Canuck's Revenge - ADavidB vs PzB (Wobbly's game continued)

[ADavidB]

SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Allied Forces - End of December, 1942

Strengths:

• Bases are provisioned well and can operate for extended periods without external supply
• Bases are built up to max at the fronts in most cases and to at least level 3 Port and level 4 Air in the rear
• Fighters provide CAP at all front line bases
• Bombers provide air threats to ground and naval targets at all front line bases
• Mutually supporting air and naval bases are in position at the fronts
• Mines are in bases at the fronts
• Land combat units are filled out
• Air units are filled out
• Plenty of replacement bombers exist
• Ships are upgraded to latest upgrade
• Ships are operating at low sys-damage levels
• Approximately 100 submarines are available
• The Gilberts are held strongly
• The Solomons are held strongly
• Eastern PNG is held strongly
• Eastern Australia and Darwin are held strongly
• Hawaii is held strongly
• Alaska is held strongly - half of the bases with good potential are built up
• The West Coast is held strongly
• Mobile reserves are in place in Southern Australia, the South Pacific, Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast
• Enemy air bases in Timor are neutralized
• Enemy air bases in Eastern PNG are neutralized
• Enemy air bases in the Western Solomons are neutralized
• A foothold in the Marshalls has been established at Mili
• Sufficient transports are available to move all necessary troops, aircraft, supplies and fuel
• 3 fleet carriers, 3 escort carriers and 1 light carrier are operational
• Surface combat fleets operate in all theaters


Weaknesses:

• Few of the Allied land forces highly experienced - most are moderately experienced at best
• No significant land combat replacement units are due for several months
• Most fighter aircraft are short ranged and are out-ranged by the Japanese fighters
• Most fighter aircraft have limited replacement pools
• Limited numbers of longer range fighter aircraft will be available in 1943
• No long range torpedo bombers are available - thus Allied level bombers are less of a threat to Japanese task forces than Japanese level bombers are to Allied task forces
• Allied Heavy bombers are vulnerable to large losses when attacking unescorted - this limits their ability to shut down enemy air fields at longer range to contain Japanese LBA attacks against Allied task forces
• A number of former Dutch and British air squadrons are still flying obsolete aircraft with no upgrades available in the near future
• Three out of four Northern Australian bases are malarial and somewhat isolated
• All reinforcements for Southeast Asia Command are on hold and unavailable until Karachi is re-taken
• Only three Air Headquarters are currently available
• Allied forces in Burma are almost completely isolated other than for the Burma road to China, are low on supply and are low on morale
• While most Chinese troops have been saved, supply and morale are low
• Allied combat aircraft in China are few, weak, and mainly obsolete
• Soviet bases are being built up, but aren't at maximums yet and troops are not positioned well

Opportunities:

• Corsairs will start to appear in late Q1-1943
• An Essex class carrier will arrive in Q1-1943
• Several bases in the Eastern PNG/Solomons area have reverted to Allied control and are available for build-up
• More potentially good bases are available for build up in the Aleutians
• Several dozen engineer and base force units will be available in Q1-1943.
• Several new Air Headquarters will be available in Q1-1943
• Shortlands has been repeatedly bombed for several months while the Japanese have been able to only get in very limited quantities of supplies. It may be a reasonable target for invasion, but there are still a large number of troops there
• Majuro is lightly defended, but the air base is level 0 which increases the risk for the invading forces.
• The Japanese have lost many submarines to the point where their submarine fleet is more of a nuisance than a threat
• The Japanese have lost many destroyers, opening improving the chances for the Allied submarine fleet once the pre-1943 torpedo problems are left behind

Threats:

• Japanese forward main bases are fully built up and essentially unassailable by current Allied forces
• The Japanese carrier fleet is almost at full strength (having lost only two fleet carriers), is rested, has extremely well trained pilots and has plenty of replacement planes available
• The Japanese surface fleet has all of its battleships and most of its heavy cruisers intact and in good shape
• The Japanese Army is extremely well experienced and is getting rested from its recent campaigns
• The Japanese transport fleet is very large
• The Japanese have more than enough supplies, fuel, oil and resources
• Japanese LBA is very numerous and well trained
• Japanese recon and patrol forces are very numerous and well trained
• Japanese fighter units are equipped with better planes with longer range and more experienced pilots than the Allied equivalents.
• Japanese defensive and offensive land units have been brought forward to the fronts from India and are continuing to increase the size of the Japanese bases

[DuckofTindalos]

Hey, a SWOT analysis! Haven't seen one of those in a while, and certainly didn't expect to see one here! [:)]

[ADavidB]

Well, analyses aside, one does need some level of luck in a game such as WitP and PzB got his share of it on December 25. First off, he did a very smart thing and sent two DDs out after my damaged BBs off the Aleutians. Where luck came into play was that the Allied radar detected and surprised the Japanese and the Allies got the first shots off at 2000 yards. But none hit! Even the undamaged US DD couldn't hit either of the Japanese DDs. The Japanese DDs were only able to get off shots with their AA, so things weren't too bad. Then the two TFs moved to a greater distance and one of the Japanese DDs got off a torpedo: bye-bye battleship.

Then we moved to an air phase, and the US bombers and fighters were snowed in while the Japanese planes were able to take off and put another torpedo into the remaining BB: bye-bye BB again. Finally there was another naval phase and once again the US DD couldn't hit the broadside of a barn and the Japanese DDs hit with everything they had. As I said at the beginning, one does need some level of luck in this game.

The upside of the turn for me was that PzB sent out some Bettys against my transports in Dobradura and my LR CAP came through and disrupted the attack:

Day Air attack on TF, near Dobodura at 55,91

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 8
G4M1 Betty x 3

Allied aircraft
P-38G Lightning x 16

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
G4M1 Betty: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
P-38G Lightning: 2 damaged

Allied Ships
AP Thomas Jefferson

However, it appears that PzB may be sending a carrier TF into the region. That will change the balance a bit.

BTW - that AP that was attacked was part of the TF that wouldn't sail until I made a new TF with a new leader. The old leader was fairly good, and the new leader wasn't much better, but leaders seem to make a really big difference at times.

BTW II - at this point in the game almost every time that I form a new TF (of any sort) end up with a "W.O." in command and the "change leader" button greyed out. I then have to create a new TF and "choose" a leader before I select the ships in order to come up with a leader than can be changed.

And yes, I almost always want to change leaders for TFs because the AI always seems to pick the worst possible leader available.

BTW III - Am I the only person who always has to change my air unit leaders because the air units inevitably have a leader who is not only bad but also the wrong type? (Like getting 43/30 bomber leaders for a fighter group...)

At times this is a very strange game...

Dave Baranyi

[Captain Cruft]

Get those Corsairs forward when they arrive, they will massacre all Japanese fighters. As will the Hellcats.

I think you do have the ability to shut down his airfields, you just can't do it in one day.

The most important thing is advancing the land-based SBD envelope, which acts as a naval exclusion zone. That's why you have loads of engineers ...

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Get those Corsairs forward when they arrive, they will massacre all Japanese fighters. As will the Hellcats.

I think you do have the ability to shut down his airfields, you just can't do it in one day.

The most important thing is advancing the land-based SBD envelope, which acts as a naval exclusion zone. That's why you have loads of engineers ...

Thanks, but I'll take that advise with a (large) grain of salt. [;)] I am very suspicious of some of the "givens" in this game. Certainly P-38s haven't been the big difference that some people were saying that they would be. And I still haven't had a Dauntless launch at a moving target yet. (I've got something like 1200 of them in the replacement pool - I would love to see some of them take off for once.)

So will Corsairs and Hellcats really "sweep the air"? I sometimes wonder. I haven't played a late stage game against a PBEM opponent, but in the games against the AI that I've played Corsairs and Hellcats haven't done spectacularly well - I've just had plenty of them.

But thanks never-the-less for the encouragement. I guess what bothers me is that the Allied player in this game must essentially "sit on his hands" for the first 18 months of the "War". I keep on expecting the game to be more like the real war was where the Allies could and did stand up and fight the Japanese to a standstill in the second half of 1942.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

December 26 was fairly quiet, with the exception of a Japanese sub finishing off the unfortunate Crew just outside of Kiska Harbor. As was typical of the past few critical days, none of the planes in Kiska flew and no one noticed the sub.

PzB once again ignored my transports in eastern PNG and Mili, for which I am grateful. I'll try to send some "thanks" along to PzB's forces once those troops and supplies get the bases built up nicely.[:D]

Dave Baranyi

[Zeta16]

ORIGINAL: ADavidB

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Get those Corsairs forward when they arrive, they will massacre all Japanese fighters. As will the Hellcats.

I think you do have the ability to shut down his airfields, you just can't do it in one day.

The most important thing is advancing the land-based SBD envelope, which acts as a naval exclusion zone. That's why you have loads of engineers ...

Thanks, but I'll take that advise with a (large) grain of salt. [;)] I am very suspicious of some of the "givens" in this game. Certainly P-38s haven't been the big difference that some people were saying that they would be. And I still haven't had a Dauntless launch at a moving target yet. (I've got something like 1200 of them in the replacement pool - I would love to see some of them take off for once.)

So will Corsairs and Hellcats really "sweep the air"? I sometimes wonder. I haven't played a late stage game against a PBEM opponent, but in the games against the AI that I've played Corsairs and Hellcats haven't done spectacularly well - I've just had plenty of them.

But thanks never-the-less for the encouragement. I guess what bothers me is that the Allied player in this game must essentially "sit on his hands" for the first 18 months of the "War". I keep on expecting the game to be more like the real war was where the Allies could and did stand up and fight the Japanese to a standstill in the second half of 1942.

Dave Baranyi

All I know is in my game with freeboy where Iam the Japanese and with WiTPdude as the allies the cosairs and hellcats kick butt. Look at my AAR with WiTPdude and see where was with him and where I am now. It is a fine line and once you break it watch out. Also look at my gane with freeboy and see how I knocked his bombers out of the sky ans he still took my bases out. Beleive me in these two different games playing as the Japanese is much harder.

[marovici]

Good to see such a detailed SWAT analysis. It is as I feared (I am a big allies supporter), but that makes it a lot more exciting to see how far one can get and win, which ultimately given your reasoning and style of play is the result I expect and hope to see.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: marovici

Good to see such a detailed SWAT analysis. It is as I feared (I am a big allies supporter), but that makes it a lot more exciting to see how far one can get and win, which ultimately given your reasoning and style of play is the result I expect and hope to see.

Thanks for the comments and support. Doing the analysis actually force me to be more realistic about my expectations. Now if I can avoid any more mistakes of understanding like I made in the Aleutians (I wouldn't have sent out that bombardment TF if I had known that carrier air could fly in the winter) I can see my way towards starting to turn the tide in a few months.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

December 27, 1942 was another of those days where nothing quite worked out right. First off, PzB was able to get one of his fast cruiser/destroyer combat TFs into Majuro without my subs or planes detecting it and it got to wipe out most of a PT TF that it surprised. My PTs didn't even get a shot off. I'm really reluctant to send a good surface combat TF in because of the way that the game weighs in TF commanders - PzB's best are better than my best, which means that they will get the first shot regardless of other factors. I saw this back in Timor where my SC TF caught PzB's SC TF by surprise on radar, but the Japanese commander's rating still allowed him to shoot first and disable my BB with a torpedo.

Pzb also brought some Oscar IIs into battle for the first time in PNG as escorts for his Bettys. He is able to put up more escorts than I can CAP, so despite the experience advantage that my pilots have over his Oscars, his Bettys still get through:

Day Air attack on TF, near Dobodura at 55,91

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 3
G4M1 Betty x 24
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 36

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 14

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
G4M1 Betty: 2 destroyed, 3 damaged
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 7 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 4 destroyed, 1 damaged

Allied Ships
AP Empire Chivalry, Torpedo hits 2, on fire
AP Thomas Jefferson, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
SC SC-646

Allied ground losses:
52 casualties reported

and:

Day Air attack on TF, near Gili Gili at 56,94

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 10
G4M1 Betty x 15
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 28

Allied aircraft
Kittyhawk I x 12

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
G4M1 Betty: 3 damaged
Ki-43-IIa Oscar: 3 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Kittyhawk I: 1 destroyed

Allied Ships
AK Starr King
AK William C. Claiborne, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage
AK Lew Wallace
AK Edgar Allan Poe

Again, this is why the pre v1.50, more historically durable Allied heavy bombers were so critical - without being able to threaten the big Japanese bases Allied player allows the Japanese player to commit enough escorts to let the bombers get through the CAP.

On an other topic, I was starting to plan some invasions when I realized that I hadn't seen any combat engineering regiments for a while. Sure enough, I only have two left and both are West Coast units. All the rest were lost in India and Java. So that leaves me in a real bind as far as taking fortifications - I'm not even sure if other engineering units will dismantle fortifications during an attack. (Can someone let me know please? - Thanks!)

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

BTW - one of the by-products of my nuisance reconning of Kwajalein is that it is showing me that there are the following aircraft there:

169 Fighters (Okay, that figures - PzB is getting greedy and wants to shoot down all bombers that I send over. [:D])

37 Bombers (That sounds right - he has a lot of Bettys in and around Rabaul.)

274 Auxillary - Huh!!! [&:] What the devil for? Those can't all be recon planes. And if they are transports, why so many? Do the Japanese have a Paratroop Division?

Dave Baranyi

[Alikchi2]

That's extremely odd - if that's mostly transports, that's nearly all of his!

Do you have any intel on where his para units are? I wouldn't put it beyond PzB to try a large scale para landing in the Pacific..

[CapAndGown]

As far as I can tell, auxilary means mostly the fighters that are not flying, plus, search planes and transports. I keep getting reports of about 1/2 fighters, 1/2 auxilary at bases where I know my opponent only has fighters based. Perhaps that means a CAP level of 50%? Or perhaps it some silly FOW thing. More Magoo type recon.

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: Alikchi

That's extremely odd - if that's mostly transports, that's nearly all of his!

Do you have any intel on where his para units are? I wouldn't put it beyond PzB to try a large scale para landing in the Pacific..

No, I have no idea where his paras are right now, and that's what worries me a bit. However, I have lots of CAP over all my bases and the CAP ought to shoot down and/or discourage and paradrops.

Thanks -

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

As far as I can tell, auxilary means mostly the fighters that are not flying, plus, search planes and transports. I keep getting reports of about 1/2 fighters, 1/2 auxilary at bases where I know my opponent only has fighters based. Perhaps that means a CAP level of 50%? Or perhaps it some silly FOW thing. More Magoo type recon.

So you are saying that fighters under repair would be classified as auxillaries? That seems strange. That would imply that he has even more fighters there! On the other hand, a couple hundred transports would be "no fun" for me either.

Thanks -

Dave

[ADavidB]

Ah, wait a minute - I know what is probably going on now. PzB is flying supplies into those bases that I've got covered by my anti-ship aircraft. That's why those bases can continue to shoot at my bombers - they still have supplies.

Some of my fighters ought to be able to reach over to Majuro and test out this theory.

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

December 28, 1942 was a "tit-for-tat" sort of day. First off, I found and hit that sub that was sitting SE of Gili-Gili:

Sub attack at 56,96

Japanese Ships
SS I-20, hits 4, on fire, heavy damage

Allied Ships
DD Drayton
DD Grayson
DD Cushing
DD Sims

I didn't get a sinking confirmation, but I think that I-20 will be gone soon. Just in case, I'm sending a couple of DMS ships out of Gili-Gili on ASW. But there is an added reason for this - last turn I had those same DMSs in another ASW TF and while they didn't find the sub they did finally sweep on their way back in some of the mines out of Gili-Gili that the sub had left a few days before. For whatever reason, when I had sent those two DMSs from PM to GG to sweep mines they didn't sweep anything. (There are days when I wonder if there is anything in this game that doesn't require a work-around. [8|])

Balancing this activity was a Japanese ASW TF out of Kwajalein that hit and sank one of my subs:

ASW attack at 78,79

Japanese Ships
MSW W.21
APD APD-46
APD APD-39
APD APD-36
APD APD-34
APD APD-2

Allied Ships
SS S-33, hits 2, on fire, heavy damage

I wonder how obvious the change will be for Allied torpedos after January 1, 1943? (Or is this another one of those things that I have misunderstood?)

The rest of the action was all aerial bombing of bases - PzB didn't send out his Bettys against my ships. I've started to use my heavy bombers for close-in attacks on PzB's troops:

Day Air attack on 106th IJN Base Force, at 55,90

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 16
B-17E Fortress x 32
B-24D Liberator x 33

No Allied losses

Japanese ground losses:
229 casualties reported

This is in addition to my regular "alternate" bombings (where I have Air or Port set as the secondary mission to Naval attacks):

Day Air attack on Buna , at 55,90

Allied aircraft
SBD Dauntless x 17
Kittyhawk I x 8
B-26B Marauder x 52

No Allied losses

Airbase supply hits 1
Runway hits 10

I'm doing similar things at Lae, Shortlands and Lautem.

Buna appears to only have 1 Japanese base force in it, so I've decided that I will attack it. At first I started to march some troops out of PM and over the mountains, but I stopped after a few days when the troops were making very little progress and hadn't left the PM hex, but their fatigue had already jumped from a fatigue of 15 to 60! It was obvious that there was no point in continuing because if the troops ever reached Buna they would be at a fatigue of 90 and be useless anyway. So I shipped those troops out of PM back to non-malarial Australia and I am preparing a new LCU for a naval invasion of Buna. I would rather take my chances with Bettys and Zeros than waste my time and effort with the land movement model. [8|]

BTW - PzB is moving more and more ships into Kwalalein, so he is really serious about stopping me in the Marshalls. Okay, I'll shift my emphasis to PNG, and maybe even back to Timor...[;)]

Dave Baranyi

[ADavidB]

December 29, 1942 was an "Air Only" day - the only significant action was in the air, and even that was bombing undefended bases. Both PzB and I are resting and training our pilots by attacking near-by bases. I'm hitting Jaluit, Shortlands, Buna, Lae and the Timor bases. PzB is hitting verious spots in China and Mandalay.

This is a case of "Quiet is Good" for me - I need time to bring more forces to the front and there is no point wasting planes and pilots against PzB's "Gods of the Air" at this point.

As a side note - that 20 knot BB that I mentioned quite a while ago with the damaged radar is still sitting in a level 9 port with a shipyard and even with an AR in port and no other damaged ships in port with it - but it still refuses to go below sysdam 11 and the radar is still a "red zero". Unfortunately, I don't have a naval HQ nearby to give the extra "umph" that I suspect that it needs... [8|]

Dave Baranyi

[BLurking]

Check your stocks - I think if you don't have any replacement radar units the ship is going to sit and wait until one becomes available. I've seen this mostly as a problem around June and Oct. '42 when tons of ships are getting a radar upgrade.

[Captain Cruft]

There was an OOB bug in early versions with respect to repairing the radar on US BBs. Certainly in vs. 1.0 at least.

--
I have been wondering about your comment that the land-based SBDs "didn't fly" (to paraphrase). To my mind these are the most important weapon you have, especially in the NG, Solomons and Marshalls areas. Could you briefly describe how many groups you have and where they are please? Also, is it possible that they have fallen victim to the "Get New Pilot" Naval Attack bug?