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

[cwDeici]

Oh, he has a lot of expendable cargo transports? (Well, naturally... it's just I was confused by the talk of valuable transport ships, but I guess it's the dedicated troop transport ones that are valuable and the merchant marine is expendable.) In that case I don't see any reason why Greyjoy should leave as long as he can just let the merchant marine suffer instead. I agree completely the third wave should be used to reinforce either beachead if they get into trouble, which should be mostly avoidable with the strong allied bomber force.
And I totally agree on bombing his factories. I've been advocating switching between strategic and tactical bombing targets since the threat of invasion began to loom near. It's true what Nemo said to start with that laser-like focus would have ended the war early, but with a combined approach I think it's better to keep Rader guessing when it is not absolutely vital to support the ground forces. Bombing his AC factories will also force him to spread his airforce out.

Oh and for the record (gloat) I'm one of those who thought Greyjoy would manage to secure a beachhead but not break out for months... though I also thought he'd manage to grab a base but not break out... but the consensus here seems to be if that had happened the whole north would have fallen and the country in short order. Why are bases so important, other than the obvious reasons of easing supply and disruption and raising morale? Something about upgrading units or something?

[GreyJoy]

Awful days at work...i'm so busy i can hardly breath...
 
Anyway, I decided not to dunkirk (i never really believed it was an option for me...i just wanted to put the option on this great war room [:D]). I'll stay there and hold my ground.
I still have some options in my pocket and now i'm evaluating them all...
 
Last turn was a serious defeat in the air...880 planes lost is something the allies CANNOT sustain... but the loss of 660 pilots is worse than everything... luckly enough we have reserves but we better think twice before engaging in another air battle between LRCAPs...
 
My pools situation is nasty...no good planes left in the pools...no Hellcats, No P-47s...a bunch of mustangs but that's all...
 
However Rader won't be able to push me out of Aikita or Hachinoe...i'm pretty sure of that. Gotta see what can be done for Aomori...
 
Ki-83 is now being produced and i think the Shidens will be inline somewhere in the next 2/3 months... not much i can do about it now...Rader repaired most of his damanged a/c factories...all those bombers lost for nothing [:o]
 
Hope to manage to get to you with a comprehensive update tonight... sorry guys...i really hoped in something more to show you with this battle...but it ain't over yet and we all must keep our faith in the final victory! [:D]
 
See u all later

[beppi]

ORIGINAL: cwDeici

Oh, he has a lot of expendable cargo transports? (Well, naturally... it's just I was confused by the talk of valuable transport ships, but I guess it's the dedicated troop transport ones that are valuable and the merchant marine is expendable.) In that case I don't see any reason why Greyjoy should leave as long as he can just let the merchant marine suffer instead. I agree completely the third wave should be used to reinforce either beachead if they get into trouble, which should be mostly avoidable with the strong allied bomber force.
And I totally agree on bombing his factories. I've been advocating switching between strategic and tactical bombing targets since the threat of invasion began to loom near. It's true what Nemo said to start with that laser-like focus would have ended the war early, but with a combined approach I think it's better to keep Rader guessing when it is not absolutely vital to support the ground forces. Bombing his AC factories will also force him to spread his airforce out.

Oh and for the record (gloat) I'm one of those who thought Greyjoy would manage to secure a beachhead but not break out for months... though I also thought he'd manage to grab a base but not break out... but the consensus here seems to be if that had happened the whole north would have fallen and the country in short order. Why are bases so important, other than the obvious reasons of easing supply and disruption and raising morale? Something about upgrading units or something?

Advantages of bases:
1.) You can do TOE upgrades.
2.) You can put units into rest mode. That allows a faster reinforcement drain and recovery than out open in the field. But not that much.
3.) You can load troops much faster.
4.) You can shuttle troops in by air (lot of players underestimate that. You can shift a division without the heavy arty + morized stuff in a turn. The arty/mots you can ship with the navy later, you still have most of the combat stuff there.
5.) You can build higher fort levels. Organic forts in the open only raise up to 4 in some cases.

Basically you do not need a base except TOE upgrade. You can dump 500k supply to troops in the open without owning the base and they can sit there for months if necessarily. They will rest, they will lower fatigue/disruption, they will draw replacements. Not owning a base is not that big problem but still it is better if you own it [;)]

[beppi]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Awful days at work...i'm so busy i can hardly breath...

Anyway, I decided not to dunkirk (i never really believed it was an option for me...i just wanted to put the option on this great war room [:D]). I'll stay there and hold my ground.
I still have some options in my pocket and now i'm evaluating them all...

Last turn was a serious defeat in the air...880 planes lost is something the allies CANNOT sustain... but the loss of 660 pilots is worse than everything... luckly enough we have reserves but we better think twice before engaging in another air battle between LRCAPs...

My pools situation is nasty...no good planes left in the pools...no Hellcats, No P-47s...a bunch of mustangs but that's all...

However Rader won't be able to push me out of Aikita or Hachinoe...i'm pretty sure of that. Gotta see what can be done for Aomori...

Ki-83 is now being produced and i think the Shidens will be inline somewhere in the next 2/3 months... not much i can do about it now...Rader repaired most of his damanged a/c factories...all those bombers lost for nothing [:o]

Hope to manage to get to you with a comprehensive update tonight... sorry guys...i really hoped in something more to show you with this battle...but it ain't over yet and we all must keep our faith in the final victory! [:D]

See u all later

Aye the losses were nasty, especially the ops losses. Btw. a question did you have LRCAP over one of the targets ? No sure if you know but if both sides LRCAP a base OR one side has CAP and the other side LRCAPS the base it is possible that the LRCPA/CAP-LRCAP do a lot of air to air fight and you wont get any combat report for it. Had it some time ago when my opponent put LRCAP over one of my bases and a turn later i had some fighter losses and damaged planes of my fighers sqads on CAP. Never had any info in the combat log or an animation.

In addition, you are already in 9/44. 10/44 you get a solid 154 F4U-1D which are great planes (with only 1 service rating, instead of the F4U-1A which as 2). You will get more british T-Bolts. Soon the P51-D will come online in good numbers. The figher gap hurts but soon it will be over.

An other question. How is the situation in India ? You should have quite a lot of Indian/British stuff there left. And if Raeder pulls everything back to Japan you should maybe consider shipping some stuff from India to Japan too. Even if it takes 2 - 3 Months. The next big infantry reinforcements for the allies will be the ETO Stuff which still takes 8-9 months.

Faith is always good as war is never easy. [:D]

[EUBanana]

What is the state of his industry? I know it's not flattened but I know you've been working on some sectors.

What sort of fighter production is he managing? How is his armaments/vehicle production?

If things are clearly turning into a long siege is there any chance of cutting Japan off by taking some islands off the west (map west) coast?

You don't own the base so you can still sweep it and gain an advantage in the air. Would that be preferable to LRCAP? Is he bombing your troops regularly? Is there any reason to LRCAP and not sweep?

[cwDeici]

Beppi: Thanks for the info!

Greyjoy: Do you know if he's rebuilt some of his factories or all of his factories? If the latter, then wow, you did a lot of damage.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Beppi, i thank you so much for the time devoted to my cause. Thanks my friend.

To all the other contributors...thanks guys...you've all been very helpfull, as always. And i owe you more than a piece of the successes i had so far in this match.

However, the die is cast. We have ordered a deliberate attack + a para landing, supported by 700 TBs (8k feet), 800 LBs, 700 DBs, and a series of naval bombardments.

I've chosen this option only because of the 2-days-turn...with a full shock attack the second day would have ended in a tragedy even if the first day was a good one.

If i well understood this method this will imply the distruction of my reinforced para division, with the bonus of having a doubled AV and saving my ordinary army from a bloodbath if things don't go well...

The paras can be sacrified imho... they are fully prepped for Aikita and i have no other place to use them (everything in Japan is very well garrisoned)...so their mission is to sacrifice themselfs there...

One more thing...Aikita is a clear terrain hex!!!


Castor... here's the evidence that convoys composed only by xAKs carrying supplies get shot by the CD guns...

from my last cbt report file...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pre-Invasion action off Akita (117,55)
Defensive Guns engage approaching landing force

233 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
xAK Cape Greig
xAK Cape Stephens
xAK Cape Chalmers, Shell hits 7



xAK Cape Greig firing at 42nd Division
xAK Cape Greig fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Stephens fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Chalmers fired at enemy troops
75mm T90 Field Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T94 Mtn Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T90 Field Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T90 Field Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T94 Mtn Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
12cm 10YT DP Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
8cm T88 DP Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T90 Field Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Invasion Support action off Akita (117,55)
Defensive Guns engage approaching landing force

87 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
xAK Admiral Nulton, on fire
xAK Cape Juby
xAK Cape Romano



xAK Admiral Nulton fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Juby fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Romano fired at enemy troops
xAK Admiral Nulton fired at enemy troops


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Invasion Support action off Akita (117,55)
Defensive Guns engage approaching landing force

97 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
xAK Cape Greig
xAK Cape Stephens
xAK Cape Chalmers



xAK Cape Greig firing at 42nd Division
xAK Cape Greig fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Stephens fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Chalmers fired at enemy troops



Invasion Support action off Akita (117,55)
Defensive Guns engage approaching landing force

233 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
xAK Mormactern
xAK Cape Greig
xAK Cape Stephens
xAK Cape Chalmers, Shell hits 1



8cm T88 DP Gun Battery engaging xAK Mormactern at 12,000 yards
8cm T88 DP Gun Battery engaging xAK Mormactern at 12,000 yards
xAK Cape Greig fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Stephens fired at enemy troops
xAK Cape Chalmers fired at enemy troops
75mm T90 Field Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T94 Mtn Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T94 Mtn Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T90 Field Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm Infantry Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T94 Mtn Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
10cm T91 Howitzer battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
75mm T90 Field Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
12cm 10YT DP Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
12cm 10YT DP Gun battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers
15cm T96 Howitzer battery firing at xAK Cape Chalmers





...and i could go on....all these xAKs were in 2 Big TFs composed only by xAKs with only supplies loaded...

At Hachinoe things got really worst for the xAKs carryin supplies....35 of them got sunk by CD guns...

and where is the damage? [&:]

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
and where is the damage? [&:]

It is exactly as I remembered.

If you land supply only, you only get the 'pre invasion action' phase of landing. CD guns don't do much damage in that phase.

The actual landing phase never happens.

[GreyJoy]

We will never forget you all....heroes of Aikita

[GreyJoy]

The situation is worse than what i thought...my Navy pilots reserve of decent fighter pilots are empty...and not all my navy air groups are filled now... With no corsairs and no hellcats left in the pools we will have to stop any offensive operations for the next 3 turns in order to reorganize the whole air army and get it back on a kind of a fighting shape.
 
And i'm still using aircobras and TB biblanes just because i cannot waste those precious frames leaving them in the pools rotting...i need every single a/c i can spare...this is still a war of numbers guys...and the cobras, for example, can be usefull imho if guarding the skies against low altitude kamikaze (my cobras are always CAPPING between 1000 and 6000 feet)...
 
Gotta go now...see u tonight

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: 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)!!)

Greyjoy's aircraft production at this point is not good. The real problem is with army fighters because his best plane-the P47 has been out of production since the end of June. As he said his pool is empty which means that for a while he every bolt he loses means a weaker unit. He will have to reorganize and take a lot of units out of the line if the air battle continues at this pace. And with two contested invasion hexes, it would be impossible for him to stop the air fight if Rader wan'ts to continue. It does not help that the p40 is out of production as well, a useful if somewhat obsolete plane. Things get better this coming month when he will all of a sudden have about 250 corsairs of two types in production but these are Navy planes and this will not help his depleted army squadrons. And as he said, he is very short of Navy pilots. The mustang will be along in a couple of months but it will then take him some time to build up his army squadrons.

It is hard to tell with Rader. His air losses have been horrific but I just do know know how this impacts him. Sooner or later even with scen #2 there has to be an effect.

Rader can count and he must know that GJ has the bulk of his land forces tied up in this theater. So he can afford to drain off troops from all other theaters with little risk. Don't forget that Rader has been in command of China for a long time. This frees up an incredible reserve of quality troops for work elsewhere. If he is required to pay PPs to move units out that is one thing but still, I would say about 1/3 of the troops in China are already bought out or started that way, with about 1/3 still capable of being purchased out. Quite frankly what I have discovered in my own campaign is that it is very tough to win an extended land campaign if the Japanese player has the freedom to move troops around. It is the one thing Japan has in spades-troops.

The problem with any invasion is that if the enemy is there in strength then you are required to support it until it is decided. It would be incredibly risky for GJ to move his carriers away out of supporting range of his invasions, as we all have seen how Rader can take advantage of it. Odd as it sounds, until GJ clears out one or two invasions hexes, (or withdraws) Rader will hold the initiative, because KB still exists and does not have to be committed to fighting the invasion.

[Cribtop]

One more point about owning bases is that obviously you control the port and airfield. Assuming you can keep them open in the face of enemy air and naval attack, you can unload troops and supplies more safely and can use the airfield to project air power.

[Panther Bait]

Any advantage to dropping the 3rd wave into Korea/Manchuria to try and get the Soviets active?  Lots of fighters and untapped airplane pools in the Soviet Union I'm guessing.  Plus more bases to bomb from. Papa Joe is probably already nervous with all those US forces in Sahkalin.
 
Mike

[Grfin Zeppelin]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Any advantage to dropping the 3rd wave into Korea/Manchuria to try and get the Soviets active?  Lots of fighters and untapped airplane pools in the Soviet Union I'm guessing.  Plus more bases to bomb from. Papa Joe is probably already nervous with all those US forces in Sahkalin.

Mike

I dont think so. He would need alot of troops to threaten the Kwangtung army.

[beppi]

ORIGINAL: Gräfin Zeppelin

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Any advantage to dropping the 3rd wave into Korea/Manchuria to try and get the Soviets active?  Lots of fighters and untapped airplane pools in the Soviet Union I'm guessing.  Plus more bases to bomb from. Papa Joe is probably already nervous with all those US forces in Sahkalin.

Mike

I dont think so. He would need alot of troops to threaten the Kwangtung army.

With the current reseves it might be hard. Possible with some additional forces from India. Other idea would be to start an offensive in Korea/China without interfering with the Kwatung Army. Basically as right now the ground offensive in the north is delayed for some time there should be some "thoughts" how to better isolate japan. Currently i am quite sure that there is still a massive oil/troops flow from the rest of the empire back to japan.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Panther Bait

Any advantage to dropping the 3rd wave into Korea/Manchuria to try and get the Soviets active?  Lots of fighters and untapped airplane pools in the Soviet Union I'm guessing.  Plus more bases to bomb from. Papa Joe is probably already nervous with all those US forces in Sahkalin.

Mike

This has been discussed as the possibility to knock Rader down below his AV limit is real and I doubt that he has more than the bare minimum of AV needed in Manchuko right now. However, most of us think it would be gamey (if not poetic justice) and GJ says he won't play dat....

[SqzMyLemon]

My 0.02 cents. Stay the course and grind away, but I'd also begin chipping away at the rest of the Empire. You've dealt the Japanese surface fleet a big blow. I'd shift your subs to start interdicting anything moving to the Home Islands. It's time to start strangling Japan's economy. As crsutton points out, you are not blocking anything getting to Japan...that would be my next step while I hold the line. I have no experience in this matter, but for what it's worth, that's what I'd do. [8D]

Remember, it's Normandy. What did it take, 2-3 months to break out? Bombard, bombard, oh and...bombard.

[JohnDillworth]

BTW, is anybody else as despondent as I am?  This is stupid, it's an AAR of a game between people I only know from a forum, and I feel bad for the allies (and a bit for GJ).  I am a shameless Allied Fan Boy

[pws1225]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

BTW, is anybody else as despondent as I am?  This is stupid, it's an AAR of a game between people I only know from a forum, and I feel bad for the allies (and a bit for GJ).  I am a shameless Allied Fan Boy

And I'm a shameless JFB but still feel kinda sorry for him. But just kinda.

In truth though, JG has shown great fortitude all the way though this game. He survived China, Karachi and the Solomons, then delivered a complete surprise at Hakaido. I wouldn't count him out yet.

[paullus99]

Grinding away on the ground in Honshu while pursuing a strategic bombing campaign from Hokkaido seems like a recipe for victory to me - Rader's already lost, we're in 1944 and allied boots are on the big island - now it just remains to see how long the game will last.