Sheep in the West! - JocMeister(WA) vs Matt.B. (Axis)

[JocMeister]

So, I decided to start a second PBEM after my first went from a slow crawl to almost a complete stop. When I saw Matt was looking for an opponent I decided to take the jump. We will start with me as the WA.

I know nothing about Matt but I see from the forum he has experience from WitE. Which will mean he has a big advantage on the ground. I did play a lot of WitE on release finishing a full GC both as the Germans and the Soviets. But never any MP and only on the first versions and I know a lot has changed. No doubt I have a lot to learn.

To Matt, Good luck. After this initial post I ask of you to not read any further. [:)]

[JocMeister]

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[font="Verdana"]Turn 1. 3rd-9th June 1943[/font]
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I thought a lot about different openings but finally settled for a careful one. Pelton has showed all too clearly how badly a WA landing outside air support can go. Playing the WA isn´t about gaining VPs but rather not losing them. Slow and steady will be the way to go forward.


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Northern Europe
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The usual shuffle of squadrons and rebasing at new air bases. Bomber Command and 8th is stripped from anything not a heavy bomber. Some recon is also moved to Bomber Command as well as Night Fighters.

USAAF medium bombers as well as some P47s are moved into the empty 9th AF. I plan on slowly shifting the British Stirlings and medium bombers to the 9th as well. The 2nd RAF will have all the FBs including USAAF ones. I will use these sparingly until the landing in mid 44. I need to preserve Typhoons until I land in Europe where they will be invaluable. In my AI game the Typhoons wiped out over 400 Panthers and almost 100 Tigers in a single turn wrecking two good SS divisions.

I also moved 6 FB squadrons from Fighter Command to 2nd RAF. These will train for a bomber role and then convert to Typhoons. (thanks for the idea Loki! [:)]).

Bomber Command - Will target HI/MAN and the odd U-boat factory. May switch them to day if night attacks continue to be feeble.

8th USAAF - Will initially hit the U-boat factories. Once these are surpressed they will switch to daylight MAN attacks.

2nd RAF - Will only be doing fighter sweeps and recon during 43 and early 44. They will then provide the hammer to smash the inevitable Panzer attack on the beachhead.

9th USAAF - Will hit targets in France and possible the Ruhr area. MAN/Railyards/Ports

RAF Fighter Command The short legs of the British fighters mean they will have will have very little to do outside patrolling the English Channel and defending the home Islands. They will do recon runs into France though to free up AD slots for other Commands.

Due to all the reshuffling of planes and especially Recon the first week of bombing is light. Overall plan is to limit VP loss from U-boat factories and concentrate on MAN/OIL/FUEL/HI in that order.

[JocMeister]

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Mediterranean
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As I wrote in the earlier post this will be a conventional landing. Focus will be on defending the landing against Axis naval interdiction. Malta AF provides CAP over the fleet together with the Tactical AF. Tactical and Coastal Command also make sure the sea lanes are as clear as possible.

In line with my idea of protect the landing Strategic AF pounds the Axis airfields on Sicily destroying some 300 planes on the ground. Not without own cost though and 105 Allied bombers don´t make it back. Most bases receive medium damage (47-64). I don´t know the threshold for when planes can no longer operate from a field but I think this will discourage Matt from using his bases on Sicily. Having to fly from mainland Italy getting good interdiction over my landings will be harder. This should ensure Allied superiority over Sicily.

The landings themselves are the standard opening ones. The British 8th Army will land between Modica and Syracuse. II US Corp land in southern Sicily. The second wave is hiding behind Malta for now until the beaches are secured. The 5th US Army will provide backup if a violent Axis counterattack materializes. I will secure Sicily, build up bases to rebase the Mediterranean AF on Sicily and then pound air bases on mainland Italia to dust before making a landing in force. I have seen too many examples in AARs on overambitious Allied landings that are quickly pushed back and annihilated.

Slow and steady does it. Coming from AE I have learned to rely on the Air Force for paving the way for ground forces. I think this will be even more important in WitW where there are heavy WA penalties for ground losses.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

...I have learned to rely on the Air Force for paving the way for ground forces. I think this will be even more important in WitW where there are heavy WA penalties for ground losses.

Good sensible start, I think this is so fundamental it should flash up on the WiTW loading screen if you play the Western Allies.

Your only real advantage at the start is airpower, unit for unit you can't fight the Germans in a fair fight as they have a huge bonus in terms of experience. It will take a long time, and the fall out from the late 1943/1944 Soviet offensives, before shortages of kit starts to erode that benefit.

Neat trick with 8 Air to start with Danzig, may have caught your opponent off balance and its an inevitably unescorted raid in any case (one to steal I think [8D])

[marion61]

Just a suggestion. Use Bomber Cmd. and 8AF to destroy the sub pens the first few turns. And fly bomber command during the day and check what load out they have. Incendiaries are not useful against hardened targets. Destroy those sub pens as fast as you can because every turn they cost you vp's. Worry about bombing other targets after the subs are kaput.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: loki100
Neat trick with 8 Air to start with Danzig, may have caught your opponent off balance and its an inevitably unescorted raid in any case (one to steal I think [8D])

Haha, you are more then welcome. Especially considering I owe you one! [:D]

ORIGINAL: meklore61

Just a suggestion. Use Bomber Cmd. and 8AF to destroy the sub pens the first few turns. And fly bomber command during the day and check what load out they have. Incendiaries are not useful against hardened targets. Destroy those sub pens as fast as you can because every turn they cost you vp's. Worry about bombing other targets after the subs are kaput.

Yeah, you are right. Getting those pens destroyed should be my main priority. Thanks. [:)]

[marion61]

I say this because when '44 hits, you'll be struggling for VP's.

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: meklore61

I say this because when '44 hits, you'll be struggling for VP's.

Yeah, I noticed that in my AI game. Losing 8-15 VPs per turn due to the heavy fighting in France and Italy. This against the AI.. has me quite worried playing a human. In my AI game I banked 550 VPs before my Normandie landing. Doubt I will be able to get even close to that in this game. I´ll probably end up with a negative score when the game is up.

[barkman44]

Do you mean sub factories?

ORIGINAL: meklore61

Just a suggestion. Use Bomber Cmd. and 8AF to destroy the sub pens the first few turns. And fly bomber command during the day and check what load out they have. Incendiaries are not useful against hardened targets. Destroy those sub pens as fast as you can because every turn they cost you vp's. Worry about bombing other targets after the subs are kaput.

[JocMeister]

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[font="Verdana"]Turn 2. 10th-16th June 1943[/font]
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Things did not go quite as expected in the Med!

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Northern Europe
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I take meklores advice and hit the U-boat factories with bomber command. Most sites in Northern Germany is protected by heavy flak though and the RAF pay a heavy price for the day light raid when 300 German fighters greet them. 115 bombers are lost but the big factory (20) at Kiel is almost completely shut down. Some smaller factories take minor damage.

The 8th hit the big factory at Hamburg and closes it completely. Losses are heavy with 104 bombers lost. Next raid should have P38 escort though which will help!

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Mediterranean
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For some reason my paradrops are both destroyed. Only trace of them is in the Destroyed units tab. [&:] Matt tries to push the US forces back in the sea using the the HG Panzer Division and 15th PzG. Luckily the Big Red One easily repulses the attack. After this Matt adopts a forward defense using the Italians as sacrificial lambs. A wall of Italian units are thrown up around the US beachhead. This makes me unable to progress far and I see a lot of German units coming down from Italy and crossing Messina.

I worry about a German counter attack and decide to quickly bring in the 2nd wave as well as embark the US 5th Army. The British 8th Army has a solid foothold for now.

Strategic air continue to pound the AFs on Sicily destroying another hundred or so planes. Mostly fighters. A small number of allied fighters rebase to Sicily.

[obvert]

Woohoo! The sheep lives!! [:D]

Love it. I'll be around often. Gotta learn about this game somehow, and I know your AAR will get into the dirt of it.

Good luck Jocke! May the fleece be with you! [;)]

[witpqs]

Go Jocke! Go Jocke!

[Baelfiin]

If you are running .11 be very careful with your strategic bombers, you can't sustain 100plus losses a week for very long.

[Q-Ball]

The initial set-up for Paras is terrible....if you drop them, re-combine to divisions first. You can fly extra transports from England if you need them. You're probably better off just cancelling them if you keep the initial landings.

[marion61]

If I provide advice and it doesn't work out like you think it should will you exile me to Corsica like some else, whom I won't mention, did me as a reward for assisting him?[8D]

1. Learn to plot your path to the targets. You can avoid a lot of losses by flying around his flak and manned airfields. Hit shift-O to see flak concentrations. I fly over the North Sea when I hit targets that far north to avoid a lot of his defenses.

2. You should encourage him to fight forward and while he's pushing, you destroy all the ports near by and interdict the ferry hexes. That offensive will end with a wimper. And place some naval interdiction around Messina and Reggio to lock the ports down.

[JocMeister]

Hey guys! [:D]

ORIGINAL: Baelfiin

If you are running .11 be very careful with your strategic bombers, you can't sustain 100plus losses a week for very long.

Playing the 0.08. But I see starting pools are a little lower then the first release. 500 B17F/B24 in the pools but the G version will soon be available. Already have a pool 800 of those.

But yes, I will have to be careful with the losses. Things should improve starting next turn when P38s will be available for escort for the 8th. I will probably switch Bomber Command back to Night attacks once I stop loosing VPs to U-boat factories. While the Lancaster pool is huge a very low production will mean I will have a hard time replenishing it.

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
The initial set-up for Paras is terrible....if you drop them, re-combine to divisions first. You can fly extra transports from England if you need them. You're probably better off just cancelling them if you keep the initial landings.

Yeah, I shouldn´t have dropped them at all...[:(]

ORIGINAL: meklore61

If I provide advice and it doesn't work out like you think it should will you exile me to Corsica like some else, whom I won't mention, did me as a reward for assisting him?[8D]

1. Learn to plot your path to the targets. You can avoid a lot of losses by flying around his flak and manned airfields. Hit shift-O to see flak concentrations. I fly over the North Sea when I hit targets that far north to avoid a lot of his defenses.

2. You should encourage him to fight forward and while he's pushing, you destroy all the ports near by and interdict the ferry hexes. That offensive will end with a wimper. And place some naval interdiction around Messina and Reggio to lock the ports down.

Exile to Corsica doesn´t sound like much of a punishment? [:D]

I do route my bomber around flak. I think my heavy losses last turn were due to big numbers of German fighters. I hope the P38 escorts can help with that.

Strategic air was tasked to start hitting ports on Sicily last turn. But no attacks were made. I think I have too many jobs and too few planes for them. Last two ADs were never carried out.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Strategic air was tasked to start hitting ports on Sicily last turn. But no attacks were made. I think I have too many jobs and too few planes for them. Last two ADs were never carried out.

I've discovered (the hard way as ever) that you can either use the generic % to fly from the air doctrine screen (which is usually good enough) or set a precise number for a given mission.

Since the AI routine is making a guess that if it doesn't have x aircraft it can't really do anything useful its not always useful to over-ride this. But there are times when you really know best, or want a number of small scale attacks and then you can use the detailed air directive set up and specify the number of planes you think should be allocated (that at least will get some activity)

[JocMeister]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: JocMeister

Strategic air was tasked to start hitting ports on Sicily last turn. But no attacks were made. I think I have too many jobs and too few planes for them. Last two ADs were never carried out.

I've discovered (the hard way as ever) that you can either use the generic % to fly from the air doctrine screen (which is usually good enough) or set a precise number for a given mission.

Since the AI routine is making a guess that if it doesn't have x aircraft it can't really do anything useful its not always useful to over-ride this. But there are times when you really know best, or want a number of small scale attacks and then you can use the detailed air directive set up and specify the number of planes you think should be allocated (that at least will get some activity)

I´ll try using specific squadrons next time! [:)] Or perhaps just make sure the most important ADs are on top of the list. I experimented a lot with % to fly settings but it seems to make more harm then good. Very useful if you only have 1-2 ADs set though and want to make sure you get a lot of sorties.

[Baelfiin]

ORIGINAL: meklore61

If I provide advice and it doesn't work out like you think it should will you exile me to Corsica like some else, whom I won't mention, did me as a reward for assisting him?[8D]

1. Learn to plot your path to the targets. You can avoid a lot of losses by flying around his flak and manned airfields. Hit shift-O to see flak concentrations. I fly over the North Sea when I hit targets that far north to avoid a lot of his defenses.

2. You should encourage him to fight forward and while he's pushing, you destroy all the ports near by and interdict the ferry hexes. That offensive will end with a wimper. And place some naval interdiction around Messina and Reggio to lock the ports down.

That isn't exile, its a vacation in force =p

[marion61]

[:D] I mean this in the nicest possible way! Just remember what Patton said. "Brad, you've got to get me into this fight"! Give me command of 1st army and we'll be in Berlin for Christmas!