Headhunter - Lokasenna (A) vs. mind_messing (J) - No MM yet

[Lowpe]

Really great set of posts on the shipyard shuffle.[&o]

I do a little of that, but not nearly to the level you have taken it to.

You really should sanitize those posts and put them up in the war room.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Really great set of posts on the shipyard shuffle.[&o]

I do a little of that, but not nearly to the level you have taken it to.

You really should sanitize those posts and put them up in the war room.

A couple of years ago I tried explaining it (tm.asp?m=3569831) and asking to make sure I understood what was happening properly, and that's when Symon called me a little kiddie looking for poop.

It's a bit harder to do with the IJN because their repair density seems to be significantly higher, and they tend not to have ports with 600 naval support scattered around the map.

In New Jersey's case, I expect it to cut a couple of months off of that 7-month repair estimate at the least. It's an ideal case: slight system damage, slight to moderate floatation, 5 or less engine damage. System damage at these levels repairs at a rate that's just about perfect for 1 day at pier side, 1 day in the shipyard, so you end up repairing the floatation damage at almost the rate of the system damage.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Really great set of posts on the shipyard shuffle.[&o]

I do a little of that, but not nearly to the level you have taken it to.

You really should sanitize those posts and put them up in the war room.

A couple of years ago I tried explaining it (tm.asp?m=3569831) and asking to make sure I understood what was happening properly, and that's when Symon called me a little kiddie looking for poop.

It's a bit harder to do with the IJN because their repair density seems to be significantly higher, and they tend not to have ports with 600 naval support scattered around the map.

In New Jersey's case, I expect it to cut a couple of months off of that 7-month repair estimate at the least. It's an ideal case: slight system damage, slight to moderate floatation, 5 or less engine damage. System damage at these levels repairs at a rate that's just about perfect for 1 day at pier side, 1 day in the shipyard, so you end up repairing the floatation damage at almost the rate of the system damage.

A fully repaired AR adds quite a lot of repair points, just like Naval Squads if I understand the concept correctly. It does take Japan quite a long time to make an AR, but I think they can be worth it at making a super repair facility.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Really great set of posts on the shipyard shuffle.[&o]

I do a little of that, but not nearly to the level you have taken it to.

You really should sanitize those posts and put them up in the war room.

A couple of years ago I tried explaining it (tm.asp?m=3569831) and asking to make sure I understood what was happening properly, and that's when Symon called me a little kiddie looking for poop.

It's a bit harder to do with the IJN because their repair density seems to be significantly higher, and they tend not to have ports with 600 naval support scattered around the map.

In New Jersey's case, I expect it to cut a couple of months off of that 7-month repair estimate at the least. It's an ideal case: slight system damage, slight to moderate floatation, 5 or less engine damage. System damage at these levels repairs at a rate that's just about perfect for 1 day at pier side, 1 day in the shipyard, so you end up repairing the floatation damage at almost the rate of the system damage.

A fully repaired AR adds quite a lot of repair points, just like Naval Squads if I understand the concept correctly. It does take Japan quite a long time to make an AR, but I think they can be worth it at making a super repair facility.

Oh yeah. Good reminder. I just started a new Japan game, and in my other one I'm wishing I had converted a few (or actually, just converted about as many as possible to AV/AR and a few more AKE). I can always complete some more Std-A type xAKs from the queue later.

[Lokasenna]

Lautem - August 1, 1944

This is a typical result. I try this again on August 10 or so to be sure that including more/bigger guns with the ships instead of just DDs would help with the casualties in the surf. I think FOW inflates this, as no unit was destroyed, but I was landing some artillery of my own.

I scaled up from LCTs to DDs as stuff I was landing via LCT was just dying on the beaches to 1000 "CD" shots - the organic artillery plus the artillery units. Note that there aren't any actual CD gun units there, or any "special base forces" with DP guns. It's all stuff that's only going to shoot at the beaches.

I tried again with CL Kenya and later with a couple of Clevelands and even more DDs in the landing TF, but it didn't make a difference. I'm trying to land the missing support from the units already ashore so that I can begin to think about combat ops. So I'll just have to burn up his supply, which I can do. He loses guns every time there's a bombardment, so hopefully that holds when I initiate the bombardment instead of it just being counter-battery fire.

I also don't really see a way for him to get his troops off of Timor, at least Dili/Lautem, at this point. If he sends all the xAKs it's going to take to do it, I'll send so many DDs and subs (I have 20+ running supply from Darwin that I'd shift to torpedo duty) that it'll be extremely costly for him. I'm also keeping the airfields damaged regularly, so the only way he can lift out would be via Emily/Mavis. It may be a few months before I can wreck his LCUs here, but that's fine.

[Lokasenna]

Burma Skies - August 1, 1944

A typical sweep for me. Results from 80-90% of our sweeps look like this. When I have a bad air day, it's because of strikes going bad.

[Lokasenna]

Future USN LBA pilots here. Well, 90-plane TB units probably count as LBA.

[Lokasenna]

Burma battles - August 2, 1944

He makes that Chinese HQ scurry away outside Pisanuloke and then appears to be withdrawing towards Bangkok, leaving "speedbumps" around Rahaeng. That's fine, I'm waiting for supply anyway.

Outside Uttaradit, we make progress with an attack. Look at his raw AV! That's for 2 Tank Divisions and 1 full ID, plus a couple of tank regiments. I'm not sure why he sent his 3 tank divisions (remember, the 2nd is just outside Pisanuloke and looks roughed up to about 50% TOE) to this area. With the 4th Tank also outside Pisanuloke, it's as if all of his tanks are fighting in the theater with the extremely good anti-hard squads floating around in Indian/British divisions.

He should've kept some of those tanks further south, with what I'm about to do.

[Lokasenna]

More Burma - August 3, 1944

Daily developments here. I've got a lot of recon, using a lot of P-40N26's (or whatever) with the camera, plus Fulmars, and Mosquitos. Anything with a camera and enough range to keep eyes on Thailand from Pegu.

He's now at ~900 aircraft between just those 3 bases. I assume he's CAPping Uttaradit and Pisanuloke heavily, and I'm not eager to waste my P-47 pools so I'll only sweep around the edges or when I think he's set up LRCAP on some units.

Note the movement arrows, or lack thereof. I should have max detection on the hex SW of Pisanuloke. DL is 9/10 on Bangkok, Moulmein, Tavoy, Mergui, Pisanuloke, and Uttaradit in addition to those others shown here. I have max detection on the hex 2 hexes SW of Pisanuloke also - it's 2 tank regiments. There are 2 units that just crossed into the jungle on the road down from Rahaeng, but I'm not sure what they are. Unsure what the unit is just outside Ayuthia.

I assume he's trying like mad to build forts at Ayuthia now, but who knows. He's sitting still basically at Moulmein. I'm not crossing that river, so he can just keep sitting there as long as he wants. I redo the movement every day in case he does move out. The way I see it, that army of about 3000 IJA AV at/outside of Moulmein can only just barely get down to Bangkok for extraction right now. The longer he sits, the harder that's going to be with what's coming.

I forgot about something I thought about doing months ago, once the Chinese finally arrived from NE Indochina, and so I'm not getting things into position as quickly as I would like. I could have made the move at any point from August 1 onwards.

[Lokasenna]

Timor airfield suppression - August 2, 1944

A nice strike here, although a little costly in terms of escorts. But this should start keeping him from being able to use Koepang regularly, which would mean it's only a matter of time before I can overpower this particular battlement in his mile-high fortress perimeter.

[Lokasenna]

The importance of hex-side control - August 3, 1944

I keep daily 9/10 recon on Paoshan and Tsuyung. I don't see movement indicators after today. My little HQ unit moves in from the NE today, cutting his supply road.

It looks like 1/3 of a division at Chengtu (recon levels poor this day in order to get Chungking pictures, or I would have included the numbers... it's 3-4 units and 10K or so troops). My troops on the road don't have anywhere near enough supplies to take the place, but after I get done doing some stuff in Thailand I'll be seeing about dropping them 5-6K supply to maybe do something neat.

[Lokasenna]

A data point on Lautem from August 2. So far as I know, the troops/guns/vehicles/raw AV numbers in the combat summary don't lie. As in they don't have any FOW involved, unlike the casualty numbers.

Comparing to the last one, he's down 3 guns. I like it and will begin my own bombards soon (although I expect him to use Reserve mode to save on his supplies).

[Lokasenna]

This is an example of a bad air day. I really need the P-51D, which comes in November. I don't have enough planes around that can perform long range LRCAP, since the P-38 is so unreliable with PDU On. I have Spit-VIII's and TBolts, but otherwise I'm trying to rely on the P-51B. It's a perfectly decent plane, but is a second-stringer. It can't match up with the George or Frank. This day here broke my pools for the P-51B - I need to switch some units around to have any kind of reserve. You don't get very many of the early P-51 models.

The A6M5b losses are from my 2 P-47 sweeps of Uttaradit. My P-47s didn't actually do that great there. My losses are combined from that sweep and from his sweeps outside of Uttaradit, over the big tank stack which he has been bombing periodically. I've been trying to net some fighters on escort plus the bombers, which works every now and again.

[Lokasenna]

New Guinea - August 3, 1944

Meanwhile, back in New Guinea... he seems anxious to get his trapped units killed off. He attacks when he remembers to, I think, or when they have any kind of AV. At Wewak, his last 3 units finally die to attrition (25st Special Base Force, 16th JAAF Base Force, and a JNAF Unit). This stack at Aitape is one of two larger stacks of his, with lots of useful utility units in them. The other is outside Sarmi. Probably a few hundred LCU VPs, but I'm not in a hurry to kill them. I can just keep a regiment at each of my bases and not have anything to worry about, while he has to wait to rebuild them. I do need to strike a balance, though - I want him to rebuild them to burn the supplies, but I also don't want them to have time to rest up and defend anywhere.

His routine is to rebuild units then send them to Manchuria, "unlocking" better units for use elsewhere. I guess this works, but the cost in supplies is not small. I got SIGINT a couple of turns prior that one of the Mixed Brigades that I killed at Port Blair was heading to Fukuoka by ship. Probably from there to Korea, is my guess.

[Lokasenna]

A "sloppy" op - August 4, 1944

OK, it isn't happening yet. But in the next couple of days it will. If I were doing this properly, I'd. Not that I need distractions to be sloppy, but I'm ready to do the main thing about now, and if he doesn't react then sloppy will work. If he does, then it won't matter if it's not sloppy. I at least have surface cover, and bases have supply to run LRCAP. I wish I had the supply around for drop tanks, or the airfield levels to also bring in a couple hundred DBs or attack bombers, but that would take a few more weeks.

I got into Thailand a little too fast, which has forced things forward a bit. I was pseudo-planning for September.

[Lokasenna]

Outside Uttaradit: hulking out some tanks - August 4, 1944

See ya next year, 1st and 3rd Tank Divisions.




Our stack will do the long walk west and then southwest into Rahaeng. I don't want to move quickly right now, and I'm not eager to shock across to Uttaradit. I would rather consolidate my forces at Rahaeng and shock across to Pisanuloke, if anything, where the terrain is clear and when I can use my full stack instead of half of it.

[Lokasenna]

A good air day. Bombing Timor and the Sorong area, almost daily or every other day these days. Will post a screenshot of the good sweep from this turn next, but the Helens shot down were kamikazes running out of Dili. I figured he would bring in planes periodically as the runway damage went down (since we know the airfield damaged reported on the map is just service damage), and I have CAP set up 99% of the time.

The Frank losses are from sweep attempts on Babar, where I have only a light CAP of Hellcats and Corsairs.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

A good air day. Bombing Timor and the Sorong area, almost daily or every other day these days. Will post a screenshot of the good sweep from this turn next, but the Helens shot down were kamikazes running out of Dili. I figured he would bring in planes periodically as the runway damage went down (since we know the airfield damaged reported on the map is just service damage), and I have CAP set up 99% of the time.

The Frank losses are from sweep attempts on Babar, where I have only a light CAP of Hellcats and Corsairs.

At Waigeo, just offshore from Sorong:

I know doing this with this unit costs me the ability to upgrade some of my Hurricanes in Burma to Thunderbolts, but having a 54-plane Thunderbolt sweep is just too good. This is a British unit, obviously.

[Lokasenna]

Sansapor - August 6, 1944

The first day is sometimes easy. It's the second days that are hard and you are at luck's mercy. That's tomorrow.

[Lokasenna]

I changed the Beaufighters to bombs. They're still "sweeping" - I think they're broken.