'Tis light as a feather... No Panzerjaeger Hortlund

[Nemo121]

Well this is the AAR of the mini-mod created from AndyMac's Downfall scenario covering the period from 1st September 1945 until the invasion of Japan.

Changes:
1. Allied bomber replacement rates increased by 25%.

2. Allied fighter replacement rates increased by 10%

3. Allies get 12 x Midway class CVBs in March/April 1946. Airgroups comprise 40 F6F5, 40 Corsairs and 36 or so Avengers each. So that's about 1000 extra USN fighters and about 450 additional strike planes.

4. Game extended to 31st December 1946 to give the Allies more time to attack.

5. Japanese and Allied pilot replacement rates reduced by 50% in 45 and Experience rates for Japanese pilots increased to 70, Allied pilots experience increased to 80. In 1946 Japanese and Allied replacement rates were reduced by 33%,

6. Daily supply removed from Manilla. Manilla got 5,000 tons of supplies per day and a similar amount of fuel for free. This has been removed. If the Allies want 150,000 tons of supply per month then they'll have to ship it in from CONUSA. Los Angeles alone starts with some 400 AKs so that shouldn't prove a problem.

7. Japan gets the Ki-264 series of bombers, a level bomber armed with 250Kg bombs, an Ohka carrier which can carry 2 x Ohkas, a transport which can transport about 8 tons of goods in one hop and a torpedo-carrier which is heavily armoured, has medium range and can carry 4 torpedoes. Each Ki-264 costs 216 HI. My daily HI looks to be about 4,500 or so so I won't be building many Ki-264s that's for sure. I do have hopes of using the Ohka-carriers for night-time port attacks though so I'll try to build enough to fill one airgroup I can use for such night-time nuisance raids.

8. I did a little work to allow the Ki-115 to be usable by both services, changed a few subs to minelayers or transport subs from combat subs. I left the rest of the navy alone. In terms of the army I changed the upgrades a little to make IJN BFs upgrade their 75mm AAA for 100mm DP guns and changed the IJA AAA Regiments to upgrade their guns to Bofors and 100mm AAA. This will help vs bombers but isn't too over-powered.

9. I rationalised airframe production. Previously Japan was trying to produce 2,300 airframes and had about 1100 engines. Now Japan has cut most of the really wasteful production and is focussing on useful planes. Unfortunately engine production is so low in essential engine types that I've had to choose between fighters and bombers. I CANNOT produce any Ki-49s, Ki-48s, G4Ms, G3Ms or P1Y1s as I don't have the engines. I CAN produce about 100 Ki-67(T)s per month though.

Wherever possible I am focussing on building single-engined planes instead of twin-engined planes in order to boost numbers produced. E.g. Building a B7A instead of a G4M. The B7A is less-capable but it is better to build 100 of them than 50 G4Ms ( leaving aside the issue that I don't have the engines necessary to even build 50 G4Ms so really the choice is between 100 B7As or nothing ).

In many instances I am having to continue producing old planes because I have the engines for them. E.g. B6N2s. I have a surplus of the necessary engines so the B6N2 gets produced as I can't afford 200,000 tons of supplies to switch production to something better.

I'll go into some of these choices in more detail later.


10. Kamis:
This is going to be a kamikaze war. I am producing 140 Ki-43 IIIs per month and am seeking to produce about 120 Ki-74s per month from October 45. I'm also heavily researching the Ki-94 ( I switched all of the factories which had been producing Ki-49s, Ki-48s etc etc to research the Ki-94 ) which is a good fighter but, more importantly, carries a 500 Kg bomb and can fly very high very quickly. As such it makes a great kamikaze. I'm also building a reasonable number of Ki-115s and, of course, intend to expend all the second-rate planes I'm building ( B6Ns, crappy fighters ) as kamis also.

One thing about the Ki-74, apart from its ceiling and speed, is its range. It can fly to 29 hexes from even a small base. What this means is that it is a GREAT plane to use for guerilla-style kamikaze raids on the Allied SLOCs. This has informed my strategic planning.


11. Japanese offensives:
Japan will take advantage of the fact that it still holds Marcus Island to fly fighters to Truk ( 134,000 tons of supplies ) to provide some CAP there while waiting for bombers to become available for kamikaze missions. I plan to, eventually, base Ki-74s out of Truk, and Marcus Islands.

Japan will, however, not be satisfied with this as the Allied may already have plans to take Marcus so the first order of business will be the sortieing of the Combined Fleet in mid-September with order to invade several American bases in the Pacific with a view to bringing major American bases into bomber range and, most importantly interdicting the Allied SLOCs from CONUSA.

It is anticipated that this will either force the Allies to escort ALL convoys with multiple CVs to beat off kamikaze attacks for the rest of the war ( an unacceptable loss of combat power from the spearpoint ) or to counter-invade. I expect that the Allies will counter-invade. Each such counter-invasion will require a diversion of Allied CVs to provide cover. I estimate that it'll take a minimum of 2 months for Allied CVs to cover the necessary counter-invasions. Even if the Allies suffer no combat losses in these counter-invasions the gaining of two months of reduced pressure on Japan will be priceless in terms of allowing me to run a few large convoys from China to Japan under CV escort and bring in much-needed troops and supplies.

Once the newly-taken Pacific holdings are removed Japan will fight a purely defensive battle designed to keep the Americans as far from the Home Islands as possible. Unfortunately on Day 1 the Americans have most of the Home Islands within P-51 sweep range of their bases on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. I can't do much about that as those bases are now too strongly held to counter-invade.

So, I will have to contend myself with night-time bomber raids to attrit the P-51s and a stout defence which will, increasingly, be based on more modern fighters as my production switches over.

I am also expending significant effort into building transport H8Ks ( I am using 96 engines to build 24 H8K-Ls per month which represents almost 10% of my total engine build per month). Why spend such a large percentage of resources here? Simple, I want the ability to reinforce island garrisons quickly by air should PH seek to invade the islands around the coast of Japan. Ideally I'd like to force him to avoid a "slowly slowly" creeping approach where he hops one island nearer each time and force him to jump directly from Okinawa or Iwo onto the Japanese mainland. I doubt I can achieve this but it is worth trying as such a large jump would maximise his vulnerability to my land-based kamis.


12. Kami tactics:

a) Guerilla kami raids:
I will combine long-range Ki-74 raids over the Pacific ( out to 29 hex range ) with Ki-43 III raids ( 10 hexes+) around the Phillipines/Japan on anything that moves.

As the Allies come closer they'll face fewer raids but, really, I'll just be marshalling the 3 layers of kamis I plan to commit whenever he lands near Japan proper.
First rank: Ki-115s and other planes with less than 5 hexes range. These will be the raids which explicitly go in with escorts configured as sweepers. Obviously I'll also be relying on massive CAP committment in the hex being invaded. Nothing is more effective at defending incoming raids than a 200 plane CAP in the hex being invaded.

Second rank: Short-ranged twin-engined planes ( Ki-21s/49 etc ) and long-ranged single-engined planes ( Ki-43 II, Ki-94 etc ) Generally this would be the 6 to 10 hex range of airbases.

Third rank: Everything which can fly from 11 to 20 hexes including conventional attacks by Ohka-carriers and kamikaze Peggys, Ki-74s etc.

I'll be seeking to go with extremely low-level and extremely high-level attacks. So, kamis will tend to go in at either 100 feet ( to avoid radar ) or 35,000 feet+. My goal is to split the CAP causing the planes which go after the high-level attackers to miss the kamis going in at low-level. Whenever possible older, slower planes will go in at low-altitude while fast fighter-bombers will go in at the highest levels.

At game start none of my planes can fly above the Corsair but as the game develops the Ki-94II and a couple of others CAN. I don't think any of them can get above the P-51s etc so the enemy can still defend against high-kami raids ( assuming he doesn't outrun his LRCAP ). Still, given that I'm outnumbered, outgunned, have a terrible strategic position and very limited production choices I'm going to make the fullest use of anything which can fly above elements of his CAP as possible.

All in all I think this will be a good test of kami doctrine and also USN FlAK effectiveness.



13. Obviously I'll try to keep the IJN as a fleet in being but, when necessary, I'll expend it to blunt an invasion. Ideally though I'd like to run a second series of invasions when the Allies react to the first series of invasions.It is all about buying time so I can shift production to the right planes and rebuild my shattered ground formations/ship combat-ready ones back from China.


A small rundown of forces...
Starting Japanese naval forces comprise:
5 CVs: Junyo, Kasagi, Aso, Ikoma and Katsuragi.
2 CVLs
4 CVE ( 3 of which still have cargo capacity and can only carry 12 planes each. TYhe 4th is Hosho which can carry 18 planes. So the CVEs are a waste. )
1 BB: Nagato
2 CA
3 CL : ( including Kashima )
52 DD ( of which at least 10 are no better than Escorts )
APDs 28
13 x APs ( Yes, you read that right, 13 )
145 x AKs of greater than 3,000 ton cargo capacity.
There are about 100 x AKs of less than 1,000 tons capacity also ranging from 800 tons, 450 and 170 tons. There ae also about 80 or so in between 1,000 and 3,000 tons.
4 x AOs.
28 x TK > 10,000 tons, about 30 in the 5,000 ton range and then another 50 or so in the 2,000 ton range

Submarines: There are quite a few submarines but about 1/3rd are purely transport submarines, 1/2 are very tiny coastal boats ranging in size from 46 tons to 320 tons. Lastly there are 4 minelaying subs in the I-120 class, 3 x I400 class boats and 5 ocean going submarines as well as about 11 mid-range submarines of the RO class.

There are large numbers of MTBs, MGS, MLs, PBs, SCs etc but one good carrier sweep or a few DD raids would easily wipe those out. They are useful ONLY in the absence of enemy surface or aerial forces.


The Allied navy will receive 40 CVs ( or CVBs ), 17 CVLs and 85 CVEs.for a total of about 8,000 naval airplanes - enough to go toe to toe with my airforce without any help from the USAAF [:D].
BBs: 35 ( Nagato's going to have to do pretty well against these odds. )
CAs: 30
CLs: 74
DDs: 463
DEs: 266
APDs: 100
SS: 294
Lots of small patrol craft
APA: 137
AKA: 53
LSD: 18
AP: 28
AK: 96
xAP: 126
xAK: 1535
xAKL: 86
LSTs/LSIs etc: Approx 1100


So, suffice it to say I'm somewhat outnumbered. I'm outnumbered about 15 to 1 in terms of combat ability and far more in terms of sealift. 15:1 odds are such that direct resistance is impossible.




Airforce:
The airforce looks impressive insofar as there are some 4881 fighters, fighter-bombers and night-fighters. Unfortunately only 500 of those fighters etc have an average experience of 70 or more... and many of those airgroups begin the game understrength and will be diluted by new arrivals. The IJNAF carrier-based airgroups have experience ranging from 40 to 50 Exp. As such they are, essentially, useless in combat.

The Japanese have 3,543 level bombers of which 174 have Exp 70 or greater.
Of 595 divebombers 54 have Exp of 70 or greater.
Of 414 torpedo bombers 54 have Exp of 70 or greater.

So, basically out of 12,789 planes of every type I get in this scenario only about 800 of Exp of 70 or greater. Average Allied airgroup experience is 80 so even my best groups can't fight them toe to toe and there are roughly twice as many Allied planes due to appear on-map as I have. So, my best groups will be outnumbered 20+ to 1 unless I can begin some serious training.


The Allies get a total of 26,227 planes - so, more than twice as many as Japan -, get more than 2 to 3 times as many pilots and those pilots are more experienced. In additiont he Allies get some 13,819 fighters and an additional 800 fighter-bombers and night-fighters. So, the Allied fighter strength is over 14,600. Mine is 5458. Looks like my pilots will have to be shooting down 3 planes for every one I lose to even break even... and this doesn't count what I lose engaging bombers.

Also, unfortunately, quite a few of my fighter groups are training groups. I'd say about 1/5th of my fighters are committed to training groups so, I can probably only bring about 4,500 fighters/fighter-bombers and night-fighters into combat.

On the plus side I'm on the defensive and by constraining the routes of advance and declining battles I can't win I might be able to achieve reasonable odds along a small number of axes and keep them competitive.



Army:
Well, you'd expect this to be a bright spot but the army's experience is abysmal and it is deployed VERY poorly. Many of the islands around Japan are ungarrisoned and experience of most of the units in Japan is either 25 or 35. Most divisions also begin the game at 35 to 50% of TO&E and even when they have their full TO&E much of it is disabled. I spotted 2 full-strength divisions in all of Japan and even then their experience maxed out at about 60 - from memory.

With that said, if he doesn't land in the next 4 months every unit will have Exp 50 and be a much tougher nut to crack.

The Army is the one bright spot. It looks like my ground forces are roughly equal to the Allies. I have more troops but they have less experience and less firepower. Overall though, given that I'm on the defensive this might well balance out. The Americans have a frightening number of tanks though and those are real casualty-producers.



Overall the situation is desperate but I think that if I can buy 4 months I can greatly ameliorate the situation and make this slightly more competitive. The huge Allied overbuild in terms of planes ( more than twice as many planes on-map as Japan can manage no matter what ) means that eventually sheer numbers will win the air war for the Allies but, hopefully, I can make it costly for them.

[Nemo121]

Question:
How do you update a game which has already started? I forgot to remove the free supplies from Manilla before beginning the game and need to remove it so as to make the SLOCs as important as they really were.

[FatR]

There is a button for introducing database changes during the game at the bottom of the "Preferences" screen. I don't believe it will help with things that are already on map at the beginning, though. Also, using it might result in gamebreaking bugs.

[d0mbo]

Good luck Nemo,
fully expect you to land in San Franscisco within 6 months!

[modrow]

Nemo,

did you manage to post the scenario files somewhere already ?

Thanks

Hartwig

[cantona2]

An interesting proposition

[Galahad78]

This gonna be interesting, looking forward to it!!!

[Xxzard]

Yes, this ought to be a fun one!

[Nemo121]

Hmm, I can't attach the scenario files here unfortunately so if anyone wants them just PM me and I'll send them your way...

If you've PMed asking already please PM again. I managed to delete a load of PMs by mistake as I'd almost reached my mailbox limit.

I'd be interested to hear the comments and ideas of those who view the scenario. My next task is to download tracker and get it working ( something I've never managed with AE ) in order to figure out just how FUBAR the economy is. I have a feeling that 4,500 HI won't go very far at all [:D]

[Nemo121]

Posting my first turn Tracker Industry screen here.

I'll post my thoughts on it here once I've finished reading the Tracker thread and can figure out what it means. So far my understanding is limited to:

1. I have a HI surplus.

2. I have far too little merchant and naval production ( but that's ok, I can ramp that up once I know what my budget is ).

3. It shows I have lots of OIL centres etc but about 900 of those OIL Centres are at Palembang ( which I simply can't get to ).... So they are useless to me. Is there any way I can get Tracker to discount Palembang from its calculations?

4. Oil becomes supplies at a rate of 1:1 while it gets transformed into FUEL at a rate of 1:9. This fuel then gets used by HI to make yet more supplies at a rate of 1 fuel : 1 supplies + 1 HI

So, essentially 1 ton of OIL becomes 1 ton of supply when refined and 9 tons of fuel which later get transformed into 9 tons of supplies by HI.


So, HI runs off resources and fuel... So I need to save my fuel bigtime.... Well, having no navy to speak of should manage to acheive that pretty easily [:D]



So, I have 300,000 tons of OIL at Kanko. If I can get all of that into the Home Islands that 300,000 tons of OIL will be refined to produce 30,000 tons of supplies and 270,000 tons of fuel. This fuel will then yield some 270,000 HI points ( which will be generated over some 54 days or so ) and some 270,000 tons of supplies.

So, overall it looks like I have roughly enough fuel to maintain current operations for 384 days if I can get every drop of fuel back to Japan and not burn any fuel in moving ships. Hmm, a tough nut to crack indeed. I'll optimise this all after the first week of play. It is going to take me a week to sort out the air force.

[topeverest]

10 CVB's that is one powerful American Navy. 

So many toys, so little time to play with them.

[Capt. Harlock]

My compliments on your choice of a name for the thread -- here's hoping you don't find two AAR's "heavy as a mountain"!

BTW, what constitutes a victory for the Allies is fairly clear, but what constitutes a victory for the Japanese? Is there a specific time that Japan has to surrender by?

[Nemo121]

Harlock,
No, I trust the two AARs will be as delightful as the perfect cherry blossom [8D].

Objectively as Japan there is no victory, merely putting on a good show. I'm not really concerned with "winning" anyway as winning often has little to do with good play. My goal is to play well and put on a good show.

In-game I think victory would be either avoiding the invasion of the Home Islands proper ( which I think is impossible ) or repelling or containing the invasion such that the Allies are stalemated within the Home Islands and can't progress. In real life this may have caused a move away from the "unconditional surrender" posture and could have guaranteed the position of the Emperor in return for an end to the bloodbath of Allied troops. I doubt America or Britain would have been willing to expend x hundred thousand troops if stalled on the mainland in order to gain unconditional surrender if the Japanese government was offering a surrender in return for the Emperor's position


So, basically, I'll be looking to slow the Americans as much as possible and bleed them as much as possible with the hopes of getting a stalemate once they invade Japan proper.

[Nemo121]

A couple of questions as I look at the various planes I'll be producing:

1. How do I tell if an IJA artillery piece is capable of fire vs amphibious ships? I want to begin flying engineer units onto the islands south (toward Iwo Jima ), south-west ( toward Okinawa where he'll definitely make his first push in an effort to draw me to the west of Japan and draw my airforce into annihilatory combat ) and east ( the Kuriles - which is where I want to lure him as the building of a couple of large bases there will give me excellent kamikaze platforms and I plan to use the float capability of Ki-115s to full extent by basing them at central island bases without airfields. I am betting he won't be expecting me to stage large-scale floatplane attacks and so that might buy me some surprise.) I'll go into the full details of the defensive plan later but for right now the most important question is to identify which IJA artillery units can fire on amphibious shipping and thus have priority for redeployment ( right behind engineer regiments )

2. N6 and H6 radar. Both have an effect of 4. I am assuming that means surface search radar and that this comes with a bonus for night-time naval attacks. LOTS of late-war Japanese planes come with such radars which opens up interesting possibilities in terms of splitting my strike groups into daytime and night-time attack forces. However with things like ground-based air search radar not working correctly it doesn't pay to make assumptions. So, does anyone know if this works as one would expect?

3. Are there any significant problems known with updating the scenario mid-game? I've heard there might be and I'm trying to weigh up the benefits of tweaking some IJA upgrade paths to allow better AAA suites for some of the IJA AAA units I missed out on in my initial pass.

[Nemo121]

I've also been looking at the IJA upgrade paths... and thinking about the US. Here's a few conclusions:


1. The IJA doesn't seem to have the Type 4 74mm AT rocket - a bazooka-equivalent. It makes sense, to me, to add it to the game but I'm not entirely sure how squad upgrades work.... Let's say I made a 1946 IJA squad which contained the Type 4 AT rocket and created a 1946 TO&E for IJA Infantry Divisions which contained, for example, 300 Type 1946 IJA infantry squads with increased AT power.

How would the upgrading of my additional divisions proceed? My understanding is that nothing would happen until 300 x Type 1946 IJA Infantry Squads had been produced and then one division would upgrade, trading in its 1945 Infantry Squads for 1946 pattern ones.

These 1945 Squads then go into the pool.... What happens then? Do they get recycled into armaments points which can be used to create more 1946 pattern squads to upgrade the next division? I've been playing the Allies for so long I've forgotten how this works [8|]


2. I also need to fix some IJA AAA upgrade paths. Right now far too many units still carry around 7.7mm "AAA" weapons. In reality with so much Allied airpower I think they'd be upgrading their weapons to heavier calibres.


3. Same with the Shinyo CD units... Currently there are 5 in-game. I'd like to make another dozen or so but have them enter the game with 1% TO&E so that they have to be built up slowly and don't give an excessive sudden boost to IJA defensive power.


4. Atomic Bombs: For some reason the Allies only get them from June 1946... This is the way it was in Andy's scenario and I didn't spot it until I was looking at just what PH could throw at me. I've emailed him offering to make nukes available from January 1946. I think that's only fair.


5. I've also emailed him suggesting we adopt the DaBabes changes ( well, a variant of them once Ive been able to examine and test them a little ) to FlAK which promises to make USN ship-borne FlAK much more deadly and should help PH's fleet withstand my aerial attakcs. I think shipborne FlAK is a bit underwpowered right now and don't want to disadvantage PH so I think this is a reasonable change to make.


6. I've also offered that since I'll be upgrading the IJA with AT weapons they actually did have - but which represents an increase in combat power - he could request a few additional divisions ( the types of divisions would be up to him ) and I would add them in also. I think that somewhere around 4 divisions extra for the US would be fair but if he wants 6 I'll give him 6. I think that should balance out the better AT weapons and keep things relatively balanced.


So, japan gets better fighters, more AAA and better AT capability while the Allies get 12 additional CVBs, 4 to 6 divisions and much improved ship=borne FlAK as well as twice as many atom bombs. I think that's a reasonable balance and his navy will definitely be MUCH more survivable after these changes.

[Blackhorse]

How would the upgrading of my additional divisions proceed? My understanding is that nothing would happen until 300 x Type 1946 IJA Infantry Squads had been produced and then one division would upgrade, trading in its 1945 Infantry Squads for 1946 pattern ones.

These 1945 Squads then go into the pool.... What happens then? Do they get recycled into armaments points which can be used to create more 1946 pattern squads to upgrade the next division? I've been playing the Allies for so long I've forgotten how this works

The 1945 Squads go into the pool -- where they are magically converted to 1946 squads, so the very next turn (or thereabouts) you can upgrade another division. Rinse and Repeat.

If you want to upgrade faster, divide your division into regiments -- then the upgrades will start once you have 100 1946 squads in the pool.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Nemo1211. How do I tell if an IJA artillery piece is capable of fire vs amphibious ships?

If it is not a CD unit, then it is probably not. I've never seen non-CD guns firing on amphibious ships. They might influence troop losses during unloading, but it is hard to tell.

ORIGINAL: Nemo121
3. Are there any significant problems known with updating the scenario mid-game? I've heard there might be and I'm trying to weigh up the benefits of tweaking some IJA upgrade paths to allow better AAA suites for some of the IJA AAA units I missed out on in my initial pass.

As I said before, unpredictable bugs might result. We've tried to update the scenario in my game against Yubari, this screwed over USN battleship upgrades.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

I've also been looking at the IJA upgrade paths... and thinking about the US. Here's a few conclusions:


1. The IJA doesn't seem to have the Type 4 74mm AT rocket - a bazooka-equivalent. It makes sense, to me, to add it to the game but I'm not entirely sure how squad upgrades work.... Let's say I made a 1946 IJA squad which contained the Type 4 AT rocket and created a 1946 TO&E for IJA Infantry Divisions which contained, for example, 300 Type 1946 IJA infantry squads with increased AT power.

You need to create a modified "IJA Infantry Squad" device, produced from a certain date and to make 1/43 IJA infantry squad upgrate to it.

ORIGINAL: Nemo121
These 1945 Squads then go into the pool.... What happens then? Do they get recycled into armaments points which can be used to create more 1946 pattern squads to upgrade the next division? I've been playing the Allies for so long I've forgotten how this works

Not sure, but I believe they will just sit in the pool and probably will be expended to cover losses.

[DTurtle]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

4. Atomic Bombs: For some reason the Allies only get them from June 1946... This is the way it was in Andy's scenario and I didn't spot it until I was looking at just what PH could throw at me. I've emailed him offering to make nukes available from January 1946. I think that's only fair.

I posted about this in the other thread and I thought it might interest you as well:
According to this memorandum (pdf) from July 30, 1945 the expected production of nuclear weapons (following the first three available in August) was:
September: 3 or 4
October: 3 or 4
November: At least 5
December: 7
and was expected to "increase decidedly in early 1946".

[Andy Mac]

Good luck