Situation 08/16/45

[bradfordkay]

"Day Time Surface Combat, near Takamatsu at 107,60, Range 18,000 Yards

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
No Japanese losses

Japanese Ships
BB Mutsu, Shell hits 50, and is sunk
CA Takao, Shell hits 18, heavy fires, heavy damage
CL Yahagi, Shell hits 7, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Yudachi, Shell hits 13, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Oboro, Shell hits 12, heavy fires, heavy damage
DD Sazanami, Shell hits 20, and is sunk
DD Matsu, Shell hits 13, heavy fires, heavy damage

Allied Ships
CA Louisville, Shell hits 21, and is sunk
CB Alaska, Shell hits 8, Torpedo hits 1, on fire
CL Raleigh, Shell hits 1
DD Allen M. Sumner, Shell hits 1
DD English, Shell hits 6, on fire
DD Samuel Moore, Shell hits 1
DD Lyman K. Swenson, Shell hits 4, on fire
DD Erben
DD Evans, Shell hits 1
DD Franks, Shell hits 1
DD Gregory, Shell hits 1"


On the plus side, it looks like the Alaska may have proven herself in battle...

[Chickenboy]

My goodness! [X(] What a bloodbath. It took me 10 minutes to quickly scroll through that turn-it must have taken an hour and a half for resolution!

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: BLurking
And the air losses for the day:

1961 planes lost and only 181 were to flak, that’s not even 10%. Pretty weak for 8/45 flak effects. By this stage of the war flak should be accounting for about 60%+ of all plane losses were it anywhere close to historical.

Jim

All sorts of explanations for why flak may not have been as effective as historical in this turn, Jim.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
All sorts of explanations for why flak may not have been as effective as historical in this turn, Jim.

Just this turn eh? Look at the war totals then and you get the same less than 10% levels. Total losses: 64,203, flak losses: 6,258. Looks pretty consistent to me. And far too low to be anywhere close to historical. Historically more than 50% of all planes lost to hostile fire were lost to flak.

Jim

[BLurking]

I'm gonna have to agree with Jim on this score. Not only are flak losses too low for the war (speaking as Japanese player here), but Allied losses to flak seen in the intel screen are primarily due to base flak batteries. And I shamefully stacked AAA on prime targets to increase losses. Introduction of VT fuzes should result in wicked losses to the Japanese, but I haven't seen that to be the case.

During this turn, unless my opponent really dropped the ball, Allied AA ammo on board should have been near 100%. The previous turn I had allowed him to land with minimal opposition (I wanted to know what the target landing hexes were prior to committing). So very little flak ammo expended, and still losses were relatively light - well, for '45 they were light. I've gotten used to taking big losses over the past year [8D]...

[BLurking]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

My goodness! [X(] What a bloodbath. It took me 10 minutes to quickly scroll through that turn-it must have taken an hour and a half for resolution!

I usually watch any carrier strike religiously in the replay, but the ESC key was in use quite a bit this time...

[sfbaytf]

Weak flak or not. I got beat fair and square and the better general/admiral won. I'll let everyone else debate the flak, but for me I'm not making any excuses or looking for a way out.

Besides its a good excuse to turn off the computer for a while and go out and enjoy the beautiful sunshine. I spend 8 hours a day working in front of a computer screen and then come home and spend too much time playing this. This has been a 8+ month? marathon run at full pace and I'm beat.

This part of the war is a slow motion slugging match....

I hoped on the train and went into the city. I tell you there are a lot of good looking women just roaming around dressed mightily scantly...

ORIGINAL: BLurking

I'm gonna have to agree with Jim on this score. Not only are flak losses too low for the war (speaking as Japanese player here), but Allied losses to flak seen in the intel screen are primarily due to base flak batteries. And I shamefully stacked AAA on prime targets to increase losses. Introduction of VT fuzes should result in wicked losses to the Japanese, but I haven't seen that to be the case.

During this turn, unless my opponent really dropped the ball, Allied AA ammo on board should have been near 100%. The previous turn I had allowed him to land with minimal opposition (I wanted to know what the target landing hexes were prior to committing). So very little flak ammo expended, and still losses were relatively light - well, for '45 they were light. I've gotten used to taking big losses over the past year [8D]...

[topeverest]

That certainly was some replay...To paraphrase, it certainly was an island too far in this case. Allied CAP and Flak were far less effective than I exepted, but then I have seen that in several of the late war AAR's, allbeit smaller confrontations. I takeaway that a longer leap requires a very thorough rooting out of enemy air and naval forces.

Setting aside the leap distance which limited allied land fighters and excellent Japanese naval / air invasion pulsing, does anyone think the dispersed nature of the allied fleets contributed or mitigated total allied losses?

[sfbaytf]

I didn't think it would make much of a difference but my new system just blows by at warp speed. Makes a big difference-especially when you hit the esc key.

New system:
AMD Phenom II X4 955
8 Gigs DDR3-1333
Radeon 5850
Liquid cooled.

Old system:
Athlon X2 5000
8 gigs DDR2-800
Radeon 49890
Air cooled.

It would be nice if there could be branching AI routines that utilize all 4 cores.

Could it also be possible to scan the CPU and detect the number of cores and use whatever is on the motherboard?

I'm also hearing rumors that the graphics cards makers are developing add in cards that utilized the basic design of GPU's, that will be used to boost computing power.

co-worker thinks its possible to write a brute force AI routine that will be like the chess one that is very difficult to beat. Personally I'll only believe it when I see it. I think AE is too complex.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

My goodness! [X(] What a bloodbath. It took me 10 minutes to quickly scroll through that turn-it must have taken an hour and a half for resolution!

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
All sorts of explanations for why flak may not have been as effective as historical in this turn, Jim.

Just this turn eh? Look at the war totals then and you get the same less than 10% levels. Total losses: 64,203, flak losses: 6,258. Looks pretty consistent to me. And far too low to be anywhere close to historical. Historically more than 50% of all planes lost to hostile fire were lost to flak.

Jim

Not interested in your recitation of facts from the Second World War, Jim. The ships in this game turn could have been low on AAA ammo (it's been known to happen), been poorly experienced, etc., etc., etc.

[sfbaytf]

That probably made a difference in losses. Also this particular turn I didn't fly sweeps over airbases like I did the previous turns.

I did have LR CAP the previous turn over the invasion hexes, but once again didn't fly them this turn. I also had the carrier range turned down-in the past I had the fighters spend too much time flying sweeps over 1 or 2 ML's TF's near the Home Islands.

Part of the reason I had so many dispersed fleets was to send some SAG's off to kill the 1-2 element IJN TF's so my carriers wouldn't be wasting sorties on them. I figured I would be seeing tons of these sacrificial lamb TFs and I wanted to kill them with SAG'S and not have my carriers waste launching strikes against them.

[sfbaytf]

Actually the ships were at full ammo and fully upgraded. Experience was average to above average. I do have to admit I did think that by this point my flak would be a lot more effective, but once again, I'm not going to use that as an excuse.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
All sorts of explanations for why flak may not have been as effective as historical in this turn, Jim.

Just this turn eh? Look at the war totals then and you get the same less than 10% levels. Total losses: 64,203, flak losses: 6,258. Looks pretty consistent to me. And far too low to be anywhere close to historical. Historically more than 50% of all planes lost to hostile fire were lost to flak.

Jim

Not interested in your recitation of facts from the Second World War, Jim. The ships in this game turn could have been low on AAA ammo (it's been known to happen), been poorly experienced, etc., etc., etc.

[Miller]

I always assumed that as the Allies grew ever stronger the Jap player should seek out the final big battle asap. Seems that this is not always the case.........

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: Miller

I always assumed that as the Allies grew ever stronger the Jap player should seek out the final big battle asap. Seems that this is not always the case.........

The idea of "Decisive Battle" did not work for Japan that well in real life either...[;)]

[vonTirpitz]

I have the distinct impression that a good portion of the flak damage inflicted on my planes result in higher Operational losses.

Even if the losses are not a perfect representation of "historical" expectations there is a good chance that it isn't as bad as some like to believe.

ORIGINAL: sfbaytf

Actually the ships were at full ammo and fully upgraded. Experience was average to above average. I do have to admit I did think that by this point my flak would be a lot more effective, but once again, I'm not going to use that as an excuse.

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns



Just this turn eh? Look at the war totals then and you get the same less than 10% levels. Total losses: 64,203, flak losses: 6,258. Looks pretty consistent to me. And far too low to be anywhere close to historical. Historically more than 50% of all planes lost to hostile fire were lost to flak.

Jim

Not interested in your recitation of facts from the Second World War, Jim. The ships in this game turn could have been low on AAA ammo (it's been known to happen), been poorly experienced, etc., etc., etc.

[sfbaytf]

This was an unusual situation. I was operating near the Home Islands and as already mention the carrier game mechanics doesn't handle that well.

Also Japan can produce more planes with 100% quality (no defects-and no suffering from poor fuel quality) and man them with pilots that was historically the case.

At this point in the game I could have just continued the fire bombing and force a auto victory in a month or 2. I could also drop some nukes. I don't see much fun in that so I decided to try and invade. In hindsight I should have waited longer.

I think in 6-12 months after more players get to this point we'll see how balanced the game is and where the defects are.

As the saying goes-you can tell a pioneer by the arrows in their back.

ORIGINAL: Miller

I always assumed that as the Allies grew ever stronger the Jap player should seek out the final big battle asap. Seems that this is not always the case.........

[USSAmerica]

Holy pure carnage, Batman!  [X(]

[sfbaytf]

That it was. My opponent surrounded my fleet with numerous ones and just came charging.

[BLurking]

ORIGINAL: sfbaytf

Also Japan can produce more planes with 100% quality (no defects-and no suffering from poor fuel quality) and man them with pilots that was historically the case.

At this point in the game I could have just continued the fire bombing and force a auto victory in a month or 2. I could also drop some nukes. I don't see much fun in that so I decided to try and invade. In hindsight I should have waited longer.

Since this game is pretty much at an end, I'll let the Allies in on a secret. Target engine factories. HI, supply, fuel, armaments, vehicles, merchant and naval ship reserves can be stocked up. But the drain on engines is a neverending hassle for the Empire. And mid-summer '45 The Emperor was shocked to discover that his final generation aircraft were switching to Mitsubishi from Nakajima. The industrial switchover nearly wrecked Japan's economy. Target specific aircraft and engine factories, and the Empire will crumble that much quicker.

Oh, and JFBs - never, ever, ever expand HI or factories in the Home Islands if you can help it. Crank up the factories in SE Asia and Manchukuo, where the Allies have a tougher time hitting it. And you don't lose strategic points when it gets nailed. Strategic bombing is cake in AE - night or day - so don't give the Allies any freebies by expanding factories they can easily crush...

[BLurking]

HI situation at present. As you can see, there are probably 4-5 months stockpile left - even if the existing factories were to be wiped out instantly: