guess I need to watch how I come across with people that don't really know me.  Bill is special, or so his parents and classmates use to say. [:D]

[82ndtrooper]

ORIGINAL: abulbulian

Don't have a lot of time for this post. But the larger issue is the casualties taken by a pure air force vs a pure naval force (no air) and this is in 1939!

Consider this:
- on the scale of WaW, that battle fought was like the German navy shooting down over 100 planes.
- 1939 most naval vessels had small amount of AA considering, remember these ships were laid down many many years before they were completed. Thus, the naval thinking at the time was that planes can't sink big ships. Doolittle was one of those 'radical' thinkers that was able, early on, to prove them all wrong.
- so in 1939, these ships had very little chance to shoot down more than a handful of planes, nothing even remotely close to 100+ (given even best random mod).
- yes, later in war many ships were refitted with 2x, 3x the AA compliment to deal with the no very real concern about planes vs ships. But even then it was still considered absolutely crazy to send ships in range of enemy air with no air cover!
- you won't find any battle of pure ships (no air, no CVs) vs a decent size air force, which had any sort of success against it. Just never happened and especially not in 1939 when ships had such a small compliment of AA to make room for the larger caliber guns.
- USA even started making CLAA class ships to give a fleet some extra protection against air

conclusion: naval vs air in WaW 4T is still broken and should be addresses as it's a key component in the realism factor for WWII.

No worries bro on the being taken wrong thing

I want you to know that I agree with you about some things on your argument above.
in some ways the air versus ship thing is a little out of whack.

BUT.

it all goes back to balancing.
if you make carrier air too strong than there is no reason to have anything but carriers.
and since this is a game where you want every unit to have a place and have value you have to make some exceptions.

in this case for carrier air the cost is lower than land based air. Which in real life was exactly the opposite. Carrier aircraft had many more modifications and where a lot more expensive to produce.
So while your air losses are more than they should be they are cheaper to replace then they should be.

its a give and take thing.


also in the air attack in question lets look at a few things from the game perspective.

the land based aircraft that participated in the attack where mostly all fighters which are weak against ships, and 1 unit of level bombers which at that time where weak against ships.

plus

it was winter so they didn't have full readiness for their attack.

so what we really had was the aircraft from one lone carrier-II against 3 BB-II and 2 CA-II.
(and at that time the Royal Navy carriers only carried from 30 planes to 60 planes depending on the class.)
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/uk_fleet.htm

In the game that's a bit much for 1 lone carrier to chew. Those CA-II are plane killers designed to reflect the ability of all the DD's that where the primary air defense in WWII. But if we gave the air defense to DD's in this game then it would make the air defenses for fleets way to strong and throw things further out of balance because they have to be cheap to make.

Also remember the random generator that's used in the combat rounds. its there to keep things interesting and to reflect how anything can happen due to peoples actions a mechanical failure etc...

if you did that combat round 10 times you would get a different result each time going from both ends of the spectrum. from the air doing massive damage with few losses to the air getting creamed. in this case the air just happened to get that rare outcome where it got creamed.

I agree its not perfect but I don't know how it can be improved without throwing everything else out of balance.

[82ndtrooper]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

Wellthe games over now

But yea i went NO vichy and then bomber 2. So ara was giving me grief telling me to go fighter 2.

Does anyone besides ara think the no vichy card is worth it? My reasoning is that it will give me a foothold on north africa where i can help close in on the italians from behind and give me another area that i can bring american reinforcements into fairly easily.

ORIGINAL: Josh

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

Last turn was uneventful next turn i'll have money for level bomber 2. My partner ara wants me to go with fighter 2. So what do you guys think i should get more importantly?

Also i've got my 10th new DD2 for the fleet.

I see you already bought Bomber2, but personally I'd go for Fighter2, because airsuperiority is everything. Bomber2 might pay off though, it's a gamble.

yes it can be worth it just for the fact it keeps the french navy out of German hands.

where if Vichy is declared and then you have to declare war on them to open up north africa the french navy joins the axis.

[bwheatley]

I also wanted to keep bart off guard.

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

Wellthe games over now

But yea i went NO vichy and then bomber 2. So ara was giving me grief telling me to go fighter 2.

Does anyone besides ara think the no vichy card is worth it? My reasoning is that it will give me a foothold on north africa where i can help close in on the italians from behind and give me another area that i can bring american reinforcements into fairly easily.

ORIGINAL: Josh

ORIGINAL: bwheatley

Last turn was uneventful next turn i'll have money for level bomber 2. My partner ara wants me to go with fighter 2. So what do you guys think i should get more importantly?

Also i've got my 10th new DD2 for the fleet.

I see you already bought Bomber2, but personally I'd go for Fighter2, because airsuperiority is everything. Bomber2 might pay off though, it's a gamble.

Not a bad decision. I normaly use the PP's to build a factory in India instead, but having no Vichy means that you get to keep hold of the resources at Mosul as well as French Indochina, which can be a big benefit outside of Europe. It also as you said leaves N.Africa open to use as a base.

Finally, it may help to trip up the Axis time-table in Europe a bit. Might also give you more breathing room to withdraw forces from France, if the Krouts manage to block easy egress from your guys. Not a bad call, and you force them to defend Southern France as well...not a terrible trade off for giving them Marseille.

It's a tough call....as the West there are just so many things you'd like to spend PP's on early on in the game.

[Barthheart]

Well not being able to establish Vichy would have thrown me off this game! I have never played a game where anyone has played that card.

Would have been interseting for sure... dragged out France conquest, delayed other stuff.

[bwheatley]

Well i wont tell you ifi do it next time i was in the the air about it.

[bwheatley]

we're now replaying as waw6t
No More axis looking

[bwheatley]

So the first couple turns go off typically. I'm going to be much more careful about guarding york and coastal cities this time. Hopefully my fleet doesn't get its ass handed to it this time either.

[bwheatley]

Ok Start of turn2



Wolfpack comes by to visit


No vichy card researched


Fighter 2 Researched


Force deployment before winter



currently winter is set in we're just researching and building sea scouts and destroyers. In australia we're building destroyers too. Indian is building engineers then infantry to hopefully hold the middle east.

I'll put more detail into the AAR once i know if this gamn will go past a few more turns

[bwheatley]

War has started screenies coming.

[bwheatley]

War has been declared


Navy Deployment


We launched a 3 LBII air attack aganist the bridges around berlin but ran into 5 flak. Didn't lose any LB's but it was a close call.

[bwheatley]

Today a horrendous blitz overtook the people of france. The english have guaranteed that they will stand by france who has also said they will never surrender to the germans.
But with in a month the nazi's are on the outskirts of paris. The french know their time is almost up even though they are prepared for war they have shipped out a few cadres of french military units to form the new french army once paris falls. People realize paris is going to fall but they will return.

---

I had played the no vichy card so my units were at full readiness but they still could not put a dent into the german war machine. I evaced some units to britian as well as malta and north africa. A few air attacks and counter attacks have killed some troops which is a small pittance.

---

Air Attack outside calasis aganist an SS Panzer Division


A ground suicidal attack against the same ss panzer division


Royal Navy AF got it's butt handed to them.


Maginot line troops counter attacked the south flank of the german advance


Asia deployments


If there is anything you guys want to see let me know.

[bwheatley]

Ok got the next turn lets see what germany had in store for me. I played the no vichy card so hopefully that will throw a wrench in his works. Screenies to come.

[bwheatley]

Start of the turn


Japan and China Wake


Boston is online


My navy holds their own against the german subs. Go boys!


Escape route cut. It looks like i've gotten out all the french units i will.


Destroyers get hit by some lucky arty and sunk


My navy has killed some supply and units going to norway that probably won't last now they they captured the production. I have to assess when i want to take bergen. I need to take it to at least help out the soviets. But right now Level bombers and fighter 2 air superiority are on my radar.



Killing his subs 1 & 2



We tried to isolate luxemburg from berlin and we almost succeeded.




German Coastal Defenses


Turn's gone to grumpy mel so hopefully he will update this aar too.

[GrumpyMel]

June 1940, China.

Little news to report, as we are still in a cold war with Japan. We withdraw our forces from the more vulnerable positions on the coast to more defensible ground. We also setup production priorties, building mostly conscripts and mg's as this should be a good defensive mix. Will post pic's in a turn or two, when there is something interesting to look at.

[bwheatley]

Start of the turn.


As we said the france will always remain a valuable ally and we shall fight by her side forever


When we tried to hit hamburg with some of our bombers we lost a staggering amount of planes. Ouch. Coastal Defense is a real killer


As you can see in our naval layout we're still blocking the open waterways from the german subs. We must protect our supply lines
We have been pushing out 2 DDII per turn. Along with 3 fighter 2 and 2 LBII.


Our med fleet has already started to abuse the poor ities in NA. If the germans do try to transfer anything i have a pretty nice AS presence in malta. Along with a nice assortment of troops and anti-air assets to deter invasion.

[GrumpyMel]

July 1940 China,

The quiet before the storm. We are preparing for the inevitable Japanese offensive. We are building defensive troops, mostly conscripts and MG's and are preparing a defensive line inland. China's goal is simple, survive. This shouldn't be too difficult with the numbers of troops we can put into the field. The thing we have to make sure is to not allow Japan to knock out too many of our forces quickly and then steam-roll into our production centers. We want a war of attrition instead. This is why we pick defensible ground to make our stand. You can see our proposed defensive lines pictured below. Most of these positions should by in Flak range of our stationary AA as well.

[bwheatley]

In this last turn the german navy tried to get out into the open sea but i hunted them down. My LB2 are still struggling to dent the production of the reich. We lost 3 bombers today.



My fleet after sinking his subs

[GrumpyMel]

September 1940, China

A Major turn for the Chinese. After having finally saved up enough PP's we purchase Guns I research and build a factory to construct these new weapons. China is fairly limited in starting techs. Guns are the most versitile as they allow SFT's that can perform roles in Anti-Air, Anti-Tank and Anti-Infantry. Since I don't know what the Japanese are going to throw at me, this seems a natural first tech choice.