CV Problems - Tactics

[kennonlightfoot]

This is a vague one. In the early part of the game (first year) I am not seeing the kind of tactics used by both side occurring. The Japanese aren't holding back their fleet in Japan and Truk. The US can't operate in the small task force groups they used for the first year of the war.

There are some causes I suspect but I haven't played enough to be sure. Playing the AI doesn't allow you to be sure your tactics would work against a Player and against a Player you don't know what they are doing to judge the effectiveness of the tactics used by either side.

Here are some of my observations:

1. There is no reason for CV's to not be at sea most of the time or based far forward where they can quickly respond. There is no wear and tear on ships operating continuously.

2. Large groups (six CV's) is the only way to operate at sea or you will lose to an enemy formation that is six.

3. US lacks the ability to "know" where the Japanese are so they can hit and run.

4. Movement (48 hexes) make a centrally located Japanese fleet able to dominate most of the Pacific by hitting just about anything in one movement. This is possible because even moving within five hexes of the enemy leaving you with no Action Points to make a strike works because it will trigger the enemy force to intercept.

5. Carrier battles end up with extreme results. While somewhat historical, it is usually the case in the game. If the US goes out without six CV's (which it doesn't have until 6/19/42) they will be wiped out. This is also related to how vulnerable the CV fleets are to a one two punch by enemy CV fleet to weaken and a massive BB fleet to finish it off.

Some of this might be addressed by lowering the CV limit to 3.

There also might be tactics I am overlooking for making the US fleet usable while still at four CV level.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot

Some of this might be addressed by lowering the CV limit to 3.

Which limit the stacking limit?

There is also something to consider is the difference between US and Japan CV. For me, US carriers are stronger than the Japanese ones due to the poor damage control of the Japanese. Not sure about armoured flight decks too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_flight_deck

I wonder if US carriers must not be rated 4/4 in strength compared to 3/3 for the Japanese ones.
It may help the survivability of US task forces even by not stacking all CV at once.

Just an idea.

[ncc1701e]

This is also true that one of the Japanese mistake was to split their CV. Only two CV at the Battle of Coral Sea against two CV.
But, Yorktown was then repaired for Midway... and we know the end. Again only four Japanese CV at Midway...

What if all the Japanese CV were at Midway?

[kennonlightfoot]

There were reason that they weren't in force at Coral Sea but I would have to get my War in the Pacific book out to see the reasoning. For Midway it was due to the Coral Sea. The extra CV's were out of service due to damage taken in the Coral Sea.

The game doesn't yet reflect well the rise and fall of Japanese CV's power which was primarily due to pilot training and attrition. Probably another discussion category all by itself. The Japanese started with better planes and much more experienced pilots than the US had. But the Japanese didn't have the training systems or capacity in place to replace their loses. Japanese CV's probably should start the game with higher experience levels than they now do but see it deteriorate rapidly with losses and replacements. The Americans should see both their pilots and equipment improve rapidly as their new planes and CV's are deployed. The Japanese CV's also had a much longer strike distance with fighter cover than the US initial carriers.

There is also a land based air problem. US bombers should be worthless against ships accept for spotting. Japanese Betty's should be much more effective than they are in the game because of their considerable range and being able to use torpedoes.

[Platoonist]

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

What if all the Japanese CV were at Midway?

The Japanese could easily have had a fifth fleet carrier at Midway if they had shown a little tactical flexibility. Although her air group was chewed up, the carrier Zuikaku was completely operational after the Coral Sea battle. If the Japanese had been willing to combine her remaining planes and pilots with those from the damaged Shokaku she would have been only seven planes short of her normal air compliment.

But the Japanese naval establishment at the time frowned on forming "pickup" teams of pilots who hadn't worked together before, so they left her behind in Japan. In marked contrast, the USN moved heaven and earth to get the damaged Yorktown into the picture.

Victory disease. It makes you complacent.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot

There were reason that they weren't in force at Coral Sea but I would have to get my War in the Pacific book out to see the reasoning.

Is it not their adventure in the Indian ocean to sink the Hermes?

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot

The game doesn't yet reflect well the rise and fall of Japanese CV's power which was primarily due to pilot training and attrition. Probably another discussion category all by itself. The Japanese started with better planes and much more experienced pilots than the US had. But the Japanese didn't have the training systems or capacity in place to replace their loses. Japanese CV's probably should start the game with higher experience levels than they now do but see it deteriorate rapidly with losses and replacements. The Americans should see both their pilots and equipment improve rapidly as their new planes and CV's are deployed. The Japanese CV's also had a much longer strike distance with fighter cover than the US initial carriers.

The game can reproduce this with air experience. If carrier based planes start the game at 75% experience and that the based air experience of Japan is 50%, after taking some losses, the experience of the carrier based planes will be reduced.

Same thing can be done for USA but this time to increase pilot experience.

[ggeilman]

ORIGINAL: Platoonist

ORIGINAL: ncc1701e

What if all the Japanese CV were at Midway?

The Japanese could easily have had a fifth fleet carrier at Midway if they had shown a little tactical flexibility. Although her air group was chewed up, the carrier Zuikaku was completely operational after the Coral Sea battle. If the Japanese had been willing to combine her remaining planes and pilots with those from the damaged Shokaku she would have been only seven planes short of her normal air compliment.

But the Japanese naval establishment at the time frowned on forming "pickup" teams of pilots who hadn't worked together before, so they left her behind in Japan. In marked contrast, the USN moved heaven and earth to get the damaged Yorktown into the picture.

Victory disease. It makes you complacent.

The US was desperate getting the Yorktown back in action. The Japanese weren't. We got lucky at Midway and the Japanese were too rigid to their plan and refused to consider the possibility that our carriers could be there and made no plans to counter it.

[kennonlightfoot]

My first test just to verify that 4 CV's and 1 CVL shouldn't try to interfere with whatever the 800lb Gorilla wants to do.

The Japanese start there landing to take Australia on Mar 15th turn. The UK used their first transport last turn to save the New Zealand air unit and bring it to Australia. The US used their first transport to bring over a bomber which is only just arriving. The US flew over their one strategic bomber using island hoping. The US carrier fleet was brought over to Sydney and jointed by the UK's CVL. I didn't bring over the UK surface ships because I don't think this is going to involve any surface combat unless the Japanese run out of carrier targets.

The Japanese, using their advantage of knowing the weather, picked Mackay as their target. It is easy to take and will cut off the two Australian units north of it. They committed most of their fleet to the operation so they could get multiple air strikes against it and a large number of battleships to support. The landings consisted of one army unit and two marine units. Because of the bug where an army unit uses 60 Landing craft I could use two armies, which would be my preferred method. With two armies I could take any port I wanted without worry that the Allied might have a strong unit in it. The only things that stops the Japanese from going anywhere they want too is weather and air power (carrier and/or land based).

I picked Mackay because the weather front of heavy rain was just east of it so my ships occupied all the clear hexes near the port forcing the Allied to move north and closer to my land based air. It didn't matter because as shown below the first two rounds which consisted of the Interdiction when the US fleet arrived and then their combat attack wiped out the US CV's. I didn't even bother with the Japanese turn since will probably sink the entire US Pacific fleet.

I could repeat it a few times just to see if luck changed anything much but it probably isn't worth trying.

[generalfdog]

What is your point? The US had less carriers and still scored some hits and lost one. Midway was an anomaly no military exercise has been able to recreate it. So unless you get REALLY lucky it's going to take more effort then history to defeat the Japanese navy

[ggeilman]

Really lucky? Not really, just need to wait until you can take them on with some parity and get them into an ambush situation. In each of the three games now that I have played against the AI, 1 campaign and 2 scenarios I was able to sink his fleet with little or no loss of my own. Midway was an ambush. Don't neglect your intel in breaking the codes. Don't come up on his fleet with yours. make him come to you.

[Steely Glint]

Invading Australia should be utterly beyond Japanese capabilities in the game. Even the Japanese knew that they couldn’t invade it. The Japanese Army refused to even consider it for logistical reasons.

[kennonlightfoot]

ORIGINAL: generalfdog

What is your point? The US had less carriers and still scored some hits and lost one. Midway was an anomaly no military exercise has been able to recreate it. So unless you get REALLY lucky it's going to take more effort then history to defeat the Japanese navy

Point was to test the potential for the US carrier fleet to be aggressive before 43. You have to remember Kido Butai was practically wiped out at Midway in June of 42 by just three carriers. One of which so badly handled their air that it no air group from it ever fired a shot at the enemy. So just two carriers took out four Japanese carriers.

In the game I had 4 CV's plus one CVL attacking Kido Butai with complete identification of their ships. And, its suicide.

But the question is can the US come up with some tactical combination that would allow their sea power to counter the Japanese before they get their sixth carrier.

Also, the US was actively raiding Japanese position in January of 42 with single carrier task forces. This appears to be impossible in the game. But it had significant effects in the actual war. The raids caused the Japanese high command to put two fleet carriers back to Japan to guard against a sorta against the mainland.

The Allies in the game need to come up with something to check the Japanese other than hoping for rain.

[eskuche]

Land-based air or BB attacking, with two DD taking the interdiction. The math simply isn't going to work out for the Allies, and there is no point complaining about not being able to achieve historical luck. The player can achieve this too, if you want to cheat and reload or take bad odds and then resign if things don't go Midway.

A fighter sweep of a CV group can kill 2-5 carrier air points per attack. That may weaken it enough to go for the jugular with either your full health CV (with an interdict and run or my attacking from an enemy low recon hex/within range of your LBA to dissuade a continued counterattack).

I don't see any problem with the game as the topic title suggests. The effects are more exacerbated, yes, since it's two week turns and teleport-like movement, but the Allied player has plenty of tools to hit and run.

Edit: and just to show I'm not talking out my butt, contrary to AAR activity, I've played 8-9 Allied games to 3-4 Japanese ones. For the former, only my game against Yuejin has proceeded to mid-'42 with the IJN not getting caught in such a trap or losing their navy through attrition (no luck rolls).

[AlvaroSousa]

I will remind everyone this is a FUN game not a historical recreation. If you want that play WitP.

Even in World in Flames, which has been around for decades, and playing with oil it is a battle of the gorilla fleets in 1944 that determine the game. There is no Midway, Coral Sea, or Battle of the Solomons as it was in History. WPP Plays very similar to WiF.

As the Axis you should go around with your sledge hammer of 6 CV fleets blasting everything out of existence.
As the Allies you should be annoying as crap and force the Japanese to spread out their forces.

[BeirutDude]

The Japanese could easily have had a fifth fleet carrier at Midway if they had shown a little tactical flexibility. Although her air group was chewed up, the carrier Zuikaku was completely operational after the Coral Sea battle. If the Japanese had been willing to combine her remaining planes and pilots with those from the damaged Shokaku she would have been only seven planes short of her normal air compliment.

But the Japanese naval establishment at the time frowned on forming "pickup" teams of pilots who hadn't worked together before, so they left her behind in Japan. In marked contrast, the USN moved heaven and earth to get the damaged Yorktown into the picture.

Victory disease. It makes you complacent.

Not to mention wasting the carriers Ryūjō and Jun'yō at Dutch Harbor in a senseless "Diversion." Yes they weren't the Shokaku, but they would have made up for her being MIA at Midway and if your scenario of combining air groups, something I have considered many times myself as well, that's pretty much Kido Butai in strength.

Consider if Kido Butai wasn't broken up for the Coral Sea operation (and I believe it was broken up as not much resistance was anticipated and to save fuel). The five fleet carriers + Ryūjō (Remember Kaga was still being repaired during the Coral Sea operation from her encounter with the reef) vs. Lexington and Yorktown...

1. The Japanese decimate the American carrier air groups with much lighter losses. Greater number of Zeros just don't give the CAP a chance and the losses from AAA fire would be more evenly spread through the squadrons. So Yorktown's pilots are now MIA for Midway, but...

2. ...That really doesn't matter that much as well as Yorktown would most surely have been lost with Lexington.

So now Midway is Six IJN Fleet Carriers to two USN and with 3-1 odds I doubt Washington would have allowed Nimitz to risk the operation. If they did, almost surely the USN would have lost both carriers. Perhaps we might have gotten one or two of the Japanese carriers but overall we would have been down to the Wasp and Saratoga until the Essex Class carriers were available in decent numbers (late '43 early '44). None of that wins the war for Japan but it prolongs it and maybe it's 1946 before we have the bases to use the Atomic Bombs? Maybe by then the Soviet Union holds Hokkaido? Maybe even the northern part of Honshu? A very different Cold War in those circumstances.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Steely Glint

Invading Australia should be utterly beyond Japanese capabilities in the game. Even the Japanese knew that they couldn’t invade it. The Japanese Army refused to even consider it for logistical reasons.

It is very possible even in WITPAE one of the most historically detailed games ever made about the Pacific War. Some very good Japanese players have done it. Very hard but the possibility and option is there. Japan invaded China remember? In terms of population Australia is tiny compared to China.

[Magpius]

Re Aus. invasion.
Not so much a matter of population but geography.
The Japanese bombed the bejesus out of Darwin, and had micro-subs in Sydney harbour, but even if they had made landfall , would have struggled with the supply logistics over vast distances.

[AlvaroSousa]

I have played countless World in Flames games. In all of them the USA never comes out to play until 1943-1944 depending on engagements which were rare. The US hoards fleets. Due to the nature of how sea zones work usually the US player will be back 1 seazone defending a major port after the Japanese move so they don't get whammied by a double move like in WPP.

The next patch will remedy these situations or at least make them better to allow some engagements I hope.

But the general strategy of the Allies is to wait.
Another strategy is an exchange. I will gladly trade 2 for 1 with the Japanese in naval fleets. In the end I will still have a fleet and they won't.

[ncc1701e]

A small teaser of the next patch. Definitely moving into the right direction imo.

I am under the impression that carrier battles are less all or nothing in term of results.

Example 1