Veteran Player needs some advice - No Hooper!

[BBfanboy]

I also thought the comment about the early B-17s was not giving them a chance. They cannot stand up to fighters because of lack of defensive armament crew defensive skill and they bomb poorly because of minimal training and experience. You can't arm and armour the plane but if you get them out and train the crew they can do great work on NavS, Recon and bombing places that have no CAP (because the Japanese player thinks they are out of range of bombers). Anything that forces them to spread out fighters and withdraw ships is great stuff.

[witpqs]

The early B-17s are not rubbish, the pilots are rubbish. But in this game all Allied bombers need help from fighters when the the Japanese fighter pilots get better and Japanese fighters advance to newer generations. In the case of 4EB they need friendly fighter sweeps of targets. 2EB need both sweeps and escorts. Of course 4EB will never complain about escorts.

Tactical advice: Be stingy with your bombers. Train the hell out of them. Use them continuously on milk runs where enemy fighters cannot oppose them, but keep them above flak and keep fatigue down (rest % as needed). Milk runs are important because it seems like there is no way for bomber pilots to gain experience (still highly critical in spite of specific skills) except on actual missions. Fighters can CAP over Kansas can gain experience, bombers not so much.

I'm sure you already have better training advice than I can give, but do it and stockpile the pilots. Consider that Attack Bombers need pilots trained in Low (Ground and.or Naval) to be really effective. Their losses will be very high no matter how good the pilots, so be far more stingy with them even than with other bombers. Use them higher on milk runs to get experience. Restrict use of them to when it matters, because the losses will keep you from having them available when it matters if you fritter them away when it doesn't. When you can cover them and have enemy enemy units in open terrain, especially no forts or moving: "...let slip the dogs of war!"

Train Recon in your various air forces or your recon will stink. Recon is HUGE in this game. Long range recon will get shot down over Japan and major bases way more than you anticipate. Put recon higher, 25,000 ft. Break up most or all recon groups into /A/B/C to cover more bases. When in complicated large ground battle areas leave some recon without assigned targets so they have a chance at picking up enemy ground positions you have not seen previously.

[Luskan]

Anyone have an exact reference table for what effect fort size has on AV at a base?

manual seems to be missing that appendix (or I'm being unusually thick).

e.g. 100 AV at a base behind a lvl 2 fort = 3-1 AV (300AV) to take the base (plus/minus the dice roll).

[BBfanboy]

Nope. Each fort level provides something like 0.25 defensive value, so your 100 AV with three forts completed (no value for partials) would be worth something like 175 AV if they were defending against an enemy LCU attack. Terrain bonus is on top of the forts built bonus. HQ bonuses ( on die rolls) are on top of that).

[witpqs]

Alfred has published it (this is my rendition):

Code: Select all

 Fort	Multiplier
 0	1.00
 1	1.10
 2	1.25
 3	1.50
 4	1.75
 5	2.00
 6	2.25
 7	2.50
 8	2.75
 9	3.00
 

[Luskan]

Brilliant - that should totally have been in the manual somewhere.

So to truly be comfortably safe against a 2 large IJA division invasion (let's call it 900 AV even though they will land with disruption and maybe losses to CD units) means you're looking for about 600 AV . . . so 450 AV (so a marine division) and a level 3 fort.

I usually never end up stacking that heavily, but I don't want to be the guy that "defends" Noumea or Suva or something with 200AV and 20 support units that all die horribly.


What do people do for sub deployments - assuming a lot of dead subs at Manila . . . north to the Kuriles, or from Midway (or worse: Pearl)? Anything clever / cool here? I tend to use patrols rather than static subs at choke points. Does anyone transfer all the subs to Colombo and fwd base from Chittagong or somewhere into the south China Sea?

[Alfred]

The manual was not meant to provide hard algorithm data.
 
Alfred

[BBfanboy]

You are not factoring terrain into your estimation of fortification needs.

Be aware that in the first six-12 months Japan can bring enough force to bear to take any base before you can get enough reinforcements there. The best you can do is decide which points will be your major defence points and send as many troops, engineers, naval and air support, and AA as you can spare.

Also, do not focus solely on AV and forts. Battles are affected by many things, especially supply, firepower and leaders. You will never have enough troops, tanks, artillery and HQs to make a bastion of every place you want to defend. You will also be constrained by stacking limits that will penalize your supply if you exceed them greatly. One of the longest parts of the game learning curve is to develop a "feel" for what you need to put where to put up a credible fight and not risk too many assets that you cannot replace easily.

[Luskan]

I've had some aggressive japanese opponents in the past - they tend to fold quicker than the hedgehogs because "victory disease" is as real and dangerous in game as without.

That said - stacking limits are your friend as the allies in the pacific. The right 6000 man atoll with the right forts is hellishly costly for the japanese player to take - often they won't have the supply to crowd you out if you utilise your original engineer teams well.

[leehunt27@bloomberg.net]

Great discussion. A few points:

1. I would also say be careful with your CV's and BB's. I'm in a game where the Allied player was very aggressive with his BB's and lost quite a few. That's less bombardment power for the Marines landings late game, and the casualty rates are higher.

2. Fortress Palembang is a great idea, a real thorn in the IJ's side early on.

3. Cat's are best for Naval Search IMHO, you need to spot the KB coming.

4. Train up some USAAF bombers for Naval attack, too often the US players rely on the CV naval aviation to attack IJ ships. It helps to let the land based air force get some of that burden and also present a deterrent and threat.

5. Subs to DEI. Sink tankers. Sink tankers. Sink tankers.

One could write a book on this topic just for this game, let alone the real war. Curious to hear more thoughts...

[paradigmblue]

Here are my tips. I'm not the best player, so many of them may be common sense to you, while others need to be taken with a grain of salt:

Using dot hexes:

1) Naval Search. Disband single AVPs in dot hexes that you know that the Japanese player will not take. Once those bases are behind his lines, fly in a Catalina squadron to operate from the dot hex. This is very hard for him to spot if it's behind his naval search envelope. Keep the base supplied with SST's.

2) Ambushes. Disband destroyers to dot hexes and patiently wait for the Japanese player to advance past them, then use those destroyers as shipping raiders. This is especially effective near ports like Palembang or Soerejaba where Japanese tankers will transit regularly. After they finish their raid, disband the destroyers back to the dot hex until they run out of ammo, at which point you'll need to try and sneak them out. Chances are you'll lose your destroyers, but I would gladly trade a DD for a Japanese tanker. You should have subs in these areas as well, which will allow you to scout the tanker TFs and sortie your DDs to intercept what the subs missed.

In regards to the air game:

1) The air war is won or lost with fighter sweeps. Sweep aggressively and at high altitude with your planes that have the highest top speed over the bases that he needs to protect. Inversely, if your opponent is sweeping your bases, unless you absolutely need to protect it, don't contest it until you have a substantial quality advantage in air-frames and pilots. A good Japanese player can out-produce you in quality for the first half of the war, and can outproduce you numerically throughout almost the entire conflict if they manage their industry well. I've made the mistake too many times of fighting over airspace that isn't critical - don't be like me. Instead, use ground based AA as your deterrent as much as possible - it's much more durable than using fighters that can be swept from the sky.

If you absolutely need to put CAP up above a base, layer your CAP.

2) Break up his fighter coverage with night-bombing. When you're facing 2-3 squadrons of Japanese fighters and can't break his CAP, start night bombing. The turn after he assigns a squadron to counter your night bombing, sweep. You'll be facing one less squadron of defenders, which can make a huge difference in the outcome.

3) I also am bullish in using PBYs as torpedo platforms. You need to manage this very carefully, as you don't want to squander your most important recon assets. However, when used properly you can force your opponent to keep air-cover over well back from the front lines. Others have mentioned using other planes to scout for the PBYs, but I like using them on Naval attack 50% and Naval Search 50%. Make sure to ensure that your search arcs aren't over his bases when setting this up, as you don't want your fragile Catalinas to go after his port, which will be most likely defended by CAP. Send them in low - 1000 feet - to avoid interception. Many times you can sneak in under any LRCAP unless the LRCAP is set to under 10,000ft.

I think that many players don't mine as aggressively as they could. Use your sub-based mines constantly. Japan doesn't have a huge amount of mine-sweeping capability, so make him move them around the map. Wait until you can lay about 75 mines, mine a port that he uses, and repeat. This may not do a lot of damage, but it forces him to commit ASW capabilities to ports well behind his lines.

As others have said, taking small, unoccupied islands can force a Japanese player to spend a lot of time and fuel putting out these small fires throughout the empire. On a larger scale, use that principle to keep him unbalanced. If he is going hard for the South Pacific, don't invest in the South Pacific, but instead invest in the Aleutians and set up a late 1942 invasion of the Kuriles. You don't have to hold them, you just have to make him divide the KB - either in time or in being - between two geographically disparate locations. The only defended hex in the Kuriles is Pramushiro-jima, which starts with 0 forts and 35 AV. If your opponent doesn't reinforce these islands they can be easy pickings, and he will be forced to respond.

Many people advocate a full evacuation of the DEI. I disagree. Your opponent's primary goal early game is to grab the oil there, as it is what will fuel his economy. Instead of withdrawing your Dutch forces, instead concentrate them at Palembang and Soerejaba. The rest of Sumatra and Java don't matter - he'll grab them eventually anyway. But if you can hang on to those two hexes for an extra month or more, it can have long-term consequences for your opponent.

Don't fight over what doesn't matter. If you can get some licks in defending some key locations, great, by all means do it. You can replace ships and troops better than your opponent can. However, remember that the more ground that your opponent takes, the more he has to defend. Nothing that he can take, save Pearl Harbor, is going to impede your ability to take the fight to him in 1943. Take a look at the game map real quick, especially the North Pacific. He can take everything that he wants in the South Pacific, in India, in China, in Malaysia, and in Australasia, and there is still nothing standing between the West Coast and the Marshall Islands. Or the Marianas Islands. Or even the Bonin Islands. In a broad sense, everything that the Japanese player takes that does not provide them with a large amount of VP or resources/oil is actually hurting their ability to wage war, and in a real sense doesn't add a great deal to their ability to defend the HI.

Don't skimp on supplies. By mid 1943 you have enormous shipping capacity and effectively infinite supplies. Move those supplies forward - they don't do you any good on the West Coast. Instead, move them in bulk to forward hubs so they can be distributed quickly to where they are needed. I see a lot of allied players keeping their shipping and supplies at the West Coast and using the West Coast as a supply hub, which means that their ships are taking huge round trips for every supply run.

Similarly, as soon as troops arrive on the West Coast, move them to Pearl or another forward staging area where they can be deployed more quickly. Nothing is worse than finding that you need more aviation support at a base and then having to wait two weeks for a base unit to be dispatched from San Francisco. Instead, have your amphibious lift capacity deployed at these forward hubs, ready to deploy quickly, while keeping some large transports headquartered on the West Coast to transport troops forward as they arrive.

Always be base building as the allies. Always. Even North American bases help your VP totals.