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

[BillBrown]

I had to go look. In this thread tm.asp?m=2527985&mpage=1&key=recon%EF%BF%BD
michaelm states that only one is necessary, but things change and maybe he was wrong, I don't know either way.
I will have to try both ways sometime in the future and see what happens.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]January 10th 1943[/font]
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Although all eyes are focused on the West Coast things do happen elsewhere.

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India
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The Allied forces renews the offensive on the road towards Cox Bazaar. They wont be strong enough to punch through but their job is to pin down the Japanese forces here.

A smaller attack is thrusting out towards Ledo. I expect little resistance here.

The bulk of the Allied forces are moving off trains and boarding ships for the 1st phase of operation Pencil. 6 divisions, 2 Brigades and lots of support will ship out in 3-4 days depending on how fast they can load. They will be followed in 2-4 weeks time by another 4 divisions.

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SOPAC
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The Allies have now cleared everything south of the Solomons from Japanese forces. We are currently expanding Ndeni for operations into the Solomons. Japanese resistance is non existant.

Allied divisional units are moving off trains waiting for their transports arrive. 4 divisions together with lots of armored units are in place. A 5th division is aboard ships en route to join up with the fleet. This will be operation Paper.

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NORPAC
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Jeff launches his strat bombing campaign again. I had foreseen this and moved AA units in place but since they were still on trains their effect was small. They will unload tomorrow.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Counterattack begins[/font]
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Time to start hitting back at the West Coast. I decided to gamble that Jeff wont bombard LA tomorrow. If he does things could turn nasty for me.

The plan is the same as outlined yesterday. As can be seen in the screen it looks like a troop convoy is moving for Santa Ana. I intend to hit this convoy hopefully weakening Jeffs second wave.

It will not be a full blown strike. I decided to hold back some units and not throw all eggs in one basked. 200 Army fighters (P40K/P40E/P39s) will sweep and LRCAP Santa Ana. 50 4Es will hit the small airfield (already mildly damaged by earlier Japanese bombardments). 150 Army, Navy and USMC divebombers will launch from LA. I restricted their range to 1 and I hope they will go after the transports that appear to move for Santa Ana.

What I truly hope for is to capture the KB fighter wings on LRCAP. I know the Zero is really brittle and even damaged planes will hopefully mean they are out of action for a long while. The P40Ks outperform the Zeroes at this stage and should do well. Allied subs will move into the Santa Ana hex hopefully saving as many pilots as possible. They are in true shortage.

If I can deny Jeff the air I think my chances of success will increase drastically. Even if he does fly fighters off the CVs there will be no easy task to replenish losses. To my knowledge the Japanese doesn´t get any VRF squadrons? And in order for him to replenish losses he will need a level 7 airfield with 20k supply. The supply alone will be a huge obstacle even when/if he manages to secure a level 7 airfield.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: BillBrown

I had to go look. In this thread tm.asp?m=2527985&mpage=1&key=recon%EF%BF%BD
michaelm states that only one is necessary, but things change and maybe he was wrong, I don't know either way.
I will have to try both ways sometime in the future and see what happens.

I agree that was my recollection when I noted (what seems to be) the behavior that it's only for one ship at a time. What I see in the combat report is (paraphrasing because I forget the exact wording) "Kingfisher float plane spotting for USS Iowa". And as I mentioned sometimes those messages appear for multiple firing ships in the same battle report.

Just guessing, I figured that someone pointed out that a floatplane only spotted for one ship (don't know if that was true, just guessing).

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Allied reserves[/font]
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By lowering the standards of what is acceptable for a DB pilots and draining the training squadrons I have managed to equip another 100 DBs at SF. They will be ready in 3-4 days.

This will coincide with the ER going operational. So in 3-5 days I hope to be able to launch a massive counterattack using the 75 P47s and 50 P38s together with (and this is depending on losses tomorrow) 250 other fighters, 250 DBs and 80 TBs.

On the ground the 44th, 94th and 104th divisions are still on reserve mode. The former in NORPAC and the latter sitting aboard trains at SF. The ER forces are still boarding trains at SLC.

[JocMeister]

[font="Verdana"]Squad upgrades[/font]
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Need some help with this...I have 285 USA -42 squads in my pool. -43 squads have started production and I now have 18 of them. Strangely enough the -42 squads still havn´t converted to -43 squads.

Same thing with the USMC squads. I have 700(!) -42 squads in the pool and 73 -43 squads.

Why arn´t the -42 variants converting to -43? Or does the actual conversion only happens with squads that are upgraded in the units?

[ny59giants]

Squad Upgrades - I think its either 6 OR 8 months after the newer squads come out do the older ones start to 'upgrade" themselves at the rate they came in as reinforcements. So, your '42 squads will still be there until July or later.

Hit the "P" button to bring up your Preference screen. Look in the second group of buttons and ensure the obsolete device upgrade option is "ON." If not, have Jeff change it.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Squad Upgrades - I think its either 6 OR 8 months after the newer squads come out do the older ones start to 'upgrade" themselves at the rate they came in as reinforcements. So, your '42 squads will still be there until July or later.

Hit the "P" button to bring up your Preference screen. Look in the second group of buttons and ensure the obsolete device upgrade option is "ON." If not, have Jeff change it.

Ah, I see. No hope of upgrading in time to be of use on the WC then. [:(]

[IJV]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

Squad Upgrades - I think its either 6 OR 8 months after the newer squads come out do the older ones start to 'upgrade" themselves at the rate they came in as reinforcements. So, your '42 squads will still be there until July or later.

Hit the "P" button to bring up your Preference screen. Look in the second group of buttons and ensure the obsolete device upgrade option is "ON." If not, have Jeff change it.

Ah, I see. No hope of upgrading in time to be of use on the WC then. [:(]

Have you got a couple of non-withdrawing spare US infantry batallions/rgts somewhere non-critical where they can be disbanded? (India, Australia etc) - if so, you can cascade upgrades (start with 31, upgrade 1bn, disband it, have 62, upgrade another, disband it, have 93, upgrade 1rgt, have 186 etc) - just means taking the units out of play for six months.

Even absent that, on the anti-armor agenda it may be worth taking a couple of days (if you haven't already) to dole out the 57mm ATGs you got in the invasion mobilisation specifically to the units you expect to get attacked by those Japanese armoured divs - I think you should have got 240 of them, bearing in mind that they won't be produced properly for another year or so so you probably wouldn't want to issue all of them - maybe half and then stockpile?

[JocMeister]

Ooops. Just spent 800 Euro buying a new NAS server. QNAP TS-251. Bought 2x 4TB disc to go with it. Bought a Chromecast dongle and a chromecast audio one too. Going to set it up as a Plex server and stream it via Chromecast.

Things that can happen when you get a 2000 Euro tax refund! [:D]

[JocMeister]

Arrrghh.

Got the replay but probably won´t get the turn until tomorrow.

Everything went perfectly. Except that the DBs didn´t fly!!! I bet Jeff parked the KB at Santa Ana. This usually means LBA refuses to fly... [:@] At least we put the hurt on the KB airwings for little own loss.

Estimate as many as 50-60 zeroes shot down for perhaps 10 Allied fighters! Also shot down a bunch of Jakes. 93 Zeroes on CAP...If I indeed shot down as many as 50+ it means KB is now in danger.

[poodlebrain]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Arrrghh.

Got the replay but probably won´t get the turn until tomorrow.

Everything went perfectly. Except that the DBs didn´t fly!!! I bet Jeff parked the KB at Santa Ana. This usually means LBA refuses to fly... [:@] At least we put the hurt on the KB airwings for little own loss.

Estimate as many as 50-60 zeroes shot down for perhaps 10 Allied fighters! Also shot down a bunch of Jakes. 93 Zeroes on CAP...If I indeed shot down as many as 50+ it means KB is now in danger.

I doubt the KB is at Santa Ana for 2 reasons. The first is it is now a Japanese port, and his air operations would be limited to 50% of deck capacity. The second is he only had 93 fighters on CAP.

Congrats on the tax refund, but I hate them. It means the government had the use of your money for which they did not compensate you. How did you convince your wife to permit you to invest your refund so wisely on information technology equipment instead of say furniture?

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: poodlebrain
Congrats on the tax refund, but I hate them. It means the government had the use of your money for which they did not compensate you. How did you convince your wife to permit you to invest your refund so wisely on information technology equipment instead of say furniture?

I have the best wife... She just asked how much. I told her and she said "sure no problem".

To be honest I don´t usually buy much technology lately. Besides I built her a new kitchen and two new bathrooms last year. So I guess she figured I deserved it. [:)]

[Anachro]

What is a Plex server? What is NAS? What is Chromecast? I feel so behind the times.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

What is a Plex server? What is NAS? What is Chromecast? I feel so behind the times.

Welcome to the 21st century! [:D]

Basically (if it works like I intend it to) I will use a centralized (NAS) storage for media (pictures, movies, TV-series and music) and stream it to the TV/computer/phones/pads using a software call Plex.

The Chromecast is a nifty little device used by Google that takes care of the actual transfer over wifi. [:)]

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: poodlebrain

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Arrrghh.

Got the replay but probably won´t get the turn until tomorrow.

Everything went perfectly. Except that the DBs didn´t fly!!! I bet Jeff parked the KB at Santa Ana. This usually means LBA refuses to fly... [:@] At least we put the hurt on the KB airwings for little own loss.

Estimate as many as 50-60 zeroes shot down for perhaps 10 Allied fighters! Also shot down a bunch of Jakes. 93 Zeroes on CAP...If I indeed shot down as many as 50+ it means KB is now in danger.

I doubt the KB is at Santa Ana for 2 reasons. The first is it is now a Japanese port, and his air operations would be limited to 50% of deck capacity. The second is he only had 93 fighters on CAP.

Congrats on the tax refund, but I hate them. It means the government had the use of your money for which they did not compensate you. How did you convince your wife to permit you to invest your refund so wisely on information technology equipment instead of say furniture?

I could see him wanting to put KB into Santa Ana with the tankers to refuel before he goes gallivanting. He may want to use KB in more northern waters shortly.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: BillBrown

I thought that only one FP unit had to be set for the entire TF. It would aid all bombarding ships.

The reason why I do several (the one at the "top" and the "bottom" of the heaviest ship type in the TF) is because after the spotter plane is up for one ship, it continues to spot for the next ships (even though it doesn't say so). Or at least, Michael said he changed that in one of the betas a few years back. I do the "top" and "bottom" because one of those ships is going to be the first to bombard. It's not terribly consistent, but it is always one of those two.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister
And in order for him to replenish losses he will need a level 7 airfield with 20k supply. The supply alone will be a huge obstacle even when/if he manages to secure a level 7 airfield.

Or an appropriate air HQ, or if a group is Independent (i.e., was on a CV) it will pull from all the way across the map if it wants to. Replacements is easier to do than a lot of people think.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

[font="Verdana"]Squad upgrades[/font]
_____________________________________________________________________________

Need some help with this...I have 285 USA -42 squads in my pool. -43 squads have started production and I now have 18 of them. Strangely enough the -42 squads still havn´t converted to -43 squads.

Same thing with the USMC squads. I have 700(!) -42 squads in the pool and 73 -43 squads.

Why arn´t the -42 variants converting to -43? Or does the actual conversion only happens with squads that are upgraded in the units?

I'm not certain about this, but I do know the rate is slow... I think it may go faster once you have no units that are using the old device?

[BillBrown]

Found this in the patch notes.

40. After 6 months, an expired pooled device (squad or engineer type) will slowly convert to the upgraded version; if Japan, obsolete devices will revert to the raw materials