EA Damian(J) V Nemo(A) "Renaissance"

[Andy Mac]

p.s. if you really really know that he has stripped India then maybe an invasion is doable but you would need to have identified a lot of his forces near the front line to make it credible Ceylon or Perth are better (strategically they both achieve the same thing make his logistics/concentration harder)
 
Both have issues Ceylon is better protected by mutually supporting AF's
 
Perth has Australian LCU's close at hand
 
Don't neglect sinking every AK you can find his supply is not inexaustable and he uses a lot of AK's int he assault role - later on it is not LCU's or carriers that are the limitations on his action but the amount of supply and fuel he can forward dump - use that against him sink every AK you can find it will be a nuisance now in 2 years it will cripple him

[Andy Mac]

Actually to be honest a concerted logisitcs campaign against his AK's would be worth a lot but will take a long time to pay off.
 
Its less valuable if he is going CENTPAC or Aleutians all the way but very valuable if going via SWPAC

[pat.casey]

Nemo's rarely one to take the long way around though. Pretty much have to count on him coming direct, so a commerce raiding campaign probably would take too long to pay off.

[Andy Mac]

Aye probably true he will go for the throat

[n01487477]

Nemo gave me a few days to think things over... with some questions ... we have been playing for 2 months of game time now, and it is nice to have a break and think more outside the day-to-day operational level.

I, personally, think you are doing very well tactically and operationally but I think that you need to take a step back and take a day or two to just really ponder the WHOLE strategic picture and ask yourself what I am trying to do in the Aleutians and elsewhere and what my over-arching strategic goal is.... If I could give any advice I'd ask you to try to imagine what situation I want to create in 6 months time... If you look at what I'm doing now and extrapolate that based on what you know from other games I think you'll be able to see where I want the front-line trace to be in 6 months... That then tells you which bases you should be garrisoning and which planes and groups you need to be rebuilding and prepping for combat in 2 to 3 months time.

I mostly read Nemo's old game AAR's, and the Aleutian's are some of his happy hunting grounds, If I had looked at it earlier I would have seen the 'old dog' doesn't change his spots too much. If he doesn't change that much then I can expect him to thrust into Sumatra and or Java sometime.

Of course, I wouldn't discount a run up through Rabaul and South from the Aleutian's into the Marianas, but a much more difficult proposition given my CV strength.

I also expect him to parachute in some troops to the Philippines sometime, followed by ubercap, etc ... this is his modus operandi, and I fear this ploy more than any other... the Allies seem to have an unwavering supply of transports.

I expect him to hold all the Aleutian's in about a month or less, and probably the whole of Siam in 2/3 months. The Chinese and Allies are just too numerous to dissuade.

Which brings me to some of your posts...
1. Logistics - I plan to definitely interdict in his supply lines, but having looked at his old AAR's, I have a feeling he already has brought in tons of supplies and fuel.
2. I've wanted to get at his AK/AP/TK's in every battle I've fought. I'd rather my strikes hit these than any other thing, but alas I've only hit the outer rim of his forces and never got to taste the mother load.
3. Now I know most of you have been urging me to open a new front, and maybe I should have done this much earlier, but it has taken me 2 months of reaction to enable me to focus on other areas, and this much time to free up some forces.

Quick Sit Rep:
1. My overuse of PP's / AV for the Soviet campaign has allowed Nemo to do what he is doing almost unopposed. I will have to pay PP's to get them out. I have about 7000AV here and it is not enough to push the Soviets back, mainly because they are divided into 2 forces.
2. Nemo is also trying to open up Manchuria (Tabun Nur) to his LB and bomb my RC from there.
3. I have about 1000 AV in the Sth Pacific, but it is flung around different shores, notably Marcus, Wake, Palmyra & Suva.
4. I have about 350 AV about to get trampled in the Aleutian's.
5. And about 600 available around Java. Although if I pull more out of Siam / Manila eventually falls I will have much more available(1700), 300 about to offload there.

So what can I do ?
Well it seems to me I have the option of doing one or two of the following:
1. Attack Ceylon - an operation which I think would be the most effective in stopping an attack on Java / Sumatra, but which would be very very costly. Michael taught me the lesson of LB V shipping in this region. Timeframe: 2 Weeks
2. Attack West Australia - achieves very little in stopping the movement of shipping from East to West, probably the easiest initially against what I believe to be light opposition (if I'm right and he has moved the Ozzies toward India for their push on Java). No CV / light SC opposition/ light LB initially. Leaving Java undefended. Timeframe: 2 weeks, once I have brought in my small KB off Ceylon.
3. Attack the CPac - I have little to no recon, but must assume that only light detachments remain (200 AV / Island ?? ). I can use my CV's and maybe force Nemo to take battle. Timeframe: 3-4 weeks
4. Attack Panama - going into the labyrinth scares me, but cutting the link between East and West seems like a great idea. This would similarly force a reaction from Nemo in an area where both of us can't run away. He can fly in troops easily when he detects me. Timeframe: Will take a while to organise.(3/4 weeks min)
5. Attack New Zealand - little recon once again, doesn't cut anything, not sure of how many troops he has. No real advantage.

Michael, you said in an earlier post to think outside the normal box ... my belief has always been that you have to hit the Americans, and hit 'em hard. To keep this battle going I need to destroy the Allied CV's, there is only one way this is going to occur and that is by taking on the CPAC. Therefore I want to bypass Midway, take Johnson and then Hilo. I will load my CV's with minimal anti-shipping capability and have them running purely CAP/LRCAP. Then with around 800 AV, plus reinforcements I hope to place an embargo on PH. Nemo will have to react, and flying in anti-shipping capability to my CV's, I should be able to knock the Allied carriers out of the war.

All of this is on the premise that Nemo has left minimal forces guarding the Hawaiian Islands, if he has left alot then I am sunk, but considering where I am right now, I'm sunk anyway.

Any thoughts ?

[1EyedJacks]

I think I would immediately take out the PI to free up troops. Bomb the hell out of his AF to eat up supplies. Add troops for heavier advantage if you have them nearby.

Then I'd use these troops, once the PI campaign is complete, for a Hawain or Malaya/Burma campaign.

[pat.casey]

Hawaii.

Strip the south pacific and land the maximum possible division equivalents in the Hawaiian islands.

Can take the outlying islands first to bring in LBA so KB isn't fighting alone.

[Andy Mac]

Perth/Ceylon for me hit one of them to complicate his operations low risk good effect take Ceylon and he will need to take it back
Finish PI
Hunt Carriers/Interdict PH
 
Actually you idea about Panama really interests me - thats the kind of target that might bring his fleet out to fight again away from LBA - don't discount it...

[ny59giants]

Where ever you attack, it needs to give Nemo pause on either of his two major attacks going on now. If he considers it a diversion, it will hurt you in the long run. His push out of Burma/China places your Oil and Resource centers at risk of being bombed back to the stone age and the Aleutians will place him close enough to the northern part of Japan.

Thus, your proposed attacks at either New Zealand or Australia will not accomplish anything and will just be a diversion from Nemo's perspective. Ceylon looks nice, but Nemo has gone after India before and may be prepared for it. Hawaii looks nice, but it would require you to have your carriers going against LBA which he wants to happen. There are a lot of bases there (I was building them up nicely along with their fort levels [:D]).

By the process of elimination, that leaves Panama. I would do it "after" you take Manila and have the forces to do it. My question for this, would it trigger any acceleration of American reinforcement like an invasion of the West Coast does?? It would separate the Allies and leave the Americans and Canadians isolated from the rest of the coalition. I would pull up another game to see what kind of reinforcements you would put on hold by its capture. Plus, I think you would be the first player to capture Panama since Andrew came out with his map system, which this map was based on. 

[pat.casey]

What does panama actually get you in this mod? Apart from style points? Does it actually put a material kink in his shipping or transportation?

Because if it doesn't landing a good chunk of your army in panama puts them a LONG way away from the rest of the map.

[n01487477]

15 July '42
[*]500 + airplanes hit my 2 Reg's at Tavoy, followed by a shock attack which sent them back toward Bangkok... well at least it is a fast way to transport troops!
[*]2 small bombardments on Attu, heralded the arrival of my troops.
[*]I'm hitting Manila with 450 planes each turn now, but I have been hitting it with 350 for the last few months. Another troop attack is planned for tomorrow. And I am bringing in 3-4 new Divisions to finally finish it off...I hope.
[*]All my fighters in the Nth for the turn were on LRCap of Attu, destroying 26 Transports, unfortunately 35 Zero's were lost today, 11 to ops, as there is really bad weather up Nth. I have all my Angels ready to attack Attu, but from Mongolia to Canada there is a storm system that makes "The Day after Tomorrow", look like a pleasant day for a walk.
[*]That makes 280 Allied transports & 560 Patrol planes (which can be used for transportation) destroyed, and a majority of those fairy recently...this must be biting on the capacity of the Allies to move troops...

[n01487477]

16 July '42

Nemo consistently hits me where I least expect, or where I expect but find it difficult to respond. There was a rule break by him during the turn, the use of paradrops was limited to one unit per base, no fragmentation... I've accepted this error and we will continue as I feel it is a genuine mistake on his part and the shear audacity of it is fairly exciting. He has conceded 3 turns of not reinforcing these drops, but for my part 3 turns or 10 turns make little difference as I will find it hard to respond anyway.

[*]Day attack on Hanoi was a failure, I've had planes there for about 2-3 turns doing nothing and on the turn I decide to send them, he moves in a load of cap and 8 Tojo's and 31 Mary's are toast.
[*]122 zero's flying over Adak Is were not enough to halt the Allied steam roller... but it did provide some satisfaction.

Day Air attack on Adak Island [AK] , at 97,38

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zeke x 122

Allied aircraft
F4F-4 Wildcat x 61
A-24 Dauntless x 12
F-4 Lightning x 1
P-38G Lightning x 17
P-43A Lancer x 24
Mosquito NF x 4
Kittyhawk I x 9
SBD-3 Dauntless x 243
TBM-1 Avenger x 107

Japanese aircraft losses
A6M2 Zeke: 59 destroyed, 4 damaged
Ki-57 Topsy: 15 destroyed
H8K2 Emily: 2 destroyed
G5N2-L Liz: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
F4F-4 Wildcat: 56 destroyed
A-24 Dauntless: 3 destroyed, 1 damaged
P-38G Lightning: 9 destroyed
P-43A Lancer: 22 destroyed
Mosquito NF: 3 destroyed
Kittyhawk I: 8 destroyed
SBD-3 Dauntless: 78 destroyed, 10 damaged
TBM-1 Avenger: 33 destroyed

The problem now of course is that I have had to remove all my fighters from Adak, if I had enough production of Mikes I could have changed my Army grps to them and hoped for better results, but now I am so far in the hole (I need 330 planes to fill my zero sqdns(and I have disbanded a few already)), I have no choice but to remove them.
The Allies are going to easily capture the Aleutian's and there is a risk I will not be able to respond to Okha as I'm low on PP's (one of the main reasons I hadn;t reinforced it before ... and honestly, I never saw the possibility of this deep strike).
I have 1 serviceable BB, a couple of CA's and KB, which is in need of supply and refreshment in the Pacific now. I run the risk of running back to port and allowing the quick capitulation, or forcing a battle where I render the CV air wings useless for the near future. I know Nemo will be coming soon, I want to exact some revenge, I want to withdraw my troops at Adak (which I should have done much earlier), but now fear I cannot. And I want Okha back, that is my priority, but am racing the clock and PP's. I can't do all, but I will do what I can.
[*]Manila looks strong still and nowhere near surrender ... I will wait for more troops and then see what transpires.

Ground combat at Manila/Cavite [PH]

Japanese Deliberate attack

Attacking force 76045 troops, 840 guns, 826 vehicles, Assault Value = 2024

Defending force 56139 troops, 1189 guns, 365 vehicles, Assault Value = 2157

Japanese max assault: 1910 - adjusted assault: 2793

Allied max defense: 2114 - adjusted defense: 5241

Japanese assault odds: 0 to 1 (fort level 0)


Japanese ground losses:
4958 casualties reported
Guns lost 68
Vehicles lost 10

Allied ground losses:
407 casualties reported
Guns lost 22

[n01487477]

17 July '42

[n01487477]

18 July '42

I now need 1500 planes to reinforce my existing grps, apparently I have 4000 planes on the map, but I'll be damned if I can find them ...

I have according to Tracker 563 Zero's ... I'm guessing most of them are on CV's, cause there aren't many land based grps left. 320 Nates training, 256 Mike's & 142 Tojo's (mostly in Burma) and 157 Claudes. The problem I'm confronted with here is one of being hit at a time when I have just got to a point where I could have slowly ramped up my fighter production. The economic fragility of the early months, have left me now looking down the barrel.

I'm actually surprised that Nemo doesn't realise how weak I really am, but tomorrow will be the last great hurrah of my LB and fighters... Sovietskya Gaven, which I had been bombing as a training base for months, got 2 weeks of non-strikes due to thunderstorms and a broken weather model. Now I see 140 bombers there, and I bet they are the dreaded Pe-2's. Although I don't complain to Nemo about them, there seems to be little I can do about them... They come in high, dive down, and flee unopposed. I know he would say they can be beaten with AA...BUT... Anyway ... So tomorrow I send everything I have to try to hit them on the ground. I'm sure fighters are on the way, and this might be the day that the war is irretrievably lost...

I'm sure that I could play on for many months and these are dark days, but thinking about it ...
The Allies have LB that can fly higher than me for another 6 months, Pe-2 that I cannot hit, and fighters, transports, infantry and SC ships that seem to have no end. The Allies have lost 6550 planes, and yet they seem stronger than ever. I know Nemo probably rotates better than I can, but the numbers are just ridiculous.

On the other hand, I have a fledgling economy, troops hamstrung by ridiculous ground combat rules and not enough PP's to release them. An air force that is mostly destroyed, and certainly not enough even to defend a portion of the Home Islands.. And certainly not enough SC ships even if I brought them all together as Nemo has, to defend anything in his way. Mikes and Tojo's are supposed to be my cutting edge, but with limited numbers, I have none of the, as Nemo says "psychological" weapons that the Allies possess... My CV's might as well be melted down and sold as scrap for all the good they did me in the Nth. This is why I always think the Allies should take this route...
The death star approaches...

I've made many bad mistakes in this game, things that I will not forget too easily, but to all you Allied fanboys out there ... I'll be damned if I make them twice! Paralysis and chasing my tail has made it so much easier for Nemo.

The Aleutian Islands are lost, my troops are as good as gone, I could have ... I should have ... now no more.

Sorry for the post ...

[pat.casey]

Probably this is a good time to take a deep breath and rethink your strategic position. If the aleutians are a lost cause, now's the time to evacuate. If you move an evacuation fleet in before his airbases get up and really running, you can probably get most of your troops out without taking serious losses, and frankly if you do lose a few dozen AP's, big deal, not like Japan has a shortage.

The aleutians though aren't the end of the world, you can deal with him controlling them at this point in the game. On the other hand if he takes Sakhalin island or the Kuriles, you're in deep doo-doo.

Seems like you can pull most of your troops back to Sakhalin and leave legit, but not overpowering garrisons in the Kuriles. Any individual one he can pick off, but you want to make him work for it. Soon as winter hits the whole northern theatre goes into stasis for six months, so all you really need to do is keep him away from japan until September when the weather turns. Once that happens you'll have six months or so to reinforce and dig in garrisons to the west.

[Alfred]

n01487477,
 
I have read that you believe there is a bug which stops you from launching air strikes against the Soviets.
 
It is my understanding that this map is based on Andrew Brown's map.  If you read his CHS site, he points out that the Japanese must cross the soviet border at hex 65,32 in order to properly activate the Siberian front.  Have you done so?  If not immediately send even a weak solitary unit to that hex and lets see if you can then fly air missions against the Soviets.
 
Alfred 

[2ndACR]

There is a bug that stops you from launching air attacks against the Soviets (but not ships or coastal bases) but it only happens in the Soviet active on turn 1. No way around this one.

[n01487477]

Yeah I actually brought this to peoples attention, including El Cid a few months ago ... Matrix is apparently working to resolve it in a patch and for AE.

I did a test some time ago, where I had this mod set with Soviets inactive and crossed that hex, and everything was fine. It is just when the soviets are set as active that there is a problem from Turn 1. So 2ndACR is correct.

Nemo has just offered me a 10 day ceasefire to fix my positions ... maybe I'm being a bit stupid about it, but I'm thinking of just continuing ... he has played a fine game, and found the openings he desired, so why should I have the chance to fix this?

[goodboyladdie]

ORIGINAL: n01487477

Yeah I actually brought this to peoples attention, including El Cid a few months ago ... Matrix is apparently working to resolve it in a patch and for AE.

I did a test some time ago, where I had this mod set with Soviets inactive and crossed that hex, and everything was fine. It is just when the soviets are set as active that there is a problem from Turn 1. So 2ndACR is correct.

Nemo has just offered me a 10 day ceasefire to fix my positions ... maybe I'm being a bit stupid about it, but I'm thinking of just continuing ... he has played a fine game, and found the openings he desired, so why should I have the chance to fix this?

If he is offering a 10 day ceasefire it is because he probably needs one too. He will always make better use of the 10 days. Go for Hawaii with everything you can. He has thrown everything into the North. Even if you can just take Kona, Hilo and Lahaina you can suppress PH. I rather suspect he will have stolen from Hawaii for his Northern venture, so throwing everything into taking Oahu as quickly as possible may be worth it. While the Northern route gives him access to the Home Islands, the weather will screw him most of the time and he will have to react to what you are doing for a change. He has CVs, but few remaining decent escorts as he has thrown away his cruisers in the Aleutians.

[pat.casey]

ORIGINAL: goodboyladdie

If he is offering a 10 day ceasefire it is because he probably needs one too. He will always make better use of the 10 days. Go for Hawaii with everything you can. He has thrown everything into the North. Even if you can just take Kona, Hilo and Lahaina you can suppress PH. I rather suspect he will have stolen from Hawaii for his Northern venture, so throwing everything into taking Oahu as quickly as possible may be worth it. While the Northern route gives him access to the Home Islands, the weather will screw him most of the time and he will have to react to what you are doing for a change. He has CVs, but few remaining decent escorts as he has thrown away his cruisers in the Aleutians.

I dunno, might just be that he wants an interesting game. At this point I'd be inclined to take the cease fire. You don't want to let pride keep you both from enjoying your game. If you can reset and have a better position in 10 days, you'll have more fun, and Nemo seems to enjoy working for it, so he'll have more fun as well.