Turnaround? Lowpe (J) vs Tiemanj (A) Stock

[Lowpe]

April 6th, 1943

No night attacks.

A sub penetrate screens at Balikpapen, and gets a shot off on a big tanker, thankfully it misses, and then keeps dodging escorts until the afternoon when a few hits on it are scored. Flew a few more planes in to help dissuade the Allied submarines.

Sweep of Car Nicobar, and then heavy bombing. Damages some Jakes and Emilies. Madras has 3 destroyers, but no recon on the port. Allies jump their air transports to Calcutta again, and now there are two dozen fighters there too.

The last of the Artillery arrives at Changsha, and its reduction has begun. One of the Chinese corp there is over 700 AV, and I suspect forts are insane. No surprise with my fighters in China, the Chinese air force wasn't flying -- it doesn't most days, but I thought I had it timed.

Moving 2000 assault value west for the move on the mountains...I doubt I will be able to hook up in Burma but I am going to try.

[Lowpe]

A look at some upcoming land reinforcements.

The Burma HQ should have spawned at Rangoon a month or so ago...it will have a long trek to get to Burma. Might not even be in Burma by then!

The South Seas garrisons are very light troops...good for small garrisons in the PI I think or to prevent the rowboat corp from taking dot bases in the Marshalls/Solomons/DEI.

The Chinese reinforcements are most welcome...but they to will have a long walk. I will probably use them to clean up some straggling Chinese units that are attempting to cut supply lines, or in some cases have cut supply lines.

PP in the future are going to be used to attempt to form the 2nd tank division. The 2nd is scattered all over the Empire, but I will try to form it up in Burma. All but one splinter of the 3rd Tank is at Changsha, the final splinter is near Chengtu!

[Lowpe]

TOE upgrade goodness. I don't know how many Japanese players do this, I don't think I have seen it in any AAR anywhere, but I like looking at the TOE upgrades. This particular unit is due, and you can see it merely needs to rest in range of a command hq. Otherwise it would tell me the number of days before upgrade.

What a jump in strength. Just what I need in the Marianas! Now to add a 1000 fighters, mines, infantry divisions, and a full KB and I will be golden. Oh yes, let us not forget the mini subs.[:D]

[Lowpe]

Here is the easy way to find your TOE upgrades, simply sort on TOE on the all ground units button on the top bar. It will sort by number of days until the upgrade.

When I started playing this game, I though the number meant the device number. [:D] I would page thru tracker looking for device numbers that matched...

PS: Roi is slightly overstacked...

[Lowpe]

April 6, 1943

No night bombing.

Submarine wars. A patrol boat and an xak are engaged in an odd battle off Mindanao. In the replay on the xak took a shot or two at the surfaced submarine (damaged by a sub chaser yesterday). The PB dropped depth charges, with one finally hitting, but never fired her guns. The battle lasted quite a while and the sub took shots and launched many torpedoes before finally sinking. Plucky commander there...

In return a British hunter killer group nails an Iboat off Calcutta. The combat replay has the submarine sinking, but the clever Japanese commander tricked the British and made good his escape with 72 flooding damage about half of it is major. I will have another sub link up with the cripple and try to limp back to Moulmein.

The Allies now have 30 fighters at Calcutta and also Akyab guarding their shipping. The Allied transport fleet is now split between Calcutta and Prome (or it could be patrol planes at Prome). Anyhow, causing the Allies to guard their other airbases has weakened the fighter presence at Prome, to the point where I will be able to put fighters over the base hitting his bombers. Allied bombers hit both Prome and the Magwe push for minimal effect and a few losses.

Over in China some Zeroes catch the Chines bombers downing about 10. They were attempting to help the isolated Chinese 69th Corp but to no avail, as it was completely wiped out later in the day. Isolated Chinese troops surrender fast in the open.[:)]

Always a good day when the Allies lose more planes the Japan.[;)] Quiet elsewhere.

[Lowpe]

I am definitely getting anxious in Burma, as more and more Allied troops pour down the dirt trail. My troops north of the Magwe push are half way to the dirt trail, but lack the strength to win the hex and close the supply line. Will probably abort that move shortly.

I will send the IJN back to Akyab, and hopefully catch some planes there. I may attempt fighter sweeps at his spread out air force now too.

My troops look dangerously forward...but holding behind the river is all open terrain, and I would rather be bombed on jungle ridge terrain than there.

I am starting to think of retreating from Prome...does staying there get me anything? Lousy defensive terrain, I guess I can start bombarding again and wearing down his forces, unfortunately they also wear mine down too and he has better forts.

[Lowpe]

Plane builds:

I am building 9 Tojo IIc's a day. 270 a month. I do not plan on increasing this, so I need to be quite cautious with them. Considering my IJA fighter stocks were quite low prior to the Tojo IIc build coming online, I will never field a full IJA airforce until the Oscar IV and Tony KI-100I come on stream in the third and fourth quarter of 1943.

I do have adequate A6M5c's, 130 in the pool, construction turned off, but I lack IJN pilots since they have been suffering heavily in the absence of any decent IJA fighter. So, I need to be equally cautious here.

I also build 1 KAI Dinah and 1 Nick KAIa a day too. I had been thinking about eliminating the KAI Dinah, but got to thinking that one Sentai can splinter into three providing night fighting CAP at three different industry locations. They are not great, but they are definitely better than nothing. The Nick has the disturbing trait of actually closing with night bombers and subsequently they get shot down.

I build one Rufe every 3 days.

That is it. My fighter builds.

[Lowpe]

I have further refined my thinking on Burma and Magwe oil.

Once I cannot maintain naval command of the sea, and enough air command to protect those ships, I have no choice but to leave no matter what Magwe's oil production is at. The risk of losing the war, here on this front, is simply too great.

I am hoping the advent of the Monsoon hurts the Allies more than me, and that the appearance of the Tojo IIc will delay my withdraw from Burma as I do want that oil.

Prudence dictates developing stronger defenses here.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Plane builds:

I am building 9 Tojo IIc's a day. 270 a month. I do not plan on increasing this, so I need to be quite cautious with them. Considering my IJA fighter stocks were quite low prior to the Tojo IIc build coming online, I will never field a full IJA airforce until the Oscar IV and Tony KI-100I come on stream in the third and fourth quarter of 1943.

I do have adequate A6M5c's, 130 in the pool, construction turned off, but I lack IJN pilots since they have been suffering heavily in the absence of any decent IJA fighter. So, I need to be equally cautious here.

I also build 1 KAI Dinah and 1 Nick KAIa a day too. I had been thinking about eliminating the KAI Dinah, but got to thinking that one Sentai can splinter into three providing night fighting CAP at three different industry locations. They are not great, but they are definitely better than nothing. The Nick has the disturbing trait of actually closing with night bombers and subsequently they get shot down.

I build one Rufe every 3 days.

That is it. My fighter builds.

Fighters
IJN: Are you going with George or Jack? When do you get them? Either one will be a big help. Sometimes I even ground some of my CVE's/CVL's and convert their fighter groups to George to help out. A6M is just way past its prime at this point and A7M is too far away to even think of.

IJA: How soon will you get Frank?

NF's: I am always worried/planning these. Choices suck until so late and none of the IJN versions have armor. [:@] Do you have any R&D setup on any of the late models?

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Fighters
IJN: Are you going with George or Jack? When do you get them? Either one will be a big help. Sometimes I even ground some of my CVE's/CVL's and convert their fighter groups to George to help out. A6M is just way past its prime at this point and A7M is too far away to even think of.

George only. I will get the first one maybe 2 months early. Not ideal.

IJA: How soon will you get Frank?

Even worse timing than George. Far, far from ideal.

NF's: I am always worried/planning these. Choices suck until so late and none of the IJN versions have armor. [:@] Do you have any R&D setup on any of the late models?

I am r&d Irving, just to have something, but really Frances is my plane of choice here. No Denko. If I knew how good KAI Dinah was at disrupting these early night raids, without heavy losses, I would have skipped Irving all together.

Army Nick KAId, again to have something, Dinah for the big recon squadron that converts to it and nothing else, but most on the Peggy. When I picked up the game I had grave doubts about reaching the radar activation date for Randy.

So Frances and Peggy with a squadron of Dinahs thrown in.

[/quote]

Welcome aboard, you are the IJ expert (oops, apologies to Spidery, Obvert, Koniu, GreyJoy, Lok, MM and everyone else <no particular order there either> -- but I don't think anyone has as much end game experiene as Pax), feel free to rip apart this wildly unorthodox game.

My first foray in pbem, past nasty player, this game is a pickup from late July 42 after 4 IJA divisions were crushed on Java & the original quit. Game was a complete, utter, mess which I tried to document as well as I could.

I would like to think I turned the game around, but I fell short of my goal of getting Rangoon. Got everything else, and even a little more than I originally thought.

[Lowpe]

April 7th, 1943

No night attacks. During the day Mandalay is hit, runway gets 70 damage and a Dinah is toasted on the ground. The Magwe push is bombed by Blenheims, several damaged but none downed by AA.

Lots of Allied subs in the Mergui/Tavoy/Sabang triangle. ASW damages a few but nothing spectacular.

In the Bay of Bengal, I 169 merges with cripple I 160 only to be attacked by British or Australian AMs. I 169 takes 9 hits, but bravely protects I 160 and they will both try to limp to Moulmein where plenty of naval technicians stand ready to help, welding torches in hand.

Other than that quiet, more troops heading down the Burma road, very dangerous there.

[Lowpe]

Nothing exciting this turn. I am keeping my Burma fighters well back at hidden bases or heavily protected multiple bases. I will fight him on those terms.

In China he is moving a straggler in the open near Ichang. I wouldn't want to be those troops if the weather is clear.[:D]

Halted my vehicle production growth, is now at 211 and I have a whopping 500 in the pool. I don't see anyway around not having to expand it to 240, but as always go slowly when it comes to spending supply.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
My first foray in pbem, past nasty player, this game is a pickup from late July 42 after 4 IJA divisions were crushed on Java & the original quit. Game was a complete, utter, mess which I tried to document as well as I could.

I would like to think I turned the game around, but I fell short of my goal of getting Rangoon. Got everything else, and even a little more than I originally thought.

Been lurking since day 1. Think you are doing a great job of turning this around. As you say, your starting point was at best a disaster. I applaud your fortitude to even attempt this.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
George only. I will get the first one maybe 2 months early. Not ideal.

So July or thereabouts ... 3 months or so from now.

So, a couple of suggestions that you may or may not already have in place.

1. Get your Ha-45 engine factories revved up and going full bore. It is one of you key end game engines. Try and get 3 factories on it, get it R&D completed and then build up to about 360 (3x120). You'll use that at least, most likely a lot more.

2. Take a hard look at all available IJN fighter groups, tally them up. Getting them upgraded to George will help a lot. George can work for you into late '44 as a front line fighter. In 45/46 it still will work as a backstop fighter. Factor this in for how many factories you commit to George. Then, commit those factories now if you haven't already.

3. Remember that George is an SR3 fighter ... you need to learn how to work with those if you don't already know. Later fighters are even higher SR.

Then do the same for the Frank. You should have at least 9x30 on the Frank now. There are a lot of IJA units to equip with that.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

NF's: I am always worried/planning these. Choices suck until so late and none of the IJN versions have armor. [:@] Do you have any R&D setup on any of the late models?

I am r&d Irving, just to have something, but really Frances is my plane of choice here. No Denko. If I knew how good KAI Dinah was at disrupting these early night raids, without heavy losses, I would have skipped Irving all together.

Army Nick KAId, again to have something, Dinah for the big recon squadron that converts to it and nothing else, but most on the Peggy. When I picked up the game I had grave doubts about reaching the radar activation date for Randy.

So Frances and Peggy with a squadron of Dinahs thrown in.

My thoughts on NF's are pretty simple: they have to be able to catch a B29 or they aren't going to do much good. That eliminates a lot of the IJ NF's. Don't worry about the on board radar of any AC. When it goes active, great, it means you've almost made it to '46. [;)]

Sure, you have to start with Irving(IJN) as they are the first you get for quite a while. You hope that they will at least interfere with night bomb runs better than day fighters on night, and basically they will. That is until the B29's show up and leave them in the dust. At +360, the B29 is so much faster than either of those that they get at most one pass, and many times nothing. Therein lies the problem.

None of the IJN NF's get armor and that means you are going to lose quite a few. This doesn't bother me much because I don't really have that many groups that I can afford to convert to NF's.

That means for me, most of my NF's are going to be IJA groups. The Tony KAI is good EXCEPT for the engine which I cannot afford to build. So that means I go Dinah -> Randy. [:(] The only good news in this progression is that the engines are all easy and plentiful.

You can put the Irving into production now and you'll have something at least. You won't need many, 2 groups or so should be enough unless your opponent really starts going to Night Bombing which most don't until they get their B29's in early '44. By then, you will need quite a few NF groups which will still be Irving but your Dinah should be not too far away at that point. Once you get Dinah, start working on the Randy ... it isn't optimal, but not much more you can do.

And yes, any NF works better at night than most any regular fighter (equal exp pilots),

[Lowpe]

April 8th, 1943

Type 2 depth charges are definitely good things; like taking the jaws of life to that tin can and ripping her open. I was all set to proclaim this submarine my 750the ship sunk -- but it turns out that it the 752. I am sure a few will come off the list, but still making steady progress at sinking ships is a good thing.

[Lowpe]

No night bombing.

Allies target Raheng with two very large sweeps, which he also LRCAPs over with Corsairs. The Sweeping corsairs hit so hard, but the LR CAP Corsairs kind of trickle in and suffer losses.

While this is going on, Allied bombers heavily target the troops at Prome, Daly Waters (no escorts), the airfield at Ailinglaplap (marshalls).

Calcutta still host 40 fighters or so, plus air transports. Akyab is home to 150 planes equally divided amongst the three choices: ftr, bomber, aux.

So, I am trying to imply that I have the ability to either trap or hit his fighters with sweeps, where I am not going up against 250 fighters.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
George only. I will get the first one maybe 2 months early. Not ideal.

So July or thereabouts ... 3 months or so from now.

So, a couple of suggestions that you may or may not already have in place.

1. Get your Ha-45 engine factories revved up and going full bore. It is one of you key end game engines. Try and get 3 factories on it, get it R&D completed and then build up to about 360 (3x120). You'll use that at least, most likely a lot more.

I have got it, already, about 112 in pools, and building the factories nicely, but so far only two of them. I will look at swinging a third over...

2. Take a hard look at all available IJN fighter groups, tally them up. Getting them upgraded to George will help a lot. George can work for you into late '44 as a front line fighter. In 45/46 it still will work as a backstop fighter. Factor this in for how many factories you commit to George. Then, commit those factories now if you haven't already.

I will be switching some Zero factories over to George, but only closer to actual production. For now they will sit idle. I am hoping to have Sam J in early 45, perhaps even late 44.

3. Remember that George is an SR3 fighter ... you need to learn how to work with those if you don't already know. Later fighters are even higher SR.

What joy, SR 3. I need to learn SR 4.

Then do the same for the Frank. You should have at least 9x30 on the Frank now. There are a lot of IJA units to equip with that.

Ooops here. I do have 270 factories dedicated to the Frank, but unfortunately it is far short of 9 factories....they are more like 2 size 30 factories and a few mutant ones. Can you say huge...does huge describe a 130 r&d factory?

My air strategy is no way shape or means streamlined. I have purposefully under built in 42 (at least the half year I was in charge), am not challenging the Allies for air dominance but rather contesting every now and then, and really playing for the final generation fighters.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
My thoughts on NF's are pretty simple: they have to be able to catch a B29 or they aren't going to do much good. That eliminates a lot of the IJ NF's. Don't worry about the on board radar of any AC. When it goes active, great, it means you've almost made it to '46. [;)]

Sure, you have to start with Irving(IJN) and the Helen(IJA) as they are the first you get for quite a while. You hope that they will at least interfere with night bomb runs better than day fighters on night, and basically they will. That is until the B29's show up and leave them in the dust. At +360, the B29 is so much faster than either of those that they get at most one pass, and many times nothing. Therein lies the problem.

None of the IJN NF's get armor and that means you are going to lose quite a few. This doesn't bother me much because I don't really have that many groups that I can afford to convert to NF's.

That means for me, most of my NF's are going to be IJA groups. The Tony KAI is good EXCEPT for the engine which I cannot afford to build. So that means I go Helen -> Dinah -> Randy. [:(] The only good news in this progression is that the engines are all easy and plentiful.

You can put the Helen KAI into production now and you'll have something at least. You won't need many, 2 groups or so should be enough unless your opponent really starts going to Night Bombing which most don't until they get their B29's in early '44. By then, you will need quite a few NF groups which will still be Helen (with some Irving, but again IJN groups are so few), but your Dinah should be not too far away at that point. Once you get Dinah, start working on the Randy ... it isn't optimal, but not much more you can do.

And yes, any NF works better at night than most any regular fighter (equal exp pilots),

Helen KAI? In my game it is a decent transport, armed pretty much with rifle caliber guns. Tony KAI is also simply a fighter. Can you use these as night fighters with no penalty? That is news to me...

Obvert had really good success with Frances, even though it is slower than B29. My playing of downfall tends to jive with Obvert's findings.

Peggy is unknown territory, but she has a big gun, and is faster than Nick, if just. I am suffering a little buyers remorse in my investment in Irving, but I have been pummeled time again by night bombers. And if it can protect industry in 43, well then so much the better.

I plan on converting every squadron possible to ngiht fighters and also staffing them with tracom pilots until I run out.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
[Ooops here. I do have 270 factories dedicated to the Frank, but unfortunately it is far short of 9 factories....they are more like 2 size 30 factories and a few mutant ones. Can you say huge...does huge describe a 130 r&d factory?

Ouch. As I understand it, once an RnD factory is 30, it maxes out its contribution of 1%/day. So, 130 is way overkill. Now, when it switches to production you will get the full 130 benefit. Until then though ... you may wish to put another factory or two for RnD. And of course get your Ha45 pools up to 500 ASAP to get the engine bonus.

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
My air strategy is no way shape or means streamlined. I have purposefully under built in 42 (at least the half year I was in charge), am not challenging the Allies for air dominance but rather contesting every now and then, and really playing for the final generation fighters.

I generally take a similar strategy. Tojo is a good fighter in 42/43, but you cannot win the war with it as you cannot invade LA. By 44 it is ok and in 45 it is just too slow. Shinden/Frank/Ki83/ etc are competitive air frames albeit high SR, but you have to have supply to build the factories and then HI to build the aircraft. If you have squandered that on Tojo, then Tojo is all you have ....