JFB ONLY: erstad(J) versus aztez (A) - An occasional AAR

[SuluSea]

The allies getting down CVs in the beginning whether they be sunk or in the yards is tough sledding. I was wondering how much of your stampedeing was because you have had carrier superiority.

[crsutton]

I would be interested in your comments on China. A lot of Allied players are complaining about China (including me) They say that they are losing massive amounts of troops and can't hold any city against determined Japanese attacks. Well, make us all feel good and tell us about the Japanese problems in China. You already mentioned the supply issue on long roads. Any other nuggets to ease our pain?

I have a few suggestions about land combat but really would like to hear if you or any other readers of this AAR have some ideas as well.

I think right now my biggest concern is shock attacks. It is all that I am seeing in China. I would like to see the penalty for failed shock attackers increase greatly. To the point where the attacker is out of action for a long time. Also, think that sucessful shock attacks should have high rates of disruption for the attacker as well. Right now it seem like it is shock, pursuit and shock again. I don't see how I can keep China in the war for six months at this rate.

I do like pursuit and think that later in the war it is going to be a big advantage for the Allies (lots of tanks) but would also see it limited. Perhaps to mech and tank units only and have them eat high disorder and fatigue as a result. We are talking 46 miles here and that tended to wear down pursuing units as well.

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: crsutton

I would be interested in your comments on China. A lot of Allied players are complaining about China (including me) They say that they are losing massive amounts of troops and can't hold any city against determined Japanese attacks. Well, make us all feel good and tell us about the Japanese problems in China. You already mentioned the supply issue on long roads. Any other nuggets to ease our pain?

Don't have a lot of nuggets. I have dumped a certain chunk of supply into China, but I haven't really kept track of how much. It does seem that China is somewhat unbalanced "out of the box", I'm not convinced yet that it can't be balanced with a couple of reasonable house rules. As you might know, I'm starting a China-only game as Allied with loricas, want to try my hand and see how I do. I feel like I've got a reasonable appreciation for ground unit handling and combat. We'll see.

I think a key point, though, is that we are really pretty early to evaluate things. I think all the PBEM AARs are in the first half of 42. Plus we've only got a few games to compare against. For example, let's see someone actually take Chungking before claiming "there's nothing that stops the Japanese from just waltzing into Chungking". (rough paraphrase of some of the sentiment on the boards).

BTW, aztez and I have already some brief informal discussion on what happens if in fact the entire China front collapses. I assured him I wasn't going to remove units wholesale and ship them all across the pacific. We haven't really defined what that means further, but if necessary one of us will propose some restrictions and we'll discuss it.

ORIGINAL: crsutton
I think right now my biggest concern is shock attacks. It is all that I am seeing in China. I would like to see the penalty for failed shock attackers increase greatly. To the point where the attacker is out of action for a long time. Also, think that sucessful shock attacks should have high rates of disruption for the attacker as well. Right now it seem like it is shock, pursuit and shock again. I don't see how I can keep China in the war for six months at this rate.

Yeah, a successful shock attack doesn't really drive up disruption as much as it maybe should. However, this is an instance where HRs can come into play. I tend to agree with you that shock attacks in China are helping produce unreasonable results. But as a result, aztez and I have simply agreed that we won't shock attack in China.


It will be interesting to see if Patch 2 does anything that changes the balance in China. But again, I'm not convince a few simple HRs can't balance things.

Here's what aztez and I currently have
- No strat bombing in china
- No shock attacks in china

here's two I'm currently following, although they aren't agreements with aztez
- No use of PP cheats to get cheap or free units out of Manchuria (or anywhere else)
- No zeros in china. (I did use a daitai or two in china earlier, but decided not to any more. At least for the most part. I think I might have used a unit for some LRCAP after I made this decision, but I haven't used any in an air superiority role). Since this isn't an agreement, I may change my mind on this but it would only be if the Allied air role stepped up significantly (e.g, if he starts running American heavies in china, or transfers in a bunch of non-chinese fighter units)

Here are some additional rules that could be easily implemented in a game if the above doesn't provide sufficient balance:
- IJA pays double PP for buying (some combination of artillery, air, armor, or everything) out of Manchuria
- IJA not allowed to pull anything out of Manchuria.
- All bases have to have at least one (non-fragment) infantry unit present.
- IJA has to keep an extra division in city/cities "X"

[crsutton]

Another balance idea is to increase the chance of a Russian activation with any strenght taken out of Manchuria. For example if the Japanese player removed no units from Manchuria then there would be virtually no chance of a Russian activation until the historical trigger date. However, depending on the units drawn out there could be a slight but ever increasing chance of activation. Not high but always hanging over the Japanese players head. As it is now, the Japanese player knows exactly how many troops he can pull out with no risk of turning on the Russian mean machine.

It could be done in many ways. Just a straight percentage depending on the AV taken out. Or perhaps a very very low percentage in 1942 that increases as the war progresses, allowing Japan to use the troops early on when historically there was little chance of Russia joining the fight but forcing the Japanese player to move units back into Manchuko as the war progresses. Historically, Japan pulled good troops out of Manchuria but they were always fearful of the results. That is, would the Russian attack as their defenses got weaker? In the game, Japan never has to worry about it if they keep a known AV present. I think it would be a lot more fun and realistic if there was more at risk than just PPs.

[seydlitz_slith]

crsutton,

I agree with you regarding Japanese fear of a Russian activation. IMO that is one of the things wrong with the game as it stands. Japan has over 3,000 AV of troops in excess in the area at game start and absolutely no worries about activation happening as long as they stay above the magic 8,000 number. I am sure that Japanese war planners would have loved to have known what the magic number was during the real event. Truth was, Japan and Russia had some pretty large and freewheeling fights in the region in the four years preceeding the Pearl Harbor attack. As such, the region was as hot as the North Korean/South Korean border in say....1955. Until you can simulate the enormity of that risk, it's all just a numbers exercise.

[loricas]

ORIGINAL: seydlitz

crsutton,

I agree with you regarding Japanese fear of a Russian activation. IMO that is one of the things wrong with the game as it stands. Japan has over 3,000 AV of troops in excess in the area at game start and absolutely no worries about activation happening as long as they stay above the magic 8,000 number. I am sure that Japanese war planners would have loved to have known what the magic number was during the real event. Truth was, Japan and Russia had some pretty large and freewheeling fights in the region in the four years preceeding the Pearl Harbor attack. As such, the region was as hot as the North Korean/South Korean border in say....1955. Until you can simulate the enormity of that risk, it's all just a numbers exercise.

the AV that japan can put out of manciuria is around 4000 as a lot unit start with disabilited divice not keep into account for garrison at start, but counting as soon as "abilted"
and aircraft|artillery are not counted in garrison total

i think that a more, in game term, is more correct if the garrison is rapported not to AV as now but to normal PP cost to free a unit.

[SuluSea]

In my game dated 1.27.42 the China offensive seems to have stalled somewhat. I even managed to take back a city in the south and have started a limited offensive with the bypassed troops.   I'm sure that won't last long but it's fun none the less.
 
 I still think adjustments need to be made to balance the region out some as conditions on the ground dictated back in the day. As already mentioned the amount of armor and planes the Japanese player can pull out of Manchuria doesn't count against the garrison total. I was frustrated last week not becuase I dislike the game but because how much I love the game. Have a great day all. [:)]
 
 
 
 
 

[LoBaron]

erstad im enjoying your PBEM against aztez tremendiosely!

congratiulations on your gameplay, both of you. [&o]

i already stated in aztez AAR that im really impressed by your composition of ground troops.
you put much thought into it i guess. or youre a natural. [:D]

(although i find the effect of shock/bombardement attacks on a bit weaker eqipped allied troops a little
to strong...i wonder what your impression on this topic is)

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

(although i find the effect of shock/bombardement attacks on a bit weaker eqipped allied troops a little
to strong...i wonder what your impression on this topic is)

I agree. Especially against fortified troops. So I'm trying to exercise some restraint, at least where I have big gun stacks. For example, the "right" thing to do at Sian now is to bombard, bombard, bombard until he withdraws or has taken serious losses. I'm not doing that, I bombarded once and then attacked. Not saying I won't do another bombardment, but I'm not going to pound it turn after turn.

[erstad]

Big dustup in the south pacific this turn, so I thought I'd post the goings-on from my perspective. Aztez probably hasn't posted this yet as I just sent the combat an hour ago and it's the wee hours of the morning in Finland.

So, to set the stage - on the prior turn I had shocked attacked at Nadi, and gotten back to back 1:1 results with good allied losses and forts down to 1. I think it's quite possible had I continued shock attacking I would have taken it, but disruption on my units was really high (I think around 70-80), and I've definitely seen assaults peter out under such circumstances. So I decided to just bombard for a turn, recover disruption, and then be pretty confident of success on the next turn.

Kanduvu (2 hexes south of Suva) only had a 1:2 attack, although raw AV wise I had a significant advantage. Again, high disruption. So they bombard as well.

(BTW, garrisoning Kanduvu was a good move for aztez. It kept me from taking the base with airborne assault, which I was hoping to do the turn before I invaded Nadi. Having Kanduvu would allow me to transfer in LBA (oscars for LRCAP of the Nadi, and recon). Plus I would have a port (albeit a small one) for damaged ships. When I went after Pago Pago, I took Suvaii first for similar reasons, and probably saved a dozen ships as a result (mostly small PBs with a couple of xAKLs) that were able to recover float damage. In fact, don't tell Aztez, but there's still half-a-dozen ships there repairing. But because he had even a small garrison at Kanduvu my timetable was thrown off (which had the result I lost more zeros in LRCAP than I would have had the oscars been available) and I had to divert part of my second wave to take it. AFBs should consider keeping something at Kanduvu.)

I have an invasion TF unloading at Nadi. All of the troops have now gone ashore, and I'm just unloading supply. Supply in hex is about 5x the unit needs, so I don't need more supply. Similarly, I have very weak invasion force at Kanduvu - two AKs with NO escorts. Again, ground troops unloaded and plenty of supply.

So, it's time to pull the invasion fleets back. I can pull back far or I can pull back a little. I opt for a little (4 hexes) because I don't like to leave any opportunities to fail, and if he just happens to decide to move the LCUs from Suva to nadi to crush the invasion I want to start landing my second wave NOW instead of waiting until Nadi is taken. The second wave would have maybe 12 hours to unload and there's a fair number of transports so they could unload a good chunk of AV. (Plus, if a bunch of LCUs popped into Nadi, I would hit them with all the Vals in KB, wouldn't normally want to target LCUs with KB but it's needed to tip the scales, in they go).

The invasion force at Nadi had 2BB, 1CA,2CL, 4DD, plus some secondary escorts. Since the invasion TF is pulling back, I split off 2BB&2DD for a bombardment of Suva.

So that's a long winded intro.

The next chapter will have to wait a couple of hours because I have to run to Bible study... Stay tuned!

[erstad]

OK, so as far as I can tell, aztez had at least three things going this turn:


1) Carrier air flown off the CVs to Suva. I say flown off because I never spotted any CVs and I have a fair chunk of search in the area, plus the strikes included TBDs which couldn't have launched from more than 5 hexes away.

2) Two or more Surface combat TFs moved to Nadi, presumably to disrupt the landings.

3) Small reinforcement TF to suva. Maybe supplies, since there were no troop loss messages. I think there might be a second reinforcement TF as well, although it could be ships in the first reinforcement TF I didn't see earlier.

Neither TF 2 or 3 were spotted before this turn. The SC TF isn't as surprising because it could have come from further but the reinforcement TF had a max speed of 4 hexes/phase so I'm surprised I didn't spot it, but there's a lot of ocean for my search planes to cover and they were focused on where I thought CVs might come in. Bet if I had been able to take Kandavu and then had thought to put Chiyoda's jakes there I would have seen it.

So, here are the events of the turn sequence:
- First night phase, my bombardment TF runs into the reinforcement TF (an AK and a PG) at Suva. 2BB+2DD versus AK+PG, both go down. The TF does bombard for minor damage but doesn't kill any planes, which was the main goal of the bombardment.

ANALYSIS: If the air strikes from Suva later did better, it would be a win for aztez to sacrifice a few ships to keep his LBA intact. As it turns out, sinking these ships is a minor victory for me. I also wonder at the deeper meaning of this. I don't think he was bringing troops in as there were no reports of troop loss and the number of LCUs in the hex is the same (10). I don't think he was trying an evac, as doing an evac is a lot harder in AE (in classic, you could load night-phase only and be one full movement phase away by the first airphase, can't do that in AE). So I'm thinking he was bringing in supplies and if he's risking doing that with KB on the prowl that might mean he's low.

Dawn breaks, and KB (split into two TF) is attacked by two waves of allied carrier air. I assume aztez posts the reports, so I'll just summarize that they were halfway decently formed wildcat/dauntless combos. CAP for the first strike is 56 Zeros. CAP took out a large fraction of the strikes, about a ten (a third of the total incoming SBDs) ended up making attack runs but there were, thankfully, no hits. I'm wondering if some of those were marine squadrons - don't they start with lower experience? Honestly, I came out better than I expected but it's also true I still have (well, had) some awfully good carrier pilots KB then launches an attack on his SCTF at Nadi, doing a reasonable chunk of damage but losing 15 Kates(21 total) to his CAP (22 wildcats). End of day 1 air attacks. Note no TBD attacks, more on that later.

ANALYSIS: The ultimate UberCap of Classic is indeed gone (about ten planes of thirty made it to bombing runs) but a good stout cap of well trained fighters is still very important. Having the wildcats CAP his SC TF might be a good or bad decision. On the one hand, if those 22 cats were escorting the strike, more SBDs might have gotten through and maybe there would have been some CV hits. On the other hand, taking out 15 trained kates is a small victory too. The other observation I'll make is around timing; had aztez pulled this a day earlier my invasion fleet would still have been there. However, his motley collection of CA/CL/DDs would have met my screening force of 2BB/1CA/2CL/4DD. So he would likely have lost the naval engagement, but might have gotten a few lucky torpedos into a BB so I'm pretty happy it worked out the way it it.

Note also that my bombardment TF was sitting in Suva all this time. I had them remain on station (wanted more than just a couple rounds of ammo fired off). They were LRCAPed, by only by a dozen zeros (total, actual on station would be less). (Had Kandavu been up and running, per plan, there would have been 40 oscars on LRCAP). I thought if his CVs were going to interfere they would have done so by now, and between the LRCAP and the BB armor I wasn't too worried about what remained of his LBA. None of the strikes went after the BBs. Had aztez pulled in the range, or had the targeting routines made a different decision, those guys would be toast. But I think aztez did the right thing on the wildcats and dauntlesses, he's obviously gunning for the carriers and sometimes you need to go big or go home. I'm more on the edge for the TBDs, leaving them on extended range (they struck 5 hexes away) they don't carry torps, so you might argue limit them to something in range with torps, on the other hand, even a few more planes might tip a strike to a success, if only by distracting the cap. (Where have we seen that happen[;)])

OK, so on to day 2:
His SCTF from nadi retires to Suva and we have a daytime combat. I have no idea why daytime. I think my TF was parked in Suva the whole time and his TF would only have a hex or two to go if it retired, and if it remained on station it wouldn't end up in suva. So if anyone can explain why we might have had a day combat instead of night (without using any info from aztez, of course) I'd like to hear that.

Anyway, my BB's take out two DDs and then decide to return to port as they are low on ammo.

In comes a small strike on KB (16 wildcats, 4 SBD), 45 zeros on CAP, nothing gets through. Another small strike (6 wildcats, 3SBD), 36 zeros fly, nothing gets through. Then, in comes 13 unescorted TBDs. Only 26 CAP now, but I splash 3 and the rest turn tail. Two more small strikes against KB are brushed aside. Then, another 13 unescorted TBDs come in. I splash 3, some run, but 2 make a bombing run at Shokaku for no effect.

In amongst all this, KB launches strikes at an SCTF in Suva, another one in Nadi, and one a hex or two out of Suva. The Suva strikes are met with CAP and I lose more Kates, no CAP on the others so I assume he was LRCAPing just the one TF.

ANALYSIS: It's interesting the TBDs showed up on day 2 but not day 1. It looks to me like the wildcats and SBDs were coming in at 20,000 feet, but the TBDs were lower - some at 5000, maybe some at 10,000 as well. I wonder if that affected strike coordination. I suggested to aztez we might try an experimental turn where he makes the altitude the same (solely as a "what if", not as an actual turn or anything) to see if they fly on day 1 and if anything gets through. I was thinking that could actually be a big deal in the results until I noticed the TBDs were only in bomb range; still, had a few more planes been in the day 1 strike I wonder if there might not have been some CV hits, although I doubt I would have lost anything. It's also a little ironic that the unescorted TBD strikes came at the end. Didn't the americans learn anything from midway, send the unescorted TBDs in first to distract the cap and then the main strikes [:D]

FINAL ANALYSIS: CV plane losses were similar on both sides, maybe 90 each. Those losses hurt me more (most of them were pilot losses as well, and 45 were Kates), but KB is intact and I think his ability to interfere with the Suva operation is greatly diminished. Plus he lost 6 CA/CL (supposedly so I think all in all this worked out well for me. Combination of planning and luck. Like I said earlier, had my invasion TF stayed at Nadi I outgunned him, but he could easily have gotten a fish or two or three into a BB. Plus, if my invasion fleet was still there, KB would have been three or four hexes away from Suva, instead of five, and he might have gotten better coordination plus the TBDs would be in torpedo range. I might still have escaped unscathed, but you never know for sure. I get really, really nervous when I have to leave my carriers in one place which is why I really wanted to have LBA flying from Kandavu.

BTW, my AA ammo on one CV TF is 47% and on the other is 78. And it's actually worse the numbers indicate, because on some ships almost all the high altitude AA is gone, it's only the low altitude that's left.

I don't know where his CVs came from but between the subs I have all around and the search assets I bet I would have seen them in classic Witp, if only via an "SBD spots sub" message. In AE you gotta be more paranoid.

[erstad]

We're a-goin' hunting, boys!

Last turn (6/17, may not be posted yet) my CAP again manhandled the Suva-based CV air, plus I bombarded Suva for another ten planes or so. So aztez has got to be thinking of pulling his air out. (Otherwise, it's going to continue getting pounded. Bombarding Suva again this turn, and this time with "remain on station" so more of the main gun ammo should fire).

The SBDs can reach New Zealand but there's no airfield in range for the F4Fs, at least that I can see, nor the TBDs if they are still there. So I'm thinking he might move his CVs in to offload the air. So... KB is heading 14 hexes due south of Suva. If the CVs come in to get the F4Fs, they are mine[;)] Assuming they come from the south. I don't think he'll come in from the east since I own the L4 airbase at Pago Pago, although there's nothing there at the moment other than search assets.

Of course, his carrier air was roughly handled the previous turn too, so maybe he's already moved in and I'll be a turn too late. But worth a try. I think he's got 5 CVs (I've seen strike aircraft from CV-3, 5, and 8 at Suva, plus Albacores and Swordfish so I'm assuming he brought the Brits). But his strike aircraft have been whittled down quite a bit, (although I suppose he might have brought in some replacements at Suva) so I don't think I'm at high risk of losing any CVs, and at this point I don't care if one or two go into the shop for a bit. Biggest risk I see is that I think most of his fighters are still on the CVs (Haven't seen that many at Suva, which is part of why he hasn't made much headway) so there's a good chance that the KB airwing will be trashed after any encounter. But I'll take that if I can take out some CVs because that will delay when he can start nibbling at my over-expanded perimeter.

Of course, I might be one turn late, or he might have decided to evac the SBDs to NZ and leave the F4Fs to their fate (Hmm. I wonder if those are Marines instead of USN?). But you can't blame a guy for trying!

[erstad]

Darn. All that and the CVs don't show. We try again this turn. I did drop a little air in Pago Pago too.

Maybe he is going to fly the dive bombers out to a land base and leave the Wildcats to their fate. (Or maybe I missed a base in range?)

Regardless, there's very little of the CV air left in Suva. Another 35 planes down this turn (2 days). I'm actually running an AR from Suvaii (near Pago pago) to Nadi this turn right past Suva, relying on the fact there's not much left in Suva and some LRCAP. (The AR is to help bring down some of the system damage on Kirishima from the torpedo hit before I move her back, plus a little insurance in case we do have a little CV scuffle down south).

[Fishbed]

So, does it hurt? [;)]

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

So, does it hurt? [;)]

hurt

I assume this relates to the recent excitement in the Aleutians.

From a ship loss standpoint, my CVs were untouched. I think I had him slightly outnumbered in CV air, but the largest determiner was likely pilot experience. Although KB is definitely not what it was ten months ago, average experience ranged from 56 to 74. I have to believe aztez average experience was far lower, especially since a large chunk of his CV air was lost resisting the Suva operation.

Another thing that may have helped is that I had pulled extra planes into reserve for pretty much every CV squadron. So even though I lost 100 planes on the first round of scuffles, KB still had almost the same punch it started with. That's a lot different than Witp-classic.

If ship losses are to be believed, aztez lost two allied CVs, Hermes, and two allied BBs, with some serious hurt to a Brit CV. Not sure any of that is real, but for sure the Allied shipyards will be busy for a while.

I lost some CLs and a few other minor ships. The greatest loss was that of all the ships in the vicinity, the AKE that happened to be supporting the Aleutians operation went down. Whoops!

IMPORTANT TIP: If you are relying on an AKE to support an operation, have a spare behind the lines but not too far behind the lines.

Although my ship losses were small, I lost around 300 CV planes, many with pilot losses as well. I've been frantically pulling pilots out of every land-based IJN squadron, and also a fair chunk out of mini-KB. For sure KB will take a big XP hit. I'm guessing a 10 point average hit but that's really just a guess. I'm leaving some 70+ XP pilots in the groups to aid training, but other than that gutting the land-based squadrons. If I have another pilot loss like this in the near future, KB would be neutered; however, I think by the time aztez is able to threaten KB again I should have a reasonable level of replacements.

[Fishbed]

Any plan for the Aleutians then? Are you alright with garrisoning them in a honest way or you are already way to stretched to do so? [:(]

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: erstad

Here's the February pilots. Note I only added 129 IJN and 162 IJA even though there are supposed to be 150 and 185. You might think maybe the backend of the pipe starts more lightly loaded and eventually I'll start getting around 150 and 185 (minus maybe some casualties) but the entire pipe is smaller this month than last month. What's going on?

Erstad, I believe it works like this:

In pool means trained up pilots in pool (for Japanese 35 experience)

Added means trained up pilots added to your pool

Experience is the experience of your pilots in pilot pool

Replacement is the rate at which rookies are added to the training program

Your showing of february means that 29 naval aviators and 30 army aviators dropped out, died in crashes, got homesick or whatever during the year of initial training.

Have no doubt, that pool will melt if you fight a war of attrition vs the allies. You will end up pulling low experience pilots from the training program (emergency deployment like the british used during the battle of britain....

[KenchiSulla]

Wooooops just noticed you posted taht ages ago. No doubt you already found out.
 
"backs away from the thread"

[Fishbed]

No, stay here! We have to keep the thread alive so we can compare both sides of the war. And moreover, you don't risk decapitation for this kind of behaviour in 1940 Japan anymore I guess, so you have no reason to "step back" [:D][;)]

[erstad]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

Any plan for the Aleutians then? Are you alright with garrisoning them in a honest way or you are already way to stretched to do so? [:(]

I look at the Aleutians as a buffer zone only. Small garrisons. Of course, I need to finish taking the aleutians