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

[Mistmatz]

Why exactely is Sadogashima important?

I am not familiar with that part of the map (yet), but it looks like it's an island with no land connection to Japan proper. Thus I don't see the strategic value of the island that might justify the risk.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

Why exactely is Sadogashima important?

I am not familiar with that part of the map (yet), but it looks like it's an island with no land connection to Japan proper. Thus I don't see the strategic value of the island that might justify the risk.

Correct.

Its only value is as a forward airbase for an air campaign which GreyJoy has consistently said he will not do. As an island it was never going to attract Japanese reinforcements and thereby reduce pressure on the existing Honshu lodgements.

Now it can only survive if a concentrated Allied barge resupply effort is instituted. If not, those units are dead meat a few months down the line.

Alfred

[krupp_88mm]

its obviously your GF's fault, her nagging led to your slip ups, i think you know who has to pay for this.



If you need help thinking of appropriate "punishments" fitting, let me know i have ideas.

[kfsgo]

ORIGINAL: Mistmatz

Why exactely is Sadogashima important?

I am not familiar with that part of the map (yet), but it looks like it's an island with no land connection to Japan proper. Thus I don't see the strategic value of the island that might justify the risk.

Without commenting on the mechanics of everything involved today...

It's an airfield 4 hexes away from Tokyo and 6 from Osaka...and there's no land connection with the rest of Japan. So, conceptually, it's a "safe" (usual caveats...) base from which to better prosecute an aerial campaign against those places in particular, and Japan outside of northern Honshu in general.

Whether it's important; at this point I can't personally see it, to be honest. My sense is that it's kind of solving a problem that doesn't so much exist any more - however many months ago while the 'strategic' campaign was going on it'd have been tremendously useful, in permitting a really concentrated effort against Tokyo etc by those aircraft whose performance against fighters is high but which are at or approaching the point of having range issues flying from Hokkaido (so think Spitfire 8, early P-47 etc). Absent that it's not really meaningful in itself; the US is at the point of starting to field aircraft with the range to do that effectively from Hokkaido anyway, and the day bomber force is apparently not a useful tool any more.

With that said, supplying it should actually be fairly doable, I'd think - whatever else it should give the USN good enough sea control over the western coast of Honshu to clear Japanese light forces out, and it's only a day's sail from Hakodate for a fast freighter, or an overnight from some of the 'invasion' beaches like Akita etc which the Japanese seem to have mostly given up contesting air control over. You'd have to run them in independently, so they'd be vulnerable to submarines, but that's not necessarily the end of the world at this point. There'll be some losses, but they shouldn't be huge. Now, whether even small losses are a good investment...

[Alfred]

If the port facilities have not already been built up, getting supply in on merchantmen is not going to be easy. If it is still only a port size 2, barge resupply is the only realistic way in. Even if the port is fully built up to level 4 getting merchantmen in will be difficult but doable if the ship losses are acceptable.

The problem is that airfield (which may not have been built up by rader) is surrounded by multiple large enemy airfields which will be largely immune to most Allied air strikes from Hokkaido. Allied LRCAP of resupply convoys will not be particularly effective and a size 2 port will mean lengthy unloading times. Thus a lot of supply potentailly will end up at the bottom of the Sea of Japan. Definitely barges will be the best way to get supply in. In any case merchantmen will not make the one way trip from Hokkaido overnight. Thus they will be vulnerable to kamikazes.

Alfred

[Chickenboy]

@ GreyJoy,

Sorry about your losses here, mate. I'll not go into 'told ya so's' or 'what were you thinkin'? They'll be time enough for all that another time. Just know that many in this forum appreciate your ongoing effort and have fun with your game, dude.

[jeffk3510]

Agree with both of Alfreds last posts...and I dont see the value of the bases, especially with the loss of ones entire carrier fleet...

[DTurtle]

Posted this in the other thread too:

Well, if you look at the key raid, Greyjoy had 1200 fighters on CAP vs 270 bombers and 470 escorts.

230 bombers made an attack run scoring 31 hits.

So it wasn't a problem of CAP not being there, but simply being ineffective.

[kfsgo]

ORIGINAL: Alfred

If the port facilities have not already been built up, getting supply in on merchantmen is not going to be easy. If it is still only a port size 2, barge resupply is the only realistic way in. Even if the port is fully built up to level 4 getting merchantmen in will be difficult but doable if the ship losses are acceptable.

The problem is that airfield (which may not have been built up by rader) is surrounded by multiple large enemy airfields which will be largely immune to most Allied air strikes from Hokkaido. Allied LRCAP of resupply convoys will not be particularly effective and a size 2 port will mean lengthy unloading times. Thus a lot of supply potentailly will end up at the bottom of the Sea of Japan. Definitely barges will be the best way to get supply in.

Will kamikazes attack independent sailings, though? I find regular naval strikes mostly tend not to - adding even a single escort ship will attract strikes, but individual merchants themselves seem to be pretty much ignored by coherent attacks (though vulnerable to the naval-search-drops-a-bomb 'passive' sort of attacks). Not sure if kamikazes behave differently, though - I suppose it's possible.

If they do, then sure, it's a risk - if they don't, though, it's mostly a case of making sure ship density doesn't increase so much as to prompt attacks en-route; once they've arrived they shouldn't be in excessive danger (it becoming a kind of - "do I really want to trade 50 kamikazes for a single merchant" thing) as long as the airfield's working. Frankly, that's what I'd be more worried about - no real engineers or naval support seemed come in with the main landings, which seems like asking for trouble...

In any case merchantmen will not make the one way trip from Hokkaido overnight. Thus they will be vulnerable to kamikazes.

Right, which is why I didn't say that. A 14kt ship will do Akita to the island overnight, though, and 17kt ships like the Victories will do Hirosaki overnight - and Allied air control over those bases seems to be pretty good, so they can always stage in through those bases even absent control.

I guess it'll come down to how big a threat Japan considers the island to be, whether or not it particularly is one...

[hades1001]

I have to say that the AE's A2A model need major modification.

And several wave of coordinated strike with 500-600 Japs planes in each wave is physically and logically impossible.

Unfortunately I see this kind of coordination in most of my tests.

At least you have landed at Japan, think about those Allies who still stuck at Solomons in 1944(which is highly possible) for lots of the Allied players.

[Miller]

A very brave move by GJ, but any Allied commander viewing the outcome of that will not send his CVs within 12 hexes of mainland Japan, period.

[hades1001]

And some body please enlighten me how radar manage to sustain such high quality of pilots with all his A/C losses?

It's a miracle to me.

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: hades1001

And some body please enlighten me how radar manage to sustain such high quality of pilots with all his A/C losses?

It's a miracle to me.

Sheer weight of numbers I guess. Pilots can be trained up to a specifc skill of 60+ in a month and Japan gets plenty of training sqds later in the game......

[Canoerebel]

Star Wars.

[hades1001]

a coordinated strike of 600 planes sounds too sci-fi to me.

Even at the beginning of the war Japs sent two wave of 108 planes each as coordinated strike. And each of the pilot in the attack is an ACE!

So later in the war with worse quality of pilots it's just so unrealistic for a 600 planes in a single wave and they attack the fleet at the same time?

Come on. System definitely failed here.

The air combat simulation of large number planes involved is broken. Totally.

[Canoerebel]

I'm sure GJ knows this, but the first thing rader is going to try to figure out now is whether he can employ the KB.  Does he know how many carriers GJ has left?  Does he think GJ will have trouble covering his supply lines between Japan, Alaska, and the West Coast.  GJ will have to look to that first and foremost.
 
In the meantime, the game may slow considerably from its frantic and entertaining pace as GJ probably has to attend to alot of the small stuff, especially nursing his strike aircraft back to healthy levels. 
 
The Japanese airforce should have been crippled by rader's profligate ways in this game.  There is no way Japan should be in the position to just wreak havoc just a day or a week after losing thousands and thousands of aircraft in a single engagement or series of engagements.  And after rader has taken the cumulative abuse suffered during the war, his back should have been broken.  If his didn't break under the avalanche of losses suffered in this game, there's little hope for the Allied player to win the air war against a capable Japanese player.
 
Star Wars. 

[hades1001]

apparently radar has his way of massively producing qualified pilots. The result achieved can't be done without at least 70 exp/70 skill pilots according to my tests.

[vicberg]

ORIGINAL: hades1001

apparently radar has his way of massively producing qualified pilots. The result achieved can't be done without at least 70 exp/70 skill pilots according to my tests.

It's not pilot quality. Check this out. tm.asp?m=2859420&mpage=51&key=200%2Cfir ... s&#3018392

I may be wrong about what I'm finding. I'm searching on 200 firing passes. That seems to be the limit of an engagement, so having 1200 CAP doesn't matter. There's a limit on the number of firing passes that CAP makes regardless of CAP size. 200...TOTAL. This means that larger inbound strikes have a much greater chance of success. 400 bombers, 200 will make it through. In the "experimental" version, not sure what that is, they are working on changing it. It means that unescorted 4Es are going to have a rougher time and JAP strikes will get mauled unless sufficiently escorted. In this game though, the sheer numbers are exposing some design limitations. Unfortunate. If this is old information (public beta 6), then forget what I'm writing. But it did seem to be the case here.

As far as pilot quality goes, if there's enough trainers in Manchuko or elsewhere, the japs will have plenty of good pilots.

Though I agree that coordination is off the charts, I also think that being able to base 1000+ aircraft at a single level 9 air base and not suffer from overstacking is also off the charts. There aren't enough runways to launch that many planes.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm sure GJ knows this, but the first thing rader is going to try to figure out now is whether he can employ the KB.  Does he know how many carriers GJ has left?  Does he think GJ will have trouble covering his supply lines between Japan, Alaska, and the West Coast.  GJ will have to look to that first and foremost.

In the meantime, the game may slow considerably from its frantic and entertaining pace as GJ probably has to attend to alot of the small stuff, especially nursing his strike aircraft back to healthy levels. 

The Japanese airforce should have been crippled by rader's profligate ways in this game.  There is no way Japan should be in the position to just wreak havoc just a day or a week after losing thousands and thousands of aircraft in a single engagement or series of engagements.  And after rader has taken the cumulative abuse suffered during the war, his back should have been broken.  If his didn't break under the avalanche of losses suffered in this game, there's little hope for the Allied player to win the air war against a capable Japanese player.

Star Wars. 

Meh. I can counter your "Star Wars" observations with the other worldly LCU presence of the Allies at this stage. Total fiction. S'OK. It's a game. Just don't pretend that the balance of fiction lies solely with the Japanese side, mate.

If you want a semblance of realism, with all due respect, the Allies should sue for peace right now. Losing 20 (?) aircraft carriers, at least 30,000 Allied sailors drowned in one day...it boggles the mind what sorts of turnover would be had at the highest levels of the military. It makes the Japanese post-Midway cover-up look like a game of hide and go seek.

Sorry to taint your AAR with these counters, GreyJoy. Enjoying your experiences with the game and your tales immensely. Please keep up the good work.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Star Wars.

Injudicious use of available assets. Combined with the omnipresent and unchanging realities of the game engine. What's good for the goose and all that...