cap_and_gown(j) v witpqs(a) - no witpqs

[veji1]

This is just terrifying... It looks like only the Google and the Essex can make it alive... You probably sunk 8 CVs... This is a monstruosity. I suppose you could just hang around another day to finish off the few real cripples that can hardly move before retreating as Ponape becomes open for the US. Lets hope a US Sub doesn't get a lucky hit. Still even if you were to lose a couple of flattops, 8CVs 3CVLs 8 CVEs and 5 or 6 BBs is just abominable... That's close to what 60 000 sailors gone in 2 days ?

Brrrr... Witpqs must be crying hard now..

[Canoerebel]

Edited: I omitted my comments regarding the "bait" xAKL/SC because I read more and see that it has already been addressed at length. No need in reopening that matter.

Edited Part II: Setting a carrier TF to "do not react" and having it follow a combat TF (or a transport TF) will not prevent the carriers from reacting against orders. I had it happen scores of times in WitP and something like a dozen times in my AE game vs. Miller. My carriers nearly always reacted - I can think of only one occasion when they didn't. It drove me nuts.

As for C&Gs game, an amazing victory for Japan. I don't think C&G included aircraft losses in his combat report excerpts, but it looked to me like Allied CAP and flak defense of the fleet was awfully porous.

[veji1]

Well it is always difficult, baits, picket ships, etc... To be honest it didn't seem to play much of a role here, it isn't as if the allied had sent a 400 planes strike at an AK.

[janh]

I am really not sure that so many CV/L/E can be considered sunk already.   Hornet and Yorktown especially.  There are so many AAR that show that even badly hit ships can get through alive, if not pursued and brought to and end -- even Japanese.  Now add the excellent US damage-repair and fire-suppression capabilities, and you'll soon meet some of them again when you least expect them...  

[Q-Ball]

You have to continue the attack, as long as you have air superiority. Even the CVs hit yesterday, only SHOHO appears at risk of sinking, and she looks 50/50 anyway.

Plus, you have to sink the USS GOOGLE. I hate those joke names!

[pws1225]

I second Q-Ball's post. The GOOGLE must go!

[KenchiSulla]

Congratulations on this victory! BANZAI!

[Q-Ball]

I'm just curious, did you get that "Tokyo Rose" sound effect claiming 2 Carriers, a Battleship, and numerous cruisers and destroyers sunk?

Because in this case, it ain't propoganda![:'(]

In fact, she is underestimating a bit!

[invernomuto]

OMG!!!!
What a terrifing strike!
Congrats for your success.
[&o][&o][&o][&o]

[Ketza]

Now you went and done it. [8D]

You proved that a late war CV engagement can be won by Japan....

Uh oh!

The AE naval academy instructors will be presenting this battle for years and young cadets will be dreaming of the day they can duplicate your results.

Banzai!

[FatR]

A great victory, and good planning, but I'd say your opponent asked for this. Maybe easy retaking of Southern Pacific made him complacent, and he underestimated your true carrier strength by a lot, but he still should have drawn necessary tactical lessons from your actions at Marshalls.

Now Allies must resort to what they should have been doing from the beginning - applying relentless pressure and making small leaps wherever they can bring their LBA to play. At least Burma and New Guinea fit for this.

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: FatR

A great victory, and good planning, but I'd say your opponent asked for this. Maybe easy retaking of Southern Pacific made him complacent, and he underestimated your true carrier strength by a lot, but he still should have drawn necessary tactical lessons from your actions at Marshalls.

Now Allies must resort to what they should have been doing from the beginning - applying relentless pressure and making small leaps wherever they can bring their LBA to play. At least Burma and New Guinea fit for this.

My analysis of this battle is that witpqs felt that the IJN would withdraw after suffering 500 plane losses last turn. This is what happened after the strike on Wotje. He probably felt we would do that again.

A comment on my overall planning: It has been my plan all along to have a decisive carrier battle sometime in 1943 after the arrival of the Taiho and the first 3 Unryu's, (April) or all six Unryu's (Sept.). My plan was to use LBA to weaken allied carrier CAP during the initial stages of the battle and then commit the KB once the allied CAP had suffered high levels of attrition.

This was the battle plan I attempted to execute in the Marshalls. The problem there was that the only effective way to attack the carrier CAP was to have the allies strike at something and attack their fighter escorts with my own CAP/LRCAP. The altitude advantage is too absolute and exaggerated to hope to be able to hurt the enemy CAP with escorts and sweeping an enemy fleet is not possible. Thus, the only effective way to engage the enemy CAP is to provide "bait" TFs which your own fighters can then CAP/LRCAP. I did not recognize the game system was flawed in this way until I put my battle plan into effect in the Marshalls. It is because of the flawed game system that I decided I had to resort to "bait" TFs.

OTOH, the Marshalls did show it was possible to hit the allies without being hit in return. This is what we did at Wotje and had pretty good results: 3 CVE; 2 BB sunk. So now my thinking turned to trying to arrange a one way strike as soon as possible before the allies grew any stronger. A battle over Ponape was hardly ideal for this. Ponape itself is isolated and easily suppressed. (which is what I plan on doing to it.) And the only other base close by is Truk. I would have preferred to have this battle in the Marianas where the allies would not be able to have the support of LBA and where I would have multiple airfields for basing my LBA. But the battle needed to happen sooner rather than latter, so Ponape was chosen.

The fleet based itself at Satawal, a dot base. This was far enough away from allied bases to avoid naval search planes, yet close enough to reach position for the decisive battle in one move. Basing at a dot base also offered the advantage of avoiding allied recon. They have been reconnning my major bases such as Rabaul and Truk. Occasionally they will recon some other base in the Gilberts or Solomons. But generally, they have not been reconning the dot bases. So Satawal was not only the right distance from the projected battle zone, but was sufficiently nondescript that the allies might overlook it.

Pilot losses today:
KIA 118
MIA 40
WIA 40

[CapAndGown]

ORIGINAL: TheLoneGunman

If I may offer some advice:

"You're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!"

[:D]

Ah, but you forget the other advice: "Great kid, don't get cocky."

[PzB74]

Great show C&G [:D]
Guess your opponent got big wide eyes when he met 15 Jap fleet carriers by 10/43!!

Hitting the enemy when he's preoccupied with protecting an invasion force is ideal.
You're the hunter and he's the hunted.

I think the Allied player should use 1943 to advance under LBA cover and only start major amph operations in 1944; especially if playing Scen 2.
You will probably not be challenged at sea again until mid 44 - this game will most likely run all its length into 46 now [8D]

[Nemo121]

Well it is possible to advance without LBA cover or even much air cover from carriers if you engage in sufficient strategic deception so I wouldn't say that the Allies need to stick to small advances in 43 ( as necessitated by being under LBA cover ). You can eschew the air cover with a good enough deceptive plan - I routinely invade without air cover in 42 and 43. It costs but strategically it gains far more than it loses IF you choose critical targets. It isn't viable if you conduct a conventional, island by pointless island campaign.

With that said C&G has done very well. If he still has fighters for CAP he should definitely pursue with the CVs etc which are undamaged. He needs to maintain a strong CAP and accept losses to Allied fighters amongst his strikegroups. In the arithmetic of war those strike planes (and their pilots ) are utterly expendable as he can retrain an entirely new strike component from scratch in a quarter of the time it'll take the Allies to bring their CV strength back up to par.

So, keep the CVs safe with massive CAP and only very lightly escort your strike groups. Let them take significant losses on the way into the target. Right now even a few planes getting through will wreak havoc, particularly as the USN FlAK supplies are likely to be running low.

Above all though keep your CVs safe, fly Zeroes from damaged decks to undamaged decks and pursue.... but keep the CAP strong, your strike groups are now ( as opposed to in most normal games ) utterly expendable. If none survive the battle it doesn't matter one iota. But your flightdecks need to survive.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear the Allies sue for peace shortly if you can eliminate their total CV power.

[PaxMondo]

[&o] Great job.  Excellent plan flawlessly executed.  [&o]
 
AS you summarize above, this has been your plan since day 1.  To be able to follow through after +600 turns is a real tribute to focus.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: cap_and_gown

ORIGINAL: FatR

A great victory, and good planning, but I'd say your opponent asked for this. Maybe easy retaking of Southern Pacific made him complacent, and he underestimated your true carrier strength by a lot, but he still should have drawn necessary tactical lessons from your actions at Marshalls.

Now Allies must resort to what they should have been doing from the beginning - applying relentless pressure and making small leaps wherever they can bring their LBA to play. At least Burma and New Guinea fit for this.

My analysis of this battle is that witpqs felt that the IJN would withdraw after suffering 500 plane losses last turn. This is what happened after the strike on Wotje. He probably felt we would do that again.

A comment on my overall planning: It has been my plan all along to have a decisive carrier battle sometime in 1943 after the arrival of the Taiho and the first 3 Unryu's, (April) or all six Unryu's (Sept.). My plan was to use LBA to weaken allied carrier CAP during the initial stages of the battle and then commit the KB once the allied CAP had suffered high levels of attrition.

This was the battle plan I attempted to execute in the Marshalls. The problem there was that the only effective way to attack the carrier CAP was to have the allies strike at something and attack their fighter escorts with my own CAP/LRCAP. The altitude advantage is too absolute and exaggerated to hope to be able to hurt the enemy CAP with escorts and sweeping an enemy fleet is not possible. Thus, the only effective way to engage the enemy CAP is to provide "bait" TFs which your own fighters can then CAP/LRCAP. I did not recognize the game system was flawed in this way until I put my battle plan into effect in the Marshalls. It is because of the flawed game system that I decided I had to resort to "bait" TFs.

OTOH, the Marshalls did show it was possible to hit the allies without being hit in return. This is what we did at Wotje and had pretty good results: 3 CVE; 2 BB sunk. So now my thinking turned to trying to arrange a one way strike as soon as possible before the allies grew any stronger. A battle over Ponape was hardly ideal for this. Ponape itself is isolated and easily suppressed. (which is what I plan on doing to it.) And the only other base close by is Truk. I would have preferred to have this battle in the Marianas where the allies would not be able to have the support of LBA and where I would have multiple airfields for basing my LBA. But the battle needed to happen sooner rather than latter, so Ponape was chosen.

The fleet based itself at Satawal, a dot base. This was far enough away from allied bases to avoid naval search planes, yet close enough to reach position for the decisive battle in one move. Basing at a dot base also offered the advantage of avoiding allied recon. They have been reconnning my major bases such as Rabaul and Truk. Occasionally they will recon some other base in the Gilberts or Solomons. But generally, they have not been reconning the dot bases. So Satawal was not only the right distance from the projected battle zone, but was sufficiently nondescript that the allies might overlook it.

Pilot losses today:
KIA 118
MIA 40
WIA 40

can only agree here, with the Hellcats having the never ending dive (which they´re going to always have due to numbers, working ship based radar and therefore being higher) you get kill rates that seem to be totally absurd. In my last carrier battle the 400 Hellcats lost something like 25 of their own and downed around 400 enemy aircraft. So after one day and downing 400 ac the Hellcat Cap was down by around 5-7%. And the aircraft they faced were crack KB aircraft. Cap isn´t bullet prove anymore (by far not) but with the power of the dive in AE, the kill rates have become even worse than in WITP. In WITP I´ve worn down enemy Uber Cap dozens of time, in AE if you end up against a couple of hundred diving enemy fighters (no matter what side) you will only wear down your own fighters.

[Nemo121]

Castor, that just isn't true. While diving airplanes do get an advantage ( as is proper ) this doesn't relegate one to massive losses. If you plan things well you can get good exchange rates. In a scenario 2 game I'm not having any difficulty keeping to 1:1 loss rates with my escorting fighters vs the enemy CAP fighters.

You have a point re: diving fighters but you damage your own argument with the fact that you keep presenting only the extreme position and not the more rational, realistic one.

[janh]

Witpqs lost the moment he attacked.  He failed to obey several crucial lessons from history.  One was "Recon, recon, recon -- know what, where, when and why".   He did not have a picture of the situation, and stumbled into it blindly.  A good recipe for disaster (unlike the US carriers for example historically at Midway, but again the Japanese!).

C&G excellently used this to his advantage, picked the battle by attacking selectively a weaker portion of the enemy (weaker due to range issues in this case), and defeating them piecemeal.  C&G made excellent use of the initiative he gained by being the one with the complete overview of the situation.  Basically it wasn't Witpqs battle, or attack.  He just brought in his forces in range for the slaughter, but C&G picked and designed the battle.  This is definitely true for the first day's engagement.

Sure luck was with him, but even the bold and aggressive move by Witpqs to continue the battle on the 2nd day was proven a bad decision -- that probably was more a consequence of the omissions on the first day, and a misinterpretation of C&G's expected reaction.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Nemo121

Castor, that just isn't true. While diving airplanes do get an advantage ( as is proper ) this doesn't relegate one to massive losses. If you plan things well you can get good exchange rates. In a scenario 2 game I'm not having any difficulty keeping to 1:1 loss rates with my escorting fighters vs the enemy CAP fighters.

You have a point re: diving fighters but you damage your own argument with the fact that you keep presenting only the extreme position and not the more rational, realistic one.

well, there is no realistic one and that´s the problem. My opponent must be quite a couple of times more stupid than you because I´ve just took down 400 aircraft with a Hellcat Cap for the loss of 25 Hellcats. The combat reports can be seen in my AAR if you want to check it, with all details as I deliberately not edit anything out of the reports. The enemy sent in 500+ aircraft from KB (believe me, these surely were trained ones) and we had 400 Hellcats meeting them. They didn´t stop the raid but the Hellcats suffered only the above mentioned losses and it would have needed 3000 enemy aircraft to wear the Hellcats down as they never stopped diving as radar has put them to a height that they needed so whatever height the enemy uses, the Hellcats are right there. Remember the rabbit and the hedgehog? Of course my fleet would be annihilated due to the "leakers" getting through the Cap (but that´s not the point here).

My PBEM is scen 2 and believe me, no matter what you do, you would not score a 1:1 in escorts vs Hellcat Cap against me as there´s nothing you can do, other than to change the code and that´s not possible for you. But that´s your word against mine. It´s the same as when you say you take down 50% of the enemy bombers at 20000ft with 200 3.7 flak guns and I post screen after screen that 280 3.7 inch guns in my PBEM can´t even take out more than 5-8 bombers at 10000ft out of 100 bombers.

But hey, Cap&gown probably hasn´t got the same knowledge (or not the same game) as you because otherwise he would also score a 1:1 vs diving Hellcats. Don´t take that personal Nemo, but we seem to have two completely different versions of the game, which isn´t the case.

I can only agree with Cap&gown about what he said about enemy Cap and them diving as it´s the same I see in my PBEM. I also don´t like to use "baits" and this is going into the gamey direction sooner than later but it´s exactly what he said, the game forces him to do so. But I also wouldn´t agree with many things you (Nemo) come up with in the game as having a 600 fighter with no bomber CV TF is also something I find off the mark, so perhaps it´s just the playstyle that creates absolutely different results between your games and others´.