The Power of Inexperience / GreyJoy(A)-Rader(J)

[obvert]

It seems like at some point he as to stop offensive air ops and try to conserve pilots and planes. He's building your airforce for you, just giving your pilots an amazing number of kills and experience while most likely losing all of his over enemy bases.

Are you keeping up with losses ok or is this stretching your pools right now?

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

It seems like at some point he as to stop offensive air ops and try to conserve pilots and planes. He's building your airforce for you, just giving your pilots an amazing number of kills and experience while most likely losing all of his over enemy bases.

Are you keeping up with losses ok or is this stretching your pools right now?

Obviously i cannot keep up with 50/80 losses on each turn...i need a breath....but my situtation is much different from the one i faced when i defended India one year and a half ago...now i produce 40 P-48s, 55 P-47s, 70- P40s, 35 P-39s, 130 Hellcats, 75 Corsairs, 35 Hurricanes, 50 Spitfires etc etc...and all these frames have a much better survivability respect to those we flew when we were scratching the bottom of the pool barrell in 42 (basically only P-40Es, P-39Ds and Hurricanes)...
My USAFF pools are very thin, mind you, but the Marines and the USN have more than 250 top line fighters in their pools...enough i'd say!

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

If rader has garrisoned all those great dot hexes between Timor and New Guinea, and those bases in southwestern NG, then I tip my hat to him. But I don't think there's any way he could have covered them all. Take another look - PLEASE.

I fought a campaign out of Darwin and west from Merauke in my game vs. Miller. It involved the very bases I'm talking about. They were built huge and and allowed the Allies to methodically advance into the eastern DEI. If you want to see how large and interlocking those bases are, see my "Shattered Vow" AAR: tm.asp?m=2236335

In that game, Japan's airforce was much stronger, and mine much weaker than yours. I had a tough time campaigning in the DEI, but you're relatively much stronger.

If that way truly is blocked by rader's defensive network, I apologize for taking so much of your time.

As for what I'm doing awake now, good question. I got a good five hours sleep and suddenly awakened at 3 a.m. and haven't been able to go back to sleep. So I'm reading a favorite AAR....

Here u are CR...

All these bases have been built up and some of them are confirmed garrisoned. Obviously i don't have a clue right now (Darwin is empty and isolated) so i don't know ho many men and which kind of troops...i guess most of them only have eng and base forces...but at Timor at least 2 divisions are confirmed and 10 units are in the base right in front of Darwin... So i'm not saying i cannot advance here...but with all those AFs built up it will be nearly impossible to shut them down (and in fact i think this lesson has been learnt by Rader during his other AAR where the allies advanced using this vector)...

It's not my best choice imho...

[Canoerebel]

It looks like Grote Island, Wesel, and Grove are vacant? If you have engineers to spare, you might consider building those up. You can supply them through the Torres Straight and then use the big airfields to support any future campaign out of Darwin or west towards the DEI. Just you building there will keep rader honest in the eastern DEI and Timor.

[JohnDillworth]

It has been confirmed to work by developers.

The detail in the game continues to amaze

[ny59giants]

What are you using your massive number of transport planes for?? Following CRs comments, you could get close enough to use them to start to resupply Katherine and allow supplies to flow back into Darwin. Base a F4 or F5 Recon unit at Merauke and start to get more detailed info on those bases. At least get his attention over there. [;)]

[Canoerebel]

Also, in my game with Miller (Scenario Two), sometime in 1943 the Allies got some kind of incredible recon unit flying long-range B-24s.* Base that somewhere like PM or Merauke and suddenly you can fly recon over Truk and Babeldaob. That's a stunt to pull at some point you want to rattle rader's cage.

*I'm assuming that unit is still present in the OOB, but that's not a certainty. There've been lots of changes - I just noticed that Auri, a base I took north of Darwin in my game vs. Miller, isn't a base in this game. In it's place is Dabo, a base on the opposite side of that island.

[witpqs]

IIRC the max range of those birds is something like 32??

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: ny59giants

What are you using your massive number of transport planes for?? Following CRs comments, you could get close enough to use them to start to resupply Katherine and allow supplies to flow back into Darwin. Base a F4 or F5 Recon unit at Merauke and start to get more detailed info on those bases. At least get his attention over there. [;)]

My transport fleet is being used to resupply PM, Milne Bay and Mereuake. 64 more transports are arrivng from PH in these days...

Yes, for sure i'll start to recon...just give me some time to secure and develop the place and we'll start to look around

CR...yes, the recon PB4Ys...they are from the USN...i'm using them intensively in the Solomons...from Lungaville i can recon everything up to Bouganville...juicy!

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

IIRC the max range of those birds is something like 32??

31 ...

[String]

Looks like most of those bases are empty and Rader is relying in a few hubs from where he can quickly displace units via air or fast transport tf's. Couldn't you grab several of those bases, drop engineers and garrisons on them and build them up quickly?

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: String

Looks like most of those bases are empty and Rader is relying in a few hubs from where he can quickly displace units via air or fast transport tf's. Couldn't you grab several of those bases, drop engineers and garrisons on them and build them up quickly?

I need to check first if they are empty...the pic you see is taken with detection zero almost everywhere... now in a couple of weeks we'll be able to tell

Sniffing a new jap offensive against PM or Milne...let's see if i'm right... lots of planes gathering at Rabaul....

[Miller]

There comes a time in every campaign where the Jap player has to cut his losses, fall back to the next defensive line and rebuild to fend off the next Allied vector of attack. Rader has gone way beyond this point in the NG theatre yet still he throws away all his decent airframes piloted by noobs (I'm guessing most of his pilots now are straight out of the replacement pilot pool - his Navy ones certainly will be) in fruitless attacks. Baffling.

[obvert]

There comes a time in every campaign where the Jap player has to cut his losses, fall back to the next defensive line and rebuild to fend off the next Allied vector of attack. Rader has gone way beyond this point in the NG theatre yet still he throws away all his decent airframes piloted by noobs (I'm guessing most of his pilots now are straight out of the replacement pilot pool - his Navy ones certainly will be) in fruitless attacks. Baffling.

I guess if you own all of China and most of India in Nov 43 you can afford to take some risks with your airforce! I felt the same as your above comment until I just realized how much ground and water the Allies still have to cover, and I'm sure he's buying a division and a few support units out of China every few months. He does have a whole lot of extra HI the IJ player doesn't usually have access to at this point, and there has been no mention of getting in the supply lines with subs by GJ because his ASW is too strong.

Maybe someone with the map in front of them can figure this out, but with his holdings how much extra Heavy Industry could he have right now? Before capture Calcutta had about 500 HI alone, and it could be built back up to that.

[Jzanes]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy


All these bases have been built up and some of them are confirmed garrisoned. Obviously i don't have a clue right now (Darwin is empty and isolated) so i don't know ho many men and which kind of troops...i guess most of them only have eng and base forces...but at Timor at least 2 divisions are confirmed and 10 units are in the base right in front of Darwin... So i'm not saying i cannot advance here...but with all those AFs built up it will be nearly impossible to shut them down (and in fact i think this lesson has been learnt by Rader during his other AAR where the allies advanced using this vector)...

It's not my best choice imho...

I believe Greyjoy is referring to my game vs. Rader where I attacked the DEI via this route. In my game, I believe I surprised Rader with this move and was able to grab a lotta ground and get entrenched before he was able to adjust. I suspect he has learned from this experience and will be prepared for Greyjoy if he chooses to go this way in his game.

If Greyjoy does choose to go this way, he will first need to build up Merauke, Gove, and every other dot base he can grab. He will need some airbases to support any move in this direction. Any attack will have to be really big or risk being swamped by a japanese counterattack. In my game, I brought the entire mid-1944 US fleet and landed over 300,000 troops on a dozen different bases within the first 2 weeks.

[GreyJoy]

Exactly Jzanes! I've seen your attacking route and have noticed that Rader in my game, since 1942, has starting to build up and garrison these bases...so i'll need another route...i'm thinking about it...

Nov 11, 12 1943

Ok, nothing happened today...except that our LRCAP over Russell and Thousands destroyed 60 Mavis-Ls and Emilies-L flying out his troops...[8D] too late probably cause he has extracted almost 42,000 men in the last 2 months...but again i made him pay a price for his moves...

Milne Bay reached level 1 AF... and Mereuake already have 200 engeneers and a base force, along with a NZ Bde
Milne has 2 NZ Bde, a base force and 250 Eng... not bad!

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: Miller

There comes a time in every campaign where the Jap player has to cut his losses, fall back to the next defensive line and rebuild to fend off the next Allied vector of attack. Rader has gone way beyond this point in the NG theatre yet still he throws away all his decent airframes piloted by noobs (I'm guessing most of his pilots now are straight out of the replacement pilot pool - his Navy ones certainly will be) in fruitless attacks. Baffling.

Well, i think we'll see how is his pilots quality when we'll engage our CVs with his own... soon i think...

[GreyJoy]

ORIGINAL: obvert

There comes a time in every campaign where the Jap player has to cut his losses, fall back to the next defensive line and rebuild to fend off the next Allied vector of attack. Rader has gone way beyond this point in the NG theatre yet still he throws away all his decent airframes piloted by noobs (I'm guessing most of his pilots now are straight out of the replacement pilot pool - his Navy ones certainly will be) in fruitless attacks. Baffling.

I guess if you own all of China and most of India in Nov 43 you can afford to take some risks with your airforce! I felt the same as your above comment until I just realized how much ground and water the Allies still have to cover, and I'm sure he's buying a division and a few support units out of China every few months. He does have a whole lot of extra HI the IJ player doesn't usually have access to at this point, and there has been no mention of getting in the supply lines with subs by GJ because his ASW is too strong.

Maybe someone with the map in front of them can figure this out, but with his holdings how much extra Heavy Industry could he have right now? Before capture Calcutta had about 500 HI alone, and it could be built back up to that.

Agree...in this game Rader has conquered so much that all we know about jap economy in 43/44 must be thought again....

[witpqs]

Whatever you do, bombers from Merauke and Horn Island could be used to close numerous bases on the north-central side of New Guinea, if you want them to.

[jmalter]

hi GJ,

i hope you've gifted our boys in the 79th RAAF sqn w/ their bestest available commander! also, looks like 54th RAF sqn has 34 pilots for a 16-plane unit. mebbe 6-8 of these guys should transfer to other sqns?

amazing how you've knocked back the KB airgroups when they decided to come out to play. note how its missions are fighter-heavy, & the few attack-types can't penetrate your CAP. no doubt rader is furiously training his reserve carrier-capable air. whenever KB retires, likely he's switching navair sqns wholesale between ship-based/operational & ground-based/training-rebuild. if the current ops-tempo continues much longer, KB will become a spent force, a diminishing threat.