Into The Unknown Taxcutter vs. Ironman

[jwolf]

ORIGINAL: Taxcutter

Estimated time to repair Saratoga in San Diego: 157 days. Ouch!

I can move her to yards north of there and reduce the time to 97 days.

Rest of the CV force will be A-OK in three game weeks.

How do you know the exact time before you get there? [&:]

[Taxcutter]

San Diego only has 50,000 tons of yard capacity and thus cannot do "high priority" work on a ship this big. High priority repair time is only 97 days.

[Taxcutter]

That's two solid months.

It's worth dragging her out of San Diego up to SF or Bremerton. Mare island and Alameda have big ships getting "high priority" work now.

[jwolf]

Well even LA would be better than SD. Or is something else getting fixed there?

[jmalter]

ORIGINAL: Taxcutter
I'm about to snap the trap shut on 46,000 men near Kweilin and another 20,000 near Kukong.

Until the Burma Road is opened (and sometimes after), supply is always an issue for the Chinese. You gotta get used to it.

I won't try to attack these stacks until I have them completely surrounded.

I can't tell from your post - do you still own Kweilin & Kukong? Where are the IJ ground forces 'near' those bases? Are they sitting on road/rail connections back to your main forces? If not, why are you messing w/ them?

Kweilin has some decent industry, & is worth securing. Kukong has none, & is not.

You're in July '42, & while I applaud your desire to visit some amoebic dysentery on the IJA, I doubt you have the ability to attack large enemy forces. Chinese 41 Inf Squads can't attack the IJA, even at 10:1 raw AV odds. Far better to reinforce the Kweilin & Kukong defenders & stay on defense - let the IJA spend its supply on ground & air attacks, while enforcing *draconian* supply-conservation measures throughout your Chinese forces.

There are 5 Chinese Art Regiments that need to upgrade to 105 Howitzers, that's 20 months production. Your Inf Squads can't begin to upgrade until Jan 43. When you have 2 or 3 Chinese Army Groups upgraded, then you'll have a credibly effective offensive force - meanwhile your defenses at Loyang & Hankow are starved for supply & reinfocements.

I'm assuming that you've alread lost the Burma Road supply bonus, & your supply is limited to what you can fly in from Ledo. I doubt that it's enough to support offensive ops, I've gotta ask, "What makes you think your attacks will improve your strategic situation?"

Far better, IMO: Work westward from Luchow to clear Nanning, then move on Hanoi/Haiphong (if you allow that from a political view).

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

ORIGINAL: Taxcutter
... I won't try to attack these stacks until I have them completely surrounded.

... Far better to reinforce the Kweilin & Kukong defenders & stay on defense - let the IJA spend its supply on ground & air attacks, while enforcing *draconian* supply-conservation measures throughout your Chinese forces.

Many ++ to what jmalter said. Don't attack them, better insert large enough force into the hex and gradually cut off all the hex sides.
Encirclement might work in the long run since AI is pretty passive wrt his troops being cut off and usually does not try to relieve them. As soon as the encircled LCUs have their supply somewhat reduced they stop attacking and just sit there, calmly eating up their supply. Air bombing help accelerate the process, but this being China all spare avgas should be directed to being eaten by the infantry.

[Taxcutter]

Repairing the Saratoga at LA (instead of San Diego) reduced repair time to 95 days.

The IJA stack near Kweilin is athwart the railroad. I have him all but surrounded.

The IJA at Kukong is in Kukong proper, but is only one unit. It could be air-supplied. Ironman has a lot of short-ranged air transports with nothing better to do.

Still haven't seen many C-47 units anywhere. A couple of squadrons at Ledo. Everything else seems to be just fragments and detachments.

[jmalter]

hi Tc,
In some cases, such as your Kweilin fight, IMO it's better to leave the enemy an open hexside to retreat through. If you don't occupy all 6 hexes surrounding the target, you can channel his retreat to your preferred hex, (an adjacent non-road, non-RR hex). The AI won't know that you're already maneuvering units to block supply to its retreat-hex!
In this way, you can acheive your objectives at Kweilin (kick the enemy out, restart production, free the railroad) at a lower cost in time, supply & casualties.
If you surround the enemy, you're committed to a longer fight where he must be completely destroyed before you win.
But your objective is to displace him. If you force a retreat to an adjacent non-RR hex, that's easier to do. Once he's retreated, you can rest your fighting units & assign them a new planning target. Subsequent action will be 'clean-up on aisle 5'.

[Taxcutter]

Update August 25, 1942.

Other than a few xAKs getting whacked at Kiska and the fighter grind on the Indian border, the whole theater is quiet.

I am beginning to move assets to Noumea to support an invasion of Guadalcanal/Tulagi. Transports, surface forces. Troops are in place but not yet fully prepared. My truncated Death Star is still about three weeks from leaving Pearl after the Midway battle.

I'm also moving bomb groups of B-17Es to Brisbane to redeploy at Cairns and Cooktown to (escorted by P-38Fs) to bomb New Guinea.

I'm pulling in subs. When I attack Guadalcanal, I'll flood the Truk area with fleet boats and the Solomons with S-class boats.

[Taxcutter]

Update Septemeber 16, 1942

Things have been fairly quiet in the Pacific.

The aerial grind on the Indian border continues. The British Hurricane production seems to be going exclusively here and my two US FGs are sucking my P-40E pool dry. One good thing, combat at this level generates a lot of experience fast. Now that I have TRACOM staffed up, I keep my aces grounded four days a week to avoid losses through random attrition. I'm trying to build depth in squadron experience but the 80-20 rule applies to WITP-AE as much as anything else.

Assets of all sorts are oozing toward Noumea for an invasion of Guadalcanal.

I am bombing Milne Bay and will move on to Rossel Island and Moresby a bit later. My airedales have found 37,000 men at Moresby and 27,000 at Milne Bay, but none at Guadalcanal or Tulagi. My Death Star of 5xCV, 3xBB, and 15xDD plus a CVE full of replacements will be ready to move by the end of the month. When I hit Guadalcanal I will flood the zone with SS to whittle down Ironman's warship advantage.

I did succeed in surround two of the IJA stacks , including the big one east of Kweilin. This may take a while but I have to have my railroad back. Kukong is near surrounded as well.

[jwolf]

ORIGINAL: Taxcutter
I keep my aces grounded four days a week to avoid losses through random attrition.

Naive question: can you explain this? I don't understand either the problem or the solution.

As for Kukong, I discovered early in my game against the Jap AI (just regular, not ironman) that supply just wouldn't flow to Kukong, so on that basis it was undefendable. Ditto for the base just a bit east of there, Kanhsien (?) which I abandoned in April 42 and 6 months later is still unoccupied as neither side wants it! Basically, supply was tolerable in China until Burma fell, and then it got much worse. I do have about 100 transports flying supply from Ledo but it's still true that some bases just don't get supply at all. Fortunately the Japanese army in my game has been quiet for months after some major losses at Sinyang, so I am happy with a stalemate for the time being.

[jmalter]

ORIGINAL: Taxcutter
Air supremacy is necessary but not sufficient. I'm wearing down his air assets (evidenced by smaller and smaller raids on my bases) but my low airframe replacement rate leaves me with squadrons operating at 30-50% strength despite having adequate veteran aircrew.

If your sqns are at 30-50% airframes, you're conducting air ops (presumably Fighter CAP) at an unsustainable rate. What's your attitude wrt force preservation? For example, the AVG disbands 04 July 42, but its surviving airframes go to the nascent Chinese air force pools. What's the dividing line between the AVG's air-defense value vs. the CAF's need for full-strength air-defense sqns in the latter half of 1942? If all the H81's are expended, what's flying CAP over Chungking?

After a little more training I have several USMC air squadrons to move to SoPac and SWPac areas. I need something with some good anti-shipping punch to offset Ironman's "IJN on steroids." USMC Dauntlesses and Avengers fill the bill.

Well-trained DBs & TBs are true ship-killers, but IMO the LowN tactic doesn't enough attention. I get great results from non-AB 2EBs trained in the LowN role rather than the NavB skill. This includes a number of Dutch MB & FP sqns that were evacuated from the DEI debacle. Also I use non-AB USArmy B-25 & B-26 sqns in this role, as well as some Oz groups. Admittedly, it takes 3 months to train LowN, & they'll need another 2 months to train NavS, before they're operational. Then when they convert to AB-types, they'll need Strafe training, too. But they bring much more hurt to enemy shipping as LowN, instead of NavB.
Another idea, staff a USNavy PBY-5 sqn w/ high-skill NavT pilots, & unleash it against identified enemy transport TFs.
All these USA/USN planes have great transfer ranges, & can be quickly re-positioned to threatened areas. They'll take losses, but that's what a robust rear-area training program is for.

[Taxcutter]

I agree, my ops tempo on the Indian border has been too aggressive. Both British and American squadrons are getting a bit thin, and replacements aren't picking up.

I've been thinking about withdrawing all my air assets to Calcutta and letting Chittagong, Cox's Bazaar, Imphal, and Silchar take the beating, while my fighter groups recover. They have flak units and engineers (including US Army engineers with bulldozers) and plenty of supply, so they can weather the storm. Ironman shows no sign of going back to the land offensive. Akyab seems to have satisfied his script. The whole front is (for now) completely defensive, so losing the initiative in the air is not a big deal.

The only reason I have not done this before now is that Ironman's Oscar squadrons seem to be thinning out.

What annoys me is that (in the short term) if I power down the air war at the Indian border, the whole theater goes comatose. The only other active hostilities are five B-17E and one P-38F squadrons pounding Milne Bay from my air base at Cairns. So far they are unopposed and the Milne Bay air base is over half neutralized.


I am preparing to throw most of my assets at Guadalcanal. Ironman is so strong that I simply cannot go at him half-heartedly. I'm even massing SS to flood the zone even though they are not terrific tactical assets. One sub gets lucky and the balance could shift. The offensive doesn't start until I get the Enterprise out of the yards in 13 days.


I have the IJA force surrounded outside Kweilin, but attacking more than once a week will overtax the Chinese logistics. But I sure want that railroad back.


Dumb question time. How do I train aircrew specifically in the LowN, NavS, NavB, and NavT roles? In all my time playing this game I've never done that.

[BBfanboy]

Low Nav - train at 1000 feet for bombing, 100' to add the strafe skill. The latter is good for flak suppression but only rarely does a strafing hit result in real damage.

Nav Search - train at 1000' (to get the boost to Defensive Skill as well)

Nav Bombing - train at 2000'

Nav T - train at 1000' (you do not even need to have torps on the aircraft during training)

All training at 0 range distance to minimize fatigue. Big bases are of course better.

I think presence of an Air HQ within range can help speed the training,

Squadron commanders need good Leadership and a decent level in the skill being trained. HQs - leadership and administration.

[Taxcutter]

Thanks for the advice. I'll try it. I have an A-20 squadron that is for now rather useless. Plenty of time to train at Brisbane. Maybe ship it back to CONUS.

Posts may be delayed a few days.

Bill Gates hates me. Windows 10 crashed and took all my settings. Gotta get everything including WITP-AE reloaded.

[BBfanboy]

The original A-20 is not a great assault bomber because it does not have the nose mounted m/gs. Upgrade to A-20A1 before using them as assault bombers.

[jmalter]

Woe, Tc - I hope you're able to recover your WitP install & savegames after your sys-crash.

How do I train aircrew specifically in the LowN, NavS, NavB, and NavT roles? In all my time playing this game I've never done that.

Ahh, Pilot Training - my favorite thing. So I've developed some rules:
a) Training groups should be set to Range=0, to keep pilot & airframe fatigue at minimum. This is especially important when re-habbing a tired front-line group.
b) Staff all airgroups w/ max pilots (133% of airframe size), but don't bring in more pilot Replacements than are available in the Replacement pools.
c) Airgroups function best (for front-line or training) when their pilots have identical Exp rating. It's difficult to achieve this in practice, but try to keep the Exp differential to 5 or less. In general, an airgroup assigned to offense will use its best-Exp pilots for missions, while an airgroup assigned to training will work up its least-Exp pilots.
d) For Training, all Missions train best at 5k', except LowN/LowG skill must be trained at 4k' or lower, and Strafe must be trained at 100'. I don't know if ASW or NavS training is altitude-related. I use 1k' for ASW & 6k' for NavS, using those altitudes for both Training & combat missions.

I'm taken aback a bit to read that you're not up to speed on Pilot Training methods, I find it hard to credit. I'll try to give you good info here:
1) LowN - Any non-Transport group can train for this mission, set Training to Naval Attack mission, at alt 1k'.
2) NavS - Set Training Mission to Naval Search. Note that offensive missions set to Naval Search or ASW Patrol always use their 'extended range' ordnance load, regardless of their actual Range setting. This always precludes the use of torps, so if you have a hungry USNavy Catalina sqn that is NavT-trained, set its Group Mission to Naval Attack Using Torpedoes (w/ a %age for Search), instead of Naval Search.
3) NavB - Train at 5k', regardless of plane type. This skill is used for all Naval Bombing attacks at 5k' or above - which will use the altitude-dependent dive-bombing, glide-bombing or level-bombing attack profile.
4) NavT - Only torpedo-capable planes can train or execute this mission. Change the ordnance load (in the center of the airproup's screen) from 'Using BOMBS' to 'Using TORPEDOES' to train NavT. If the 'Using TORPEDOES' text is RED, that means no torps are available - this doesn't affect their ability to Train, but if called on to attack, they'll default to bombs.
5) Strafe - This skill is needed for LowN attackers, once they've upgraded to an 'Attack Bomber' airframe. Train at 100' It's also the only reliable way to attack enemy TFs of barges or suicide boats - send in a group of fighters or fighter-bombers set to Naval Attack at 100'.

hope this helps, forgive me if I'm instructing you on things you already know.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: jmalter

Woe, Tc - I hope you're able to recover your WitP install & savegames after your sys-crash.

How do I train aircrew specifically in the LowN, NavS, NavB, and NavT roles? In all my time playing this game I've never done that.

Ahh, Pilot Training - my favorite thing. So I've developed some rules:
a) Training groups should be set to Range=0, to keep pilot & airframe fatigue at minimum. This is especially important when re-habbing a tired front-line group.
b) Staff all airgroups w/ max pilots (133% of airframe size), but don't bring in more pilot Replacements than are available in the Replacement pools.
c) Airgroups function best (for front-line or training) when their pilots have identical Exp rating. It's difficult to achieve this in practice, but try to keep the Exp differential to 5 or less. In general, an airgroup assigned to offense will use its best-Exp pilots for missions, while an airgroup assigned to training will work up its least-Exp pilots.
d) For Training, all Missions train best at 5k', except LowN/LowG skill must be trained at 4k' or lower, and Strafe must be trained at 100'. I don't know if ASW or NavS training is altitude-related. I use 1k' for ASW & 6k' for NavS, using those altitudes for both Training & combat missions.

I'm taken aback a bit to read that you're not up to speed on Pilot Training methods, I find it hard to credit. I'll try to give you good info here:
1) LowN - Any non-Transport group can train for this mission, set Training to Naval Attack mission, at alt 1k'.
2) NavS - Set Training Mission to Naval Search. Note that offensive missions set to Naval Search or ASW Patrol always use their 'extended range' ordnance load, regardless of their actual Range setting. This always precludes the use of torps, so if you have a hungry USNavy Catalina sqn that is NavT-trained, set its Group Mission to Naval Attack Using Torpedoes (w/ a %age for Search), instead of Naval Search.
3) NavB - Train at 5k', regardless of plane type. This skill is used for all Naval Bombing attacks at 5k' or above - which will use the altitude-dependent dive-bombing, glide-bombing or level-bombing attack profile.
4) NavT - Only torpedo-capable planes can train or execute this mission. Change the ordnance load (in the center of the airproup's screen) from 'Using BOMBS' to 'Using TORPEDOES' to train NavT. If the 'Using TORPEDOES' text is RED, that means no torps are available - this doesn't affect their ability to Train, but if called on to attack, they'll default to bombs.
5) Strafe - This skill is needed for LowN attackers, once they've upgraded to an 'Attack Bomber' airframe. Train at 100' It's also the only reliable way to attack enemy TFs of barges or suicide boats - send in a group of fighters or fighter-bombers set to Naval Attack at 100'.

hope this helps, forgive me if I'm instructing you on things you already know.

Can we get some clarification of the LandB/NavB altitude thing? When I started playing this game the minimum altitude for those missions was 6000', training included.

About a year ago when I installed the latest official patch I learned from others that the altitude for those two missions had been changed to minimum 2000'. I have been using this for training and occasionally for attack (when AA is non-existant). They work fine, and the training gets better Defensive skill benefit than I was getting at 6000'.

Then someone mentioned in another thread that level bombers only carry a full bomb load if they are at 6000' or higher. I am not sure if this is true or an artifact of the old minimum altitudes before the last official patch? If LandB and NavB can be done at 2000' (and they can) why would the bomb load be cut in half? Fuel range issues in denser air?

In case it makes a difference, I should mention I am only playing stock scenarios, not the modded ones or the Beta.

As for defaulting to torpedoes on Cats hunting for targets, I prefer bombs because the most common targets are small, fast ships like DDs or TBs, and often subs. Add in the dud rate on torpedoes (even at their best) and I think you get more hits with bombs.

[Taxcutter]

Well, I'm gonna get a new chance to put all thise training advice into practice.

Windows 10 deleted my saved game file.

I'll have to start over.

[jwolf]

ORIGINAL: Taxcutter

Well, I'm gonna get a new chance to put all thise training advice into practice.

Windows 10 deleted my saved game file.

I'll have to start over.

You don't have an earlier save to fall back to? [:(]