Lambs to the slaughter (Lowpe (J) vs Jocke; BillBrown (A)) Finished

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: SqzMyLemon

I wish you the best of luck. It's going to be a blast to follow.

Edit: Maybe I shouldn't reveal that previous tidbit...

I think an important part is for me not to go wobbly. It seems the Allies are going to punch hard here in the Bay of Bengal, and I need to keep thinking West Coast.

The temptation to pull back forces is great, but I will stay the course.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

I've always been skeptical of the possibility of a 1944 IJA autovictory, for several large reasons.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!!![;)]

I was on the phone/working earlier, so didn't elaborate, but I suppose I'll mention the biggest obstacle: it's nearly impossible to have a 3:1 VP ratio as Japan at some point in 1944 simply due to the sheer weight of the Allied OOB. As Japan, you would need to inflict several large disasters on the Allies not just to drive up your own VP total (the numerator), but to keep the Allied denominator low. It would require perfect anticipation of the Allied counteroffensive and a good deal of luck to pull off.

The biggest Allied disaster I have ever seen is PzB playing the Japanese. He is like The Terminator.

Anybody hear from him?

[Lowpe]

More China developments...

[Speedysteve]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58




Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!!![;)]

I was on the phone/working earlier, so didn't elaborate, but I suppose I'll mention the biggest obstacle: it's nearly impossible to have a 3:1 VP ratio as Japan at some point in 1944 simply due to the sheer weight of the Allied OOB. As Japan, you would need to inflict several large disasters on the Allies not just to drive up your own VP total (the numerator), but to keep the Allied denominator low. It would require perfect anticipation of the Allied counteroffensive and a good deal of luck to pull off.

The biggest Allied disaster I have ever seen is PzB playing the Japanese. He is like The Terminator.

Anybody hear from him?

Agreed. I remember his games and they were very impressive! Haven't seen John around for a while though.....

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

The biggest Allied disaster I have ever seen is PzB playing the Japanese. He is like The Terminator.

Anybody hear from him?

Last login 3/15...perhaps PM AndyMac?

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58




Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!!![;)]

I was on the phone/working earlier, so didn't elaborate, but I suppose I'll mention the biggest obstacle: it's nearly impossible to have a 3:1 VP ratio as Japan at some point in 1944 simply due to the sheer weight of the Allied OOB. As Japan, you would need to inflict several large disasters on the Allies not just to drive up your own VP total (the numerator), but to keep the Allied denominator low. It would require perfect anticipation of the Allied counteroffensive and a good deal of luck to pull off.

The biggest Allied disaster I have ever seen is PzB playing the Japanese. He is like The Terminator.

Anybody hear from him?

PzB ran out of supplies. The real disaster was the Japanese economy.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

PzB ran out of supplies. The real disaster was the Japanese economy.

Yep, read the first part of his AndyMac fight; and he was pretty poor on logistical planning. But in fairness, wasn't almost everyone in 2009 -- plus the game then played a lot differently than it does now.

The coordinated air strikes alone really changes the game, not to mention the hundreds of other changes.

[witpqs]

[:D]

[Lowpe]

Turn is away, in a few scant hours the Allies will drop the hammer in the Bay of Bengal![X(]

I have chosen to bring 9 destroyers up to Ramree, mission speed (no cause to hurry). They will sit under three sentai of fighters before disbanding. The cruisers and light cruisers will remain at Rangoon which is not under recon, nor is Ramree.

This time the destroyers are in one big task force, the better for aerial defence if the deathstar meanders south.

I moved all ships and planes from Akyab. Vals went to Magwe and are set at 7 hex strike. 3 Sentai of Betties are at Mandalay set at 9 hex strike. One sentai of Nells at Rangoon set at 14 hex strike.

The subs are setting up in the deep water northeast of Akyab. If the Allies come calling to Chittagong, they will have to go thru 3 minefields and then will encounter 3 destroyers that are running into Chittagong and then retiring to Ramree to join the other 9 destroyers.

My airlift of troops out of Imphal is proceeding nicely. So far the Allies don't seem to be in a hurry to move on Ledo -- which I would be since it allows some interesting Chinese opportunities.

I am moving the armor out of Chittagong, where they had been in reserve mode. We shall use them as mobile reserve, rear area defence.

Jocke, if true to form, will have the turn done in a few scant hours.

Moonlight is btw, 0%. A major reason why I am only sending the destroyers forward.

[Lowpe]

Dec 7, 1944

Allied subs takes a few shots at APDs and a PB and all miss.

No action in the Bay of Bengal...other than sweeping Cox's in addition to Chittagong. Chittagong is bombed again by thos 4E beasties.

Those Allied screening ships are within range of the Nells from Rangoon, but they don't attack because they can't locate the target. I will shorten their range...I don't want to fly into a CAP trap over junky ships.

Prome is reconned by the Allies today, spotting 70 fighters. Ramree not looked at.



I don't see any BBs today, I suspect they are disbanded at Diamond Harbor.

[Olorin]

Why destroy the Chinese corps' east of Sian?

They will reappear at Chungking with 1/2 TOE in a few months. I'd let them wither on the vine and only destroy them after Chungking falls, they are pretty much irrelevant now.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Olorin

Why destroy the Chinese corps' east of Sian?

They will reappear at Chungking with 1/2 TOE in a few months. I'd let them wither on the vine and only destroy them after Chungking falls, they are pretty much irrelevant now.

It will probably be 60 days before those beatup Japanese troops recover from all the disablements they suffered taking Sian.

I will assess the situation, but I could destroy them once Chunking is surrounded, then they would respawn (and I think it is 1/3rd TOE of infantry only) and kill them a second time as they further overstack Chungking. Almost borders a VP exploit getting their VP twice.

[Lowpe]

As near I can tell, or willing to spend the time doing the math:

Ha45 should start late 1/43.

Frank A factories really repairing now, multiple repair units per day. The best is at 73% repaired.

A6M5b and Oscar IIIa should start mid to late Jan of 1943.

I am still building full out (except for the xakl) all the Japanese merchant shipping. I have no idea how much I will lose on the West Coast. Can't wait to shut that down and bank the HI.

[Olorin]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Olorin

Why destroy the Chinese corps' east of Sian?

They will reappear at Chungking with 1/2 TOE in a few months. I'd let them wither on the vine and only destroy them after Chungking falls, they are pretty much irrelevant now.

It will probably be 60 days before those beatup Japanese troops recover from all the disablements they suffered taking Sian.

I will assess the situation, but I could destroy them once Chunking is surrounded, then they would respawn (and I think it is 1/3rd TOE of infantry only) and kill them a second time as they further overstack Chungking. Almost borders a VP exploit getting their VP twice.

[:D]

I've conducted The Siege of Chungking before and my experience is that sheer numbers, even if unsupplied, will make Chungking a very tough nut to crack. But that was without stacking limits.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Olorin

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Olorin

Why destroy the Chinese corps' east of Sian?

They will reappear at Chungking with 1/2 TOE in a few months. I'd let them wither on the vine and only destroy them after Chungking falls, they are pretty much irrelevant now.

It will probably be 60 days before those beatup Japanese troops recover from all the disablements they suffered taking Sian.

I will assess the situation, but I could destroy them once Chunking is surrounded, then they would respawn (and I think it is 1/3rd TOE of infantry only) and kill them a second time as they further overstack Chungking. Almost borders a VP exploit getting their VP twice.

[:D]

I've conducted The Siege of Chungking before and my experience is that sheer numbers, even if unsupplied, will make Chungking a very tough nut to crack. But that was without stacking limits.

I am in the same boat. Taken it without SL. I think the SL could really hurt...

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Olorin

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Olorin

Why destroy the Chinese corps' east of Sian?

They will reappear at Chungking with 1/2 TOE in a few months. I'd let them wither on the vine and only destroy them after Chungking falls, they are pretty much irrelevant now.

It will probably be 60 days before those beatup Japanese troops recover from all the disablements they suffered taking Sian.

I will assess the situation, but I could destroy them once Chunking is surrounded, then they would respawn (and I think it is 1/3rd TOE of infantry only) and kill them a second time as they further overstack Chungking. Almost borders a VP exploit getting their VP twice.

[:D]

I've conducted The Siege of Chungking before and my experience is that sheer numbers, even if unsupplied, will make Chungking a very tough nut to crack. But that was without stacking limits.

With no stacking limits, then yes - you would not want to kill that stack outside Sian yet. With stacking limits... I agree that it's bordering on an exploit, but not because of the VPs. Because the Chinese have no choice but to accept the resurrection, which has enormous consequences once the stacking limit has been breached. No need to even bomb the supplies, because they won't have any. And they'll have permanently high disruption levels. If anything, it probably makes taking the city easier.

[Canoerebel]

If I went into a game with a good IJ player in which we discussed and agreed that the IJ player would look for any means possible to achieve auto victory, then I'd have no problem with this. But if I entered into a game with a good IJ player in which nothing of the sort was discussed and assumed the IJ player wouldn't go out of his way to work the game engine in weird ways that almost unforseeable in order to maximize the chances for auto victory, I'd probably think this was pretty over the top.

This kind of reminds me of Bullwinkle's game in which the IJ player (I can't remember who it was) went hunting for Saratoga on turn one. The Moose had agreed to a no house-rule's match...but still...just smelt bad.

[Andav]

While I took Chunking with stacking limits (I even started late really), I was allowed to strategic bomb so that helped kill supply. You have to dedicate most of the air force to bombing it for months on end. In the end, I felt kinda sleazy because I would attack with tanks only (I think almost every tank in the Empire was in Chunking) every 3 or 4 days and then do a combined attack about every 10 days. It should be pretty well documented in witpqs AAR.

I was glad to have taken Chunking but in the end, I am not sure I would do it again. There are a couple of reasons:

1) I was not able to push the Chinese completely into Burma because of the number of troops needed to siege Chunking. This ended up causing me a lot of problems. I think I would have been better served to push on to Burma.

2) The air force (especially the level bombers) was awesome at ground attack but crappy at everything else. This especially hurt ASW efforts in 43 and 44. I think having all those bomber squadrons training and flying search and ASW would have been better. Allied subs are really a PITA once their torpedoes start to work. Subs claimed a ton of my shipping including many AOs and TKs hauling fuel and oil. Having a better trained air umbrella would have been more helpful.

3) While not needing a large army to suppress China is great, you only have so many PPs. With the HR to purchase restricted units, it takes a long time to buy out those units.

4) Many of the units I did buy out from Manchuria, I would assign to Southern Army and send to fight in China. While they did trickle outside of China eventually, I really could have used them to build a better defensive perimeter earlier. This was especially evident in my defense of the Marianas and much of the Central Pacific not to mention all the islands closer to the HI which are currently being overrun.

In the end, I think bottling up everyone in Chunking and letting them spawn on top of each other is probably good enough.

As always, only my opinion and past performance does not guarantee future results yadda yadda ...

Wa

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

If I went into a game with a good IJ player in which we discussed and agreed that the IJ player would look for any means possible to achieve auto victory, then I'd have no problem with this. But if I entered into a game with a good IJ player in which nothing of the sort was discussed and assumed the IJ player wouldn't go out of his way to work the game engine in weird ways that almost unforseeable in order to maximize the chances for auto victory, I'd probably think this was pretty over the top.

This kind of reminds me of Bullwinkle's game in which the IJ player (I can't remember who it was) went hunting for Saratoga on turn one. The Moose had agreed to a no house-rule's match...but still...just smelt bad.

This is the point where the whole "game vs simulation" debate rears its head up. I went full circle on house rules. I started off playing under them, and since came to the view that you don't need any.

[Canoerebel]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of house rules either. And I know many players won't agree with my thoughts. But I think a tortured use of the gaming system to generate an advantage (militarily and/or VP, in this case both) is not going to sit well with some players.

In American law there's a standard that requires attorneys and judges to "avoid even the appearance of impopriety." Lawyers make a habit of not understanding that, but there is merit. (Politicians, the clergy, and many other groups would do well to self-impiment the same standard.)