Mogami's AAR

[boomboom]

What about the mix of planes on big carriers?
Do you get to stock what type of planes it will carry?
I to woundered about barges to.

[mogami]

Hi, Joel thank you very much, there it was plain as day. I wonder how i missed it after spending all those seconds reading the manual before beginning. The rule is very easy to understand and a work of genius in it's concept. I think I have 56 barges waiting to use. (I have not been into my game since logging on today I have PBEM games stacking up. (I post here while the turns are coming or going)

[Sinjen]

Boomboom,

Historical plane mix

Japanese:

Zero/Val/Kate

US:

Wildcat/Dauntless/Devastator

As time passes you get upgrades to all air units such as avengers replacing the Devestator etc as the proper amount becomes available in your replacement pool.

Air wings are attached to carriers. They will only leave them if the carrier is too damaged to recover them. If the carrier is repaired enough to recover, they will then transfer back. If the carrier sinks they will withdraw from the theatre and the planes and pilots put in the replacement pool I believe. If you send the carrier back to japan or Pearl they go with it and rest and refit as needed.

Carrier Air Wings seem to receive replacements when you Dock at Noumea or brisbane. Not sure if they recieve air replacements docking at other ports.

You can tranfer LBA units all over as you see fit. However, the Carrier pilots are attached to their carriers until it sinks or they die. I believe this is to reflect the level of training required to land on a carrier etc. I'm not sure if the land based A-24 Dauntless squadrons can transfer to the carriers or not. I just haven't tried it yet.

[brisd]

Mogami, congrats on the superb handling of the Japanese side. I firmly believe that with the proper leadership, they can prevail as you have. You seem to have the tactics down and the grand strategy to make the enemy pay for their lapses. Looking forward to getting my game on Monday so I can follow in your footsteps. I will save my comments on UV's accuracy for when I've played it myself, but the combat results seems accurate and very possible given your tactics, of which I believe humbly to share the same philosophy. Thanks for the AAR and happy sailing.

[mogami]

Greetings, Perhaps the situation needs some evaluation.
It is only Aug 1942. Of the 4 CV sank 2 were in fact already sank, but Japan had lost 4 CV and 1CVL in exchange and this made victory in the South Pacific campaigns difficult to obtain.
In CA's I would be almost satisfied as the USN. True the 4 IJN CA are the smallest but still they represent 20percent of the total (Japan again benefits from the May start date as the CA lost at Midway is saved) The North Carolina episode I do fault the AI for-there is a major action developing in the South West Pacific and this ship/TF is expended on a mission that even had it been a complete success would have yielded no permanent or important result.

The major problem is how to continue. The geography occupied does not matter if obtaining it does not lead to further enemy material loss. How many boxers have been knocked out trying to land a knock out blow themselves. How many armies in history have rode a wave of spectacular yet undecisive victories only to meet a spectacular and decisive defeat because they went beyond their means? To avoid the temptation of altering the strategic long range operational plans as a result of unexpected tactical success I sent half the carriers back to Japan (along with a quarter of the other units.) I kept what the plan called for. (and a small reserve) The intention remains to prepare for further operations east of Lunga when the time comes. When sufficient land forces have been gathered (I want to achieve a 2-1 ratio to begin with) It is possible that the US will have 3 divisions deployed on the target. (1st Mar Div Americal and what ever else they decide) Hopefully SouthPAc will transfer assets to SouthWest Pac (since I have no further targets in that area I hope them to receive a portion from where I do. I would not be happy to be placed in the current allied situation but I would not be left feeling hopeless if I was. They still have a lot in their favor. (Land based air, very strong ground combat units, and further arrivals of powerful naval units) They also still have 16 months.

[mogami]

Greetings, Well operations to take Gilli Gilli suffered a major set back over 15k Japanese troops have been lost to date, less then half that number of allies. Fresh troops are being landed. San Cristobal has a size 1 airbase now and scout planes are keeping watch for the next AI surface force headed for Lunga. Most of the IJN is up at Truk where the shipworkers are busy repairing the system damage.

[mogami]

Greetings 3 Sept 42
I think I will leave Gilli Gilli alone for a while. For some reason I had been under the impression it was held by prehaps a division at most. There are 6 RCT and 4 Aus Bde there. I have to figure out how I am going to explain the loss of 30k men to IHQ without them handing me a dagger. The good news is the 2 CVL have finished repair and are returning to Rabaul. I will set up 2 aircombat TF's to close Gilli Gilli from resupply. It has cost me a great deal but now I know where a great prize can be locked up and then destroyed.

Ground combat at Gili Gili

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 32466 troops, 330 guns, 0 vehicles

Defending force 19732 troops, 164 guns, 41 vehicles

Allied assault odds: 2 to 1 (fort level 0)


Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 15881
Guns lost 179
Vehicles lost 54

Allied ground losses:
Men lost 26

[Mike Wood]

Hello...

Carrier air groups are assigned to specific carriers. You may, however, change those assignments. You can transfer a carrier to group to a land base or another carrier. In the case of another carier, you might need to transfer a group off that ship, to make room. A carrier can have any aircraft, except float types, operating from it, that is carrier trained.

Hope this Helps...

Michael Wood

[cpt_Venomous]

Originally posted by Mogami



Japanese ground losses:
Men lost 15881
Guns lost 179
Vehicles lost 54

Allied ground losses:
Men lost 26

why such disproportional losses, Japanese troops out of supply?
vehicles? were they tanks? armored cars? What about all out last
Banzai charge, allies should have heavier losses.

[Ron Saueracker]

Too busy PBEMing, probably.

[cpt_Venomous]

Last I heard U2 thrushed him real good, for sure got stock on one of those islands, ashamed either commited seppuku or planning to holdout harrasing and parasiting off natives, burning their crops and stealing their chickens for the next 25 years.

[Drex]

i fear Mogami has established a template for victory that others will use. How about changing sides after this one is over?

[mogami]

Greetings, I have not had much time for my solo game. U2, Sinjen, Ironbottomsound, Eric R and Snigbert keep me constantly busy making PBEM turns. SO far both Eric and Sinjen have won battles in our games (I am Japan vrs Eric and Allied vrs Sinjen) U2 and I have yet to fight any actions other then air and sub/asw Snigbert chose scen 16 with me as Japan and there is very little I can do for the time being (only 4 CA and some DD on map) Ironbottom and I are playing 2 scen 17 one from each side, nothing to report yet outside his occupying Lunga early as Allies and I am trying to extract payment. With Eric, I was unable to get a desisive carrier battle and then tried to press PM regardless, some intial success met with a series of horrible air attacks from PM (cost a BB and damage to carriers) So I would say PM is safe unless something drastic should occur.
In the solo I am still repairing wear and tear damage to fleet. I did manage to get S. Nishamura killed. He prevented the bombardment of Lunga. Poor weather kept most of Lungas bombers from flying.


AFTER ACTION REPORTS FOR 09/05/42

Night Time Surface Combat, near Lunga at 38,40

Japanese Ships
DD Nenohi, Shell hits 13, and is sunk
DD Ariake
DD Mutsuki, Shell hits 4
DD Kikuzuki
DD Kamikaze, Shell hits 10, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage (sank after battle)
DD Asanagi, Shell hits 1, on fire
DD Minekaze, Shell hits 36, and is sunk
DD Hokaze
DD Namikaze

Allied Ships
CA Astoria, Shell hits 5
CA Minneapolis, Shell hits 20, Torpedo hits 2, on fire, heavy damage
DD Woodworth, Shell hits 3
DD Russell
DD Morris
DD Bagley
DD Sterett
DD Wilson
DD Craven
DD Cummings
DD Selfridge
DD Phelps


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air attack on TF, near Tulagi at 38,39

Japanese aircraft
A6M2 Zero x 16
D3A Val x 3
G3M Nell x 15

Japanese aircraft losses
G3M Nell x 2 damaged

Allied Ships
CA Minneapolis, Bomb hits 1, Torpedo hits 1, on fire, heavy damage

Attacking Level Bombers:
4 x G3M Nell at 200 feet
4 x G3M Nell at 200 feet
3 x G3M Nell at 200 feet
4 x G3M Nell at 200 feet

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Erik Rutins]

Reminds me of the first surface battle we had off Lunga, with Lee's cruisers fighting Nishamura's "Fish & Game Patrol".

As I recall, I also lost Minneapolis in that one. As for your reputation, your posts prior to release followed up by your capture of Port Moresby within a few days of having the game pretty much clinched it.

Certainly, Mogami is a challenging opponent and rarely gives me any tactical opportunities. So far, my few opportunities to even the score have been based more on some fortunately good strategic choices than anything else. Still, he leads by a wide margin in ship and air points. It would have been easy for me to slip up and give him a much wider margin at several key points.

As for our most recent big battle, seeing my heavily escorted raids from Port Moresby get shredded by some extremely heavy and skilled carrier zeros was quite an experience. The US Air Corps and the RAAF had some very bad moments there. Fortunately, I had kept enough in reserve to put a few bombs into his bombardment TFs and carrier TFs from 1000 feet a few days later when he tried to finish the job.

Regards,

- Erik

[mogami]

Greetings, 16 Sept 42, 11 days of massive aircombat over Gili have reduced allied air considerably. On Sept 6th over 50 allied fighters flew cap. On Sept 15th 5 fighters defended. (all were shot down. ) The airbase has been bombarded by a 2 BB TF and is under attack from Rabaul, PM, and Lunga. A TF of 2 CV and 2 CVL is on station to keep transports from resuppling. The force driven from PM remains one hex outside. A Japanese recon of 2 Nav Garr units reveals the force is 3 Bde and elements of 2 others. I plan on driving it further north where it will be harder for the enemy to resupply it. Santa Cristabol is building. No enemy surface or carrier TF have been spotted in last 10 days.

[mogami]

Greetings, 26 Sept 42. Continued airbattles over Gili-Gili Allies putting up 5-10 aircraft per day opposed by strikes of 100-120 Japanese. A 2 BB TF bombarded. US bombardment TF composed of BB Washington 2 CA 2 CL and 10 DD lays waste to Japanese TF of 10 DD then sinks entire ASW TF of 6 PC when it gets home to L'ville Japanese subs sink the Washington (she had been hit by 3 torps in surface battle. Washington is the 100th Allied ship sunk (as far as score/FOW reveals) 3281 value of allied ships sunk 49 Japanese ships worth 383 points have been lost.
TF of 2CV 2CVL headed to take up station and intercept any future attempts at Lunga. (I am also dispatching all my minelayers to begin mining operations on route to L'ville)
Air attacks are claiming 300+ killed in Gili and the hex north of PM everyday. Hopefully I am wearing both these forces out. The 2 BB TF is also moving to Lunga (even though I have repeatly decided not to suffer anymore losses at Lunga in surface battles there has been no TF to spare till now)

[mogami]

Hi, Geez remember when UV was new and we didn't have a clue?
Now a year later I think I have made 7 or 8k turns and have taken to naming my opponents strategy. "The Luganville gambit"
The Port Moresby Dash" The Lunga dog pile"
I don't think I've ever spent so much time playing one game.

Except for playtesting I've not began a game against the AI since my first PBEM game.

[Tristanjohn]

That was an interesting read throughout, Mogami. Thanks for the time and effort you put in.

I've only had the game since this past May (actually a birthday present for my son, I admit to hogging most of the screen hours) and have thus far only been able to invest a moderate amount of time with it--most of this, however, against human opponents, both of whom have more experience with the title than I, and this must be viewed as somewhat more challenging than AI play on balance.

I have a couple of comments to make re this game. As a preface I should say that I tend to view UV as no more than a kind of preview to the greater WitP system. That is, I've no problem looking at UV as an individual game system in its own right, which in fact it certainly is, but my reason for taking it apart and looking at it in a critical light is to try and understand, as far as possible, what might lie in store for us down the road with WitP in mind in terms of system mechanics and designer preferences and overall (if any) bias as the latter could affect play vis-a-vis the game system and that portion of WWII history it wishes to model.

Overall, I've got to say that with UV Gary Grigsby seems to have written yet another (in reality third-generation) winner into the books, and with WitP still in the offing that must bode well for historical gamers everywhere. If nothing else, UV plays like a game that . . . well, desires (and deserves) to be played. It's fun to interface with, which is no mean statement when one considers the time scale at work and attendant drudgery of minutiae. Guns and butter, beans and bullets . . . say, does anyone ever feel like some poor forgotten quartermaster (can you say Mister Roberts?) when playing this monster?

Anyway, hats off to Gary and the team helping him.

Having said as much, as a WWII historical simulation per se (i.e., a more-or-less accurate model of land, air and naval doings in the South-West and South-Pacific theatres of action) I'm afraid that UV tends to stumble.

Reading through this thread of yours, Mogami (I think of it as your thread, though of course in a venue of this nature a thread is an organic thing, which grows from and eventually becomes whatever it becomes based on the collective effort of all contributors), I'm struck by the total absence of any commentary whatsoever re the (very heavy and ahistorical) imbalance (based on my reading and understanding of WWII history) between the Japanese and Allied sides in UV. I don't know why this should be--perhaps it is a convention on this board to go along with the "spirit" of a given thread (in this case an AAR of your joust with the computer opponent) and not let it digress into something else, something, let us say, more contentious. And I have no problem with that as far as it goes, though again, at the end of day I must wonder what we (in the collective sense) might have learned from it all.

How to beat the computer opponent as the Japanese? That has some value no doubt to many gamers, though given what I've seen of UV thus far I'd venture to say it might be of more value to take the other (USN) side of the board versus the AI and distill from that a strategy worth close analysis--with an eye, always, to wringing some gaming truth from this title.

So, what about the system itself? Where does that wish to go (remember, my sights are set on WitP)?

Based on my admittedly limited play (several sorties versus the AI, as both Japanese and Allied side) and three (one completed) bouts versus human opponents (all of whom desired to play the Japanese--does anyone wonder why? ) to date I feel comfortable in these two statements: the incredible bias (if you will, call it a misunderstanding of context with the hsitorical participants in mind) for all things Japanese military, most especially CV TF play and in general all air actions (but this bias pretty much creeps into most critical areas of the game system--at least before 1943--I stress to add I haven't gotten that far yet) in UV) is 1) all too real and 2) has left me (my apologies, but there is no other word for it) stunned. And unless some serious questions are asked inhouse by the group of people who have WitP in the works I'm afraid my dream for a realistic WWII simulation of the campaign in the Pacific will founder once again on the rocks of the general gaming public's reef of historical indifference.

(That's not given as a shot in isolation, by the way. But the thing is I've been around the hobby for some time--far longer than most, as long as just about anyone by now--and I've seen all this before with both wargames and sports simulations: the loudest voices holler long and loud for their favorite "features" and whatnot, and in the end more thoughtful players get somehow basically ignored, to the detriment of the "historical" side of the issue. Result? You get a game that may or may not be fun to play (Gary's almost always are the most fun--he's simply a genius at designing fun games) but a "simulation" which is ill-suited to teach anyone anything worthwhile in terms of actual history.)

Should anyone show interest I'll take polite questions and answer these to the best of my ability, otherwise I'll limit my comments here to those I've rendered and pursue my thoughts and impressions re this matter of historicity in another (which I believe to be a more appropriate) direction.

Again, thanks for your effort with the AAR here, Mogami, and your informative and helpful (to me at least) work elsewhere on this site. Perhaps one day when WitP arrives you and I might hook up in a full campaign, replete with detailed AARs written with useful perspective from both sides of the Guadacanal parallel.

Tris

[mogami]

Hi, This was my very first AAR. (Check the date for the first post) I had the game before many other people and posted this AAR as I went along. I played for over 40 hours without sleep. There was no critical game balance question because I had never played the game before. (I was in love) When I played this game I was not sure the Japanese could capture PM. Now it is almost automatic. This game remained unfinished because other people got their copies and I discovered PBEM.

[wobbly]

Originally posted by Mogami
Hi, This was my very first AAR. (Check the date for the first post) (I was in love) When I played this game I was not sure the Japanese could

What, with the game or was a pesky example of the opposite sex getting in the way of our AARs?