Game Killed by Dissapearing Aircraft Bug

[Captain Cruft]

Are we absolutely sure the disappearing planes bug has been fixed in 1.50? On the list Frag posted it just says "will be fixed".

BTW I suspect that if you never disband any air groups you will not experience the problem. Just a hunch, cannot prove anything.

[kaiser73]

i don't think the problem is with disbanding. when you disband, the units come back and so they get the planes and then are in the game.

the problem i think is when a squadron is lost (sunk with the ship and maybe even killed during fall of the base they were based at). in that case. the game doesn't see those squadrons as out of the game and keep trying to fill them

[Tom Hunter]

We had 2 house rules

No night bombing. We were discussing modification of this rule after 1.5 and we were also discussing allowing it for planes like the Betties that went over to night bombing when flying in daylight became too dangerous in the later part of the war. Sadly we never got that far.

We limited the size of our ASW groups to single digit numbers of ships. I ran 4-7 ship ASW forces, Blackwatch did the same. Blackwatch lost a lot of subs but I lost a lot of escorts too, I discussed this in the AAR twice, more data is in there.

I don't think the house rules were critical though I think the night bombing limitation did help shape the game and reduce the number of 4 engine bomber missions flown.

[Tom Hunter]

Cruft,

I really hope its fixed too, I also hope that Frag or some one else opens up our game file and makes sure that the Zeros really were going to the baby KB groups that were sunk in February 42. They have the saves, so its a question of time to open them up and track it down.

[Speedysteve]

Is this something that you plan to do Frag/Mog? Or have you tracked this little beast down already?

[Blackwatch_it]

Tom made a really god analysis of the game development along the nine months it lasted.

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

The PzB and Wobbly AAR pointed out the vunerablity of India if you put too much stuff in Burma so I defended India in depth. It was a good defense that was never tested but again player decisions made a strong India. Wobbly lacked the example and his decisions left India critically vunerable. Blackwatch can comment on why he did not go for India but its possible that he realized I was planning a strong defense in depth when he found Burma weakly defended.

I never saw it possible to go for India in this game. India requires a major forces concentration and could not allow to leave the other areas defenceless.
I was interested to capture oil and resources in DEI, Malaya and Burma to support my production and my operations first.
My second goal was to had a secured defensive perimeter set by the end of 1942.
I never went for an automatic victory, my strategy was aimed to have a strong defence able to slow down the Allied counteroffensive. This was preventing me from too daring offensives to avoid possible losses over extending my operations area.
If you are setting your defences for a long delaying fight, it makes no sense to go for New Zealand: you would not able to keep it supplied for a long time.
Moreover Tom was keeping various different zones under pressure and I had to balance my defences from east to west.
Even if I was aware of this, Tom was able to find the weak point for his first offensive, that was a very well built one too.
With some more planes on my side he would have had a hard time in Malaya, but it really was my weaker area.
With a good fighters cover I could have gathered there two divisions, two brigades and several minor units in two weeks, but without the planes it was impossible to take the units there and to keep them supplied.

[Tom Hunter]

We just traded passwords, looking at Blackwatch's deployments I am inclined to agree.

If he had the Zeros he should have it would not have stopped the initial invasion, or even have effected it. I don't think it would have had a huge impact on the sea battles we fought on our last turn either. But it would have helped the troop convoys a lot. Blackwatch is getting chewed up by Allied bombers every turn. If he had fighters he could either try to close down the airfields or try to CAP the convoys. I don't think he would be completely successful but I do believe he could reduce the effieiceny of the British blockade.

But the real issue is with KB and Timor. Akagi is intact but has 10 Zeros. Blackwatch cannot fight carrier battles and his only chance of stopping me in Malaya requires KB to go there. That is why I sought battle in the Coral Sea. I did not need to win (though I was not happy with the trade I got) but I had to fight. The Americans needed to burn up KBs airgroups and damage them so that the British could control the South China Sea. I did manage that but just barely.

After Coral Sea was over the Japanese had two 72 plane CV and two 53 plane CVs intact, and Soyru with 14 sys. Maybe enough to fight in South China sea but not enough to decisively defeat the LBA in Malaya the way he smashed the LBA in Timor. But with 10 Zeros per CV he can't even come out to play.

I was hoping to take Malaya and perhaps I could have. But a second big attrition battle using lots of Spitfires and Hurricane IIs was fine with me. Malaya would have bled the Japanese airforce so fast it would have made Timor look like a paper cut. That was my first objective and I am really certain I would have made that.

The Malaya invasion started with 18th UK and 25th Indian and a para battlation (which vanished). Follow on waves included 7th armored, 4 artillery units and base forces for about 100 aircraft.

In Sumatra to come over as fast as possible was: 2nd UK Div. 3 Chindit Brigades, 6 more artillery units, 2 more Bridgades from India, 2 army or corps HQs, base forces for over 300 aircraft, 2 engineer brigades, some construction troops and an Indian Armored Bridgade. This stuff was still flooding into the country when we stopped the game, there was a small amount of additional stuff coming from India. For those counting that is 6 to 7 divisions worth of stuff plus plenty of artillery.

In the air I had about 180 fighters of various types ranging from Spitfires to Brewsters. Only one 15 plane group had P40Es the rest were short range fighters which was a serious handicap but not insurmountable. I had to plan the movement of base forces carefully to keep CAP over my troops and even more important over my BB TFs.

In addition to the fighters there were 150 or so bombers maybe 200. These were the key, because they would allow me to cut Malaya off from reinforcement.

Once Blackwatch began explaining how bad the Zero bug was I diverted an additional 70 fighters and 60 bombers that had reached Sabang Sept 19th but had not gone into action yet.

I also had an invasion coming to North Burma, including several rebuilt Chinese divisions at full strength. Who knows how it would have done but it was a good sized force with air supply so at the very least it would have pinned the Japanese in Burma in place. The Chinese were one of the reasons I could put so much stuff into Sumatra, evacuated units from Malaya helped too.

So I was set up to punch pretty hard and follow through for a while. But the Zeros would have helped Blackwatch a lot and definitely made a difference in his ability to slow or even stop my advance.

An interesting question is: if Blackwatch had slowed my advance could he have stopped it or would he just end sending a larger army to defeat. We will never know, and I am not going to try and guess, but its an interesting question.

[kaiser73]

how many divisions you used to invade malaya?

[Blackwatch_it]

ORIGINAL: kaiser73

how many divisions you used to invade malaya?

He used two divisions for the first wave

[Tom Hunter]

Sept 10 (or so) US Marine Para battalion dropped on Kuala Lumpur. September 11 18th UK division landed at Georgetown and some of 16 Chindit brigade flew into Kuala Lumpur, and 25th Indian division started unloading at Kuala Lumpur. The Marine Para's vanished so I stopped try to fly people in and brought the rest of the Chindits by boat.

Sumatra made all the difference, it takes a day for the empty transports to get to Sumatra, a day or two to load and then they are back to Malaya unloading. The most I could move at any moment was just over 2 divisions but with all those troops close by I could get tons of men ashore quickly. In that respect this operation was a lot more like Overlord than the usual Pacific invasion that comes from a long way away.

[Blackwatch_it]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

We just traded passwords, looking at Blackwatch's deployments I am inclined to agree.

If he had the Zeros he should have it would not have stopped the initial invasion, or even have effected it. I don't think it would have had a huge impact on the sea battles we fought on our last turn either. But it would have helped the troop convoys a lot. Blackwatch is getting chewed up by Allied bombers every turn. If he had fighters he could either try to close down the airfields or try to CAP the convoys. I don't think he would be completely successful but I do believe he could reduce the effieiceny of the British blockade.

At least I could have kept the airports open

But the real issue is with KB and Timor. Akagi is intact but has 10 Zeros. Blackwatch cannot fight carrier battles and his only chance of stopping me in Malaya requires KB to go there. That is why I sought battle in the Coral Sea. I did not need to win (though I was not happy with the trade I got) but I had to fight. The Americans needed to burn up KBs airgroups and damage them so that the British could control the South China Sea. I did manage that but just barely.

After Coral Sea was over the Japanese had two 72 plane CV and two 53 plane CVs intact, and Soyru with 14 sys. Maybe enough to fight in South China sea but not enough to decisively defeat the LBA in Malaya the way he smashed the LBA in Timor. But with 10 Zeros per CV he can't even come out to play.

The problem is that KB started the Coral Sea battle with half strenght Zero sendais.

I was hoping to take Malaya and perhaps I could have. But a second big attrition battle using lots of Spitfires and Hurricane IIs was fine with me. Malaya would have bled the Japanese airforce so fast it would have made Timor look like a paper cut. That was my first objective and I am really certain I would have made that.

I had the bombers for a new attrition battle, but they need the fighters

The Malaya invasion started with 18th UK and 25th Indian and a para battlation (which vanished). Follow on waves included 7th armored, 4 artillery units and base forces for about 100 aircraft.

In Sumatra to come over as fast as possible was: 2nd UK Div. 3 Chindit Brigades, 6 more artillery units, 2 more Bridgades from India, 2 army or corps HQs, base forces for over 300 aircraft, 2 engineer brigades, some construction troops and an Indian Armored Bridgade. This stuff was still flooding into the country when we stopped the game, there was a small amount of additional stuff coming from India. For those counting that is 6 to 7 divisions worth of stuff plus plenty of artillery.

In the air I had about 180 fighters of various types ranging from Spitfires to Brewsters. Only one 15 plane group had P40Es the rest were short range fighters which was a serious handicap but not insurmountable. I had to plan the movement of base forces carefully to keep CAP over my troops and even more important over my BB TFs.

In addition to the fighters there were 150 or so bombers maybe 200. These were the key, because they would allow me to cut Malaya off from reinforcement.

Once Blackwatch began explaining how bad the Zero bug was I diverted an additional 70 fighters and 60 bombers that had reached Sabang Sept 19th but had not gone into action yet.

I also had an invasion coming to North Burma, including several rebuilt Chinese divisions at full strength. Who knows how it would have done but it was a good sized force with air supply so at the very least it would have pinned the Japanese in Burma in place. The Chinese were one of the reasons I could put so much stuff into Sumatra, evacuated units from Malaya helped too.

After the landings in Malaya I was expecting an action against Burma, so most of Japanese forces there didn't move south.

So I was set up to punch pretty hard and follow through for a while. But the Zeros would have helped Blackwatch a lot and definitely made a difference in his ability to slow or even stop my advance.

An interesting question is: if Blackwatch had slowed my advance could he have stopped it or would he just end sending a larger army to defeat. We will never know, and I am not going to try and guess, but its an interesting question.

Sure it would have been a big and thought battle.