Here come the Rebels! (Canoe v. Q-Ball)

[FOW]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

4/10/44 to 4/13/44

CenPac: I'm thinking about withdrawing the base force at Midway and replacing it with an Army battalion or a Marine regiment. I want to maximize the AV while still remaining just under the garrison limit. I am nearly positive Midway will be Brad's first target when the KB returns to the Pacific.

Don't waste a good future offensive unit in this role. Use your expendable defensive units - you have several USMC Defense Bns available. The AV will be lower, but those CD guns will cause much damage to his Amph TFs.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: erstad

You are correct that the pilot limit is about 133% of group size, but once you pull those pilots in you can transfer those pilots to general reserve. Pull another set of pilots, lather, rinse, and repeat. Unless there's an undocumented cap on general reserve, should work.

Aaaaannnnnddddd, the light bulb comes on. I never in a million years would have thought to do that. I must be getting old, and/or hidebound by rules and expected norms. Thanks for the explaination.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: FOW

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel

4/10/44 to 4/13/44

CenPac: I'm thinking about withdrawing the base force at Midway and replacing it with an Army battalion or a Marine regiment. I want to maximize the AV while still remaining just under the garrison limit. I am nearly positive Midway will be Brad's first target when the KB returns to the Pacific.

Don't waste a good future offensive unit in this role. Use your expendable defensive units - you have several USMC Defense Bns available. The AV will be lower, but those CD guns will cause much damage to his Amph TFs.

Agree with this. Also, Midway can be over-stacked by even several thousand and still supplied fairly easily/safely from PH. You can shovel supplies in there with just two convoys making shuttle runs with a couple of CLs and 3-4 DDs. Unless he really commits to a deep strike to take them out you're good for six months or so. By then the war should have bypassed Midway and you can take it down to the stack limits.

[witpqs]

Whoa! Midway can be over-stacked by several thousand and easily supplied? In some testing I did:

Stacking%---Supply Usage Multiplier
114%---004
120%---009
152%---056
222%---091

Meaning at Midway stacking limit = 6,000, so with 7,200 Base Load present (20% over) they will use about 9 times as many supplies as normal. With 9,120 Base Load (52% over) they will use about 56 times as many supplies as normal.

You can over-stack some and run in enough supplies, but at some point it becomes a great burden.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Whoa! Midway can be over-stacked by several thousand and easily supplied? In some testing I did:

Stacking%---Supply Usage Multiplier
114%---004
120%---009
152%---056
222%---091

Meaning at Midway stacking limit = 6,000, so with 7,200 Base Load present (20% over) they will use about 9 times as many supplies as normal. With 9,120 Base Load (52% over) they will use about 56 times as many supplies as normal.

You can over-stack some and run in enough supplies, but at some point it becomes a great burden.

From the manual, Section 8.9:

"Supply usage increases for every 10% over the stacking limit; supply
usage increases by an additional 20% UNCAPPED for both sides (e.g.
if an atoll has a 6,000 man limit and has 12,000 man garrison, supply
usage will increase from 100% to 300% i.e. the base supply for 10,000
men plus a special wastage allowance of 200% of normal supply.)"

I think this level of supply usage is easily done from PH with low risk. Now, putting three divisions on Midway, no.

[John 3rd]

I like the Baker assault idea. It is somewhat remote from Japanese AF and is close enough to your bases that it could be a fairly safe operation. Would serve as a reminder to your opponent that his Fleet is ELSEWHERE...

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Whoa! Midway can be over-stacked by several thousand and easily supplied? In some testing I did:

Stacking%---Supply Usage Multiplier
114%---004
120%---009
152%---056
222%---091

Meaning at Midway stacking limit = 6,000, so with 7,200 Base Load present (20% over) they will use about 9 times as many supplies as normal. With 9,120 Base Load (52% over) they will use about 56 times as many supplies as normal.

You can over-stack some and run in enough supplies, but at some point it becomes a great burden.

From the manual, Section 8.9:

"Supply usage increases for every 10% over the stacking limit; supply
usage increases by an additional 20% UNCAPPED for both sides (e.g.
if an atoll has a 6,000 man limit and has 12,000 man garrison, supply
usage will increase from 100% to 300% i.e. the base supply for 10,000
men plus a special wastage allowance of 200% of normal supply.)"

I think this level of supply usage is easily done from PH with low risk. Now, putting three divisions on Midway, no.

Have you tried it? I tried it and got the above results.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Whoa! Midway can be over-stacked by several thousand and easily supplied? In some testing I did:

Stacking%---Supply Usage Multiplier
114%---004
120%---009
152%---056
222%---091

Meaning at Midway stacking limit = 6,000, so with 7,200 Base Load present (20% over) they will use about 9 times as many supplies as normal. With 9,120 Base Load (52% over) they will use about 56 times as many supplies as normal.

You can over-stack some and run in enough supplies, but at some point it becomes a great burden.

From the manual, Section 8.9:

"Supply usage increases for every 10% over the stacking limit; supply
usage increases by an additional 20% UNCAPPED for both sides (e.g.
if an atoll has a 6,000 man limit and has 12,000 man garrison, supply
usage will increase from 100% to 300% i.e. the base supply for 10,000
men plus a special wastage allowance of 200% of normal supply.)"

I think this level of supply usage is easily done from PH with low risk. Now, putting three divisions on Midway, no.

Have you tried it? I tried it and got the above results.

If so, you should post it in the Tech forum, as your results are wildly different than the manual forecasts. A 900% overusage for a 20% overstacking isn't anything I've seen.

I currently have 6,705 men on Midway, and am building supply with a four xAK CS convoy from Seattle. I have five air units there, one on 60% patrol, one Wildcat on 40% CAP, and three multi-engine on naval attack only. My base summary screen reports Supplies Required as 2683.

OTOH, in my previous game I went as high as 118,000 men on Tarawa during the fight. I couldn't load them off fast enough due
to port size and ate up 40,000 supplies in about a week or less (Tarawa is rated a Small island.)

I agree overstacking needs to be watched. But in a short-term situation like Midway, especially considering its strategic location, I wouldn't worry about putting in a base force, an AA unit, and a real defensive ground unit, possibly with CD back-up. My totals above are for two base forces and a USMC defensive unit that includes some CD. I don't expect the AI to try a real invasion. Against a human, I'd have more there and pay for it.

[witpqs]

I guess you missed the thread. http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2558000

Andy Mac responded:

I wrote the spec for this and its working as designed

And yes if you have 12,000 men on an atoll attacking it and the defender has 6,000 men then exactly where would you store the offloaded supplies - ah yes they are in the water ammo food drinking water !!!

The original spec for atolls had them at 4k but I was persuaded that without more fragmentation of units it wasnt possible to be that historic - i.e. we are already 50% more than I wanted before testing and Brady persuaded me that as each atoll was defacto defended by bespoke garrisons which a player cannot recreate in game I had to allow some wriggle room

Atolls just werent big enough assault troops must be supplied from the sea and the more troops you have ashore the less room you have to work with and the harder it is to keep up logistics

Best advice take it on day 1 or 2 or give up reload and pull out

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

I guess you missed the thread.

I went and read the thread. If that's what you saw that's what you saw. Andy didn't confirm or deny the manual's explaination as working or not. I haven't re-worked the numbers to see if the percentages work out given the spoilage escalator for over-stacking.

One thing you don't report is what the port/airbase sizes were and their effect on normal spoilage. Even with that, if your figures are correct, I stand by my conclusion that Midway can be supplied--easily---at your Case 2 number of 1700 per day. I don't think you need three crack regiments to defend Midway from invasion if you have proper air and CD installed. Nine thousand total men will do if you chose the LCUs carefully.

[vettim89]

One of the older PTO games (may have been PacWar) had it built into the combat routine that if you didn't take an atoll in two days, the troops loaded back onto the transports automatically. While AE is such a quantum leap forward as far as the game engine, that was a nice feature that was highly realistic. If you couldn't bust the defenses in quick order in such a small space, you were not going to accomplish it. Best to regroup and try another day.

Historically when you look at Wake Island, you can see that even a poorly prepared and supplied unit could repel an attack on an atoll. In truth if the American mind set was the same as the Japanese, i.e. fight to the last man/no surrender, the second Wake invasion probably would have failed also. Considering what happened to the survivors, the Marines and civilians probably should have fought it out.

That said, the USMC learned a lot at Tarawa and if you look at the operations at Kwajalein you can see that a very different approach was taken.

[Bullwinkle58]

Probably hijacking the AAR, so I'll try to stop after this, but I went and looked at some Midway history. In 1943 the normal, non-battle complement of the island was a bit over 5000, with a full sub base, air field, and aircraft maintenance facility. The main island, Sand, is about 2.5 square miles. Airstrip takes a bunch, but there's ample room on either side for operations. POL farms are "dense pack" in terms of real estate (I know that from DG in RL.) Personnel facilities are also not big real estate eaters--multi-man tents, chow halls, rudimentary sanitation. (Trash burned and the whole Pacific for sewage disposal.) Spare parts take a fair bit of room, especially large things like engines, but even so 2.5 sq. miles is a lot of room.

Those talking about supplies tumbling into the ocean really don't understand how much space there is in 2.5 sq. miles of open sand. Midway isn't jungled or vertical.

I think the specs Andy designed work, even if they do or don't reflect what is in the manual (Still haven't tried to work the math for spoilage; will let the algorithm tell me what it's doing.) While Midway was fully functional with 5000 men, and still would have been with 6000, and would have been with the 6700 I have in my game. it wouldn't have been with 15,000. Those men wouldn't have consumed 90x the supplies, but they would have gotten in each others' way to the extent that no work would have happened, and supply usage is the only mechanism the game has to penalize for that, aside from disruption.

I re-looked at the cargo spec table, and Midway, with a Port 3, can unload 11,250 per day, and more if you send a lettered Det or naval support squads. That supports the Case 2 consumption in the test results linked in the thread, and allows for supply build as well. I sent engineers to boost the port and airfield as fast as possible after 12/7, then pulled them out and sent the Marine defense unit. If you stage the manpower you can work under 10,000 men and still get the island stable and defensible over several months. With Forts at 3 or more, it doesn't take a lot of LCU to defend.

[vettim89]

Da Moose is right - the amplified supply usage is not meant to represent a historical fact that overpacked atolls saw increased supply usage but instead that overpacked atolls would not have been tenable. In my WiTP game, my opponent had 32,000 troops on Marcus Island. I figured it out that it worked out to like 30 sq ft per man. Can you imagine what the effect of a late war USN pre-invasion bombardment would have been in such a situation? So the supply factor is just a mechanism to force sanity onto players nothing more. The other thing is with the expanding AE map there a lot more options. Putting so many eggs in one basket doesn't make as much sense in AE as it did in WiTP

[witpqs]

Moose,

I might have put it in the footnotes but I stayed below the island's supply maximum to avoid spoilage penalty. Agree you can support 1,700 extra but you will have to supply them.

Disagree about supplying significantly higher numbers. Technically possible but both impractical and futile. Lots of ships and supplies - too many - that could be shipped elsewhere. The real kicker is this - your ships can only unload when the island is not under attack. When under attack, those troops will all be out of supply very quickly, then they fight at 25%. So, just put fewer troops there and get same results for fewer supplies and ships!

Trying to be concise so Canoe gets info if he wants it but not too much hijack.

EDIT: Of course you are both right, the supply penalty is an abstraction not meant to be literal. Personal note - once lived in Hoboken, NJ which was 1.1 sq mi with 40k to 50k population all in the 2/3 sq mi residential area.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

Moose,

I might have put it in the footnotes but I stayed below the island's supply maximum to avoid spoilage penalty. Agree you can support 1,700 extra but you will have to supply them.

Disagree about supplying significantly higher numbers. Technically possible but both impractical and futile. Lots of ships and supplies - too many - that could be shipped elsewhere. The real kicker is this - your ships can only unload when the island is not under attack. When under attack, those troops will all be out of supply very quickly, then they fight at 25%. So, just put fewer troops there and get same results for fewer supplies and ships!

Trying to be concise so Canoe gets info if he wants it but not too much hijack.

EDIT: Of course you are both right, the supply penalty is an abstraction not meant to be literal. Personal note - once lived in Hoboken, NJ which was 1.1 sq mi with 40k to 50k population all in the 2/3 sq mi residential area.

I used to work in marketing at Maxwell House, and visited the Fine City of HoBroken to see that old plant on the Hudson. The famous neon cup & last drop sign. Now long gone. But it's right there in the intro sequence in Woody Allen's great movie, "Manhattan", accompanied by Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue."

I have to carp one more time. Yeah, it's supply and ships, but in mid-1942 you have lots of both without many alternate needs. The turn-around to PH is a week. If the base is attacked, he's at the end of a very long, tenuous string, and you have the main USN strength right there at PH. Go kick his butt. Midway can't be a long, drawn out battle for the Japanese, and they have to unload across the beach. At 6000 hard ceiling you have trouble providing base and av support and leaving enough room for really any organic ground defenses. If you can go up 2000 or so you do. But you don't need the three regiments in your Case 3 to get the job done.

I just mowed the grass in anticipation of a 3-in frog strangler rain we're getting tomorow, so time to think about this thread. I have not had a job that involved analysis in a LONG time, and math never was my strong suit. I don't even do much arithmetic these days. But your results and what the manual says still are eating at me as out of synch. The manual seems to suggest a linear relationship between overloaded troop numbers and supply consumption. I don't see any compounding in there, at least in so many words. Yet you saw massive non-linearity (90x more supply consumption with only a little more than 2x troops.) Andy's post in the thread was equivocal. Yes, he designed the spec, and yes, it's "working", (as you showed in spades), but is it working as the manual says it should? Your results are an A-bomb for really not a hugely overbearing amount of over-loading. And your results show an odd function, which if not geometric is at least non-linear.

Any math whizzes who can compare the manual to the posted results care to comment?

Sorry, CR. I'm still reading both AARs, so I can't comment on your fine moves. It's an interesting campaign, no matter what happens. I will say you've both surprised each other.

[witpqs]

But your results and what the manual says still are eating at me as out of synch.

Yup.

I don't think Andy's remarks are equivocal because I only asked about my results, not the manual. Are you gonna tell me you followed The Book your whole career? [:D]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

But your results and what the manual says still are eating at me as out of synch.

Yup.

I don't think Andy's remarks are equivocal because I only asked about my results, not the manual. Are you gonna tell me you followed The Book your whole career? [:D]

Well, no, but the Book isn't usually off by this much. This is a HUGE hole in the manual. Doing this wrong by following the manual might be unrecoverable in some invasions.

My more recent activities have been legal, not business, and I'd say Andy's answer would attract a pretty severe cross-x if he were a witness. "It works" would lead the reasonable man to believe it was "working" as the manual described. And it isn't. By a massive amount.

[Canoerebel]

4/14/42 and 4/15/42

I step away for a day to visit family and I return to find all kinds of comments about various matters. I'll try to address a few.

Midway: I've found that over-stacking a 6,000 limit atoll results in exponentially greater supply usage. In my game with Miller I had something like 7,500 troops on Midway and could not keep the island supplied. I won't do that again, except under very limited circumstances. I have considered keeping a small infantry unit on transports posted east of Midway, then sending it to the island to quickly unload when an enemy invasion appeared imminent (the warning provided by picket ships). Anyhow, to reply to FOW's suggestion - I prefer to have both CD and some decent infantry present. At this point in the game, it would be a blow to lose Midway as it severly impacts the ability of the Allies to move forward (or threaten to move forward) along a CenPac route. So I do plan to boost the garrison AV while withdrawing the almost useless base force (perhaps I'll leave behind just a few base force personnel or use an seaplane tender to allow patrols).

Retreat Mayhem: I have been repeatedly abused by the retreat code in the game. Each time an Allied unit has retreated in India, it has taken the least logical and most useless route. The latest instances: (1) the units defending a base near the SW tip of India retreated south rather than east or north; and (2) four units that were already 30 miles towards a hex to the NE were attacked and retreated south, thereby jumping across about 76 miles of jungle.

India: No big landings or breakouts yet, so I'm still watching anxiously to see how the Japanese campaign will develop. Here's the general situation: (1) NW India: no enemy incursions and this is the best protected region; (2) SW India: 6th Guards Division has taken two bases, but really doesn't have a good line of advance. Indian units in and near Madras and Bangalore seem to be in a decent position to block whichever vector of advance Brad might select; (3) E India: Brad continues to land troops at a base on the east coast, south of Viz. Brad can move south to threaten Madras, north to threaten Calcutta, or west to move into the interior, but this will take time and wouldn't seem particularly efficient; (4) NE India: Japan will soon hold a line of bases from Akyab to Comilla, including Chittagong, though the Allies still hold that base at the moment. It will take some time for Japan to move further west to threaten Calcutta's flank. The Japanse troops at Diamond Harbor haven't tried another attack. Brad will need reinforcements to take this base.

KB: Retired to Colombo, successfully avoiding subs along the way.

Sub Wars: KXI got an xAK just south of Colombo.

SigInt: Reports of 639 men at Iwo Jima and that 144 Regiment is prepping for Canton Island. I have a CD unit on the way to Canton from Pearl.

[witpqs]

On Midway, in my PBM I reinforced with 1 or 2 (whatever would fit at the time) of the small USMC units (para & raider). The base force and defense battalion both grew substantially over time, raising the AV. The defense Bn is particularly nice because it over-strengths on USMC squads and has those nice 4 x 7" guns that were present on Midway IRL.

[crsutton]

ORIGINAL: Canoerebel



Midway: I've found that over-stacking a 6,000 limit atoll results in exponentially greater supply usage. In my game with Miller I had something like 7,500 troops on Midway and could not keep the island supplied. I won't do that again, except under very limited circumstances. I have considered keeping a small infantry unit on transports posted east of Midway, then sending it to the island to quickly unload when an enemy invasion appeared imminent (the warning provided by picket ships). Anyhow, to reply to FOW's suggestion - I prefer to have both CD and some decent infantry present. At this point in the game, it would be a blow to lose Midway as it severly impacts the ability of the Allies to move forward (or threaten to move forward) along a CenPac route. So I do plan to boost the garrison AV while withdrawing the almost useless base force (perhaps I'll leave behind just a few base force personnel or use an seaplane tender to allow patrols).

I don't obsess over Midway. If the Japanese player wants it he will take it, but I think it is about the most easily retaken base on the map. He just is not close enough to support it. I would gladly look for a major fight there as any Japanese ship that is heavily damaged so far from home is in serious trouble.