Matrix Games Forums

Morning Air attack on Tulagi , at 114,137
 
Weather in hex: Clear sky
 
Raid detected at 200 NM, estimated altitude 37,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 60 minutes
 
Japanese aircraft
      A6M3a Zero x 39
      A6M5 Zero x 24
      N1K1-J George x 134
 
 
 
Allied aircraft
      P-38G Lightning x 25
      P-38H Lightning x 1
      P-38J Lightning x 25
      P-40K Warhawk x 5
      P-40N5 Warhawk x 7
      F6F-3 Hellcat x 110
 
 
Japanese aircraft losses
      N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed
 
Allied aircraft losses
      P-40N5 Warhawk: 1 destroyed
      F6F-3 Hellcat: 1 destroyed
 
 
 
Aircraft Attacking:
      39 x A6M3a Zero sweeping at 31000 feet
      35 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
      37 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
      38 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
      23 x A6M5 Zero sweeping at 31000 feet
      20 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
 
The way i see it, all those planes were sweeping, not just LRCAPPING...and there no way he can have those numbers on LRCAP from Shortland, Torokina and Buka over Tulagi....consider the distance!... and if you look carefully you'll see that the composition in the single sweep missions, varies a lot! which should, imho, mean that there wasn't a constant presence of LRCAP seldom supported by sweep fighters...
 
What do you think?

Guys, the good news is that our Air Force is growing stronger and stronger at every battle we fight...my front line squadrons have the morale up to Heavens and, despite the losses, our pools are in a decent shape...and our ace rooster...well...it's amazing[:D]

GJ,

One other thing might just help you. If you can spare a good sized carrier raid on an outlying oil point, you will do two things. You will cause some serious damage and force Rader to remove a good bulk of his fighters and aviation support from the front lines to protect these points-thus dispersing his airforce. I can almost promise you that Soerajaba, Palambang, Medan are all weakly defended and vulnerable to a big raid.

Even if you never do another raid, he will never be able to ignore these bases as, without oil he can't sustain his economy and his biggest oil bases are the most exposed. I found that unless KB is around it is almost impossible for the Japanese player to defend these bases with LBA. A ten carrier Allied TF can just pound away with little to fear. Go in quick, pound an oil point or two to dust and he will never be able to mass his airforce at one or two points. Rader's game depends on his economy and he can't ingnore the defense of his oil points. It is very possible that if you use enough carriers and catch him unprepared, that you can take out most all of his exterior DEI oil points in one massive series of raids.

I know you are wary of LBA but I am finding that massed Allied carriers are pretty invulnerable to all but the biggest LBA attacks. Until the kamakazes come on line anyways..[;)]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

GJ,

One other thing might just help you. If you can spare a good sized carrier raid on an outlying oil point, you will do two things. You will cause some serious damage and force Rader to remove a good bulk of his fighters and aviation support from the front lines to protect these points-thus dispersing his airforce. I can almost promise you that Soerajaba, Palambang, Medan are all weakly defended and vulnerable to a big raid.

Even if you never do another raid, he will never be able to ignore these bases as, without oil he can't sustain his economy and his biggest oil bases are the most exposed. I found that unless KB is around it is almost impossible for the Japanese player to defend these bases with LBA. A ten carrier Allied TF can just pound away with little to fear. Go in quick, pound an oil point or two to dust and he will never be able to mass his airforce at one or two points. Rader's game depends on his economy and he can't ingnore the defense of his oil points. It is very possible that if you use enough carriers and catch him unprepared, that you can take out most all of his exterior DEI oil points in one massive series of raids.

I know you are wary of LBA but I am finding that massed Allied carriers are pretty invulnerable to all but the biggest LBA attacks. Until the kamakazes come on line anyways..[;)]

Yup, you're right. Soon we'll redeploy our CVs in western Oz...and from there we'll be able to raid at least Sosarbaja in a touch and go kind of raid... I see that these are the kind of things i must start to do...now i only need to speed up the process of the advance over Darwin area and then our CVs will be free to roam...i just need them to re-open that theatre...then my LBA can pretty much do the trick there and leave the CVs to move freely

ORIGINAL: crsutton

GJ,

One other thing might just help you. If you can spare a good sized carrier raid on an outlying oil point, you will do two things. You will cause some serious damage and force Rader to remove a good bulk of his fighters and aviation support from the front lines to protect these points-thus dispersing his airforce. I can almost promise you that Soerajaba, Palambang, Medan are all weakly defended and vulnerable to a big raid.

Even if you never do another raid, he will never be able to ignore these bases as, without oil he can't sustain his economy and his biggest oil bases are the most exposed. I found that unless KB is around it is almost impossible for the Japanese player to defend these bases with LBA. A ten carrier Allied TF can just pound away with little to fear. Go in quick, pound an oil point or two to dust and he will never be able to mass his airforce at one or two points. Rader's game depends on his economy and he can't ingnore the defense of his oil points. It is very possible that if you use enough carriers and catch him unprepared, that you can take out most all of his exterior DEI oil points in one massive series of raids.

I know you are wary of LBA but I am finding that massed Allied carriers are pretty invulnerable to all but the biggest LBA attacks. Until the kamakazes come on line anyways..[;)]

Why? If he already has all the HI he will ever need, shouldn't he already have enough oil and fuel also? Need some geeky JFBs to comment! [:D]

He may have a huge stockpile of HI from holding the India industry, but he is also burning through it at a much higher rate than the typical game we see.  He will still need the "normal" amounts of fuel/oil to keep the Home Island industry cranking away.  Also, fuel/oil is the one thing that Rader didn't gain much of by conquering India.  India normally needs fuel shipped in from Abadan by the Allies to keep it's industry running.

ETA: Oops, I'm not a geeky JFB, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. [:D]

ORIGINAL: USS America

ETA: Oops, I'm not a geeky JFB, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. [:D]

[:D]

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

ORIGINAL: crsutton

GJ,

One other thing might just help you. If you can spare a good sized carrier raid on an outlying oil point, you will do two things. You will cause some serious damage and force Rader to remove a good bulk of his fighters and aviation support from the front lines to protect these points-thus dispersing his airforce. I can almost promise you that Soerajaba, Palambang, Medan are all weakly defended and vulnerable to a big raid.

Even if you never do another raid, he will never be able to ignore these bases as, without oil he can't sustain his economy and his biggest oil bases are the most exposed. I found that unless KB is around it is almost impossible for the Japanese player to defend these bases with LBA. A ten carrier Allied TF can just pound away with little to fear. Go in quick, pound an oil point or two to dust and he will never be able to mass his airforce at one or two points. Rader's game depends on his economy and he can't ingnore the defense of his oil points. It is very possible that if you use enough carriers and catch him unprepared, that you can take out most all of his exterior DEI oil points in one massive series of raids.

I know you are wary of LBA but I am finding that massed Allied carriers are pretty invulnerable to all but the biggest LBA attacks. Until the kamakazes come on line anyways..[;)]

Yup, you're right. Soon we'll redeploy our CVs in western Oz...and from there we'll be able to raid at least Sosarbaja in a touch and go kind of raid... I see that these are the kind of things i must start to do...now i only need to speed up the process of the advance over Darwin area and then our CVs will be free to roam...i just need them to re-open that theatre...then my LBA can pretty much do the trick there and leave the CVs to move freely

Sosarbaja--- Is that north or south of Baja California? I smell a court order...

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Morning Air attack on Tulagi , at 114,137

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 200 NM, estimated altitude 37,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 60 minutes

Japanese aircraft
     A6M3a Zero x 39
     A6M5 Zero x 24
     N1K1-J George x 134



Allied aircraft
     P-38G Lightning x 25
     P-38H Lightning x 1
     P-38J Lightning x 25
     P-40K Warhawk x 5
     P-40N5 Warhawk x 7
     F6F-3 Hellcat x 110


Japanese aircraft losses
     N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
     P-40N5 Warhawk: 1 destroyed
     F6F-3 Hellcat: 1 destroyed



Aircraft Attacking:
     39 x A6M3a Zero sweeping at 31000 feet
     35 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
     37 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
     38 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
     23 x A6M5 Zero sweeping at 31000 feet
     20 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet

The way i see it, all those planes were sweeping, not just LRCAPPING...and there no way he can have those numbers on LRCAP from Shortland, Torokina and Buka over Tulagi....consider the distance!... and if you look carefully you'll see that the composition in the single sweep missions, varies a lot! which should, imho, mean that there wasn't a constant presence of LRCAP seldom supported by sweep fighters...

What do you think?

I think you are right. I just went back over my old combat reports and when one unit sweeps and the rest are on LRCAP only the one sweeping unit shows up as sweeping in the combat report.

Now I am even more perplexed as I just can't figure out how he can coordinate his sweeps so well-something I have never been able to accomplish. He is no longer flying crack units but perhaps still has excellent leaders.

The real limiting factor for the Japanese is not air frames, but aviation support. He must have the bulk of his aviation support in the theater which means he must be very short in other places. Another reason for some oil raids.

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: crsutton

GJ,

One other thing might just help you. If you can spare a good sized carrier raid on an outlying oil point, you will do two things. You will cause some serious damage and force Rader to remove a good bulk of his fighters and aviation support from the front lines to protect these points-thus dispersing his airforce. I can almost promise you that Soerajaba, Palambang, Medan are all weakly defended and vulnerable to a big raid.

Even if you never do another raid, he will never be able to ignore these bases as, without oil he can't sustain his economy and his biggest oil bases are the most exposed. I found that unless KB is around it is almost impossible for the Japanese player to defend these bases with LBA. A ten carrier Allied TF can just pound away with little to fear. Go in quick, pound an oil point or two to dust and he will never be able to mass his airforce at one or two points. Rader's game depends on his economy and he can't ingnore the defense of his oil points. It is very possible that if you use enough carriers and catch him unprepared, that you can take out most all of his exterior DEI oil points in one massive series of raids.

I know you are wary of LBA but I am finding that massed Allied carriers are pretty invulnerable to all but the biggest LBA attacks. Until the kamakazes come on line anyways..[;)]

Why? If he already has all the HI he will ever need, shouldn't he already have enough oil and fuel also? Need some geeky JFBs to comment! [:D]

You have to have fuel to produce HI. Rader may be making hay with all of his many factories but the factories in India do not come with oil. So he will need to rely on his finite DEI oil to run all his machines. If he has pumped his HI it had to come at the expense of drawing down his oil. Not the mention the fuel his fleet has been burning up lately.

I don't think an AFB can ever go wrong hitting Japanese oil centers.

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: GreyJoy

Morning Air attack on Tulagi , at 114,137

Weather in hex: Clear sky

Raid detected at 200 NM, estimated altitude 37,000 feet.
Estimated time to target is 60 minutes

Japanese aircraft
     A6M3a Zero x 39
     A6M5 Zero x 24
     N1K1-J George x 134



Allied aircraft
     P-38G Lightning x 25
     P-38H Lightning x 1
     P-38J Lightning x 25
     P-40K Warhawk x 5
     P-40N5 Warhawk x 7
     F6F-3 Hellcat x 110


Japanese aircraft losses
     N1K1-J George: 1 destroyed

Allied aircraft losses
     P-40N5 Warhawk: 1 destroyed
     F6F-3 Hellcat: 1 destroyed



Aircraft Attacking:
     39 x A6M3a Zero sweeping at 31000 feet
     35 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
     37 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
     38 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet
     23 x A6M5 Zero sweeping at 31000 feet
     20 x N1K1-J George sweeping at 31000 feet

The way i see it, all those planes were sweeping, not just LRCAPPING...and there no way he can have those numbers on LRCAP from Shortland, Torokina and Buka over Tulagi....consider the distance!... and if you look carefully you'll see that the composition in the single sweep missions, varies a lot! which should, imho, mean that there wasn't a constant presence of LRCAP seldom supported by sweep fighters...

What do you think?

I think you are right. I just went back over my old combat reports and when one unit sweeps and the rest are on LRCAP only the one sweeping unit shows up as sweeping in the combat report.

Now I am even more perplexed as I just can't figure out how he can coordinate his sweeps so well-something I have never been able to accomplish. He is no longer flying crack units but perhaps still has excellent leaders.

The real limiting factor for the Japanese is not air frames, but aviation support. He must have the bulk of his aviation support in the theater which means he must be very short in other places. Another reason for some oil raids.

Rader has moved every single air base unit out of China and Manchuria i think...he had been able to support several 9 AFs bases in India for a long time and he has done the same in SOPAC... i really think this game changed with the japanese conquest of China...that allowed him to extract so many units (AAs, Base forces, infantry, Tanks etc etc) that now every single place on his perimeter is guarded by overwhelming forces...

Consider that now, between Lae,Salamua, Wau and Nzareb he has a perimeter held by 180k troops...
More 140k are now placed between Shortland, Torokina and Buka...
more 80k are at Rabaul...
And i don't know how many troops are placed in northern New Guinea...

What bothers me about is sweeps is that i'm never able to achieve such a great coordination result...in the report i posted above (but during that battle you have seen that many missions had the same characteristics) he managed to have at least 8/9 daitais of 3 different aircraft types sweeping from 3 different bases at the same time![X(][X(]

I don't think an AFB can ever go wrong hitting Japanese oil centers.

I take a minority position and would go after his refineries. He can stockpile all the oil he wants, if he cannot convert it to fuel then both his ships and heavy industry suffer.

Hmmmm....good point. But he has excess refinery capacity and some of those refineries are in Japan (are they not?) and not easily got at until late game. But I agree, it is more six of one, one half of the other. You won't do wrong bombing either. But there is not much need to bomb both.

And, if he is pushing his industry, the oil stocks will go down fast enough.

I think my biggest mistake in my own game was waiting before I conducted my raids. I should have hit my opponent's oil in mid 1942 or 43. There is a period in 1942 when the Allies have nine fleet carriers (three British). But it is short lived. This would have been a good time for a raid. Or around 6/43 when the Allied get a bunch of new Essex class. I allowed myself to get intimidated because unlike a base attack or naval attack, you cannot set city attack when your carrier aircraft are out of range. So you have to spend at least one turn in range of LBA. However, I worried too much about that. You can set your carrier bombers to airfield attack on the run in and pretty much nuke the base and then city attack at your leisure in the following turn. I am willing to bet the many Japanese players do not devote the time to building up the net of bases needed to defend against a carrier raid. They always are pressed to use the units needed elsewhere, and even a heavily defended Palembang can be overwhelmed by a big carrier force.

There is always the risk, he will get lucky and sink a carrier but it is small and 500 points of oil is probably well worth the trade.

Just a couple of questions for you GJ, Did rader take Chungking? If so was he able to bomb it out of supply?

The reason I ask is I am looking to attack there soon in my game but I'm not sure if it can be taken........

3 different plane types? Hm.

Sweeps do not coordinate, so theres another reason for ToT at the same time.

What looks like this?
230
230
230

ORIGINAL: Miller

Just a couple of questions for you GJ, Did rader take Chungking? If so was he able to bomb it out of supply?

The reason I ask is I am looking to attack there soon in my game but I'm not sure if it can be taken........

It can be taken, even if you have a HR against bombing LI. Depends on the Chinese units there but the more units the more stretched the supply gets-so really I suppose it depends on the Japanese units there. Viperpol took it from me. He just kept pounding away at my airbase with his plentiful bombers. It not only used up my supply but eventually eroded the Chinese morale. He took a few lumps but eventually my troops cracked and surrendered en mass. It took a few months but the city does not generate enough supply to last. You just have to bomb every day for a good while without letup.

ORIGINAL: crsutton

ORIGINAL: Miller

Just a couple of questions for you GJ, Did rader take Chungking? If so was he able to bomb it out of supply?

The reason I ask is I am looking to attack there soon in my game but I'm not sure if it can be taken........

It can be taken, even if you have a HR against bombing LI. Depends on the Chinese units there but the more units the more stretched the supply gets-so really I suppose it depends on the Japanese units there. Viperpol took it from me. He just kept pounding away at my airbase with his plentiful bombers. It not only used up my supply but eventually eroded the Chinese morale. He took a few lumps but eventually my troops cracked and surrendered en mass. It took a few months but the city does not generate enough supply to last. You just have to bomb every day for a good while without letup.

Thanks for the info!

No, Rader hasn't even tried to take Chunking...which is an enourmous POW camp with thousands of chinese without supply[:o]...it produces 400 supplies each day...not even enough to feed a combat Bde...
 
Ok, more turns have flowed...we're now at the 28th of Feb 1944...nothing much happened after the great air battle....The Kb has disappeared licking her wounds, while our TFs are refueling and reorganizing at Ndeni...we'll resupply and reinforce Panggoe very soon, in order to give a decent power to the II US Corp which is marching towards Rekata where 20,000 japs are waiting...
 
In India we're almost close to Calcutta where only 1800 men are present[X(]...our Base forces are strat moving to the front...soon we'll be able to recon Burma and see what he has there...

Is rader able to concentrate so many of his fighters in the Rabaul area because you have not been able to threaten him in other areas?

With interior lines and long ranged aircraft he can cycle aircraft in from other theatres.

IMHO, if you go into the DEI, you will be fighting similar numbers unless you put in credible threats on other fronts and keep up the threat in the Solomons.

Well Jeff, i think, being in scen 2, i gotta live with the idea that i will never be able to overwhelm Rader in terms of number a/c .... and if he's really putting everything in The Solomons or in DEi, consider that soon (and i mean in less than 1 month) i'll have estabilished a solid new front on the Burma frontier...so the air war will finally arrive in Burma...and he'll need lots of planes there!!