PAW 1941-45 me (Axis) vs warspite1 (Allies)

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Larry,

Great stuff. I find this very interesting - and overwhelming.

Have a good evening,

Glad you like it Mike man. There's a ton of stuff going on in the background that's probably slightly boring to you guys so I don't cover that, the moving of units generally, unless they are going somewhere important for whatever reason. And some of the planes need to be repositioned depending on the circumstances and I don't always cover that. I'm thinking I should really cover all the interesting stuff and include explainations and supporting info so you guys will be kept in the loop as to the game events. What are you specifically interested in that isn't getting covered? I'll work on it.

[larryfulkerson]

I just now received some moves from Rob and I watched the playback and I saw where he's moving CV Yorktown and it's escorts to what looked like Midway or somewhere near there; I'll have to go look for it I guess. I did a "close" and then a "save and close" and zipped it up and attached it here below. This is turn eight and this is before I have moved anybody and you can look at the reports and dialogs and maybe move some units around if you want to. Just download it, unzip it, and load it as a saved game.

[larryfulkerson]

The PI is cleared except for the mopping up being done in Manila's surburbs. I'm trying to bombard them via the air for a while to soften them up a little bit before I start attacking. I'm losing planes and I'm not getting very many hits but I'm thinking it's soaking up their supply when they have to defend. If I attack them when they are out of supply they will likely evaporate several at a time.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got a long range patrol squadron on Midway flying Emily's and Betty's and they have the range to reach past Pearl and they provide me recon that is pretty good. I don't have the ID of the units but I CAN discern their type and I'm seeing a lot of units ready for invasions and all they need is the order.

It's been a while since I've had this game in my head and I'm not familiar with all the details of it, like where my carriers are right now. I've parked two or three of them at Rabaul and I think there may be two more at Truk, I'll have to take a look around. During the playback I saw the CV Yorktown moving somewhere through a lot of deep water so I'm thinking he's moved it closer to Australia or somewhere maybe near Fiji. I'll zoom way out and take a look around.

I saw some Commonwealth ships moving near Ceylon and it looked like they moved as far west as they could and I'm wondering how much benefit would accrue from my chasing them down with a couple of carriers and a BB group or two. I want to go after the Yorktown first since it's the more important target. I sank the Enterprise already so there's just the Yorktown, the Saratoga, and Lexington I think. It's rather important that I find out somehow.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay, I've zoomed way out and looked around and I can't find the CV Yorktown. I'll have to go looking for her. That means I need to send out search parties, DD's that go look in places where an Allied TF might hide. They are of course expendable, but I don't want to just throw them away, I'd like to hold onto them if possible but I still need to search the Pacific for her. I'll start by looking down south.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the supply situation in far northern China. I need to repair the rail to get some supply to those folks. And I don't have the juice to push any further and I'm guessing they are still on the defensive so we're sort of at a Mexican standoff so far. I'll have to round up some engineers to work on the rail so that I can break the logjam that is the far north.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a view of the war in Malaya. It's really a hot spot in the bottom 1/3 of the peninsula where the battle over the roads and rails is being waged. The Allies are fighting a delaying game and the Japs are pushing and shoving to make it further south and closer to the city and the port. As soon as Manila is reduced I'm going to move the ships over to Singapore and start the bombardment on the largest stack. Also, I want to do some ship-airfield bombardment to get rid of some of those Allied planes.

[larryfulkerson]

This is Java right now. I see the Allied infantry unit trying to make it to the middle of the island so he can wreck some havoc. I've moved an engineer unit up to the creek to prevent any incursions and I think we're good to go. I'll have to take out that Allied unit of course.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the area north of Hanoi and you can see that the Japanese are approaching the dirt road leading to Burma and ultimately India. I've dropped a bridge further to the west so supply is likely low for the Chinese and unfortunately the supply level is too low to make a difference for the Japs as well. This is a slow motion war in this area.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd take a DD and make a tour of the ports of India and I found a small TF of Allied ships, 3 DD's and a CL and I just happen to have a carrier handy to make a raid on the TF. I'll see what I can put together, and meanwhile I've got 70 MP's left in my DD so it's not going to get away very far and I'm wondering if I ought to dispatch some escorts for the DD so it won't get sunk during Rob's turn.

[larryfulkerson]

EDIT: I have reviewed this page and have deemed it safe for Rob to see.

Vanua Levu has an Allied garrison that's too stout for the one little regiment that I have available so I'm moving to Samoa to try to get ashore. I was intercepted two or three times getting into position for the assault but there was no damage to the Jap ships or LCU's. I'm making a three-dot attack against a small garrison and I expect to get ashore.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in southern China now. I'm fighting over the rails and the Cbinese want to hold onto them. I'm repairing it as I go to help the supply flow and progress is being made. It's going to tkae a while to own the rails and repair them all. I'm planning on clearing out the country of Chinese troops just because I can.

[larryfulkerson]

I've pushed the Allies down into the last 1/4 of Malaya and the operation has progressed so far that I can safely start railing people out of here for places like Java and Rangoon. I think I've given up with wanting to invade the north part of Australia because of the severe lack of supply there.

I've seen some Allied ships moving about around Karach, India so I'm thinking I ought to saddle up and drive over there to see what's cooking.

[larryfulkerson]

I've driven the CV's that were parked at Rabaul to a spot to the west of Colombo, Ceylon so that there's 5 of them gathered there now. The Allied ships are to the west of Karachi in the culdesac and I'm planning on hunting them down and sinking them but I'm out of MP's for several of the CV's and it'll have to wait until next turn.

[larryfulkerson]

I've just received some moves from Rob and in his Diplomatic Pouch he tried to tell me about some problem he's having and the game engine truncated his sentences so that I have no idea what's wrong. I think to be safe I'll have to put the game on hold for about half an hour while I try to get a hold of Rob and straighten out what's the message say.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd post this strategic map while we're waiting.

[larryfulkerson]

I just now got an email from Thomas Harvey about the problem that warspite1 is having. Here it is:

Hi Larry

In your game with Warspite a ground unit of the allies can't take a hex occupied by only two Japanese air units. The problem is addressed in the scenario briefing as it relates to dual icon units that have an artillery icon as a secondary icon. As noted in the briefing below, one must pay attention to the artillery range of the units. The dual icon gives added ability to the units but you need to know how to use them properly. To my knowledge, my scenarios are the only scenarios that have this feature. I think it can be quite useful.

Most non armored, armored infantry or Marine units that have towed artillery equipment in the unit have a dual icon assigned. This allows the unit's artillery to have the same artillery operations as does a dedicated artillery unit with nothing but artillery equipment in the unit. However, on occasion they will refuse to attack as infantry. In that situtation click on the unit display and reduce the range to zero. Then the unit will attack like an infantry unit but will still have the firepower of the artillery equipment in the unit. These same dual infantry/artillery units will be unable to act as defensive reserves to enter a hex in response to enemy attack. They will fire their artillery equipment in defense instead if dug in or set on reserve status. Without the dual icon the artillery equipment in the infantry unit would not nave artillery operations and therefore be at a big disavantage. Dual icon units will also act like artillery units in that they will not take te target hex during the combat phase. They would need to take the hex on a subsequent phase. It is recommended non dual icon units be mixed in to take the hex during the combat phase.

Good luck.

Tom

[larryfulkerson]

I found a unit on Formosa that has a very low proficiency so I thought I'd get them busy doing a lot of infantry plinking to slowly increase the prof. of the unit. I need at least 60% or so before I put them into the air-to-air stuff. My naval pilots are the best whether fighter or bomber pilots. I've got a lot of the better fighter pilots in the Bangkok area to fend off Allied bombers and maybe put in an airfield strike or two periodically along with the bombers who actually do the damage done. I get hits on the ground staff when it's not an airfield strike and unless it hits some AA equipment it's a largely wasted strike.

<rant>The way TOAW IV game engine is written repeated strikes on the airfield don't damage the airfield in any way...no runway hits, no fuel dump hits, no infrastructure hits, nothing like that so it becomes a war of aerial attrition in that the only things lost are the aircraft involved. There's no way to shut down a port by repeated strikes on the port either. And no night missions for the aircraft.</rant>

I read that part in the scenario briefing about the dual icon feature being part of this scenario but I haven't run into any problems using the units involved. Maybe the Japs don't have any such units.

[larryfulkerson]

I did a save game and then zipped up the file and attached it here below so that those of you interested in seeing all the reports and dialogs want to take an in-depth look at the situation you can d/l this file and unzip it and load it as a saved game. This is T10. The password is "password" without the quotes if you want to look at the Allied side.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the supply situation on Java right now. It's getting better as I clear out the hexes and do mop up. I've got one end of the island to clear up yet and then it'll be officially cleared. I'm thinking of investing in the island of Timor next.