Perfection, of a kind, spence (A) vs fcharton (J), no spence, please

[Spidery]

In other words, you need to fight fire at sea, and then, only, return to port.

I suspect that at sea you get assist from another ship in the task force. In port you get assist from port facilities; if the port is small, this can be less than the assistance another ship can provide.

Or, it could just be imagination[;)]

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

In other words, you need to fight fire at sea, and then, only, return to port.

I suspect that at sea you get assist from another ship in the task force. In port you get assist from port facilities; if the port is small, this can be less than the assistance another ship can provide.

Or, it could just be imagination[;)]

It seems that way to me as well ... but in any case I leave ships in a TF until the fires are out. Adding DD's (and other escort types) seems to help. Cruise/no movement also helps. With the IJN though, you can never predict. even a 5% fire can bring down a capital ship ... I'm not as afraid of torps as I am of 1000lb bombs. Torps rarely start fires for me so whatever the initial damage, that's all I have to deal with. Bombs though ... even minor damage with fire can result in losing the ship. I've seen the "lost damage control party" message WAY too often and the result of that message is always bad news ...

[fcharton]

We just went through a long pause, as my opponent’s hard drive died, and then he needed to replace his laptop, and then I sent him the wrong version of the beta we’re using, and then. But we’re back…

March 9th 1943

I don’t have much to report today. Enemy CV didn’t try to pursue, which suggest I might have done some damage after all. Duyring the night, allied bombers paid their usual visit to Cox Bazar and Akyab. I do have planes on night CAP, but they never seem to make a difference. The flak does shoot down a plane time and again. Today, we shot two swordfishes down, for a grand total of 43 since the war began. Now, Tracker tells me the British begin the game with 26 of those, have 6 more arriving as reinforcements, and produce three, for a grand total of 35. And I saw five of them over Cox today, which means my opponent must have at least three left. FOW, I suppose.

During the day, B25-C bombed Lae, one of them was shot down, for a total of 134, if Tracker is to be believed. The Allies have produced about 145 of those, and received 50 as reinforcements. This suggests pools are a bit low.

News from Japan

I am back at work, skimming through the list of new features and major rewrites which are supposed to make 2014 the time our software break through the market. This is always the best time in the year. There is no real rush, and I can pretty much choose my projects. We had pretty good returns last week from a demo of our software that took place in New York before Christmas. I am not too keen about travelling, but this might be the occasion to visit my opponent even before he travels to France, next autumn.

I received two books today, two star atlases. I have been wanting to learn astronomy for years, but living in the city made it an unlikely prospect. Since we moved to a smaller town, and have a garden which is reasonably dark at night, I have been thinking of it again, and this year, at Christmas, I got a telescope, which should be the decisive move. So far, it was mostly cloudy, so apart from trying to orient myself and having a decent look at the moons of Jupiter, nothing was done. But I want to be serious about it, and star atlases are the way to go. I know you can get a computer aided telescope, and that star gazing programs can be found on the web, but this is just as fun as running marathon in a car. My daughters seem to be interested, which is a good thing too.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: fcharton

I received two books today, two star atlases. I have been wanting to learn astronomy for years, but living in the city made it an unlikely prospect. Since we moved to a smaller town, and have a garden which is reasonably dark at night, I have been thinking of it again, and this year, at Christmas, I got a telescope, which should be the decisive move. So far, it was mostly cloudy, so apart from trying to orient myself and having a decent look at the moons of Jupiter, nothing was done. But I want to be serious about it, and star atlases are the way to go. I know you can get a computer aided telescope, and that star gazing programs can be found on the web, but this is just as fun as running marathon in a car. My daughters seem to be interested, which is a good thing too.

I thought the same thing years ago. Took only about 6 weeks to realize my error and get the updated scope and drivers. It is very difficult to keep objects in your field of view once you go beyond the solar system with manual controls. Even using hte auto drivers, it will take you several days the first time you want to set up your scope to get it precisely oriented. After the first time, you will learn short cuts and develop some tools to get that done in about an hour.

We go out once/month with a group to the mountains to view. Everyone has a different object to focus on. Then we all swap views. About 20 of us, so you get to see a lot of views. Plus, almost everyone is using home made scopes. everything from 12 - 24". You also get to see the difference between size and quality. One guy has a beautifully crafted 18". He took 3 years in polishing his mirrors and came out with great results. The clarity he has compared to the rest of us ... He's working on a 28" set now ... says he has several more years before they will be ready. I'm weird as I have the only refractor in the group, prolly why they let me come along. evereyone else is using reflectors.

[rominet]

Hello

un french AAR en anglais?! Ce n'est pas si courant.
Je vais suivre ça malgré la langue.
Bonne continuation.[:)]

[fcharton]

ORIGINAL: rominet
un french AAR en anglais?! Ce n'est pas si courant.

Il y a des french AAR en français? Je veux bien savoir où. S'il y a de l'intérêt, je peux aussi essayer de faire un bout de chronique en français de temps en temps. Donc, lecteurs francophones, comptez vous...

Francois

[rominet]

ORIGINAL: fcharton

ORIGINAL: rominet
un french AAR en anglais?! Ce n'est pas si courant.

Il y a des french AAR en français? Je veux bien savoir où. S'il y a de l'intérêt, je peux aussi essayer de faire un bout de chronique en français de temps en temps. Donc, lecteurs francophones, comptez vous...

Francois

Non, non, reste en anglais sur ce forum, il y a probablement très peu de lecteurs francophones ici.

Sinon, oui, il y a des tas d'AAR de Witp et AE en français mais il faut aller sur les forums français.[:D]

Je te conseille par exemple celui de Micke sur Campaign France (CF) (dont j'étais parti prenante au départ mais pas longtemps[:(]):
http://www.campaigns-france.org/showthr ... ama/page78

Tu pourras d'ailleurs y trouver des mines d'informations sur les mécanismes de AE et de WitP (le grand frère de AE) dans les secteurs dédiées. C'est ce forum qui rassemble la toute petite communauté de witpiens francophones.

Sinon, il y a aussi celui de Elwis sur le QG:
http://www.leqg.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=13076


Il y a aussi des joueurs (dont je fais partie) qui sont restés sur WitP.
Voir par exemple l'AAR de Gladiatt qui joue en vanilla sur le QG:
http://www.leqg.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... 0cde16cb68

ou le mien sur CF à nouveau et sur un mod perso:
http://www.campaigns-france.org/showthr ... tP)/page57

Voilà[;)]

[fcharton]

Merci beaucoup, je vais aller voir.

Francois

[fcharton]

Hi readers,

We’re still playing, I just sent the April 7th turn, which means we played a month of war in two months of real time. Unfortunately, I have little time for the AAR, so here is a brief catchup post.

March 10th – April 5th 1943

Solomons and New Guinea

No new invasions happened since the fall of Munda. Small and empty bases (from Choiseul to Rekata bay) were autocaptured. The enemy has been building the airfields, and putting planes on patrol over his new bases, before sending bombers over the bases just in front. Tulagi and Shortlands were bombed, for little effect.

In New Guinea, not much is happening. My opponent bombs Lae, damaging the infrastructure. I try to intercept his bombers with long range CAP from Madang or Hansa bay, and he tries to sweep my CAP away with his P38. The whole thing is a form of refined randomness : some days, his sweeps come first, and my fighters get trashed, some days, his sweep come late, and his bombers get trashed.

Banda Sea

The allies were successful trashing Sorong and Ambon with B24D. These don’t need to be escorted, and a few days bombing are enough to interdict the place for a week or more (construction rates are very low, apparently). There seems to be very little parade against those guys. My Nicks sometimes shoot one or two down, as do my Tonies, but Oscars and Zeroes die in drove, and even Nicks seldom do better than 1:1 rates. I am trying to move flak in, see if it works (I doubt it)

Saumlaki was invaded in the beginning of April. As usual, there is little I can do about it, but the slow rate of advance suits me fine : my opponent landed on Taberfane in December, we’re in April and he’s in Saumlaki.

Burma and Port Blair

CL Ceres and a few others were sank in Port Blair, while a small task force apparently tried to evacuate some of the garrison. I suspect Port Blair is pretty much empty now. In Burma, we retreated from Chittagong. There is no way Japan can move against India now. This makes me wonder whether the original plan: going after India once China falls, is feasible at all.

Over Chittagong, we’ve been trading punches with the RAF. It is yet another random game : we sometimes get impressive kill rates, the Allies sometimes get the same. After it happened, we can always figure out some plausible reason for those (that’s the charm of complex models : they can always explain every thing in hindsight), but there is little to be done.

Holding tight in early 1943

Allied material superiority is becoming clearer every month. So far, my opponent had a few good designs, but small production figures, or bad service rating, or other draw backs. Not anymore, since the beginning of this month, the Allies get 130 Hellcats (SR1 fighters) a month, plus their usual lot of P38 and Corsairs. Same goes with 4E bombers. In late 1942, the allies produced about 20 of those every month. Since February, they get about 50 B24-D1, and this number will double in September. And you’ll see the same effect if you look at dive bombers, ship production, every facet of the game, in fact.

At sea, KB still rules the waves, but Essex class CV are arriving at the end of the year, and recent attacks have shown that the price of air superiority, in term of losses of pilots and frames, is getting higher as weeks go by.

It won’t get any better, obviously, and so the best I can do now is to delay. I have been relatively good at that in the air, lately. Over the last 30 days, my opponent lost 650 planes, for 730 mine. This is about what the allies produce every month, and represents about half my production. As a result, my pools are in very good shape, whereas I suspect the Allies are still a bit tight on airframes.

Unfortunately, most of what I’m killing these days is old models : I’m depleting his Wildcats, but have only shot 15 Corsairs down. I am not having much luck again his new B24-D1 either. But the loss rate (about 1.3:1) is still quite reasonable, and the level of Allied losses is on par with their production. This will need to go up: the Allies produce 600 planes per month now, but this figure will reach 1000 by June, and 1500 by November.

I am beginning to get decent results in ASW too. The type 2 depth charge, together with bomber squadrons with 70 ASW pilots is allowing me to get daily hits, and a few sunk subs. I have a large number of squadrons in Japan now training ASW pilots in Naval bombing. They should be ready in a few weeks, and I am hoping to get better results.

One domain I’d like to develop (but it takes time, and I lack time to play the game) are raids against his supply lines. I’m not really using my submarines right now, and this is bad. I don’t think sinking a few cargoes will change the war, but if it forces my opponent to divert DE to escort his convoys, it is all the better.

So, this is my take at early 43 for Japan. It is not the most interesting thing I’ve ever done, and if I had known this was what most of the game looks like for Japan, I might have not enrolled on a campaign, but it is not too bad either.

[fcharton]

April 6th 1943

Something there is that doesn’t love tankers

…that sends the allied-sub-crawl under them, as the poem goes.
I have been lucky with my tankers. So far, I only lost six of them, four small and two large, and two oilers. I have been keeping Palembang-Singapore, Miri/Brunei –Cam Ranh, and Balikpapan-Truk convoys for months, but allied subs never seemed to show up.

So today came as a surprise, as an AO from the Palembang express was torpedoed and sunk off Lingga, and two convoys from Miri were attacked (without damage to the tankers).

I realize I have been careless. I will reinforce ASW patrols between Macassar and Singapore, and add some around Miri and Cam Ranh. I also have changed the convoy routes, just in case.

Today’s air success

Enemy bombers flew against Babar, yesterday. I sent zeroes from Lautem sweep the base today, expecting more bombers, or maybe fighters. We found Wildcats, and they had a bad day.

Morning Air attack on Saumlaki , at 78,117
Weather in hex: Severe storms
Raid spotted at 20 NM, estimated altitude 34,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 6 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zero x 11

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 14

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 5 destroyed

Aircraft Attacking:
1 x A6M5 Zero sweeping at 33000 feet *

CAP engaged:
VF-35 with F4F-4 Wildcat (0 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
(1 plane(s) diverted to support CAP in hex.)
0 plane(s) not yet engaged, 4 being recalled, 1 out of immediate contact.
Group patrol altitude is 13000
Time for all group planes to reach interception is 35 minutes
VF-60 with F4F-4 Wildcat (9 airborne, 0 on standby, 0 scrambling)
9 plane(s) intercepting now.
Group patrol altitude is 18000
Raid is overhead

High altitude, short range, recent models, it had to work. And in fact, Tracker reports 13 F4F-4 for one Zero. I’m not sweeping tomorrow, but defending my bases on Timor.

Today’s air failure

I most certainly forgot to check the range on my Betty squadron in the Kuriles. Today, four of them flew unescorted into enemy CAP in the Aleutians. I lost the four Betties.

These two battles nicely summarize the air war in 1943. You usually win big when the enemy is careless and predictable, and lose big when you are careless and predictable. The final outcome depends on the ratio of carelessness between players… Today, the final tally was 12 planes on my side, and 16 for the allies. This is a bit low, if I want to shoot down 1000 planes lost a month, to compensate for allied production in May.

Tomorrow, I have three more ambushes ready. If everything goes decently, I can probably hope for 20 enemy planes down.

Saumlaki

The last SNLF battalion was surrounded today. I had two battalions, a rapid fire gun company, and an engineer company, behind level three forts, in the jungle, and with supplies. It took four attacks for a reinforced Australian brigade: one to reduce the forts, one to destroy most of the defenders, and two to get them surrendered.

I had the nagging feeling that defending an island is almost impossible. Enemy bombardment and air attacks destroy pretty much all the supply one has before the fight even begins, and then, a week, resting and attacking, is all it takes.

It is ok, though, Allied progression is slow, and I’m not losing any important real estate.

[fcharton]

April 7th 1943
Another day in the war, a pretty typical one…

Kuriles

At night, four B24 attacked Onnekotan-Jima. The allies have been doing this, on and off, for a while. The bombers are probably based on Shemya island, the only level 6 airfield in the area. Those B24D operate at extreme range, and seldom do any damage. I am sending a few Nicks to try and shoot them down.

My goal is to make the Kuriles a very unpleasant proposition.

Chittagong

Oscars swept the base, and were greeted by Hurricanes, and Spitfires, flying very high, and P40-K acting a low level targets. Oscar IIb are no match for Spitfires and Hurricanes, and we lost 13 to 5 enemy planes. But this in pretty much on par with our production levels (I produce around 300 Oscars a month, he produces about 120 of those three models). In the end, I am swapping low end fighters for high end ones.

I have quite a few fighter squadrons based in Magwe, a level 8 airfield. I am planning to rotate them over Chittagong, and see if the better service ratings make a difference. A few months ago, this worked in Port Blair, with early Oscars against Hurricanes.

Shortlands and Lae

These were the two air ambushes for today. Over Lae, A6M3a and KAI Dinah met sweeping P38-G. I was hoping to catch the bombers, but no luck. 6 P38 were shot down, for five A6M3a. 94 P38-G, out of 120 produced at the end of March, are reported lost (in Tracker), and I am replacing my Zeroes much faster than he can shoot them down.

Zeroes, and Nicks and Tojos from Rabaul capped Shortlands, where the enemy had send bombers yesterday. I didn’t catch any bomber, but we found old Wildcats (F4F-3), and shot five down for no loss on our side.

Overall, the day ends with 18 planes lost on each side, almost all of them fighters (17 fighters for the Allies). This is below the 900 planes per month the Allies produce in April 1943, but on par with their fighter production (486 in April).

The bad news are the 4E. We’re seldom shooting any down, and enemy pools are growing. When massed, they are especially deadly : 30 of them, flying low in the day, will close an airfield for days, and they are very difficult to destroy. I need more Nicks and Tonies…

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: fcharton
The bad news are the 4E. We’re seldom shooting any down, and enemy pools are growing. When massed, they are especially deadly : 30 of them, flying low in the day, will close an airfield for days, and they are very difficult to destroy. I need more Nicks and Tonies…

I find George works best ... 4x20mm. Its the heaviest armament you get until very late game.

[fcharton]

Hi Pax,
I only get Georges in May, and am limited to one sentai (a large one though, which I can split). Such are the joys of PDU off.

April 12th 1943

Most of the war is happening in the air, and involves fighters. I’m sweeping the hexes he CAPs, and CAPping the hexes he sweeps, and trying to keep a decent exchange rate. In Burma, against the Spitfires, this is proving more and more difficult. I usually try to have layered CAP at high altitudes (from 38k to 29k say), and end up with pretty heavy op losses.

So today, I tried to push everything down, layering my CAP between 20k and 30k, so that my guys get better maneuverability. It probably wasn’t a good idea : Spitfires and Hurricanes came in at their usual 37k, and I lost 24 planes for one enemy…

Are there cases when altitude doesn’t trump all?

Liberators GRIII made their first appearance today. They flew unescorted from Port Blair to Medan, and bombed the refinery. 31 points gone to 9 bombers. Oh well, I’ll CAP it tomorrow, not that it makes a lot of difference, I’m afraid, but I’ll have tried.

In other news, a raid of PV-1 Ventura, targeting a small task force unloading flak in Sorong, was shot down by the CAP. None of the four bombers escaped.

This is pretty much all there is to say about the war, and if you have the impression it is slightly boring, you’re way off the mark.

I have nothing to say about the war in itself. So far, everything is fine, my VP ratio is moving down, but I’m still around 2.5:1. I haven’t lost the KB, the enemy isn’t on Java or Mindanao, and the supply situation is good. I’m expecting a few decent plane models soon, too: the George next month, the Tojo IIc and the A6M5b by June, the Oscar III in July, and the Frank in September or October. I know I should probably be garrisoning better, and moving more stuff around, and building more, but I believe I’m on a decently historical pace, and not making too much a fool of myself. It is not about Allied material superiority, not yet. The Allies are beginning to get a lot of decent materials, pretty much everything they build sports a radar, but I can still hold my own.

No the problem is that I have very little meaningful to do. I can sweep, or raid, and kill a few enemies, but at this point in the war, large offensives are out of the question (at least at my level of experience), and apart from waiting for the next model, the next upgrade, the next convoy and the next enemy raid, there is nothing I can do, and this might go on for several years of real time, until I see the end of the war.

I’m trying to reactivate this AAR, in the hope that writing about the game might keep me “in it”.


A brief update on the economy

So far, this is much easier than I thought. Scenario II helps, of course, but my stocks are very high. As of today I have 6.1 million tons of supplies (up 2k a day), 8.7 million tons of fuel (up 10k per day), 3.8 million tons of oil (down 2k per day), and 19.1 million tons of resources (up 20k per day). I also have 2.65 million HI points in the bank, up 5k every day (but minus 50k for pilot training, so the net saving is closer to 3.5k / day) I have 60k vehicle, and 70k armament points, and am building 1400 planes every month.

A number of mistakes were done. Like many new players, I have over produced the A6M2, and have almost 1000 frames in my pools, which will probably never be used. Also, I never could manage the fuel from Singapore to move north in large quantities, and a lot of fuel is still sitting in Singapore. I need to do something about it, soon…

Airplane pools are ok. I have almost 500 A6M5 ready, and as many Oscar IIb (which is good, because I’m losing a lot of them these days).

News from Japan

Over the first months of the year, I have been reading (and translating) a lot of American poetry. Like many Europeans, I had more than a few misgivings about “American art”. And so, apart from a few british exiles (Auden) or New Englanders who might as well have been brits (Frost, Poe), I never cared to read American poets.

Strangely, my introduction to the genre was… a Chinese poet, who often commented about Whitman and Ginsberg. I wasn’t too crazy about Ginsberg, but loved Whitman, who led me to Cummings, who led me to Padgett. And because I didn’t like Ginsberg, I tried to read a few others of his generation, and loved Ferlinghetti, and Bukowski (I never really liked his stories, which sort of get repetitive once you see him get trashed for the third time in five pages, but he is one of the best poets I have ever read). And one thing leading to another, I received yesterday two big books of collected poems, one by Sandburg and one by Padgett, which means I now have a full shelf of American poets, between the maths and the sea stories…

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: fcharton

Hi Pax,
I only get Georges in May, and am limited to one sentai (a large one though, which I can split). Such are the joys of PDU off.

Ach, I keep forgetting you are playing PDU OFF.

So the 2 things you need for 4E's are endurance and armament, and then just enough speed to be able to catch them. This is ignoring escorts. If escorts are around, then just your best fighter.

Otherwise:
Tony (b model on)
Frank (b or r models)

I think (hope) that many/most IJA fighter groups can eventually upgrade to the Tony ... but you will need to check in game or with Tracker. I haven't looked at PDU OFF in so long, I can't remember all of the groups and which model unlocks which models any more.

Oscar/Zero are just too low DUR ... they can't hold up ....

Good Luck!

[fcharton]

April 13th 1943

Chancing away

The Allies finally noticed the A6M3a and KAI Dinah squadrons I have been using to ambush some of his bombing runs over Lae were based in Hansa Bay. And today, several squadrons of P-38 came sweeping at high altitude.

But luckily my fighters were ambushing his raids over Lae, which didn’t have the high altitude cover the P38 usually provide. And so we shot down a couple of escorting Airacobras, and a B25-C.

We had another lucky raid today. A6M5 from Nabire swepts Dobo, and found Spitfires and Kittihawk III on patrol. We traded losses but got six Spitfires. 59 Spitfires have been shot down, or half of the production so far. I’m expecting bombers over Nabire tomorrow, and moved my zeroes away.

Second Sorong

Enemy heavy bombers raided Sorong today, but I was ready. I now have an air defense regiment, with radar, which detected incoming raids, and I had quite a few squadrons on CAP, unfortunately, there were only two 4E killers (Nick Ib) on patrol, the rest being A6M5 and Oscar IIb. Still, the A6M5 held their own against the P38-G sweeps, and we scored a good number of hits against the B24-D1.

Overall, we shot down five B24-D1, and three P38-G. 100 P38-G are reported shot down, which means the Allies must be very short on those. We’re unfortunately not killing enough B24, but this is a good start.

I have reinforced Sorong again, with Nick 1c this time. I’m hoping he comes back tomorrow.

4E killers

I had a look at what I can have in PDU off. As usual, some heavy squadron juggling will be in order…

Tony : 1 sentai of Oscars (now in Sorong) upgrades to 1b, two more use the 1a now. On is in Namlea, capping Ambon, the other in Magwe. I will have another squadron when the 1c comes online (in August, I believe). At the end of the year, I should have the 1d model, where quite a few squadrons can upgrade.

Nick : The 1c is my main 4E killer now. I have about 120 of them in service, and as many squadrons that could upgrade. Engine production is my limiting factor, right now. I am expanding the factories, but it takes some time.

George : one Sentai, now in Japan, can upgrade to the 1 model, available in May.

Overall, I think I can have a dozen such squadrons. This is not enough, but the battle of Sorong, and previous experience in Rabaul suggests that a relatively small number of those can badly damage enemy bombers, insofar they are shielded from sweeps by Zeroes, Tojos and Oscars.

[fcharton]

News from Japan

Not quite news, but a follow up from yesterday, a Bukowski poem that sort of talks about us... (and a very good example of why I think he's a great poet)

Mademoiselle from Armentieres:

if you gotta have wars
I suppose World War One was the best.
really, you know, both sides were much more enthusiastic,
they really had something to fight for,
they really thought they had something to fight for,
it was bloody and wrong but it was Romantic,
those dirty Germans with babies stuck on the ends of their
bayonets, and so forth, and
there were lots of patriotic songs, and the women loved both the soldiers
and their money.

the Mexican war and those other wars hardly ever happened.
and the Civil War, that was just a movie.

the wars come too fast now
even the pro-war boys grow weary,
World War Two did them in,
and then Korea, that Korea,
that was dirty, nobody won
except the black marketeers,
and BAM! -- then came Vietnam,
I suppose the historians will have a name and a meaning for it,
but the young wised-up first
and now the old are getting wise,
almost everybody's anti-war,
no use having a war you can't win,
right or wrong.

hell, I remember when I was a kid it
was ten or 15 years after World War One was over,
we built model planes of Spads and Fokkers,
we bought Flying Aces magazine at the newsstand
we knew about Baron Manfred von Richtofen
and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker
and we fought in dream trenches with our dream rifles
and had dream
bayonet fights with the dirty
Hun ...
and those movies, full of drama and excitement,
about good old World War One, where
we almost got the Kaiser, we almost kidnapped him
once,
and in the end
we finished off all those spike-helmeted bastards
forever.

the young kids now, they don't build model warplanes
nor do they dream fight in dream rice paddies,
they know it's all useless, ordinary,
just a job like
sweeping the streets or picking up the garbage,
they'd rather go watch a Western or hang out at the
mall or go to the zoo or a football game, they're
already thinking of college and automobiles and wives
and homes and barbecues, they're already trapped
in another kind of dream, another kind of war,
and I guess it won't kill them as fast, at least not
physically.

it was wrong but World War One was fun for us
it gave us Jean Harlow and James Cagney
and "Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Parley-Voo?"
it gave us
long afternoons and evenings of play
(we didn't realize that many of us were soon to die in another war)
yes, they fooled us nicely but we were young and loved it --
the lies of our elders --
and see how it has changed --
they can't bullshit
even a kid anymore,
not about all that.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: fcharton

Overall, I think I can have a dozen such squadrons. This is not enough, but the battle of Sorong, and previous experience in Rabaul suggests that a relatively small number of those can badly damage enemy bombers, insofar they are shielded from sweeps by Zeroes, Tojos and Oscars.

Shielding works, but is of course very tedious and cumbersome. Since the Tony d has a lot of units that can upgrade to it, and if I recall correctly, it also changes to the Ha-33 engine, you are likely pushing the R&D on that as fast as you can. Then the Frank models ...

Good luck!

[fcharton]

May 1st 1943

I feel sorry about this AAR. Work has been very demanding lately, and various hobbies are using a lot of my free time. The war still rages on, but we’re down to four turns per week, three of them played real fast, motivation is low, and I lack the time to write the AAR.

I do realize there are lots of thing a serious JFB should do in 1943, and I think I am beginning to get a pretty good notion of what should be done while waiting for the long noses to invade. I need to move small detachment to dot bases, to prevent them from falling from autocapture (this forces the enemy to invade, and takes time, for very little cost). I also need to move air support and flak to the front. The old 24/48 SP per airfield is no longer enough in 1943, and I have quite a few flak units which do make a (small) difference. I need to take a better look at ship upgrades : this is the time when I get a lot of new devices, radar, ASW stuff, and the enemy navy has not yet reached its late war efficiency. And most importantly, I’m falling behind in pilot training. Spence obviously has a number of very good pilots in some of his frontline squadrons, while mine are mostly in TRACOM, and this is making a lot of difference.

I do realize all this, but each of those important actions is hundreds of clicks away, and use way too much time. I have said it before, my wish for WITP 2 is not a better model for this or that, or more detail, or better history, I just want a better user interface, which keeps the complexity as it is, but eliminate the ridiculous clicking, and all the shifting between the game and Tracker.

Just for the record, I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t need rewriting the engine. Basically, what is needed is some form of improved Tracker (without the database clutter and Java that need so much memory), which can not only view the content of a turn, but also edit and save modifications.

But anyway, I’m going on with this game. I’m not the best player around, and I’m not fighting at the best of my ability, but I won’t give the Allies an easy victory either. And I’ll know a lot of things if I ever play PBEM again (I doubt it, I think my next game will be against the AI).

Most of the action is happening in the air. Loss ratios are climbing as the allies get better planes and pilots and probably a lot more support, but his pools are not improving: in April, we shot down 500 allied planes, for 700 ours. From the numbers shot down, he must be low on P38, Spitfires and Hurricanes, and I am destroying more B24D than he produces.

Hellcats, the new kid on the block for April, were nowhere to be seen. He must have 120 of them by now. Allied fleet carriers were nowhere to be seen in April, and have reappeared around the Solomons a few days ago, obviously looking for battle.

He won’t have any. Most of KB in is Japan for upgrades, the rest moved to the Celebes, in the hope of catching enemy CVE which had been detected there, and were ready to support the next invasion.

And it worked… A week ago, enemy CVE sporting Corsairs and just a few bombers were parked in Babar, and trashed my bombers and fighters, while his invasion forces disembarked. Undetected, a lightweight KB moved in, and attacked unopposed.

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Babar at 76,117
Weather in hex: Light cloud
Raid detected at 105 NM, estimated altitude 14,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 39 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zero x 62
B5N2 Kate x 35
D3A1 Val x 38
D3A2 Val x 12

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 70
F4U-1 Corsair x 13

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M5 Zero: 14 destroyed
B5N2 Kate: 8 destroyed, 5 damaged
B5N2 Kate: 2 destroyed by flak
D3A1 Val: 1 destroyed, 6 damaged
D3A1 Val: 1 destroyed by flak
D3A2 Val: 2 destroyed, 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 6 destroyed

Allied Ships
CVE Suwannee, Bomb hits 7, heavy fires, heavy damage
CL Columbia, Torpedo hits 1
CVE Chenango, Bomb hits 3, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires, heavy damage
CVE Sangamon, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 2, and is sunk
DD Lardner
CLAA Oakland
DD Saufley
CL Cleveland
CLAA San Juan, Torpedo hits 1
DD Stuart, Bomb hits 2, heavy fires, heavy damage

It was costly. I lost 65 carrier planes in the process, and since I didn’t know where enemy fleet carriers were, KB retired north, towards the Philippines. The Suwanee was lost, but my VP total went up by more than three hundred, so there is a good chance that at least another escort carrier sank. The next day, CLAA San Juan, CL Columbia and DD Stuart appeared in the sunk list.

This is the second time in a row I get an unopposed strike at enemy carriers. The last time, we damaged the Wasp, this time we sank a CVE or three. The next day, enemy fleet carriers reappeared in the Solomons. Spence is obviously looking for revenge, but I’m definitely not coming to his party. There is no point risking a trade in a CV battle right now.

Babar was the only invasion this month. Dili and Lautem are next, obviously, and I have not spent enough time reinforcing them, which is too bad. In Burma, the front is stable.

So, that was April 1943 for me. I can’t really complain, I only lost one base, sank one or two carriers, and shot down 500 planes, while not spending too much time on the game.

[fcharton]

In case anyone is interested, here is a tabulated excel file that I use to keep track of Allied air production through the game (scen 2).
You can open it in excel (convert it, with delimiters as tabs, or ask me if you can't).

This lists all the Allied planes, and the number produced, or received as reinforcements, at the beginning of each month in the game. The total each month will be the number your opponent has in his pools, squadrons and losses, at the beginning of each month. It allows one to answer the question : how many of those damn XXX has he left?

A few caveats :
- this supposes all allied factories are building at all time, and that all of them upgrade
- for some models used by different nationalities, reinforcements may be incorrectly affected, for instance the total number of DC-2 is correct, but the split by nationality might be off
- I considered the game starts on the first of december 1941, which means there are a few planes too many

This is relatively easy to produce : both production and reinforcements are tracker exports. In production, you need to add the "upgrade" number to the planes produced every month, and the pool number at start to the first month total. In air groups, you add for each squadron the planes ready, disabled and in reserve, and use the reinforcement date to assign it to a month.

What's the point of all this? I believe such a table can be used to plan one's air war, and this suggests that we JFB are probably way to conservative when it comes to air losses. As of today (May 4th 1943) I have shot down 6684 enemy planes, this is a relatively high number, yet it is about a third of what the Allies have produced so far.
This month, I am building 1350 planes. The Allies produced 1200 in April, but will get 1400 in May, 1550 in June, and about 2000 at the end of the year. And the difference in frame quality means that 1:1 exchange ratios are a thing of the past.

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: fcharton

In case anyone is interested, here is a tabulated excel file that I use to keep track of Allied air production through the game (scen 2).
You can open it in excel (convert it, with delimiters as tabs, or ask me if you can't).

This lists all the Allied planes, and the number produced, or received as reinforcements, at the beginning of each month in the game. The total each month will be the number your opponent has in his pools, squadrons and losses, at the beginning of each month. It allows one to answer the question : how many of those damn XXX has he left?

A few caveats :
- this supposes all allied factories are building at all time, and that all of them upgrade
- for some models used by different nationalities, reinforcements may be incorrectly affected, for instance the total number of DC-2 is correct, but the split by nationality might be off
- I considered the game starts on the first of december 1941, which means there are a few planes too many

This is relatively easy to produce : both production and reinforcements are tracker exports. In production, you need to add the "upgrade" number to the planes produced every month, and the pool number at start to the first month total. In air groups, you add for each squadron the planes ready, disabled and in reserve, and use the reinforcement date to assign it to a month.

What's the point of all this? I believe such a table can be used to plan one's air war, and this suggests that we JFB are probably way to conservative when it comes to air losses. As of today (May 4th 1943) I have shot down 6684 enemy planes, this is a relatively high number, yet it is about a third of what the Allies have produced so far.
This month, I am building 1350 planes. The Allies produced 1200 in April, but will get 1400 in May, 1550 in June, and about 2000 at the end of the year. And the difference in frame quality means that 1:1 exchange ratios are a thing of the past.

Very very handy Francois! Merci!!!!

Looking at those numbers, it's really impressive the numbers of a/c the allies get... and, mind you, when I was playing the allies, I've never had the perception to have all those air assets! Incredible how perception may differ depending on which side you play