Damn, attacking carriers eh? I'll have to HR that to ban it.
In reality I hope he does. Taking the losses will be the quickest way to kill his G9Ms and clear the way for my multi-division amphibious landings.
Jrcar and Tony were right in their AAR where they identified the ability of the Allies to quickly conduct multi-divisional amphibious landings as their crucial capability. Without that capability the CVs are useless. With that capability you don't need CVs. Once the initial round of invasions has occurred I'd be willing to bet I won't find much use for CVs from mid-October onwards.
A Few Good Men...FatR Prohibited.
Moderators: wdolson, MOD_War-in-the-Pacific-Admirals-Edition
RE: Operation Damocles
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well, that's that settled then.
RE: Operation Damocles
As a bait to expend his G9Ms ??
RE: Operation Damocles
Yes, precisely. He's read my AAR in which I outlined my plan for defending as Japan. He'll know I think the G9Ms are CV-killers. He's posted in my AAR to say that the info there was worth its weight in gold. Obviously that's a mind-game ploy. The question is whether or not he'll decide to use the G9Ms as I had planned or not. I think that what he won't consider is using the CVs as bait to draw the G9Ms out. I think he'll view using them vs CVs as their primary mission - which in one sense it is - but won't see that perhaps using them vs the APAs/AKAs might benefit him more in the long run.
I've scoped out the G9M factor and the Ki-264 factory and I see he is expanding both of them. That makes me think he has decided they are useful and is expanding production. Well, he'll get about a month's production but not much more than that.
2 days of the ceasefire are gone. I haven't bothered giving any orders really, 5 or 6 days is more than enough for any redeployments I need as the US.... Really the abundance of forces is pretty awe-inspiring. Everywhere I look there are 2 or 3 hundred heavy or medium bombers ready to level and an airfield or two. There should be no excuse for any Japanese base short of Nagasaki having an operable airfield in this game.
Between the LSTs, LSIs and LSMs I actually won't even need APAs or AKAs for the amphibious invasions in the Kuriles.There's so, so, so much excessive force...
I've scoped out the G9M factor and the Ki-264 factory and I see he is expanding both of them. That makes me think he has decided they are useful and is expanding production. Well, he'll get about a month's production but not much more than that.
2 days of the ceasefire are gone. I haven't bothered giving any orders really, 5 or 6 days is more than enough for any redeployments I need as the US.... Really the abundance of forces is pretty awe-inspiring. Everywhere I look there are 2 or 3 hundred heavy or medium bombers ready to level and an airfield or two. There should be no excuse for any Japanese base short of Nagasaki having an operable airfield in this game.
Between the LSTs, LSIs and LSMs I actually won't even need APAs or AKAs for the amphibious invasions in the Kuriles.There's so, so, so much excessive force...
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well, that's that settled then.
RE: Operation Damocles
Sure ? I always have to use some AKs or APs to fullfill my amphibious force.
btw, lot of troops mean lot of supplies consumption, and the same with the 2E bombers, so be ready to send tons of supplies..
btw, lot of troops mean lot of supplies consumption, and the same with the 2E bombers, so be ready to send tons of supplies..
RE: Operation Damocles
The "Big Ball O' Ships" always carries lots of supplies [8D]
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well, that's that settled then.
RE: Operation Damocles
xDD U will need A LOT of ships, even the big ones...
RE: Operation Damocles
ONE of my rear area ports has 500 ships, I have about 5 ports of that size in the game. Honestly, if you reduced the Allied numbers by 50% there would STILL be more ships than I know what to do with.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well, that's that settled then.
RE: Operation Damocles
Its been a while.
Well, the game began and so far things have gone pretty nicely:
1. Over half the IJN tanker fleet was trapped and sunk in the Yellow Sea. That'll hurt his ability to transfer fuel from Hokkaido to the mainland.
2. IJAAF and IJNAF attacks on the fleet have largely been ineffective. CAP works as planned.
3. Forces are moving into position for the various "spokes" of the advance. In the south-western spoke I've taken Daito Shoto and Amami Oshima and am about to take Tokarra Retto ( probably it'll fall on the 25th of September ). In the South a several thousand AV strong force has been assembled and will begin pushing north from Iwo Jima using several USN CV TFs which have, so far, sat the war out. IN the east Addak is being built up into a Level 8 port fitted out to support the CV and BB fleets. Once that's completed I'll begin working my way down the Kuriles in October.
Tokarra Retto:
Once Tokarra Retto falls I can withdraw my CVs from this theatre and begin advancing northward towards Korea along the Japanese coast using nothin but land-based LRCAP as cover. It'll cost me a little but it'll also free the US Navy's CVs for decisive strategic action elsewhere.
Kuriles:
Same as Tokarra Reto. Once I get the first base or two I'll be able to withdraw the CVs and proceed under land-based air cover. My CVs can then begin participating in strategic raids on the Home Islands' means of production.
I've lost 1 CVE to a submarine. Elsewhere, apart from subs, I've lost nothing larger than a DD. In the air I've destroyed some 2,300 planes in return for 1,000 of my own. It should have been 3 to 1 but unfortunately a rather strange situation led to the Japanese getting a good air raid in on Amami Oshima. Basically I was expecting a raid and had 150 P-51 Hs and 75 P-38s at the base ready to destroy the expected raid. I even had about 50 night-fighters in the air. What happened was that 60 Bettys came in at 100 feet and bombed the field. They didn't take a single loss to FlAK ( which was the weird bit ) and their bombing utterly closed the field. So, the next day, when the IJAAF came into action all my fighters were stuck on the ground and got slaughtered.
I'm moving AAA Regiments forward as the only reason I can think why the Netties might have gotten away lightly was that I was relying on AAA from US Army and US Navy BFs and a Marine Infantry Division and didn't have an AAA Regt there. Moonlight was very low and so maybe that played into it also?
In terms of the naval war, I've sunk about 250 ships in return for 70 of my own - 40 of which are subs, ASW is uber-lethal at this time of the war. In terms of the air I have 2,300 kills in return for 1,000 ( over 200 of which resulted from that strange AAA-less raid on Amami Oshima ). IN terms of the ground forces I've destroyed 4 divisions worth of IJA troops and haven't suffered any significant troop losses myself. A single CV has been damaged by submarines and a CVE was sunk by them. Apart from that the USN is intact.
The plan is fully on track as is the maskirovka. PH seems to want to keep me fighting in south-eastern Japan focussed on hitting airfields etc instead of HI. Since I don't want to fritter bombers away attacking Kobe and Osaka etc until I can conduct massive sweeps co-ordinating sweeps by USN fighters, USMC fighters and USAAF fighters operation from coastal islands AND USN CVs I am happy to hit the peripheries whilst letting him think he is diverting me from attacking his core HI targets. It allows me to kill airframes, test my airfield-closing capability and gives the medium and attack bombers something to do ( I also divert the B-29s from time to time to keep up the appearance of strategic dissaray ).
In the meantime since he thinks I'm playing to his tune he isn't opposing the apparently non-threatening forays I'm making which are actually laying the basis for his defeat. In his emails I can tell he's really pleased with how things are going. Obviously he expects me to try to mislead him so I sell him the occasional ploy he's expected to see through and as he sees through them he is convinced his assessment is correct... and he relaxes and he enjoys the HI he is amassing and he doesn't oppose the slow knife being slipped in because he doesn't see the threat or feel the pain. In the end he should only notice it once his strategic situation has become irrevocably worsened.
Once I have the coastal islands though I'll sweep from them and even though, by then, he'll have Ki-94s and J7Ws in large numbers since I'll have 3 axes of advance from which to project land-based air at short range ( from coastal islands ) ( plus multiple CV TFs to support any individual axis ) that should negate his qualitative superiority.
I also don't mind giving him an HI cushion since I wish this game to go into 1946 and result in an actual land invasion of mainland Japan.... if he has no HI then the game will have to be called early and I won't get to conduct a mainland campaign... I'm very interested to see how that goes since in my in-scenario testing I've used dive-bombers to obliterate over 400 AV of Japanese forces without ever having a land battle. These 400 AV of forces just disintegrated after about 5 days of solid dive-bomber attack. I'd like to see that sort of thing in operation vs forces on the mainland. It'd provide and interesting and unusual datum point for the air ground interaction and might help guide future improvements.
The only bad point so far as the 60 Netties on the 100 feet night bombing raid. They proved hugely effective closing a Level 3 airfield with 500 engineers in a single raid and for over 24 hours. I'll have to keep on eye out for that if it recurs, although I think I've found the solution in terms of dedicated AAA Regiments, one to a base. We'll soon find out.
PH told me after I sent him back the turn an hour ago that he was going to hit another one of my bases.... Well, I'm expecting him to hit Manilla. It has over 200 daytime fighters and 100 night-time fighters. I don't want to put more since:
a) I can't cover everything and
b) I am fine with just damaging the Ki-264s and letting ops losses take them down.
If not Manilla then I expect it to be Naha. I think he'll hit Manilla though, he has been good at hitting front-line bases and he has been nerving himself up over the past couple of days to strike into my rear areas. I think he's found enough success in that to try for Manilla now - which is why I boosted the night CAP by 50% yesterday.
Well, the game began and so far things have gone pretty nicely:
1. Over half the IJN tanker fleet was trapped and sunk in the Yellow Sea. That'll hurt his ability to transfer fuel from Hokkaido to the mainland.
2. IJAAF and IJNAF attacks on the fleet have largely been ineffective. CAP works as planned.
3. Forces are moving into position for the various "spokes" of the advance. In the south-western spoke I've taken Daito Shoto and Amami Oshima and am about to take Tokarra Retto ( probably it'll fall on the 25th of September ). In the South a several thousand AV strong force has been assembled and will begin pushing north from Iwo Jima using several USN CV TFs which have, so far, sat the war out. IN the east Addak is being built up into a Level 8 port fitted out to support the CV and BB fleets. Once that's completed I'll begin working my way down the Kuriles in October.
Tokarra Retto:
Once Tokarra Retto falls I can withdraw my CVs from this theatre and begin advancing northward towards Korea along the Japanese coast using nothin but land-based LRCAP as cover. It'll cost me a little but it'll also free the US Navy's CVs for decisive strategic action elsewhere.
Kuriles:
Same as Tokarra Reto. Once I get the first base or two I'll be able to withdraw the CVs and proceed under land-based air cover. My CVs can then begin participating in strategic raids on the Home Islands' means of production.
I've lost 1 CVE to a submarine. Elsewhere, apart from subs, I've lost nothing larger than a DD. In the air I've destroyed some 2,300 planes in return for 1,000 of my own. It should have been 3 to 1 but unfortunately a rather strange situation led to the Japanese getting a good air raid in on Amami Oshima. Basically I was expecting a raid and had 150 P-51 Hs and 75 P-38s at the base ready to destroy the expected raid. I even had about 50 night-fighters in the air. What happened was that 60 Bettys came in at 100 feet and bombed the field. They didn't take a single loss to FlAK ( which was the weird bit ) and their bombing utterly closed the field. So, the next day, when the IJAAF came into action all my fighters were stuck on the ground and got slaughtered.
I'm moving AAA Regiments forward as the only reason I can think why the Netties might have gotten away lightly was that I was relying on AAA from US Army and US Navy BFs and a Marine Infantry Division and didn't have an AAA Regt there. Moonlight was very low and so maybe that played into it also?
In terms of the naval war, I've sunk about 250 ships in return for 70 of my own - 40 of which are subs, ASW is uber-lethal at this time of the war. In terms of the air I have 2,300 kills in return for 1,000 ( over 200 of which resulted from that strange AAA-less raid on Amami Oshima ). IN terms of the ground forces I've destroyed 4 divisions worth of IJA troops and haven't suffered any significant troop losses myself. A single CV has been damaged by submarines and a CVE was sunk by them. Apart from that the USN is intact.
The plan is fully on track as is the maskirovka. PH seems to want to keep me fighting in south-eastern Japan focussed on hitting airfields etc instead of HI. Since I don't want to fritter bombers away attacking Kobe and Osaka etc until I can conduct massive sweeps co-ordinating sweeps by USN fighters, USMC fighters and USAAF fighters operation from coastal islands AND USN CVs I am happy to hit the peripheries whilst letting him think he is diverting me from attacking his core HI targets. It allows me to kill airframes, test my airfield-closing capability and gives the medium and attack bombers something to do ( I also divert the B-29s from time to time to keep up the appearance of strategic dissaray ).
In the meantime since he thinks I'm playing to his tune he isn't opposing the apparently non-threatening forays I'm making which are actually laying the basis for his defeat. In his emails I can tell he's really pleased with how things are going. Obviously he expects me to try to mislead him so I sell him the occasional ploy he's expected to see through and as he sees through them he is convinced his assessment is correct... and he relaxes and he enjoys the HI he is amassing and he doesn't oppose the slow knife being slipped in because he doesn't see the threat or feel the pain. In the end he should only notice it once his strategic situation has become irrevocably worsened.
Once I have the coastal islands though I'll sweep from them and even though, by then, he'll have Ki-94s and J7Ws in large numbers since I'll have 3 axes of advance from which to project land-based air at short range ( from coastal islands ) ( plus multiple CV TFs to support any individual axis ) that should negate his qualitative superiority.
I also don't mind giving him an HI cushion since I wish this game to go into 1946 and result in an actual land invasion of mainland Japan.... if he has no HI then the game will have to be called early and I won't get to conduct a mainland campaign... I'm very interested to see how that goes since in my in-scenario testing I've used dive-bombers to obliterate over 400 AV of Japanese forces without ever having a land battle. These 400 AV of forces just disintegrated after about 5 days of solid dive-bomber attack. I'd like to see that sort of thing in operation vs forces on the mainland. It'd provide and interesting and unusual datum point for the air ground interaction and might help guide future improvements.
The only bad point so far as the 60 Netties on the 100 feet night bombing raid. They proved hugely effective closing a Level 3 airfield with 500 engineers in a single raid and for over 24 hours. I'll have to keep on eye out for that if it recurs, although I think I've found the solution in terms of dedicated AAA Regiments, one to a base. We'll soon find out.
PH told me after I sent him back the turn an hour ago that he was going to hit another one of my bases.... Well, I'm expecting him to hit Manilla. It has over 200 daytime fighters and 100 night-time fighters. I don't want to put more since:
a) I can't cover everything and
b) I am fine with just damaging the Ki-264s and letting ops losses take them down.
If not Manilla then I expect it to be Naha. I think he'll hit Manilla though, he has been good at hitting front-line bases and he has been nerving himself up over the past couple of days to strike into my rear areas. I think he's found enough success in that to try for Manilla now - which is why I boosted the night CAP by 50% yesterday.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well, that's that settled then.
RE: Operation Damocles
Well, I was wrong.
It turns out that he hit Iwo Jima again - fine by my, that's a waste of his resources as I'm only manning Iwo in order to distract him into hitting it time and again. Its only purpose is to house 6 recon planes which are reconning the next target in the chain northward to Japan. Apart from that I'd abandon it right now.
He also air assaulted Tinian - which was gutsy and a ncice move. I hadn't denuded it though so his air assault got crushed.
PH got a nice kamikaze raid in. They got lucky and slipped through the CAP - which sometimes happens. Some 21 planes came in, my CAP downed 8 and the remaining 13 got 5 hits on LCTs and suchlike. I lost some 700 men from one of my Engineer Assault Bdes. That's fine though, I have about 2,000 AV of armoured and combat engineer troops at Amami Oshima loading up for Tokarra Retto. I can swallow some losses and still keep going.
Elsewhere I am continuint to alternate HI and airfield attacks in the south-east in order to keep him interested and convinced of the narrative I'm selling. In terms of air losses I think they'll be something over 200 for the Japanese and quite moderate for the Allies - I probably lost 20 B25 strafers in an attack on an airfield, FlAK can be murderous - but apart from that didn't lose much. So, 50 planes to 200+.
In terms of naval combat - I lost a PF to damage inflicted yesterday but it looks like I sank about 10 of his ships around Korea as well as damaging several tankers in a tanker convoy around Chinnampo ( modern day north Korea ) with my surface raiders.
It turns out that he hit Iwo Jima again - fine by my, that's a waste of his resources as I'm only manning Iwo in order to distract him into hitting it time and again. Its only purpose is to house 6 recon planes which are reconning the next target in the chain northward to Japan. Apart from that I'd abandon it right now.
He also air assaulted Tinian - which was gutsy and a ncice move. I hadn't denuded it though so his air assault got crushed.
PH got a nice kamikaze raid in. They got lucky and slipped through the CAP - which sometimes happens. Some 21 planes came in, my CAP downed 8 and the remaining 13 got 5 hits on LCTs and suchlike. I lost some 700 men from one of my Engineer Assault Bdes. That's fine though, I have about 2,000 AV of armoured and combat engineer troops at Amami Oshima loading up for Tokarra Retto. I can swallow some losses and still keep going.
Elsewhere I am continuint to alternate HI and airfield attacks in the south-east in order to keep him interested and convinced of the narrative I'm selling. In terms of air losses I think they'll be something over 200 for the Japanese and quite moderate for the Allies - I probably lost 20 B25 strafers in an attack on an airfield, FlAK can be murderous - but apart from that didn't lose much. So, 50 planes to 200+.
In terms of naval combat - I lost a PF to damage inflicted yesterday but it looks like I sank about 10 of his ships around Korea as well as damaging several tankers in a tanker convoy around Chinnampo ( modern day north Korea ) with my surface raiders.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Well, that's that settled then.