Rise of the Sheep! JocMeister(A) vs. Obvert(J)

[JocMeister]

Didn´t get the turn out to Erik so I have some time to ponder. I´m going to do as Michael suggest and send some Fletchers after the remaining ships. The CVs will retire for now and meet up with the CVEs. There simply isn´t any targets worth the price around.

I have to give up the airspace after this though. Pools are shot again. After one day of fighting. In 45...sigh. [:(] Lost a lot of good pilots too. 3 Triple aces, 6 double aces and 15 aces. The P47s I can´t replace. The P51 losses I could but it drained the pool. RAF pools are fine though with plenty to spare. But we need to recover fatigue. DBs and TBs are no problem. Pools are swimming.

[Speedysteve]

Won't deny whenever I read this situation in an Allied position (lack of planes) I shake my head in dismay that the game allows this.....

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: Speedy

Won't deny whenever I read this situation in an Allied position (lack of planes) I shake my head in dismay that the game allows this.....

Dont you know that all the numbers are historical[:'(]

At least on one side.

I notice this approach in a number of GG games, In Eagle Day/Bombing the Reich the German player can get aircraft into action 12 mths early (eg. Ta152's, Do335's)

[poodlebrain]

It is kind of absurd to believe the United States would not have reacted to the knowledge they were at a distinct numerical disadvantage in so critical an aspect of the war. How do the Japanese somehow gain engineering and production efficiencies that completely escape the United States? Why not create some fictional armor fighting vehicle for the Japanese? Wouldn't you expect their engineering and production improvements would be shared with the automotive industries?

A simple solution that would address the game problem is to increase the USAAF production rates slightly in coordination with Japanese research advances. As the Japanese introduce newer and more capable aircraft assume the Americans reacted by increasing resources dedicated to the Pacific Theater. You can put in some delay to the increases to simulate the time required to assess and react to new conditions.

The Americans will still be limited by the number of squadrons they can deploy, the amount of aviation support present, and the game rules governing replacements. But they won't be put in situations where they have to consider shutting down air operations due to lack of aircraft, as that was never a real concern after 1942.

[ny59giants]

The Americans seem to be the ones that need an increase in fighter replacement/production numbers from about mid-43 to the end. Those would seem to be in for Corsairs, P-38s, P-47s, and P-51s. What percentage would be a realistic number??

JOCKE - Question for my late war Allied player. Without taking off the air groups, how can you speed up the days needed to recover your damaged/disabled carrier based air units??

[JocMeister]

Ouff, up at 4:30 in the morning to get the turn to Erik before Ida gets up. Getting a whooping 5 hours of sleep gave me some good ideas though. I think I came up with a way to make all Eriks efforts in vain. [:'(]

Thanks for the support guys. [:)] I´ll get back to you in a while if Ida is willing! [:D]

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Aftermath[/font]
______________________________________________________________________________

Phew, Finally got the turn back to Erik. Lots of clicks... As I mentioned things feel a little bit better today. Its easy to let disappointment get the better of you. While yesterday was almost a complete failure all things arn´t pitch black. Seems only about half the strike planes took off so my strike capabilities are still pretty good. Erik only got about half the troops off (50.000 of the 100.000). Many ships must be damaged since he disbanded a lot of them after the turn.

And landing where he did might not save the day. If I can stop Erik from escaping with the troops I´ve turned this from a defeat to a victory. And I´ve come up with something...

A big questionmark is what Erik is going to do with the KB. Its a possibility he will rush in this turn. But I think the 350 Corsair CAP that showed up over the CVs might work as a deterrent. I moved the CVEs into a better position next turned and moved the CVs out of LBA range. Best case scenario Erik really does rush in, gets no support from LBA and get his strike planes slaughtered. If he does I think that will be the last thing the KB does in this game. Lets see what he does.

The biggest loss of the day is of course the Allied Fighters and pilots lost. The Hellcats and Thunderbolts I can replace quite easily. Same with the strike planes. The P51 losses I could (almost) fill out but the P47s I can´t. So I had to pull the pilots to the reserve and downgrade the planes to P40s. [:(]

I think counting my sweeps vs the LRCAP I only got about a 2:1 ratio. This is absolutely unsustainable of course. I need 5:1 just to break even. And that was using the absolutely best pilots I have. As I slowly lose them things will only get worse and worse.

Every such action diminishes the Allied air power even more. I´m trading offensive power for more training groups everytime I do this. Right now it feels like I´m slowly losing the air war and its spiraling out of control faster and faster. It sucks. [:(] Its very hard having to constantly operate under enemy air superiority. Short tactical term this means I can´t use the 4Es (or any bombers for the matter) to slow/damage his troops that has landed in Thailand.

To end this in a less bleak mood I do feel I have a new plan to work towards. I think (hope) that giving away Bangkok for free was a huge mistake. I can now rail stuff straight down to southern Thailand. That gives me the ability to instantly get troops down there. Tomorrow are really good Indian division will arrive together with some arty and AA. In 3 days another 2000 AV will arrive.

All I need to do to turn this into a catastrophic Japanese defeat is to make sure his troops from Bangkok can´t escape. Lets hope my plan works! [:)]

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

The Americans seem to be the ones that need an increase in fighter replacement/production numbers from about mid-43 to the end. Those would seem to be in for Corsairs, P-38s, P-47s, and P-51s. What percentage would be a realistic number??

JOCKE - Question for my late war Allied player. Without taking off the air groups, how can you speed up the days needed to recover your damaged/disabled carrier based air units??

I have only about 5-10 planes damaged. With SR1 they usually repairs "instantly" if they are not destroyed in the strike. [:)]

Talking about allied Fighter numbers I still think I´m on the right track when being opposed to increasing the Allied numbers. I know we disagree here but I´m convinced I´m right. (doh! [:D])

The problem is the absolute fantasy number of planes the Jap side can produce and the almost complete disregard they can show towards losses. I think its a lot better curtailing that rather then increasing the allied side.

We also see a few AAR where the Japs have totally collapsed in 44. Speedys game is a good example of this but there are others too. Why are they different? I havn´t done badly in the air war I think. I have killed 32.000 Jap planes for 16.000 own losses. Thats a 2:1 advantage including the horrible "Tojo time" of 42-43.

The only thing I can think of that could make the difference is the quality of the Japanese player and how good they are with the Japanese industry. Some Jap players like Erik, GJ and rader seem to be able to produce almost endless number of planes while some burn out in 43-44 having lost only a fraction of the planes Erik and radar lost. The Chinese industry/oil might also play a big part in this. I know Erik speaks often of the costs involved in securing China but I think this is a bit of "Jap talk". If it was such a cost no one would do it. Now every Japanese player does it. I know nothing of how the Jap industry work. How much do the Chinese HI/LI and oil add?

While this might also have something to do with the allied player I don´t think the difference between a good and bad allied player is that big of a deal. Sheer numbers will win in the end regardless. But the difference between a a Japanese player that can handle the economy really well and one thats is bad at it is going to be astronomical.

The best way to solve it would of course be to have some sort of dynamical allied production that stays on a percentage of Japanese production and gets adjusted each year simulating the allied ramped up production. But thats not going to happen. So I think the best way would still be to limit the availability of Japanese TRAINED pilots. Not back to WITP numbers but not unlimited like they are now.

[Spidery]

How much do the Chinese HI/LI and oil add?

If the oil in Lanchow and Sian are taken in May'42 and kept producing for 2 years that is:
110 * 9 * 730 = 722700 fuel produced which is about 20000 1E aircraft.

So, yes the Chinese oil is valuable. However, the Southern Resource Area produces that amount of fuel in just over a month so early capture and late loss of that is as important as China.

[Erkki]

I dont think the problem of IJNAF/IJAAF keeping up so well is about the amount of aircraft the Japanese can produce, but rather how modern aircraft they build and how well they(as well as the Allies) get actually bring them to the front and use them.

If I am to start a PBEM again I'd want the a/c availability dates moved ahead so that the Japanese player would need to invest into R&D to get his planes available on the historical dates - the better planes and the later available the further they'd get moved back, maybe 4 or 5 months at most.

Another thing is that while changing factories from building plane X to plane Y(not on the upgrade path) is already very costly... It may not be costly nor time taking enough. I'd also go and get almost completely rid of upgrade paths and retain only paths such as Ki-43, A6M etc. where the planes didnt change much from model to another, to make building best possible planes further costlier and slower. Maybe sortie, maintenance and repair supply usages and SRs need to be if possible increased too to make air units less available for both sides, hurting especially the Japs.

On pilot training: IJAAF has plenty of "spare" units, especially bomber, it can train its pilots with. In Manchuria etc. IJNAF on the other hand has practically no reserves at all even in the beginning of the war and training new pilots is painful. Unless one decides to not use his CVs and use their air units for that purpose.

[JocMeister]

Thanks for the replies guys. I´ll get back on that tonight!

Just watched the replay...I thought Erik couldn´t adequately cover Luzon with the 900-1100 fighters he has in Thailand. I was wrong. Very, very wrong. [:(]

Don´t think I have to paint a picture how bad this is... 4 Sweeps came in before the bombers. The escorts didn´t fly at all for some unknown reason. Doubt that would make a difference though because most likely the 200 escorts would have attached themselves to a 8 plane fragment while the rest would have went in unescorted.

Bad, bad, bad day for the already beaten USAAF. I REALLY need those overpowered 4Es. Anyone knows when or where they arrive? [&:]

[JeffroK]

Time to work out where you are strong and Erik isnt, dont continue with tactics which are expensive unless you absolutely have to.

My guess is you are strong on the ground and at sea, grab everything you can on the ground and use your seapower to outmanouvre him.

Create some time to get some aircraft into your squadrons.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Time to work out where you are strong and Erik isnt, dont continue with tactics which are expensive unless you absolutely have to.

My guess is you are strong on the ground and at sea, grab everything you can on the ground and use your seapower to outmanouvre him.

Create some time to get some aircraft into your squadrons.

Yep, I´ve tried telling myself twenty times now I can´t compete in the air. Yet I always end up thinking "perhaps now" or "this is a good opportunity". No more of that. I´m going to ground the entire AF except milking rounds to train pilots in safe areas. If he starts bombing I hope the allied flak can deal with it.

As you say the navy and army will have to carry the fight alone from now on.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister
We also see a few AAR where the Japs have totally collapsed in 44. Speedys game is a good example of this but there are others too. Why are they different? I havn´t done badly in the air war I think. I have killed 32.000 Jap planes for 16.000 own losses. Thats a 2:1 advantage including the horrible "Tojo time" of 42-43.

The only thing I can think of that could make the difference is the quality of the Japanese player and how good they are with the Japanese industry. Some Jap players like Erik, GJ and rader seem to be able to produce almost endless number of planes while some burn out in 43-44 having lost only a fraction of the planes Erik and radar lost. The Chinese industry/oil might also play a big part in this. I know Erik speaks often of the costs involved in securing China but I think this is a bit of "Jap talk". If it was such a cost no one would do it. Now every Japanese player does it. I know nothing of how the Jap industry work. How much do the Chinese HI/LI and oil add?

Joc,

THink of the IJ economy this way: During a game there is a finite amount of HI that will be generated to build units. This amount varies game to game based upon how much oil/fuel the IJ player captures.

Now, the player has choices as to how and most especially WHEN to spend this HI. The easiest way to look at this is in 100K HI chunks. 100K HI will 'buy' you about 2800 1E ac equivalents or about 1 ID or 1 accelerated CV. OK, nice and easy.

What many IJ players are doing now, as opposed to the Mike Solli tenants or IJ historical, is that they are choosing to spend their HI earlier in the war on AC as opposed to creating a bank of HI for late war. They cannot do both. Paragraph 1 states there is a finite number. They aren't doing anything that the IJ couldn't have done.

Now, when an economy implodes in 42/43/44(early) it is due to supply, not HI. Building ac factories require enormous expenditure of supply and they simply run out and will/can not get themselves to turn their ac factory expansion off. In fact they INSIST that they MUST be able to expand their factories. [;)] Oh, and they also insist that must be able to supply all their units too. [:D]

When an economy implodes in 44(late)/45, it is usually due to lack of HI. They spent it all on Tojos/Zeros and have none to fill out all of the ID replacements coming on line. Nor can they build Franks/Sams now that they have them.

So, when the IJ players spend early it means that they are in a very precarious end game. Typically the end comes very abrubtly as opposed to the historical result which took years. Why? Simple, they have no reserves. You are fighting +430mph fighters against their 350 mph fighters. Their bombers max speed is 220 mph with no armor. Their ID's arrive at 130AV instead of 400AV.

Many IJ players state clearly that they have no intent to create an HI reserve, which means 5/44 they begin to run out of oil and since they have been using the HI to build and their oil/fuel stocks have been on a slow decline since 12/7/41 (even with the DEI, you rarely are able to increase your pre-war stocks, what you can do though is slow them down drastically.) So 90 - 150 days later or so, the HI production drops to about 25% of what they were running. Ouch. Implosion. And then the threads appear in the tech forum that the game is borked, they have no supply, can't make any HI and their units are appearing with 1/3 devices and whah whah whah (sounds my 4 yo makes).

The game isn't borked. The devs did an incredible job of balancing the economy.

If I were to ever play the allies, I would want to see my opponent build 30000 Tojo's. All I need to do is have patience, whittle away at him, stop his oil by 5/44, and win by 1/45. My aircraft will be so dominant that he will not be able to stop me. I would go Adak->Hokkaido as it is the shortest path. Game over. What I cannot do though is sit back and do nothing, nor can I allow him to take India or OZ in their entirety. I need to press him, force him to spend his HI and supply early. And attack his supply from Day 1 on. AF or Port attacks only, unless I have his LCU's in clear terrain.

How to win as IJ? Simple. Force the allied player to be impatient and make mistakes. The allied player always wants to recreate history. They want the historical dominance beginning the late '42 that happened historically. This overlooks that Midway rarely happens in a gmae and so this dominance is a complete illusion. The allies were NEVER going to win in asia until AFTER VE day. To think that you need to or should is fantasy. The only way that the allies would have diverted more forces from the European theatre would be in OZ or India were in true jeopardy. Unfortunately, other than the reserve units that appear if you cross a line, there simply isn't more than the game system will allow.

None of this is new to any of you. You are all good students of history and good players. Yes, you can argue "how far into India before a reaction" until the cows come home, but the essence is a generally accepted fact by most players and the devs.

Joc has played a good game so far. I haven't been reading this, just skimming time to time. But if you have really achieved a 2:1 loss ratio, you are doing FAR better than most AAR's and that alone puts you in a much better position than I would have thought. I'm going to have to limit my involvement in Eric's AAR now. That intel is really telling ...

Anyway, thoughts from the IJ perspective. Let the vultures feast. [;)]

[Grollub]

That's an excellent post, Pax! [&o][:)]

[Crackaces]

Now, when an economy implodes in 42/43/44(early) it is due to supply, not HI

My current opponent invaded Colombo & India rather than seize Manila & Singapore .. very flashy .. but I think your premise of supply requirements for such an endeavor is one reason why my opponent has lost enthusiasm for the game. The IJ is in deep supply trouble feeding 4 stacks pinned deep into India. [By pinned .. they do not have enough firepower and AV to move my stacks and terrain fort bonus and they cannot pullout and maneuver due to being smacked by 4E's ..] Soon these stacks are going to be dealt with. As you also stated .. patience ..

The IJ will also complain that the Allies roper dope is a boring game but I might propose that the more aggressive the IJ is .. the more boring strategy the Allies might engage .. simply let them expand and provide enough resistance to stay in the game .. then when '43 comes .. strike at the weakest point ...then start the IJ in a game of "wack a mole" as the Allies continue to threaten on many fronts. Then in '44 strike one major axis toward victory ..

[JocMeister]

Wow Pax. Thats a truly great post! I´ll save it in my "good to know" folder! [&o] Even a stupid allied player like me understands that! [:D]

My initial reaction is that planes sound very, very cheap compared to the rest? A ID is the same as 2800(!) planes!? [X(] So if I wreck a Japanese ID thats 2800(!!) planes less produced? [X(] Thats sounds crazy cheap for planes? Do you really understand what I would trade for 2800 fighters? 2 IDs? Take it. 4 IDs? Hmmm sure. 6 IDs...naaaa...no. 2 Fast CVs? In a second. 10 CVEs? Absolutely! 2800 Fighters? That more than a entire years worth of USAAF fighters. IN 45!

I´m pretty sure Erik hasn´t wrecked his economy nor is he going too. He is way too smart for that and he is meticulous in his play. And that is what scares me. I´ve thrown everything in the air at him since late 43 and getting good results. Yet his air force is stronger than ever and my allied pools are completely drained. I posted a screen in the AAR Post #1983. You can see the total air losses there too.

tm.asp?m=3121206&mpage=67&key=

The screen is about a month old. The difference now is that the USN pools are slightly better while the USAAF are now completely drained. Zip, zilch, nada. And this is the dilemma and kind of what I was trying to get at with my earlier post. As an allied player I can´t really compete against a competent Japanese player in the air war. Despite doing well or even very well. I don´t have the numbers. Simple as that. After I posted that screen there has been virtually NO combat at all. So after a month of inactivity ONE day of fighting blew my pools again. The losses won´t even make Erik vince. He showed me his production number about a year back and I can´t find the email. By then he was outproducing me by 5:1 in fighters. And that was when I was counting crap like the P40. I have no reason to believe things have changed on that front! So I need a 5:1 ratio just to keep up. Lately I have been getting a 2:1. Thats not even close.

You have an intimate knowledge of the Jap production. Is this a "normal" situation? Is this something every Japanese player can achieve if they do the Japanese production "right"? For me its frustrating and not very fun atm. I simply lack the tools to do anything about it. So this leads to a situation in 1945 where I have to concede the airspace all over the map because I lack fighters. This makes it VERY hard to go on the offensive as I can´t use bombers to try and soften up defenders, slow troop movements and hinder supply. Its very hard to play offensively without those things.

I wrote it before in many places but I quite strongly feel there has to be something that slows down Japan's ability to produce an almost unlimited number of planes and pilots. Whats your view from the other side of the fence? [:D]

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

How much do the Chinese HI/LI and oil add?

If the oil in Lanchow and Sian are taken in May'42 and kept producing for 2 years that is:
110 * 9 * 730 = 722700 fuel produced which is about 20000 1E aircraft.

So, yes the Chinese oil is valuable. However, the Southern Resource Area produces that amount of fuel in just over a month so early capture and late loss of that is as important as China.

Thanks for the numbers! [:)] At first glance that doesn´t look like much. But speculating a bit it gets quite significant. Lets say the cost of securing China is about the equivalent of 15000 1E AC. That would still be a net gain of 5000 Fighters. Thats something like the entire allied Fighter production in 44. If you put it in that perspective its massive.

Just speculating a bit of course but it is a surplus. And I´m not sure its that "expensive" to conquer China.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Erkki

I dont think the problem of IJNAF/IJAAF keeping up so well is about the amount of aircraft the Japanese can produce, but rather how modern aircraft they build and how well they(as well as the Allies) get actually bring them to the front and use them.

If I am to start a PBEM again I'd want the a/c availability dates moved ahead so that the Japanese player would need to invest into R&D to get his planes available on the historical dates - the better planes and the later available the further they'd get moved back, maybe 4 or 5 months at most.

Another thing is that while changing factories from building plane X to plane Y(not on the upgrade path) is already very costly... It may not be costly nor time taking enough. I'd also go and get almost completely rid of upgrade paths and retain only paths such as Ki-43, A6M etc. where the planes didnt change much from model to another, to make building best possible planes further costlier and slower. Maybe sortie, maintenance and repair supply usages and SRs need to be if possible increased too to make air units less available for both sides, hurting especially the Japs.

On pilot training: IJAAF has plenty of "spare" units, especially bomber, it can train its pilots with. In Manchuria etc. IJNAF on the other hand has practically no reserves at all even in the beginning of the war and training new pilots is painful. Unless one decides to not use his CVs and use their air units for that purpose.

I think we are on the same page with our thinking. The main culprit is PDU on as this gives a huge amount of flexibility to the Japanese player. And I think Japanese players have become VERY good at cramming out every drop of the production system making it extremely "cost effective". Probably far beyond what the developers could ever foresee.

[Erkki]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

I think we are on the same page with our thinking. The main culprit is PDU on as this gives a huge amount of flexibility to the Japanese player. And I think Japanese players have become VERY good at cramming out every drop of the production system making it extremely "cost effective". Probably far beyond what the developers could ever foresee.

This may be semi OT already, but I dont personally like the PDU=off at all. Why fix air units to a certain upgrade path? I mean, there were several reasons and events as to why air units flew the aircraft they did and they shouldnt be limited on those alone but rather the need and availability of a type of AC. Its not like one needs to also not change various units' HQs or do only historical changes, and if we go over the top in silliness, say invade islands in a specific order only. [:)][:D]

There should imho be a need or necessity for the Japanese to build less planes and a higher proportion of them bad, other than for role-playing purposes. But should the Japanese go for it with the aircraft industry I dont see why they should not be able to do much better than they did historically - as that would come at the expense of supply, army and navy. Maybe it would be possible to nail that and the late war super high ops tempo that many games seem to have by just a couple of database changes.

edit: btw, now that you're in charge of the 1945 Allied monster fleet (and army, and an air force...) how do you feel about controlling it - do you find the workload overwhelming already? Compared to playing the Japanese? [:)]