Banzais Don't Make Victories - Anachro (A) vs John 3rd (J) BTS 5.7

[Bearcat2]

The Japanese carrier losses are great; but until you sink CV's Tokachi & Kushiro*, the game is in doubt.


* 63a/c with an armored flight deck on a 17,000t ship.

[Anachro]

Yeah, I brought this up briefly in my review of the Japanese CVs in this mod on page 2 of this thread. These CVL to CV convertible boats seem a bit questionable. They start out as 14K ton CVLs with Shokaku-level armor and magically retain their armor (lost tower armor I guess, lol) when converting to CVs while doubling their A/C capacity. I guess the inspiration might be the British CV's getting more capacity through upgrade in the game? But these have more capacity, more belt armor, almost as much deck armor, yet are 7k less in tonnage. Pretty much fantasy ships in my opinion and probably need to be better balanced in future versions of the mod. The one trade-off where they are worse is obviously AA, but I don't think that justifies the adequacy of the design from a plausibility point of view.

Can @NYGiants speak to the design philosophy of these ships?



And an upgraded British CV Indomitable class for comparison...

[JohnDillworth]

heavier, faster, more aircraft, deck armor of a cruiser? ...........pure fan-boy BS. Why not throw a Phalanx air defense system on them?

[Anachro]

Just got two emails and John keeps telling me he is running into a LOT of tech issues with the turn (after I resent him it). The wait continues.

Got up early to run the resend prior to work but have a Fatal Error message coming up on my screen. Posted it on the Tech side of the Forum. Am sure it has to do with a new install. The guys will tell me how to fix…

I am such a tech idiot, it is not even funny!

OK. The tech people have given me a direction. Will handle after work and wine-tasting this afternoon. Figures that I can find a way to screw things up with Tech. IT is a true gift of mine. Not a GOOD gift but a gift nonetheless…

Back to the situation. I have tried to count up the number and types of carriers that Japan and the Allies should have up to November '43 with the latest carrier losses. Keep in mind, the allied strength shown overstates my current strength because I am awaiting 2 new Essex-class CVs and some CVLs that arrive between now and 11/43. As can be seen, up to 11/43 the Allies should have a reasonable preponderance of strength in terms of carriers and A/C, though not an overwhelming one. My advantage should grow into '44 as John only gets CV Taiho in mid '44 (Shokaku-Kai) and CV Katsuragi in late '44. He then gets a CV and CVL in '45 and that's it.

[Canoerebel]

I'm still waiting for John to reply to my two PMs and one email. [8|]

[JohnDillworth]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

I'm still waiting for John to reply to my two PMs and one email. [8|]

Wallflower or Floozy? Which is it?

[paullus99]

Not surprising that his cavalier attitude came back and bit him in the ass....this is exactly what happened with his last game with Dan - running his carriers all over the place & then losing all of his light carriers in a single afternoon - with follow up strikes the next two days which decimated the rest of his carrier fleet.

Kudos for him in continuing that game....but, overall his scenarios are designed to maximize the Japanese advantages for as long as possible.

After reviewing those carrier upgrades above, they aren't even close to be realistic. Maybe you can magically hanger space and retain all kinds of deck armor, but it isn't anything you would see in the real world.

Once again, these scenarios really don't do anything but make the first two years of the war even more miserable for the Allied player.

[JohnDillworth]

This mod has lots of absolutely ridiculous things. I believe John awarded himself a strategic bombing force of Hundreds of Rita bombers. In the real world Japan managed to field 2 of these 4 engine bombers by 1945. I guess the theory is if Japan just has enough toys sound strategic judgement is not required

[Anachro]

I have not yet received the next turn, but John did mention he'd get back to trying to fix his game (tech problems) AFTER the Chiefs beat the Pats yesterday. Well, they did beat the Pats (thanks to bad officiating once again, but that's par for the course in the NFL, plus Brady and the offense this year are truly mediocre).

In this game, John has kept the majority of his carriers concentrated most of the time. However, he has shown a propensity to still divide them in a risky manner on occasion. In four occasions (perhaps really five), John did divide his carrier forces and use them in a truly cavalier manner, but as you state Paullus (and others like Mandrake have alluded to in posts above), two of those occasions have bitten John in the ass (and in the others he was very lucky not to see his carrier fleet decimated). I will put them below with links to the original posts:

1. A Mini-KB Carrier Raid on Tahiti in mid-42: LINK HERE
John did an extremely deep raid into the South Pacific with a mini-KB composed of 4 CVLs. Through an immense effort that saw the Allied CVs come all the way south from a previous operation in the Aleutians (and thus through extreme and precarious use of fuel), we managed to get into carrier strike range of mini-KB and sink 2 Zuiho-class CVLs. Unfortunately for us, our coordination was a bit spotty and we didn't get as many hits in as we wanted. 4 CVLs should have been sunk here regardless, but the G.6 CVLs shown above were in this mini-KB and they displayed a remarkable ability to be impervious to bomb strike, wither everything bouncing off their armor:



2. Another mini-KB in Western Australia mid-42: LINK HERE
This should have resulted in the destruction of at least a few CVEs in addition to maybe a Junyo or Hiyo, but poor performance by my bombers leads to minor damage caused. Moreover, his bombers get through and put two torps into my British carriers despite far more fighters on CAP than he had on escort duty. It should be noted, my carriers aren't fully concentrated for this battle either.

Afternoon Air attack on TF, near Carnarvon at 44,132

Weather in hex: Moderate rain

Raid detected at 74 NM, estimated altitude 16,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 29 minutes

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 59
A6M2-N Rufe x 10
F1M2 Pete x 6

Allied aircraft
Martlet II x 11
F4F-4 Wildcat x 50
SBD-2 Dauntless x 38
SBD-3 Dauntless x 47

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zero: 1 destroyed
A6M2-N Rufe: 1 destroyed
F1M2 Pete: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
Martlet II: 2 destroyed
F4F-4 Wildcat: 2 destroyed
SBD-2 Dauntless: 5 destroyed, 8 damaged
SBD-2 Dauntless: 1 destroyed by flak
SBD-3 Dauntless: 11 destroyed, 10 damaged

Japanese Ships
CV Hiyo
CB Fuji
CVE Taiyo, Bomb hits 4, on fire, heavy damage
CV Junyo
CB Aino
CVE Ibuki
CB Kita, Bomb hits 1, on fire
CVL Nisshin

3. Deep Raid South towards New Zealand: LINK HERE
Another carrier raid around New Year's day once again puts John's carriers in a precarious position where they can not only suffer from the almost-full concentration of my carriers, but I'd also have the advantage of heavy nearby LBA. Luckily for John, the querks of the game system cause me much frustration here as my lead TFs (despite being carrier Air TFs) decide to "flee enemy air threat." I know I should have gone absolute and direct in my routing orders here, but I never expected a carrier TF to behave as such. John got off lucky here. I should note also that prior to this that John also put a KB2 in a heavily isolated position far east of Palmyra/Christmas Island that I probably could have intercepted (and initially planned to do so), but advice here dissuaded me. That would be an additional time John risked defeat-in-detail.



4. Arrival of KB2 from India with a Risky Southern Movement: LINK HERE
And of course the battle we all know: John had a carrier force appear at Horn Island and this was most likely the carriers of KB2 which previously had been divided from the rest of KB as a second Japanese carrier force in the Indian area of operations (previously seen off Diego Garcia). Beyond the fact that he had two carrier forces divided in very disparate theaters, he was probably trying to recombine them here to take on Death Star, which was clearly operating in force in the SoPac/Guinea area. John's mistake here was to make a very risky movement south from Horn Island towards the heart of Allied local power without combining all his carriers first. My lucky decision to move out the same turn put him into great danger. However, to John's credit he no doubt planned to operate a combined KB1 and KB2 in the weeks ahead.



Compilation of Losses, Aug 24-27
An attempted categorization of losses up this point from the latest carrier and surface battles are as follows. More clarity on cruiser losses will come in the coming turns.

Definitely Sunk

2 Hiryu-class CVs
2 Akagi-class CVs
1 Aoba-class CLAA
1 Tokoro-class CL
2 Akitsuki-class DDs
2 Kagero-class DDs
1 Shimakaze-class DD

Likely Sunk/Heavily Damaged/Moderately Damaged

1 Aso-class CVL
1 Tone-class CA
1 Mogami-class CA
1 Takao-class CA
2 Myoko-class CAs
1 Tokoro-class CL
2 Akitsuki-class DDs

Lightly Damaged

1 Myoko-class CA

Total Sig. Damaged/Sunk

4 CVs
5 CAs
1 CLAA
2 CLs
7 DDs

[Chickenboy]

My opinion on the matter of the realism of John's mods mirrors that stated above. However, any Allied player that willingly submits to a CG PBEM has exactly zero grounds for complaint about the OOB IMO. Ditto those that never engage in this sort of mod. It's like complaining from afar about HRs in somebody else's game: it may not be your cup of tea (for some very good reasons), but decrying the HRs after you've agreed to them is self-serving IMO. If you know what you're getting into and agree to it then that's that.

For myself, as an exclusive Japanese player, I'd never ask for a game with this mod. I sure as heck wouldn't accept one as the Allied player either. If you do, then you get what you get.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro

I have not yet received the next turn, but John did mention he'd get back to trying to fix his game (tech problems) AFTER the Chiefs beat the Pats yesterday. Well, they did beat the Pats (thanks to bad officiating once again, but that's par for the course in the NFL, plus Brady and the offense this year are truly mediocre).

Like those back-to-back phantom 'tripping' penalties in the Cowboys / Pats game a couple weeks ago? Those stalled out two critical drives in an otherwise close game and contributed manifestly to the Cowboys' loss. Win by the bad officiating: Die by the bad officiating.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Anachro
I probably could have intercepted (and initially planned to do so), but advice here dissuaded me.

I haven't followed your AAR until recently, Anachro. Just so there's no future misunderstanding or dissuasion for the future from my advice, I offer you this immiscible and clear-cut standing order:

When your Japanese opponent splits his CV forces into penny-packet strikes, you must intercept and destroy them if you have the opportunity to do so.

[;)]

[Anachro]

August 28th, 1943

The next turn is here and there are some a bit annoying things to report. First, I get off a couple of bombardments against Kwajalein and while we destroy a large number of enemy planes on the ground, the combat report shows the CVL Aso is still alive, if heavily damaged. Moreover, our SCTFs, despite having Pearl set to home base go south after their bombardments instead of going east and following my CVs. However, in addition to sinking a tanker and some subchasers early in the night, we do hear sinking sounds, so some of the ships from yesterday's engagement have sunk.

None of my subs operating near Truk have DL, nor do my naval search planes at Wake Island spot enemy task forces out of Truk, so we will potentially conduct a range 10 port strike against Kwajalein with our carriers using drop tanks (is this possible?) as they head east towards Pearl.

[Anachro]

John sent the email below with the turn.

For the record, I never asked for a long break, but rather one or two weeks. I also told him if he was not happy with our pace, he could find another opponent, otherwise I'd be very happy to continue to play and try to sink his carriers. I think this was pretty reasonable, he agreed to continue, and I thought he had the understanding that there'd be a short break followed by a bit slower pace at times. It just feels to me like John is being a bit disingenuous here because the email exchanges we had were pretty clear on the match continuing if he wanted and, once again, I don't feel like he really wants to continue the match. He seems to be very focused on Floozy Dan - nice moniker by the way [:D]("starting a new match that would be massively followed on the Forum led me to drop the AAR").

And, again, he's doubling down on the fact that he would never have made the decisions he did make regarding his recent Midway moment if it wasn't for our earlier break initiated by me. [:D] Grasping for straws there.

Sorry that took so long. Got it fixed. Cannot believe that I wasn’t smart enough to think of simply logging in the Matrix and retrieving all my download info from there. STUPID!

Want to explain the last week of game-time turns.

When you wanted to take that break earlier, I was pretty sure our match was finished. Totally understandable with new job and life taking over. I have had to quit matches before when life took over! At any rate, I was convinced that you weren’t coming back.

That change of mind really opened a few doors that I hadn’t realized were shut. Had some new Mod ideas that really excited me and got that rolling. Thinking I had no game, I called Dan down in Georgia and opened that thought of another re-match with him. When he accepted, I was EXCITED. Dan and I have played each other for nearly—perhaps over—20 years dating back to Uncommon Valor. We’ve had two WitP matches epically reach 1945 and they are the stuff of fond memory. We will start a new match once one of his current pair of games is done. CANNOT wait! As an added benefit, playing will allow Michael and I to see what bringing in Brian’s work (Big B) does. I am hoping for a much more realistic China, tougher 4EB defense, added bases, and check out our latest Mod changes. Should be great!

Realizing I now had to get the Mod work DONE and that I would be starting a new match that would be massively followed on the Forum led me to drop the AAR. Hadn’t really done anything to it for a couple of game turns weeks so it was no big deal. Logical move to save time for getting other stuff finished.

Surprisingly into the middle of this, you wanted to get going again. I thought a few turns, you would be seriously busy, and decide to drop the match. Chickenboy commented in my AAR about RL and the chances of seeing the match continue.

Thinking the game was over or soon would be led me to not care as much with what I was doing. My CARDIV1 and CARDIV2 were at Horn sitting and waiting for a chance to pounce on one of your TFs when I decided to jump it into the Coral Sea just for the heck of it and see if you would come out and try to catch me. As you know many times I have come to Horn, sat for a while, and then retired. I had the option of joining up with my CVs at Truk and could have gone back around New Guinea turned east and reached Truk without any issues. If we were still before your mandated break from action that is exactly what I would have done instead I took the leap into the CS just for the hell of it. The rest is history. Looked back on the turn (I have nearly two weeks of turns saved) today and just shake my head.

Want to apologize, I really underestimated your desire to continue play and that has led to this.

Thought you deserved this note so you understood. Please share it in your AAR. After our break, I never expected you to re-start that either!

On the BRIGHT side, the install is fixed. Here you go.

[Anachro]

Here were emails that John keeps referencing. Note bolded.

Here's the next turn. I'm beginning to feel like I'm simply non dedicating the time I used to towards the game due to real-life busyness. All those downed torpedoes was because I clicked "set for all TBs in TF" as opposed to "in hex." Argh... As you said, the details matter.

Given the time problems for me and I know you'd wish you get more regular turns. I'm open to letting someone pickup, because I'm not giving you the commitment needed for a fun, hardcore match. That said, I am happy to continue as I do enjoy it when I can get to it and will try to, of course, sink your carriers!

Let me know. If someone expresses interest in picking up, I am more than happy to give them the PW. I'm also more than happy to keep playing. I stress this. Though I might need a break at some point, maybe a week or two (as I know this is how I work), where I come back invigorated and, most likely, wanting to do multiple turns a day.

No worries and no pressure. I'm perfectly happy to continue. If we do so, I'd suggest maybe a week break where neither of us look at the game. I find I come back the next week ready to focus in on the details and get many turns in.

I sent John an email asking if he wants to look for someone else to take over for him so he can focus on his upcoming match with Dan.

[JohnDillworth]

Anachro, if you don't mind, can you post the aircraft list screen for John's Rita's? Release notes call for a small strategic bomber force thanks

[Chickenboy]

For my part, I *did* comment in John's AAR that, in my experience once players talk about how busy RL is (new job, kids, mortgage, new spouse, illness in the family, personal illness, etc.) and the need for a 'short break' from the game, that usually means 'not coming back to the game'. Once one week goes by with this sort of background, then two weeks goes by. Then a month then it's difficult to get back into the swing of the game while, in the meantime, life goes on. I would have bet against this game continuing based upon the (one-sided) narrative that I was seeing / reading / hearing about then.

Who knows? I may still be right-but not for the reasons I thought. [:D]

But I'm not buying the 'I gave you KB2 just for grins, giggles and laughs and not because it's my nature.' [8|]

[Canoerebel]

Sean, haven't you been reading what I've been writing? If you have, you know there's no firm commitment for a game between JIII and me, and that I've asked him to commit to his game with you in his AAR. I haven't heard a thing from him, which is really odd. At this point, therefore, there are no concrete plans for a match between him and me.

[Chickenboy]

Hey Anachro-

Maybe you can ask John if he can re-initiate his Matrix forums password so as he can read the PMs that Canoerebel sent him and reply. Maybe that'll help. Of course, he should do the same with his email too. [;)]

[jwolf]

Worst case, I hope that John III at least will let someone else pick up his game from the Japan side. He's still got a good CV force -- just not the overpowering fantasy version he had originally with this mod. I'll bet an experienced, tenacious Japanese player could still make life really difficult for Anachro.