Miller (J) vs Mr Kane (A)

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Miller

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Can you post the complete combat report. You have a lot of planes there, and certainly should have done much better.

Thanks.

Yes. Corsairs are tough, but your numbers should win out.

Are you layering CAP?

Are the layers close enough so that the best fighters are high and dive on the lower layers if he sweeps?

Is he at max or at 20k or does he change it up?

My suggestion would be Oscars 50% at 5k, A6M5 50% a 7k, Franks 70% at 9k.

He always sweeps at the max height (30K for 44). I usually put the best fighters there with the crap like Zeros lower down so I can try and get a dive with my Franks. If I was to fly all my plane at lower altitude they would just get murdered even more. The fact that none are in the air when his sweep arrives probably explains the terrible result (see post above).

That's why I used to think!! [;)]

I fly low CAP layered consistency, and get usually a 1:1 with Allied sweepers.

Won't hurt to try it for a day.

Make sure the most manoeuvrable plane (Oscars) are low, with pilots that have 70 defence skills. Then put ideally Jacks at 7k, but Tojo Iic will work and your A6M5 will even do the trick if that's all that's available. Then add Franks at 9k.

All planes best at 0 hex CAP, and you need some radar in the hex to be most effective.

You'll be shocked (and so will he) when you're suddenly getting 1:1 against Corsairs and 1.5:1 against P-47 and Mustangs. His vaunted aces will begin to die and yo'll slowly gain the upper hand.

It might even be best to reduce your numbers just slightly in hex. I find the best result come with about 250-300 on CAP. One big Oscar group low, two groups at 7k and 2-3 groups at 9k.

(It also limits your defensive ability to have the altitude restrictions. I used to think this was necessary. Not anymore. Corsairs are the best against the layered low CAP since they have good manoeuvre down low, but you can fly over them. If you do have good radar in hex, after a few tries on low CAP, you can mix it up by setting all to 30k, and your radar will probably push CAP over the incoming sweeps in time and you'll massacre them that way too).

[obvert]

Here is a compilation of test results trying to see if low layered CAP was more effective than high CAP layered. It was fairly conclusive. Lowpe turned me onto this and it struck a cord after recalling a particular result in my game against Jockmeister where Sams at 10k absolutely wrecked some P-47 sweeps. Lowpe and a few others also use these settings, so I'm sure will chip in.

Alfred was a big part of the discovery process as well, since he'd been advocating for years that we didn't have to suffer the 10:1 results against strato sweeps if we just figured out better settings using low CAP.

These were using the Frank Ki-84r against the P-47D2 throughout for consistency, but I've used this setup extensively against mid-late war Allied sweeps with various airframes, and it works. Even with my worst airframes I rarely get worse than 2:1 against using it consistently.

Spits and Corsairs are difficult, but there are ways to manage that. Also, When I say difficult, I mean thy might get 1.5:1 on average rather than even, which is usually what this setup will get vs P-47s.

low CAP tests

[Miller]

Hey thanks Obvert and Lowpe, I will try some new settings and hopefully get some better results. Will have to try and get some more radar sets into China as well.

[Miller]

11th-20th June 44

Still no movement from his troops at Moulmein. He might be having second thoughts about another tedious slog like he had kicking me out of Burma. Attention shifts to China where he has moved a stack of 20 units from Chihkiang into the off road hex to the SW. From the unit colour icon and recon it looks like mainly Commonwealth armoured units, a very worrying development as it looks like he may trying to reach Changsha via the clear terrain to the west, I'm scrambling around to get numbers in place to prevent this. Nothing else to report other than the continued sweeps and bombings that I can do very little to attrit until I can get radars into all the effected bases.

I'm currently getting a considerable number of brigades through as reinforcements and they are in the process of being shipped to areas that have very little troop numbers, including bases on Mindanao and Sumatra. Several will also be used to replace the RTA units that disappear at the end of July.

[Miller]

21st-30th June 44

Virtually all the action this period is in China. He has 10000 AV in the hex to the SW of Chihkiang (mostly Chinese and not Commonwealth troops as I thought) heading for Changsha. He is bombing my troops in the bases to the west of Changsha and I suffer catastrophic losses in the air trying to defend them, about 300 Zeros that I threw in as they were due to withdraw soon for 20 B29s and a few fighters. I've diverted all the brigades that were headed for other places to China. My goal now is to keep my bases there to stop him getting into B24 and fighter sweep range of the home islands.

[Lowpe]

Almost all of those arriving troops have something like 35 morale and experience. A brief stay at Tokyo or a big base will do them wonders before rushing them into the field.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Almost all of those arriving troops have something like 35 morale and experience. A brief stay at Tokyo or a big base will do them wonders before rushing them into the field.

At what percent are they prepared for something?

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Lowpe
Almost all of those arriving troops have something like 35 morale and experience. A brief stay at Tokyo or a big base will do them wonders before rushing them into the field.

At what percent are they prepared for something?

Zero for Tokyo typically, so it is not that short a stay in case of experience, yes

Edit: err, zero for the arrival target of course, they arrive all over the HI. Would be nice to let them rest at big base anyway to repair disablements. Stock 1 also has some nice divisions arriving in July 44

[Miller]

Those brigades will soon learn "on the job"[:D]

[Miller]

Well its now the 1st July 44, a point in the game where many consider any fuel/oil shipped back to the homeland is a bonus, however I have large tankers lying idle at Singers waiting for it to roll in from the smaller ones shipping it as fast as it is produced from Palembang. I fear he may be planning a move on Sumatra to get himself in range with his bombers, so will have to try and take steps to prevent that. Current score:





Between the 2500 strat bombing points he has earned in a month and my horrific a/a losses I am now barely 2000 points ahead. At the current rate I would imagine he will overtake me by the end of September or October.

[Miller]

China






Very worrying and the main area of concern now.

Green: His main stack of almost 11k AV. It is all large Chinese units with 700-800AV with a couple of Indian AA units.

Black: Follow up stack with at a guess about 5k AV.

Orange: Smaller stacks with 1-1.5K AV. Not concerned with these at the moment as I have enough to keep them in check.

Red circle: This is where most of my Divs are at the moment, roughly 7k AV split between them with another 2k coming from Kweilin in the next few days. Clear terrain hexes but they all have 3 forts. He is bombing them daily and any interference from my fighters is punished heavily. I will eventually have to fall back to Changsha but hopefully after he has weakened his own troops, with the red line being my intended defensive position.

Dark Red: TFs unloading all the low exp brigades from Japan. With their low exp they won't be very effective but every little helps....

[Miller]

Burma

Pretty quiet here at the moment. Lots of shipping activity at Moulmein but its hard to tell if he is re-inforcing or taking stuff out.

[Miller]

SOPAC

He continues to creep up the NG coast. The green circles will be his next targets no doubt.

[Miller]

CENPAC

All the Marshalls are abandoned now apart from stactic units. I'm busy pulling most of the units out of Ponape as it's irrelevant now. Truk still has a full Div plus lots of support units, but I can't see him bothering with it now.

[Miller]

Industry

All the levels have been pretty stable over the last few months. I've turned off most of the shipyards as all I am producing now is DDs, a few subs and Escorts.

[Lowpe]

Here is a typical, reinforcement. Part disabled, pretty decent morale and experience in this unit.

Note that Japan needs to have enough in the pools (arm, HI, vehicles,manpower, supplies) to create the unit from scratch. Should Japan not have the needed pools well, then, the unit arrives at 25% strength (for those effected devices) for free representing emergency mobilization.

It might be 25 exp and 30 morale is the bottom that I know for sure, but I seem to recall seeing 25 each.

[Lowpe]

Great pictures...you really are playing the Manchuko Garrison very closely!

What plans for the KB?

Artillery and Tanks and terrain are the big equalizers for Japan in China. But with the stacks he is sending forward...it must be hard to keep them supplied.

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Great pictures...you really are playing the Manchuko Garrison very closely!

What plans for the KB?

Artillery and Tanks and terrain are the big equalizers for Japan in China. But with the stacks he is sending forward...it must be hard to keep them supplied.

Don't worry I'm keeping a close eye on the Manchuko garrison, the last thing I need is the Ruskies involved!

I fear I'm going to be crushed in China by sheer weight of numbers. And recon has just picked up 82[X(] units at Ankang, a few hexes west of Sian. There is no way I can defend on two fronts there....

The KB has just finished upgrading and is currently en route to somewhere central on the map. No sign at all of the Allied fleet since he invaded Wake a few months back. His slow advance up the NG coast is done mainly with LSTs covered by hundreds of land based fighters so I'm not even going to attempt to disrupt that. So basically the KB is a big toy but I have no one to play with at the moment[:(]

[Miller]

Seeing this at Ankang was a cure for any constipation I had:





God knows what will happen when this stack starts rolling....

[obvert]

Looking at industry I notice a few things.

1. Fuel is decent, but not great. Over 5,500,000 would be a good target. Oil is pretty low. Around 500k (consistent) is what I'd be happy with at this stage.

2. Supply is pretty good. Staying over 5 million with all of the land battles you're fighting is impressive.

3. That said, if you are going to defend all of those Chinese, your Armament and Vehicle numbers are dire. Is something turned off? About 50k vehicles and 100k armaments should be the minimum going into 45.

4. Start thinking about the changing engine situation now for 3rd generation fighters. It can sneak up. A lot of the lines change engines, or you won't make that line at all anymore. By the end of 44 it seems I'm making about 3k engines.