Here come the Rebels! (Canoe v. Q-Ball)

[bradfordkay]

Dan... what CVEs are you using for this Wake invasion? My game with Chez is at 10-22-42 and the only CVEs I have so far are all loaded with VR squadrons (as are the two due this week).

[Canoerebel]

I'm using Long Island and two other CVE from which I stripped the dive bombers, leaving just 28-fighters apiece. The two 28-fighter squadrons are set to 10% CAP and 60% LRCAP. Long Island is set to 70% CAP. All squadrons are fresh and rested, so this will be fine for the short time I will have them in place (or the short time they have left on the surface of the sea if Brad is ready for me). The pilots are decent, though by no means remarkable.

Two other CVEs are trailing back about 18 hexes. I will withdraw them, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.

[Canoerebel]

Waiting for a this turn is agonizing. Brad sent just one turn over the weekend. He lives and breathes War in the East. He's over in those forums right now, immersed in his German offensive in Russia in late summer 1941, oblivious to the fact that the AE turn in his inbox features the Allied invasion of Wake Island.

I have some hope that this sudden increase in Allied aggession will revive his interest in the game. A few weeks ago I thought he had become revived when he resumed posting in his AAR after a two-month hiatus. But that flurry of postings came to a quick halt.

This is driving me nuts!

[Canoerebel]

11/20/42

Wake Island: Everything went pefectly, but the attack failed due to lack of supply. The attack achieved surprise, nearly all troops came ashore in great shape, the Japs got beat up pretty good, and I had 700 AV to just 100 for Japan. But the attack came off at 1:5 because of lack of supply due to overstacking. There is not one Allied supply point left on the island. (I don't see how you can possibly land enough supply to take an atoll given what I've just seen). It's going to be hard to disengage, and it's going to be hard to pull an inside straight, but here's what I'm doing:

1. All transports carrying ships will halt and return to Midway (to prevent another shock attack).
2. All thips with just supplies will unload.
3. Some empty transports will load troops and skedaddle.
4. As other ships unload tomorrow, they'll try to lift off enough troops to give me a chance at an attack with supplied troops in two or three days.
5. My bombardment TF will depart tonight.
6. My CVE will hang around one more day.
7. It is likely that Brad will reinforce by air so that my attack is not going to succeed.

This will probably get messy, which isn't good, but it should at least telegraph to Brad that the Allies are serious about CenPac.

I recall now reading a thread about an IJ player suffering something just like this invading Midway, but I didn't learn from his experience well enough. But I've learned from my own.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I recall now reading a thread about an IJ player suffering something just like this invading Midway, but I didn't learn from his experience well enough. But I've learned from my own.

I feel your pain.

I don't know if there were patch changes on unloading speed, etc., but I had something very similar happen at Canton I. in mid-1942. Granted I had xAKs and xAPs, and little bombardment prep, but I had what I thought, and what should have been from actual observation, enough AV to overwhelm the garrison. I didn't.

As I do more atoll invasions I think the key is to hit a sweet spot on day one. Get enough AV ashore to survive the shock attack, but no more. Not enough to be un-feedable in the next days. Then stand the rest of the transports a hex off, and land nothing but supply for a day or two, with no attacks from your side. When you've recovered some disruption and have organic supply in the LCUs, try a non-shock with what you have ashore if you think it'll live. (Some robust engineers on Day 1 is a good idea if possible.) If not, land some more and do a combined shock attack with newbies and oldbies combined.

All of this works, but it takes time and thus air cover. You can't rush up and smash an atoll in a day. But then, you couldn't in RL either.

[Capt. Harlock]

Wake Island: Everything went pefectly, but the attack failed due to lack of supply. The attack achieved surprise, nearly all troops came ashore in great shape, the Japs got beat up pretty good, and I had 700 AV to just 100 for Japan. But the attack came off at 1:5 because of lack of supply due to overstacking.

Is there anything you can do to prevent this during the Marcus invasion?

[Cribtop]

Ouch. Perhaps higher prep points and maybe some test scenarios to determine where the sweet spot is is in order.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

Ouch. Perhaps higher prep points and maybe some test scenarios to determine where the sweet spot is is in order.

Part of that is geting in recon. If the invasion is a bolt-from-the-sea without prep it's hard to do at a distance. Pre-invasion bombardment is a good source of intel.

[Cribtop]

True enough. I guess that's why the USN moved in with overwhelming force and pounded defenders for days before an invasion. In fact, as CR points out, this may be a way to impose a more realistic time table on both sides.

That said, and this also goes to timeframe, however many troops you bring to the party you will want to make sure they are as close to fully prepped as conditions will allow.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

True enough. I guess that's why the USN moved in with overwhelming force and pounded defenders for days before an invasion. In fact, as CR points out, this may be a way to impose a more realistic time table on both sides.

That said, and this also goes to timeframe, however many troops you bring to the party you will want to make sure they are as close to fully prepped as conditions will allow.

The USN also had subs and UDTs for recon.

Prep points are to me the main slow-down mechanism in the game. In some cases, like Saipan, "prep" was largely done on the way, on the deck with the troops clustered around map boards. The pace of invasions in 1944 was fast and furious across CentPac. Weeks, not months in many cases.

The devs said in the early days of AE that they always intended that invasions be combined arms and not bolt-from-the-sea. Getting too far ahead of a line--as CR is somewhat doing at Wake and Marcus without first dealing at all with the Marshalls or Gilberts--is supposed to be risky.

[Canoerebel]

This may have been my best planned and executed invasion ever. Consider this:

1. Complete strategic and tactical suprise is achieved (through luck or the diversion in SoPac).
2. Every one of my units was 100% prepped for Wake.
3. I had overwhelming force (700 AV vs. 100 AV) plus great force composition - HQ, combat engineers, arty, tanks, CD, and lots of infantry.
4. I was close enough to Wake so that essentially all troops came ashore on the first day.
5. Disruption was negligible (from 3 points to 20 points) due to the prep and to the fact that my troops were aboard ship only a short time).
6. The pre-invasion bombardment followed by the auto Jap bombardment attack decimated the IJ defenders (two Naval Guard units, one of whose AV's dropped to zero by the time my guys attacked; the other dropped to about 30).
7. I had lots of xAKs and AKs with supplies only that unloaded on D-Day.

I did just about everything perfectly, but I failed miserably due to the immense supply-sucking power of the garrison limit. As a result of that thing - that little but big thing - I don't take the island and Brad will stock up the airfield and I'll lose some ships.

Had the island fallen, my Marcus invasion would have gone in day after tomorrow and almost certainly would have succeeded. But I'm withdrawing it - no use in taking Marcus if I don't have Wake.

Despite this, some good things come from this:

1. This was a great lesson to learn, especially since I only committed forces I can afford to lose (even though I don't want to, naturally). Had the invasion run into the KB or other mayhem, I wouldn't have known how tough an atoll invasion actually is, so I would have learned that later and probably at much higher expense and graver results.

2. I will re-orient my forces. I'm not going to spend any more time worrying about occupied atolls for the foreseeable future. So my Marcus, Tarawa, and surviving Wake forces will prep for some other destination.

3. I will really beef up my feint towards the Kuriles in 1943 before hitting Sumatra. Having an invasion go in with totaly strategic and tactical surprise is wonderful.

4. The use of BB South Dakota, CVEs and other major assets in CenPac will make a beneficial impression on Brad that the Allies are serious here, which in turn should help with creating feints in CenPac and NoPac prior to Sumatra.

[Canoerebel]

11/21/42

Brad sent me the combat report for this turn, so I know more about what D+1 brought:

1. No air attacks by IJ LBA from Wake. I can only assume that Brad thinks Wake is a feint. Unless I see something that changes my mind tomorrow, the Allies will withdraw the CVE TF. If that gets away unscathed, I have no reason to moan.

2. As hoped, there wasn't an Allied attack today (meaning my effort to halt any further landings worked). Also, my transports got out about 250 extra AV.

3. I hope that when I issue orders for the turn of 11/22, I can use some empty APs to extract enough troops to get close to the garrison limit. I hate risking my APs any longer, but I will do so (Brad may be a little reluctant to send in ships if he doesn't know where my carriers are).

4. No sign of Brad reinforcing his garrison by air.

5. I have diverted some of the Marcus supply ships to Wake, so there is still a chance the Allies can get Wake's troops supplied. IE, there is still a small chance of pulling an inside straight here.

6. If Brad sends combat ships, carriers, or LBA to Wake, I have no chance of pulling an inside straight. If he tarries three or four days, I do...and there's a chance that might happen if he thinks this is a feint or if he thinks my carriers are around (though in the latter case he would load up Wake's airfield to get a "free shot" at them).

This was a good turn for the Allies.

[witpqs]

Some game mechanics points that I and others have discovered the hard way:

• Combat comes before supply penalty is applied. If you didn't have enough supply for combat on the first turn, you didn't land enough supply.
• Supply penalty comes before you get to see the turn, so you will never get to see how much supply was present for combat.
• If you are greatly over stacked, the troops can only use (for combat) the supplies that you land during that turn, because all the supply will be removed (by the penalty) at/near the end of the turn.
• Unless you are very certain of yourself, be sure to cancel the Shock Attack orders after the landing is complete.
• When you have time (might not apply here), a good technique is to load up the excess units, selecting the most beat up ones. Leave behind the combat unit(s) (perhaps a regiment on a 6,000 size island) that is in the best shape.
• When you have loaded up troops and are below/very close to the stacking limit, supplying the unit(s) will be possible.
• Let the unit(s) ashore recover from both Fatigue and Disruption before attacking again.
• Use deliberate attacks after the initial mandatory shock attacks. With a unit(s) that has recovered from Fatigue and Disruption and is well supplied, these will usually be sufficient but more than one might be required.

I know you said you had lots of cargo ships that unloaded supply on day 1. I really don't know what happened to that. Did you actually see a Supply(-) in the combat report? Another possible cause is that you are still in 1942 and the ships available for landing an assault really stink. I'll bet that the troops had significant disruption and maybe fatigue too. If they were not prepped 100% (which I know they were) then it would have been even worse. {OK - I see you say Disruption 3 to 20. 3 doesn't matter, but 20 does matter in my experience. You still had a big force, though!}

One thing that comes to mind is that Michael has changed how unloaded supplies are handled and I think it's due in the patch. In the current release, all or almost all the unloaded supplies go to one unit and they are stingy about sharing them with their companions.

[Canoerebel]

Thanks, witpqs. I have followed most of these guidelines in issuing orders for the turn now in progress. I've already extracted most of the HQ unit and also the only infantry that was beat up badly (2nd Marines). I'll have more empty ships tomorrow, so I will extract more (assuming an enemy force doesn't sink my ships in the meantime). Given two or three days I can get down to the garrison limit, but whether I'll be able to land supplies thereafter is uncertain. Brad should impose a tight blockade by that late date and might transport in reinforcements of his own. I rate the chances of success now no more than 15%, but that's enough to give it a shot.

What I think is fairly likely and amazing is that I may be able to extract most of my ships and a decent number of troops without incurring major losses. That would be a surprising end to a FUBAR situation.

This was a lesson worth learning.

[Canoerebel]

And this taught me that Bullwinkle, Chickenboy, etc. are right - there is no way Brad would invade Midway at this point. While I still contend it is useful from a military standpoint, there is no way he would move against 200 AV strongly entrenched on an atoll.

[JeffroK]

I would have taken more troops, you can afford to suffer some supply based losses, getting through these outlying atolls (Wake, Makin, Tarawa etc)is a matter of numbers and you have to break through the atolls to get to the islands.

I would also persevere, he is suffering just as much as you and a Dieppe style raid isnt going to capture bases.

He may have been just about to collapse.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

This may have been my best planned and executed invasion ever. Consider this:

Please don't take it that I'm saying you did something wrong. I'm sure you were very careful and methodical. But the game's small island supply mechanism is there in part, I think, to avoid wholesale Allied romping before the dedicated amphibs arrive in larger numbers in 1943. The key to unloading supply, even on D-Day as you did, lies in not having to use xAKs. Supply must absolutely gush ashore, not just flow ashore as the best xAKs can do.

Also, surprise in the game is really only possible at the strategic level. IOW, he didn't have time to get more/better forces to the island. In game terms tactical surprise isn't possible. LCUs are either on Combat or they aren't. If they are, and front-line units are left in that Op Mode all the time, there are no RL penalties for sleep, boredom, sickness, lack of refresher training time, equipment maintenance downtime, etc. In RL an invasion could be over the horizon and landing in two hours under ideal conditions. It was possible to catch a low-recon island napping. In the game it's a binary state. Either they're in a (morale adjusted) state of Combat, or they aren't. Which I supppose by design makes pre-landing preparations even more important in the game, as extending disruption is the only good way the invader has to simulate RL conditions.

Edit: posted before I saw witpqs's post.

[Canoerebel]

I'm pretty sure I could have had another 30 supply xAK along and still had no supply, so I don't think the solution to the problem is to bring more troops.

The solution to the problem probably is to refrain from invading occupied atolls before you have plenty of LST, APA, AK, etc. I get the feeling that invading occupied atolls is about the same as invading occupied Artcic island during winter. A little defense can hold off a vast army.

But I'm fairly happy with all of this. The primary objective was to sneak up on my opponent and goose him good. That was accomplished. He'll pay more attention to this region. If I can get most of my ships out now, I'll be totally satisfied. And I haven't given up on the chance of taking Wake. I'm still working on that, though I don't think it's going to happen.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

And this taught me that Bullwinkle, Chickenboy, etc. are right - there is no way Brad would invade Midway at this point. While I still contend it is useful from a military standpoint, there is no way he would move against 200 AV strongly entrenched on an atoll.

Small island mechanics make fortification levels gold for the defender. I've gone up aginst Forts 5 just a couple of times and they're nearly impossible to budge with a 6000 limit. Hard to build, yes, but really hard to budge, at least in mid-war. Later on when the device mix changes (flamethrowers!) they might be easier. (Thinking about it, flamethrowers are probably only anti-soft devices anyway.)

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

One thing that comes to mind is that Michael has changed how unloaded supplies are handled and I think it's due in the patch. In the current release, all or almost all the unloaded supplies go to one unit and they are stingy about sharing them with their companions.

This one is a killer now, as the Big Unit getting all the groceries is usually your king infantry unit. Which is good, except when the engineers get starved, decimated, and killed, leaving Forts intact.