The Good The Bad & The Indifferent

[witpqs]

While certainly their losses come against other plane types too, my opponents' Tojos mostly face off against P-40K when the P-40K are sweeping, and against escorts made up of P-39D, P-40E, Hurricane IIc.

The Tojos are a tough and plentiful foe, but the circumstances matter a great deal.



PS: I am not at all implying that all the losses of P-40K, P-40E, P-39D, and Hurricane IIc are from Tojos. We're doing pretty well against the Tojo.

[JeffroK]

Baseball is a perfect sport to use for analogies.

The batters go out and take wild swings in the hope that they will win the game.

Very few approach Home Plate to build an innings bit by bit and build a winning position.

What counts more HR, RBI, OBP or Batting Avg???

I think in AE many players aim for Home Runs, the single strike that "Will win the war"
Not enough take their time and slowly build up a position where, maybe that HR becomes a Grand Slam.

I dont think JIII's fielders made the errors, the Manager put the wrong pitcher on the mound.
(PS And JIII made the rules for this mod, his team has a few extra outfielders and another short stop)

And I didnt even get into the skill of players fielding "bare handed"!

[Canoerebel]

9/17/42

Bay of Bengal: The enemy carriers retire nearly back to Port Blair. No significant enemy sweeps or bombing missions, so Akyab airfield repairs all runway damage and will now fix the operations damage. Normal sea activity to resume - DMs will lay more mines at Akyab, fast transports will carry part of a Punjab unit (recently arrived at Calcutta from Diego) to Ramree; some of the damaged shipping will move towards Ceylon; and the reinforcing BB Valiant/CA Quincy TF will make the run around Ceylon to report to Assam.

Burma: Several actions going on. Most significantly, John turns alot of bombers against 41st USA Div. and 5th UK Bde., causing some disruption, but the Allies get a 6:1 vs. IJA 4th Div., destroying 69 squads and disabling another 50 or so. 4th Div. is in a bad way now.

Pacific: The two USN carriers are 3/2 days from being ready at Pearl. Line of transports continues to move towards Oz or NZ without incident. There are plenty of enemy subs scouring the South Seas looking for evidence, but thus far they haven't found it. SigInt shows enemy activity - 6th Div. moving from Kusaie to Ponape; another Div. inbound to Koepang. Nothing in my targeted region yet. And I just want to say - the level of SigInt about the western Aluetians a month ago was absolutely amazing. The reports came fast and furious. Nothing like that's happened since then. I certainly hope it doesn't begin anew.

[Nemo121]

CR,

Well it could be explained but what good is it being handed to you on a platter? Give someone a solution and they solve 1 problem in 1 game. Show them how to think of the solution and they improve their strategic thinking for the rest of their life.... That assumes of course that my point isn't just hogwash .

Since hinting at it hasn't gotten anywhere here's my point explained....


What everyone here seems to be doing is asking questions about HOW you can fight the Tojos. When you read those questions properly they actually mean "attrit" rather than fight and that's important since that's rather a different thing. The answers tend to 2 extremes. On one side there are those that say that in 1942 until greater rates of airframes replacements become available that you cannot defeat the Tojos attritionally and on the other hand there are those who believe that with a judicious mix of forces to maximise the depth of Allied pilot and replacement airframe pools that you can attrit the Tojos.

What I haven't seen, however, is anyone asking the question: SHOULD you try to attrit the Tojos? Maybe seeking attrition with them isn't in your interests at all and/or necessary for you to achieve your strategic goals.

If an enemy had 300 Tojos in a theatre one solution might be to bring in 400 Allied fighters and engage in attritional combat seeking favourable attrition of airframes and pilots. Others might seek to mount non-attritional operations designed to inflict short pulses of high casualty rates which would result in periods of lessened enemy aerial superiority in which ground and naval forces could conduct operations - that would be a tad more manoeuvrist. Still others might look at 300 Tojos and state that they are only a threat to your air force if your air force operates against them. Perhaps that threat could best be negated through not operating against them at all? Tojos cannot shoot down Allied fighters and bombers which are not there.

Some might argue that a careful blending of distributed ground-based FlAK with refusals to engage in aerial conflict except for extremely short pulses of activity synchronised with ( in terms of just preceding and continuing through ) rapid naval and ground operations would be another way of dealing with Tojos which does not rely on attrition at all.

If you follow this thinking to its extreme it leads to situations where you might fight in a theatre without utilising any airpower whatsoever - this is certainly possible - or where you might choose to conduct an amphibious campaign without carriers or land-based air cover.


The key point I was hoping would arise if people examined the situation was that by only trying to answer that question everyone is accepting the conscious and subconscious parameters of that question which, by their very nature, constrain the breadth of answers possible. WHen you don't like the answers sometimes the best step is to see if you could be asking a different question whose answers might be more palatable.

A lot of work has been done in hermeneutics over the past few decades to show how language constrains thought and the options people consider when superficially similar questions are put to them. Neurolinguistic programming has twisted this to make a quick buck but at its core it is true that thought is constrained by how questions are posited and phrased and that to be open to the full range of possible solutions one needs to maintain an awareness that you can reframe the question in order to open up new vistas for solutions to emerge.


Or to put it another way... When Kirk didn't like the Kobayashi Maru scenario he didn't try to find "better" ways to fail less. He decided to change the question asked and reframe the scenario not as a battlefield simulation but as a computer hacking test. When he did this he was able to find a MUCH more palatable solution through reprogramming the scenario.

[Canoerebel]

In most ways those thoughts and decisions are part of my thinking - I'm just unfamiliar with the terminology you're using.

For now, the Allies are waging an effective and important air war - one that dovetails well with the sea and ground campaigns. There are so many, many side effects - for instance, each time John commits his air force one way (such as focusing on my aircraft), it frees up something else (my ground troops), or vice versa. So I like the current configuration.

I felt it was necessary to commit maximum possible force in Assam in order to draw John's full attention, which has been a major goal from the outset. And it worked. One benefit (I hope) is that roughly 13 enemy carriers (small ones, but carriers carryinng 200+ aircraft) are now in the Bay of Bengal. That's a good place for them to be!

As for fighting without any air cover - yes, that's what I'm doing in China. And invading without carrier support? Check, that's what I did in the Gilberts.

So things are going according to what was intended now. As circumstance change, I'll modify.

[BBfanboy]

Right on, Canoerebel! You have had definite ideas about how your decision to engage or deny air battles fits with your overall objectives. Enemy aircraft attrition was never an end in itself, it was an enabler to advance some of your other moves.
His withdrawal of the KB after the recent battles echoes what happened off Oz when you stung his port attack with a strong defence. He is now very reluctant to challenge you with his naval air and that will enable you to move more freely. Well done! [&o]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: JeffK
I dont think JIII's fielders made the errors, the Manager put the wrong pitcher on the mound.
(PS And JIII made the rules for this mod, his team has a few extra outfielders and another short stop)

Aye. [:D]

[Paladin1dcs]

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy

Right on, Canoerebel! You have had definite ideas about how your decision to engage or deny air battles fits with your overall objectives. Enemy aircraft attrition was never an end in itself, it was an enabler to advance some of your other moves.
His withdrawal of the KB after the recent battles echoes what happened off Oz when you stung his port attack with a strong defence. He is now very reluctant to challenge you with his naval air and that will enable you to move more freely. Well done! [&o]

While I agree with the basics of your thought BB, I think you're making an assumption here which needs to be addressed.

You're assuming that John withdrew his CVs due to a reluctance to challenge CR's air superiority and you're using the battle off Australia as support. The problem that I see here is that John never truly committed his CVs fully in the first place, but rather used them in a supporting role here to cover his Bombardment TF. With that TF withdrawing, there's no reason for the CVs to stick around and become a target if he's not intending to follow up that bombardment strike with something else.

I think John fell back with his CVs not because of a fear of CRs forces, but because he accomplished what he'd set out to do by crippling Ramree's airfield, and is no longer needing to endanger his CVs for dimishing returns.

Even though John favors the naval side of things and doesn't really enjoy the land combat side of the game, I still don't think this blinds him enough to risk his primary naval striking force unless it's worth a major clash near Burma and all those LBA. Given that he doesn't seem to understand or know just how bad of a situation he's in right now in Burma, I don't see him being willing to use those CVs in the Bay unless he absolutely has too.

That could change, naturally enough, but at this point I think he retired because he completed his mission, nothing more or less.

[Canoerebel]

John didn't close Ramree with carrier aircraft. He had previously closed it using LBA. He did so (if I'm reading things right) so that he could get his covering carriers close enough to Akyab to hit it with bombardment ships and carrier- and land-based air.

IMO, he pretty much had to retire his carriers because the mission as a whole had failed (he hadn't shut done Akyab after five or six days of tough fighting) and his carriers sorties had dropped. Had he succeeded in shutting down Akyab's airfield and taking control of the area, I think his carriers would still be in place.

[Paladin1dcs]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

John didn't close Ramree with carrier aircraft. He had previously closed it using LBA. He did so (if I'm reading things right) so that he could get his covering carriers close enough to Akyab to hit it with bombardment ships and carrier- and land-based air.

IMO, he pretty much had to retire his carriers because the mission as a whole had failed (he hadn't shut done Akyab after five or six days of tough fighting) and his carriers sorties had dropped. Had he succeeded in shutting down Akyab's airfield and taking control of the area, I think his carriers would still be in place.

I didn't mean to imply that John closed Ramree with carrier strikes, I meant to imply that he closed Ramree via bombardment and LBA. I think he sent the CVs in to cover the bombardment TF's approach and withdrawl.

Edited to point out that he TRIED to close Ramree. Failed, but tried all the same.

That presses me to ask though, is John the type to come back again if he failed at this attempt or will he fall back and lick his wounds while looking for another way to accomplish his goal?

[Chickenboy]

Nothing to add to this conversation at this time. Just like the idea of this AAR being at the top of the page (and encroaching on GreyJoy's post total too )

[Canoerebel]

I think you're confusing Akyab and Ramree. He closed Ramree awhile back using LBA. Akyab was the target of the bombardments and the carrier-based air.

Having taken some pretty stiff blows, John won't do the same thing again. He might rely much more upon his LBA and much less upon ships, or possibly he'll come back with much more - both in the way of ships and aircraft. If so, he'll coordinate both and beef up numbers enough that he'll feel he can overwhelm the Allies.

And he might! He can certainly bring much more than I can. Still, though, that's one of my chief aims - to get John to commit fully to Bay of Bengal. That will help me elsewhere. (At the same time, Bay of Bengal is important in its own right, and I ultimately intend to succeed there; but I may take lots of lumps - like just having those two R-Class BBs hit - in the meantime.)

[Canoerebel]

9/18/42

Bay of Bengal: No sign of enemy carriers. Roughly 55 Tojos sweep Akyab, getting the best of the Allied CAP. I'm trying to change my forward configuration - at Akyab, I'd like to rely on P-38F and P-40K squadrons mainly, wtih just a touch of Hurricane, P-40E and P-39 to vary the look and altitudes. New Orleans TF replenished torps at Chittagong and will return to Akyab. Several lightly damaged combat ships will be making the run to Colombo over the next few days followed thereafter by moderately damaged ships. Attrition by enemy subs will probably be unavoidable. The Valiant/Quincy TF will round Ceylon tonight. The two damaged R-Class BBs are at Chittagong - Royal Sovereign with 40 FLT damage might try to make the run for Ceylon in a few days. Ramilles with 60 FLT damage is probably going to stay at Chittagong for quite some time.

Burma: 12th IJA Div. evicted 754 Tanks from an open hex with light losses. 41st USA Div. and 5th UK Bde. destroyed another 50 squads for 4th IJA Div., which suffered no disabled squads, meaning it's in a very bad way. Allied 4EB sortie against Mandalay. I'm not having much luck inflicting damage, but mainly I'm hoping to use the bombers to tire and attrit the Tojo a bit.

China: Enemy 1:1 attack at Chengteh does equal damage. So the Chinese soon will be retiring into the woods hex to the rear, whether they wish to or not. I'm bringing up a fresh 400-AV unit to anchor the defense in that hex.

CenPac: The two USN carriers will depart Pearl in two days. Man, that's taken alot of time!

SWPac: The train of amphibious ships continues to progress west without any hostile encounters. Still a good number of enemy subs nosing around various places - Auckland and Melbourne of late. I think John is looking for my carriers and any signs of major activity. I'm still leaning towards using Hobart and Wellington as my main ports of embarkation (I have to unload each TF, convert units to combat mode, and then combat-load the ships). Time permitting, later today I'll post more about the invaison targets and plans.

[Paladin1dcs]

*Looks at map*

Doh! You're right, I was switching Akyab with Ramree.

Wait, that brings up another question. Why bombard Akyab at all if it's Ramree which poses the greater threat of flanking his MLR? I need to go back and study the situation some more because that just doesn't make sense to me now. Sweep Akyab to prep it for LBA strikes against the airfield, sure, but I don't know about the idea of bombarding Akyab. That, to my mind, would be an asset better used against your base at Ramree to delay any airfield/fort/port construction going on there and soften it up for the eventual LCU attack that has to come.

Am I missing something here or was this actually a bad allocation of forces for John?

[Canoerebel]

No, it made sense. John had already shut down Ramree. It no longer posed a near-term threat. So he orchestrated a combined strike at Akyab in an effort to shut it down and take control of that area. He failed, but not by all that much.

[richlove]

ORIGINAL: Paladin1dcs

... snip ...

That presses me to ask though, is John the type to come back again if he failed at this attempt or will he fall back and lick his wounds while looking for another way to accomplish his goal?

Let me ask a possibly dumb question. What is John's goal here? Is it to close airfields? Is it to set up a defensive line somewhere w/ LCU? Is it just to beat on CR's allied guys for the sake of landing blows? And, if I may be so bold, how can CR use the probable answers to these questions to his advantage?

[Cribtop]

Akyab was used by CR as a support base for the air and sea defense of Ramree. In the air, it LRCAPed Ramree to reduce the risk of having too many squadrons get trapped at the latter. For the naval side, Akyab provided direct air defense for the SCTFs, supply ships, etc that were making the nightly run into Ramree from Akyab. John's effort could have succeeded because there is no rail line to Akyab, preventing CR from pulling out damaged air frames, but he ran out of forces or guts or some combination of the two just when CR was getting worried.

I personally think John's entire response here wasn't the ideal solution to the problem CR presented in this theater. However, if you were pursuing the Operational solution John was after, Akyab was a valid target, IMHO.

[Canoerebel]

The Allies took the advantage in Burma back in March, then upped the ante in June by taking Ramree Island. I think it's fair to say John was slow in recognizing the import of what was going on (and he will say that I failed to take advantage of Burma when it was lightly defended). So now the Allies have a threatening/worrying position on the ground, big airfields (Ramree, Akyab, Cox's, Chittagong, Imphal and more), and lots of combat ships posted forward. The Allied position is synergistic - the airfields protect the ships which protect the airfields both of which allow the ground units to move forward. So John sees all this and finally concludes that he's got to address the problem. He's late, he's worried that Bay of Bengal might be a massive diversion, yet he knows he has to commit alot to have a chance to wrest initiative back from the Allies. So he's now tried once and failed. He'll keep trying, I think.

[Canoerebel]

I agree with Cribtop. Akyab is the key to the Allied position in the Bay of Bengal, so definitely an important and legitimate target.

[JocMeister]

CR,

Don´t waste those P38s on CAP. They are precious as gold and will be the only thing you have that will be able to go toe to toe with the Tojo on offensive missions until the Corsairs arrive in 1/43. Doing anything even remotely offensive with P40/39s will be futile. The P38s is the only airframe you have for that. Save it for important sweep missions. Put your absolute elite pilots in them.

Hurricane Cs do very well on CAP against Tojos if piloted by proper pilots. Its actually pretty much the only airframe (imo) that isn´t useless against the Tojo besides the P38s. My opinions are best on "2nd best MVR band" HR though. Don´t know if you use that.