Rodan {A: witpqs} vs. Godzilla {J: Andav} - Japanese side

[Andav]

This will be the companion AAR to witpqs' Godzilla {J: Andav} vs. Rodan {A: witpqs}.

We started a game at the end of November 2011 which ended in early 2017 with witpqs romping through the Home Islands. Almost 6 years to the day, we will start again.

I hope to do better this time!

Turn 1 should be later this evening.

Wa

[Mike Solli]

[Bif1961]

Good luck and oddly you took longer than the real war lasted.

[witpqs]

Hmm. What's that?

[Drakanel]

I will be reading both sides. Good luck and thanks for the treat [:D]

[Andav]

witpqs is working through what he called the brutal Allied Turn 1 setup. I told him I was not shedding too many tears for him. It is not like he has to make decision for the next 5 years which if you screw up you can't fix. AFBs geez ...

We are playing DDB Scenario 28C (I think). This is reduced cargo loads and stacking levels. It is the updated version of the scenario we played last time.

House rules are very minimal. Pay to buy out units from Manchuria. Thai units can go into Burma up to 3 hexes or so without being bought. Other then that, if I do not like what witpqs is doing, I will have to figure out a way to make him stop. It is how we played the previous game and we had zero issues.

One major lesson I learned from the previous game was the need to account for every supply point used. I ran out of supply way too early so I will keep a very close eye on how much is being used and try to save as much as possible whenever possible.

The other major lesson I learned was the need to build defenses in depth radiating out from the Home Islands. With this in mind, there will be no far flung empire which the Allies will need to roll back. The Allies do not need to roll back the entire empire which leaves many units isolated and bypassed. CanoeRebel has demonstrated this very effectively against a beefed up IJN. I know witpqs will be taking notes. I will fortify in a radius out from the Home Islands along with a few other bases with a focus to keep him out of B-29 range for as long as possible. I will not give things away far from home but I will not spend the supply and fuel and units building a hard outer shell only to have a large travelling circus land somewhere inside and start making mischief.

I am a traditionalist in that World War II for the US started with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. KB minus Kaga will target Pearl. Kaga will join Mini KB near the Philippines instead. Since I do not plan to stick around for more then one day at Pearl, I have put pretty much everything on port attack with the exception of some of the Zero squadrons which are on airfield attack at 15k. I saw this in another AAR and thought it was a decent way to get a few more hits.

Pretty much everything else is a fairly standard opening. Philippines will be invaded. Malaya will be traditional with no Mersing Gambit.

I expect witpqs will fight for everything trying to bleed Japan from day one with assets he will more then replace in the years to come. It would surprise me a lot to see a Sir Robin defense.

China will get a lot of attention early with hopes of conquering the entire country and linking with the Burma Army. This was another mistake I make in the last game. I started on China too late and had a large army trapped in Burma. I want to be able to move some of the Burma Army back into China when things go south.

Pegu will be defended.

CRB will be defended.

Production will look a lot like a combination of Lowpe's, Overt's and Mike's. I will streamline into certain lines and ignore many. Night fighters will be produced since I neglected them last game. I will post more as time goes on.

Wa

[Lowpe]

Good luck.!

You can drop those Zeroes down to 9K, the AA is nerfed on turn one surprise. You get really high damage numbers on the planes on the ground, but really they don't do that much other than avoid a lot of strafing losses. The other option is to put them on port strike at the same altitude.

Sounds like you have a good grasp, and this is the game I am playing with Obvert.

[Lowpe]

Check your garrison requirements in Manchuko, there is one base there needing a garrison in the thousands, which is a confirmed mistake. It should be 10% of the number. I will check sometime in the near future the exact base for you.

I had to go into the editor and change it.

[Mike Solli]

Mukden at 2000 instead of 200 I believe?

[Andav]

We fixed Mukden before the game started. 200 now.

Wa

[Andav]

Turn one is in the books. The Pearl raid was not bad but not spectacular. Lots of ships hit but only to which are reported sunk. California had a magazine explosion. Here is the damage report for Peal out of Intel Monkey.

[obvert]

Good luck Andav!

Have you read Capt Cruft? He did a lot of work on creating a strong inner defensive strategy. It's interesting reading if you can find his AAR, but the game was never finished to see if it would have caused the Allies trouble.

The question for me is always, how close in can I afford to set up the line?

[Andav]

Here is the base damage for the bases bombed. At Pearl all of the Airfield hits were from the Zeros bombing at 15k. It was too late to drop them to 9K this time. I think it works pretty well.

Way to the right (my laptop is not very wide) there are 2 Repair Yard hits at Pearl as well. I think these were Zeros getting lost.

Wa

[Andav]

Overt,

Yes, Capt Cruft was on my reading list. It is one of the inspirations for the radiating defense.

Wa

[Andav]

Another new twist for me was attacking Manila's port with Nells and Bettys from Formosa. During my test runs, I had really good results sinking or damaging many ships. During the actual turn this was a huge dud.

While I do run many test turns to make sure things end up where I want them to go, I make last modifications to reset (I think anyway) the attacks so the results are new on the final version. I do not think it is right to cherry pick an awesome result.

Results from Intel Monkey.

Wa

[Andav]

Malaysia was fairly uninteresting. Z-Force was a no show. Really nothing happened over on that side of the map out of the ordinary.

Wa

[Andav]

Sync bug on turn one apparently. Awesomeness ...

Wa

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Andav


Sync bug on turn one apparently. Awesomeness ...

Wa

[X(][X(][X(]
[:@][:@][:@]

[Bif1961]

You wish many of his capitol ships had a sink bug!

[Andav]

You wish many of his capitol ships had a sink bug!

Ain't it the truth!

Wa