"So you know I am avoiding stacking my carriers all together which is why I
have so many TF's in different hexes
I am restricting myself to 4 carriers CV's at max 70% MAX CAP
(CVE's and CVL's are there as well but I cannot leave all my TF's
unprotected)"
I'm uncertain what this will mean: 200-250 Hellcats/Corsairs is still enough to fend
of even 300 ac strikes by shooting down 250 of them. Attrition perhaps [&:]
I'm very dis-illusionized about the A2A system in WitP - sometimes I don't think my soul's in
it anymore, just waiting for it all to come to an end.
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"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without"
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"So you know I am avoiding stacking my carriers all together which is why I
have so many TF's in different hexes
I am restricting myself to 4 carriers CV's at max 70% MAX CAP
(CVE's and CVL's are there as well but I cannot leave all my TF's
unprotected)"
I'm uncertain what this will mean: 200-250 Hellcats/Corsairs is still enough to fend
of even 300 ac strikes by shooting down 250 of them. Attrition perhaps [&:]
I'm very dis-illusionized about the A2A system in WitP - sometimes I don't think my soul's in
it anymore, just waiting for it all to come to an end.
I hear ya PzB. I'm getting frustrated with the fact that nothing has been done to change this since 2004. Mods are noble but are merely tweaks, only code changes can fix this mess and the devs should really suck it up and fix what is undeniably broken. I was a wee bit excited when Don and Joe joined the team but it seems nothing has changed. Guess one can only go as far as the bosses want you to.
Yammas from The Apo-Tiki Lounge. Future site of WITP AE benders! And then the s--t hit the fan
medck nails it - there is no danger from coastal fortress guns for Allies if they want re-capture Singapore. So Andy could go direct to Singa. Of course he could go on JB, Kuatam or even Khota Baru, Saigon and Camrah bay. B-29 and his airlift capabilities can keep these bases in Allied hands, right?
Anyway, IMHO, you should watch for Malaya, Singapore especially. This base really dominates the whole area.
I'm not so worried about the war really, somedays I just feel burned out.
Two days of air combat is enough to wear down dozens of air units and the constant toil to restore and
retrain them over and over again is disheartening in the long run.
Well, Andy is sailing with smaller carrier TFs, so let's see if we can get to them.
If he invades Malaya, I'm quite happy. Would expect him to land in Khota Baru and not a heavily defended Singapore.
Andy has stopped doing such invasions unless he absolutely has to...like in Gili Gili Pauk-San [;)]
Oil reserves will continue to trickle in and I don't expect to be running low for another year.
By then I'll be ready to shut down most factories anyway and fight with what's left.
I read that Japan's oil reserves were down to 45000 tons in April 1945. The 2nd Fleets suicide sortie to Okinawa is
famous for only receiving enough oil for a one way trip. The men at the great tank storage facility that refuelled the Fleet
tapped 'a secret reserve' - residue left in the almost empy giant tanks. So the Fleet actually received almost full tanks!
May go back to my Yamato book instead of playing a turn tonight, work isn't a great motivator for much else than flat out activities...
"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without"
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Jwilkerson and I have spoken and cleared up some issues on both sides. I believe it is fair to say that while some complaints were valid this isn't the place for them. Therefore this post serves no useful purpose except to clutter this excellent AAR and I'll remove it. I will also amend my reply to Don and have already amended the initial post to remove any mention of the devs and phrase it more neutrally so that it can no longer be viewed to impugne anyone.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
I'm not so worried about the war really, somedays I just feel burned out.
Two days of air combat is enough to wear down dozens of air units and the constant toil to restore and
retrain them over and over again is disheartening in the long run.
I can imagine a Japanese commander feeling the same thing, with the same level of resigned determination.
I've been running a lot of kamikaze tests under RHS EOS in mid-45 ( April and May) vs US CV TFs.
I've found that my best success lay in mixing high-altitude Oscar IIs ( could fly higher than most CAPing Allied planes), hordes of fighters as escort at medium level and bombers at very, very low altitude (100 feet ideally) . Obviously some of this would be accounted for by RHS' air model but I've consistently found this gave good results.
What I found was that the Oscar IIs tended to hit and destroy AAA gun platforms thus giving the low-level bombers a greater chance of hitting.
Between a major CV vs CV battle and hordes of kamikaze strikes around Tinian the Allies have lost 3 CVs, 1 CVL and 5 CVEs in the 2 months that I took over for the AI ( January to March 1945) while the Japanese 6 CVs, 3 CVLs.... On the other hand 4 Allied BBs followed Yamato and Musashi into the deep. Allied plane losses were 1270 vs 910 Japanese planes ( this is partly due to massive FlaK and operational losses on the Allied side ( over 800 planes in 2 months).
Admittedly this is all vs AI but the CVs and BBs were all hit by hi(about 100 Oscar IIs), medium (several hundred fighters) and low ( a couple of hundred bombers) missions. I ran two of these strikes over the course of 2 days and then followed up with lots of torpedo-bomber strikes. Only 1 CV went down as a result of kami strikes but many CVs and BBs were crippled and easy pickings for the long-range Bettys etc.
Anyways, just thought I'd post this to: a) get things on track again and b) since it is my first long-term experience with kamis and I stumbled upon a pretty successful mix of planes that might yield returns in stock.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
AI does not layer CAP afaik, i wonder if Andy does to any degree or just the 'set all' button? Nemos onto a good idea there so long as Andy is lazy about settign CAP levels. IF however he does then the bombers will again get slaughtered BUT at least the low level fighters might get bounced by japanese escorts .. Actually just thinking about this .. hummmm escorts cant be set to a particular alt , as its 2k above the highest bomber iirc. No idea how that would work out in game [&:] if you had bombers at 100 and 35000 ft.
sorry for the spelling . English is my main language , I just can't type . and i'm too lazy to edit
Gezus...WWIII breaks out while I'm bogged down at work [:-]
Hopefully we'll get back to the war ASAP. Nothing but overtime at work lately, and I've been a spent force
that's been reading 'A Glorious Way to Die' in the evenings. Getting to the last chapter now, and somehow I think I know how it'll all end [;)]
Will try out your kamikaze advice Nemo - in the meanwhile be nice to the mods. Without them this game would have ended quite some time ago [&o]
"The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without"
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I've run the combat replay if nothing else....
Andy is still south of Singapore, launching sweep and heavy bomber raids on Palembang.
He's NOT hitting the oil, so I think he wants it for himself. Better move in more engineers
so we can blow it all up in the end.
We hurt the enemy Wildcats that strayed into Singapore, but the raids on Palembang were costly,
especially those by Corsairs.
Have to consider whether I should reinforce Palembang - which is no 50% closed - or withdraw the
fighters to Malaya and prepare a defense in depth and counterstrikes from the flanks. Think this
will be the wise thing to do.
Comments?
AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 09/20/44
Air Combat
Day Air attack on Singapore , at 23,50
Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zeke x 63
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 48
Ki-45 KAIa Nick x 12
Ki-84-Ia Frank x 53
Ki-102a Randy x 9
Allied aircraft losses
FM-2 Wildcat: 28 destroyed
F6F Hellcat: 8 destroyed
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Air attack on Palembang , at 20,55
Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zeke x 42
N1K1-J George x 6
J2M Jack x 24
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 18
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 13
Ki-84-Ia Frank x 18
Allied aircraft
Mosquito PR.IX x 6
P-38J Lightning x 44
B-24J Liberator x 86
B-29 Superfortress x 34
Japanese ground losses:
77 casualties reported
Guns lost 3
Airbase hits 15
Airbase supply hits 9
Runway hits 69
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
13/72 A2A losses was a bad exchange when you conisder that we were a) numerical superior
b) had a large amount of new interceptors c) a fine mix of medium and highly experienced pilots
d) fought it out far away from enemy radar
I can't find much hold in Andy's A2A testing, bring in the Corsair and losses are horrific 95% of the time,
despite of all other positive factors.
Day Air attack on Palembang , at 20,55
Japanese aircraft
A6M5 Zeke x 44
N1K1-J George x 12
J2M Jack x 15
Ki-43-IIa Oscar x 6
Ki-61 KAIc Tony x 7
Ki-84-Ia Frank x 18
Allied aircraft
F6F Hellcat x 37
F4U-1D Corsair x 29