Historiker (J) vs. USS America (A) - no USS America

[Historiker]

We stopped our former game of scen 1 for various reasons:
- I was very disappointed about the inefficiancy of the PH strike. Despite two days of full hits, not a single BB was sunk.
- When Hiryu was slightly damaged, I dispatched her for Kwajalein. On the way back, he intercepted her with Big E. Both exchanged strikes and Big E explodes after a few good hits. Hiryu is still afloat and has some chances of survival, though the long distance to a friendly port makes it unlikely
- Both of us hate the first months.

So we came to the conclusion to restart with Nik's scenario starting in May 42.

The following changes were done:
- I modified the scenario to activate the ships that were set to be in Taskforces while given a harbor - which made them disappear.
- The ASW has been modified in the way JWE supposed.
- Shinano turned into a Taiho-Class CV to give it some use. According to the tracker, I'm short almost 300 points, so there'll be quite some problems producing the needed ships on the road.


This scenario is quite interesting:
- I have conquered everything necessary, except maybe Port Moresby
- I have full strength in my forces


My basic idea is to keep the initiative for as long as possible. I want him to response to me and not the other way round. Considering the relative strength, it will be possible for about 6 more months.
Thhe point is, I only have an advantege of the inner lines as long as these lines are short enough. Even if I manage to extend the empire further, is it worth the gains? When I take Fiji and Samoa, will I really benefit? The lines can be cut quite easily as long as he has stronger CV forces. The units protecting the new gains are missing in the inner lines, then.

So I think my options are:

1. Go for Northern Australia.
This will help me greatly in protecting Port Moresby, once it is conquered. I always say: Truk can't be held without Rabaul. Rabaul can't be held without PM - but PM can't be held.
With Exmouth I might interfere with the convois coming from Europe and Africa to Australia.
Conunna Downs has some nice Ressources that give me a small benefit.
The reason I'm against that is quite simple: I defenitly don't want him to focus on that area. DEI is propably very difficult to defend and I need that oil and ressources for as long as possible. If I invade Australia, he will most likely reinforce it. A natural reaction would be to cut off northern Australia by conquering Timor and other Islands. In that case, all of my ressourceflow is in danger. So should I go for it, when I fear the consequences? Propably not.

2. Go for India.
The Calcutta area has some nice industry and forces. With the 55th Division in Akyab I might advance for Chittagong and conquer it, if he neglects to reinforce it (what he will most likely will). Should I conquer it, I have a port with full access to the roads and without artillery interfeering the landings. So this way, I might get into India rather cheap.
But on the other hand, I have no doubt that even if I conquer today's Bangladesh, Mike will destroy the industry there quite fast. I might repell his bombers for some months, bit the end is inevitable.
I also have my doubts about how much I can even achieve. India's force are quite strong and my supplies have to be shipped further and further. Even if I get a foothold, after calcutta India spreads out and gets even more difficult to conquer. But if I want to have a benefit from the Calcutta area, I have to advance.
So let's say I can indeed conquer that area and advance. If I go ahead too far, he gets free reinforcements, the triggered reinforcements when the Jap player crosses a certain line (I forgot where exactly). But ok, for the sake of the argument: I conquer big parts of India. Will I be able to conquer all of India? The garrison requirements will weaken me the further I get.
But even if I'm almost in today's Pakistan, he might do exactly what I did in a PBEM with a friend in WitP-CHS. He might do a modern day's Cannae and simply land at rangoon and leave enormous amounts of my forces to rot in India.
So I see no gain there, too.

[Historiker]

3. Go south for Fiji, Samoa, New Caledonia
I cut off the enemy lines of communications - while mine are getting longer by some serious distance. While this will hinder a buildup of forces in Australia, the result seems obvious: When he can't ship his troops to Australia, they are used somewhere else. Instead of routing them around the globe, he'll most likely use them from Hawaii as starting point. This means, the first invasions by him will either be in the Marshall Islands, Wake Island and Marcus Island - or he does worse and goes for the Kuriles and Hokkaido.
So maybe I'm pessemistic, but I see no gains in seriously commiting to that area, too. The only thinkable way is to conquer it and retreat most forces immeadiately. Some baseforces and small units left will be sufficant to allow me fly some strike missions with my Bettys but the forces are weak enough to allow me sacrifice them.

4. China
In this scenario, China starts the way it does in the GC. Apart from Hong Kong being conquered, all is about the same. So there's plenty of ground still held by the Chinese. But other than in the GC, the Burma Road is already cut. As I already hold Burma, I am considering to afvance into chine in with three big offensives. The first in the north to conquer the "key to north", Sian. The second in the south to conquer Changsa, maybe aided by a smaller offensive from Caton to cut off Changsa.
The third offensive would start in Burma advancing up the Burma Road into China, heading for Paoshan. The roads are really bad, but if I manage to conquer that area, he can't even fly additional supplies into China.
Should I manage to either conquer or contain China massively within the next 6 months, I might be able to free some nice divisions and reinforce my outer defence ring where it is needed.

And ideas by the audience?

[Historiker]

The huge disadvantege by focussing on china is, that my forces are soon stuck somewhere inside that vast country with no chance to get them elsewhere in time. If a Division sits in Sian and I want to reinforce Rabaul with it, it'll propably take two or three months until it is there. In that time, Mike may already sit in the Phillipines.
Also, going over the Burma road will need significant forces. To reach Poashan, I have to cross a river into a mountain base. So his defense bonusses will be ridiculous. Also, the small road will have quite some problems transporting all the supllies that are needed. Having my troops stuck near Paoshan will also make them easy to cut off. If the attack on Paoshan fails, it will take months until the units are back in Burma - or until additional forces have arrived.
Whilè the idea of attacking China through Burma seems tempting, I guess I can't do it this way, considering the things stated above.
But I will get paras to Burma along with enough Transport planes for significant airdrops. Maybe he pulls out his garrisons at Paoshan and I can take the base this way. If so, it'll be great.

So what to do?
Port Moresby, maybe New Caledonia, Fiji and Samo. Then Midway and finally Hawaii? As everything that's necessary is conquered, It seems worth a try. I can free the needed assets to take all islands except Oahu and try to bomb it into submission.
But if I fail, I've lost so many units that the rest of the war might be quite fast... Even if I win, I might loose way too much.

[Historiker]

While I am still thinking about what to do on the strategic direction, let's get to the other parts of the game:

Pilot training:
Navy:
My idea is to train the pilots up to 60 in the back areas. Then they are rotated into frontline units. When they've reached 70, they are taken into the reserve until the reserve is big enough to fill the KB three or four times. The KB shall never have pilots below 70.
When this is done, I create elite units filled with pilots in their seventies and throw them into battle. Whenever a pilot reaches 81, he is transfered to TRACOM and a new 70s pilot is pulled in. I hope to get a few dozend new trainers this way each month. These trainers will increase the number of new pilots (hopefully) drastically. When needed, they can be taken out of TRACOM in later stages of the war, but I hope to leave them in there for as long as possible.
My goal is to get 500 TRACOM Trainers.
When this is done, I will keep on doing it this way, but see the other trainers as pilot reserve.

Army:
See above, except that I don't need a KB-Reserve. I think about not training Ground Attac, but transfer the training units to China and let them do live training. For that purpose, I will keep producing 1e Bombers, despite their smaller efficiancy. They are half the price of a 2e and thus the right tool to train pilots on them.
I will allocate about 2/3 of my Army bombers to ground training and 1/3 to naval attack training. It shall be the Navy's mission to attack shipping, but there's a nice Torpedo carrying bomber in 44 for the Army...

In general, I intend to mass my forces wherever possible. I rather leave a base undefended and have another one with twice the number of fighters. This should keep my losses down while his losses increase. The bases without CAP shall recieve massive AAA to make him pay for attacks.
Whether this works out will be seen. If not I am planning to learn from my mistakes. [:)]

[Historiker]

First objectives:

While Japan has reached about the area of her historical advances, I am planning to go a little further despite the things mentioned above.
Objects central/south Pacific:

Tabiteuea and the Islands around it. They all have 0(2) or 0(3) Airfields. As each Island or Atoll is just one hex from the other, I can station dozends of air units there. Each can support the other, one airfield taken out doesn't cause big problems. An Air HQ with a command range of just "1" means I can fly torpedo bombers from 4 airfields there! This will be a core fundament of my defences there, like a corner tower in a castle's defence walls.

[Historiker]

First objectives (2):
Gilbert Islands.
These are horrible. Almost every base can be deveolped into a huge airfield. While the bases mentioned above are seperated by hundres of miles from the next decent airfield and thus can only hitted by long range fighters an bombers, the outer bases in the Gilberts - Santa Cruz - New Hebrides - New Caledonia area are way too close to each other. Wherever I decide to stop the advance, he'll have huge airbases nearby, shortly.

Noumea seems like a good stopping point. The LI and the ressources there mean, that the southern flank will be, for the most parts, feeding itself. But I think to hope holding the New Hebrides and New Caledonia with Fiji in enemy's hands seems almost futile. All that will happen is, that I build the bases for him. So if I take the New Hebrides and New Caledonia, I'll have to take Fiji as well. When Fiji is in my hands, I have to take Samoa for the same reasons.
Having done so, I'm right where I mentioned above. I will most likely force him to attack the Carolines first to cut off my southern flank - or he'll go for northern Japan directly.

On the other hand:
I might use that for my own good. When I know the plans of the enemy (if I do so), I can prepare. If he really goes for the Carolines, I can have 200 Torpedo-Aircraft waiting for him with strong fighter units. They can weaken his CV-based airforce until the KB rushes in. But the KB must be available for that.
If I were him, I would invade the Carolines as soon as the KB is somewhere in the Indian Ocean and thus weeks away. For the same reason, I plan to send another Air HQ into the island chain and build the bases seen below into airfields big enough for my Bettys.
At least until he has 300 or 400 F6F on his Carriers, this should be enough to hit and sink a few carriers if he chooses to attack.

Doing so, everything below the Tabiteuea and Salomones area will only be lightly garrisoned and considered expendable.

[castor troy]

can't say much about your territorial targets as I have never played the May 42 scen and I don't know how the scenario really looks like but as to pilot training, I would be amazed if you manage to create a couple of dozen 80+ pilots every month, in fact you probably won't be able to create a couple of dozen through the whole war. In my last campaign going all into 45, my fighter pilots were drawn into active frontline squadrons having 70 skill and even after some of them had two or three dozen kills with a couple of hundred missions in total, NONE of them ever reached 80! Not a single pilot. So it's beyond me how you are going to have a couple of dozen 80+ pilots each month but if you manage to do that I will be ears how you did that.

80+ pilots are the hardcoded ones and seeing your normal replacement pilots getting there is near impossible. Probably not completely but near impossible.

As to your plan to pehaps attack Hawaii, forget that, or lose the war immedietely the moment you decide to go for it. One of my two PBEM sees the Japanese attack Hawaii in Jan 42 and it is... FUN... for me as the Allied. As far as I can see, the enemy already has run out of Zeroes as he now has Claudes at Lahaina. [:D] If you can knock out China completely this will be the best you can achieve as it frees up several thousand av for use elsewhere and with use I am thinking about defending stuff.

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

can't say much about your territorial targets as I have never played the May 42 scen and I don't know how the scenario really looks like but as to pilot training, I would be amazed if you manage to create a couple of dozen 80+ pilots every month, in fact you probably won't be able to create a couple of dozen through the whole war. In my last campaign going all into 45, my fighter pilots were drawn into active frontline squadrons having 70 skill and even after some of them had two or three dozen kills with a couple of hundred missions in total, NONE of them ever reached 80! Not a single pilot. So it's beyond me how you are going to have a couple of dozen 80+ pilots each month but if you manage to do that I will be ears how you did that.

80+ pilots are the hardcoded ones and seeing your normal replacement pilots getting there is near impossible. Probably not completely but near impossible.

Good to know.
So propably two or three instead of two or three dozends per month [;)]

[castor troy]

one more thing, you reach 70 skill faster if you actually do TRAINING and not active combat missions and don't forget that you need torp skill for the torpedo carrying Helen later on but AFAIK there is no IJAAF torpedo bomber earlier than the Helen so you can't train those pilots until that bomber is available. Would be cool to have hundreds of trained IJAAF torpedo bomber pilots but I guess that's not possible.

[Historiker]

As to your plan to pehaps attack Hawaii, forget that, or lose the war immedietely the moment you decide to go for it. One of my two PBEM sees the Japanese attack Hawaii in Jan 42 and it is... FUN... for me as the Allied. As far as I can see, the enemy already has run out of Zeroes as he now has Claudes at Lahaina.

[:D]

I don't plan to go for it. In this scen, he already has forces not too far from parity. The only reason to even consider is, that I start having everything conquered that's needed. So all of DEI, the northern part of the Solomones and all of Burma. So I have both troops and ships that I can - and should - put into use.

Where? I have no idea, yet. That's why I mention the options above.
Except from China, I see no real gain in pushing forward. If I do so in China with additioina troops, I face the problems also mentioned above, meaning troops are unavailable to use anywhere else for months. As he will soon begin his own offensives, that doesn't really sound like a good descision by me.

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

one more thing, you reach 70 skill faster if you actually do TRAINING and not active combat missions.

really?

How do you train your pilots?

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ORIGINAL: castor troy

one more thing, you reach 70 skill faster if you actually do TRAINING and not active combat missions.

really?

How do you train your pilots?

lol, you are answering faster than I go through your posts and can reply [:D]

training is training, means having my pilots somewhere away from the front on 100% training (whatever skill you need). So if I need an Army bomber pilot with grd skill I set a squadron to 100% grd training 10000ft until the pilots reach 70 skill. Takes roughly 2.5 months if they are replacement pilots with average 20 skill. I had to find out the hard way long ago that it takes twice the time to reach 70 skill doing milk runs. What it does do is ramping up the experience but I do prefer to see my bombers hitting something (this is what skill is for) than having them not crash flying back damaged when all missed their targets. As the Allied I can afford not sending <70 skill pilots to the front from mid 42 on, don't know about the Japanese but if you aim at a certain skill level, go with training instead of milk runs. At least that's my take on it. Milk runs of course will also do some damage to the enemy so it's a tradeoff what you want to see, more training and no damage from milkruns or focussing on training. I usually focus on training.

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ORIGINAL: castor troy

one more thing, you reach 70 skill faster if you actually do TRAINING and not active combat missions.

really?

How do you train your pilots?

lol, you are answering faster than I go through your posts and can reply [:D]

training is training, means having my pilots somewhere away from the front on 100% training (whatever skill you need). So if I need an Army bomber pilot with grd skill I set a squadron to 100% grd training 10000ft until the pilots reach 70 skill. Takes roughly 2.5 months if they are replacement pilots with average 20 skill. I had to find out the hard way long ago that it takes twice the time to reach 70 skill doing milk runs. What it does do is ramping up the experience but I do prefer to see my bombers hitting something (this is what skill is for) than having them not crash flying back damaged when all missed their targets. As the Allied I can afford not sending <70 skill pilots to the front from mid 42 on, don't know about the Japanese but if you aim at a certain skill level, go with training instead of milk runs. At least that's my take on it. Milk runs of course will also do some damage to the enemy so it's a tradeoff what you want to see, more training and no damage from milkruns or focussing on training. I usually focus on training.

Having played only the allied side so far, I never bothered too much with training. Anything more I should consider?
How do you train you fighters? Escort on 10k to increase Air, but do you also train Def? If so, how?

[Historiker]

as you are defenitly one of the better players, what would you do with the forces available?
In this scen, no signficant ship losses occured so far.
6CV, 3CVL, 2CVE, 11BBs are at hand. 2 CV, 1 BB and 1CVE will arrive within three months.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: Historiker



really?

How do you train your pilots?

lol, you are answering faster than I go through your posts and can reply [:D]

training is training, means having my pilots somewhere away from the front on 100% training (whatever skill you need). So if I need an Army bomber pilot with grd skill I set a squadron to 100% grd training 10000ft until the pilots reach 70 skill. Takes roughly 2.5 months if they are replacement pilots with average 20 skill. I had to find out the hard way long ago that it takes twice the time to reach 70 skill doing milk runs. What it does do is ramping up the experience but I do prefer to see my bombers hitting something (this is what skill is for) than having them not crash flying back damaged when all missed their targets. As the Allied I can afford not sending <70 skill pilots to the front from mid 42 on, don't know about the Japanese but if you aim at a certain skill level, go with training instead of milk runs. At least that's my take on it. Milk runs of course will also do some damage to the enemy so it's a tradeoff what you want to see, more training and no damage from milkruns or focussing on training. I usually focus on training.

Having played only the allied side so far, I never bothered too much with training. Anything more I should consider?
How do you train you fighters? Escort on 10k to increase Air, but do you also train Def? If so, how?

at the beginning I try to rush fighter pilots to the front of course, trying to get them to 65 air skill on average. Next step is filling out the frontline fighter squadrons with 70 air skill pilots. As soon as all squadrons filled up, I take the spare 70 air skill pilots from the reserve pool and start using backwater squadrons to train 100ft airfield attack until they reach 70 def skill, same time other training squadrons are still training up 70 air skill pilots of course. From mid/late 42 on (depending on the losses) all my frontline squadrons are filled with 70/70 pilots only.

[Historiker]

The most interesting objective is and will most likely be China.
Should I be able to conquer it for the most parts, I'll gain a lot of ressources while denying him bases to bomb shipping in the CHina Sea and Industry in Japan.

The goal should be to reach Sian first and then advance up to Lanchow.
Another option might be to send tanks over the good roads in inner Mongolia to Liuchan as seen below. This will cut his forces.

The only thing against concentrating there is that the forces are too far away from any ports to be redeployed in time.
But should I be successfull within a year or so, I'd have more LCU to strengthen other areas than I can count...

[Historiker]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

at the beginning I try to rush fighter pilots to the front of course, trying to get them to 65 air skill on average. Next step is filling out the frontline fighter squadrons with 70 air skill pilots. As soon as all squadrons filled up, I take the spare 70 air skill pilots from the reserve pool and start using backwater squadrons to train 100ft airfield attack until they reach 70 def skill, same time other training squadrons are still training up 70 air skill pilots of course. From mid/late 42 on (depending on the losses) all my frontline squadrons are filled with 70/70 pilots only.

I guess sending a small percentage of untrained pilots among the veterans to train live is nothing to do unless it is necessary?

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

as you are defenitly one of the better players, what would you do with the forces available?
In this scen, no signficant ship losses occured so far.
6CV, 3CVL, 2CVE, 11BBs are at hand. 2 CV, 1 BB and 1CVE will arrive within three months.

as soon as you have decided how far you want to go (my primary target would be Northern Australia - Merauke - Port Moresby) I would start to dig in waiting for the enemy. If he attacks somewhere you can use LBA and KB attack, if he attacks somewhere where you can only use KB, I would do just nothing. On the defense much depends on what your enemy does of course, I am not really a fan of too much raiding or splitting off any carrier (not even a CVE) from KB. If you strike, throw in the kitchen sink which is pretty much the same philosophie I have playing the Allied when I am usually using the hammer. Until late 43 you should be able to pretty much sink at least halve of every Allied carrier fleet using KB and LBA together. How much damage KB will take of course depends a lot on luck (weather, range, etc) but hundreds of KB based torp bombers, Betties and a couple of hundred fighters are a threat even in late 44 so your chances to strike hard in 43 are quite good.

[Historiker]

R&D:
I will research the following planes with 3 R&D size 30 factories:

Army:
- Ki-44IIa
- Ki-84a
- Ki-94II
- Ki-67Ia (T)

Navy:
- P1Y1
- Which fighter(s)? George or Jack?
- D4Y1
- B6N1
propably B7A2

I don't think that my carriers are usefull from mid 43 on. He will be so strong and have such good planes that I can only hope the landbased aviation weaken him enough for the KB. THe KB itself will most likely avoid any CV-battle from 43 on.
Thus I don't see a need to advance the A7M2. It will be available in 9/45 in this mod. Even if I am able to advance it for let's say 3 months, it won't make any difference, I guess.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ORIGINAL: castor troy

at the beginning I try to rush fighter pilots to the front of course, trying to get them to 65 air skill on average. Next step is filling out the frontline fighter squadrons with 70 air skill pilots. As soon as all squadrons filled up, I take the spare 70 air skill pilots from the reserve pool and start using backwater squadrons to train 100ft airfield attack until they reach 70 def skill, same time other training squadrons are still training up 70 air skill pilots of course. From mid/late 42 on (depending on the losses) all my frontline squadrons are filled with 70/70 pilots only.

I guess sending a small percentage of untrained pilots among the veterans to train live is nothing to do unless it is necessary?

I usually never do this as the Allied aircraft are just too valuable which is something the Japanese don't really experience. Until mid 43 there are several aircraft types when every single ac lost hurts so I wouldn't put a rookie in a valuable aircraft when he is either probably shot down in a fighter or would miss the target flying a bomber.