Scenario 15 and the AI as Japanese

[ADavidB]

Mogami's strategy guide was in the back of my mind as I started up a scenario 15 as the Allies against the AI the other day. This is the hypothetical scenario in which the Japanese have already grabbed all of NG and most of the Solomons, including having a substantial base at Lunga. Midway has also not happened, so both sides have the resources that were lost there. So Mogami's concern about getting PM and the other folk's strategies of going for Lunga are all taken care of at the beginning.

So I started the game fairly conservatively, expecting the AI to make some sort of move - either against Australia or the islands between Guadalcanal and Noumea. I moved ground troops to key locations in both theaters, started to ship lots of supplies to the islands north of Noumea, and rested my combat ships in anticipation of using them in reaction to an AI move. So in the first couple of weeks, I did little, but neither did the AI.

My first surprise was that the AI didn't try a bombing campaign against Northern Australia. Once my B-17's were up to strength and relatively rested I moved them up to Cooktown and did a couple of attacks, constrained, as usual, by the need to rest them for several days between each attack in order to reduce "fatigue". But the AI's response caused my jaw to drop - instead of sending tac bombers in to pound the base, it sent in occasional small groupings of Judys (!), several times without any fighter cover (!!!). Well, Judys without fighter cover make even P-39's seem like "capital H" heroes.

There were no equivalent attacks on the Eastern Front - just the occasional transport TF showing up at Lunga. The AI regularly sent transport TFs to Gili-Gili and Port Moresby, but for the first month or so I didn't tire out my bombers by trying to go after them. Instead I sent out my submarines.

The sub war was my second big surprise. In other scenarios the subs are the best weapon in mid-1942. But this time the AI seemed to have the "number" of my subs everytime they went into one of it's key ports. I had three fleet subs in a row depth-charged out of Truk without taking a shot at anything. One of those subs was turned back three hexes away from Truk! The same sort of thing happened at Raboul. By August I had only a couple of working subs left, and only a couple of sinkings for my trouble.

Pretty much the same thing happened to the AI. Come early August, 5 or 6 Japanese subs showed up a few hexes north of Noumea. I first went after them with the patrol craft I had been training. But when too many subs showed up I went "into the locker" and took advantage of the fact that I had around 40 DD's just sitting in port, resting up. So I put together 4 TF's of 8 or 9 DDs each, with my best surface commanders, and sent them out all at once for the next couple of turns. It was amazing - sub after sub was clobbered with multiple depth charge blasts. The subs that survived were hit repeatedly by my LBA while they tried to excape. Within a week I was able to "retire" my surface forces back to their sunny beaches.

So by mid-August the two usual strategies for the initial stages of a UV game - air wars and sub wars - had petered-out, and I realized that I would have to go on the offensive instead of waiting to pounce on AI mistakes. Fortunately, all the while I had been shipping engineers and support troops up North, so I had several nice bases forming north of Luganville, ready to act as staging grounds. Then I noticed that I happened to have 5 (!) carriers sitting at anchor in Noumea, so I decided that it was finally time to try to use them, and maybe draw out the AI.

There was an anchor sign at Lunga, and when I had my Eastern B-17 squadren in Luganville go off for a port raid, they did tag several APs. So I figured that this would be good target practice for my carriers. I set up a carrier TF with all 5 carriers, and sent it to Luganville, while I started to bomb the airfield at Lunga with my B-17s. There were a few Zeros there, but no bombers. Then I sent out my carrier TF with the dive bombers set at "port attack", the torpedo bombers set at "naval attack", and the fighters at 70% CAP. The target hex was a couple hexes southeast of Lunga.

My third surprise of the game came when my carrier TF came into range - a group of fighters from the TF went in and escorted the B-17 attack on the airfield. (!?!?!?!) That was really a "new one" for me. But right afterward, they also escorted in the dive bombers, who attacked some ground troops! Huh??? I didn't set for ground attack. The "anchor" symbol was still there, but no one attacked any ships in the port. The dive bombers did trash a fair number of ground troops, but that wasn't what I really wanted. As my TF slowly went back to Luganville, I kept my eyes out for reports of AI TFs, but there were none to be seen, nor did the AI move any bombers to Lunga ( which was now a Level 5 airfield ) to try to catch my carriers. This then encouraged me to move a marine enineering unit into Irau, to start the work of building it up too.

In the meanwhile, getting bolder because of this lack of AI response, I created a bombardment fleet in Townsville, made up of the various Commonwealth cruisers, and some destroyers. I sent this TF off to hit PM, just after pounding the air field for a couple of turns with my B-17s at 12,000 feet. The TF caused a surprising amount of damage, and nothing went up in the air on the next turn when my bombers came in again.

My bombing, bombardments and recon indicated to me that PM was full of engineering units, but only one combat unit. Since there were so many Australian combat units piling up, I decided that it was finally time to move back to New Guinea, and started to move everything I could up north to Townsville.

So there I am at the end of August - the AI appears to have moved a lot of its forces back from the front instead of challanging me before I built my forces up too much. I can't imagine a human player letting me build up the islands north of Noumea without so much as a single bomb being dropped. Also, I would expect a human player to at least try to hunt down some of my combat ships, or try to suppress the northern Australian bases a bit.

In any event, I intend to keep this game going for a while, if nothing else to see when and if the AI finally responds to me. In the meanwhile, if anyone else has tried scenario 15, either against the AI or in a PBEM, I'd love to hear their experience.

Dave Baranyi

[Drongo]

David,

Go have a look at the thread "An Aussie Affair" on the AAR forum. Raverdave and Luskan are playing Scen 15 as a PBEM. Raverdave might be a good source of information as he plays it almost exclusively in his PBEM's (I'm one of his opponents).

As for my opinion, I didn't play it against the AI but I suspect the Jap AI might not know what to do with its starting position (other than defend). Mind you, if it decides to contest one of your major moves you'll normally know it.

As a PBEM, it tends to be a whole new ball game compared to most of the other scenarios. As the IJN, you start off with more powerful forces and a better position than normal. On the other hand, your forward bases are not yet large enough or well supplied enough to support major offensives on their own.

The question I faced was whether to delay a month or more to build the base infrastructure and support (especially building up fuel supplies) or to strike immeadiately with my navy and hope to overwhelm the allies with their smaller CV force and barely adequate air force. I chose to strike early.

I wont go into detail about what happened but my major invasion was cancelled just short of Luganville (3 days out and about to enter his spotting range) as PM was under serious threat of being lost (allied troops had got ashore next to PM). I was then forced to defend and build up for the next 4 months. Mind you, we put 5 of the initial 6 allied CV's on the bottom without losing any in return, so it wasn't a complete waste.

As the Japanese, the obvious move is an offensive one. If you capture Luganville, you can probably drive the allies all the way back to Noumea. The main problem is that the rest of your infrastructure is very weak. New Guinea will need to be built up as soon as possible to resist allied invasions covered by LBA but to launch a successful offensive toward Noumea means using up most of your shipping from the start.

A more conservative approach is to use your shipping to build up your forward infrastructure while moving sufficient quantities of fuel to support your offensive CV/surface operations. By the end of August, you can go on the offensive with CV's backed by LBA. Of course the allies have now got probably 6 CV's with a bigger fighter compliment and his bases are better defended. Despite this, the Japs will still be in with a good chance due to superiority in numbers and the ability to maintain a long offensive.

In my PBEM, I only just resumed my offensive operations against Raverdave in Dec '42 and found I am still strong enough to have a crack at the New Hebrides. Meanwhile, the allied bombing offensive continues to stop and start.

If you can, get a PBEM of scenario 15 going. It is a great little situation for PBEM play due to all the unique aspects it provides.

[ADavidB]

Thanks for the heads-up and comments. I'll look for that thread.

Dave Baranyi