Command Decisions: Yeomen vs. Samurai RA 6.4

[moore4807]

Bullwinkle/Moose (Do you have a preference?)

I guess the fly in the ointment is who controls it on our end? I have been very conscious of not over riding Larry's area of operations... Now we did away with the HR, where do we draw the lines? or do we even bother?

Joc,

I'm understanding a little better, but most of these losses have been in Larry's area of operations as noted above. With no prior experience in multi player WitPAE, what do we do about the sit down? Larry is in Arizona and I'm cross country in NJ... I really think Larry is trying hard, maybe we switch up the responsibilites? I'll take Commonwealth/China and Larry can do the US???

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: moore4807

Bullwinkle/Moose (Do you have a preference?)

I guess the fly in the ointment is who controls it on our end? I have been very conscious of not over riding Larry's area of operations... Now we did away with the HR, where do we draw the lines? or do we even bother?

Joc,

I'm understanding a little better, but most of these losses have been in Larry's area of operations as noted above. With no prior experience in multi player WitPAE, what do we do about the sit down? Larry is in Arizona and I'm cross country in NJ... I really think Larry is trying hard, maybe we switch up the responsibilites? I'll take Commonwealth/China and Larry can do the US???

I like either name the same. Antlers rule! [:)]

I think your last might be a great idea. Asia is where the war is in 1942 unless J3 goes hard for NorPac or something. The east is a naval problem. Asia is huge armies, lots of terrain issues, etc. And the LCU VPs you can lose there are huge. By 1943 the Pacific really comes into its own as a battlefield.

[Encircled]

I think it was mentioned pretty early on.

Larry goes "Right, my line in the sand is the West coast of India and the SE coast of Oz, All my LCU's, ships and troops will concentrate there and when its secure, we will move out, buiding bases as we go, but never forgetting the defence of these regions is key to us"

You go "Right, I'll make sure Hawaii and Tahiti are the same"

Couple of e-mails and its done!

(Up to you were you decide to have your bases btw!, I've no idea if the above is possible or even desirable with the current situation)

But you've got to do it before you make any more moves

[larryfulkerson]

It's not fun anymore.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

It's not fun anymore.

Playing the allies in early 42 isn´t about having fun! [:D] Its about being in survival mode and staving off AV with almost no assets to work with.

The fun will come if you survive 42. Things will probably get a lot worse before it gets better. As long as you survive 42 in pretty sure J3 will get himself in trouble. To my knowledge he has never gotten very far in the game and I doubt he has planned accordingly. His over aggressively gameplay sailing all around the map doing far flung invasion have a hefty price tag attached to it. But I doubt J3 realizes this.

Good luck!

[Encircled]

What Joc said!

You have to remember that the allies lost a shed load of territory and ships in real life as well.

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

It's not fun anymore.

Larry, It is a game. As the allies you have to take the punches for the first 6 months to a year. After that it is all your game.

Dont take the advice or the outcome of the game personally.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

It's not fun anymore.

You got grit. The fun will come. [8D]

[pws1225]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

It's not fun anymore.

+1 to what the others said. And remember old man, us geezers never say die. We just sinch up our Depends, gird our pasty white loins, and wait for our day to get revenge. And that day will come.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

It's not fun anymore.

Despite the references to history .. you are playing a scenario designed by IJFB's for IJFB's ..to try and prove how with some changes in history the IJ could have won ..

In my opinion .. it means even more roper dope with very judicious application of force ...not a full engagement of forces ..

Yes this is not very fun at all until 1944 when all hell breaks loose for the Allies [8D]

[witpqs]

Advice specific to this AE contest:

1) Don't eat yellow snow (hey, it's still winter!).

2) Buy back lost air groups that you are allowed to.

3) Set up (where still possible geographically) multiple lines of resistance and search. "Resistance" in this sense includes trivial combat power. The purposes are Intel (search plus defense revealing what he has where), resistance (prevent him from grabbing things for free), and safer passage (send your convoys a good distance behind your most forward line of resistance).

4) Decide upon 'die lines', places/lines where you will make him pay! Places where you will throw in the kitchen sink even if your wife is still using it. Best for these places to be at the long end of his supply lines, and/or super valuable to you. Suggestions include Hawaii, SE Australia, Karachi, Bombay. Bombay might be in the next section, though. Places in range of strat bombing factories in North America fall into this category, too.

5) There might be some areas where you decide to 'fight hard' and risk more, but you realize that you still need a way out and the place is not on a 'die line'. Madras and Calcutta come to mind as possible examples, there are certainly others, such as Bombay.

6) In parts of the ocean where you can no longer search effectively, use the map edge (cause him the most trouble and effort to find you), use off map (to frustrate his efforts entirely, perhaps even sending small, occasional bait convoys to keep him patrolling the map edge), use smaller convoys (to limit risk), use faster convoys, keep convoys spread out.

- If you decide to use off-map to get around the eastern Pacific that means Port Stanley, Falkland Islands off-map base. You will have to send a bunch of fuel there or suffer both delays and much out of fuel damage/losses of ships (remember that ships traveling between on-map and off-map do not get free off-map refueling, they use only the fuel in their TF).

- If you decide to use Cape Town, you will likely have to send fuel there until at least early '43. IMO sending many convoys from Cape Town to Perth will make John happy. Try Cape Town to southern or southeastern Australia instead.

7) Scenario level Intel - John has it because he wrote the mod. Set up a separate install of AE on your computer (instructions abound on the forum). Start a head to head game of the same scenario you are playing. You might have to run the first turn to get arriving units to show up in the queues. The point is, look around at the Japanese side to see what is there and what is coming. For example, you think that you know where all of his carriers are at the moment? Make sure you have accounted for them all. Don't worry about FOW. Variable unit arrival (if you used it) and variations in Japanese production will provide plenty of FOW.

8) Make sure your sub captains are competent. Later arriving subs almost all have good commanders, but starting and earlier arrivals not so much. Aggression is number one, then make sure they have decent naval, leadership, and inspiration ratings.

9) Keep him honest (and working hard) by using your subs to pop mines into various forward bases at various times. Big bases he is sure to have sweepers working, but if he gets lazy about his vigilance at other places, make him pay. Regarding big bases, in some places you can mine shallow water hexes on the approach to the bases where he might not be sweeping.

10) Check your subs on patrol occasionally for damage. Sometimes the game will keep them on patrol when their damage is too much.

11) For the most part, use big sub patrol zones where the sub pulls back away from enemy bases to lose DL that the enemy search and ASW efforts might have acquired.

12) Buy back many (most) destroyed ground units. Remember to change their command as soon as they arrive (it costs the least then). Just be wary about buying back units that will need squads you don't get enough of. You can change your mind and buy them back later.

13) Squad/device upgrades are very important. Use Tracker to look at squads and other devices to compare their firepower and other stats, like anti-soft, anti-hard, armor, and so on. You will notice that various upgrades provide massive increases in some of those stats, and that makes a huge difference in combat performance. Learn how to manage your pools of squads and devices so that you can get your units upgraded when possible. This topic is a bit involved so ask when you are looking into it.

Bonus) Train your pilots, then train them even more. Below are some specifics that I use. YMMV. In the interest of not typing a million word essay not all details of application to all air forces are presented, adapt as you see fit.

- Fighter Pilots. Train 100% Escort, Range 0 until they hit 70 Air skill. Then train them on CAP 100%, Range 0 until they hit 70 Experience. You can do those two steps in the same squadrons or dump the pilots in the reserve after step one and pull them into another squadron for step two. Keep in mind that you are training individual pilots, not squadrons (even though there will be times when you train a squadron quickly to get them deployed quickly). When on duty, a higher CAP % level will more quickly increase the pilots' Experience. Obviously you have to manage that by the situation, but semi-rearward bases (like usually Pearl Harbor) can have higher CAP % level settings.

- Torpedo Bomber Pilots. Train 100% Naval Attack with Use Torpedoes, Range 0, until at least 60 NavT skill (or higher if you like). It does not matter if the Use Torpedoes is red (meaning there is no HQ to make torpedoes available), they will train anyway with dummy torpedoes. Consider then also training in NavSearch (50 for USN, 30 for USMC), ASW (50 for USN, 20 for USMC), and Ground (50 for USN, as high as possible for USMC).

- Dive Bomber Pilots. Train 100% Naval Attack, Range 0, until at least 60 Nav skill. Then train in NavSearch (50 for USN, 30 for USMC), ASW (50 for USN, 20 for USMC), and Ground (50 for USN, as high as possible for USMC).

- Patrol (PBY-type and land based-type) Pilots and Float Place Pilots. I use the same standards as Dive Bomber Pilots. This simplifies finding my way through the reserve pool. Of course, in the early going there are plenty of PBY pilots that are trained only in NavS and ASW. I try to remedy that as PBY groups are withdrawn and brought back.

- Land Bomber Pilots, high level. Train in 100% Ground Attack, Range 0, at or above 5,000 ft until Ground skill 70.

- Land Bomber Pilots, low level. Train in Ground Attack, Range 0, at 1,000 ft until LowGround skill 60, then at 100 ft until Strafe skill 60. If you want to you can also train in Ground skill at 5,000 ft for high level ground skill. You will find that Attack Bombers suffer very high casualty rates when they attack at low level (3,000 ft or below). Your replacement pilots that you train later on might have lower skill levels! You can also train in Naval Attack at 1,000 ft to gain LowNav skill. You should have some groups equipped with pilots who are thus trained as they can/will absolutely wreck merchant convoys and CA or lesser warships (even carriers, possibly). The problem is that getting pilots trained up in high ground, low ground, strafing, and low naval takes a very long time and those pilots get lost quite quickly when on low level attack. Something to think about.

- Recon Pilots. Train in 100% Recon, Range 0, until Recon skill hits 50.

- Transport Pilots. Train in 100% Transport, Range 0, until Transport skill hits 50.

General notes on pilot training: Fighter pilots really need high Experience, and CAP 'training' does get their experience up. With other missions (bomber pilots, etc) I have not had much luck getting pilot Experience up except on actual missions (searching, recon, bombing, etc.). Make certain that your best fighters (such as P-47 when you get them) have pilots with Experience 70 or above and you will be rewarded with much better performance.

[ny59giants]

Things to look forward to:

Fall '42:
P-38s start coming out in greater numbers than in stock. John hates the damn things and with Symon's modification to airframe data, they will help you stem the tide.
P-40Ks come out with slight bump in numbers. They have the best stats of the 40 models.
First Fletchers arrive. [&o] Love these nasty DDs
10/42 is when your American fllet gets its massive fleet upgrades and you get rid of those lousy 1.1" AA guns for Bofors
12/42 is when you get three CVEs that are the beginning of that fload. Over 90 in game. [:)]

Spring '43:
B-24s come in in 2/43.
First Corsairs out in 2/43 (sligh increase in production) and Hellcats in 3/43 (I think I got my dates right as I'm in office)
First Essex Class CV - enough said
Strating in 12/42 through 3/43 you Allied infantry squads come out with the high Anti-Armor values. After you upgrade your divisions to these, the Japanese armor is doomed!!

As Allied player you need to look at beginning of month - new LCUs and airgroups. Around the 15th the navy and merchants come in in masse.

Hang in there guys!! (Insert picture of a cat hanging from tree limb here) [:D]

[moore4807]

I appreciate the outreach you guys have provided Larry (and myself).

I got his e-mail saying about the same thing as whats on here, I want to state I don't care if I lose 100 times rather than losing one friend!

I PM'ed a couple of the posters that I ranted at and I apologized, they were both classy gents and said no apology was necessary, but I want to chalk yesterday up to a bad day and get on with it... nuff said!

I'm gonna get the turns current as I just sent back the 1/10/42 turn to John, and yes there is some good news as well as bad in the Eastern Pacific... but as I told John today, I'm claiming Round 2!!!

[pws1225]

Hell yea! (that's Southern-speak for "I approve")

[moore4807]

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Jan 08, 42
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I said the other day I didn't want to tangle with his CV's, and I lost this fight... (Round 1 John called it!)

Morning Air attack on TF, near Johnston Island at 166,113
Weather in hex: Light cloud
Raid detected at 78 NM, estimated altitude 16,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 29 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 67
B5N1 Kate x 6
B5N2 Kate x 38
D3A1 Val x 37

Allied aircraft
F4F-3A Wildcat x 7
F4F-3 Wildcat x 12

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
D3A1 Val: 2 damaged

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-3A Wildcat: 1 destroyed
F4F-3 Wildcat: 2 destroyed

Allied Ships
CV Enterprise, Bomb hits 4, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
CA Salt Lake City
DD Balch
CA Chester, Bomb hits 2, Torpedo hits 1, heavy fires
CA Northampton, Bomb hits 1
DD Gridley
DD McCall
DD Ellet, Bomb hits 1, on fire
DD Benham

The revenge flight doesn't go off quite as planned...

Morning Air attack on TF, near Johnston Island at 165,117
Weather in hex: Overcast
Raid detected at 39 NM, estimated altitude 5,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 20 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 65

Allied aircraft
F4F-3A Wildcat x 16
SBD-2 Dauntless x 13
SOC-1 Seagull x 4
TBD-1 Devastator x 8

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-3A Wildcat: 3 destroyed
SBD-2 Dauntless: 8 destroyed
SBD-2 Dauntless: 1 destroyed by flak
SOC-1 Seagull: 1 destroyed
TBD-1 Devastator: 2 destroyed, 2 damaged

Japanese Ships
BB Hiei, Bomb hits 1
CVE Taiyo
BB Kirishima



It didn't take J3 long to move the Zeroes back into the Phillipines...

Morning Air attack on Manila , at 79,77
Weather in hex: Light rain
Raid detected at 119 NM, estimated altitude 24,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 39 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 8

Allied aircraft
P-40B Warhawk x 7

No Japanese losses

Allied aircraft losses
P-40B Warhawk: 2 destroyed


The Manila fighters do another round of bombing on enemy positions in Manila...

Morning Air attack on 21st Division, at 79,77 (Manila)
Weather in hex: Light rain
Raid spotted at 20 NM, estimated altitude 6,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 7 minutes

Allied aircraft
P-40B Warhawk x 1
P-40E Warhawk x 8

Allied aircraft losses
P-40E Warhawk: 7 damaged

Japanese ground losses:
8 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled

Manila still reported as under seige... light casualties, requesting supplies and ammo...


Combat Report enclosed

[larryfulkerson]

Somebody allowed Darwin to run completely out of fuel and there's thirsty ships there so I thought I'd start a series of convoys from
Melborne of fuel to bring them back up to speed. This first trip is taking about 9% of the fuel that was at Melborne so I hope it doesn't
take all that many convoys because there isn't all that much fuel available.

[DOCUP]

Larry your coming up on the best part of the game. I know its hard to take the beatings you have been and will receive.  Its a challenge to play the Allies in the early stages, but it is fun.  Your getting good advise from these guys.  I will lurk in the shadows.  Remember its a game, not real life.  Have fun.   Remember you can always take a day off from the game. It does help.

[zuluhour]

An eye opening shot of Wild Turkey on ice helps. You may want to try something faster to get fuel to the ships at Darwin, perhaps a long legged xAK with a large fuel bunker which is faster or closer to refuel them at sea. Is Darwin defendable? I think not. I would try to consolidate some of the smaller units behind Darwin and build Alice Springs. You can slice up his armor spear heads from there with B26s, B25s, and Fortresses. I would suggest fort building on the eastern ends of the Great Victoria Desert as well.

[Mike McCreery]

Zuluhour is right. If you look at the speed of the ships it is going to take 16 days for them to get to Darwin. By that time if J3 has not outright invaded the base he will be able to cover it from bases he has taken north of it.

I like to build up and use Townsville as it can get to a lvl 7 port. However, this early in the game, given J3's propensity to be aggressive you might want to look for something more easily defendable closer to Sydney.

He is going to take Horn Island and all of the bases on New Guinea at least in the beginning of the game. Essentially your route to Darwin would have to be from the other side at Perth to have a chance of getting through the channel after he puts an airforce at Port Moresby.

This is not criticism, it is the comments of people who have had it done to us before. I started loading ships to re-supply Darwin on my 1st day but by the time they got as far as Brisbane he already had the area covered and he will be invading Darwin shortly. We are at December 23, 1941 of my game.

I ended up diverting the supplies to Suva as there was no chance to get them up to Darwin in time.

[JocMeister]

Try to get at least one escort for the TF to Sydney. You can count on J3 having subs between Tasmania and OZ! Even a small AM/PB can help.