Tale of the Sheep! - JocMeister (A) vs. Lowpe (J)

[JeffroK]

Yes, its too late.

He should have started months ago. Instead he played around in India.

[obvert]

I disagree. Taking Noumea/Suva early will set the Allies back several months if you can maintain your deterrents, all without risking serious LCUs or ships. Having them can also make your Allied opponent sweat about VPs, since they can't easily build up a few hundred in a couple of weeks in just one location.

Unless AV is on the table, or it's early enough to threaten it, Suva and Noumea don't mean a thing to the Allied counter in later 42 into 43. Just leave em. There is no setback. They're so far from anything important it doesn't matter if they're Japanese. If the Allies own Lunga and Tulagi, what good are Suva and Noumea for the IJ? Just a lot of lost troop VPs and wasted supplies and fuel.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

Yes, its too late.

He should have started months ago. Instead he played around in India.

Agreed. India has been a negative VP affair for him.

[Hermit]

My wife says all affairs result in negative VP's [:-]

[catwhoorg]

ORIGINAL: Hermit

My wife says all affairs result in negative VP's [:-]

She is very wise.

[JocMeister]

Sound like my wife! [:D]

PS. Turns are slow as Jeff is still ill. I´m also coming down with something so I basically just crash in bed as soon as the kids are in bed. I know the AAR is suffering at the moment but I can assure you that you are not missing much!

[Grfin Zeppelin]

So, finally reached the end. This is the first AAR I have read for years, thanks for writing it up.Took me many hours at work that would have been otherwise boring

[JocMeister]

Welcome back Gräfin! [:)]

Glad my AAR is more fun then work. [:D] Sadly the quality have dropped off lately. 2 kids + work + wife + turn = little time left for the AAR.

[Rio Bravo]

ORIGINAL: Hermit

My wife says all affairs result in negative VP's [:-]

*laughing hard*

Best Regards,

-Terry

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]26th September -42[/font]
_____________________________________________________________________________

Turns have been pretty slow lately and there has been almost no action. This is an update to catch up.

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NORPAC/WC
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Jeff restarted his strat bombing campaign here after I made the mistake of leaving Calgary undefended. Stupid move by me and he got some VPs.

I now have 2 P40K squadrons here and once they are ready we will make another attempt on Coal Harbor. Besides that not much is happening here. We dig. That´s about it. [:)]

More arty moving PH....

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India
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No action here for the last 2 weeks. My right flank is still catching up with the rest. I continue to probe Japanese NavS. Moving BFs and engineers forward to Dacca and Tezpur.

We will start moving here very shortly. Not decided on target yet. Ordered another set of Recon before I make up my mind. Ideally I would like to strike directly at Chittagong.

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SOPAC
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This is the only area that have seen some action. Jeff has sortied out some CVs on two occasions now. Allied losses have been negligible with an AMC and an APD sunk. Not the full KB though. Looks like only 2-4 CVs.

Efafe is about to be recaptured and we continue to expand bases in the New Hebrides. Expansion of the area around Townsville is going well. Once Cooktown has expanded its airfield we will start sending in some smaller convoys. This will speed up progress even further.

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VP score
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Allied base expansion is starting to show. Allied VPs are about 200 in the last 10 days. Japanese air losses continues to climb and is approaching 4000.

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Allied planning
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Given the current VP situation I´m in no hurry right now. There is a big upgrade coming up for the navy in just 2 weeks. Its a significant bump in ship AA and not something I´m going to skip out on. Its a 3 week upgrade so that means the navy will be gone for most of October.

I´m looking at the first big Amphib OP possible before the year is up. But again I´m in no hurry and won´t take unnecessary risks.

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AAR
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I´ll continue to update the AAR sporadically. Once things start to happen again I´ll return to my usually format. But right now so little is happening there is no point in daily updates.

[JocMeister]

Guess who just lost Yorktown to a Japanese SSN...

24 Cats on patrol. 48 DDs in the hex, 3 ASW TFs, all FPs on 50% ASW, ALL TBs on ASW, 1 DB squadron on night patrol.

Didn´t send the turn back but I´ll head to bed instead.

[zuluhour]

Happens to me every game in one way or another. This time it was CV Franklin, two days out from Pearl on her shakedown cruise. She did not
sink, but was put out of commission for 45 days. She had a nice escort and ASW. [:(]

[ny59giants]

I feel your pain Jocke. [:@] In '42 and into '43, I fear those damn Jap subs more than than KB. I've lost more CVs and BBs to subs than KB. [:(]

[Crackaces]

A look at the May 1944 OOB is always a positive experience .. plau your opponent has over extended himself
this is a little blip in the big scheme of things ...

Hang in there and focus ..

[BBfanboy]

ASW seems to get borked if you put too much stuff in one hex. I think the AI gets confused about which unit gets the contact or gets assigned to attack and it just locks up, as happens when Direct X gets frozen. That seems to fit with my observations that two ASW TFs in one hex is more effective than one, but three ASW TFs seem to be less effective than one. Anyone else notice anything along these lines?

[catwhoorg]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Guess who just lost Yorktown to a Japanese SSN...

24 Cats on patrol. 48 DDs in the hex, 3 ASW TFs, all FPs on 50% ASW, ALL TBs on ASW, 1 DB squadron on night patrol.

Didn´t send the turn back but I´ll head to bed instead.

SSN ?

What crazy mod has the Japs with a nuclear boat this early ?

[Mike McCreery]

ORIGINAL: catwhoorg

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Guess who just lost Yorktown to a Japanese SSN...

24 Cats on patrol. 48 DDs in the hex, 3 ASW TFs, all FPs on 50% ASW, ALL TBs on ASW, 1 DB squadron on night patrol.

Didn´t send the turn back but I´ll head to bed instead.

SSN ?

What crazy mod has the Japs with a nuclear boat this early ?

Must be one of John's ;]

[JocMeister]

Must be SSNs. No matter how much effort you pour into ASW they still get through. 100 DDs? Doesn´t matter. 30 ASW TFs? Doesn´t matter. 1500 ASW value in the hex? Doesn´t matter. 500 planes flying ASW? Doesn´t matter...

Even in 44 when I had 2x12 CVEs doing nothing but ASW duty with the CVs Japanese subs got through and sunk 2 of the ASW CVEs...go figure. [8|] Only word I have for this is silly.

If Allied subs where even half as effective the entire IJN would be wiped off the map in 44 by subs alone.

[Crackaces]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Must be SSNs. No matter how much effort you pour into ASW they still get through. 100 DDs? Doesn´t matter. 30 ASW TFs? Doesn´t matter. 1500 ASW value in the hex? Doesn´t matter. 500 planes flying ASW? Doesn´t matter...

Even in 44 when I had 2x12 CVEs doing nothing but ASW duty with the CVs Japanese subs got through and sunk 2 of the ASW CVEs...go figure. [8|] Only word I have for this is silly.

If Allied subs where even half as effective the entire IJN would be wiped off the map in 44 by subs alone.

One thing this game rewards is attention to details .. The naval rating of the DD leaders, the ASW rating of the planes flying etc ..
I have no clue how the algorithm works but I find 16 ASW rating on DD's all with great leaders is far better than 32 ASW of mediocre leaders ...
It seems to me that the leader/competency check is very powerful in this game and a lack of attention is costly
A perusal through the AAR's will find the IJ losing CV's with tons of ASW aircraft and DD's ...

The other point I would like to make is sailing capital ships in the game is not without peril, and every move has to be balanced with the risk of being sunk by the silent service ..

On the other hand as I stated above .. there is so much stuff in 1944 that this is simply a bump in the road unless you let yourself be overwhelmed with carrier loss syndrome ..

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Guess who just lost Yorktown to a Japanese SSN...

24 Cats on patrol. 48 DDs in the hex, 3 ASW TFs, all FPs on 50% ASW, ALL TBs on ASW, 1 DB squadron on night patrol.

Didn´t send the turn back but I´ll head to bed instead.

I feel your pain, and I know that you've had your share of this over the years. [&:]

To Crackaces point, I change all sub commanders to the best available, and strangely for the IJN early there are some great ones.

You are probably doing everything you can, and this is just another chance operation of the game, but ...

... a few insights on my own settings that seem to help:

1. I set about 1/3 FP at night search 1k alt 4-6 hexes. They all have 70+ search skills and group leaders with good naval skill. I also set another 1/3 to daylight ASW at 1k 4-6 hexes and 1/3 to max range search at 6k. All trained 70+ ASW and 70+ search.

2. For CVs I usually set the DBs to search at 10k and the TBs to ASW at 2-5k, and train them accordingly. So when not in combat zones TB pilots are always training ASW to be added on top of the necessary strike skills.

3. All CV captains and CV TF commanders have high naval skill (in addition to the high air skill of the TF commander).

4. All DDs have high naval and aggressive commanders.