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

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

40 4Es...thats almost a full month worth of replacements! Not bad for a single day I would say. [:)]

The build rate is 38 according to Tracker, but there is a replacement rate too, because my spreadsheet show roughly a 100 planes each month.

Turn is away...and I have set up a forward CAP trap at Hirosaki, I simply do not have enough fighters to protect Honshu, chase the Deathstar, sweep the Allies while it seems the Allies have limitless planes, especially cv planes.

I withdrew two fighter units today, both Navy. In March I get a good upgrade to Army fighter strength, and in July (if I make it that far, there is a big withdraw of Navy fighters.

Set up my traps for the Deathstar again this day. Someday something will fly.

[Lowpe]

There are a lot of ways to use Allied bombers, but flying into some of the better protected area of Honshu doesn't seem so great this soon.

Here is the spreadsheet with some of the more interesting planes on it. Tracker shows 700 skytrains destroyed, maybe I shouldn't be so worried about a huge paratroop operation? Eh, probably should.

[Lowpe]

Here is a look at upcoming planes. I had wanted to build some, especially a squadron of Lorna, alas it is not to be.

I really underestimated my DB and TP plane production. I am building 4 TP a day (should be double that at least), and currently 8 DB a day. In march I will build 16 DB a day which will be better. Given my CV losses, my TP fleet has never recovered and I think the Jill may be a solid Kamikaze with great range. Too late to change now.

All these neat planes, and I won't be able to build any. Oh well.

[Lokasenna]

He also has a few hundred of the Commonwealth version of the C-47, plus a couple hundred between the C-86 and C-87... and don't forget that Catalinas (and Coronados) can paradrop as well with good range.

In any case, I still think you blew up a lot of B-24s. About a month's production, and with that many destroyed, how many are damaged and on the ground? Excellent day. I'd be surprised if he kept those groups flying for the next one.

[Lowpe]

Feb 25, 1944

Allies quiet over Honshu. Heavy bombing the jungle block west of Bangkok. My closest reinforcements have covered 25 miles so far, but I really need to get at least on AA unit there which has covered on a dozen miles.

Lost 100 planes to the Deathstar. I did get 7 kamikaze Helens thru, they missed and or got shredded by TF AA.

My surface fleet, about 40 ships spread across three task forces is 12 hexes away from them if they make for Guam. I probably can get in one or two more air strikes, and if lucky a naval strike. I gotta get something here...

[KenchiSulla]

Don't let yourself be discouraged when using FLAK. I've watched a lot of replays and if anything they decrease accuracy.... it is worth it!

[Lowpe]

What me, discouraged? Perish the thought, I have caused the Allies to thrust their neck into the noose. Muhahaha![:D]


Well, I am trying another heavily escorted strike on Sapporo with 24 kamikaze Myojo -- all have training above 55; swept by 50 Georges first, and escorted by 150 fighters versus his 100 plane CAP. Maybe this time!

Frances turn against the Deathstar, escorted by George and Franks. Nothing less than a 70 skill...

10 Destroyers trying to hit the Deathstar this turn, 30 more ships tomorrow...

Turn is away...

[Lowpe]

Feb 26, 1944

No night attacks.

My destroyer squadron ends up 4 hexes short of hitting the Deathstar, they get hit in the afternoon. The Kongo's and destroyers are now 8 hexes from the Deathstar, but spotted with a 10/10DL. He can't know how much is there, but with 8 hexes to cover, and no surprise, not much chance of a surface intercept.

Franks don't fly in the morning raid on the Deathstar and the CAP breezes past the Georges flying escort to shoot down 17 Frances in the morning, an afternoon raid gets all the CAP flying, and they sweep ahead, but none of the 7 or so Frances make it thru the CAP to make runs on the Deathstar.


No joy in Sapporo; Myojo had 55-65 training in LowNav and couldn't hit despite good protection from the escorts.

[Lowpe]

In China, we continue doing good work. We wipe out Yenan, and in another battle destroy another Corp in the the once might 16 unit force near the Changsha triangle which is now down to 4 units.

For some reason I thought Yenan had a little generic supply, around 20, but not so in this scenario 1 game.

[Lowpe]

I am flying out trying to do some good, again this turn. We shall see what happens as Helen Kamikazes make a go at it again, and also Oscar Kamikazes and Nells will attempt a long range strike on some Allied convoys.

Upgraded another Sentai to Franks....rebuilt my convoys, and of course, training and moving troops.

D4Y4 reach 100 percent research, so it will start production on March 1, doubling my DB production. Desperately needed!

Allies have been quiet over Honshu for the last two days, so I guess that ill advised daytime raid on Nagaoka did hurt him. Not even sweeps.

[ny59giants]

Allied 4e bombers need about a week of rest following two days of action. Especially, if the range starts to get up there.

Add in, he is probably moving BFs and other support units closer to the front to give him max coverage of Honshu.

If he plans to invade Honshu, those four most northern bases will be subject to massive 2e bomber attacks in the days ahead. How many troops are you planning to leave up there??

If I was your opponent, I would be working on capture of a few more bases in Kurile to secure my LOC with USA while troops prep for those two bases in northern Honshu that are in clear terrain.

[Lowpe]

I have been experimenting with my air strikes a lot. A lot of my experiments fail, but so what?

Normally I set the escorts to the same altitude of the bombers, but I have been playing with how much can I fly higher, and what does this do to time to engagement time, etc.

In the latest attack, a squadron of Frances flew at 30K, Franks at 33K and two sentai of Georges at 41K. Unfortunately for me, the Franks, which were close to the Frances in altitude didn't fly (weather was poor over target, and their morale wasn't 99).

The local CAP engaged the Georges for mere moments, and then was past them and into the Frances. Even though my poor Frances pilots took it on the chin, I thought this was a great outcome. I found it fascinating that the Georges, flying 10K over the Frances, were able to coordinate for the raid, and also pretty neat that the CAP was able to swoop in and nail the Frances with only minimal interference from the Georges.

So now I am wondering what the effect of a layered escort would be like. Bombers set for 15K, for example, and four Sentai of fighters set for 15, 16, 17, 18? Here the thought is the swooping CAP will have to go thru layers of escorts before reaching the bombers.

In addition, I have tested having the escorts at 2k and 3k over the bombers, and they seem to perform very well with nothing out of the ordinary with flight coordination happening. This might in fact be the optimal strike package setting, but I am looking forward to layering the escorts.

Of course I am not being hideously scientific doing these experiments, but I find them fun and rewarding.

I find the entire plane/combat model to be very fascinating game within a game. There are so many gray areas where you need to think about what happened and watch the combat replay to infer what is happening. Tactics that worked yesterday, might not work tomorrow as there are so many variables.

Simply fascinating.[:)]

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Allied 4e bombers need about a week of rest following two days of action. Especially, if the range starts to get up there.

Add in, he is probably moving BFs and other support units closer to the front to give him max coverage of Honshu.

If he plans to invade Honshu, those four most northern bases will be subject to massive 2e bomber attacks in the days ahead. How many troops are you planning to leave up there??

If I was your opponent, I would be working on capture of a few more bases in Kurile to secure my LOC with USA while troops prep for those two bases in northern Honshu that are in clear terrain.

I have got about 600-1000 AV in those 4 bases with more on the way. Heck, to a degree I am still just getting some combat troops in all the ports on Honshu.[X(] Personally, I think he will go for the bases closer to Tokyo on the big central plains (Iwaki, Sendai, Ustonomyia, Chiba). That way he could be in Tokyo sooner rather than later and leverage his tanks better.

Command, Army and Corp HQ prepping for Hachinohe. Lots of HQ prepping for the defense of other open terrain.

If after taking Kushiro and Bihoro, the Allies focused on recon, they could have easily been on Honshu as for the most part the only troops there were the freshly formed depot divisions plus a few restricted divisions. There were many empty ports to choose from![X(]

I have no idea how I will stop a 5 division invasion, backed up by relentless bombing and bombardment, but I will try. Radar did it, so maybe I can too.[;)] My goal is to have 3 Divisions plus on the most likeliest spots, hefty reserve force to rail in. It will be tough, and I think he is making a mistake not pounding those bases now to prevent fort building.

[vicberg]

He might take more of the Kuriles, but based on his play he's not worrying about much. To take his Deathstar around Western Japan without LBA support says everything. The high air losses you inherited in the beginning are now coming to fruition. Radar was able to keep Greyjoy at bay because he had large air reserves, which eventually destroyed Greyjoy's Deathstar (though there was a bug in the engine that allowed it).

Is there a line of death for invading Japan itself, similar to invading US or lower OZ? If there isn't, that's a flaw. I'm seeing more and more attacks now by Allied players on Hokkaido.

[Lowpe]

You get 10 depot divisions. They aren't great, start with 35 morale I believe, and you also get kamikazes which I haven't really been able to master yet.

If you can get here this early in the game, so much of the strength of Japan for the endgame simply isn't present so it is quite hard. I get about 17 AA units in the next 30-60 days, would be nice to have them already, but such is life.

He could have as easily landed on Honshu from the get go.

Radar was scenario two, 2-3 months later, and scenario 2 the plane factories are a lot more, plus more ground troops! Plus he was playing prepatch which coordinated air strikes better, and he had a full KB. And a HR against night bombing.

In Radar's game, I think GreyJoy muffed in not shutting down the resource flow to Honshu and really focusing his bombing campaign. Hopefully this game mirrors that a little...it seems like it might, so maybe I can trap a lot of Allied units on the beaches...


Currently only have 8000 AV on all of Honshu. Radar stopped three invasions, two of 6K each, and one of 2K, plus he had 8K in reserves. Hard to see how I can amass that much by September, and I won't have until September.

In the next 90 days I will get a less than 2000AV of Infantry, not all of it Honshu. I will be able to bring back 3-6 divisions equivalents from China, CentPAC. Maybe I can get more back...especially from China.

[vicberg]

Here's the problem. The Kuriles, if started early, can be a very strong defensive area. Requires completely built up airfields and forts, but it is still vulnerable and very close to Alaska and other bases. Relatively short supply lines. This doesn't include Marcus from being a staging point. Wake and Marcus are both very difficult to stop. Even with level 9 forts on both, they are too far from interlocking air bases. I wonder if Marcus alone can be enough to start a Hokkaido campaign.

Are you playing with stacking limits? That would have made a difference.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: vicberg

Here's the problem. The Kuriles, if started early, can be a very strong defensive area. Requires completely built up airfields and forts, but it is still vulnerable and very close to Alaska and other bases. Relatively short supply lines. This doesn't include Marcus from being a staging point. Wake and Marcus are both very difficult to stop. Even with level 9 forts on both, they are too far from interlocking air bases. I wonder if Marcus alone can be enough to start a Hokkaido campaign.

Are you playing with stacking limits? That would have made a difference.

Anywhere can be a strong defensive area, but then you sacrificing somewhere else. Allies will use their intel to pick the path of least resistance.

Stock game with SL on islands. But SL and reduced cargo would probably have made the invasion more difficult. Well, maybe not, he did come with over 1000 ships of which I spotted no more than 10 or 20 or 30 a turn. Might make the conquest go a little slower however.

I had a division, a brigade, and two tank regiments on Hokkaido and a Brigade on each of the two islands. I needed five times that, which I wasn't even close to having. To be honest, he could have conquered Honshu.

Once the KB is gone, or out of position, katie bar the door.

[Lowpe]

Feb 27, 1944

A couple of two engine bombers make a run on Maebashi, testing the defenses I guess.

Allied bombers return over eastern Honshu, where they have a field day. 4Es bomb the troops at Sendai, an ominous sign. Recon by bombing or will that be an invasion sight or merely misinformation?

Allies used Jugs to sweep: we do well at Saipan and not so well at Nagaoka, for the day Japan loses 60 total planes while Allies lose 35 including 10 Jugs.

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

I have been experimenting with my air strikes a lot. A lot of my experiments fail, but so what?

Normally I set the escorts to the same altitude of the bombers, but I have been playing with how much can I fly higher, and what does this do to time to engagement time, etc.

In the latest attack, a squadron of Frances flew at 30K, Franks at 33K and two sentai of Georges at 41K. Unfortunately for me, the Franks, which were close to the Frances in altitude didn't fly (weather was poor over target, and their morale wasn't 99).

The local CAP engaged the Georges for mere moments, and then was past them and into the Frances. Even though my poor Frances pilots took it on the chin, I thought this was a great outcome. I found it fascinating that the Georges, flying 10K over the Frances, were able to coordinate for the raid, and also pretty neat that the CAP was able to swoop in and nail the Frances with only minimal interference from the Georges.

So now I am wondering what the effect of a layered escort would be like. Bombers set for 15K, for example, and four Sentai of fighters set for 15, 16, 17, 18? Here the thought is the swooping CAP will have to go thru layers of escorts before reaching the bombers.

In addition, I have tested having the escorts at 2k and 3k over the bombers, and they seem to perform very well with nothing out of the ordinary with flight coordination happening. This might in fact be the optimal strike package setting, but I am looking forward to layering the escorts.

Of course I am not being hideously scientific doing these experiments, but I find them fun and rewarding.

I find the entire plane/combat model to be very fascinating game within a game. There are so many gray areas where you need to think about what happened and watch the combat replay to infer what is happening. Tactics that worked yesterday, might not work tomorrow as there are so many variables.

Simply fascinating.[:)]

Don't know if you have previously seen this thread

tm.asp?m=3308618&mpage=1&key=cooperation&#3308820

but I think you might derive value from my post where I differentiate between coordination and cooperation. Definitely read the linked thread I provided. That link has a lengthy discussion from LoBaron (and don't overlook his post #42 in the link) on coordination. When it comes to aircraft issues you can't do better than pay close attention to his posts. Unless of course one of the air team devs themselves chip in.

Technically there is no layering of escorts for coordination. Unless the escort is assigned the exact same altitude as that assigned for the bomber, there is no trigger in the code for the coordination checks and outcome to occur. At best you can then only look forward to cooperation. What is taken into account for the latter is raised in the two threads.

Alfred

[Alfred]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

... It doesn't take many B24Js to be devastating when bombing at 5K in this case I think it was 9 (and I managed to bring one down prior to release)...

If you are getting many of the "beasties" flying in packets of only 9 airframes, that could mean one of the following circumstances exist

• the unit failed the experience/leadership/morale test
• insufficient aviation support at the launching airfield
• an over stacked airfield

Alfred