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

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter
These E babies don't look like much to get excited about from an Allied perspective.

But for JFBs', you see, we have much lower expectations![:D]

Any port in a storm, you know.

[ny59giants]

Don't forget to check each of your "E" for leaders. They come out with lousy experience and it will be the ships captain and TF commander's qualities that make them successful. They don't cost many PPs.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Don't forget to check each of your "E" for leaders. They come out with lousy experience and it will be the ships captain and TF commander's qualities that make them successful. They don't cost many PPs.

I have changed most of my better ships, especially those that I have tasked as hunter killers! Great advice.[&o]

Here are the 10 knot sub chasers. They use a lot of fuel considering how fast they steam! I used to just set these guys in ports with 2 hex reactions, but now I have gone to using them extensively in troop and supply convoys to the Islands around Japan. Stick 7 or so in a task force, and nothing has ever bothered the merchants. Seems to work really well, but is restricted to short range use really.

Every ship has a use, except for maybe the early SSTs.

I like these Sub Chasers. [:)] But, then again, I am strange as I like Japan.[:D][:D]

[Lowpe]

And finally, the greatest three ships for escorting Tonan Whalers or other large and fast tankers. Don't lose these guys early on, but they do make good Amphibious ship leaders too early on.

[obvert]

I don't care what their stats are, but they work. There are a lot of them which is the most important thing. Suddenly you have too many escorts and you can run hunter-killer groups. The 3inch ASW mortar is the difference I think which the Etorofu also have. It's effective deep and these guys just seem to kill whatever they attack if the DL is high. Best combined with lots of air search.

[Lowpe]

I finally found a post showing B29 losses in Obvert's game vs. Jocke.

Up until late September the primary night fighter was only the first Irving. No Nicks at all. You can see this particular night must be darn near the initial Dinah NF debut, and from reading I believe Obvert stuffed that first group with good pilots to boot.





At the beginning of the year Obvert had 12K plane losses, almost 20K lost in 1944.[X(][X(]

[Lowpe]

Since group-think here thinks my Vehicles very low, and I guess you can include me in that group think. What are the deleterious effects of having low vehicle points.

As I understand it, a new vehicle costs 1 vehicle point and 1 manpower per load value of the vehicle in question.

Here is a look at my AFV's courtesy of Tracker. Please note, most tank shortages come from the two Regiments that were trashed and all but destroyed in the fighting prior to Chiang Mai, and then at Chiang Mai, and then thru the long retreat to Raheng.




I wonder why the vickers has such a high load cost? Scarcity?

[Lowpe]

Ok, I don't think AFVs are that bad, the only below strength are at Raheng and at Chungking.

But here is a look at the other vehicles:

[Lowpe]

Now, then, that doesn't look so good. But at least some of the shortage is because I have turned off reinforcements.[:)]

Now, here is the potentially major deleterious effect:

When a reinforcing unit becomes active, you must pay for the troops and vehicles. If you don't have enough in the pools, the unit will start at 25% starting strength to represent emergency mobilization. Which means units might take several weeks to build up to full strength and you might lose any nifty experience they enter with (not sure about the latter).

So you want to have generous pools when there is a fresh unit coming in with lots of vehicles. This may cause me to micromanage my vehicle pool closely.[:-]

Now, a second nasty effect is the under strength Artillery as it becomes very fragile in battle.

And a third is the in general lower support available to the troops which impact in reducing fatigue, disruption, etc, etc.

Here is the tracker chart for vehicles...My red pool of vehicles is pretty much base lined around 0. I can see the incoming demand quite nicely, i.e. when the units appear.



I didn't think of this until now, but at the end game, when supplies are super tight, perhaps if you set all your devices to stockpile right prior to a big infantry unit coming on as a reinforcement (and you don't need the AV), you would get the unit at one quarter strength, subsequently eating only 1/4 the supplies? No idea if that would work.

[Lowpe]

And for comparison here is the armaments chart, where I am in seriously good shape.

[Lowpe]

And the final deleterious effect is that if my vehicle factories are bombed out, there is no pool available to draw from. Back to the shoeleather express for everyone!

But come on, how many AFBs bomb the vehicle factories? Sure, they bomb manpower and that can trash any factory, but actually target vehicles?

And finally, I can't see any way shape or form I can last until Russian activation where vehicles are eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.[:D]



The usual outcome when Japanese armor meets American armor.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

And the final deleterious effect is that if my vehicle factories are bombed out, there is no pool available to draw from. Back to the shoeleather express for everyone!

But come on, how many AFBs bomb the vehicle factories? Sure, they bomb manpower and that can trash any factory, but actually target vehicles?

And finally, I can't see any way shape or form I can last until Russian activation where vehicles are eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner.[:D]

The usual outcome when Japanese armor meets American armor.

That is seriously great pic! Ha!

Nothing like photography to give the real perspective on things.

You might be okay on vehicles as long as you don't lose full divisions like I did. It's the late divisions in the HI that eat up most of it adding to your combat losses. If you can build a small pool it could keep you ahead until 45 at least when you'll never have enough. Again though, those divisions are on the HI so you can just turn off replacements and keep your necessary troops in vehicles if you want to.

[Spidery]

June 1944 you will be wanting about 8000 vehicle points to upgrade from the Type 1 medium tank to the Type 3. Going from a so-so tank to one of the best tanks in the game. You might stockpile Type 1 until then so you can avoid building tanks that are just going to be upgraded. You'll get the vehicle points back when the replaced Type 1 tanks are recycled but that is not until the end of 1944.

[Lowpe]

Jan 2, 1943

No night bombing. Speaking of which, another Navy squadron comes in a few scant days, raising my total of Navy night fighters to 3 squadrons of 18, 18, and 20 planes. They are all flying the Irving Sa, which is the three gun version and will have radar in 6 months. Nick D will start production in several days, and I have found only two squadrons I can immediately upgrade to it (4th and 5th Sentai) with 36 and 42 planes respectively (they both resize to 49 in March 44). The 4th Sentai is restricted to General Reserve, but that is okay.

The 4th and 5th are both in Nick FBs now, which I stopped production of, so these planes will probably end up going to some freshly converted bomber to FB squadrons I have my eye on. I like them for rear area bomber defense.

The rest of the Army NFs:

53rd Sentai 49 planes (4/44) goes to Nick D
14th Sentai 27 planes goes to Peggy I
81st Chutai 12 planes goes to III KAI Dinah
82nd Chutai 9 planes goes to III KAI Dinah

106, 107th, 16th IF Chutai are all reinforcements around October.

I have seen the 28th Sentai as a night fighting squadron, but for the life of me I can't find it. Can't find squadrons that join up to form it.

Back to the war: Helens raid Akyab, and I lose 3 to flak. Allies unfortunately moved out their airplanes (20 bombers, and 37 aux) so I pretty much have to settle for other damage. You may say what is the point, but the Allied 4Es bomb Udon Thani and Vientiane leaving my troops alone which is good because the TOE of the AA present in the ground troops was able to repair from a battered 25% to 50% given the days respite. Also, I just want to do offensive things to keep the Allies dedicating part of their forces to defense.

[Lowpe]

Indochina/Burma:

Allies don't bomb any troops. It may be a fatigue thing, or it maybe the weather. The George sweep doesn't fly (Pegu), and Chungking isn't bombed, so perhaps weather.

The Allies settle for bombardments across the front, and in general Japan gets the better of it. The 1st Tank Div arrives in the Moulmein/Bangkok defensive positions, and their presence will allow the swapping of the weary 1st Division out to be replaced by the fresh heavy 4th ID.

Tavoy gets fast transported in supplies, and a BB bombardment force is standing off, within range, but has 3 detection. I might re-route to something else or simply retreat.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Spidery

June 1944 you will be wanting about 8000 vehicle points to upgrade from the Type 1 medium tank to the Type 3. Going from a so-so tank to one of the best tanks in the game. You might stockpile Type 1 until then so you can avoid building tanks that are just going to be upgraded. You'll get the vehicle points back when the replaced Type 1 tanks are recycled but that is not until the end of 1944.

Great advice.[&o]

Will need to examine it, and see what I can turn off.

[Lowpe]

Sub activity: I lose a PB fast transporting supplies, and an E, one of the W-19 class Es that had two hits on a sub yesterday and ran out of ammo. I have noticed, that once a DD, or E runs out of ammo they are very vulnerable. The E was returning to port with 3 other Es (3 with ammo, led by an Etorofu) and was shot at twice, with the second sub getting the hit.

In return, bombers nailed the Hoe (Gato class) of Dinagat. At least it shows sunk for now.



1943 sub losses, the December reports are somewhat iffy.

[Lowpe]

Chungking

Big attack tomorrow. Forts are at 2, Chinese raw AV at 2000. Hopefully the weather clears and I get a good day of bombing in. Will try the Myojo divebombers for the first time. Not great ground skill, but they are there to eat up more supply primarily.

You can see the scattered Chinese units all around, If I can grab Chungking I will need to wipe them out, a long process. Several are totally surrounded.

If I can take Chungking, that really improves my strategic position!



Just seems a shame it comes down to huge stacks. However, if there were stacking limits, and China was getting destroyed units back at Chungking overstacking the base that would be pretty bad too.

[Lowpe]

Just a quick note on pilot training. Tracker's chart told me the cost in HI at the beginning of the month should be 54K; however, actually cost was 39K.

You see, I have run out of Navy pilots and pull them from the school prematurely. Doesn't really hurt the pilots or the training school any since Tracom has really upped their skill set.

But it did save me over 10K in HI.

Is this a cheat? Don't know, but I do need the pilots. If I remember correctly, I had pull the Navy pool of 10-12 month trainees down to like 1-200. Today, after the new month and some more Tracom wonders it is back up to 1000 at 41 experience.

I graduated 0 Navy pilots this month into the replacement pool.[X(]

[JocMeister]

Wonder how many VPs it will net you? Hopefully enough to prolong the game for a month or two. [:)]