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

[Nemo121]

If you have any ideas about fitting out schedules etc I'm all ears. To be honest I've mainly focussed it on BBs, CVs etc as I just assume the DDs will go more ASW/AAA as time goes by.

[n01487477]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

I've checked and you're right. The best I can do is double the HI factories but I can't get fractions into the editor... That ought to be a simple fix though but I don't expect it'll be made, more's the pity.


As to the hulls /fitting out idea. Yeah the current concept is as follows ( I'll use Shinano as the baseline example ):

1. Build the Shinano and complete it mid-43

2. When the Shinano finishes building it has NO armour or weaponry whatsoever and goes for "fitting out" in one of the dockyards in Japan.... These are increased in size in order to account for the number of ships which may require fitting out.

3. When the Shinano reaches whichever dockyard it is going to fit out in it has the option of undergoing "conversion" to either CV or BB. Each conversion takes a different amount of time, results in a very different layout and results in different upgrade paths from that point on.


Obviously the same sort of thing can be done with DDs to allow them to be fitted out as either AAA-heavy, SC-oriented or ASW-oriented ( or general ) DDs.

It introduces a level of flexibility in the design which has been missing. If "yard slips" were modelled then the modelling could be perfected ( including maximum size of ship which could fit in a slip etc ). As it is now I can only do workarounds. Maybe for AE 2...

Sounds interesting - I'll do some testing and get back to you. It really is something that hasn't been done, would be hard to get right - but oh so interesting.

The more crucial game-crippling problem in the 1944 to 1945 era is the over-effectiveness of strategic bombing vs HI. I can reduce this overeffectiveness by 50% but even that isn't enough. So it'll have to be Home Ruled by setting bombers at 20,000 feet or somesuch.

Just another thought here ... could we break up the HI etc into 2-4 slots; I know it doesn't resolve the problem but at least the allies would have to hit it 4 times taking 4x the effort ect. I wonder also if smaller factories take less damage by % ... I know slots are valuable but spreading things around makes more sense given the 100% intel of Strategic bombing (Oh how I wish they'd fix this one!)

[Nemo121]

Aye that's one solution ( as is penny-packeting it out amongst different bases ). The problem is that with each B-29 taking out 2 HI it doesn't take a genius to go "This base has 400 HI split into 4 factories... I have 400 B-29s, I'm going to hit each 100 HI factory with 100 B29s. That should destroy them all in one turn."

So, it does make it a bit more difficult but it isn't a solution. Either we fix it in-game fully or we fix it partially ( solving 50% of the problem in-game ) and then Home Rule it. That's the only solution I can see short of a codebase change to allow fractions into the editor.

[Grfin Zeppelin]

After seeing the thread name I expected Morrigan here. After looking I found Nemo121 and expected him to invade San Francisco while his enemy fortified Alaska out of sheer terror. I expected to scratch my head pondering how it could end like this and expected to read something like "He shipped everything into Alaska and fortified there because I made him think its his only hope of survival"

[Capt. Harlock]

Anyways, that's disappointing but survivable. The real problem came when each of these B-29s took out 2 HI with a sum total of about 650 HI factories ( making 1300 HI per day ) being removed from Osaka in one fell swoop. I've never read of a city losing 1/3rd of its total productive capacity in a single raid--- lots of civvies dead due to firestorms, yes but 1/3rd of all production? Nope. I was comfortable with B29s getting through but never thought they'd take out 15% of my industry in a single day... That's just beyond anything they ever achieved in real life over Japan or Germany.

I believe you'll find that the fire-bombing of Hamburg (which apparently created an even hotter firestorm than that of Dresden) destroyed about a third of the city's industrial production. Mind you, it took more planes than the raid you experienced.

What is really needed is a game engine calculating diminishing marginal returns. In other words, the higher a percentage of the HI is destroyed, the harder it becomes to find and destroy each successive target. This should not be hard to do: I actually did something of the kind with the supply dumps in "Bomb Alley", Grigsby's second game.

[Kereguelen]

ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock

Anyways, that's disappointing but survivable. The real problem came when each of these B-29s took out 2 HI with a sum total of about 650 HI factories ( making 1300 HI per day ) being removed from Osaka in one fell swoop. I've never read of a city losing 1/3rd of its total productive capacity in a single raid--- lots of civvies dead due to firestorms, yes but 1/3rd of all production? Nope. I was comfortable with B29s getting through but never thought they'd take out 15% of my industry in a single day... That's just beyond anything they ever achieved in real life over Japan or Germany.

I believe you'll find that the fire-bombing of Hamburg (which apparently created an even hotter firestorm than that of Dresden) destroyed about a third of the city's industrial production. Mind you, it took more planes than the raid you experienced.

What is really needed is a game engine calculating diminishing marginal returns. In other words, the higher a percentage of the HI is destroyed, the harder it becomes to find and destroy each successive target. This should not be hard to do: I actually did something of the kind with the supply dumps in "Bomb Alley", Grigsby's second game.

Hi, the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943 ('Operation Gomorrha', actually several attacks on the city from 24th July to 3rd August 1943) did not destroy a third of the city's industrial production. Industrial production was not even targeted by the main (RAF) attacks. The RAF attacked at night, the USAAF carried out the daytime attacks - the RAF attacks were the big fire-bombing attacks, five attacks with more than 700 bombers each, the two USAAF attacks - which targeted industrial production and ships in the port - were carried out by relatively small numbers of bombers, about 110 bombers in the first, about 70 planes in the second attack. The industrial production needed just some weeks to fully recover and this mainly because many workers had been killed in the fire-bombings (which had targeted their living quarters) and not due to damage to industrial facilities.

However, in terms of the AE you (actually Nemo) should differentiate between permanent damage to industrial facilities and temporary damage (damaged HI etc.). The non-permanent damage (which costs supply to repair) seen in this game does not seem too heavy.

But if you compare historical bombing results of German and Japanese cities you should take into account that German flak defense was much heavier and technically advanced (fire control etc.) than Japanese flak defense and that this makes comparisons of results somewhat problematic.

K

[Capt. Harlock]

Hi, the fire-bombing of Hamburg in 1943 ('Operation Gomorrha', actually several attacks on the city from 24th July to 3rd August 1943) did not destroy a third of the city's industrial production.

According to Wikipedia:
"Figures given by German sources indicate, 183 large factories were destroyed out of 524 in the city, 4,118 smaller factories out of 9,068 were destroyed."

That would be 34.9% of large factories, and 45.4% of small factories.

[Nemo121]

Harlock,

It all depends on what you mean by destroyed though. Were they pummelled to pieces? Yes. Could they often resume pretty much full production within a month? Yes, that was the German experience. Japan was a bit worse off in that regard due to the nature of its industry etc but, notwithstanding this, while a single raid might destroy a large portion of industry within a city it never took out 15% of an entire nation's HI in a single day.

Even with Hamburg you are talking about something close to 4,000 bomber sorties. Even if we say a B29 carries twice as many bombs the B29s only managed 600 sortie-equivalents. So, each B-29 sortie did 14 times more damage ( 7 times more if we adjust for bombload ) than each Allied sortie vs Germany.

No, it is over-powered.


At 20,000 feet the results are much more reasonable ( and spread over LI, Resources and HI ). 300 bombers destroyed about 200 factories today ( including LI ) which strikes me as much more reasonable.


I hadn't expected him back but it looks like Osaka is where he has decided to defeat my air force. That's fine, while he tries to break my air force I'm going to try to break B-29 force by feeding a large number of fighters - often flown by 50 Exp pilots - into the battle day after day and allowing his B-29 raids to burn through my stock of obsolescent fighters. Sheer numbers should wear the B29s down. I lost 41 fighters for about 60 B-29s but the damage of two days of combat has halved the number of planes I will have ready for combat tomorrow. Time to rotate the reserves in and prepare a bit of a trap.

I've done the maths and by the end of October he will have 200 B32s and 1568 B-29-25s. He will also have 280 B-29B but those only have one defensive gun position and so are quite vulnerable to fighters. They are best used for a night-bombing offensive.

So, 1570 B-29s. He has lost 237 already this month and is losing an average of 60 per day over the past two days. I think I can push that loss rate up to 100 per day over the next 5 days. So, that'd make total B29 losses of 735 out of 1570 B29s, leaving him with just 835 B29s and a replacement rate of only 40 per month. What that means is that over the next 14 months he can make good 560 of those losses through replacements. IOW, he'll never recover. He'll just switch the B29 groups to B-17Gs and concentrate on more shorter range missions. That's fine though, so long as I have some safe areas I should be able to maintain some sort of functional economy and crucial rest and training areas for my airgroups. Once he can bomb wherever he likes I'll never be able to rebuild airgroups safe from the pressure of further attacks.

He gets 300+ B17s per month but those are a fair bit easier to shoot down and from Okinawa can only just reach Osaka with half a bombload ( 4 x 500lb bombs vs B29s which reach there with 20 x 500lb bombs ). As such a 200 B29 raid is the same as a 1,000 bomber B17 raid.

There was other action but none of it was really important. The B-29 raids over Osaka are the crucial thing right now.... At some stage he'll start trying to hit other targets, thinking I've uncovered them to protect Osaka, which will be true to a degree but I think he'll still find those other bases well-defended. For now though the orders go out around Japan to begin moving units out of training and into the airbattle over Osaka. Japanese losses should be very heavy but I'm confident PH will blink first and reconsider his strategy.


P.s. Since I'm quite enjoying playing PH and enjoy his aggressive style tempered with thought I've offered him a rematch once we reach November with me as the Allies playing under whatever House Rules we've reached at that stage of the game. So, whatever the House Rules are, soon we'll be on the other side so there's an incentive to keep things fair for both of us... and I'm sure PH would, he's been a very sporting opponent so far.

[ny59giants]

If you cannot change the amount of HI the Allies can hit, you will need to change the destructive power of the Allied 4e bombers 500lb GP bombs. Can you go into the Editor and create a modified version of the 500lb GP bombs that would only be available on 4e bombers?? Lower their accuracy rating so they will hit less.

[Nemo121]

The problem with that Mike is that if I reduce the power of US 500lb bombs vs HI then I reduce their power against everything else, and that's not fair to the Allies.

No, I think the best thing, right now, is to House Rule it... 20,000 feet was too weak but 16,000 was still too strong. I've suggested 18,000 feet as a compromise.


At present the game is on hold while we decide what to do with the beta patch. The beta patch has :

1. Increased FlAK losses for four-engined bombers 2 to 3-fold, twin-engined bombers about 4-fold and single-engined dive-bombers, torpedo-bombers and kamis by about 7 to 8-fold.

2. prevented any LOW NAVAL training ( which is the skill required to get kamis to hit ).


It does a lot of good things but those two things combined mean that my whole plan of training 3,000 kamis per month and expending them wholesale on the US invasion fleets is not feasible due to these bugs. As such I've asked PH if we can downgrade to the original game exe.

If he really doesn't want to then I'll play on but I'll have to cancel all kamikaze raids until such time as the beta gets repaired. That could give him 2 or 3 weeks of game-time and that might be enough for him to invade something really crucial I need to defend. I obviously want to avoid that...



Oh, yesterday was 1st October in-game:

About 90 B29s launched raids on Osaka. My fighters shot down 18 while FlAK downed 11 ( in the non-beta executable my FlAK only downed 5 bombers from the same raids ) and counting ops losses the total number of B29s lost was 30.

The remaining 60 B29s got about 30 HI hits as well as multiple hits on resources and LI ( which I think is actually a bit high ). PH thinks it is too low ( but his intel is faulty as he thinks he only killed 20 HI- he actually did about 50% better ). So I told him he hit more than he thinks and suggested 18,000 feet and a massive B29 raid before we jump to conclusions.


In other news:
Service Ratings of 3 or so are really damaging to long-term defences. I'm having to rotate airgroups in already simply in order to replace airgroups which have suffered few losses but have 66%+ of their fighters down for maintenance. It is an interesting lesson. In response I have committed Ki-43 IVs ( which do reasonably well vs B-29s... One of my Ki-43 IV units got 2 B29 kills in return for losing 3 of its own planes. ) using moderately-experienced pilots ( 40 to 50 Exp ) so that the losses don't hurt much.

Without massive fighter sweeps a major bomber offensive will, on its own, NOT be able to break a properly constituted fighter defence which rotates fighters in and out and focuses on matching up cannon-armed fighters with anti-bomber missions.

In other news another 40 kamis went out and were almost all shot down by FlAK. One Ki-74 hit a BB doing very little damage indeed. This single hit was achieved despite the fact that under the normal executable these same 40 kamis got 9 hits. So, kami effectiveness is down over 90% over the course of the past two days vs identical files run under the normal exe.

In other news the J7W1 has entered service as has the N1K5J and A7M2. Overall I'm about to begin making about 320 J7W1s, 84 N1K5Js and 120 A7M2s per month. That is 520 excellent fighters per month, all of which are armed with cannons and can fly at 400 mph or more. That makes them very competitive with P47Ns, P-51Ds and only slightly inferior to the P-51H ( which I'll swamp with sheer numbers ). I'm expecting the J7W1 with its 4 centre-mounted 30mm cannon to be a particularly effective anti-bomber weapon.

[Nemo121]

and memories of a bad nightmare last night about something called a BETA came to mind. I dreamt that my planes couldn't fly without being shot down by FlAK and that my pilots refused to train at anything below 6,000 feet. Fortunately it was all a dream and today in a groundhog day-like reliving we relived 30th September 1945. ( Basically PH was good enough to agree to us not using the beta and using the ordinary executable for now. So I reran the turn he sent me and then generated new orders. Here's the outcome of 30th September under the ordinary executable. The massive impact on outcome of kamikaze attacks is most notable. Under the BETA all of the kamis got a single hit. Read on to see how much better the exact same attacks did under the old executable.)

September 30th....

Night Air attack on Nago , at 95,65

Weather in hex: Overcast

Japanese aircraft
Ki-49-IIb Helen x 4
Ki-264 Angel x 3


Allied aircraft
P-61C Black Widow x 8


Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-49-IIb Helen: 1 destroyed, 1 damaged
Ki-264 Angel: 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
P-61C Black Widow: 1 destroyed

Allied Ships
AK Sculptor, Bomb hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
SS Odax, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DE Gentry, Bomb hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
xAP Cape Bon, Bomb hits 1, heavy damage
AG Aldebaran, Bomb hits 1, on fire


Night Air attack on TF, near Hengchun at 84,67

Weather in hex: Heavy cloud

Japanese aircraft
G3M3 Nell x 11


Japanese aircraft losses
G3M3 Nell: 1 destroyed, 4 damaged

Allied Ships
APA Fuller
CL Dayton
APA American Legion



Aircraft Attacking:
10 x G3M3 Nell launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo

Raid detected at 80 NM, estimated altitude 12,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 30 minutes
Banzai! - Nojima R. in a G3M3 Nell willing to die for the Emperor



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Night Air attack on TF, near Amami Oshima at 98,64

Weather in hex: Overcast

Japanese aircraft
B6N2a Jill x 18


Japanese aircraft losses
B6N2a Jill: 3 destroyed, 3 damaged

Allied Ships
BB Mississippi
BB New Mexico



Aircraft Attacking:
15 x B6N2a Jill launching torpedoes at 200 feet
Naval Attack: 1 x 18in Type 91 Torpedo

Raid detected at 160 NM, estimated altitude 32,660 feet.
Estimated time to target is 53 minutes
Banzai! - Endo V. in a B6N2a Jill willing to die for the Emperor


Morning Air attack on TF, near Hengchun at 84,67

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 160 NM, estimated altitude 43,370 feet.
Estimated time to target is 44 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-74-I Patsy x 4



Allied aircraft
Hellcat F.II x 4
Seafire F.XV x 4
Spitfire F.XIV x 12
F4U-1D Corsair x 2
F4U-1A Corsair x 3


Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-74-I Patsy: 3 destroyed


Allied Ships
AKA Diphda
CL Dayton, Kamikaze hits 1
AKA Valencia, Kamikaze hits 1

The hit on Dayton was a belt armour hit so didn't penetrate. The hit on Valencia was solid though.

Aircraft Attacking:
4 x Ki-74-I Patsy flying as kamikaze
Kamikaze: 1 x 500 kg GP Bomb



Morning Air attack on TF, near Amami Oshima at 98,64
Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 200 NM, estimated altitude 42,370 feet.
Estimated time to target is 55 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-74-I Patsy x 11



Allied aircraft
P-40N26 Warhawk x 2
F4U-1A Corsair x 10
F4U-4 Corsair x 7


Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-74-I Patsy: 8 destroyed


Allied Ships
BB New Mexico
BB Mississippi, Kamikaze hits 4, on fire
CA Chester, Kamikaze hits 1


Aircraft Attacking:
11 x Ki-74-I Patsy flying as kamikaze
Kamikaze: 1 x 500 kg GP Bomb

These are my premier kami pilots ( 40% Exp and Low Naval Skill so a 40% or so hit rate was expected. The Mississipi should have slowly growing system damage... nothing too major but enough to push her to system damage in the 20s and rule her out of escorting any amphibious TFs he may have forming up.

The CA Chester took a solid penetrating hit through the deck armour and the internal explosion was noted to cause severe engine damage. So, that should put her in drydock as well.


150 B-17Gs flew against the 10 remaining HI at Hong Kong and, obviously, obliterated it entirely. Ah well, I never expected any HI outside of Japan to survive for long.



Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Hengchun at 84,67
Weather in hex: Partial cloud

Raid detected at 120 NM, estimated altitude 43,370 feet.
Estimated time to target is 33 minutes

Japanese aircraft
Ki-74-I Patsy x 6



Allied aircraft
Hellcat F.II x 4
Seafire F.XV x 4
Spitfire F.XIV x 11
F4U-1D Corsair x 2


Japanese aircraft losses
Ki-74-I Patsy: 4 destroyed


Allied Ships
CL Dayton
AKA Diphda, Kamikaze hits 1
APA Fuller, Kamikaze hits 1

Whittling down the APAs and AKAs. Not bad work at all. Those Ki-74s are really proving their ability to spread his LRCAP requirements so thinly he can't protect everything well enough to prevent the Ki-74s scoring. So, in essence their range is proving the massive force multiplier I had hoped it would.


The Allies are well and truly ashore at Hengchun with 2 divisions and begin to attack outward. That's fine. I have a division-equivalent setting up in the mountains just north of Hengchun to delay them while the evacuation of everything not tied down continues. I won't get everything out but I'm focusing on getting everything which can be air-deployed out so that



In terms of the economy the ploy I attempted to minimise HI reduction due to pilot training has worked. instead of paying some 29,500 HI for pilot training this month I only had to pay about 10,000 HI - which, over the course of the year, will save me 240,000 HI which is about one month's production so that's well worth doing even though it prevents me from getting trained pilots for free.

Life's a trade-off and extending my lifespan without HI is my priority right now.

In other news: I'm reducing my armaments production a little as my manpower pool has run dry ( I have 5 manpower points in the pool ) and there's no point wasting HI to build armaments I cannot use. Already I have over 60,000 armaments points in the pool which can't be used due to a lack of manpower... There's far too little manpower in this mod BUT it does create some interesting choices for Japan so I'm going to leave it as is...

[FatR]

Night air combat seems to be rather skewed in the favor of bombers, particularly heavy bombers. I'd expect Black Widows to be more effective. This, and significant losses to Flying Fortresses during night interceptions in my own game, does not fill me with optimism about Japanese ability to fight off massed night raids, as their night fighters don't really get much better than Nicks (except with NF designation) until very late in the war.

I'd also like to know, if there is any meaningful difference between fighters and night fighters in battle...

[Nemo121]

FatR,

Well, I'm not entirely sure about that.... Ki-264s and B-29s and other heavy bombers certainly do very well vs night-fighters. Well armed and armoured medium bombers don't do too badly either but if you have a poor bomber like an early Ki-21 or something you'll quickly find losses rising. I think that in AE because of the huge differences in durability between twin and four-engined bombers you need to consider them quite separately in a way which wasn't as essential in WiTP.

I've pulled the Ki-21s from night attacks because of this. Their losses were running 3 to 4 bombers ( out of about 12 committed ) every night. That was unsustainable for me.


With that said night fighters don't tend to do too well but I think the reason for that when compared to Germany is that in the Pacific you just don't have purpose-built multiple station radar belts with integrated FlAK, night fighter boxes etc etc. So a straight comparison of fighters committed to bombers downed wouldn't be appropriate.

I will say though that while the number of bombers downed per fighter committed should be lower over the Pacific than over Germany ( and it is ) I can't say just how much lower it would be.


Also night-fighter defences over Japan should have the potential for being more effective than those over various islands etc. I think that a modifier working along the lines of increasing the percentage chance of interception based on how many bases with radar the bombers flew over ( which I understand might be impossible to code but would be the best solution ) or a simpler ( but less realistic solution which would yield some unrealistic results ) modifier for how many bases in the neighbouring hexes have radar ( up to the maximum of 8 )... the more bases the greater the % chance to intercept ( obviously this'd be a sub-optimal solution which could yield some strange results - for example a coastal base which was approached over the sea, avoiding radar belts, could still gain a benefit from having radar in neighbouring bases.


Anyways, I think a fair bit could be done to improve the night combat model but, as I said, I'd have to examine the issue in a bit more detail to give the exact loss rates which would be suitable.... Right now I would state the aerial defences in this mod over Japan would be equivalent to Germany 1943 while USAAF defences over Okinawa would be, at best, equivalent to 1942 Germany based on my reading of the development of German night defences.

[stuman]

ORIGINAL: Gräfin Zeppelin

After seeing the thread name I expected Morrigan here. After looking I found Nemo121 and expected him to invade San Francisco while his enemy fortified Alaska out of sheer terror. I expected to scratch my head pondering how it could end like this and expected to read something like "He shipped everything into Alaska and fortified there because I made him think its his only hope of survival"

[:D]

[Nemo121]

Right, we're back on again. PH has told me he'll be sending the turn sometime today. I made this post because I wanted to highlight something about leaders.... I know a lot of people obsess about them and I know some don't bother with them. I don't much care either way. I care about effectiveness not the minutiae.

Anyways, about a week ago once I settled on kamikaze doctrine suitable for the initial ring of defences ( high-altitude Oscar kamis operating out of Okinawa backed by Ki-74s operating from south-western Japan ) and was disappointed by the lack of massed attacks I decided to swap out the leaders and max out aggression with a secondary emphasis on NAVAL skill - which seems to help them when attacking naval targets.

Anyways from that day on my Oscar unit has been launching full Sentai strikes ( 49 planes in a day ) once all planes are repaired. Right now the timeline goes something like this....
Day 1: Launch 49 planes on kami missions.
Day 2: downgrade to Ki-43 IIs and then upgrade immediately to Ki-43 IIIs
Day 3: Almost all planes are repaired again and another 40+ kamis launch into action.

So, every 2 days the kamikaze squadron can launch roughly 50 planes at the enemy. Over the course of a month that's 750 kamikaze sorties being generated just by a single squadron of Oscar IIIs.


Previously I had expected to transform a huge number of squadrons into kamikaze squadrons. Right now though I am looking at simply converting 1 or 2 squadrons of each type ( fighter, dive-bomber, torpedo-bomber, level bomber ) to kamikazes and relying on appropriately phasing committment and replacement/repair rates to allow a continual series of attacks on the American fleets.

This means I'll be making FAR more conventional attacks than I had previously thought possible.... of course conventional attacks have no chance of surviving vs the US CV fleets so I need to figure out a way to gain victory without having to defeat the USN CVs. Fortunately I have a lot of experience in winning AE games without ever defeating an opponent's CV fleets ( wittness the games vs Damian or 1EyedJacks etc ) so I think I've got a plan.

Basically if we assume a 10% hit rate from torpedo-bombers, a 20% hit rate from dive-bombers and a 33% hit rate from kamikazes you can see that to destroy a US amphibious invasions fleet (200 AKAs, APAs and smaller escorts + 50 larger USN combat ships ( DDs, CAs, CLs and BBs ) when each small ship below BB size would require 2 kamis to destroy it ( I won't differentiate between Ki-43s carrying 2 x 250Kg bombs and Ohkas or Judys etc. A simple assumption of 2 hits per kill or 6 kamis per kill should suffice ) would require something on the order of 1500 kamis in a single day or even larger numbers of torpedo or dive-bombers.

With that said significant damage could be done with less force. Assuming 200 kamis + 400 Ohkas are available on the day and you've got 100 ships hit and sunk just from the kami + Ohka attack. Then throw in 500 dive-bombers, for another 100 hits ( 50 sinkings ) and 600 torpedo-bombers ( for another 60 hits/ 30 sinkings ) and you quickly add up to 180 sinkings in a day. Throw in some naval surface action and CD guns and relatively quickly you get to a situation where IF you can negate the enemy CVs you can do an awful lot of damage to a massive Allied amphibious TF if you commit the strike groups of the IJNAF and IJAAF. If you can't negate the CVs then you don't have a hope. So, how do you negate all those CVs? That's what the question really boils down to.

I have a plan but, evidently, given the spoilage due to information leakage you'll have to wait until it is put into action before I explain it.

[Nemo121]

2nd October 1945.

3 Ki-264As and 9 Ki-49 IIbs attacked Nago. They put a bomb each into two xAKs. I think some of these ships hit in port attacks sink over the next few turns. It costs me quite a few Helens but almost never a Ki-264A. Over time I want to field 50 Ki-264 As and use them for this mission. With 50 I should be able to fly 20 a night and really do a bit more damage. It'll also help save my experienced pilots as the Ki-264s are so much more able to survive attack than any of my twin-engined bombers.

A convoy of APDs returning to Korea was attacked by sub and one sunk. No matter they should still be available for fast transport work between China and the Home Islands bringing yet more of the troops in China home to defend the Home Islands.


2 x A6M7s launched from Formosa and attacked the xAK Arthur Riggs. This ship was carrying fuel so caught fire rather satisfactorily.
Allied Ships
xAK Arthur Riggs, Kamikaze hits 1, heavy fires

Aircraft Attacking:
2 x A6M7 Zero flying as kamikaze
Kamikaze: 1 x 250 kg GP Bomb


About 450 B-29s attacked Fukuoka. Again they did disproportionate damage. PH seems to want them to fly at 18,000 feet from now on. I think that is too low but if he wishes to stick to 18,000 feet then that's the altitude I'll fly at in our mirror game... and he'll regret having me fly at that altitude since that'll really wear him down quickly.

Morning Air attack on Fukuoka , at 103,57

Weather in hex: Thunderstorms

Raid detected at 160 NM, estimated altitude 19,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 50 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M8 Zero x 35
J2M5 Jack x 6
N1K1-J George x 10
N1K5-J George x 19
Ki-43-IV Oscar x 12
Ki-61-Id Tony x 45
Ki-84a Frank x 5
Ki-84b Frank x 7
Ki-84r Frank x 43
Ki-102c Randy x 19



Allied aircraft
B-29-25 Superfort x 298


Japanese aircraft losses
A6M8 Zero: 2 destroyed
N1K5-J George: 1 destroyed
Ki-43-IV Oscar: 2 destroyed
Ki-61-Id Tony: 1 destroyed
Ki-84r Frank: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
B-29-25 Superfort: 4 destroyed, 50 damaged

Heavy Industry hits 21

Again far too many fighters were driven off damaged by the B-29s. Reducing accuracy should help there somewhat. In the end the Japanese lost some 35 fighters to B-29s and fighter sweeps but managed to down 49 B-29-25s, a month's worth of production. His fighter sweeps always come in too late. Only the borked strategic bombing model is making these raids, in any way, worth it.

So many of the Japanese fighters were damaged by the B-29s that by the time the Allied fighter sweeps did arrive in the afternoon only about 6 fighters could oppose them from the 200+ which started the day. Inadvertently this helped save many more of my pilots from death. As it was I lost about 12 pilots killed from the fighter groups, a number I can afford at this stage of the war.

What I can't afford is the disproportionate damage to HI which is being caused....


I'm going to begin detailing kamikaze raids and effectiveness this month so we can track how well they do.


Kamikazes committed:
A6M7: 2

Total Kamis Committed: 2


Kamis destroyed by Allied fighters: 0

Kamis destroyed by FlAK: 0

Kamis which attacked ships: 2

Kamis which hit ships: 1

Ships hit:
xAK: 1


Tomorrow I'm committing my first D4Y4 kami unit to combat. I lured a USN CVL/CVE TF into action in the Aleutians with my invasion there and now plan to use the two Level 2 airbases there to stage a D4Y4 unit and, later, a Ki-43 unit for kamikaze missions. With any luck the enemy CAP will be weak and I can sneak a few D4Y4s into their carriers. If CAP is strong all the kamis will be destroyed. Such is life.

[DW]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

I have a plan but, evidently, given the spoilage due to information leakage you'll have to wait until it is put into action before I explain it.

When you first commented about a possible leak of information contained in your AAR to PH, I was a bit perplexed.

I've been following PH's AAR, and hadn't noticed anything amiss.

But, just to make sure I hadn't missed something, I went back and skimmed PH's AAR again, and I still can't determine what the person who warned you might have been referring to.

There was some discussion about potential strategies, orders of battle and such that are pretty much normal in an AAR at this early stage of a game, along with some brief commentary on your play style and methods.

I saw nothing that I could consider a security breach or leading as far as your over all strategy is concerned or cannot be gleaned from your other AARs as pertains to your play style.

There were a couple of comments noting that you like to play head games with your opponent, but on this forum that bit of information was about as surprising as would a comment noting that B-29s drop bombs would be.

For the most part, comments have been made by persons who are well accustomed to posting in this forum, and nobody has breached the prevailing etiquette that I could see.

So, unless I've missed some critical comment when I both read and reviewed PH's AAR, you can rest assured that the security of your AAR is intact.

[Nemo121]

Hi DW,
Well, I was told that comments and questions being asked could easily indicate my plans. The person who made this comment to me is someone whose judgement I trust. I am handicapped by, obviously, not being able to read PH's thread. So, I am erring on the side of caution which I think is reasonable. I would prefer to discuss my future plans freely here but whether I do or not they'll be unveiled once he hits my defensive lines.

I want to be clear though that nothing in this impugnes PH. At worst it is a case of someone asking or talking about something which could key into my future plans. Nothing more.

I think part of the issue might be that I think PH is actually a pretty sharp cookie with a lot of self-awareness so I think he can draw conclusions from small amounts of info. He is definitely trying to play mindgames with me ( unsuccessfully I think ) and some of his comments have made it clear that he is fully aware of his current strategy ( which he describes as quite British --- although I think his tidying up of the field of battle is finishing up now that he has taken southern Formosa.... Now that he's done that I think he is ready for a "great leap forward". ) and how that interacts with my strategy. He has also passed up easy wins ( insisting on 6,000 foot bombing levels ) in order to give the game a chance to breathe ( although it is significantly harmed by the fact he took out 1/3rd of my HI before we reached a reasonable attack altitude ). This speaks to his confidence that he is going to win.... although even there he showed an awareness that even a grinded out win wouldn't matter much as in this situation his winning is inevitable. He even posed the question of what type of win could really constitute a win. So, I think his goal is to win this scenario in a skillfull way. That speaks of self-confidence and ambition and also of both self and external awareness. All of those things make him a very dangerous opponent IMO.

[DW]

I think much of the... Problem, shall we say... Stems from the fearsome reputation your play style has earned among those who frequent this forum.

As you've no doubt noticed when catching up on your past opponents AARs at the conclusion of your various games with them, almost any observation your opponent makes is like as not to be accompanied by dire warnings from other contributors that nothing they observe in a game against you should be taken at face value and that they may be falling prey to another of your cunning and devious schemes.

Just as a broken clock it right twice a day, eventually such a warning is given for something that really is one of your cunning and devious schemes.

I don't believe, and I think you would agree, that such would constitute a breach of the prevailing etiquette in this forum.

As to what you choose to reveal and what you choose not to, I want you to know that I didn't engage on this topic in an attempt to persuade you to alter your decision. I just wanted you to know that there aren't any obvious leaks that I could determine.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I usually find myself rooting for your opponents in your various games.

This is no aspersion on you. Your AARs are a fascinating read at all levels and you have few equals in your ability to explain what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Rather, it's motivated by much the same sort of sentiment that one might feel when witnessing a young gazelle set upon by a hungry lion.

I'm the sort who roots for the gazelle to get away, even though I've nothing against the lion.

And, while PH may or may not be the equivalent of a young gazelle, you've most certainly proven yourself to be the gaming version of the king of beasts.

Sadly, my support for your opponent is usually rewarded in the same way as is my support for the young gazelle...

By a loud burp on the part of the lion.

Well.. Here's to hope.

Go PH!!!

[:)]

[Nemo121]

Fearsome reputation?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I merely apply basically strategy in a simple, direct manner. Anyone could do this.

I think that in terms of ability I'd go as follows:
Naval tactics: Average

CV tactics: Poor - I definitely amn't good with CVs. Probably one of the reasons I have come up with ways to win without risking a CV on CV battle except under circumstances I like. My game vs 1EyedJacks is a good example of this. I'm invading Malaysia in 1942 yet I haven't risked a CV on KB battle at all. Hell, when I went up against baby KB I lost a CV.

Air tactics: I think I understand the air model well and know how to get the results I want. So in the air I'd say I'm Good.

Ground tactics: Above Average. I understand the way AV and firepower interact reasonably well but still sometimes get stung.

The only area I'd say I'm actually really quite good at is that I know how to subordinate the tactical to the operational and to the strategic and that's really only a simple application of Soviet Doctrine which preaches this hierarchy as the basis of all decision-making.


DW, don't get me wrong, I appreciate your post and took it in the spirit in which it was intended. I just wanted to make it clear, again, that I amn't aware of precisely what was or wasn't said and so am going on the judgement of someone I trust who merely spoke about questions etc and comments being made which PH was of a standard to draw the right conclusions from.... with that said I think part of that would be because I have, privately, told this same person that I think PH might be the most strategically astute opponent I've had so far. He isn't flashy or showy but he has what I can best describe as a dangerous self-awareness. He is aware of both the external and internal games being played and his email to me work on three levels -
1. The outer level which talks about the game - "The Battle of Osaka has begun. I'm attacking a hex you must defend in order to break your fighter force and HI."

2. The slightly deeper level - By saying what he will do and how he will do it he dares me to counter him.... and in countering him by committing my fighters he then creates precisely the situation he wishes to create. Sometimes manipulation isn't about deception it can be about stating something in order to create a situation you desire.

3. Obviously though by stating the obvious and then doing what he said he would for three days he was merely setting me up ( at a cost of over 150 B-29s ) for what he hoped would be a cheap raid elsewhere after I'd brought all of my good fighters into action over Osaka. Of course knowing that I couldn't very well just load up Tokyo and Fukuoka with fighters or he'd spot that so I had to limit Fukuoka to 200 fighters in-hex with 700 in neighbouring hexes ready to fly in and help. Unfortunately on the day he did hit Fukuoka 2 of the three neighbouring hexes were clouded in so instead of a 900 fighter concentration over FUkuoka I only achieved a 300 fighter concentration. Still downed 50 B29s but it wasn't quite the 100+ massacre I had been hoping for.

What was nice was that it was clear he'd planned the three days of raids on Osaka and then switching to Fukuoka from Day 1 and had integrated his recon and mail strategy into that plan before he launched it. It was just a pity for him I saw through it and was using Fukuoka and Tokyo as rebuild/upgrade bases in order to ensure a steady supply of good fighters on CAP ( which I haven't told him obviously as with only 300 fighters to face he probably thinks it worked and will try it again. If I get good weather then I may just be able to ambush him properly next time. ).


DW: re: opponents. No worries, I tend to root for the underdog too. On the other hand I'm not really sure PH is the underdog here [8D] |The Japanese situation combined with the excessive accuracy of HI bombing is just too overwhelming. I've already asked for a rematch though. When we hit November 1st we'll begin a mirror game with me taking over as the Allies. Then you really can root for him [:D]

Right now though I'm more like a lion who is chasing a gazelle but whose leg has already been chewed off [:D]... and I think the gazelle might be a meat-eater. Really though, just an average player applying the basics rigorously. Anyone could do it.


To be fair when we do the turn-around he should have a pretty good chance because:
1. We'll be sticking to 20,000 feet for strategic bombing ( which will save his HI hugely and extend the game --- AND be a lot more realistic than the ueber-destructiveness he has right now which is crucifying my HI in an unrealistic fashion.

2. My B29s etc will have far less effective defences such that his fighters will get a lot more firing passes and down a lot more of my bombers.

Of course I actually have a plan for the offensive already. If my plan works the game will be short, vicious and bloody, very, very bloody. So, great fun then [8D]. We just have to get through October in this game first.