The Power of Inexperience / GreyJoy(A)-Rader(J)

[beppi]

ORIGINAL: Heeward
Have you held unit cadres back in the rear to rebuild nearly destroyed units?

No really need to do it any more. You can buy destroyed units back with PP. It will cost something but not that much. And allies do not have the squads to rebuild more than 6-7 divisions.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: pws1225

Damn GJ - I don't see how he could have moved that many troops in so few days days and have them ready to go in combat mode. They must have been there all along.

Rader could have had troops away from the front in Strategic mode ready to roll. They make the front in one day after being ordered in from afar in Honshu. They automatically convert to "Combat" mode upon arrival, but take a couple days to fully convert.

Getting combat troops into theatre is the easy part. Breaking contact and extricating from combat is quite another.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: beppi

ORIGINAL: Heeward
Have you held unit cadres back in the rear to rebuild nearly destroyed units?

No really need to do it any more. You can buy destroyed units back with PP. It will cost something but not that much. And allies do not have the squads to rebuild more than 6-7 divisions.

And it will take a long time to become available with PP...

While that may be possible if GreyJoy wants the game to continue into 1946, by all accounts this is not to be so. Thus, GreyJoy will party with what he brung-reconstitution of cadres doesn't sound like a viable option.

[Cap Mandrake]

Maybe Honshu will actually capsize as 2 million soldiers run back and forth between Hachinoe and Akita? The Emperor will be seriously angry.

If you have supply you seem to have artillery superiority at both hexes. That, combined with air to ground attack might whittle him down. You could also bluff a landing further up the coast to try to get him to commit reserves.

The problem you will have with a protracted campaign will be keeping adequate CAP over both hexes. ...and supply

[JeffroK]

So hit him in Hachinoe!!!
 
I would be interested in an all out shock at Akita, you got 1-2 with a normal attack, killed lots of squads, drawn in reinforcements that are in the wrong mode.
 
Cant see much chance of success if you just sit there.
 
For the ACW buffs, looks like Grant is moving south, this was Cold Harbor, Battle of the Crater is next, how many months to Appomatox?

[pws1225]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Rader could have had troops away from the front in Strategic mode ready to roll. They make the front in one day after being ordered in from afar in Honshu. They automatically convert to "Combat" mode upon arrival, but take a couple days to fully convert.

Thanks CB. I didn't realize that strat moved forces would have meanful impact until they were fully converted. That does make a big difference!

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: pws1225

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

Rader could have had troops away from the front in Strategic mode ready to roll. They make the front in one day after being ordered in from afar in Honshu. They automatically convert to "Combat" mode upon arrival, but take a couple days to fully convert.

Thanks CB. I didn't realize that strat moved forces would have meanful impact until they were fully converted. That does make a big difference!

I think he suffered from a negative modifier.
When you see a unit in "Combat" but with 2-3 days to unpack there must still be an effect (or else why show it?)

It might mean the window is small and in 2 days they are ready.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Ok...think i'll sleep on it...and will do the turn tomorrow...too tired now to take any decision...

Night guys...was nice dreaming with you about an allied northern honshu [:D]

Heya GreyJoy,

Just listening to a little music tonight from The Glitch Mob and thought of you. "Drive it like you stole it" comes to mind. No time now for pacifism, mate. Go big or go home.

[dekwik]

On the positive side rader has so many troops there that you can clean out the SRA and Cen PAC with a couple of MLs and a girl scout troop

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

I wonder whether any invasion of Honshu can succeed. Hmmm.

[&o]

Well yes, but you have to do it old school. Cut off his oil, wreck his economy and cut off his ability to reinforce the home islands. This was a bold move by GJ but Rader is not blocked from moving troops from all other theaters to the homeland. And with the exception of aircraft factories his industry is not hurt.

GJ was doing this attack for the entertainment of all of us and for the fun of it. But in reality another year of pounding Japan would have been the proper strategy. The Allies knew this. If he can't advance off the beaches then there will be a nasty evacuation with some serious casualties taken. However, he did smack down the Japanese surface fleet. And, has really hurt Rader's air force. Now he will have to sort out and rebuild his infantry and put together a more deliberate plan. As long as GJ hold Hokkaido the outcome in not in doubt.

There is still plenty of time.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
Should i dunkirk and prepare another big operation for 1945? Or should i simply sit in Hokkaido and strat bomb?

Greyjoy,

It was a good try, but I think you have lost the battle already. You can't interdict the flood of reinforcements from the rest of the Empire. I think it is time to bug out fast. You will take some more losses but you had better get away with what you can. This may be the toughest test of the campaign for you.

Good luck.

[cwDeici]

He'll be fine as long as he can keep up supplies (though that's a big if, but I guess a fairly passive beachhead might help with that), I don't see how Rader will throw him out with the mighty Allied navy and airforce. Keep bombing Greyjoy!

[JeffroK]

In the meantime, see what can be done in the rest of the game, if you could get Wake, Marcus & Iwo Jima rader might have to look at his southern flank.

BUT, A sign of GJ's poverty is seeing P39 & Swordfish on the front line. He might have lost just too much to tip the scales, at least at this time of the war.

[CaptBeefheart]

A setback, but this is by no means over. A grind on those two beaches could very well work. Or, if Rader overcommits, a nice behind-the-lines strike could work wonders. I still like Niigata.

In 20/20 hindsight, it looks like the proper strategy might be to sacrifice 2-4 divisions in blocking positions and then land where he can't strat in a bunch of troops. CRSutton is also right on the preparation side of things. Anyway, thanks GJ for breaking new ground and providing michaelm some valuable feedback to help tweak this game to perfection, not to mention for the entertainment value of this AAR.

BTW--I'm not reading Rader's AAR since I don't want to inadvertantly screw this up, but that must be entertaining as well. I can see movie rights worth millions, with James Cameron wanting to direct and Ben Affleck itching to atone for his involvement in the movie that shall not be named.

Cheers,
CC

[yubari]

That is not such a bad result, the number of destroyed Japanese squads is a lot higher than that of the allies. I cannot see any sense in trying to withdraw though, having gone to the effort of getting on the land. This is simply going to have to be a trench battle that will be won over a number of months.

Indeed I think that the allied position is a lot stronger now than it was before the invasion. Japan now has two hexes in the north that he has to defend with large CAP and that means that the aircraft factories will have to be weakly defended. It is a perfect opportunity to alternately target aircraft factories and then the two battle hexes. More than that, the two battle hexes are Japanese controlled which means that Japan cannot sweep but the allies can, another perfect opportunity for the continued destruction of the Japanese airforce.

[cwDeici]

Yeah, the number of guns destroyed is higher too... as long as the supplies are there to restore the higher rate of disabled allied squads. Not sure how much punishment the allied transports can take, but some say the CD will get weaker as time goes on.

ORIGINAL: JeffK

A sign of GJ's poverty is seeing P39 & Swordfish on the front line. He might have lost just too much to tip the scales, at least at this time of the war.

Also, I suppose nobody knows except our very busy Greyjoy as it's gone unanswered before, but if anyone could answer this it'd be great as it's relevant to the above: Does anyone know how what Greyjoy's total number of AC is and how many AC are produced per month? And does anyone have a guesstimate at Rader's?
(And just how awesome is Scenario 2 Japan? Rader's lost 6k AC in just the three most recent large-scale engagements (the CAP-trap (2,100), the Tokyo raid (2,750) and this round (1,150)!!)

[Schlemiel]

Full disclosure I do read both threads, but haven't read Rader's since this second invasion so I have no idea what he did or planned, this is all speculation on my part based on what Grey has said.


There might be some exceptions, but you can strat move into a contested hex, but you may not strat move out, even if you own all the hexsides.  I had this problem in China with the rail bottleneck near kaifeng in my first ai game.  My troops were blocking the Japanese at the railroad junction and, in fact, had them surrounded, but when I tried to strat move units through the rails, they would get stuck in this hex and have to be switched to move mode to get out.  If I remember right, you had your blocking force at Hirosaki, which would prevent strat units there or in Onimato from reaching you, though they could rail in from the south (a more likely spot for rail reserves anyway, imo).  Since you believe the units came directly from Hachinoche, I presume they must have come in move mode, and must have been moving that direction before the landing for some reason.  Entering in move mode might have tripped the -ops for defenders that first turn and they would be completely combat ready the second.  Barring some clause I"m unaware of, they would not be able to strat move from a hex with your units in it.  That said, it could be a combination of the two with a strat reserve railed in while other units moved out of Hachinoche.  I don't plan to parse the combat reports of both battles like you presumably have.

I've got no real idea if a breakthrough is possible if you keep up the naval and air pressure, but if it were me, I would probably not pull my units out unless something really drastic changes.  As people have said, they will build organic forts and will be forced to be in clear terrain against your armor.  Do you believe Rader has enough and is willing to commit enough of his strategic reserve in the HI to attempt to throw one of these attacks into the sea?  If not, you've effectively tied down a very large amount of his forces in a place they are potentially subject to naval and air bombardment in a clear hex and will be burning supplies.  You get to tie down a large chunk of his land assets while having further opportunities to maybe attrit his carriers and other naval assets, as well as putting his airframes at risk for a Tokyo style bombing if they attempt to intervene too closely.

That said, some bad dice rolls or odd bugs may have cost you your best early opportunities at each beachfront.  Such is the cost of war, and it's unfortunate that the only one to require a replay ended up much worse for you than the original Hachinoche landing.  Interested to see how this plays out.

[JeffroK]

[:'(]
GJ  Producing about 50 pre war biplanes.
rader, about 5000 of the model after the latest model, jets will be in the air very soon (he has kindergarten kids flying them though)

[cwDeici]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

[:'(]
GJ  Producing about 50 pre war biplanes.
rader, about 5000 of the model after the latest model, jets will be in the air very soon (he has kindergarten kids flying them though)

Aaah I get the picture. Good thing Snoopy is piloting those biplanes...

[obvert]

Just read through from yesterday to get the update on the recent battle.

This is definitely tough. The longer you sit though, the more he brings back. Unless you have more coming, it seems time to move on out. Against these numbers, even if you were to win a base, could you then move forward? Another question is can you even get these troops out without major losses?

The air battles were tough today. If you look over the two days past though, you have still done amazingly well.

Losses for both recent battles combined:

Japanese - 2319

Allied - 1013

So two to one is not bad, but then I know his factories are theoretically unlimited, while yours are not. It looks like time to star hitting them again!

Do you need to LR CAP both Akita and Hachinoe? Can the japanese bombing force that has seen over 4,000 planes lost in the past several weeks field a force of pilots with enough skill to hit the troops. Not sure. I know they work a lot better with higher skilled pilots against ground troops.

To summarize, maybe you can leave these troops here, continue to resupply with crappy xAKs you get a zillion of, and start bombing both air industry and his other factories. You still have the third wave of reserves to play with in case it gets overly hairy in one of these spots.

Or else you can try to Dunkirk. Operation Hair Removal?