Did I wake that giant AGAIN? vicberg(j) vs. BillBrown(A) - No Bill Pls

[vicberg]

August 14th, 1942

The Cold War is officially heating up
It looks like we may have a confrontation soon in the South Pacific. It's a good thing I was expecting it. In the North, I bombard Dutch Harbor. In the South he has 2 Bombardment fleets go against Suva and 1 against Nadi. I didn't have the juice there to put up much of a fight so I pulled the bulk of the Air Groups out the turn before. KB is a couple of days away from Yokohama and will steam south. I'm not too much in a rush right now. I do have a lot of juice from Noumea to Luganville, enough to defend for a while and I have 2 Infantry divisions on Truk and 1 on Saipan. I'm actually hoping he invades and then I'll take it back. This time, I'm going to take the surrounding bases and attempt to isolate Pago Pago. The operations will be in SoPac now.


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Night Naval bombardment of Dutch Harbor at 171,50 - Coastal Guns Fire Back!

11 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Japanese Ships
BB Yamashiro
BB Fuso
CA Myoko, Shell hits 1
CA Chokai
CA Maya
CA Takao
DD Hatakaze
DD Harukaze
DD Kamikaze
DD Nowaki
DD Urakaze
DD Tokitsukaze

Allied ground losses:
75 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 5 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 13 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
Guns lost 20 (2 destroyed, 18 disabled)

Port hits 6
Port fuel hits 3
Port supply hits 1

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Night Naval bombardment of Suva at 132,160 - Coastal Guns Fire Back!

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
H6K4 Mavis: 1 damaged
H6K4 Mavis: 1 destroyed on ground
A6M3b Zero: 7 damaged
A6M3b Zero: 1 destroyed on ground
D3A1 Val: 2 damaged
D3A1 Val: 1 destroyed on ground

12 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
BB New Mexico
BB Idaho
BB Pennsylvania
BB Arizona
DD Harwood
DD Hart
DD Monaghan
DD Aylwin
DD Farragut
DMS Dorsey

Japanese ground losses:
698 casualties reported
Squads: 3 destroyed, 1 disabled
Non Combat: 17 destroyed, 56 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 4 disabled
Guns lost 4 (2 destroyed, 2 disabled)

Resources hits 2
Airbase hits 13
Airbase supply hits 4
Runway hits 25
Port hits 15
Port supply hits 1

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Night Naval bombardment of Suva at 132,160 - Coastal Guns Fire Back!

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M3b Zero: 7 damaged
D3A1 Val: 2 damaged

5 Coastal gun shots fired in defense.

Allied Ships
CA San Francisco
CA Minneapolis
CA New Orleans
DD Perkins
DD Conyngham
DD Lamson
DD Drayton

Japanese ground losses:
520 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Non Combat: 5 destroyed, 34 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 6 disabled

Resources hits 1
Airbase hits 7
Runway hits 35
Port hits 13

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Night Naval bombardment of Nadi at 131,160

Japanese aircraft
no flights

Japanese aircraft losses
E13A1 Jake: 5 damaged
B5N2-C Kate: 3 damaged

Allied Ships
BC Constellation
CA Algerie
CL Nashville
CL Phoenix
DD Cummings
DD Lang
DD Wilson

Japanese ground losses:
506 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 3 disabled
Non Combat: 8 destroyed, 28 disabled
Engineers: 1 destroyed, 7 disabled

Airbase hits 19
Airbase supply hits 11
Runway hits 82
Port hits 31
Port supply hits 10

[ny59giants]

If they're not sunk yet, put all your minelaying subs (I-121 to 124) together in a TF and send them to SoPac.

[vicberg]

August 15th, 1942

SoPac
We have a situation around Suva. Numerous surface bombardments from the Allies again Nadi plus an invasion. I have a solid defensive line between Luganville and Noumea with Nettie, Kate and Val Squadrons ready. More air groups and surface fleets are in transit. 1 CarDiv (Amagi/Akagi/Juno and 3 CVL) are in transit to Truk. The other 2 CarDivs are 1 day away from Yokohama, will refuel and go immediately down to Truk. I'm preparing 3 IDs in Truk and Saipan for SoPac.

I have a question though before I pull the trigger on this next turn. I have 2 surface fleets in Noumea. Both show 10 movement. That's twice per turn, correct? so they move 10 and then another 10 at full speed?

Morning Air attack on TF, near Nadi at 131,160

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid detected at 74 NM, estimated altitude 10,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 26 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 24

Allied aircraft
Martlet II x 10
F2A-3 Buffalo x 6

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty: 8 destroyed, 3 damaged
G4M1 Betty: 1 destroyed by flak

No Allied losses

Allied Ships
DD Grayson
DD Helm
xAP Van Rees, Torpedo hits 1, and is sunk
xAK Unicoi, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AP Henderson, Torpedo hits 2, heavy damage
CA Vincennes
APD Little

Allied ground losses:
323 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Non Combat: 15 destroyed, 6 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
Guns lost 41 (37 destroyed, 4 disabled)
Vehicles lost 6 (6 destroyed, 0 disabled)

Morning Air attack on TF, near Nadi at 131,160

Weather in hex: Overcast

Raid detected at 61 NM, estimated altitude 13,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 21 minutes

Japanese aircraft
G4M1 Betty x 22

Allied aircraft
Martlet II x 5
F2A-3 Buffalo x 4

Japanese aircraft losses
G4M1 Betty: 3 destroyed, 3 damaged
G4M1 Betty: 1 destroyed by flak

No Allied losses

Allied Ships
DD Hamillton
AP McCawley
DE Chew
CA Canberra
xAK Goulburn, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

[vicberg]

Hey also, I'm getting an unable to unload an ADU Coastal Gun unit at Saipan. It's unloaded a bit of it but says unable to unload all? Port level is 4? What's going on?

[ny59giants]

Sometimes you have to break those ships off into a new TF and actually have them dock. The other factor at a base is amount of naval support and/or shore parties.

TF movement - even thought it says 10 per phase or movement, I would plan on 9. So get it about 8 hexes away from hex you want to get to before you go to Full Speed to get in and out. Don't forget the amount of op points that may be used up and leave them within carrier air strike range.

Tanna - what do you have here?? Your A6M2 Zero with drop tanks can go 14 hexes, so this base is important.

Tinas - based out of Luganville or Noumea to reinforce Suva. If he doesn't have LRCAP, you should be able to airlift in troops.

Overall, plan accordingly and marshall your forces. The Brit CVs with their armored decks will need holes in their sides, not their flight decks to sink them.

[vicberg]

August 18th, 1942

SoPac
Nadi fell to 2 US Tank BTNs. Suva was invaded by a US Marine Div. How tough is this Div? 2 out of 3 CarDivs will arrive in Truk and 3rd is departing Yokohama. Tanna has 2 A6M2 units now. I think Bill has started his Ops a bit too quickly and it's forced me, like the Aleutians, to take action. The goal will be to push into SoPac, retake Suva and isolate Pago Pago.

[vicberg]

Ok, my ships are broken up and some docked and that seems to fix the issue. The CD Guns are offloading. And here's another DUH. I've had my planes in the Aleutians set to airfield attack wondering why they aren't flying against Dutch. Well, Dutch airfield is at 0. No airfield. Sheez. Also, though I have around 2000 AV in Chungking, a 200 AV mixed brigade crossed the river and triggered a shock attack. It's now at AV of 4. Sigh. Looks like I'll be buying that one for cheap as well.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: vicberg

Ok, my ships are broken up and some docked and that seems to fix the issue. The CD Guns are offloading. And here's another DUH. I've had my planes in the Aleutians set to airfield attack wondering why they aren't flying against Dutch. Well, Dutch airfield is at 0. No airfield. Sheez.

Provided that you do not have sufficient ships (TFs) docked that take up too much space, there is code that automatically rotates individual ships into dock for unloading (and I assume loading). Sometimes when you get the 'can't unload' message that code will still get the ships unloaded without intervention.

[vicberg]

It hasn't, maybe because they are AKs (not xAKs). They've been sitting there for 2 weeks and I JUST noticed them. Then the can't unload message came up. Once I docked them, it seems to work.

[vicberg]

SoPac Plans

I'm still seeing Buffaloes, so I don't think Allies are 100% ready at this point for Carrier Operations. He was able to succeed because Suva was admittedly weak. He's used quite a few PPs for Chinese units (saw about 5 of them moving into India. And quite a few for air group frames (in this mod, allows for Allies to use PPs to pull out frames rather than pure Allied Production. I haven't read up on how that works yet.).

I'm going to Marshall Forces. 3 IDs, 2 are currently loading. An AmphDiv in route to the 3rd at Saipan. A 4th already in route to Truk from Aleutians. My surface fleet is already in route to Truk. 3 CarDivs, each with 3 CVs and 3 CVLs, 3 CVs are Shokoku-Kai class. The A6M5 will be coming online in 2 weeks and I think Truk should be sufficient to upgrade these if needed.

My limitation is fuel. I have 80k in route on oilers and another 70k in route on tankers to Truk. Once I've offloaded 70k into Adak, those oilers will go back to Japan, reload and push down some more. So I'm going to have to be efficient. Noumea was a fuel depot but I've drained that down. There's currently 145k of fuel on Truk. Babeldaob could be used if needed, but only 50k. I'm using Taraken/Balikpan to keep Babeldaob fuel stores increasing.

He's built up Tongatapu and Vava'u and Niue. These 3 bases will be targets. I might just put 3 Divs straight into Nadi and walk them into Suva. I also have Karafuto Mixed brigade on Koumac and Maizuru Assault Div on Luganville, so I've got some juice. More ENG units are moving down from Japan and there's a few in Truk. Plenty to take these bases with and push out air support. I have Combined HQ on Efate. 9th Air Flotilla on Noumea and 3rd Air Fleet on Luganville. At least one of those will push forward. The goal of this operation will be to isolate Pago Pago, eventually bomb it into submission and remove SoPac as a staging area for his future operations.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: vicberg

It hasn't, maybe because they are AKs (not xAKs). They've been sitting there for 2 weeks and I JUST noticed them. Then the can't unload message came up. Once I docked them, it seems to work.

At small ports unloading can be a bear. The ships were probably unloading up until the messages, and even then might have been unloading slowly (or even more slowly! [:D]). My best understanding of what happened (in terms of the metaphors implemented, of course) when the messages came up is that the items small enough to unload by barge/lighter/small boat were all or almost all done and the unloading routine had available time wasted because the large items (usually radar sets are the culprits but there are others) needed the dock. I have seen cases where I got the message but the ships still finished unloading (not always the same day) and I interpret that as meaning that some of the resources (dock space or naval support or shore party) were present sufficiently to unload the items but were already used up for that phase (think in terms of ops points) when the unloading routine got to the troublesome large items.

Sometimes the auto rotating code will get the job done, other times not and unfortunately you get the same messages in either case. Docking ships individually is almost always faster/more expedient but is manual. If the situation is not time critical and I don't want to add it to the list of micro items to manage I give it a turn or two before intervening.

[vicberg]

Micro Management? This Game? Naaaa.....say it ain't so Joe say it ain't so....

[vicberg]

August 18th, 1942

Disaster in the Aleutians

His ships ranged out of Kodiak, somehow evaded search, a US Carrier group joined, all my Netties (2), Kates (2) Vals (1), Zeroes set to escort, NONE of them flew. Bases (Dora and Unmak) have great supply. WTF? How do you get planes to fly in this game????

These are an incomplete set of losses from ships at Dora.

[vicberg]

And I've got some serious problems in river city. My screwed up in R&D are costing me now as I have older models still flying that could have been upgrade partially by now. My A6M3 and A6M3b Sentias don't have range. The A6M2s just got show up sweeping and escorting into Nadi. My pilot quality is poor due to training screw ups early in the game. i'm now really behind the power curve. He's getting lots of VPs. I'm taking losses I can't afford.

I did get a run on the Yorktown at Nadi but nothing. Tanni is low on supply. None of my Sentai in the Aleutians flew. The Zeroes on Unmak were stood down due to fatigue which is why they didn't fly out of Unmak nor provided any CAP. Also why the Vals didn't fly. I hae the Northern Fleet Command HQ in Unmak, but I've now found out that command HQ range doesn't extend over water. lesson learned there. The lack of escorts is probably why nothing flew out of there. No idea why nothing flew out of Dora. We'll see what happens next turn as I've got some Nicks in there now. And my naval search missed all of this.

I'm correcting the naval search issue. An Allied SCFT hurt Dora but didn't close the airfield. We'll see what happens in the future. I have a BB SCTF that's been making runs out of Adak against Dutch. This will patrol off Dora for the future. I'm correcting the torp bomber situation and they are now based in Unmak. I have another Air HQ sitting in paramurshiro. It should have been moved weeks ago, but again, I'm not focusing well enough on various theaters to prepare for all of this. Taking, holding, not moving enough supply, not getting everything into position early enough. I haven't utilized the extensive air transport this mode provides. This game is really a beast and now I'm behind the power curve and Bill is taking real advantage of this.

[vicberg]

I need ways to reduce the beast. How does automatic pilot selection work? Will the game start choosing fighter pilots for air transports? Also, I've requested additional supplies at Lanchow and Sian and nothing is moving at all, therefore the oil there isn't repairing. Something I've got going wrong here.

[vicberg]

Here's the situation now in NoPac. American Carriers and CVLs and the SCTF farther away.

[vicberg]

I struggling to find out a strategy anywhere that will work. My plane and pilot quality at this point is probably less than this, as shown consistently by the air to air results. Bill received 1129 Victory Points as a result of last turn ALONE. Yes, I may have quantity, but it's difficult at best to bring to bear. At this point, he can continue to hit where I'm not. Japan doesn't have enough to spread everywhere. So right now, I have some in Aleutians, with more coming. Some in SoPac, with more coming. Some in Burma. Little in SRE. I'm not finding a strategy that consistently will work here other than attack attack attack. It's too late for that for me now.

Now, I have to completely admit most of these problems are self-created. I screwed up R&D costing me months of R&D. I screwed up Pilot Training. I didn't push hard enough in Aleutians nor SoPac early in the game. I haven't made sure all bases were fully supplies with everything needed at the right place. And now I'm paying for it.

[vicberg]

To everyone that has been reading my AAR and to those who have been giving me advice, thank you very much.

I did some soul searching yesterday after running the disaster..err...um...turn. I've come to the realization that the level of effort that I find enjoyable in this game isn't going to be enough for me EVER to be successful or competitive.

I've had the time. I just don't have the interest in managing everything that needs to be managed on a day by day (turn by turn) basis. The game is simply too big for me. So, I have to go back to what I posted in my other AAR, "know your limitations" (and I shouldn't have started a second game when I didn't have control of the first).

I'll be pulling out of both games. This is my limitation, not a limitation of the game. This is the best pure war game out there.

Again, thanks to everyone. I enjoy greatly reading other's AARs and I'll continue that. Enjoy!

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: vicberg

I struggling to find out a strategy anywhere that will work. My plane and pilot quality at this point is probably less than this, as shown consistently by the air to air results. Bill received 1129 Victory Points as a result of last turn ALONE. Yes, I may have quantity, but it's difficult at best to bring to bear. At this point, he can continue to hit where I'm not. Japan doesn't have enough to spread everywhere. So right now, I have some in Aleutians, with more coming. Some in SoPac, with more coming. Some in Burma. Little in SRE. I'm not finding a strategy that consistently will work here other than attack attack attack. It's too late for that for me now.

Now, I have to completely admit most of these problems are self-created. I screwed up R&D costing me months of R&D. I screwed up Pilot Training. I didn't push hard enough in Aleutians nor SoPac early in the game. I haven't made sure all bases were fully supplies with everything needed at the right place. And now I'm paying for it.

Take a few days off. We all have a bad string of turns that make you want to throw the game out of the window. I know, I've just came out of two pretty poor game-weeks and sank two Allied CV's and a CVE.

You're not beat yet! At most, a minor setback.

It takes about two months to train a half-decent pilot, three to train a good one.

Pull everything off the frontlines you can and train intensively. In '42 the allies can't really make big leaps forward, and what they can take is your outer perimeter anyways. In two/three months you can have a pretty sizable number of pilots trained and get back in the fight properly.

Use the "request veteran" button on air groups for pilots, then change the filter to show the "Reserve" pilot pool. Draw everyone from there.

[vicberg]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. But I've taken a day off already.

I have supply issues in Burma, Thailand, Sumatra, Java, SoPac. NoPac is good on supply simply because I focused on that region, losing a chunk of my transport fleet in the process. I have fuel issues everywhere but Singapore, which seems to be attracting EVERYTHING (resources, supply, fuel, oil) and causing me problems now, plus Palembang. Truk is OK right now but the CarDivs steaming down will chew that up quickly. I have ground units, Air HQs, etc., sitting in Manila, Singapore, Babeldaob, Truk, Tokyo and other Home Island cities for months now. Base building requires engineers requiring their transport everywhere. Throw in pilot management (training and replacements) and air group management (missions, training, fatigue, morale, replacements, air support). Resource transport is another issue as Hokkaido is still increasing in resources, as is SRE.

So why am I in the mess? I have realized these issues for a long time, but when I decide I'm going to deal with them, a huge sigh overcomes me and I tell myself next turn. It's simply too much work.

Perhaps there's a better formula for auto-management of some of these activities? If so, I haven't found it. I love the battles, but I'm just not cut out for the rest. This game is a huge amount of effort to be successful at, more effort than I'm willing to do. This is the longest I've lasted in a WITP game. I kinda forgot why I stopped before. It's a truly awesome game, but I'm not willing to do what it takes to make it competitive. It's my limitation.