IJ commander resurrected - Mundy (A) vs. Castor Troy (IJ) - restricted AAR

[tolsdorff]

it would be nice if one could block posts from certain members. some of the guys here are so intent on pushing their own point, far beyond the interest of anyone

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: tolsdorff

it would be nice if one could block posts from certain members. some of the guys here are so intent on pushing their own point, far beyond the interest of anyone

You can.

[tolsdorff]

good to know. i'll try to figure it out

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: tolsdorff

it would be nice if one could block posts from certain members. some of the guys here are so intent on pushing their own point, far beyond the interest of anyone

Feel free to block if me you find my bewilderment at castor's stratospheric expectation of results for a mid-1940's ASW campaign irritating.

I won't mind

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: tolsdorff

it would be nice if one could block posts from certain members. some of the guys here are so intent on pushing their own point, far beyond the interest of anyone

Feel free to block if me you find my bewilderment at castor's stratospheric expectation of results for a mid-1940's ASW campaign irritating.

I won't mind

Way back in 2010 or so when I first read Castor Troy's posts, I also started to feel irritated. But then someone started calling him Ranting Castor Troy and he took it in good humour and made it clear that he knew he was ranting. Suddenly he was seen as a good-natured fellow who just likes to air all his thoughts. I think that is the best way to assess him - and enjoy the rants! [:)]

[castor troy]

Rant or not, I'm not venting stuff just to vent. If someone thinks that dedicating hundreds (anyone not understanding hundreds?) of aircraft, a convoy system, interlocking airbases, mines and ASW groups in a way - AGAIN - that makes real life Allied efforts in the Atlantic look like a joke and not getting more out of it then be it. I could not dedicate all this and get the same result in not many ships lost minus a couple of subs sunk.

On the other hand I see people praising players of vanilla games when they sink subs in the dozen with a handful of aircraft, because it's VANILLA. Vanilla ASW is ridicoulos and I repeat myself, the pendulum swings both times too far, both in vanilla and in Babes.

And please, what are we trying to do here? Comparing real life sinkings with the subs I've sunk? Like apples and oranges? Real life IJN DIDN'T care about subs until it was way too late. They had nothing like air ASW, convoy system and so forth. If players do it completely different (no matter what in the game) why shouldn't they get different things out of the game? Do I have to feel sorry that I have sunk 9 enemy CV so far for no IJ CV lost because in real life that didn't happen? I wonder why doing an AAR where I've conquered China and India when it didn't happen in real life. It wasn't possible, it should be harder in the game (especially China). Though if I had done it exactly as real life, I wouldn't have conquered it and I would have lost my carriers at Midway.

You realize I have Franks, Georges, Frances, Judies? Should I now lose the airwar like the Japanese did when fielding Zekes and Oscars? Or should I get something else out of this? If so, why shouldn't I get a different result when 500 aircraft are in the air each day to hunt subs? How many times real life the Japanese had 100 sub sightings a day?

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Rant or not, I'm not venting stuff just to vent. If someone thinks that dedicating hundreds (anyone not understanding hundreds?) of aircraft, a convoy system, interlocking airbases, mines and ASW groups in a way - AGAIN - that makes real life Allied efforts in the Atlantic look like a joke and not getting more out of it then be it. I could not dedicate all this and get the same result in not many ships lost minus a couple of subs sunk.

To repeat, you are "getting more out of it". As I pointed out, you've attained a third of the historical USN sub losses for the entire war in a six month period.

Out of interest, what are total Allied sub losses to date?

On the other hand I see people praising players of vanilla games when they sink subs in the dozen with a handful of aircraft, because it's VANILLA. Vanilla ASW is ridicoulos and I repeat myself, the pendulum swings both times too far, both in vanilla and in Babes.

Would you care to share links to those games?

And please, what are we trying to do here? Comparing real life sinkings with the subs I've sunk? Like apples and oranges? Real life IJN DIDN'T care about subs until it was way too late. They had nothing like air ASW, convoy system and so forth. If players do it completely different (no matter what in the game) why shouldn't they get different things out of the game?

It was actually much more serious than that - the comparison to the Allies in the Atlantic is disingenuous at best.

IJN ASW was rudimentary. No ASDIC, limited usage of radar, depth charges that didn't go deep enough and signal location and hydrophones that were wonky at best and useless at worst. Then we can consider the doctrinal and training issues that further limited Japanese ASW effectiveness.

Some of these issues were rectified as the war progresses - the game models this with increasing IJ ASW effectiveness as the years pass, along with Allied effectiveness (which shows a greater improvement reflecting better Allied learning at ASW).

As a player you can take some steps to remedy the pre-war issues facing Japanese ASW efforts, but if your metric of success is to try and repeat the Allied performance in the Atlantic, then you're fated be disappointed.

Japan on Dec 7th simply has too many deficits to overcome to enable that sort of effectiveness, even if the player is primed from day 1 towards ASW efforts.

To be blunt, you should be ecstatic with the results you have generated already. They represent a significant improvement on historical performance and suggests your measures have been very successful in inflicting the Allied submarine fleet.

As a general comment, this is ASW in the 1940s. We're talking about finding a tiny target in a big ocean with rudimentary radar and dropping bombs over open sights. We're not talking SOSUS, sonobouys or Mark 46 torpedoes...

[RangerJoe]

I wonder if he read about the USS England and her ASW problems. Then he would really vent.

But better to vent than not to vent. You don't want a build up of the pressure . . .

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

I wonder if he read about the USS England and her ASW problems. Then he would really vent.

But better to vent than not to vent. You don't want a build up of the pressure . . .

That's actually a good point as well - the vast disparity between the dedicated purpose-built Allied ASW platforms and the IJN kaibōkan factors in to the equation as well.

[castor troy]

Lol, do you guys even read what I write? You talk about the USS England and assume I have no clue about WW2 at all. Have I said my ASW vessels should sink subs in the hundreds? I have had ASW groups on patrol for over a year and they have done nothing. Late ware ASW vessels. No sub sunk. You know about the pendulum?

I am MAINLY talking about the hundreds and hundreds of aircraft in the air each day. 1000 sorties per day on ASW. 30,000 per month. Have I said my air ASW should sink subs in the hundreds? NO! What I am saying is that a sub that is spotted EACH day for a dozen times, NOT moving an inch for weeks, being attacked 40 times should be sunk at some point. And I have subs sitting still for weeks under an air umbrella for weeks and nothing happens. Oh, wrong, there is something happening. If a convoy moves into that hex it is immediately attacked by the sub. THE PENDULUM OMG! ASW was nerfed to death in BABES, I can only repeat myself, an effort like this in vanilla would result in no sub left within five days as soon as they enter these deaths zones. Is that better? NO! And the pendulum swings...

And you talk about USS England.[8|]

Feels like the discussion lately about strato sweeps and the dive not being important because there is this and that that is wayyy more powerful and people claiming they have never gone for stratosweep or the so called altitude race. Just to waste hours of my time digging up their AARs to show that's exactly what they did, posting their combat reports in my AAR. Kind of a mood feeling and then those are the examples that are praised for all their knowledge and genius gameplay? Needs another smiley.[8|] This great game has one problem and that's what I call the pendulum. Everytime something was so obviously overpowered it was changed at some point (patches or mods) it was changed in a way the overpowered thing was nerfed to death. See air ASW vanilla -> air ASW Babes. If it is perfectly ok for you (because the IJ sucked in real life not even doing air ASW) then why haven't you done dozens of complain threads on the main forum about vanilla air ASW being totally idiotic as it is 10 times too powerful?

Guess I just move on.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Lol, do you guys even read what I write? You talk about the USS England and assume I have no clue about WW2 at all. Have I said my ASW vessels should sink subs in the hundreds? I have had ASW groups on patrol for over a year and they have done nothing. Late ware ASW vessels. No sub sunk. You know about the pendulum?

I am MAINLY talking about the hundreds and hundreds of aircraft in the air each day. 1000 sorties per day on ASW. 30,000 per month. Have I said my air ASW should sink subs in the hundreds? NO! What I am saying is that a sub that is spotted EACH day for a dozen times, NOT moving an inch for weeks, being attacked 40 times should be sunk at some point. And I have subs sitting still for weeks under an air umbrella for weeks and nothing happens. Oh, wrong, there is something happening. If a convoy moves into that hex it is immediately attacked by the sub. THE PENDULUM OMG! ASW was nerfed to death in BABES, I can only repeat myself, an effort like this in vanilla would result in no sub left within five days as soon as they enter these deaths

In an attempt to make this discussion a little less emotive and a little more analytical, what are the total Allied submarine losses to date?

Then, we can take your figure of 1000 sorties a day (which, by the way, will be murdering your supply if an accurate figure) and work out how many sorties it is taking to sink Allied subs.

Feels like the discussion lately about strato sweeps and the dive not being important because there is this and that that is wayyy more powerful and people claiming they have never gone for stratosweep or the so called altitude race. Just to waste hours of my time digging up their AARs to show that's exactly what they did, posting their combat reports in my AAR. Kind of a mood feeling and then those are the examples that are praised for all their knowledge and genius gameplay? Needs another smiley. This great game has one problem and that's what I call the pendulum. Everytime something was so obviously overpowered it was changed at some point (patches or mods) it was changed in a way the overpowered thing was nerfed to death. See air ASW vanilla -> air ASW Babes. If it is perfectly ok for you (because the IJ sucked in real life not even doing air ASW) then why haven't you done dozens of complain threads on the main forum about vanilla air ASW being totally idiotic as it is 10 times too powerful?

The stratosweep discussion is a good example as it highlights the fact that you can be quite blinkered into seeing what you want to see. The devs looked at the dive bonus, and concluded that there are countermeasures that players can action to minimize its impact. There are others in this AAR that have championed the low CAP, and with cause.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Lol, do you guys even read what I write? You talk about the USS England and assume I have no clue about WW2 at all. Have I said my ASW vessels should sink subs in the hundreds? I have had ASW groups on patrol for over a year and they have done nothing. Late ware ASW vessels. No sub sunk. You know about the pendulum?

I am MAINLY talking about the hundreds and hundreds of aircraft in the air each day. 1000 sorties per day on ASW. 30,000 per month. Have I said my air ASW should sink subs in the hundreds? NO! What I am saying is that a sub that is spotted EACH day for a dozen times, NOT moving an inch for weeks, being attacked 40 times should be sunk at some point. And I have subs sitting still for weeks under an air umbrella for weeks and nothing happens. Oh, wrong, there is something happening. If a convoy moves into that hex it is immediately attacked by the sub. THE PENDULUM OMG! ASW was nerfed to death in BABES, I can only repeat myself, an effort like this in vanilla would result in no sub left within five days as soon as they enter these deaths

In an attempt to make this discussion a little less emotive and a little more analytical, what are the total Allied submarine losses to date?

Then, we can take your figure of 1000 sorties a day (which, by the way, will be murdering your supply if an accurate figure) and work out how many sorties it is taking to sink Allied subs.

Feels like the discussion lately about strato sweeps and the dive not being important because there is this and that that is wayyy more powerful and people claiming they have never gone for stratosweep or the so called altitude race. Just to waste hours of my time digging up their AARs to show that's exactly what they did, posting their combat reports in my AAR. Kind of a mood feeling and then those are the examples that are praised for all their knowledge and genius gameplay? Needs another smiley. This great game has one problem and that's what I call the pendulum. Everytime something was so obviously overpowered it was changed at some point (patches or mods) it was changed in a way the overpowered thing was nerfed to death. See air ASW vanilla -> air ASW Babes. If it is perfectly ok for you (because the IJ sucked in real life not even doing air ASW) then why haven't you done dozens of complain threads on the main forum about vanilla air ASW being totally idiotic as it is 10 times too powerful?

The stratosweep discussion is a good example as it highlights the fact that you can be quite blinkered into seeing what you want to see. The devs looked at the dive bonus, and concluded that there are countermeasures that players can action to minimize its impact. There are others in this AAR that have championed the low CAP, and with cause.

It's not about emotions at all. It's what you think the result is in my game and what I actually see as result in my game. Example is your assumption above. I try to answer everything.

How many subs sunk? (Reported) 68 at the moment, quite some will show up as not sunk as for every sub reported sunk I get at least one reported as not sunk later. I estimate around 50 sunk to date. To preempt your answer, yes I know that's just below total USN losses of real life of the whole war. A war without a million air sorties just on ASW.

1000 sorties a day? Yes, that is ACCURATE considering the number of aircraft and the search/rest settings. So go ahead and make your calculations about how many thousand sorties per sub sunk. If the question arises where are the aircraft coming from I'm using on ASW. Well, most came from China, I had 500 IJAAF medium bombers there against the Chinese and if you have read parts of this AAR you might have noticed that China was totally defeated so there was no other use for these bombers. I planned to use a couple of squadrons as usual, better say as used from vanilla games. When I used a "couple" of squadrons I started to think "wth is going on, my ASW is doing nothing at all". This lead to a spiral where we are now, better say, the numbers on air ASW we have now.

Murdering my supply? See, that's the point where I'm often thinking about discussing things that actual happen in my game with things people THINK to happen in my game. My supply is currently at 6.7 mio tons! [X(] Isn't that a WOW? With an insane air R&D programme, building bases like wild, taking halve the map and flying 1000 sorties just for nav search / ASW (plus thousands of CAP and training) my supply is still going up by several thousand tons A DAY! Again, this is a Babes campaign with REDUCED supply output.

Stratosweep discussion? Ok, I repeat myself. The so called airteam (speaking of TheElf) has been in a fight with me and several others of the naysayers about the stratosweep and the dive. For a long time it was "everything is perfect". Then after a "gonna look into it to prove everthing is perfect phase" we had the reply "the stratosweep is nothing but an exploit, if people doing this they shouldn't complain about getting these results". That means everything is fine for you and there are countermeasures? See, that's where we seem to be different. To me and other naysayers it means something isn't working correctly and the stratosweeps should be banned completely. Myriads of houserules came up, none was working well enough to make the routine working well when one wants to game it. The so well working countermeasures, I can't see them. I was even pointed out examples of AARs, examples of people that know oh how well how to counter it perfectly. Looking at exactly these AARs I copied out lots and lots examples into this AAR of those people exactly doing what they claim not to do, STRATOSWEEPS whenever possible. If they aren't working, why are those great players still using them and not sweeping at reasonable (or historic?) altitudes? Like 10 or 15k ft?

[castor troy]

And just to show some hard facts, here's the supply situation, before being told that's not possible.

[castor troy]

Oh and one more thing as the emotional argument came up. You guys realize I'm no native speaker? Things do piss me off at times but in general I guess you read my stuff as more angry or more emotional as they are.

[mind_messing]

It's not about emotions at all. It's what you think the result is in my game and what I actually see as result in my game. Example is your assumption above. I try to answer everything.

How many subs sunk? (Reported) 68 at the moment, quite some will show up as not sunk as for every sub reported sunk I get at least one reported as not sunk later. I estimate around 50 sunk to date. To preempt your answer, yes I know that's just below total USN losses of real life of the whole war. A war without a million air sorties just on ASW.

So, to be clear.

The game date is in Nov 1943, and you've already sank more Allied subs than historical (even if we are generous and allow 10% to be FoW). Not precisely sure what that is as a proportion of the total subs that the Allies get, but I'll warrant that it's not insignificant.

Nor, for that matter, will be the VP gain for Japan, and roughly 10 VP per sub.

All this with still the better part of a year and half to play...

1000 sorties a day? Yes, that is ACCURATE considering the number of aircraft and the search/rest settings. So go ahead and make your calculations about how many thousand sorties per sub sunk. If the question arises where are the aircraft coming from I'm using on ASW. Well, most came from China, I had 500 IJAAF medium bombers there against the Chinese and if you have read parts of this AAR you might have noticed that China was totally defeated so there was no other use for these bombers. I planned to use a couple of squadrons as usual, better say as used from vanilla games. When I used a "couple" of squadrons I started to think "wth is going on, my ASW is doing nothing at all". This lead to a spiral where we are now, better say, the numbers on air ASW we have now.

Again, I dispute the notion of them doing nothing at all, but the law of diminishing returns is evidently in effect. There's not a linear increasing return for ASW versus aircraft invested - just the same as there is diminishing returns elsewhere in AE (f.e in task force sizes or ship-based AA).

Murdering my supply? See, that's the point where I'm often thinking about discussing things that actual happen in my game with things people THINK to happen in my game. My supply is currently at 6.7 mio tons! Isn't that a WOW? With an insane air R&D programme, building bases like wild, taking halve the map and flying 1000 sorties just for nav search / ASW (plus thousands of CAP and training) my supply is still going up by several thousand tons A DAY! Again, this is a Babes campaign with REDUCED supply output.

6.7m seems an impressive number, but it is only late '43 and supply tends to go fast in the late game [:)]

Stratosweep discussion? Ok, I repeat myself. The so called airteam (speaking of TheElf) has been in a fight with me and several others of the naysayers about the stratosweep and the dive. For a long time it was "everything is perfect". Then after a "gonna look into it to prove everthing is perfect phase" we had the reply "the stratosweep is nothing but an exploit, if people doing this they shouldn't complain about getting these results". That means everything is fine for you and there are countermeasures? See, that's where we seem to be different. To me and other naysayers it means something isn't working correctly and the stratosweeps should be banned completely. Myriads of houserules came up, none was working well enough to make the routine working well when one wants to game it. The so well working countermeasures, I can't see them. I was even pointed out examples of AARs, examples of people that know oh how well how to counter it perfectly. Looking at exactly these AARs I copied out lots and lots examples into this AAR of those people exactly doing what they claim not to do, STRATOSWEEPS whenever possible. If they aren't working, why are those great players still using them and not sweeping at reasonable (or historic?) altitudes? Like 10 or 15k ft?

A few points on this:

1. The game has moved on a significant degree from the early meta of high altitude sweeps. Effective counters have been found and successfully used - for examples in practice see comments made by others in this thread (or in other AAR's from top players). I've used it - it works.

2. There were changes made to the code to increase the cost of high altitude flying. LoBaron's early comments are quite insightful, and the second altitude HR was a quick and dirty solution to a problem that requires a degree of thought and planning to resolve.

3. Altitude is one variable amongst many in the air combat model. You seem to be assigning undue value to altitude when a wide variety of factors are at play in generating any results (comparative airframes, pilot quality, leaders etc). The success of a sweep cannot be attributed solely to the altitude with which it was flown at as there are many interactions at play.

4. You'll find that good competitive play has a wide variety of altitudes used by sweeping aircraft, as there's a solid understanding of how the characteristics of different airframes operates. A sweep of P-38s flying at 38k against a CAP layered appropriately at 1-5k is not an optimum sweep for the P-38s, and that will be reflected in the results.

In short, if you're maxing the altitude roller on your aircraft, you're doing it wrong. The dive gives a nice advantage, but it's not everything.

ORIGINAL: castor troy

Oh and one more thing as the emotional argument came up. You guys realize I'm no native speaker? Things do piss me off at times but in general I guess you read my stuff as more angry or more emotional as they are.

I raised that point given the fact that there was limited evidence presented beyond anecdotes (and a fair degree of hyperbole) rather than your command of English (which is excellent, by the by).

[RangerJoe]

You communicate in English better than some whose only language is English. Have a good beir and relax.

Strato sweep? I had A6M2 Zeros sweeping at 20,000 feet and P-26s dived to avoid combat. So it can happen, it may depend upon their leadership and morale. But apparently most players put their most aggressive air leader in command of their fighters so they will want to fight, whether or not they should.

That is a lot of supplies but you also have all of India and China. Ever think about taking out the USSR? [:D]

I will not comment much about the ability nor luck or the lack thereof of you opponent. His constant sending of unescorted tankers says it all.

[Bif1961]

My native tongue is pig Latin and I understand you fine. [:D]

Did you do a KB attack on Manila to start the war? If so that would account for a decent amount of lost Allied subs to date.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Bif1961

My native tongue is pig Latin and I understand you fine. [:D]

Did you do a KB attack on Manila to start the war? If so that would account for a decent amount of lost Allied subs to date.

Yeah, KB started the war with air attacks on Manila. A good dozen subs were sunk there IIRC.

[Bif1961]

So that may account for your performance being better than historical in the amount you have sun to date. So if you have sunk 38 to date and 12-16 were because of your bombing Manila, some were damaged and I am sure later sank as they tried to reach Allied bases for repairs, this would make it appear you are doing fine with ASW, but a good 3rd were sunk my naval air strikes on Manila and not by ASW warfare.

[castor troy]

AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR Dec 24, 43


Nothing obvious happened during this turn which isn't all that unusual as Mundy just seems to keep building up his pools of all kind of stuff. He is up to something though as looking at the air losses I noticed halve a dozen enemy transports lost to ops. He must have an airbridge somewhere but I have no clue what he is doing.

We of course suffer our daily losses on ASW / nav search.