Climb Mt. Niitaka - Xargun vs Mr Kane

[Hotei]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

Accelerating the A6M line will keep your carriers competitive through 43.

How should the M5 series be researched, all of them or just the last?

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Hotei

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

Accelerating the A6M line will keep your carriers competitive through 43.

How should the M5 series be researched, all of them or just the last?

Start with the A6M2 Rufe exclusive. These factories will come online very quickly and then you will have the option to automatically upgrade them to the A6M5 for free. This will fast-track your A6M research... really the fastest tree to develop of any. In a PDU:On game, you can ignore the A6M3a completely. In PDU:Off, you may want to put 2 factories R&D on A6M3a, only because with 6 factories working on the A6M5 and 500 engines in the pool, the A6M5 will actually become available 2 months before the A6M3a, and you will not be able to upgrade your squadrons to the M5 without first upgrading to the M3a. You do not have this problem in PDU:On, as you can bypass the squadrons' upgrade trees.

[Hotei]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

ORIGINAL: Hotei

ORIGINAL: Aurorus

Accelerating the A6M line will keep your carriers competitive through 43.

How should the M5 series be researched, all of them or just the last?

Start with the A6M2 Rufe exclusive. These factories will come online very quickly and then you will have the option to automatically upgrade them to the A6M5 for free. This will fast-track your A6M research... really the fastest tree to develop of any. In a PDU:On game, you can ignore the A6M3a completely. In PDU:Off, you may want to put 2 factories R&D on A6M3a, only because with 6 factories working on the A6M5 and 500 engines in the pool, the A6M5 will actually become available 2 months before the A6M3a, and you will not be able to upgrade your squadrons to the M5 without first upgrading to the M3a. You do not have this problem in PDU:On, as you can bypass the squadrons' upgrade trees.

Thank you, I need to look the relevant threads on the issue.
There still seems to remain a lot of decisions a player must make based on his grand strategy.

[Xargun]

Question. Mr Kane has given me pretty much carte blanche on my turn one. I am thinking of hitting both Pearl Harbor and Manila with a split KB. I have never done this, but I am thinking the subs are more of a pain in the long run than the slow BBs at Pearl. Is it worth hitting Pearl just to damage whatever I can and killing planes? Or should I hit Manila with everything.. thus having KB nearby to support my invasions in the DEI since Force Z will most likely flee southward?

I am wondering if sending 2 CVs to Pearl and 4 to Manila would be worth it? What do you guys recommend ?

[BBfanboy]

You need more CVs to do anything significant to PH.
Several players have taken Kaga from KB and put her with Ryujo/Zuiho to make a powerful squadron that can take on Manila and will sink many of the subs there.

That leaves five to hit PH. What you have to hope for is sinking the CAs and big CLs at PH. They are much more useful than the old BBs early on. Destroying some aircraft is good too, but he can easily make up the losses.

Unless you have a "no carrier hunting on turn one" rule, you could send KB to a spot between Wake and Roi-Namur to support the Wake landings and maybe surprise the USN CVs.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

Question. Mr Kane has given me pretty much carte blanche on my turn one. I am thinking of hitting both Pearl Harbor and Manila with a split KB. I have never done this, but I am thinking the subs are more of a pain in the long run than the slow BBs at Pearl. Is it worth hitting Pearl just to damage whatever I can and killing planes? Or should I hit Manila with everything.. thus having KB nearby to support my invasions in the DEI since Force Z will most likely flee southward?

I am wondering if sending 2 CVs to Pearl and 4 to Manila would be worth it? What do you guys recommend ?

Against Mr. Kane I recommend going after Pearl big time, either with all 6 or with 5. With all your carriers in the west and nothing but A5s in the Pacific, he can make use of those BBs along with his CVs early by getting straight to the business in Centpac. Those A5s on Rio Namur are hard to upgrade to A6Ms at first, because the airfield is not large enough and the HQ does not have enough supply. They have to be sent back to Truk to upgrade... 7 days really to get the squadron upgraded and back into position covering Centpac. He knows this and with the F4Fs from Pearl and Wake, he will have decided air superiority in Centpac for at least a week.

Read through a few AARs about the Pearl strikes. There is one in particular that went very wrong. He will probably sortie undamaged CAs and DDs to try to get at 1st Air Fleet. Whether you stay for a 2nd day or not is an in-game decision. I would note that manage disparage those BBs at Pearl, but reading late game AARs shows them often playing a prominent role, and you will be dependent on your surface fleet later in the game. It is nice to have a BB advantage there. Note Alfred's comments about the Pearl Strike vs. Manilla and Singapore. IMO Alfred gets it.

[Lowpe]

pdu on I would never build the sonia, but I would use the ones I start with. There is an argument for making a single engine bomber like Mary or Ann. Look at the engine pools and decide accordingly.

Converting all the light bombers over to fighter bombers (nicks) comes at a fairly steep political price but you can do it, and it adds a huge amount of versatility to your deep defense and even your early 42 sweeps where the Nick really shines. A lot of Japanese players swear that the nick makes for a great kamikaze...but at two engines I would rather focus on Judy and Jill as kamikazes. Judy packs a punch and Jill has long range.

If you focus on Manila you lose the chance to sink the POW. You can hunt the POW with the Akagi detached or strike Manila with her.

You can, is a little risky, bombard Pearl with your fast battleships. Make sure you stand off maximum range...

You can set your Zeroes to bomb Pearl's airfield from 7=10K instead of strafing. You can even use them to bomb the ships, sometimes their little bombs can start and grow fires. At least you aren't losing a dozen or more to AA.






The A6M2, 3, 3a, 5, 5b are kind of meh but are some of your best antibomber planes during that timeframe. The 5c with armor can fight bombers for the entire game but is god awful slow but can stand up to the Lightning in mid 43 when you should plan on getting her. The A6M8 suffers from poor range, but is still better than the 5c.

Just remember Frank and Sam...you can make a lot of mistakes, but if you get those two (mid 43 for Frank A, mid 44 for Sam) you will be in okay shape. One tactic is to assign 5 size 30 on the shinden immediately, M-M advocates that.

You can stay a second day at Pearl, but sweep it destroying even more early planes and pilots then bomb from altitude on a third day. Vals and Kates at 9. 2nd day you set your Vals and Kates to strike naval targets short of Pearl...they either get a day of rest or savage a surface raiding fleet of the Allies that is hunting for your KB.

If you do stick around, surround the KB with all your subs, so the Allied surface sortie has to get thru it to your KB, and break off a small surface group to patrol 1 hex in front of the KB to help protect the KB from a nasty Obvert style disaster.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

You can stay a second day at Pearl, but sweep it destroying even more early planes and pilots then bomb from altitude on a third day. Vals and Kates at 9. 2nd day you set your Vals and Kates to strike naval targets short of Pearl...they either get a day of rest or savage a surface raiding fleet of the Allies that is hunting for your KB.

If you do stick around, surround the KB with all your subs, so the Allied surface sortie has to get thru it to your KB, and break off a small surface group to patrol 1 hex in front of the KB to help protect the KB from a nasty Obvert style disaster.

Giving away the good stuff for free, I see. Well, since we are giving away the good stuff... let me recommend moving KB about 9 hexes from Pearl on Day 2 and set to range 6 or 7, if you are going to go for naval targets so that you don't launch a poorly coordinated strike on a task force sitting right on Pearl and get your planes chewed up by CAP.

Also, a lot of JFBs rest or take out their 80+ exp. flight commanders to avoid losing them to flack or Air-to-Air in the Pearl strike. In my experience (and I've tested the attack on Pearl about 50 times), you get the best results by leaving the 80 exp flight commanders active in the squadrons. Much more likely to carry torpedoes and get hits. In the attack on Pearl in the PBEM game that I am playing now, 5 of 6 squadrons carried torps... (Hiryu with its poor commander did not) and the results were savage. In addition to multiple torp hits on each BB, I hit 4 CLs and 6 DDs with torps. too.

After that, I did almost exactly what Lowpe describes here. The follow up attacks (and I launched 3) on Pearl sank all but 1 BB and reduced the repair facilities at the port by 60 (that's 60K supply to rebuild).

[witpqs]

The times I have had an IJ opponent skip the PH strike, I liked it. The old BBs are quite useful and not having to repair them is a big plus. A very large and unanticipated benefit was all the PBY types that did not get destroyed. Search is simply huge in this game.

On the other hand, IJ opponents always said that a 2nd day strike on PH was not worth it in terms of damage done versus aircraft lost. I even got serious licks against their ships sometimes.

My advice is hit PH, including the airfields, but only on day one. Then bugger out and watch out for a raid on your fleet oilers.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: witpqs


On the other hand, IJ opponents always said that a 2nd day strike on PH was not worth it in terms of damage done versus aircraft lost. I even got serious licks against their ships sometimes.

The flak over Pearl under 10K after day 1 is merciless against your unarmored carrer planes. If you fly Vals above 9K, they will dive bomb and take flak from everything. If you fly them at 9K, generally they will not dive bomb, but level bomb from 9k. My advice, if you do a follow up strike, just use the Kates and make sure you have a lot of fighters escorting. Stay above the worst of the flak... i.e. the mountains of 40mm with their 9K ceiling.

You can just bug out after Day 1, of course. No shame in that. It is a long game, and while you can potentially lose the war at Pearl by losing KB, you are not going to win it there.

[witpqs]

9K versus 10K is a hard cut off: at 9K they always level bomb, at 10K they always dive bomb. After some discussion with players on the forum the developers made it be that way.

[ny59giants]

I just had a re-start vs 1EyedJack in which he seemed to move out the AOs from TF2 and move in the BBs and a few CAs to bombard Pearl. He set TF to bombard from around 20k, no escorts bombard, and remain on station. This allowed KB to hit during the AM phase and then the ships hit in PM phase. Damage was 1117 casualties, 49 base, 93 runway. He moved to 6 hexes away and went for day 2. The AF was hit harder than normal, so mostly AA did the heavy lifting on day 2 as I was only able to get about 40 fighters up on CAP.

R&D - I've gone with 6 factories for Sam, George, and Frank. 4 factories for Tojo with two set to size 60 vs normal 30 so I have better production when they come on line in Summer 42.

Vehicles - Expand to 180 to 200. It will not be until Jan 42 that you start to build up any surplus, but you must build them up as the rest of 1st and 2nd Tank Divisions come in in Summer 42.

CV Kaga - I've moved her into TF2, take out AOs, and sent her to CRB area on turn 1.
CVL Ryujo - Either she can be met by CV Kaga to hit Manila or I send her to Takao to upgrade Claudes to Zeros and re-size on turn 2. Then, she moves over to Malaya area to support Mersing landing.

Soerabaja - I like to hit this port early as its the only one large enough to reload Force Z and other large warships.

Fast Transport TF - You can use these to support quick invasions of many bases and then be able to defend yourself or add their guns to a contested invasion.

Have Fun!!!

[Xargun]

ORIGINAL: Aurorus
Note Alfred's comments about the Pearl Strike vs. Manilla and Singapore. IMO Alfred gets it.

Where did you find these? I cannot find the post and Alfred's posts are always worth reading

[Xargun]

Showing my ignorance from lack of playing for a couple years, but you cannot speed up Engine development correct? So its not much use having a plane early if the engine isn't ready.

[Xargun]

So going over my initial Aircraft plans I notice I already have 770 engines in pools that I have no plans on ever using. Should I just write those off or make old crappy aircraft just to have them for kamikazes?

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

Showing my ignorance from lack of playing for a couple years, but you cannot speed up Engine development correct? So its not much use having a plane early if the engine isn't ready.

No you can research engines and advance their availability. The same rules as apply for airframes. 100 R&D converts to a chance to advance by one month. So go for the Nak 45, for example, if you are going for Franks late war. Also keep in mind that to get the most bang for your supply from your R&D you need 500 engines in the pool. One strategy to use, that I like, is shut off production on the airframe research for late war models, until you have the engine online and 500 in the pool. This slows down research some, but is much me efficient from a supply usage perspective... and ultimately... how you use your supplies and maybe fuel will determine your fate as Japan.

[Aurorus]

Shut off "production" on the late war airframes, but set the repair to "on"... that way, once you get 500 engines in the pool, you will have the airframe R&D ready to go.

[Aurorus]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

ORIGINAL: Aurorus
Note Alfred's comments about the Pearl Strike vs. Manilla and Singapore. IMO Alfred gets it.

Where did you find these? I cannot find the post and Alfred's posts are always worth reading

I forget and a quick search of Alfred's comments did not turn up anything. I remember it was from an AAR where AFBs were marvelling at a Japanese opening that skipped Pearl and moved str8 west to Singapore and Palembang. The opening was also remarkable for a paradrop in China. The allied commander had already decided on a Sir Robin strategy, which of course, played right into the hands of the Japanese opening... which was designed to thwart Sir Robin.

The gist of Alfred's comments were that Japan is not going to win a victory outright by rapid advance, in most cases, unless given a hopeless disparity in player ability. All things being equal, Japan is best served by destroying U.S. assets to the point where the U.S. cannot mount an effective counter attack in 1943... thereby giving Japan auto-victory Jan 1. 1944.

[PaxMondo]

I like to focus research on just a few, very few fighter models to get them in time to be useful. Generally this is Frank, Sam, and then one more. Which one is always a tough choice. I build LOTS of other models of course, I just wait for them to arrive, or simply build the number/size of factory that I want in production early. I don't consider that R&D ... 1 month advance or isn't a plan, its just an accidental outcome. [;)]

I'm not a fan of betty, but love the last Nell. Great range, great night bomber just like historically used. Also great 2E patrol plane.

Against Mr Kane, I might very well choose George for my 3rd fighter ... gives me a better sweeper than Zero/Oscar in '43. And as someone else mentioned about keeping the KB intact, I very well might put a number of air groups into LBA for offensive operations converting the fighter groups to George to give me extra umph. Judy/Jill with the right pilots on ground attack in numbers can really put a lot of hurt on a base. Just a thought ...

As for engines ... that is a separate plan that supports the aircraft plan. Once I know what models I plan to build, I back out the engine build required to meet that. I absolutely re-purpose a number of the late war 'wunderkind' engines to models that I need. additional engine factories size 30 increase the research speed just like ac factories. the difference is that engines factories will always repair one point per turn if 10K supply is available.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: Xargun

So going over my initial Aircraft plans I notice I already have 770 engines in pools that I have no plans on ever using. Should I just write those off or make old crappy aircraft just to have them for kamikazes?

Sure, you don't have to use the engines if you don't want to.

Generally, if you already start with a factory making the junk planes, I normally will let them keep going until the free engines are consumed. But I enjoy the challenge of finding a job for the ugly duckling planes.

For example Ida I use as trainers. Petes can be used in night time CAP, and actually can be effective...not in shooting down planes, but disrupting the bomber runs and making them less effective without losing planes to the very effective bomber's defensive guns.

As Pax points out, engines are very easy to accelerate. Once the factory is fully repaired it will generate 1 point of advancement each day assuming a size of 30. Any larger size still only repairs 1 point a day. Less than size 30 and you get a percentage chance of getting the 1 point. So three size 30 factories will advance an engine a little less than 1 month for each month researched.