Moderators: wdolson, MOD_War-in-the-Pacific-Admirals-Edition
I wanna see how my Hollandia garrison performs. He has a massive firepower there and my guys are out of supplies...but i'm pretty curious to see how 700 japanese AVs can perform against 2 Marine Divisions...it will be quite a test for what will come in the future...
[/center]To downgrade them You will have to use Akagi. First You need to downgrade to A6M. But after that group will still have 81 planes and such group will not be allowed to fly to 48 size CVL. Solution can be do downgrade to model you have less that 48 in polls and then fly on CVLORIGINAL: GreyJoy
However i think i found the solution. I will move back the CVL Ryuho (48 planes capacity) and use it to slowly resize all the 5 fighter groups from 81 back to 45 (which should be kosher cause the IJN has 45 organic sentais). I hate to renounce to a CVL in these moments, but think it's something i must do. Would hate to make Brad feels cheeted.
ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
Ok, here we are.
Nov 8,9 1943
Well, Brad had parked for a whole week 4 BBs right in front of Bathrust Island... a whole week...no movement at all....
I decided to give it a try. Waited for a day with good weather forecasted and then released my KB. Another run at flank speed, positioning 2 hexes east of Lautem and 7 hexes from the BBs.... set up all my search arcs in the right way... everything went smoothly...my CVs were unspotted... kept hidden for weeks just for that....
Guess what?
Storms both over the BBs and over my CVs...both morning and afternoon....[:o][:o][:o] Not a single a/c launched... instead the yankees did send 100 bombers, escorted by 100 fighters over Lautem... we fought back and downed 150 of his planes, losing 90 of mine own... then some 30 torpedo bombers escorted by corsairs attacked my CVs...but got mauled both by LRCAP and by my local CV CAP.... but damn, it's the 4th time my CVs raids get screwed......and Brad is getting so damned lucky with the weather on the naval encounters....
Then, on the 9th, Sweeps came over Magwe...and, once again, we fought back. 100 fighters downed for me, while he lost some 50...not bad, once again.
Brad also asked me about the numbers of my IJN fighters. A good friend wrote me an email saying Brad is a bit concerned about the resize of my IJNAF fighter groups....
I copy what i wrote to Brad
Not that massively. I had expanded 5 groups of IJN fighters from 27 to 81 and divided them in 3x27 (a part from the one you see at Mandalay) and upgraded them to George mainly. The float planes, tough, have been expanded all to 20 planes each (a part from those groups operating aboard AVs and AMCs). At Mandalay i have two groups of 45 N1K2 and one of 81. These were the ones you are seeing in combat.
I had done this during the first year when sentais around were very few and the IJAF was still very little. Stopped doing that in 1943 when the reinforcements groups finally start to arrive. Also the cost in term of supplies spent to maintain those big groups was getting too high and i have never enough pilots to them anyway.
Do you find it not "kosher"? I tried never to use them on sweep missions (i know that sweeping with big groups is, somehow, gamey, cause you have a much more advantage sweeping with big groups instead of smaller ones).
Personally i don't find the enlargements unbalancing (well, maybe if i had expanded the way Rader did), but i am open to discuss it if you want. The way is see it is that if Japan is able to produce more planes for its pools it's somehow reasonable to create new groups if you have the resources (supplies, HIs etc) to do it, provided you don't "flood" the allies with simply too many planes to be handled.
But it's just my opinion...
I can resize them back, no problem. If Brad finds i did something wrong i apologise. I truly don't think so, but that's just my opinion and i may be wrong obviously.
Think it would be kosher to set an HR that limits the resizing to the max number originally available for the IJN...but, as you know, IJN groups can reach 45 planes... so if i'd resize all my IJN groups to 45 my air force would be much larger than what is now...
But i'm open to discussion. What do you think guys?
ORIGINAL: ny59giants
As for the float planes I have also re-sized a lot of small unit to between 9-20. I've sacrificed a lot for better eyes and ASW, and paid the steep economic price (as well as the pilot price - the 'iron' price [:D]). What I can't remember is whether the Allies have float plane AVs to resize their groups? Do they? I know they get a ton of groups, so there isn't much of a shortage, but I'm serious if they're able to do the same if would wish.
The Americans get lots of 18 plane FP groups. The option most have is the ability to upgrade to SBD-3/5s. I have done so in my parallel game and then found the few that can go the Avenger route. I wish I could upgrade more to Avengers which I have in spades.
Slightly OT - Playing Allies I would LOVE to be able to re-size one of my Marine CVE groups to 90 and be able to fill it out with Corsairs. Just need to increase production from 30/mo to 90/mo. [:D]
ORIGINAL: JeffK
Dont get into the trap of comparing AV.
You are past the stage where 1 IJA AV = 1 Allied AV.
The firepower of most Allied Infantry Divisions is well above any IJA Infantry Division, and as always its firepower that kills.
As for the resizing, IMVHO, because you had to put LBA onto a CV to manage it makes it pushing the boundaries. If you could do it on land the argument of being able to use your aircraft pools to their maximum.
PS With the weather, what are the regional weather forecasts, are you operating in an area with poor weather overall. What was the weather the day before at your target and over your CV's?
ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
Well, Brad has managed to cut every attempt of mine to resupply Hollandia, Vanimo and Sarmi and has bombed the hell out of them for 3 months now. Yes, they are out of supplies and i know they will fall. But i wanna see how fast they fall in order to be able to act accordingly when the next push to Biak will be made. Biak, Nemonfor and the other close-by base will have, in complex, some 250k supplies. I wanna use Hollandia as a test to see and to learn from my previous mistakes. Here i got sloppy and thought i had much more time to devolp the defensive complex... for the next time i wanna be more ready!
ChickenBoy, I did resize moving out the Kaga groups and transfering the LBA group on it, then resize to 81 and splitted it into 3 groups of 27 planes, so to have 3 sentais instead of 1.
For the FPs, i am using them mostly on ASW duties and naval search, in order to fight the allied subs and create some "corridors" where my TFs can move safely.
However, i got the message. If even the JFBs think this is gamey, clearly it is. And i am sorry cause it's horrible to be indicated as a "gamey guy". I thought it was a common pratice, well accepted, to resize the air groups.
The problem is that there wouldn't be a worst moment to do that, cause the allies are in a full offensive movement and i badly need my CVs to be there.
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ORIGINAL: obvert
Wow. This could be big.
It may be after you've given orders, but one reason to keep a bigger CAP is for the post strike battle where I find the CAP destroys a bunch more planes. This can severely limit the next strike, as well as help your own if a lot of Hellcats go down, but that assumes some of the KB is still in good shape. Maybe 300 is fine, but I've not had a CV battle in late 43-44, so who knows?
We all set things slightly differently. It'll be interesting to see how this works.
ORIGINAL: GreyJoy
ORIGINAL: obvert
Wow. This could be big.
It may be after you've given orders, but one reason to keep a bigger CAP is for the post strike battle where I find the CAP destroys a bunch more planes. This can severely limit the next strike, as well as help your own if a lot of Hellcats go down, but that assumes some of the KB is still in good shape. Maybe 300 is fine, but I've not had a CV battle in late 43-44, so who knows?
We all set things slightly differently. It'll be interesting to see how this works.
300 zeros on CAP is a lot Erik! it's 100 fighters above the 200 firing passes rule, so above 200 it's basically useless. I've already been through this...and saw my 1000 fighters on CAP (in late 1944) rendered absolutely useless after the 200 firing passes... so it's more like a phsycological feature to have a HUGE cap rather than a serious defensive strategy. What it's worth is the power of your striking package. If you get a good strike well escorted you're gonna do some heavy damage. And to do that you need a lot of escort... that's why I have devoted 220 zeros only for escort duties... CVLs and CVEs will just provide escort with their zeros group...while a sentai of 20 Kates with CRACK ASW pilots will give ASW interdiction.
Then, it's all about the dice... luck has a GREAT role in these battles... so, a part from setting everything in the right way, there's nothing much you can do except praying[:)]
ORIGINAL: obvert
So as you say, the luck is perhaps the biggest part, and you have to ask yourself right now, "do you feel lucky?" [:D]
