Shattered Vow

[Canoerebel]

Miller is tenacious and I think our game will continue for a long time to come, but Japanese fortunes are waning fast.  So I've been mulling over some of the major strategic decisions that shaped our game:

1.  Allied Carrier Raid on Java; April 1942:  The combined British and American carriers met south of Australia and proceeded north to hit the Japanese carriers at Soerabaja and Semereng.  The first replay led to a decisive Allied victory, but a bug forced a re-do that was decidely more balanced.  The raid was risky, but I think it was well-conceived and the kind of chance-taking that the Allies can engage in from time to time with careful thought given to what happens if it turns sour.  I give the Allied CinC a B+ for this effort.

2.  Allied Invasion of Luganville; June 1942:  The Allies wanted to reclaim this important base to secure the LOC between the West Coast and Australia.  Thinking that the KB was still suffering a hangover from the Battle of Java, the Allies put together a strong force...but then puzsyfooted around instead of driving to the beachhead as quickly as possible.  The delay allowed several repaired IJN CVs to arrive on the scene.  The Allies suffered a major defeat though they were able to re-take Luganville.  CinC gets an D- for this effort (it would have been an F but for taking Luganville).

3.  Allied Invasion of the Kuriles; March 1943:  This massive, long-in-developing plan caught the Japanese totally by surprise.  The Allies succeeded in taking Paramushiro Jima and Onnekotan Jima with strong forces that I felt sure could withstand a protracted counterattack.  However, IJA shoreguns on Paramushiro really roughed up the Allied transports resulting in the loss of most supply.  Moroever, the invasion triggered Japanese home guard units that permitted Miller to cobble together a strong counter-invasion force much sooner than expected.  Due to the chronic low supply and the failure of Allied CD guns to exact a heavy toll, the Japanese counter-invasions in June '43 were successful.  The Allies lost a tremendous number of transports and something like six BBs.  The Japanese, in turn, lost their four Kongo Class BBs.  For three months, Miller had to commit everything he had in the Kuriles to defeat this threat to the homeland.  This gave the Allies freedom to move forward in the DEI and establish a strong chain of bases between Lautem and New Guinea - an important development in the game.  Still, the entire affair ultimately failed and left a sour taste in my mouth.  The CinC gets a C- for this effort.

4.  DEI First:  Early in the game the Allies determined that their main push would take place in the DEI.  Consequently, the Allies transferred alot of Indian and British units to that theater.  Beginning in the summer of '42, the Allies engaged in a steady, difficult push into the DEI that cost both sides dearly in terms of aircraft and capital ships.  The Allies suffered a terrific beating in the Battle of Morotai in November '43, but the Japanese likewise lost alot of carriers - Allied subs claiming an important share.  By the summer of '44, the Allies had taken the Moluccas, Celebes, and most of Borneo.  CinC gets a C+ for this effort (which, truth be told, is where the war's outcome was determined).

5.  SEAC Second:  Despite the dearth of Allied troops in India, the Allies began to advance into Burma and surprised everybody by outmanuevering the enemy in this region.  Japan lost Akyab and then Rangoon and then faced a breakthrough into Cambodia and Vietnam.  The Allies committed the least resources to this theater and made the most progress; but ultimately the Japanese extracted alot of troops and rebuilt an MLR that succeeded in holding the coastal Vietnam cities plus Bangkok.  To be honest, I think the successes here were more a consequence of Japanese CinC mistakes than Allied CinC cleverness, but....a B seems reasonable.

6.  Allied Invasion of China:  The late-war Allied invasion of Hainan Island and coastal China would be an unqualified success except for one nagging problem that I'll address in a moment.  The successes were the defeat of the KB, near anhiliation of the remaining Japanese combat ships, and the success of the invasion on the ground.  The nagging failure was several mistakes I made in protecting my transports - mistakes that unnecessarily cost the Allies scores of these vessels.  Nevertheless, the invasion has been a tremendous success that bypassed the Japanese MLR, rendering much of it irrelevant, and dealt severe blows to the Japanese Navy.  I give the CinC a B+ for this effort.

Those six items are really the tale of the war from the Allied perspective.  Overall, I'd rate my play in this match a C+. 

Edited: Nah, make that a C.

[anarchyintheuk]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel


4.  DEI First:  Early in the game the Allies determined that their main push would take place in the DEI.  Consequently, the Allies transferred alot of Indian and British units to that theater.  Beginning in the summer of '42, the Allies engaged in a steady, difficult push into the DEI that cost both sides dearly in terms of aircraft and capital ships.  The Allies suffered a terrific beating in the Battle of Morotai in November '43, but the Japanese likewise lost alot of carriers - Allied subs claiming an important share.  By the summer of '44, the Allies had taken the Moluccas, Celebes, and most of Borneo.  CinC gets a C+ for this effort (which, truth be told, is where the war's outcome was determined).

Think your being overly harsh here. AFAIK it was the first example of an early DEI offensive in an aar (have to admit that I don't read all that many however). You stayed true to it and sucessfully wore down Miller's cv and surface fleet. Still don't think your going to be invited to any cve reunions tho. [;)]

Hadn't really studied the production rates for USAAF fighters late '44. With the destruction of the Luftwaffe and IJA/IJN air forces (except for kamis) the production scaleback for fighters made sense irl, it sure doesn't if you're in the middle of the DEI with Japanese AE production. That one surprised me.

[FatR]

Throwing the remnants of KB in the front of Allied spearhead at the moment when Allies weren't off-balance due to an ongoing landings, and ships damaged at the previous battle were still in yards was a bad idea. Or it might indicate that the Japanese surface fleet is desperately low on fuel.

[Canoerebel]

Doing so wasn't totally reckless.  Miller has something like 1,000 LBA at nearby Canton and Hong Kong (not to mention contributions from more distant fields like Takao, Pescadores, etc.).  Also, he knows that Allied carriers react against orders - and indeed they did so in this case.  I have five or six fleet carrier TFs south of Hong Kong, the bulk of the CVE TFs one hex to the NW, but inexplicably two fleet carrier TFs didn't react and are still about five hexes west close to two other CVE TFs.  In other words, my carriers ended up all over the place and I'm fortunate something terrible didn't happen.

[Canoerebel]

I've just had a chance to review the map with respect to the (naval) Battle of Hong Kong.  Highlights:
 
Air War:  The table shows that Japan lost 950 aircraft and the Allies 650 over the two-day turn.  Losses were much higher - especially for the Allies - than indicated in the combat report.
 
Carrier Air:  Allied carrier air is deplated.  There's nothing left with which to pursue cripples.
 
React:  The Allied carrier TFs had taken position near friendly airfields at Hainan Island.  They were all set to "do not react" and to follow combat TFs.  Neverthless, most (but - incredibly - not all) of the carrier TFs reacted.  I ended up with a bunch of fleet carriers 120 miles south of Hong Kong, and five CVE TFs 120 miles southwest of Hong Kong.  But CV Yorktown and three CVE TFs did not react, so they are all well to the west (120 miles).  IE - my carriers are spread out and were in a position where they could not support each other.  This raises questions and problems:
 
1)  WHY CAN'T WE DO AWAY WITH THE REACT FEATURE SINCE IT DOESN'T WORK AND USUALLY LEADS TO SILLYNESS AND MAYHEM?  It's bad enough that CV TFs will react against orders, but that some do and some don't is even more ridiculous.  Like carriers would separate by 120 miles or more and steam right into the face of HUGE concentrations of enemy LBA.  Not only that, the carriers left the protection provided by the combat fleets, so they went sailing into the heart of enemy territory, where enemy combat TFs were prowling, without friendly combat TFs to provide support.  SILLY.
 
2)  I now have a bunch of carriers very low on aircraft that are jam up next to those huge enemy airfields.  If my carriers react again and remain close to the coast they'll get chewed alive.  Of course, I'll issue orders for them to flee for safety, but who knows what's going to happen.

[Nemo121]

No, Miller was reckless. He could have achieve dthe same result with his land-based air and saved his CVs for raiding your SLOCs.

if his LBA attrited your CV air then his CVs would have been able to raid with excellent chances of surviving if they ran into your CVs.

The end result would have been to tie your CVs down hunting his far from the front and his LBA holding the front against your CV-light advances.

That would have been a reasonable strategy. What he did, instead, was exacerbate his weaknesses



As to your current situation. Well, this is why you should have gotten out of dodge. I doubt you'll get crucified now but if you do it'll be nothing you can complain about. Allowing CVs to run out of planes that close to enemy LBA isn't exactly the height of strategic acumen.

So, run, run fast and run far and concentrate on using the USAAF to attrit his IJAAF as you should have been doing all along. Trying to attrit them with the USN and USMC is strategically flawed.

[paullus99]

I believe the problem there is he is running out of planes for his USAAF units - which could be a big problem (and probably is).

[Canoerebel]

Edited: Nah, never mind.

[Nemo121]

Well, Paulus, then one can always reduce the tempo of the advance or focus on training pilots better to reduce loss rates at the sharp edge. In mid-March 1942 my fighter squadrons are beginning to fill nicely with 70 Exp A2A pilots from my reserves and many of my USAAF squadrons have 1/3rd to 1/2 of their pilots with mor than 70 A2A Exp.

End result when the Zeroes etc come up against my P40Bs and P40Es they lose somewhere between 2 and 4 to 1 ( in my favour ) on average at that early stage. This is late-44 when things should be even more extremely in the Allied favour. But Canoerebel didn't train sufficiently and so now he pays the price. There's nothing surprising or unfair about that. The reality though is that there are clear player-originated reasons for why things are turning out the way they are on both sides of this game. People can choose not to accept this if they wish but that doesn't alter the reality of the situation.

[paullus99]

Is what it is - you play with what you have, take your chances & sometimes you roll snake-eyes. On the flip side, sometimes you get lucky. Canoerebel has done a commendable job & I've certainly enjoyed following along.

[anarchyintheuk]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Well, Paulus, then one can always reduce the tempo of the advance or focus on training pilots better to reduce loss rates at the sharp edge. In mid-March 1942 my fighter squadrons are beginning to fill nicely with 70 Exp A2A pilots from my reserves and many of my USAAF squadrons have 1/3rd to 1/2 of their pilots with mor than 70 A2A Exp.

End result when the Zeroes etc come up against my P40Bs and P40Es they lose somewhere between 2 and 4 to 1 ( in my favour ) on average at that early stage. This is late-44 when things should be even more extremely in the Allied favour. But Canoerebel didn't train sufficiently and so now he pays the price. There's nothing surprising or unfair about that. The reality though is that there are clear player-originated reasons for why things are turning out the way they are on both sides of this game. People can choose not to accept this if they wish but that doesn't alter the reality of the situation.

Well taken points but there are also historical reasons why things turn out as they do in a game. Irl distribution of USAAF fighters to the Pacific took a dive in late '44 due to a lack of an effective IJNAF/IJAAF, their limited role against kamis and lack of sufficient basing available in CentPac. Imo distribution to the Pacific would have been more of a priority if raids of the size seen in the aar by IJNAF/IJAAF lba were made and the DEI route chosen. Given the disparity in land mass between the DEI and CentPac routes basing limitations would not have been a concern.

As an aside, I find pilot training to be a pita. I suspect Canoerebel does as well.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: anarchyintheuk

Well taken points but there are also historical reasons why things turn out as they do in a game. Irl distribution of USAAF fighters to the Pacific took a dive in late '44 due to a lack of an effective IJNAF/IJAAF, their limited role against kamis and lack of sufficient basing available in CentPac. Imo distribution to the Pacific would have been more of a priority if raids of the size seen in the aar by IJNAF/IJAAF lba were made and the DEI route chosen. Given the disparity in land mass between the DEI and CentPac routes basing limitations would not have been a concern.

As an aside, I find pilot training to be a pita. I suspect Canoerebel does as well.

I recall reading that some contracts were actually canceled and others reduced because they realized they just wouldn't need all those aircraft...

[crsutton]

Canoerebel,
 
Is he using kamakazes at all? I would think that would be the most serious threat to your carriers at this stage.

[JohnDillworth]

As an aside, I find pilot training to be a pita. I suspect Canoerebel does as well.

It sure is, but it is our pita. You can play the game without it, but you best hope your opponent does the same.
This combined with crappy flack, undersized bases in the Marianas (Tinian a 4, 7 with over stacking even though it bases many, many hundreds of B-29's) and historical aircraft production (but only for the allies, Japanese can produce what they want)makes the game a challenge right into 1945. I guess this was the idea.

[Grotius]

I certainly agree with Canoe about CV reaction behavior. We should have more control over such a crucial asset.

Personally, I find pilot-training to be fun, but I understand why some people don't.

John, I agree about flak. Remember, though, that this is scenario 2, which gives Japan more toys. There have been scenario 1 games in which the Allies win quicker than historically.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

I certainly agree with Canoe about CV reaction behavior. We should have more control over such a crucial asset.

Everyone already does.

Rarely do players who complain about CV reaction post details as to the offending TF's commanding officer. Because die rolls are involved nothing in the game is ever 100% guaranteed but try choosing a TF commander with a lower aggression rating. What happens instead is that players select CV TF commanders with the best available air and aggression ratings in order to improve their air strike power. The side effect of that player choice is a greater propensity for the CV TF so led to react independently.

Hence if a player wants to improve the odds of this not happening, they should appoint a commander with a lower aggresion level even if he has a lower air rating than they would normally look for in their CV TF commanders. If a player wants to have the benefits of, say a Halsey commanding their CV TF, then they just have to accept that there are some potential drawbacks.

Alfred

[Canoerebel]

Step right up boys! Sign up for the sensible rule that applies air-tight logic! Intuitiveness maximus!

That's right - put all common sense aside and just follow me blindly while I lead you down the counter-intuitive path that anybody can rationalize if you give them enough time and beer.

You'll have carriers throughout the entire war. Those carriers can stumble across the enemy at any moment. In order to prevent the carriers from reacting and doing really nonsensical manuevers sure to threaten your fleet with self-assured anihilation, you have to PUT BAD OFFICERS IN COMMAND OF YOUR MOST POWERFUL AND VALUABLE ASSET! Never - repeat never - put somebody as gifted as a Halsey or Nimitz in command because in this game they do not act sensible. They will react against orders, steam hundreds of miles into the teeth of an overwhelming enemy force, leave behind LRCAP, forsake the escorting combat ships they were ordered to follow, and usually end up demolished.

In other words, Gentlemen, your best commanders are your worst commanders. Never put them in command!

Instead, you must for the entire war PUT BAD OFFICERS IN COMMAND OF YOUR MOST POWERFUL AND VALUABLE ASSET. That way your carrier TFs will behave and not go off on a 200-mile lark into the teeth of an ambush. Oh, these incompetent officers don't know port from starboard and usually forget to launch into the wind and don't know sea room from a ward room, but they are your best choice.

That's right. We CANNOT have something as rationale as common sense in the game. We can't just allow commanders to choice their best officers for their most powerful and valuable assets. We simply CANNOT tolerate carriers obeying orders by not reacting when told not to. Instead, let's make the ultimate part of the game random, counter-intuitive, and as silly as we possibly can.

[:D]

[NormS3]

I take it that it was not a good turn?[:D]

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Step right up boys! Sign up for the sensible rule that applies air-tight logic! Intuitiveness maximus!

That's right - put all common sense aside and just follow me blindly while I lead you down the counter-intuitive path that anybody can rationalize if you give them enough time and beer.

You'll have carriers throughout the entire war. Those carriers can stumble across the enemy at any moment. In order to prevent the carriers from reacting and doing really nonsensical manuevers sure to threaten your fleet with self-assured anihilation, you have to PUT BAD OFFICERS IN COMMAND OF YOUR MOST POWERFUL AND VALUABLE ASSET! Never - repeat never - put somebody as gifted as a Halsey or Nimitz in command because in this game they do not act sensible. They will react against orders, steam hundreds of miles into the teeth of an overwhelming enemy force, leave behind LRCAP, forsake the escorting combat ships they were ordered to follow, and usually end up demolished.

In other words, Gentlemen, your best commanders are your worst commanders. Never put them in command!

Instead, you must for the entire war PUT BAD OFFICERS IN COMMAND OF YOUR MOST POWERFUL AND VALUABLE ASSET. That way your carrier TFs will behave and not go off on a 200-mile lark into the teeth of an ambush. Oh, these incompetent officers don't know port from starboard and usually forget to launch into the wind and don't know sea room from a ward room, but they are your best choice.

That's right. We CANNOT have something as rationale as common sense in the game. We can't just allow commanders to choice their best officers for their most powerful and valuable assets. We simply CANNOT tolerate carriers obeying orders by not reacting when told not to. Instead, let's make the ultimate part of the game random, counter-intuitive, and as silly as we possibly can.

[:D]

If this rant is in response to my preceding post then I view it as being very offensive. It does not accurately represent what I posted. Therefore I hope the rant is in response to something which has just occurred in your current game.

Alfred

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Step right up boys! Sign up for the sensible rule that applies air-tight logic! Intuitiveness maximus!

That's right - put all common sense aside and just follow me blindly while I lead you down the counter-intuitive path that anybody can rationalize if you give them enough time and beer.

You'll have carriers throughout the entire war. Those carriers can stumble across the enemy at any moment. In order to prevent the carriers from reacting and doing really nonsensical manuevers sure to threaten your fleet with self-assured anihilation, you have to PUT BAD OFFICERS IN COMMAND OF YOUR MOST POWERFUL AND VALUABLE ASSET! Never - repeat never - put somebody as gifted as a Halsey or Nimitz in command because in this game they do not act sensible. They will react against orders, steam hundreds of miles into the teeth of an overwhelming enemy force, leave behind LRCAP, forsake the escorting combat ships they were ordered to follow, and usually end up demolished.

In other words, Gentlemen, your best commanders are your worst commanders. Never put them in command!

Instead, you must for the entire war PUT BAD OFFICERS IN COMMAND OF YOUR MOST POWERFUL AND VALUABLE ASSET. That way your carrier TFs will behave and not go off on a 200-mile lark into the teeth of an ambush. Oh, these incompetent officers don't know port from starboard and usually forget to launch into the wind and don't know sea room from a ward room, but they are your best choice.

That's right. We CANNOT have something as rationale as common sense in the game. We can't just allow commanders to choice their best officers for their most powerful and valuable assets. We simply CANNOT tolerate carriers obeying orders by not reacting when told not to. Instead, let's make the ultimate part of the game random, counter-intuitive, and as silly as we possibly can.

[:D]

If this rant is in response to my preceding post then I view it as being very offensive. It does not accurately represent what I posted. Therefore I hope the rant is in response to something which has just occurred in your current game.

Alfred

One man's opinion here, but I don't see anything particularly offensive or ad-hominum in Canorebel's rant. Snide, sure. Sarcastic, sure, but to my eyes not offensive.

Of course the opinion of others may vary.