New game of WAW U2 ( Bono V.) version

[kondor]

Last few turns I built the road from Hanoi to that most southern Chinese town (donno the name). This eingeeners are becoming somewhat of hero unit to me as they helped a lot in defending the city last turn and in breaking the enemy lines in this one...

Again Cveta tried to envelope the city and partially succeded... One strong unit (for that front everything over 20 is a strong unit [:D])threatend to cut off Hanoi from that most southern China city... And I don't want that...

Orders where given to attack the attackers[:D] and ignore invading unit...
First wave failed.

[kondor]

Then I ordered heroes of China-the eingeener unit to finish the job which they did [;)].

[kondor]

This is situation there now. Again no much need to be secret...

Now 165-th near Hanoi is cut off and must breakthru towards Canton or risk to be destroyed.
Unit south of Hanoi is wihtout supply for few turns now and I doubt it has a strength left to do anything, so I think that Hanoi is safe now...

[kondor]

North offensive failed but I did manage to save cut off units and eastablish a new defensive line in mountains...

Arty attack on Changsa executed, and two aditional units in that area pushed back-so my arty is safe from ground...
Will Cveta risk his air units attacking them and maybe losing them in my follow up bombing on airfields?

[cveta]

EAST FRONT
Kondor rsponse to my advance was fast and terrible. Without proper HQ ofensive has ended before even properly started.
So in East front noting much. Refitin of units still in progres, halt on all sides. Only LF killed few light tank andsome inf. And in Dneproptrovsk area we did a raid over river and capured newly produces SU rocket lancher named Katchusa. What kind of usles wepon that is?
In France anather usa tank unit destroyed. Good.They still coming. Partisan actiwity is high becouse there is lots more than 100 pp of west troops, but we deal with partisans fast and brutaly.
Mediteranean see is unsafe. Carier II sailing tovard malta kiling all in the way. Damn thouse cruisers II with him. I dare not to attack with planes.

[cveta]

Japan

Well after mistake in Hanoi and terreble loss of all heawy surface ships I menage to did nather "briliant" move. This stupidity will chanege the course of war.
My idea of defending JA victory points was based on 2 fleets with over 50 carier air + smaller number of cruisers, batleship and DD for a protection. Thouse 2main fleet should seil together and be a punch wich will kill USA fleet when time come.
Older carier were formed in group to carry 4,7 and 10 carrier air ( 3 groups ). Their task was to give a fighting scouting, search for LRLC, smaller groups of surface ships, subs ect. And I have escort carrier with see scout on board for themain fleet. Also there were some 6 see scout on island under JA control.
Things were going good for some time but last few turns all went upsidedown. Main fleet strike at USA fleet 3 times without sucess. Last turn main fleet save Sydney and bouth JA and USA main fleets are in Australia/Guadacanal area.
Second USA fleet with Carrier III and few surface ships attack last turn on Yamamaoto HQ killing all cargoships there ( I was aware of that fleet for sometime, but didnot know exact location and strenght)
Since main fleet was out of range I decide to strike at that smaller fleet with my 3 groups of carier wich I alredy describe. Look at the scrennshot and I will explain the outcome in anather post.
Please note group of USA DD in uper left part of screnshot,becouse they were my primary target.

[cveta]

As you may see in the screenshot USA fleet have protection of 1 Battleship II and LRLC with troops on boart were also present. Group of DD have some inf also on board ( or kondor is making fake units? )
As I alredy told my 3 smaller fleets have a task to sink smaller surface vasles, sub, ect so mormal move will be to withrow after scouting, sink thouse DD and dissapear.But no. General Cveta change this and ordered all side attack on USA carrier. Well it will be enought to say that all JA ships you see on that screenshot will be ( and mosty are ) sinked by the time I put anather post.
Not to mentioned that after first attack ( wich failed,normly) wich consist of almost 20 carier air I call in for 6 subs and 3 DD hoping that they will sink LRLC at least. But they were butchered, and they sink 1 cruiser II. Oh yes - I forgot. I send carrier II in the attack also by pure desire to see will his carierair participate in combat. They did. And they all went down since carrier dies in attack.
So that is all from JA.
Oh no - it isnot. Withrowal from Hanoi ordered since we got our ass kicked ther also.

[kondor]

Wow that seems lika a bad luck. To bad for you... But it does make game more interesting [;)].
I must see this and make accoridingly fulish decisions myself-atonce![:D] (+I must decorate admiral Wheresmybooze-captain of CV Essex[:D])

[cveta]

ORIGINAL: kondor

Wow that seems lika a bad luck. To bad for you... But it does make game more interesting [;)].

Realy - I didnot notice that[&:]

[cveta]

I only wonder what kind of coment will people have on my "divide cariers" tactic. I still belive that one of themost important thing inPacific is tohave great scouting tobe able to attack first.But how to attack - well Imust learn that.

[ehzorg]

Would a few stacks of 3-4 submarines perhaps be better for pacific recon?
+ higher movement
+ hide capability
- lower recon values

[cveta]

Hm, I tray that. But this give me little less recon,but good ofensive ws subs when spoted. Others?

[kondor]

I believe that I would be similar as you in this matter. You have locate scouting plane on key positions, few subs group, few DD-ones and escort CV... And like you I would have 2 strong carier groups... Area is to large to cover it all with one...
But I would not leave that CV group near Hanoi-pounding of ground troops is irelevant there now...
And of course I would try to make one reasnobly strong FT unit in key position... Say 5 FT-s II at Truk? But ofcourse you didn't have enough resources for that...


Well I located your main fleet near Port Moresby-attacked with 3x CAG-s II and losses where equal (no ships sunked).

Your CV-s I which attacked CV III Essex are destroyed together with their support of subs II and DD-s.
Essex even did a preliminary bombing of Iwo Jima[:)]. Next turn Tokio itself is in reach by my CAG-s.

Guadelcanal liberated. Bangkok liberated after a series of air attacks and paratroopers finished it off...

Many VP-s to go and little time...

[kondor]

In France GE whitdraw to area around Paris and is pounding my troops from air...

Here is kill/loss ratio somewhere at the end of my WA turn.

[kondor]

As SU i played a bad turn... My tank army which captured Tula last turn continued down towards Voronezh airfield. On that was my goal-two groups of DB-s II... Prelimenery arty attacks on unit blocking the way to airfield went well but I messed up a final attack.
Again few waves but in a second one I forgot to include one strong tank divison and as result airfield is still in GE hands-barely...

Now GE arty (2 groups spotted) will have a field day, and DB-a will surely join the fun despite strong flak cover...

I am interested will Cveta attack with DB-s or pull them out of the hot zone...

[kondor]

In China nothing much. Whitdrawal here, attacking there and so on...
Enemy units really retreated from Hanoi area.
And recon FT was downed by CAG-s from CV near the cost somewhere... Flying tigers where sent to revenge a fallen brother. Boy they do love a good revenge...[;)]

[82ndtrooper]

I will tell you guys how I approach naval combat.
naval combat is different from land combat. Land is 2 dimensional, naval is three.
land you have surface and air
naval you have surface,air and below surface. this adds an extra component to naval combat that if you are aware of it and plan for it gives you and additional way to attack. just one or two subs at the right time can be very deadly.

there are three basic stages for combat especially naval combat.
1. scouting
2. Tactical Analysis
3. execution.

1. scouting- you do a great job at this cveta.

2. Tactical Analysis - This comes with experience and the more you play the better you will get. But this means that you look at the fleet you want to attack and you decide :
A. what are its strengths
B. what are its weakness.
C. what forces are rquired to attack it and win. <---- this is your weakness and one thing you need to work on. Naval forces are very expensive and take a long time to build you MUST be careful with them. Just like in real life at the Battle of Midway, the loss of capital ships or especially carriers in this game can lose the whole war for you. Naval combat is way more fluid than land, you can move great distances so you don't have to attack every time you see a fleet. If you dont have the forces to attack and win then wait until you can bring those forces to bear. its like a game of chess plan your moves and then attack.

3. execution - this applies to the attack or to withdrawing. Withdrawing doesn't mean you run away but that you move your forces where the enemy cant find them while keeping them close enough to attack, While you move up the additional forces you need to win the attack.

3a. execution - during the attack : In this game every time a unit is attacked no matter how many units attack it , there is a certian amount of readiness that is expended. So as Kondor has shown you can have success by doing attacks in waves. This works in all combat.

lets use the USS ESSEX carrier group for an example.

1.scouting - we found it so this is accomplished.

2. tactical Analysis.
A. Strengths - its a CV-III with 10 c-air II (we know at this stage of the game any c-air II will be very experienced)and has 2 CA-II for escorts.
Conclusion-This fleet is going to be very strong against any air attack.

B. Weakness - it has no BB or DD with it.
Conclusion - this fleet is going to be weak against surface and submarine action. its only defense against both are the 10 C-air II.

c. what forces are required to attack it and win?
we will need either a battle group with some BB and CA or a sub fleet and we need a way to remove those C-air II from its defense first.
OR we can simply overwhelm it with air power but this will be costly and if it doesn't work then we expose our CV to counter attack. ( this is I believe what you tried)

now if we have a battle group or a small sub fleet what we need to do is remove his C-air II from his defense.
To accomplish this we simply send in waves of our C-air or land air if available. every attack lowers his readiness and his ability to defend. yes you will lose planes but planes are cheap and a veteran player will be prepared to replace those lost planes on those CV before he ends his turn. ( I wont tell you how to do this but yes it can be done)
this is what you have to remember, your attacks lower his readiness which is his ability to fight or defend, even if you don't kill many of his C-air, with low readiness they cant fight long. YOU DON'T have to kill them all to succeed.

once we have lowered his readiness we send in our subs ( even 1 or 2 sub-I can do damage at this point and sink that carrier) or we send in our BB and CA to mop up.

All of this comes with experience and you will learn as you play what units to build starting with the first turn of the game and how to deploy your navy.
I hope i have helped to give you an idea of what to do and that it helps you both improve

/salute
Trooper

[cveta]

Well I appriciate your sugestions 82ndtrooper - will think about that in the future. But this is exactly what I did last turn and was hammered. 10 carier air II and 2 Cruiser II were attacked by 18-20 carier air III. I lose. Then in a second attack 6 subs II( and USA didnot have DD in fleet ) and 3 DD with carrier + 5 carier air III atacked and I lost again. Only loses I inflicted are 1 cruiser and few carier air. And ships wich survived were killed next turn.
But your idea looks nice. I will think about it and ad it in future games. Attack with planes in wawes - you set their retreat lev to 5%. I thinkt hat this is your "secret"
Word to kondor - man are we going fast with this game. My wife will kill you once I get back from vacation and I wont do a thing to stop her since you are winning. [:D][:D]

[82ndtrooper]

thats very interesting that you attacked with subs after the first attack and still lost. I must say that you have had some bad luck in your attacks.

when you attacked with your subs did his units retreat ? or did they just win ?&nbsp; if the latter than where your subs far away when you moved them to attack ?

yes setting your retreat % is one trick that you can use. you are learning. you can also do it it with subs and DD.

[82ndtrooper]

the more i think about this the more I believe there is something else going on here something that we are missing.

cveta do you realize that your plane movement and you carrier movement are two different things ?
This means that you can move your carrier as far as it can go until it can move no more. Then you can attack with your planes for their full attack. and the same goes if you attack with your planes first you can them move your carrier for its full movement. even though the game doesn't show it on the screen.

for example you can take that CV-II that's west of the Essex and move it right beside the Essex so you can get the full attack of your planes and after you have exhausted your attacks with your planes you can then move that CV-II the remainder of its movement points away from the battle.

as long as you dont use them in a surface attack say with some BB's and use up all their AP. this is why you never have your carriers in the same formation as any ships you want to use for shore bombardment or surface attacks.

there is no reason that you should have lost all three of those carrier groups. if you did it right you could have attacked with them and moved them all away to saipan and docked them or moved them anywhere away from that battle. from where you where you could have moved them most of the way back to Tokyo.

also after every air attack always try another air attack because lots of the time you will be able to do multiple attacks especially if you are right beside your target. I always select my target and select air attack then I hit the ALL button to see if any ships can launch another attack. Once again the game doesn't always show that you can do this so you have to try yourself.

I think this has to do with the game engine being unable to show both the ships AP and your planes AP. its just a little bug.

also when attacking with subs split them into multiple groups and attack from 2 or 3 sides so you can get the attack bonus. the attack bonus makes a big difference in naval combat