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I recently got the latest update of WitP-AE. I had a long AI game end after about 18 months of playing so it was time to update. I noticed Scenario 10 Ironman and thought I'd give it a go. Last game as the allies I got the Japanese to fold in Sept. 1944 basically executing Plan Orange with a North Pacific riff.

This AAR will mostly deal with the strategic and more mundane aspects of the game. Most AARs have post after post of screenshots of tactical situation, but these tends to run together for me. "Dec. 8, 1941: Screenshot after screenshot of how the Japanese kicked allied butt. Wow! That's a case of "Dog bite man."

More practically, I got well into the game before thinking of posting an AAR, so a lot of the tactical stuff is lost.

So you get a different type of AAR. I wish I had 1235's writing ability but I don't, although I have written some (bad) naval fiction on another forum.

I may be new to AARs but I am far from being a noob at this or any other wargame. I've played this system since UV and the old matrix game and really go all the way back to Avalon-Hill's Tactics II.

So I'm playing scenario 10 with difficulty set to "very hard" from the git-go. As of today, I've played into mid-April 1942. So posts will come fast as I catch up and then slow down as I wait on turns to play out.

hi TC,
I'm interested to learn your current game situation, logistics position & pilot-training status.
I never played Tactics II, but cut my baby-teeth on A-H's Kriegspiel (wot, no dice?)

So the Arizona explodes and off we go. It's the usual Pearl Harbor disaster. Arizona and Oklahoma are sunk outright and all the other world War I vintage battleships are heavily damaged. Most of them are patched up enough to send to Bremerton by Christmas, but California is just making Mare Island (Bremerton is full up) in mid-April. West Virginia still has too much flotation damage (49) to trust on the long slow trudge to the West Coast just yet. Most everything else at PH has been patched up by now - sometimes more than once. I do have a "Battle Line" of old Standards plus Warspite swinging around the hook at Bremerton but with KB afoot these ships are fairly helpless. Their day will come. Most will be out of the yards by September or October but the WeeVee will be a yard queen will into 1943.

The usual happened at Clark, Subic, and Singapore. POW, Repulse and some destroyers and subs were sunk , but I got most of the ships out.

BTW, before the game I set some 'house rules' for myself. For play balance against the AI (who I call Ironman) I don't use sigint and I did not peruse the Japanese OOB. I know their forces are augmented but did not know how at the start.

So, given the damage done I (like most guys) used the "Brave Sir Robin" strategy and turtled up at Bataan, Jahore/Singapore, and Soerabaja. Succinctly, this didn't work as well against 'very hard' ironman as the historical strategy worked against the historical Japanese. Singapore fell early in February and Bataan in late February, and Soerabaja in late March. by spending all my political points avaialble early, I was able to save two Aussie brigades and two Indian brigades out of Singapore and a couple of Dutch base forces out of the DEI. By now the Aussies (both from the 8th Division) are dug in at Darwin. Oneof the Indian brigades is n India and the other Indian brigades transport was damaged and now they are holed up on Christmas Island (IO) with a fair amount of supply. I can't get them out but Ironman hasn't (yet) allocated a big enough land force to kill 'em off. I can use my somewhat worthless US subs to run in supply. I also extracted the little NZ pioneer company FWIW.

I did managed to extract almost all of the civilian and naval shipping and a fair number of British/ ANZAC air units out of Singapore, either through the DEI or through Rangoon (where range allowed.) I got some B-17Ds, and couple squadrons of P-40s ( one of P-40B and one of P-40 E) and some Catalinas out of the PI, but the Dutch air units wouldn't leave the DEI and were lost. I got all the Alleid warships out, although some didn't last long (more on that later).

I mined the crap out of Balikpapen and Palembang. I did get a report that a CA hit a mine at Palembang but otherwise you never know about offensive mine fields. In earlier versions of the game mine warfare accomplished little maybe this update is different.

Perth, Darwin, and (to a lesser extent) Colombo are havens to the flotsam and jetsam I extracted.

I did put up something of a fight for Rangoon and took the opportunity to run a couple hundred thousand tons of supply in. Hopefully, some of it got into China. Doing so attrited the AVG badly. They are now sitting at Kunming awaiting withdrawal at about one-quarter strength of aircraft and no expectation of replacements. The good news here is that being totally defensive, I managed to save nearly all the AVG pilots. I have thirty aces and nearly every pilot is at least 80 experience. At the end of March, the Betties decided Kunming wasn't worth the losses and stopped visiting. I grounded all my aces in order to build up experience in depth. When the ground echelon is withdrawn (less than two weeks) I'm gonna withdraw the aircrew as well.

I did manage to safely extract most of the Burma Corps but sometimes wonder why. Most of the 'Burma rifle' battalions are fragile and surrender as soon as they hear "Banzai." I used some of them for garrisons in India but I'll have to replace them by December 1942. the Burma Division gained experience and morale by safely rear-guarding the rest of the army including a bunc of BF out.

I've pulled enough infantry out of India to at least screen the triple-defense ridgeline that runs from south of Akyab, south of Imphal, and south of Ledo. I have strongpoints at Akyab/Cox's Bazaar, and Imphal and reserves sitting at Calcutta. Other than a couple of half-baked attempts at amphib landings at Akyab, Ironman has evinced no interest in India. I'm totally defensive on that front

Initially I had no idea how much KB had been augmented so I took my US CVs to San Diego and offloaded their air wings to train their brains out on land. I did train up a couple of Marine squadrons to be "carrier trained" status (I've always found such squadrons handy in 1943.) No way I want to mess with an augmented KB until I have Avengers and F-4Fs and good experience aircrew. Other than training and occasionally delivering a Marine squadron these guys are essentially sidelined til at very least late June.

With CVs and BBs out of the game for now, I am reduced to a defensive cruiser war. Mostly I try to get into transport TFs if possible. Early on I had some success doing this with Omaha-class cruisers in the Central Pacific. Otherwise this has not been particularly successful. I got the Houston sunk at Port Moresby and the Australia sunk at Noumea (more on those actions later). Other ships have spent a fair amount of time in the repair yards and I even had to take the San Francisco to Mare Island.

Ironman has been very aggressive with surface raiders, submarines and even a short foray with a CVL. I now know he has at least one Lutzow, one Hipper and one Scharnhorst cruiser augmenting his forces. fortunately for me, these guys haven't been real successful. They sunk about five small (1000 cargo point) slow (10 knot) freighters but they do it in the darndest places.

Ironman, like most AI has jammed the Pearl Harbor area, the LA/San Diego area and (to a lesser extent) SF and Puget Sound approaches with submarines. Fortunately I'm onto this. I've swamped these areas with old cans, yippies, and minesweepers. I don't think I've sunk more than one I-boat but I think I've beat some up enough to drive them back to their repair yards. Still with my crummy ASW ratings he sinks some ships regardless of escort. He got one transport with a squadron of Marine Wildcats dispatched to Noumea.

On the West Coast of the US, I've tasked all those otherwise useless IV USAAF bombers (mostly B-18s) to a combo of naval search and ASW to at least make them submerge a lot. Same at Pearl. I'm still way short of escort on the East coast of Oz, but that should change soon.

As soon as it became available I've bit the escort bullet and pulled most of my DDs in for the 4/42 radar refit orgy. Also that usually triples the ASW rating by adding K-guns. Also I've converted every four-piper that would do so to LR DEs.

On Dec. 8, I moved every ship capable to a safe place and converted freighters into xAP, xAKE, AE, and AP units. I even converted a lot of 1000 cargo 10 knot scows into small (500 troop) xAPs.

Most of these I don't have much immediate use for so I moved them either off the map (Aden, Capetown, Abadan, Frisco, Seattle and LA. I even stashed some in Adelaide after conversion.

I still have plenty of shipping for logistical buildup, but the composition of my freighters colors how I do logistics.

For now I use a "direct" scheme. I send 40,000 ton or so convoys directly from the West Coast US, or Cape Town to places that I need to build up. As I am short of escort, especially long-range escort, I send unescorted convoys the long way around. LA-Brisbane via Tahiti and Raoul Island, keeping an escort force at Brisbane to shuttle them into port. Because of the sub threat at both ends my LA-Pearl and SF-Pearl convoys are escorted the whole way.

For the most part, this works. My long-haul ships have the range for this long way around. "Long-haul" to me implies 4000+ cargo, at least 10,000 range, and 12 knots. 14 knot and 16 knot freighter are used in mixed convoys with tankers. I am setting up a series of fueling stations so I can use short-range and smaller ships as I start attacking Central Pacific atolls. I have fuel depots on Christmas, Palmyra, and Dutch harbor. Pago Pago is also useful for this but it requires a good-sized garrison. I cannot afford to lose either Pago Pago, Suva, or Noumea. If they fall Betties can sweep those looping sea lanes.

Approximate current stockpiles (on-map): Pearl 400,000 supply/650,000 fuel. Colombo 300,000 supply/400,000 fuel. Sydney 900,000 supply/150,000 fuel. Brisbane 25,000 supply/100,000 fuel. Noumea 40,000 supply/100,000 fuel Suva and Pago Pago 15,000 supply/20,000 fuel. Perth 8,000 supply12,000 fuel Darwin 17,000 supply, 20,000 fuel. Note: Darwin is semi-isolated and has gone semi-inactive til I can run in some "Malta convoys" Bombay 650,000 supply/200,000 fuel. Dutch Harbot 2,000 supply/2,000 fuel Adak less than Dutch.

Brisbane is a mystery. I run in 40,000 ton convoy after 40,000 ton convoy and it never builds up supply. Sydney has plenty.

Caution: non-expert opinion follows. In my experience, supply tends to accumulate in a massive stock at the really major places and only what the AI thinks you really need at all others. So in Australia you get a mountain of supply at Sydney and not so much anyplace else, though it will flow more or less as needed to all of your bases. Darwin and other semi-isolated bases are an exception; when you bring in a lot of supply it can't flow out very fast so it will stay there a long time. At Brisbane and other bases you can set it to "ask for" a higher amount of supply and that will help a bit.

Looks like you have been making good moves and prioritizing well. So many players are anxious to get into the battles and don't take the time to build the logistics net needed.

Jwolf is correct about excess supply flowing to the largest base within reasonable range. The AI allocates supply to where the demand is first, and anything not needed to meet demand is stockpiled at largest port/base (port being the most important).
You can redirect the supply somewhat in several ways:

- build up Brisbane, in particular the port
- move Australia Command to where you want supply to go. Command/National level HQs draw something like 75K supply to their location.
- move some LCUs out of Sydney to where you want more supply draw. They eat groceries and use supply to fill out their TOE, creating demand.
- the path from Cairns/Townsville to Normanton to Darwin seems to be a better route for supply movement than the desert route north of Alice Springs. Try setting Normanton to maximum draw, then monitor for at least a week (or 2) to see if the supply starts to arrive there. If it builds up a good stock release the supply draw and set Darwin to maximum. DO NOT set supply draws willy nilly at a number of bases - the AI can get confused and Ping-Pong the supply between them rather than working in one direction.
- I have had some success getting supply up the central desert route by having ships dump cargo at Port Augusta, drawing it up to Alice Springs and then up the line to Darwin. Tedious work setting and shutting off supply draw but it helps the troops.

If you can get enough fuel to Oz to make fleet operations comfortable, consider starting up the HI there to make more supply. I have no idea if the HI points produced get used in manufacture of Australian aircraft or not.

Anything for some Aussie planes. I'll explain in a later post.

Thanks for the tip. It's working nicely.

ORIGINAL: Taxcutter

On Dec. 8, I moved every ship capable to a safe place and converted freighters into xAP, xAKE, AE, and AP units. I even converted a lot of 1000 cargo 10 knot scows into small (500 troop) xAPs.

Most of these I don't have much immediate use for so I moved them either off the map (Aden, Capetown, Abadan, Frisco, Seattle and LA. I even stashed some in Adelaide after conversion.

I still have plenty of shipping for logistical buildup, but the composition of my freighters colors how I do logistics.

For now I use a "direct" scheme. I send 40,000 ton or so convoys directly from the West Coast US, or Cape Town to places that I need to build up. As I am short of escort, especially long-range escort, I send unescorted convoys the long way around. LA-Brisbane via Tahiti and Raoul Island, keeping an escort force at Brisbane to shuttle them into port. Because of the sub threat at both ends my LA-Pearl and SF-Pearl convoys are escorted the whole way.

For the most part, this works. My long-haul ships have the range for this long way around. "Long-haul" to me implies 4000+ cargo, at least 10,000 range, and 12 knots. 14 knot and 16 knot freighter are used in mixed convoys with tankers. I am setting up a series of fueling stations so I can use short-range and smaller ships as I start attacking Central Pacific atolls. I have fuel depots on Christmas, Palmyra, and Dutch harbor. Pago Pago is also useful for this but it requires a good-sized garrison. I cannot afford to lose either Pago Pago, Suva, or Noumea. If they fall Betties can sweep those looping sea lanes.

Approximate current stockpiles (on-map): Pearl 400,000 supply/650,000 fuel. Colombo 300,000 supply/400,000 fuel. Sydney 900,000 supply/150,000 fuel. Brisbane 25,000 supply/100,000 fuel. Noumea 40,000 supply/100,000 fuel Suva and Pago Pago 15,000 supply/20,000 fuel. Perth 8,000 supply12,000 fuel Darwin 17,000 supply, 20,000 fuel. Note: Darwin is semi-isolated and has gone semi-inactive til I can run in some "Malta convoys" Bombay 650,000 supply/200,000 fuel. Dutch Harbot 2,000 supply/2,000 fuel Adak less than Dutch.

Brisbane is a mystery. I run in 40,000 ton convoy after 40,000 ton convoy and it never builds up supply. Sydney has plenty.

This Brisbane thing is simple. In Australia, Sydney has the biggest port. The base with the biggest port in a given economy will accumulate all surplus of supply, resources,oil and fuel, thus you see Sydney getting huge amount of everything. If you want to up your supply in Brisbane, you have to either up its supply requirement or move supply by ships AND turn stockpiling on in Brisbane.

If you interested in learning more about the supply-grabbing phenomenon, you can read this thread
tm.asp?m=2780376&mpage=1&key=&#4046632

TC
What version of Ironman 10 are you playing? Stock or a newer one? (Andymac is testing a beta version in the Mods forum).

Excellent explanation of your convoys strategy. I start each game with some doubt as to how to conduct this critical part of the allied war effort. I need to temper my impulse to rush through the first few weeks. In my last game I set fewer but larger convoys out of LA and SD that would meet/follow one another to near Bora area, then split up going to their final destinations of Pago,Auck, Sydney, etc. They would share the few escort(s) while together. This seems to work [:)]but is tedious and needs to be monitored.[:(]

Good work!

ORIGINAL: BBfanboy
- the path from Cairns/Townsville to Normanton to Darwin seems to be a better route for supply movement than the desert route north of Alice Springs. Try setting Normanton to maximum draw, then monitor for at least a week (or 2) to see if the supply starts to arrive there. If it builds up a good stock release the supply draw and set Darwin to maximum. DO NOT set supply draws willy nilly at a number of bases - the AI can get confused and Ping-Pong the supply between them rather than working in one direction.
- I have had some success getting supply up the central desert route by having ships dump cargo at Port Augusta, drawing it up to Alice Springs and then up the line to Darwin. Tedious work setting and shutting off supply draw but it helps the troops.

Thanks for sharing this. Will try in my next game.[&o]

I'm playing the latest commercially available version.

It ain't a human, but for AI it is formidable.

Absolutely, it's the only way (thus far) I play[;)]

I'm curious, how are you using USN CV's? Not enough, and a lot of ocean to cover...

Look through all your xAP/xAK ships for 18-24 hulls that can Convert to LSI/APA/AKA in mid-'43. There's also some xAK that can Convert to AE/AKE. I submit that this shipping will be far more valuable to you post-conversion than as present-day transports, so cull them out & store them at West Coast shipyards.
Another thing is to protect your AOs & TKs as best your can w/ ASW and CVEscorts. You're prob'ly pretty strapped for ASW, but IMO your fuel shipping needs the best protection you can give it, far-ranging IJ 4E search-planes will often target your tankers.

Queston: How am I using the USN CVs?

Answer: Not at all, beyond training and occasionally ferrying planes to islands. Best I can tell Ironman has a KB that is 50-100% bigger than historical. He also seem to move them around in big task forces. Little scope for wearing him down just yet. So my CVs more or less hide at San Diego.

End of April 1942 I have no CVEs in the game just yet. My ASW just got a lot better with the April refits. Radar and K-guns. I'm actually pulling some of my Bagley-class (8000 endurance) cans back for CV escort. Fletchers are still months in the future.

Literally from the git-go I converted all the hulls I could and others that can be converted later are stashed away where Ironman can't get at them. Cape Town, Aden, Eastern US, etc. For now I get by with the tankers and freighters that cannot be converted. I am beginming to receive Liberty ships.

Only thing that saves me is Ironman's proclivity for mega TFs He's out commerce raiding with the damned Yamato, for Pete's sake. This has to be playing hell with his fuel and ammo supplies.

Yes, don't tangle with the KB!!! learned my lesson after multiple trials[X(] You may be able to use Cv's to escort the initial Pago Pago reinforcements, then have them in position in the Auckland/Sydney area to escort reinforcements to Port Moresby.

Keep on trucking.

Game date: May 1, 1942.

Trying to figure out what Ironman is doing.

He has KB occasionally peeking out into the Canton Island area. At the outset of the war I reinforced Canton big-time. A squadron of USMC Vindicators (now attrited and withdrawn. An AV and some Catalinas. Two defense battalions and (early on) a regiment of 6" CD guns (now withdrawn.)

With KB around and a small port I ca't run in much help, but Ironman keeps sending small landing forces. I've repulse him five times. Those CD guns were murder on his transports and every assault collapses.

Ironman really wanted Port Moresby. Despite running in all I could scrounge up, Ironman (on his second try) put in three divisions and crushed my three (well-supplied) Aussie infantry brigades. But since then he do little more than nab undefended islands. He holds the Solomons including Guadalcanal but I hold New Caledonia and Luganville.

Puzzlingly, Ironman sent a Death Star" on a Grand Tour of south Oz. 4BB (including Yamato) beaucoup cruisers, 2 CV (Auikaku and another I'm not familiar with, 6 CVL, and tankers. He started down the West Coast emphasizing hitting task forces and air fields but ignoring ports. They sank four or five little, slow freighters (1,000 tons 10 knots) and really had it in for Dutch minesweepers. But he swept all the way around Oz ignoring scores of ships at anchor in Adelaide, Sydney, and Brisbane. I tried an air attack near Brisbane but his Zeroes thrashed my P-39s and B-26s. 75% airframe losses but not half as bad on aircrew.

His Death Star sweeps NE toward Rabaul but must have hit some oils in the Coral Sea beyond my search range. Darned if he didn't double back. He's now wstbound in the Bass Strait - no doubt heading for Perth and points north.

I had Doorman's Dutch refugee cruisers dodge by steaming west into the IO and bunch of troop convoys hid by running south. These convoys wee impotant because they were carrying the Australian I Corps. Ironman didn't even look for them. As he Approached Sydney I ran the troop convoys into Perth and the transports skedaddled for Cape Town. All but one brigade of the Desert Rats are now in Perth.

Good thing. While his Death Star was thousands of miles to the east he landed in Geraldton. With Death Star 'cat' away, my 'mouse' (Doornan) had a fine old time sinking 25 transports. But Ironman did succeed in getting enough troops into Geraldton to take it. we'll see how well he holds it. Doorman has chased off or sunk the shipping supported the invasion. and now he Desert Rats are marching that way.

He has been nibbling around Akyab but nothing big so far. He's still polishing off undefended bases in DEI and is using Cebu and the 61st PA Div. as a training bombing range. I thought for a while this script emphasized China, but since Chiang has scooted back to triple defense terrain he seems mostly content to bombard the Chinese.

Things are too quiet. What's he up to? I don't know if his amphib planning advantage is still in effect.

He has to be getting ready to hit either Midway of New Caledonia.

Since he has not committed to India by now, he isn't going to. His Burma push was indolent and not all that strong.

Taking out Oz west to east seems like asking too much of even his augmented forces.

We all know about the importance of Midway and I've dug in as deep as I can. Two defense battalions and a CD regiment plus five squadrons of planes (3 fighters and two SBD-1 dive bombers. An AV and two full squadrons of PBYs. A thick mine field with tenders. I have no other use for them, so I'll run my PH PT boats out, but I've never gotten much service out of PT boats.

at New Caledonia, I'm strong on the ground. Two solid US infantry divisions plus artillery, a CD gun battalion, four flak regiments, and four base forces. And over 100,000 supply. But I'm weak in the air. (Fancy that at this time.) More en route.

now he can take either of these if he consolidates KB and the Oz Tourist Fleet. He'll have to put about a division and a half ashore at Midway. (He has run some small raid but my cruisers chased him off) He'll probably need three (if he's patient) or four (if he's not) divisions at New Caledonia.

What you are seeing is typical script-driven behaviour. Since the AI of the game engine is not sophisticated enough to respond the way a human opponent would, everything is driven by the targets in the scripts and some scripted raiding behaviour. There might be some scripted reaction behaviour if your CVs showed themselves but otherwise the KB is just following a raid script written years ago on speculation about what might be likely Allied convoy areas.

As for repeatedly beating itself against defences - the script says attack until the base is taken so it does that. If it gets beaten back it will come back with a stronger force if it can gather one together, but if none is available it will quite happily come back with a weaker force and try again. In this way the "AI" will grind itself down early on against any unexpected defences and the Allied comeback will face less resistance than it should.

As for the IJ Amphib bonus (no prep required), that expires April 1, 1942 in stock games but could have been extended in Ironman.