RE: SUDDENLY HAIRY
Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2011 9:30 am
GJ,
With your invasion I advised total focus on the strategically decisive aspect/goal ( getting airfields for 4-engined bombers in Hokkaido ). You maintained focus and got a major victory. Once that was done though you began dissipating your effort, committing forces to tasks they were unsuited for etc etc. In short you are losing focus and gifting Rader time he shouldn't be getting and a much easier defensive problem.
Its a simple question: Is your priority clearing Hokkaido or beginning strategic bombing?
If it is clearing Hokkaido then you commit everything to that goal for a week and you should have no problem reducing the Japanese divisions at Hakodate to nothing in that time. If it is strategic bombing then you need to ask yourself what your objectives are.
You are firebombing AND bombing engines AND bombing airframe factories. This is terribly wasteful. Think of it this way: If you hit the aircraft engine factory for Ki-44IIcs AND the airframe factory and cause 5 points of damage to each you prevent 5 planes being built per month. If you, instead, hit just the airframe factory then you would get 10 hits and stop 10 planes being built per month.
You are finding your results from strategic bombing poor because you aren't doing it as well as you could. I, personally, believe a HR of 20,000 feet for strategic bombing is very reasonable in terms of getting reasonable results ( based on a lot of experience playing both sides in '45 ) but if you dissipate your efforts then, yes, you'll not achieve very much.
Your big problem right now is his ability to CAP bases so you need to be killing fighters. SWEEP his bases with your fighters, LRCAP bases you are going to bomb and then send the 4-engined bombers in to bomb his AIRFRAME factories. All of this nonsense of starting fires, hitting R&D factories ( your problem isn't hypothetical planes, but planes he is actually building ) and hitting engine factories is simply dividing your effort such that you are getting perhaps 1/4 of the return you should be getting given the forces committed. To be clear though this is because YOU are commiting your forces poorly.
In the same way as you had to have ONE FOCUS for the recent operation ( get bomber fields on Hokkaido operational to strat bomb Japan ) you now have to have ONE FOCUS for your strategic bombing campaign - I have suggested previously that this should be fighters since thats what you are having trouble with.
Continue to dissipate your efforts and you will continue to find this much, much tougher than it should be. You are the reason your strategic bombing offensive isn't having significant effects because you have been misallocating your resources.
As re: Hakodate.
Do you really want to take it? It serves as a useful distraction for Rader, encourages piecemeal committment of forces and allows attrition on terms entirely favourable to US ground forces. The longer it survives to be grinded down the more forces will be trapped there when it eventually collapses - forces which would, otherwise, be fortifying Honshu.
Think of this strategically. Does taking it gain you more than allowing it to stalemate for a while? In my Downfall AAR I trapped about 1500 US AV in Okinawa but chose not to push them into the sea, using them as a lure to force the USN into action in an effort to relieve them. When the USN was committed to action to clear the sealanes to Okinawa I ended up destroying an additional 6 US Divisions ( double what was on Okinawa ), 10 CVEs, 4 or 5 BBs and 2 or 3 CVs as well as dozens of other ships and several thousand USN planes. So, taking a place isn't always the smart thing to do. Sometimes leaving it in someone else's hands can help guide them into a huge strategic mistake.
Bottom line though: You've lost focus again and while that might make for a good AAR in which lots of people talk up the "titanic struggle" etc etc etc it isn't actually best play.
With your invasion I advised total focus on the strategically decisive aspect/goal ( getting airfields for 4-engined bombers in Hokkaido ). You maintained focus and got a major victory. Once that was done though you began dissipating your effort, committing forces to tasks they were unsuited for etc etc. In short you are losing focus and gifting Rader time he shouldn't be getting and a much easier defensive problem.
Its a simple question: Is your priority clearing Hokkaido or beginning strategic bombing?
If it is clearing Hokkaido then you commit everything to that goal for a week and you should have no problem reducing the Japanese divisions at Hakodate to nothing in that time. If it is strategic bombing then you need to ask yourself what your objectives are.
You are firebombing AND bombing engines AND bombing airframe factories. This is terribly wasteful. Think of it this way: If you hit the aircraft engine factory for Ki-44IIcs AND the airframe factory and cause 5 points of damage to each you prevent 5 planes being built per month. If you, instead, hit just the airframe factory then you would get 10 hits and stop 10 planes being built per month.
You are finding your results from strategic bombing poor because you aren't doing it as well as you could. I, personally, believe a HR of 20,000 feet for strategic bombing is very reasonable in terms of getting reasonable results ( based on a lot of experience playing both sides in '45 ) but if you dissipate your efforts then, yes, you'll not achieve very much.
Your big problem right now is his ability to CAP bases so you need to be killing fighters. SWEEP his bases with your fighters, LRCAP bases you are going to bomb and then send the 4-engined bombers in to bomb his AIRFRAME factories. All of this nonsense of starting fires, hitting R&D factories ( your problem isn't hypothetical planes, but planes he is actually building ) and hitting engine factories is simply dividing your effort such that you are getting perhaps 1/4 of the return you should be getting given the forces committed. To be clear though this is because YOU are commiting your forces poorly.
In the same way as you had to have ONE FOCUS for the recent operation ( get bomber fields on Hokkaido operational to strat bomb Japan ) you now have to have ONE FOCUS for your strategic bombing campaign - I have suggested previously that this should be fighters since thats what you are having trouble with.
Continue to dissipate your efforts and you will continue to find this much, much tougher than it should be. You are the reason your strategic bombing offensive isn't having significant effects because you have been misallocating your resources.
As re: Hakodate.
Do you really want to take it? It serves as a useful distraction for Rader, encourages piecemeal committment of forces and allows attrition on terms entirely favourable to US ground forces. The longer it survives to be grinded down the more forces will be trapped there when it eventually collapses - forces which would, otherwise, be fortifying Honshu.
Think of this strategically. Does taking it gain you more than allowing it to stalemate for a while? In my Downfall AAR I trapped about 1500 US AV in Okinawa but chose not to push them into the sea, using them as a lure to force the USN into action in an effort to relieve them. When the USN was committed to action to clear the sealanes to Okinawa I ended up destroying an additional 6 US Divisions ( double what was on Okinawa ), 10 CVEs, 4 or 5 BBs and 2 or 3 CVs as well as dozens of other ships and several thousand USN planes. So, taking a place isn't always the smart thing to do. Sometimes leaving it in someone else's hands can help guide them into a huge strategic mistake.
Bottom line though: You've lost focus again and while that might make for a good AAR in which lots of people talk up the "titanic struggle" etc etc etc it isn't actually best play.
