Pacific War 3.0 (No Encircled please!)

[rader]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

My general rule of thumb is the Allies go were you are weakest. A decent Allied player will have more than adequate knowledge of your front line defenses.

You can try to lead the Allies into attacking where you want them. In the past I have left a weak area for them to exploit, shown lots of IJN shipping on the opposite side, and ambushed them hard as they took the bait.

You can use the final destination of ship bound troops to be say Darwin, but use waypoints to route them to Tulagi. Almost always something slips thru to the Allies about Darwin, but nothing about Tulagi.

Also, there is no Allied intelligence if your units prep for a base you already control, very useful for a quick counter invasion say at Marcus Island, etc.

I'm trying to make it so that I'm not really "weak" anywhere, but understand that in itself has a tendency to spread one thin. But it is the reason, for example, that I decided not to defend the Marshalls. Not important enough given that troops are needed elsewhere. The main thing I really want to prevent is a deep Allied thrust into Hokkaido/Honshu/Ryukus or something like that so I'm trying to think about defense plans for even these rear areas.

[Lowpe]

ORIGINAL: rader

The main thing I really want to prevent is a deep Allied thrust into Hokkaido/Honshu/Ryukus or something like that so I'm trying to think about defense plans for even these rear areas.

How do you envision countering a deep kitchen sink invasion?

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

ORIGINAL: rader
The main thing I really want to prevent is a deep Allied thrust into Hokkaido/Honshu/Ryukus or something like that so I'm trying to think about defense plans for even these rear areas.

How do you envision countering a deep kitchen sink invasion?

Ah, this sure brings some memories [8D]

[rader]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

How do you envision countering a deep kitchen sink invasion?

With full commitment of fleet and air forces, and ideally enough garrison ashore to prevent him from getting a serious foothold (I'm sure he'd get ashore somewhere). Then sustained counter-attack and raids on his supply lines.

[rader]

A bad day in the air over Katherine (near Darwin) for the Japanese when the sweeping fighters failed to fly combined with a bad day to be a Beaufighter pilot over China when a group of sweepers met a CAP trap near Chungking.

[rader]

ORIGINAL: rader

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

How do you envision countering a deep kitchen sink invasion?

With full commitment of fleet and air forces, and ideally enough garrison ashore to prevent him from getting a serious foothold (I'm sure he'd get ashore somewhere). Then sustained counter-attack and raids on his supply lines.

Basically operation Sho-Go, but have it work

[mind_messing]

I think you missed a good chance to attrition Allied naval assets in the Marshalls. The geography favours the IJ defence, and the generally small sizes of airbases means that light IJN surface assets can skirmish in and out in darkness and be back under friendly CAP before daylight.

From the look of the Roussel Island experience, it would likely have generated some more engagements favourable to the IJN.


Some thoughts from me on your defensive planning:

- I'd scratch Ryukyu off the list as a realistic target considering the current map situation, and replace it with the Bonin's.

- Honshu is too large for a static defence, and IJ troops to few at this point in the war to cover every landing site. A QRF of the existing restricted divisions, plus the emergency reinforcements, should be enough insurance to see you into 1944 (when obviously the balance changes).

- Strong naval and air search from Wake, Marcus and Hokkaido is your best defence for these areas. Five days of warning is absolutely massive in terms of redeploying assets in response to an invasion.

- Don't get tunnel vision on one side of the map. A kitchen sink attack on Sumatra will be just as fatal to your economic prospects as a landing on Honshu.

As a wider comment, the general tone of your posts on this subject is suggesting to me that you have insufficient intel on your opponents fleet hubs. Thanks to the Allied advance, you'll likely need to fall back on the floatplane subs for the heavy lifting here, but you should be able to recon the ports on the NE Australian coast.

I'd also consider looking at grabbing the dot bases on the NW Australian coast - Mavis/Emily operating from there will give you a peek into Perth and tell you if Northern OZ is on the agenda.

I also think that as the Allies consolidate the Marshall islands, that you're going to need to start considering an phased exit from SWPAC in the next six months or else be outflanked and cut off. I'd look at New Britain and New Ireland as the frontline, backstopped by Hansa Bay and Manus Island, with what you can spare going to the Marianas. You'll also likely lose Truk as a viable fleet base, so I'd have a think about where will replace it.

[rader]

Replies inline >>

ORIGINAL: mind_messing

I think you missed a good chance to attrition Allied naval assets in the Marshalls. The geography favours the IJ defence, and the generally small sizes of airbases means that light IJN surface assets can skirmish in and out in darkness and be back under friendly CAP before daylight.

>> Yeah, maybe but if I'm not willing to commit the KB, I could just end up losing those surface assets to his carriers, or to his more powerful surface assets.

Some thoughts from me on your defensive planning:

- I'd scratch Ryukyu off the list as a realistic target considering the current map situation, and replace it with the Bonin's.

>> Oh yes for sure. The Bonins have been my #1 to defend spot on the map from day 1. They are the gateway to everything else beyond.

- Honshu is too large for a static defence, and IJ troops to few at this point in the war to cover every landing site. A QRF of the existing restricted divisions, plus the emergency reinforcements, should be enough insurance to see you into 1944 (when obviously the balance changes).

>> Yeah, I do have enough to keep him honest, but Honshu in 1943 would be an aggressive strike for sure!

- Strong naval and air search from Wake, Marcus and Hokkaido is your best defence for these areas. Five days of warning is absolutely massive in terms of redeploying assets in response to an invasion.

>> Agreed.

- Don't get tunnel vision on one side of the map. A kitchen sink attack on Sumatra will be just as fatal to your economic prospects as a landing on Honshu.

>> In 1943 or early 1944 yes. But as 1944 starts to turn to 1945, I think strategic bombing of the homeland becomes more important than oil.

As a wider comment, the general tone of your posts on this subject is suggesting to me that you have insufficient intel on your opponents fleet hubs. Thanks to the Allied advance, you'll likely need to fall back on the floatplane subs for the heavy lifting here, but you should be able to recon the ports on the NE Australian coast.

I also think that as the Allies consolidate the Marshall islands, that you're going to need to start considering an phased exit from SWPAC in the next six months or else be outflanked and cut off. I'd look at New Britain and New Ireland as the frontline, backstopped by Hansa Bay and Manus Island, with what you can spare going to the Marianas. You'll also likely lose Truk as a viable fleet base, so I'd have a think about where will replace it.

>> All good points, will keep these in mind (messing) - thanks!

[rader]

April 16, 1943.

A bad day in the air for Allied fighters. I decided to send a big contingent of Georges in to Port Moresby where he'd been sweeping and bombing for a while. No bombers came in today, but the Georges did meet the Corsair sweeps and did great. They also did really well sweeping the nearest airfield in Northern Australia, where they found some Kittyhawks on CAP. After the sweeping Georges came a contingent of Helens to bomb the airfield. The damage was mostly superficial, but we did hit a small number of Allied bombers on the ground.

Simultaneously some Georges swept Katherine (near Darwin) and did well against some Spitfire Vcs. All in all a wonderful day for Georges, with an almost 5:1 kill ratio! (vs non-trash Allied airframes)

[rader]

Interestingly, today was the first day that any of these Allied aircraft types had been shot down!

[rader]

Today it was the turn of the Airocobras to face the wrath of George, with an almost 6:1 kill ratio.

We had a ton of bombers assigned to pound the airfield, but unfortunately only 5 flew (but thankfully after the Georges cleared the skies). Rabaul airfields were busy today.

[rader]

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: rader

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.

Yeah, they take op losses depending on how far they fly, but IJ cannot really stop it. Having anything flying will lessen the damage.

Wait until you see what happens with them at 2000 ft ...

[rader]

April 21, 1943.

The (small) naval battle of Taberfane.

A group of three US destroyers attempted to raid a Japanese convoy at Taberfane in the Arafuran Sea, but a Japanese destroyer force moved to interdict. In the night naval battle, one US destroyer was set ablaze by gunfire while another took a 61 cm torpedo and went to the bottom. A few Japanese destroyers brushed off minor damage.

The next morning, one of the US destroyers made a clean escape but the burning destroyer was tracked by search planes and attacked by Lilys, who put 5-6 100 kg bombs into her with extremely accurate dive bombing.

I've never tried the Lily dive bombers before. Their bombs are too small to do more than scratch the paint on large warships, but they seem pretty good as DD hunters!

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: rader

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.

It's a challenge, but it's not impossible.

Some other things to add from me are that barrage balloons to keep 4E's above 6000ft goes some way to mitigate damage. Night-time counter-raids on Allied 4E airbases also can be effective. Japan doesn't get anything with the capability of Allied 4E's, but throw a couple squadrons of Nells at an airbase and you'll land some hits, and it adds up to the damage pools.

Night fighters need high EXP pilots. Put rookies in them and you'll just make the cycle of losses worse. 90+ EXP and as high defence as you can manage gives them the survivability they need. I've still got the Endo Detachment and the three 90 EXP monsters I put in the squadron going after about 6 months of night CAP. They won't rack up crazy kill counts, but they do throw the bombers off.

It's a hard war to fight as your limited in the feedback you get, but I think it's an important one to fight. If you set things up right, you can seriously limit damage, which then helps if you get lucky with weather, and to put holes in bombers, which keeps them away for longer.

I've never tried the Lily dive bombers before. Their bombs are too small to do more than scratch the paint on large warships, but they seem pretty good as DD hunters!

I really like the Lily as a general purpose dive bomber, and it helps that it's IJA too.

They're good up until they start to go against battleships, though there are a few classes of cruisers they'll struggle with. Having the two bombs really helps generating the hits against destroyers, and they ruin the day for any softer targets quite nicely.

[RangerJoe]

The 100kg bomb is about 220 pounds. An 8 inch artillery shell is about 200 pounds while a 5"/38 caliber shell is 54 pounds. So those light bombs work nice on unarmoured and under armoured targets.

"Hammering Hank" Talmadge MOH sank a destroyer with one 100 pound bomb.

[rader]

What's the best altitude for the Japanese to bomb to avoid the worst of Allied AA and still be effective? (airfield bombing)

I suppose it doesn't make a difference night vs day bombing?

[Q-Ball]

ORIGINAL: rader

April 20, 1943.

A bad round of night bombing on Buna and an airfield near Chungking.

Allied 4E night bombing seems effectively unstoppable and extremely powerful. The only defenses I've found are:

1. Leave airfields empty if possible
2. Mass AA units for Flak
3. Set nightfighters - but these die in droves and never kill any bombers; they're just ablative armor. They're so bad that I only give night fighters rookie pilots and old airframes so that when they die in droves I don't lose anything important.

But failing that, Allied night bombing is rather nuclear and well nigh impossible to stop. Just one of the joys of playing Japan I guess.

Contesting them with fighters will limit the damage; it breaks up the attacks. The problem is, as you have found out, contesting them in force results in ridiculous damage to Japanese fighters, with no corresponding damage to Allied bombers. It's so bad the code is borked or something, because defensive fire from 4Es seemingly has no penalty, while your pilots can't hit anything.

So, use very small units that wont' really engage....for example, Jakes on CAP at 1000 ft. By having them in the base, the bombers aim is impacted, but the Jake has such bad climb rate it will never actually engage and place itself in danger

[mind_messing]

ORIGINAL: rader

What's the best altitude for the Japanese to bomb to avoid the worst of Allied AA and still be effective? (airfield bombing)

I suppose it doesn't make a difference night vs day bombing?

Depends on your tolerance for losses, I suppose.

The omnipresent Allied 20mm AA gun maxes out about 6k, the 40mms at about 9-10k. I go usually for 11k unless there's a worthwhile target.

I tend to go lower at night too.

[GetAssista]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing
The omnipresent Allied 20mm AA gun maxes out about 6k, the 40mms at about 9-10k. I go usually for 11k unless there's a worthwhile target.

Different 40mm Bofors models are up to 9800 in stock and them are many and nasty. All larger guns fire through stratosphere. So 10000 seems ok to keep Bofors and ower calibers out. Or 11 if there is some wiggle space in AAA height reach model.