Notes from a Small Island

[Canoerebel]

The difficulty in keeping an AAR of this length and detail is that nearly nobody has time to read the whole thing or to commit this much detail to memory. As a result, readers regularly post in exasperation/disbelief based upon incomplete or totally inaccurate understandings of the Allied plan or situation.

If you go back through the past month, you'll see most of your questions/posits were covered in detail: (1) Truk was indeed to be a stepping stone to the Marianas, for points reasons; (2) I've had Ponape for a year; (3) Marcus is on the menu; and (4) The Next Next Big thing is configured to dovetail with Russian activation and the situation in SEAC - enemy shipping lanes had nothing to do with it, but it so happens the plan does impact those lanes.

[AcePylut]

I’ve only been doing my AAR for a couple months, but I understand exactly where you’re coming from.

If you were to write down “every single thing” going on, why you’re doing it, how it impacts grand strategy, then each post would be about 20-30 paragraphs and the reader would be lost, or get bored easily.

I know that you focus mainly on “where the action is” because that’s what’s exciting to the viewer. As a result, though, the reader may believe that “nothing is going on elsewhere”, and that’s just not true. I prefer your AARs the way you do them: Short, Sweet, Easy to Follow, and Focused on the Hot Spots. You’ve also done them through a couple of wars, and I know that all these apparently baffling, frustrating, “why the heck are you or aren’t you doing THIS” question the reader might have, are things that have been in progress for a while, but you are "just now" talking about them, so it seems to be spontaneous 'Do something to do something' actions, but they aren't.

There’s no need for me, anyway, to question your “grand strategy”, I know you’re not flying by the seat of your pants. Any questions I have on that subject are me simply wanting to "know what you're thinking". I do tend to ask questions about tactical things, though, just because I want the knowledge or the reasoning why you did, or didn’t, do something on a tactical level. Not because I question what you’re doing (although it may come off like that) but because “I would have done it differently” and I “want to know why you did it that way”.

Also, as you have stated 10,000 times, every day there’s something “new” to learn in this game, and I want to learn those things “not” the hard way.

So, Soldier On, Mr. Kayak Loyalist

[Canoerebel]

Thanks, Ace. That covers it well.

I suppose all of us AAR recorders enjoy fielding questions and comments from readers. It's one of the pleasures of doing this.

Sometimes - more often than I'd have expected - readers express frustration at a plan they don't understand and that seems nonsensical to them. Rarely, that frustration can get extreme, coming across in their comments as contemptuous.

In my game with John III, John had a carrier TF sliding up the Makassar Strait from the Java Sea. Death Star was somewhere up in the Philippines. I expressed uncertainty as to what John might be up to. A reader posted a comment that went something like this: "Come on! We all know what he's doing!" Well, I didn't. I could think of about 20 possibilities, each as likely as the next. Over time, that reader continued to take exception to what seemed, to him, my obtuseness. Finally, I said something about it. To my knowledge, that reader never returned to my AARs. I regret that, because he's a real gentleman.

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

The difficulty in keeping an AAR of this length and detail is that nearly nobody has time to read the whole thing or to commit this much detail to memory. As a result, readers regularly post in exasperation/disbelief based upon incomplete or totally inaccurate understandings of the Allied plan or situation.

If you go back through the past month, you'll see most of your questions/posits were covered in detail: (1) Truk was indeed to be a stepping stone to the Marianas, for points reasons; (2) I've had Ponape for a year; (3) Marcus is on the menu; and (4) The Next Next Big thing is configured to dovetail with Russian activation and the situation in SEAC - enemy shipping lanes had nothing to do with it, but it so happens the plan does impact those lanes.

Yes, somehow I had missed that you had Ponape and inferred from a different post about being able to suppress Truk from there + landing the Truk troops there that you did not have it yet. The difficulty in following an AAR is sometimes that there is too much to digest in the time budget available, as you mention [;)]. I would actually argue that the difficulty you imply or have referred to on other occasions (that we readers don't have full info) is not because of the length and detail, but in fact alleviated by that. I read the new posts here (or at minimum look at the maps, although on my work computer my horizontal resolution can be inconvenient) every time I log in. Usually at least daily.

I am always posting with that knowledge (that we don't see everything) in mind, because it's really why I don't keep up with my own AARs. I can't share everything, and unless I can share everything the value of feedback or input is much diminished (to me). My response, entirely loving yet bereft of all subtlety as it was, was spurred by the comment made about interdicting the shipping lanes being the Next Next Big Thing, and to probe/test your planning and thinking process. The implication from the comment is that the interdiction of the shipping lanes is the goal of the Thing, which as I understand now from your response is not the goal of the Thing. But that's how I reached that conclusion, and what spurred my blunt challenge.

I know in other posts (typically in the general forum or at least not in the venue of AARs), I can slather on the sarcasm and terseness to a greater degree than some have an appetite for. My most recent was merely meant as an emotionless "are you sure you're looking at the right reasons for doing a thing?"

Going further, part of the reason I haven't had anything to say about the Malaya/Lower Burma actions (and "high" losses there) is because there is really nothing critical to say about them. They have a clear (or clearly implied) greater purpose, and assets are all expendable to one degree or another.

[Canoerebel]

It would be helpful to readers - and exceedingly boring - to repeat somewhere in each post everything that's happened before. Newspapers try to do that, more or less, so that the 58th time you've read a story about Senator Porkchop being indicted for corruption in taking bribes to approve the construction of a space hub in Poughkeepsie, the newspaper repeats that entire synopsis on the off-chance that one out of 2 million readers won't be aware of the facts, would read a story about "Senator Porkchop being indicted," and would complain to the newspaper about be incomplete. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I don't know what's worse: incompleteness or purple prose!

[Canoerebel]

3/14/45

NoPac: Vast armed forces in proximity, but little in the way of sparks and flames today. That suits me.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

It would be helpful to readers - and exceedingly boring - to repeat somewhere in each post everything that's happened before. Newspapers try to do that, more or less, so that the 58th time you've read a story about Senator Porkchop being indicted for corruption in taking bribes to approve the construction of a space hub in Poughkeepsie, the newspaper repeats that entire synopsis on the off-chance that one out of 2 million readers won't be aware of the facts, would read a story about "Senator Porkchop being indicted," and would complain to the newspaper about be incomplete. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I don't know what's worse: incompleteness or purple prose!

The Iliad... Odyssey... Simeióseis

[Capt. Harlock]

It's 1945.

Yes, but it's only March 1945 -- and AE is quite capable of going into 1946.

[BBfanboy]

For docked ships. transport mode is faster loading and unloading. But you could probably load units like tanks and artillery in undocked/beached LSTs faster than you can put them in transport mode and load them on xAPs and xAKs. I don't have the figures handy to compare APA loading/unloading in transport vs amphib mode and docked vs undocked.

Having to stop the loading and move the TF off is probably a good thing for spreading the risk of losing an entire unit if ships get sunk.

[HansBolter]

It's the TFs attempting to fully load supply that always seems to upset my timetables on when a large TF grouping manages to sortie.


Sometimes, canceling the loading of supplies after troops have loaded doesn't stick, because the setting for not loading supplies wasn't chosen when loading started.


My Okninawa invasion sat at Agrihan loading supplies for five days longer than I expected. I was fuming over the delay and changing supply loading settings midstream wasn't working.

[Canoerebel]

Some good insights gentlemen. Thanks.

Hans, indeed my TFs were set to "Load Troops Only," both to speed the loading and to leave the maximum amount of supply at this forward base. (The TF loading the assault division bound for Onne thus will lack supply, but fully loaded supply ships were prepositioned at Uruppu Jima.)

BBFanboy, your suggestions got me to thinking. I think I'll convert all the arty and armored units to Combat mode and, next time, load them aboard LSTs and similar craft. The infantry divisions (and similar units) will remain in Strat mode. I think the larger port size and the addition of considerable Naval Support will allow more expeditious loading.

The eight or so TFs that spent two days loading range from 10% to 100% loaded, with the average somewhere around 30%. IE, a lot of loading capacity was left unused, darn it, necessiting another trip. Another trip = another foray into exposure in proximity to Erik's massive nest of airfields = another chance for a clever opponent to craft an attack plan. The nature of this beastly game.

[Lecivius]

I don't offer much, because I read all the AAR's. Better to stay silent than be stupid[;)] In this case, I just pose a question, or perhaps better stated, and observation. I note in several of your posts you mention 'mouseover' recon. In the case of Onnekotan (and others earlier), are you using aerial recon as well? I know from experience such recon greatly increases results. The drawback, of course, is your opponent see's such recon. By now you should have a lot of such assets. Reconning the entire Japanese mainland is not out of the question. This would drive your opponent nuts, since he can't be everywhere. I am curious as to your thoughts on this.

[Canoerebel]

I do mean regular reconnaissance, which provides much of the info I glean from the "mouseover."

[Lokasenna]

ORIGINAL: HansBolter

It's the TFs attempting to fully load supply that always seems to upset my timetables on when a large TF grouping manages to sortie.


Sometimes, canceling the loading of supplies after troops have loaded doesn't stick, because the setting for not loading supplies wasn't chosen when loading started.


My Okninawa invasion sat at Agrihan loading supplies for five days longer than I expected. I was fuming over the delay and changing supply loading settings midstream wasn't working.

When this happens, click on "unload" and then click on the yellow text under the TF picture to change it to Do Not Unload to stop the unloading you just ordered.

[Canoerebel]

That can be tricky. Usually, the "Unload" followed by "Do Not Unload" doesn't work. The TF keeps loading despite those efforts. What I have to do is to click on the "Adjust Load Troops Only" or "Adjust Load Troops" and manually click on the green "Loading" text beside the unit. That and only that actually stops the loading. This is a tricky matter that really messed me up until I figured out how to handle it.

[Canoerebel]

3/15/45

SEAC: Playing with a bit of paranoia is a good thing, usually. I figured that any red-blooded Japanese player would cast longing looks at the RN Death Star in the Andaman Sea. I know John III would have. And sure enough, KB showed up today. It may have been here - in some configuration - all along. Or it may be newly arrived.

Erik has used his "fleet in being" carriers well. I'm pretty glad I didn't blunder into them improvidently.

[Canoerebel]

3/15/45

Ops Report: Today's report includes news meaningful to future grognards.

[jwolf]

Hah! Nice catch on that pilot! [:)]

[Canoerebel]

3/15/45

SigInt: Gleanings.

[Canoerebel]

3/15/45

NoPac: Death Star broke contact with Kushiro and moved east, as ordered. That was actually a complicated maneuver requiring careful, thorough clicking in just the right sequence. It's one of those aspects of the game that would catch a newcomer unaware in a teeth-gnashing way.