Banzais Don't Make Victories - Anachro (A) vs John 3rd (J) BTS 5.7

[modrow]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

The turn has been sent. We hope for good news outside of Cuttack and at Sambalpur tomorrow. We are also very interested to see what our carriers find at Kwajalein.

[Anachro]

September 9 1942

We have a sync-bug today and the results in my combat report are different from the replay. In my replay, my bombers attacked Kwajalein and found relatively little there, sinking an AS and an ARD. In the report, only a partial package of my bombers attack destroyers and tankers at Jaluit for minor effect. A bit disappointing, but with surprise lost it's time to move back to Pearl. I'm sure John will move all his fighters into the Marshalls the next turn and his carriers (which moved further south and currently one hex southeast of Penryhn Island) will probably hightail back towards me. We do manage to also torpedo a TK at the beginning of the turn.



In India, things go mostly as in my replay, but the sync bug appears in that a lot of bombers fly over Jamshedpur and put the airport out of business. Luckily, most of my fighters were elsewhere and I lose 11 SBD-1's on the ground. Nonetheless, the results in the air are lopsided in my favor. My ground forces outside of Cuttack are having issues with the 16th Division there and the attack is worse, once again, in the report than in the replay. Tomorrow, my 4Es will hit Calcutta once again using mass sweeps.



In India,

[adarbrauner]

ORIGINAL: Anachro
Let's not talk about the sheer number of fighters Japan has + its ability to produce fighters (and train pilots) way beyond what its industrial capacity was ever capable of.

This is questionable;

as a reference, in October (or November?) 1944 Japan industries crunched more than 3000 Ki 48 A MONTH alone!!! which is probably more than what any Japanese player could ever reach in game;

besides every increase in production in Japan in game comes at a price - a heavy one - and the sheet can be strechted only that much...

[BillBrown]

ORIGINAL: adarbrauner

ORIGINAL: Anachro
Let's not talk about the sheer number of fighters Japan has + its ability to produce fighters (and train pilots) way beyond what its industrial capacity was ever capable of.

This is questionable;

as a reference, in October (or November?) 1944 Japan industries crunched more than 3000 Ki 48 A MONTH alone!!! which is probably more than what any Japanese player could ever reach in game;

besides every increase in production in Japan in game comes at a price - a heavy one - and the sheet can be strechted only that much...

That is interesting, since they produced about 2,000 during the entire war.

[Anachro]

I'm going to agree with Bill. Considering that Japan produced 28,180 aircraft in total in 1944, or 2,438 per month, your numbers seem a little off. That's 2,438 a month on average of all types of aircraft combined. I doubt the Ki-48 production was anywhere near what you postulate.

[Anachro]

September 10 1942

Once again my units fail to dislodge one Japanese division north of Cuttack. This is a bit annoying, but oh well. On the air front, it's a day of large air battles where my fighters do pretty well in the skies above Calcutta and clear most of the CAP there. Unfortunately, some CAP survives when my 2E bombers arrive and eat through a good chunk of them. The good news is when my 4E's arrive, the CAP is mostly gone and I end up destroying around 40-50 Japanese fighters on the ground. In aggregate, we lose ~100 aircraft for the day whereas John loses ~130. 79 A6M2 Zeroes and 51 Tojos are destroyed, which is very nice. I'm happy. My P38's perform very, very well.



In the Pacific, my carriers are 15 hexes east of Roi-Namur and have a slight amount of DL. John's carriers move north but are still south of Christmas Island. I should be safe as I make my way back to Pearl and if John feels coming at all close to Pearl, well, I have a lot of LBA there. My carriers will be refueld by AO's this coming turn.

[Anachro]

September 11 1942

Not much to report on the air front, as my fighters and bombers are still recuperating from the air battle a day ago. However, I send the majority of my bombers against the 16th division north of Cuttack where they don't do much damage but seem to be disrupting the 16th division to good effect. The bombers meet some light LRCAP that fails to do any damage. In the ensuing attack for the day, we fail to dislodge the enemy but do considerable attrition to the 16th division for little damage in return. 1100 casualties caused for only 42 in return is a pretty good exchange. Hopefully, we push the 16th division back tomorrow. I will then amass my units to threaten Cuttack.

Meanwhile a Japanese unit of some sort is two hexes west of Sambalpur and seems to be moving towards it. I have no idea what this is, but I have 2 Indian divisions and an American one there. They shall move to attack this encroaching unit.



In the Pacific, John's carriers slowly move up and are east of Christmas Island, but they have no chance of getting my carriers. What are his plans, I wonder? John seems to have split off some surface units to continue on a raid against Tahiti, but he'll find little there.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: adarbrauner

ORIGINAL: Anachro
Let's not talk about the sheer number of fighters Japan has + its ability to produce fighters (and train pilots) way beyond what its industrial capacity was ever capable of.

This is questionable;

as a reference, in October (or November?) 1944 Japan industries crunched more than 3000 Ki 48 A MONTH alone!!! which is probably more than what any Japanese player could ever reach in game;

besides every increase in production in Japan in game comes at a price - a heavy one - and the sheet can be strechted only that much...

I would love to know your source for this, if the empire could produce 3000 twin engine bombers a month i'd love to know how they lost the war.

Keep bashing on Anachro, once JIII starts complaining about his mod shows he is concerned about your succeses. Ans I dont think you are far wrong about him having "everything in the shop window"

[Anachro]

ORIGINAL: JeffroK

I would love to know your source for this, if the empire could produce 3000 twin engine bombers a month i'd love to know how they lost the war.

Keep bashing on Anachro, once JIII starts complaining about his mod shows he is concerned about your succeses. Ans I dont think you are far wrong about him having "everything in the shop window"

Don't get me wrong; I not bashing on John's mod in a mean-spirited away. This is his mod, an alternate history mod, and we all understand that. It creates a new and extra-challenging scenario for the Allies which is what most players want out of it (JFB's get added toys). If anything, I'd love to refine it to something a bit more plausible as alternate history, but perhaps that is what BTSL is for; this is BTS. I think there are areas where the ships added, changes to ships, or additions to the air force might be a tiny bit (or more) implausible.

This requires serious discussion and I'd be happy to have a thread with John in the mod forum where we discuss things such as the 4E Liz,carrier-capable Georges (and Jacks), and the carrier conversions. It's okay to have these things, but perhaps some things need to be nerfed or strengthened: for instance, I believe Bearcat pointed out how the new Japanese CVLs that can convert to CVs might be a tad unrealistic in their specs.

I am enjoying myself and I have to say that compared to a stock or DBB-C game, things are much more precarious for the Allies. Here we are in late '42 and I find myself extra-hesitant to invade anywhere for fear of getting bogged down against dug-in Japanese forces that will create time for John's carriers to appear in and wreck my landings. As we saw with my raid on Ndeni, his carriers appeared one day after I raided there! One day! In a stock game at this point I'd be a lot less fearful of the KB. Added to this, I'm not as familiar with the Japanese OOB in this mod (unlike John) and not sure when new carriers appear. I really am in the dark about the true strength of the KB.

John seems to be strengthening significantly his forces at Lunga, Tulagi, Ndeni, etc. etc. and while I could change my units' targets, this adds a lot more months of preparation that gives him more time to dig in. And then I could "hit where he is not" but this adds an additional time burden of re-allocating my forces to other parts of the map. It's a vicious cycle. I need to degrade the KB but currently see few opportunities for that. I'll try something soon; if that doesn't materialize I've identified a window in '43 where my CVs with Hellcats should be superior before John manages to put Georges on his carriers (which are seemingly superior to all Allied CV-capable planes looking at the stats in tracker).

The only light in the dark at the moment is that I feel very confident in my current holdings and it seems the period of Japanese expansion is at an end for the most part. John might try a push on Perth perhaps but I doubt it. The other good thing is John is putting everything into his forward defense. This leaves opportunities in his interior, but the risks of hampering my LoC by attacking such targets is great with a full strength KB. I really wish I had sunk 4 CVLs instead of 2 in his last raid but 2 of them took 11-12 bombs hits for little discernible damage. Oh well.

There's my thoughts in paragraph for you on the state of the game. In short, my lack of knowledge of the OOB and the strengthened KB puts many things in the dark and makes potential invasions far more precarious. It may be that in this game/mod, given the advantages Japan has early on, the Allies will always have to adopt a methodical approach which relies on numerical/tech superiority and the Essex's to force one's way to victory.

[modrow]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

September 9 1942

We have a sync-bug today and the results in my combat report are different from the replay. In my replay, my bombers attacked Kwajalein and found relatively little there, sinking an AS and an ARD. In the report, only a partial package of my bombers attack destroyers and tankers at Jaluit for minor effect. A bit disappointing, but with surprise lost it's time to move back to Pearl. I'm sure John will move all his fighters into the Marshalls the next turn and his carriers (which moved further south and currently one hex southeast of Penryhn Island) will probably hightail back towards me. We do manage to also torpedo a TK at the beginning of the turn.

Sean,

whereas the sync bug will tend to give you the feeling that the alternate history that did not happen would have been better (at least it does for me), often and in this specific case I am not at all sure this is the case. I am not at all familiar with IJ OOB, so maybe three Oilers (not tankers) don't really count, but given John's love for raiding the loss of the fuel (the consistent heavy fires should be indicative ofthe AOs still being at least partly loaded) and refueling capability may well have consequences operatively from which you can only benefit.

Hartwig

[adarbrauner]

ORIGINAL: JeffroK



I would love to know your source for this, if the empire could produce 3000 twin engine bombers a month i'd love to know how they lost the war.

Of course it was a mistake, a typo, flipped numbers, not Ki 48 but Ki 84, also the number got an additional 0, not 3000 but (more than) 300 [:-][X(]

The source I think is the Strategic Bombing Survey.

Why did they lose? Because of the successful commercial warfare AKA strangulation of Japan's economy...mainly by sub warfare, as a reproof production of the type started dropping from 1945 on

[ny59giants]

OOB issues - What is preventing you from opening up the Japanese side of the game and finding out what ships, troops, and airframes are different from stock of DBB? You know that I'm co-designer with John and you can drop me a PM with questions about this mod.

I don't see how this mod is that much more precarious for the Allies than other games. KB is slightly stronger on Dec 7th, but the Allies do have additional assets to use.

BTS vs BTSL will not see much difference. BTS is actually the Treaty mod plus RA mod changes together. BTSL is actually removing the Yamato Class BB and building smaller BBs with 16" guns.

I'm glad you are enjoying this mod and please send John and/or me your suggestions for improvement.

Economics Minister,
Michael

[Anachro]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum
BTS vs BTSL will not see much difference. BTS is actually the Treaty mod plus RA mod changes together. BTSL is actually removing the Yamato Class BB and building smaller BBs with 16" guns.

See, I don't know these things as I haven't taken a look at both mods. As for looking at the Japanese OOB, I did that early on but have no desire to do so again. I think it goes against the spirit of the game.

As for the game, the VP situation is relatively stabld, with the ratio actually moving slightly in my favor over the last few months. I don't think auto-victory is a worry unless I do something disastrous, which I think is a statement that the mod is not very lopsided either way, but creates additional adversity in a balanced way.

[Anachro]

September 12 1942

We attack again in India and the 16th Division is pushed back for a good loss to them. John seems to have around 20k troops at Cuttack, so I'll probably sit around it for a bit. The 18th British ID, the 193rd Tank Battalion, and the 17th Australian Brigade are in decent shape, but the 7th Aussie Division and the 637th Tank Destroyer Battalion have a decent amount of disablements and will probably pull back to recuperate. John attacks and pushed back some Harringtons west of Sambalpur with a 100AV garrison battalion, but it will face 2 Indian divisions in a few days and should be pushed back easily. John launches some paltry bombing attacks but loses 19 planes to flak and A2A; I only lose 4.

Recon shows Howrah with only 7k troops at the moment, but this is probably understated given that I only have 6/7 DL ( I discovered I can see the DL levels of bases I'm reconing by mousing over them when selecting my recon planes for targets).

In the Pacific, John's carriers are east of Palmyra. The only way he engages my carriers is if he wants to fight them with my carriers under the LBA protection of Hawaii. I'll take that fight.

[modrow]

Michael,

ORIGINAL: ny59giants_MatrixForum

I don't see how this mod is that much more precarious for the Allies than other games. KB is slightly stronger on Dec 7th, but the Allies do have additional assets to use.

I think that we simply do not have enough statistics/AARs to tell. AARs like this one (read the referenced page, there's more interesting stuff in there)

tm.asp?m=4305222&mpage=4&key=

probably foster the impression that it is more precarious. (Sean - note post 106 of the referenced thread, George can arrive in late 42. No Hellcats for you at that point of time, I'm afraid, unless there has been a change) Especially as I have yet to see an AAR in which those extra assets to use were applied successfully to limit IJ expansion.

This game, which is handled by Sean in an excellent way IMO, shows that this is not a foregone conclusion IF the Allied player is not goaded into putting those inexperienced assets into harms way before they have built experience.
But in my opinion, the real effects of the changes will be seen only later, after the expansion phase. IJ can take whatever it wants if handled competently in stock just as well during the first year or so.

Compared to stock, I believe the changes to Allied squad upgrades have siginificant implications. It may even mean that IJ can think about offensive operations in CentPac longer. Increasing firepower of IJN garrisons and CD guns makes island hopping probably much more difficult. IMO the decision to make George carrier capable does as well. So I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Hartwig

[adarbrauner]

-

[Bearcat2]

ORIGINAL: modrow

.................................


..George can arrive in late 42. No Hellcats for you at that point of time, I'm afraid, unless there has been a change) ..................

It is possible for the land version to appear that early, the CV capable version can appear about a year later. When the Hellcats arrive, he possibly could have the Jacks on his CV's

[modrow]

ORIGINAL: Bearcat2

ORIGINAL: modrow

.................................


..George can arrive in late 42. No Hellcats for you at that point of time, I'm afraid, unless there has been a change) ..................

It is possible for the land version to appear that early, the CV capable version can appear about a year later. When the Hellcats arrive, he possibly could have the Jacks on his CV's

So this (post 276) is no longer correct?

tm.asp?m=4305222&mpage=10&key=#

Hartwig

[Bearcat2]

ORIGINAL: modrow

ORIGINAL: Bearcat2

ORIGINAL: modrow

.................................


..George can arrive in late 42. No Hellcats for you at that point of time, I'm afraid, unless there has been a change) ..................

It is possible for the land version to appear that early, the CV capable version can appear about a year later. When the Hellcats arrive, he possibly could have the Jacks on his CV's

So this (post 276) is no longer correct?

tm.asp?m=4305222&mpage=10&key=#

Hartwig

This is what I have, may not be the version they are using:[rechecked the version 4/20/18]

N1K1-J George 9/43 not CV capable
N1K2 George 10/44 CV capable

J2M2 Jack 5/43 not CV capable
J2M3a Jack 4/44 CV capable

[Anachro]

Bearcat is correct. According to my tracker, the first CV-capable Jack is 4/44, so I'd expect John to R&D it some time into 43. The first CV-capable George is 10/44, so I'd expect it either early-to-mid 44 or if John truly goes all in on it, perhaps a little bit earlier.