Spanking Lowpe (NJP72 vs Lowpe (A))

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Glad it's just not me that struggles to get good mileage out of the R class. I sometimes wonder if the R in "R class" stands for "Right into torpedoes" as that's pretty much all I've seen them do in my experience.


Any port will do for the Ramillies atm. I wouldn't risk moving it myself, especially with that one hex speed limit.

IJ 250kg bombs will bounce off the deck armour, so all you need to worry about is 800kgs from the Betty/Nell/Kate or a naval bombardment (which looks fairly risky at this point). III Indian Corp flak should be enough to make any bombing a costly opposition, to say nothing of CAP

Just need to dodge torpedoes for a turn or two!

Not nearly enough escorts for the R class...I had sent several American destroyers over, but a lot of them have already paid the ultimate price or are upgrading for radar.

However, I was very disappointed to see the actual shells fired which was very few despite being heavily targeted by the Japanese, and plenty of burning IJN ships for her to fire at. Fired almost 0 6" shells for example.

Then it appears that the ship was either rushing towards or running away from the enemy since those only fire to the side.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Glad it's just not me that struggles to get good mileage out of the R class. I sometimes wonder if the R in "R class" stands for "Right into torpedoes" as that's pretty much all I've seen them do in my experience.


Any port will do for the Ramillies atm. I wouldn't risk moving it myself, especially with that one hex speed limit.

IJ 250kg bombs will bounce off the deck armour, so all you need to worry about is 800kgs from the Betty/Nell/Kate or a naval bombardment (which looks fairly risky at this point). III Indian Corp flak should be enough to make any bombing a costly opposition, to say nothing of CAP

Just need to dodge torpedoes for a turn or two!

Not nearly enough escorts for the R class...I had sent several American destroyers over, but a lot of them have already paid the ultimate price or are upgrading for radar.

However, I was very disappointed to see the actual shells fired which was very few despite being heavily targeted by the Japanese, and plenty of burning IJN ships for her to fire at. Fired almost 0 6" shells for example.

Then it appears that the ship was either rushing towards or running away from the enemy since those only fire to the side.

We don't know how the game is modeling positions and tactics so we can only surmise. My take on it is that after an initial salvo or two, BBs tend to be left behind while the DDs and sometimes cruisers rush between the two TFs. BBs would be out of position and unable to fire for fear of hitting their own ships - as the "check fire" order in the Battle of Cape Esperance illustrated (one DD got between the US cruisers and the enemy column).

In virtually every gun battle featuring one or more BBs, the BB hardly fires unless it is long range (20K yards or more) or an enemy ship is greatly slowed and the BB is passing it as it chases the faster ships. I have not had a chance for the Iowa class BBs with their excellent speed to duke it out with enemy ships. If my theory is right, they should be in the battle constantly, not just at beginning and end.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Lowpe





Not nearly enough escorts for the R class...I had sent several American destroyers over, but a lot of them have already paid the ultimate price or are upgrading for radar.

However, I was very disappointed to see the actual shells fired which was very few despite being heavily targeted by the Japanese, and plenty of burning IJN ships for her to fire at. Fired almost 0 6" shells for example.

Then it appears that the ship was either rushing towards or running away from the enemy since those only fire to the side.

We don't know how the game is modeling positions and tactics so we can only surmise. My take on it is that after an initial salvo or two, BBs tend to be left behind while the DDs and sometimes cruisers rush between the two TFs. BBs would be out of position and unable to fire for fear of hitting their own ships - as the "check fire" order in the Battle of Cape Esperance illustrated (one DD got between the US cruisers and the enemy column).

In virtually every gun battle featuring one or more BBs, the BB hardly fires unless it is long range (20K yards or more) or an enemy ship is greatly slowed and the BB is passing it as it chases the faster ships. I have not had a chance for the Iowa class BBs with their excellent speed to duke it out with enemy ships. If my theory is right, they should be in the battle constantly, not just at beginning and end.

Interesting theory. But I don't think that lives us up to my anecdotal information. Normally, my BBs fire a lot, but then again they almost always have nothing but destroyer escorts and at least 5 of them...The R class simply don't have that many turrets, and she did fire all her rear turret main gun ammo. I should have looked at the distribution of the destroyers ammo consumption.

I always shudder when I get the infamous "crossing the T" blurb, as it seems the defenders fire more....

[Lowpe]

April 26, 1942

A relatively quiet day, Manila falls however, and most of the troops surrender rather than retreat.

Night time bombing of Colombo ineffective.

IJN minelayers show up at Rockhampton.

Two American heavy cruisers and two more light cruisers show up to bombard Bundaberg...

[Lowpe]

The armored cars at Bowen aren't bombed or bombarded, attack in good order, but find Combat engineers there in good order behind forts 1, and get a 1-3 result. Even with the other Australian recce unit approaching (Stuarts) I fear we have to retreat out or risk losing the entire unit.

Will keep the rail line cut for as long as possible.

[Lowpe]

Out of Rockhampton...now I am tempted to send the tanks up to south of Bowen, or all the way to threaten Townsville especially since Japan has not bombed ground troops, but I fear without air control it is a mistake...like when the IJA moved two armored units into Ceduna.[;)]

Plus, in 5 days another 100 tanks show up at Cape Town, and I will convert two Australian units to Lee/Grants (I think I will buy them out first) and that will be a big force improvement since most Australian tank units are operating around 30% of the TOE.

The goal of this operation has always been to remove the threat of land based air accumulation of strategic VP first, second to gain some combat experience, third focus Japan's attention here, and attrit Japanese strength.

Japan has gained so far only 1040 VP, a far cry from the normal 5K an Australian invasion normally achieves, which of course is invaluable to Japan in 44 and 45. Additionally, I think we have very favorably attrited Japanese airplanes in theater.

We still have almost 1,000 militia squads to upgrade into AMF 42 inf with their improvement to hard attack (15) and 3 point improvement in soft attack to 18. A little more than 50% done.

Plus most of the American subs above Bundaberg need their radar upgrades...

[Lowpe]

The new Japanese thrust is becoming clear...I feared an assault on Lanchow and had sent the Stuarts in that direction, they will reverse and head south.

The IJA cleverly avoided the shock crossing penalty by moving troops overland. Supply stockpile turned off at Chungking to hopefully flow some into this area.

[Lowpe]

Picking a commander for my Wellingtons. They will be with me the whole war, so I want a decent one although only most of the skills are very hard to measure.

Primary activity will be night bombing. I doubt it does much, but I want a high land skill. Good inspiration, medium to low aggression, good leadership.

Who would you chose?

[RangerJoe]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Picking a commander for my Wellingtons. They will be with me the whole war, so I want a decent one although only most of the skills are very hard to measure.

Primary activity will be night bombing. I doubt it does much, but I want a high land skill. Good inspiration, medium to low aggression, good leadership.

Who would you chose?

SLDR Austin, FJ

You want air skill, not land skill.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Picking a commander for my Wellingtons. They will be with me the whole war, so I want a decent one although only most of the skills are very hard to measure.

Primary activity will be night bombing. I doubt it does much, but I want a high land skill. Good inspiration, medium to low aggression, good leadership.

Who would you chose?

And I want to know what it is that you're smoking! [:D]

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

Glad it's just not me that struggles to get good mileage out of the R class. I sometimes wonder if the R in "R class" stands for "Right into torpedoes" as that's pretty much all I've seen them do in my experience.


Any port will do for the Ramillies atm. I wouldn't risk moving it myself, especially with that one hex speed limit.

IJ 250kg bombs will bounce off the deck armour, so all you need to worry about is 800kgs from the Betty/Nell/Kate or a naval bombardment (which looks fairly risky at this point). III Indian Corp flak should be enough to make any bombing a costly opposition, to say nothing of CAP

Just need to dodge torpedoes for a turn or two!

Not nearly enough escorts for the R class...I had sent several American destroyers over, but a lot of them have already paid the ultimate price or are upgrading for radar.

However, I was very disappointed to see the actual shells fired which was very few despite being heavily targeted by the Japanese, and plenty of burning IJN ships for her to fire at. Fired almost 0 6" shells for example.

Yeah, I don't think the escorts are really the problem with these ships. You could give them Porters or Fletchers and I think they'd still struggle to make an impact.

I wonder if it's just that the speed difference between 21 knots and 25 knots that makes all the difference in surface combat, at least where torpedo hits are concerned. If that's the case, then the R class will never see a surface action thanks to just about every IJN SCTF bristling with torpedoes.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Picking a commander for my Wellingtons. They will be with me the whole war, so I want a decent one although only most of the skills are very hard to measure.

Primary activity will be night bombing. I doubt it does much, but I want a high land skill. Good inspiration, medium to low aggression, good leadership.

Who would you chose?

And I want to know what it is that you're smoking! [:D]

C'mon guys! He obviously means in addition to Air Skill, he wants Land Skill in case it makes a difference in Ground Attack or Airfield/Port attacks.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Picking a commander for my Wellingtons. They will be with me the whole war, so I want a decent one although only most of the skills are very hard to measure.

Primary activity will be night bombing. I doubt it does much, but I want a high land skill. Good inspiration, medium to low aggression, good leadership.

Who would you chose?

I would see if I could find their overall Experience as pilots and include that in my decision. Aggressiveness around 54 seems reasonable. I think inspiration is very important for maintenance of morale in the face of losses.

I am not sure but higher Admin skill might get replacement aircraft or pilots sooner. I know the HQ and airbase size and supply enter into the replacements equation, I just think Admin means the guy can "work the system" efficiently.

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

Picking a commander for my Wellingtons. They will be with me the whole war, so I want a decent one although only most of the skills are very hard to measure.

Primary activity will be night bombing. I doubt it does much, but I want a high land skill. Good inspiration, medium to low aggression, good leadership.

Who would you chose?

I would see if I could find their overall Experience as pilots and include that in my decision. Aggressiveness around 54 seems reasonable. I think inspiration is very important for maintenance of morale in the face of losses.

I am not sure but higher Admin skill might get replacement aircraft or pilots sooner. I know the HQ and airbase size and supply enter into the replacements equation, I just think Admin means the guy can "work the system" efficiently.

For pilots that are also leaders, I wouldn't imagine their EXP would factor in to the consideration. Average pilot EXP has always seemed very important to me, especially in night bombing scenarios.

Replacement pilots are player controlled. Replacement aircraft are limited to 23/week.

I don't put much value on aggressiveness for bomber squadrons on ground bombing duties, it's the naval attack and fighter squadrons that I want the real fire-eaters for.

I've always seen leadership, Inspiration and Admin as the key skills for air co-ordination, but I'd never pick specifically for those for bomber squadrons. I'd rather have the skilled paper-pusher at the Air HQ level.

[RangerJoe]

The problem with leaders who are also pilots is that you do not know what type of aircraft that they are trained on. Having a fighter pilot command a bomber unit . . . [8|]

[Lowpe]

Some interesting ideas there on the influence of air leader skills.[:)]

[Lowpe]

April 27th, 1942

Japan has no bombers in the area, at least that I can spot, so we stick around for the daylight bombardment and do good work.

[Lowpe]

Japan attacks...these guys are merely buying time to allow the anti-tank guns and Stuarts to arrive south of Ankang. Need supplies here.




Ground combat at 83,45 (near Nanyang)

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 30245 troops, 281 guns, 397 vehicles, Assault Value = 1005

Defending force 24482 troops, 123 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 781

Japanese adjusted assault: 847

Allied adjusted defense: 1576

Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), leaders(+), experience(-), supply(-)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
187 casualties reported
Squads: 0 destroyed, 21 disabled
Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 15 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 1 disabled

Allied ground losses:
377 casualties reported
Squads: 2 destroyed, 79 disabled
Non Combat: 1 destroyed, 9 disabled
Engineers: 0 destroyed, 17 disabled
Guns lost 13 (1 destroyed, 12 disabled)

Assaulting units:
13th Tank Regiment
3rd Tank Regiment
8th Ind Engineer Regiment
15th Tank Regiment
15th Division
12th Tank Regiment
116th Division
10th Tank Regiment
13th Army
51st Ind.Mtn.Gun Battalion
11th Field Artillery Regiment

Defending units:
55th Chinese Corps
41st Chinese Corps
77th Chinese Corps

[Lowpe]

As near as I can tell, awaiting recon on Charters Towers, but Japan has a scant 100 fighters protecting the coast, and this day a large percent of them flew LRCAP missions....

A lot of Japanese destroyers, light and heavy cruisers in the area!

If Bowen empties, we could paratroop drop into there...

Not much reinforcements for Japan at Townsville either.

[Lowpe]

Our hard working junk fleet fled Manila, only to be attacked by sea and air....

Not bad losses on the Airacobras.