Miller (J) vs Mr Kane (A)

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Paul, you are punishing Mr. Kane even as the Allies inflict punishment of their own. Post a points screen when you can. I like following your games for many reasons, one of which is that you're just ahead of me and Erik (you caught and passed us), and it's interesting to compare the relative situations.

As requested Sir:





Whilst he still has a fair way to go to get AV, when Clark/Bataan fall and the troops there are eliminated that should net him a 2k VP boost. He seems to have given up on strategic bombing for now.

[Miller]

16th-31st July 45

China: Another attack by his troops at Hankow reduced the forts to zero. I decided to retreat everything SW to Wuchang whilst the units are still in reasonable shape before he kicked them out with the heavy losses it entails. I manage this and also sneak a couple of small FT TFs with supply there as well (I think there may be a game glitch whereby TFs on the river are not attacked by air, even if heavily spotted). Wuchang has 4 forts and his advance force of armour has to cross the river to get there and takes a beating in the process, as does an Aussie div that crosses a day later. Forts still at 4 with another large FT supply TF inbound. Needless to say Wuchang is now the subject of 100s of bombers pounding it each day. The plan is to hold here until again the forts are gone then retreat everything to Changhsa and/or Changteh for the last stand.

Luzon: As I expected he kicks my troops out of Clark before they can complete the march to Bataan and the units take moderate losses. During the 4/5 day delay to march his troops there and finish the job off I airlift the bulk of the infantry units out (minus their heavy equipment) to Formosa. He kills off a lot of support units left at Bataan but troops VP losses are a lot lighter than I expected, certainly less than half the 2k I predicted for taking Clark/Bataan and troop losses overall.

Iwo Jima: This place must be giving him nightmares now. Despite another two weeks of daily bombardments and death star airstrikes my troops are clinging on with no loss to the fort level. He lands a combat engineer unit near the end of the month and they auto-shock attack and evaporate in the process without even reducing the fort[:D] I'm guessing he can replenish CV air sorties at sea now considering his death star has been off Iwo for the last month solid.

Tokyo: The 24th July is the date the first A-bomb falls on the capital. Although overall industry damage is fairly light, it nets him 12k VPs and puts him much closer to a 2:1 auto victory.

[Miller]

So 1st August 45 arrives and the soviets activate. The current score:





So a rough calculation shows he needs between 12-13k to achieve autovictory. I read a discussion on this in Obverts AAR vs Dan and apparently if the Allies cannot get a 2:1 before 1st September 45 then the best they can achieve is a "Marginal victory". This has to be my only aim now. Even with the soviets active, I doubt there is any way he can get a 12-13k points swing in a month. However, he gets another nuke to use in August and a result similar to the first one he dropped could well get him over the line before the end of the month. We shall see....[&o]

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Miller

Uncle Joe

Well with only a month to go before the commies join in I finally started to look at the situation in Manchuria. My first job was to ship in some fuel to restart the industry there as I had totally neglected it and virtually every base was low on supply. I lost a big TK convoy in the process to low flying bombers from China but fortunately after they had already unloaded, the Yellow Sea is a no go area for my ships now.

Secondly, I have scraped together every unrestricted infantry and eng unit in the homeland and sent them to Rashin on the southern coast of Manchuria for redeployment. In total I have 16k AV to play with (including units in Korea). Any tips on how/where to defend? I don't see any reason to defend beyond the red line on the the map apart from small speed bump forces:

I'm sorry I missed this.

I'd have suggested an even more conservative strategy involving abandoning China completely. Leave trash units in the x4 urban hexes and the big VP bases and get everything south of Chinchow. That gives you a shorter frontline and better defensive terrain, and buys you a couple weeks as Soviet tanks advance through empty country.

That's more or less what I tried against Loka, but I didn't have as much AV as you did. I need to do some planning on my part regarding Manchuira as well.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Miller

So 1st August 45 arrives and the soviets activate. The current score:





So a rough calculation shows he needs between 12-13k to achieve autovictory. I read a discussion on this in Obverts AAR vs Dan and apparently if the Allies cannot get a 2:1 before 1st September 45 then the best they can achieve is a "Marginal victory". This has to be my only aim now. Even with the soviets active, I doubt there is any way he can get a 12-13k points swing in a month. However, he gets another nuke to use in August and a result similar to the first one he dropped could well get him over the line before the end of the month. We shall see....[&o]

Didn't scroll back to look up what the effect of his first Abomb drop was, but am definitely curious.

I dropped my first Abomb on Tokoyo last night and was so sickened by the abysmal results I almost want to quit the game I have invested a year in.

My first Abomb drop did a grand total of 37 points of damage to Tokoyo's 2700+ Heavy Industry! [8|]

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter


Didn't scroll back to look up what the effect of his first Abomb drop was, but am definitely curious.

I dropped my first Abomb on Tokoyo last night and was so sickened by the abysmal results I almost want to quit the game I have invested a year in.

My first Abomb drop did a grand total of 37 points of damage to Tokoyo's 2700+ Heavy Industry! [8|]

From memory it destroyed about 50 HI and LI permanently and disabled about three times as much again, a couple of a/c and engine factories were also greatly disabled. I think the effect of the A-bomb in the game is more modeled in the VPs it generates rather than the damage it actually does.

[Miller]

1st-5th August 1945

Due to Kane having family issues the game has slowed down to a crawl at the moment. The Soviets enter the war with barely a whimper so far. He puts up fighters over bases the first couple of days but having experience of fighting them in another game long ago I know they're no match for my best fighters. He loses them at a 5:1 ratio to my sweeps and then stands them down. I also take care of the bulk of the Soviet naval assets, having moved whats left of the KB into the sea of Japan to cut off any hope of retreat for them. Both of his CAs and 10 DDs are sunk or crippled whilst trying to flee east and finished off in port. I also sink about a dozen subs in port and a load of worthless small transports. Of course it will be a much different story on the ground once his large armoured units come into contact with my troops....

China is the same as usual, endless bombing of Wuchang and Changsha which I cannot oppose in any way. A big FT TF drops off 25k of supply at Wuchang so at least my troops should be in reasonable shape when he tries his next ground assault.

The only other area of note is Iwo Jima. He finally retires his death star to Guam to replenish but leaves a DD TF there to try and prevent any resupply by sea. I counter it with Kami's and they sink 4 DDs and force the rest to retire, although it costs me 150 a/c in the process. Using this small window I manage to get a supply FT TF in but not before he tries a couple of deliberate attacks that manage to knock down the forts to 4. I think I might have another fortnight of being able to hold on to it if I'm lucky.

[Miller]

6th-10th Aug 45

Kane drops his second A-Bomb of the game, this time on Yokohama. Like his first attack on Tokyo, overall damage is pretty light but it nets him another 9500 strategic VPs. As you can see below, it puts him within 3500 points of auto victory. However, if he fails to achieve this before the end of August it means the best he can achieve is a marginal victory rather than the usual major victory for a 2:1 VP ratio. Therefore my only task now is to prevent that from happening before the end of the month.





Iwo Jima forts are now down to 2 and it will likely fall within the next few days. When it does that should net him around 3-400 VPs and bring the gap down to 3000 needed. However I think the only way Kane could make the difference up before the end of the month is by all out strat bombing (night and day) of the homeland and I'm planning my defences accordingly. Of course he may be unaware of this rule and therefore I should make it to the end of the month but I have to assume that he does know and the clock is ticking....

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Miller


Kane drops his second A-Bomb of the game, this time on Yokohama. Like his first attack on Tokyo, overall damage is pretty light but it nets him another 9500 strategic VPs.

How can damage be light but the bomb give the Allies 9500VPs? That is a lot! Does t get extra VPs for destroying rather than disabling industry?

[tarkalak]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Miller


Kane drops his second A-Bomb of the game, this time on Yokohama. Like his first attack on Tokyo, overall damage is pretty light but it nets him another 9500 strategic VPs.

How can damage be light but the bomb give the Allies 9500VPs? That is a lot! Does t get extra VPs for destroying rather than disabling industry?

From the manual:
damaged - 2 pts.
destroyed (from damaged) - 18 pts.
destroyed (from healthy) - 20 pts.

Some time ago I asked (in CR vs John III) why he doesn't consider destroying factories and the consensus was that this is way too hard to do without an A-bomb.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: tarkalak

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Miller


Kane drops his second A-Bomb of the game, this time on Yokohama. Like his first attack on Tokyo, overall damage is pretty light but it nets him another 9500 strategic VPs.

How can damage be light but the bomb give the Allies 9500VPs? That is a lot! Does t get extra VPs for destroying rather than disabling industry?

From the manual:
damaged - 2 pts.
destroyed (from damaged) - 18 pts.
destroyed (from healthy) - 20 pts.

Some time ago I asked (in CR vs John III) why he doesn't consider destroying factories and the consensus was that this is way too hard to do without an A-bomb.

Good to know. Thanks!!

[Miller]

11th-15th Aug 45

China: He has pulled his stack from Wuchang back to Hankow. I guess he figures that the troops will be more use elsewhere as it will be another tough nut to crack now that I can supply my troops there up river with relative impunity. My guess is the bulk of them will be redirected to the bases on the China/Manchuria border to aid the soviet forces en route there.

Manchuria: His advance forces start kicking my troops out of the remote northern bases and eastern border hexes that contain only land forts. He has yet to meet a large concentration of troops yet and that won't be likely until near the end of the month. Still no sign of the soviet airforce and after I managed to destroy about 100 a/c on the ground at various bases he seems to have pulled them all back out of range of my bombers. He sends his 3 remaining russian DDs on a suicide mission that finds a resource TF and kills a few small AKs but all his DDs are destroyed by dive bombers operating from Hokkaido.

Home Islands: As I suspected he might, he tries a few daylight strategic bombing raids. One at Nagasaki brushes aside a light CAP and generates him about 200 VPs. However he makes the mistake of coming back the next day and runs into a 400 plane CAP with most of my best units. His sweepers take a chunk out of it but there is still plenty left when his 4E arrive:





So looks like at least 100 B24 and 50 B29 go down on the day, so hopefully that will buy me a few days of breathing space before they return again.

Kanes next objective: His CV fleets which had been sitting at Guam for at least a week now appear to be moving north west from there with a lot of other TFs. Making an educated guess I think his next objective will be Okinawa. Naha and Nago are worth almost 2500 VPs to the Allies. He is till currently 3500 away from achieving a 2:1. Could this be a last roll of the dice to get those points before the end of the month? I think it's unlikely he can but I'm planning accordingly.....

[Canoerebel]

Proud of you, Paul, for fighting so long and well. I'm enjoying your parrying and thrusting.

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

Proud of you, Paul, for fighting so long and well. I'm enjoying your parrying and thrusting.

Cheers Dan, you're making me blush[:D]

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Miller

Home Islands: As I suspected he might, he tries a few daylight strategic bombing raids. One at Nagasaki brushes aside a light CAP and generates him about 200 VPs. However he makes the mistake of coming back the next day and runs into a 400 plane CAP with most of my best units. His sweepers take a chunk out of it but there is still plenty left when his 4E arrive:

So looks like at least 100 B24 and 50 B29 go down on the day, so hopefully that will buy me a few days of breathing space before they return again.

That is a huge result!! [&o][&o]

Seriously a lot of 4Es downed. The all-in can really be a mess if it goes wrong for the Allies. How many more are damaged and can't continue as well?

I bet you'll see night strikes for a good while after this.

[mind_messing]

What have you got on Okinawa to hold him off?

[Lowpe]

This is definitely one of the best Japanese performances ever in a stock scenario 1 game.[&o]

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

What have you got on Okinawa to hold him off?

I have about 300 AV on Naha in bits and pieces but busy offloading a decent div from the home island as well. With 6 forts there is no chance of it falling before the end of the month. Nago has only a SNLF unit but I'm flying in a rgt there as I type.

[Miller]

16th-20th Aug 45

Here is the picture in China and Manchuria:




Circled in red to the left are my three surviving bases in central China, Wuchang, Changsha and Changteh. After his pullout from Wuchang I'm beginning to think he has given up in this area and I may hold onto these bases until the end of the game. The bulk of these troops and any that were in Hankow have now moved to Soochow (green), one hex NW of Shanghai. Is he considering trying an attack there? It is worth 2700 VPs to him therefore I have a strong garrison in place sitting behind 9 forts, so there is no way that will fall any time soon.

The bases nearby circled in orange are full of a/c, mainly fighters used to sweep my airfields of the western coastal homeland bases. The large number of TFs circled to the east of Shanghai are small 4 to 6 ship bombardment TFs using escorts and patrol boats, I have 20 TFs of them going in on the night of the 21st to try and hopefully kill a few planes on the ground and/or lower morale so they're less likely to fly for a few days.

Tsingtao (yellow) is my last base on the eastern coast and is under siege and likely to fall in a week or so. The bases circled in orange just to the west of the border will soon come under attack by the russians but most have decent garrisons and fort levels so will be no push overs. As expected he has gone straight for Chinchow (purple) in order to cut the rail link between China and most of Manchuira, it will fall soon due to it being in clear terrain. No matter, almost all of my troops are where I want them to be now anyway. The purple circle to the right show the russian advance in the east, he is rolling along the border fort line that has held him up for a while and provided some time to get everything where I want it to be.

[Miller]

The last five days have seen mainly night bombing of my airfields at Nagasaki and the other western coastal bases to hit the large number of fighters I have there, he destroys 60 on the ground before I move in extra night fighters to cover. Iwo Jima falls on the 19th and including the troops lost there gives him 300 VPs. It seems I was mistaken (at least for the time being) in the belief his death star was heading for Okinawa, it appears to have instead moved to Manila. To cover an invasion of Formosa instead perhaps? I will find out soon enough.

As it stands he has 11 days left to get 2900 VPs to get him a decisive victory....