The Hive - Cruft PBEM (Japan, Scen 2 Beta + Stacking Limits)

[Captain Cruft]

Gygax?

Well spotted. Yes Ground Attack by the Swarm has been relegated to the history books. The losses to flak are just too high for the results. It did serve its purpose well in China though earlier on.

The purposes of the Swarm these days (or actually not these days but later) will be Naval Attack, CAP & Sweep. An army of 1,000+ planes doing any of those from an indestructible airbase ought to give him pause. Of course for Naval Attack I will mix up conventional attacks by dive and torpedo bombers with the sea skimming fighters. However with the beta I do not believe there is a concept of "swamping the CAP" of a CV Deathstar. Or at least not in one day.

As for Torpedo Avalanche I think the idea now will be more like "Ship Avalanche", and the idea would be more to get in the way and interfere than destroy much. Just the existence of Surface Combat TFs in and around a landing hex can cause serious disruption and delays to the attackers.

It's the combination of the two arms (air and sea) which may be able to create Decisive Battle like conditions.

Armaments and Vehicles is an ongoing thing so I won't really know until later. Certainly I anticipate having to turn both back on at some point.

[Captain Cruft]

Decisive Battle

We will try and do this at Formosa first, but if that doesn't work then Kyushu is the place.

Or, if he wants to try landing directly at Yokohama that would be even better

[Cribtop]

Cool. Thanks for the responses.

As for Gygax, that was an unintentional return to my middle school AD&D days, I suppose. I meant to type Grigsby. [:D]

You are correct that incoming SCTFs can cause amphib TFs to up anchor and abandon an attack. Should be fun to watch the enormous combined arms attack slam into a single hex invasion fleet.

[Captain Cruft]

Surface Combat TFs can also make transports retreat before they even get to their destination, and even retreat back to somewhere that isn't their home port.

Retreat and React - two different ways in which you lose control of your ships. This has to be the key to defeating the Allied armadas. I know lots of players hate this stuff but IMO losing control is essentially the thing which makes Grigsby games great.

[Captain Cruft]

05 Jan 1944

Not much going on apart from the below, which I thought was quite pleasing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ground combat at Bangkok (56,62)

Allied Deliberate attack

Attacking force 79909 troops, 1306 guns, 1819 vehicles, Assault Value = 2810

Defending force 40043 troops, 486 guns, 214 vehicles, Assault Value = 1339

Allied engineers reduce fortifications to 5

Allied adjusted assault: 1294

Japanese adjusted defense: 10393

Allied assault odds: 1 to 8 (fort level 5)

Combat modifiers
Defender: terrain(+), forts(+), leaders(+)
Attacker:

Japanese ground losses:
2223 casualties reported
Squads: 9 destroyed, 238 disabled
Non Combat: 18 destroyed, 55 disabled
Engineers: 2 destroyed, 11 disabled
Guns lost 90 (3 destroyed, 87 disabled)
Vehicles lost 26 (4 destroyed, 22 disabled)
Units destroyed 1

Allied ground losses:
4774 casualties reported
Squads: 22 destroyed, 408 disabled
Non Combat: 3 destroyed, 97 disabled
Engineers: 9 destroyed, 128 disabled
Guns lost 93 (2 destroyed, 91 disabled)
Vehicles lost 59 (1 destroyed, 58 disabled)

Assaulting units:
19th Indian Division
7th Australian Division
18th British Division
72nd British Brigade
XV Corps Engineer Battalion
25th Indian Division
11th Indian Division
20th Indian Division
50th Tank Brigade
XXXIII Corps Engineer Battalion
29th British Brigade
8th Medium Regiment
XXXIII Indian Corps
28th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
III Indian Corps
IV Indian Corps
Southeast Asia
85th British AT Gun Regiment
24th Indian Mountain Gun Regiment
5th Field Regiment

Defending units:
6th RTA Division
7th RTA Division
21st Division
55th Division
4th RTA Division
RTA Cavalry Division
8th RF Gun Battalion
32nd Field AA Battalion
35th Field AA Battalion
29th Fld AA Gun Co
7th JAAF Base Force
6th RF Gun Battalion
21st JAAF AF Bn /1
5th Field AF Construction Battalion
Royal Thai Army
35th JAAF AF Bn
53rd Const Co /1
41st JAAF AF Bn
35th Fld AA Gun Co
36th Field AA Battalion
15th Const Co /1
Thai Aviation Coy
7th Field AF Construction Battalion
43rd Const Co /1
3rd Air Div /1

[Captain Cruft]

Hiatus

My opponent is off on a week's vacation so there will be no turns until Wed/Thu next week.

This has given me the opportunity to do a very comprehensive turn. I have made a few production decisions:-

Less Oscars (still lots though)
More Franks
More Lily DBs
Re-started A6M2 Zero on small scale (purely to get the Sen-Baku)
Re-started G4M1 Betty

The reason for the last item is that the P1Y1 Frances with its service rating of 4 is proving to be rather troublesome to use as a frontline aircraft. So I am going to relegate it to training purposes and only use Nells and Betties on the front-line until the P1Y2 Frances arrives, with its service rating of 2. The opportunities for torpedo strikes are diminishing as we go on anyway. Dive bombers and low-level fighters will be more the thing.

On the army front the unaccelerated Ki-67-1a Peggy has started rolling off the lines. Eventually I will be making well over 100 a month. With it's high speed, good durability and 14/17 hex range this will be my primary GrdB platform for the rest of the war. A "Peggy division" of 5 x size 36 non-withdrawing IJAAF airgroups is forming up on Formosa, from where the vital port of Manila can be addressed.

Apart from this I have also been through the entire land OOB looking for TOE Upgrades. The only one I found that I didn't already know about was the 29th Div at Mukden, which swaps out its IJA Cavalry Squads for some Tanks. This upgrade is available now, so it should happen next turn.

[Captain Cruft]

07 Jan 1944

The game has resumed.

He has landed two divisions at Port Blair, where they will face the rather hungry Indian National Army. I just dumped them there since I didn't actually want to use them properly.

Takao is the first base to reach size 9 forts. The now idle engineers will move to Kagi to build it up. They can be back in two days should the Decisive Battle be about to kick off.

[Captain Cruft]

CruftMod

Partly based on my experience of playing this game I am thinking of making a mod of the GC. There is a post in the Scenario Design forum if you're interested.

fb.asp?m=3364299

[Captain Cruft]

Kamikazes

Somewhat to my surprise Kamikazes are now available. There was no message in the Ops Report. I think this is because he has taken Chumphon which is exactly 15 hexes by sea from Saigon.

I'm probably not going to use them but presumably we will now see more pilots voluntarily dying for the Emperor.

[Captain Cruft]

09 Jan 1944

Massive Sweeps over Manado from Ambon and Kendari. The CAP was duly exhausted but he paid quite a price, particularly in P-47s.

Port Blair falls, while at Rangoon he is content to just do bombardments which do little damage.

[Richard III]

Been lurking here, great thoughtful AAR...[;)]

I`d be really interested in seeing how they work in this game.

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

Kamikazes

Somewhat to my surprise Kamikazes are now available. There was no message in the Ops Report. I think this is because he has taken Chumphon which is exactly 15 hexes by sea from Saigon.

I'm probably not going to use them but presumably we will now see more pilots voluntarily dying for the Emperor.

[Captain Cruft]

There should start to be some Kamikaze hits alongside the normal bomb and torpedo hits in Naval Attacks. You also get ramming of bombers in air combat but this only shows in the combat replay.

The only units I may use as outright Kamikazes are the dedicated training groups which arrive on the Home Islands in 1945. This is the only way to use them other than for training. It will depend on the situation at that point.

[Cribtop]

If you ever get to the point where the pilot HI tax is causing problems for the economy, you could use a few kami groups to "thin the herd."

[Captain Cruft]

12 Jan 1944

More airfields and planes get destroyed. I do not have a base that can resist the c.300 4Es he now has anywhere beyond Formosa. We must continue to put up a show though.

I think that a demonstration on his flank might be in order just to remind him that he does not have a monopoly on firepower.

[Captain Cruft]

13 Jan 1944

The demonstration has started. A very noisy "KB" has left the Home Islands for an undisclosed location out in the Pacific.

Once again I have lied. There are now 3 Kamikaze airgroups on the map. Only small ones though, 2 IJA and 1 IJN. What I realised is that given our HR restricting low-level Naval Attacks this is the only useful way to deploy bomb-carrying level bombers against shipping.

[Captain Cruft]

WitP Myths

Just as an aside, I think I may have achieved WitP greatness by acquiring a Japanese bomber pilot with a kill. This occurred during a useless night bombing mission over Rabaul and I can't remember what the downed plane was, probably a P-39 or P-40.

Lt. Hirata probably started out in Netties and has certainly never flown a fighter.

[Cribtop]

Hi-RA-Ta!

[Richard III]

Those 24th. Air Flotilla flying boat pilots have some high stats. in NavB, NavT and GrdB and Defn. Can I ask if you trained them up, or just combat flying experience over 4 years ?

[Captain Cruft]

They're mostly former Nettie jockeys who started out at Takao or Saigon.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft

WitP Myths

Just as an aside, I think I may have achieved WitP greatness by acquiring a Japanese bomber pilot with a kill. This occurred during a useless night bombing mission over Rabaul and I can't remember what the downed plane was, probably a P-39 or P-40.

Lt. Hirata probably started out in Netties and has certainly never flown a fighter.

Amazing!!!

I certainly haven't had one yet.