War in the Pacific Day by Day - Imperial Edition

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Saint Celestine: Dec 17, 2008; Lay a fire within your soul and another between your hands, and let both be your weapons.
For one is faith and the other is victory and neither may ever be put out.
- Saint Sabbat, Lessons; Grimey Drawer

TehKeen posted:

Out of curiosity, could you give a short summary? I made it about two and a half years into the old LP, I should get around to finishing it.

Imagine if the real life Iwo Jima invasion ended with everyone dying horribly and the invasion failing.

Edit: Wait is this the one where an army of support staff were landed and thats it?

# ? Jun 14, 2016 17:10

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# ? May 18, 2024 02:45

lenoon: Jan 7, 2010

It's not just that, it's that grey forgot to reroute the reinforcements and they sailed unsupported into a shitstorm. I did some mock history write ups, probably lost now. There were something like 4K Americans left on the island when the fleet withdrew, would have made for some epic movies.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 17:14

Grey Hunter: Oct 17, 2007; Hero of the soviet union.
Accidental destroyer of planets

I'm still calling BS on all these hits.

First, where were our support fighters? Secondly, The Prince of Wales was still alive? Thirdly, I found the allied fighters guys!

Another force is sent into rout.

I'm going to skirt Ceylon a bit more, as it has a fighter concentration on it. But did we get credit for the big girl?

Not on the main screen. But we have the points on the sheet, so I think she's gone down.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 17:22

goatface: Dec 5, 2007; I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.; Grimey Drawer

Good work by the bombers even if they did die. Ignored the smaller ships, dumped everything into the big bertha until she sank.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 17:28

Jobbo_Fett: Mar 7, 2014; Slava Ukrayini; Clapping Larry

HerpicleOmnicron5's Lucky Ship

# ? Jun 14, 2016 17:42

Kopijeger: Feb 14, 2010

lenoon posted:

It's not just that, it's that grey forgot to reroute the reinforcements and they sailed unsupported into a shitstorm. I did some mock history write ups, probably lost now. There were something like 4K Americans left on the island when the fleet withdrew, would have made for some epic movies.

I seem to remember there was a time when three fleet carriers were lost to kamikaze strike due to having no CAP to cover them? As in, the game requires the player to specifically order the carriers to send up planes and there is no warning if you forget to do so.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 17:43

MrMojok: Jan 28, 2011

I was looking at this last night.

If you want to see, it kicks off around beginning of June '44.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 17:59

theblastizard: Nov 5, 2009

Kopijeger posted:

I seem to remember there was a time when three fleet carriers were lost to kamikaze strike due to having no CAP to cover them? As in, the game requires the player to specifically order the carriers to send up planes and there is no warning if you forget to do so.

"Are those Japanese planes flying at us?"
"Yup."
"Shouldn't we do something about that?"
"Nope."

# ? Jun 14, 2016 21:33

OpenlyEvilJello: Dec 28, 2009

I linked the loss of the three fleet carriers on the last page, but I think the CAP incident may have been separate.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 21:48

AceRimmer: Mar 18, 2009

lenoon posted:

It's not just that, it's that grey forgot to reroute the reinforcements and they sailed unsupported into a shitstorm. I did some mock history write ups, probably lost now. There were something like 4K Americans left on the island when the fleet withdrew, would have made for some epic movies.

Around what date does this happen in the LP? I skimmed through June 1944 and didn't see it.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 22:04

Mikl: Nov 8, 2009; Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!

I distinctly remember a CV (Yorktown? I'm not sure) heading into Sydney for repairs... and getting torp'd twice in as many days by a Japanese sub. (She made it to port safely, but it was still hilarious.)

# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:08

lenoon: Jan 7, 2010

I don't know the exact date. I did some stuff on what I thought were the most interesting parts of the thread:

The Buildup to the Bomb

Iwo seems to have started in April 1944,
and I wrote up a bit on that too.

Edit: Archangel wrote my favourite one:

quote:

"Command and Control procedures in wartime strike a curious balance. On the one hand, modern technology allows commanders to exert a level of control over their subordinates that was hitherto unknown or even unimaginable. Long range radio transmissions allowed a General in Washington or London to direct the movements of a single company - or indeed a single squad - at the other end of the globe, in the middle of a desert or a jungle island in the South Pacific. This allows a much closer coordination between different forces, as they can - in theory - be made to adhere to a single overarcing strategic vision. Especially in theatres with multiple allies fighting wars on several, widely separate fronts, having a single command authority allows coordination of attacks in days that would have required months of planning only years earlier.

This, however, introduces a number of problems. One is command overload, paired with a suppression of initiative from junior leaders. If the entire doctrine of command and control rests on the idea that a junior leader - and junior, in this case, may well mean a Fleet Admiral or a General in command of a division - follows orders to the letter and does not act on his own initiative, then it becomes necessary that the commanding authority acounts for every aspect of warfare, down to the assigments of individual pilots. It has been argued by some that this level of micromanagement at least contributed to some of the setbacks the Allies suffered during the War in the Pacific. To quote Captain T.J. Smith, in command of a carrier during operations around Rabaul:

"Time and time again I went to the Admiral to remind him that we were running low on avgas and ordenance and that soon we wouldn't be able to maintain a CAP. He would just look at me and tell me not to worry, because PACCOM would take care of it. We both knew that this was bullshit. PACCOM didn't even know because our requests for avgas were buried under the millions of other reports they got every drat day about how many rations the troops on some island outpost in the middle of loving nowhere had or how some destroyer or other was getting two more machine guns installed. We were expected to inform PACCOM if one of our pilots shot down a plane! After our first sortie I learned never to rely on PACCOM and just steal whatever we needed."

This quote highlights another problem: in order to make accurate strategical decisions, the command authority needs accurate information from every unit they control. In the case of PACCOM, that meant every single fighter or bomber squadron, every independant Army formation - down to, in some occasions, platoon level - and every ship or submarine. Ideally, those information would be filtered in important or unimportant, but that filter very often did not work as intended, forwarding unimportant information while holding back important things. On one memorable occasion, the taskforce carrying the first assault waves to go ashore in the invasion of the Phillipines were delayed by bad weather, but this information was not communicated in time. Support units, scheduled for D+1, went on without being informed that the landing had not taken place and that they, in fact, would be the first ones to storm the beaches. When they did, they ran right into the arms of the japanese defenders, who took them prisoners after a short but gallant defense. But nowhere was this more obvious than in the case of allied SIGINT efforts.

At the start of the war, allied codebreakers had cracked the radio codes used by the Japanese military, allowing them to read the Japanese radio traffic to an astounishing degree. This was made even more important since Japanese ships were expected to radio in their positions regularly. However, the information provided to PACCOM was handed over completely unfiltered. A statistical analyses of SIGINT reports by Johnson and Tully shows no less than 583 mentions of the naval fortress guarding the approaches to Tokyo Bay, even when the closest allied surface forces where thousands of miles away. However, many former military leaders do not regard this as a flaw, pointing out how it allowed them to accurately asses the situation and prevented their subordinates from hiding anything. As Robert McNamara, head of the practically defunct Office for Statistical Intelligence, later wrote:

"We tried several times to convince PACCOM to allow us to do some aggregation of data, to simplify the reports - the answer was always the same: To do so would necessarily make the analysis shallow and meaningless. They told us that they didn't want 'just anybody to be able to walk in and read these reports, like a casual reader of a newspaper'. I feel like this cost us a good number of lives."

lenoon fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Jun 14, 2016

# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:17

Chunky Monkey: Jun 12, 2005; Kill the Gnome!

That story is pretty brilliant. I loved that stuff that started cropping up near the end of the last thread.

# ? Jun 14, 2016 23:36

algebra testes: Mar 5, 2011; Lipstick Apathy

Oh my. Laughed so hard at my desk I started crying.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 03:56

A Festivus Miracle: Dec 19, 2012; I have come to discourse on the profound inequities of the American political system.

I think this LP may actually be going worse than your last one grey. ~~The Prince of Wales ate no less than 3 torpedos in the initial Z Force attack and lived. What the actual gently caress. Allied damage control is insane in this game.~~

Actually PoW only took a torpedo. Her survival is actually a little more realistic now.

A Festivus Miracle fucked around with this message at 05:15 on Jun 15, 2016

# ? Jun 15, 2016 05:10

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

A White Guy posted:

I think this LP may actually be going worse than your last one grey. ~~The Prince of Wales ate no less than 3 torpedos in the initial Z Force attack and lived. What the actual gently caress. Allied damage control is insane in this game.~~

Actually PoW only took a torpedo. Her survival is actually a little more realistic now.

Allied damage control was really good in real life, too. :v:

Contrast this to the IJN, which among other things turned a carrier into a floating fuel-air bomb and regarded damage control as a specialist task that normal sailors had no need to be familiar with.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 05:19

whitewhale: Feb 21, 2013

A White Guy posted:

I think this LP may actually be going worse than your last one grey. ~~The Prince of Wales ate no less than 3 torpedos in the initial Z Force attack and lived. What the actual gently caress. Allied damage control is insane in this game.~~

Actually PoW only took a torpedo. Her survival is actually a little more realistic now.

BB's were pretty good at absorbing torpedo hits, especially if they were impact torps. The PoW's main belt was 14 inches thick and it took some time for torp depth control and magnetic triggers to work well enough to start circumventing the main armour and torpedo belts. The Musashi sank after 19 torpedo hits although it's hard to know for sure how many were really needed to effectively sink her.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 06:19

Grey Hunter: Oct 17, 2007; Hero of the soviet union.
Accidental destroyer of planets

I'm doing something with my battleships. This destroyer is caught in the way.

The Kiddo Butai finds not one but two British carriers.

Make that three. This one must be the Hermes.

The British concentrate on the less protected Kiddo Butai.

A Swordfish (of course) gets in a hit.

Our advancing troops are bombed hard.

Our forces retreat from Siam with heavy losses.

Wait! The Kido Butai did nothing? The Kiddo Butai absorbs all those fighters and you can't even send out one attack?
We do come out on top in planes, but it could have been better.

The archives have three ships on them.

I'm pulling the carriers back, but it going to take a while.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 17:29

Jesenjin: Nov 12, 2011

Oh my. Hopefully this will end well for the Kido Butai and Kiddo Butai.
And I hope there will be some new reefs in Indian ocean.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 17:46

Decoy Badger: May 16, 2009

I guess this is why you don't split the Kido Butai.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 18:44

Mikl: Nov 8, 2009; Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!

GAH

MY LUCKY SHIP

GREEEEEEEEEY :argh:

# ? Jun 15, 2016 18:58

Mikl: Nov 8, 2009; Vote shit sandwich or the shit sandwich gets it!

Of course, out of all of them, it has to be mine that eats a torpedo :argh:

Hopefully it won't be the first sunk Japanese carrier of the game :argh:

# ? Jun 15, 2016 19:03

Dreamsicle: Oct 16, 2013

Oh poo poo is that a museum piece carrier battle between the Hermes and Hosho?

# ? Jun 15, 2016 19:38

The Sandman: Jun 23, 2013; Okay!

So, I've, like, designed a really sweet attack plan that I'm calling Attack Plan Ded Moroz, like "Deadmau5!"

WUB!

Dreamsicle posted:

Oh poo poo is that a museum piece carrier battle between the Hermes and Hosho?

It's like a slapfight in a nursing home.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 19:40

A Festivus Miracle: Dec 19, 2012; I have come to discourse on the profound inequities of the American political system.

You have the opportunity to sink every British carrier, and you're going to retreat because one of your really lovely CVEs took a torpedo? :psyduck:

# ? Jun 15, 2016 19:59

ponzicar: Mar 17, 2008

A White Guy posted:

You have the opportunity to sink every British carrier, and you're going to retreat because one of your really lovely CVEs took a torpedo?

Not a big deal. He's already done that before.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 20:15

A Festivus Miracle: Dec 19, 2012; I have come to discourse on the profound inequities of the American political system.

ponzicar posted:

Not a big deal. He's already done that before.

He has like..what? 8 carriers? Vs 2 carriers and a the Hermes, which is a WW1-era CVE/L? This is the time to strike! Tenno Hieka Banzai!

# ? Jun 15, 2016 20:25

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

You cannot oppose the Swordfish. It is the destroyer of worlds.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 20:29

MrMojok: Jan 28, 2011

I've been watching this thread for a while, and also reading through the LP of Grey's US effort. I have tried and tried to resist the call of this game, because it looks absolutely apeshit crazy.

But I am weakening. I'm afraid if I don't buy it tonight, I will do it over the weekend. Before I do this to myself, can anyone point me to an FAQ about it, or maybe give me some helpful tips?

I have the FAQ on the Matrix forums bookmarked, but is there anything else, maybe an introductory-level FAQ somewhere?

# ? Jun 15, 2016 20:42

TehKeen: May 24, 2006; Maybe she's born with it.
Maybe it's cosmoline.

A White Guy posted:

You have the opportunity to sink every British carrier, and you're going to retreat because one of your really lovely CVEs took a torpedo?

My thoughts. :saddowns:

# ? Jun 15, 2016 20:54

GOOD TIMES ON METH: Mar 17, 2006; Fun Shoe

MrMojok posted:

I've been watching this thread for a while, and also reading through the LP of Grey's US effort. I have tried and tried to resist the call of this game, because it looks absolutely apeshit crazy.

But I am weakening. I'm afraid if I don't buy it tonight, I will do it over the weekend. Before I do this to myself, can anyone point me to an FAQ about it, or maybe give me some helpful tips?

I have the FAQ on the Matrix forums bookmarked, but is there anything else, maybe an introductory-level FAQ somewhere?

Read/skim the manual then play one of the simpler campaigns to get a sense for the UI. The Aleutian one is good for this or the one based around taking Port Blair. After that try one of the bigger scenarios like Guadalcanal or the Marianas. Once you feel up to starting a full campaign there is a guy on the matrix forums that has a decent Allies first turn guide just as a place to get started. Also if the game feels weird or laggy you will have to gently caress with command line options to get it to work better. It kind of behaves strangely on multi-core systems out of the box (but is fine afterwards).

It does go on sale periodically for like 40% off if you aren't in a hurry to play.

The big things that tripped me up at first were:
1) Everything naval that does something has to be in a Task Force. Moving a single minelayer to a base a hex away needs a Task Force.
2) Pay attention to Home Port in fleets and the retirement options. You will want to change the home port more often than not for lots of fleet movement. Otherwise you will be like me and sneak all your ships out of Manila the first week of the war only to see them try to make it back a week later.
3) Terrain is super important for land forces and so is morale and experience. Don't just compare AV.
4) Altitude is super important for air stuff. It even dictates the type of training for bomber pilots. There is a guide to what you should stuff at on the Matrix forums as well.

GOOD TIMES ON METH fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jun 15, 2016

# ? Jun 15, 2016 20:58

mllaneza: Apr 28, 2007; Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1993-1952

Night10194 posted:

You cannot oppose the Swordfish. It is the destroyer of worlds.

You don't want Grey anywhere near a planet buster.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 21:24

goatface: Dec 5, 2007; I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.; Grimey Drawer

If the game had one, you could probably deliver it by Swordfish.

(Actually it would probably weigh too much)

# ? Jun 15, 2016 21:31

Danann: Aug 4, 2013

Grey Hunter posted:

I'm doing something with my battleships. This destroyer is caught in the way.

Haha, if you removed the destroyers and changed it to daytime, this is practically the same way the Edsall died IRL.

Well it did dodge gunfire from the Kongos and Tones for a long time such that the commander asked for an air strike dedicated to this four-stacker.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 21:48

OpenlyEvilJello: Dec 28, 2009

Decoy Badger posted:

I guess this is why you don't split the Kido Butai.

The ships in the Kiddo Butai are unfit for service in the Kido Butai on account of their low speed. Due to engine limitations, putting them in the same force would unreasonably restrict the fleet carriers.

A White Guy posted:

You have the opportunity to sink every British carrier, and you're going to retreat because one of your really lovely CVEs took a torpedo?

Pretty sure he means he's retreating the kiddos, not the main force.

# ? Jun 15, 2016 23:46

Grumio: Sep 20, 2001; in culina est

Nervously awaiting tomorrow's turn :ohdear:

# ? Jun 16, 2016 00:54

pthighs: Jun 21, 2013; Pillbug

Grey's penchant for typos and using "Kiddo" in addition to Kido sows confusion.

# ? Jun 16, 2016 01:41

Palladium: May 8, 2012; Very Good
✔️✔️✔️✔️

pthighs posted:

Grey's penchant for typos and using "Kiddo" in addition to Kido sows confusion.

And his "Stratigic report"

# ? Jun 16, 2016 02:26

TehKeen: May 24, 2006; Maybe she's born with it.
Maybe it's cosmoline.

pthighs posted:

Grey's penchant for typos and using "Kiddo" in addition to Kido sows confusion.

To be fair, the :kiddo:

-butai is pretty great considering it's made up of all the fleet carrier wannabees.

# ? Jun 16, 2016 02:54

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# ? May 18, 2024 02:45

Grey Hunter: Oct 17, 2007; Hero of the soviet union.
Accidental destroyer of planets

The reason for retreating is more the loss of planes more than the damage - if it would be streight carrier on carrier action, I'd be staying, but with the ground support from Ceylon, its going to be hard to come out on top.

# ? Jun 16, 2016 07:49

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > War in the Pacific Day by Day - Imperial Edition

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