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What's your vector Victor?

Q-ball is on a 10-day trip right now and just sent me an email from Vienna. He gets back Sunday, so I'll probably spend tomorrow working on the turn with a potential update Sunday.

January 15th, 1942

PH has been very frustrating; we had ~1500 AV on the island but could not reduce the defenders at ~700 av with 0 forts, when doing so we suffered bad casualties and are currently sitting at ~1200 AV; no doubt in the mean time while I had to replenish my carriers and BBs, the airfields were repaired and forts at PH might be back up to 1 or 2. So, we take a different method: SNLF assault divisions have taken Lahaina and will secure other bases before moving on Pearl Harbor. We plan to use Lahaina's port and airfield as a replenishment base for daily bombardment of Pearl by air and sea, though we have to ever be mindful or Allied carriers appearing on the scene. We will setup nav search as soon as feasible at Lahaina. Meanwhile, two additional divisions are on their way to Pearl.

I'd like to wrap this up soon, so I can still have some of my landing advantage going into March with which to take the DEI and more of the SoPac. Obviously, we with Pearl hopefully taken, we plan raids on Seattle and Portland to wipe out allied CVEs. One thing I noticed in my modded version of BTS: I forgot to reduce the month availability of the engines needed for the A7M2 Sam, so I've had to invest more there than anticipated to try to get it up to speed with the availability of the actual airframe.

Elsewhere, Allied forces are concentrated in Manila, but it'll be awhile before we can take that city; we have reached the outskirts of Singapore. I need to take Pearl soon to get naval support back for invading Java soon.

I've got about a dozen questions, but will hold off from asking all of them since you have multiple games and AARs going.

- could you share your aircraft/engine R&D? Screenshots would be fine. I'm playing a BTS game and struggling with planning (at Jan 15th game time as well), so selfishly would value the conversation

- What does the area around Singers look like?

- is your KB united at this point?

1. I have not finished my R&D/engines yet, more later probably.
2. I don't have much of a navy supporting the DEI at the moment, John has kept surface forces in the area, but I have large numbers of troops making their way down towards Singapore, which has a garrison of ~30k.
3. Yes, one minor caveat being that a CVL took a sub hit and CV Shokaku a mine hit at Midway, both are in port for repairs.

ORIGINAL: Cheesesteak

I've got about a dozen questions, but will hold off from asking all of them since you have multiple games and AARs going.

- could you share your aircraft/engine R&D? Screenshots would be fine. I'm playing a BTS game and struggling with planning (at Jan 15th game time as well), so selfishly would value the conversation

- What does the area around Singers look like?

- is your KB united at this point?

If you don't mind a suggestion for your R & D, put all of your aircraft and engines in a spreadsheet. Go by aircraft model number and what they upgrade to with the same engine. If it upgrades to a different engine, then it is a different line. Then sort the spreadsheet by engines. See which planes that you need, which ones that you want, and the corresponding engines. Note that each scenario may be different for engines with the aircraft.

If an aircraft has a unique engine, do you really want to build it? If you can concentrate on the main engines that you need for the aircraft that you want, it may become easier. For me, that means no early Judys nor Tonys.

interesting

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Cheesesteak

I've got about a dozen questions, but will hold off from asking all of them since you have multiple games and AARs going.

- could you share your aircraft/engine R&D? Screenshots would be fine. I'm playing a BTS game and struggling with planning (at Jan 15th game time as well), so selfishly would value the conversation

- What does the area around Singers look like?

- is your KB united at this point?

If you don't mind a suggestion for your R & D, put all of your aircraft and engines in a spreadsheet. Go by aircraft model number and what they upgrade to with the same engine. If it upgrades to a different engine, then it is a different line. Then sort the spreadsheet by engines. See which planes that you need, which ones that you want, and the corresponding engines. Note that each scenario may be different for engines with the aircraft.

If an aircraft has a unique engine, do you really want to build it? If you can concentrate on the main engines that you need for the aircraft that you want, it may become easier. For me, that means no early Judys nor Tonys.

I spend enough time in Excel during the 9-5, so I try to avoid it whenever possible. Thank the Emperor for Tracker!

ORIGINAL: Cheesesteak

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

ORIGINAL: Cheesesteak

I've got about a dozen questions, but will hold off from asking all of them since you have multiple games and AARs going.

- could you share your aircraft/engine R&D? Screenshots would be fine. I'm playing a BTS game and struggling with planning (at Jan 15th game time as well), so selfishly would value the conversation

- What does the area around Singers look like?

- is your KB united at this point?

If you don't mind a suggestion for your R & D, put all of your aircraft and engines in a spreadsheet. Go by aircraft model number and what they upgrade to with the same engine. If it upgrades to a different engine, then it is a different line. Then sort the spreadsheet by engines. See which planes that you need, which ones that you want, and the corresponding engines. Note that each scenario may be different for engines with the aircraft.

If an aircraft has a unique engine, do you really want to build it? If you can concentrate on the main engines that you need for the aircraft that you want, it may become easier. For me, that means no early Judys nor Tonys.

I spend enough time in Excel during the 9-5, so I try to avoid it whenever possible. Thank the Emperor for Tracker!

You can also use the sort by engine part of the aircraft replacements to see the aircraft use by engines, if that is easier.

All the information is available in-game, but tracker can certainly help simplify the visualization of it all. I always have a rough time getting tracker working correctly, however. In-game, you can go to your industry screen: in the R&D section when you click on the plane type it will also shown on the right what engine that plane type uses, be it either one currently available or unavailable. From there, it's a matter of figuring out which of these engines are most important and which you want to prioritize right away for developing and getting to the engine pool bonus to help in the R&D of the airframe. For actual production, it's a matter of counting up how many engines you use monthly for production efforts (i.e. counting up the engine type per a/c times the amt produced) to determine how much you need daily and how much of a pool you want to build-up for the future.

At least that's how I do it for the most part. I don't claim to be the most efficient or best at it.

Don't forget to add in the engines used in the bonus R & D when the engine pool is over 500. A size 30 R & D factory will use one engine per day but doubles the research so you get the aircraft faster.

ORIGINAL: Anachro

Obviously, we with Pearl hopefully taken, we plan raids on Seattle and Portland to wipe out allied CVEs.

What are the odds that this will work against thinking and experienced player?

It'll be hard. At the moment it seems like Anachro is counting on KB to do the bombing. If so, he'll lose a lot of his aircraft.

The more sure way to bomb American industry is to invade Canada, build an airfield or two quickly, and then use LBA. To really succeed, this takes planning from Day 1 of the war. Taking Pearl can be a help, but the Japanese need to be doing other planning, implementing at the same time, not beginning after Pearl falls.

Anacrho might figure out a way but there's a good chance he'll have to scrub most of his major strategic bombing ideas. He can target secondary things, like Fresno oil, but the major industry is likely to be too hard to get at.

The KB can raid along the West Coast keeping fighter units tied down while LBA works from Canada. This is where the long legged Nell would come in handy for raids.

Anachro: "We plan raids on Seattle and Portland to wipe out allied CVEs."

The only way to wipe them out is to take those bases (although I think you'd need to take Tacoma rather than Seattle). I'm guessing Q-Ball would have those bases covered. What do you intend to do, Anachro?

Anyway, thanks for the interesting opening. This will be one AAR to watch.

Cheers,
CB

It would have to be done in lightning raids in March, so that'd I still have the landing bonus, but given I'm so far behind schedule, I'm evaluating this all of course. Taking light Canada from which to do LBA bombing has its merits. I am building up Japanese 4E capabilities given that they are available in this mod.

And then there's the fact that given my naval concentration at Pearl, I havent yet launched ops against Java or Palembang, etc. I need to do that; things are running against the wire.

ORIGINAL: 821Bobo

ORIGINAL: Anachro
Obviously, we with Pearl hopefully taken, we plan raids on Seattle and Portland to wipe out allied CVEs.

What are the odds that this will work against thinking and experienced player?

Slim. I think it can work only as a surprise, or with commitment of everything Japan has, which will stall the early-war expansion towards vital resources.
West Coast has several potent land locked units, and this mod seems to not alter the roster. Experienced Allied player should have all those on the rails near (or in) the critical bases. There was a lot of discussion on the forum recently about US ship-producing bases, and even one AAR where a novice Allied player was taken by surprise, losing Portland.

Q-ball is a very experienced player; and yes, what I did when I worried about John invading North America was have my troops on rails and in key locations ready to go anywhere on a moment's notice.

Updates soon. Pearl Harbor should hopefully fall soon. Back to 0 forts and 500 AV. Then we need to rush back and complete conquests of the DEI.

I sure hope for your sake that Pearl is worth the forts you are going to have to reduce at Palembang.......