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NastyToes posted:Can someone explain why Grey is a croctopus? I understand every other reference in that image, but the croctopus stumps me. You need that many arms to play the game, and crocs look cooler then octopus. I think.
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Nov 22, 2016 07:08
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Shouldn't it be grogtopus?
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Nov 22, 2016 07:18
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It's always nice when you can open the thread, look at the first image in the new update and fistpump real hard.
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Nov 22, 2016 07:31
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   Come back you cowards!  This is just murder.  There is not much the allies can do as our ships sweep north towards Port Moresby.  We've lost the enemy carriers, so the ships are heading home.  They of course cause damage as they go.  Dammit! Where were you CAP?  They do their job come the afternoon.   The Flak units made it to Luganville, and we get a kill. Shame we lose three planes making it.   drat lucky Banshee strike. Our Pilots got overconfident. Thankfully all our planes rebased to Rabaul.  We netted a few more kills.  The Hosho has her fires under control, and is in no danger of sinking – although my planned invasion will need to wait while the carriers now get repaired (and in some cases refitted). Yay. There goes a month. (plus travel time to Japan.)
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Nov 22, 2016 07:32
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:I can only hope we see even better days before it's all over. Can the allies speed up the production of British ships? Where's the Majestic/Melbourne when you need her?  edit: that Dutch naval lost must be a real de Bitter pill to swallow.
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Nov 22, 2016 07:33
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So, a victory at sea (of a sort). Two Allied carriers sunk, two older Battleships - and a few lighter craft. Downside is loss of one carrier and a light carrier, several ships damaged and out of action for a bit, and the invasion put off again. Upside is the Allies seem to have only one CV left which could have taken a pounding to it's air group based on losses so probably won't be active anytime soon, which just leaves any CVE's and CVL's they might have in the theatre active for the time being, which gives you time to refit - until they start pumpingout Essexes by the dozen!
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Nov 22, 2016 07:58
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Time to amass subs outside of Pearl, try to at least track the walking wounded and pick off any stragglers. And then raid Pearl obviously... But this time with your BB fleet, the fly boys failed the first time now to do it properly.
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Nov 22, 2016 08:18
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whitewhale posted:Time to amass subs outside of Pearl, try to at least track the walking wounded and pick off any stragglers. So, assuming Grey didn't sink any BBs at Pearl, right now, the US Pacific battleship fleet is about twice it's original size, even with the death of two WW1-era battleships. Additionally, the Prince of Wales is probably still alive after taking a rain of bombs too small to hurt her, meaning that battleship-wise, Japan is behind. It's less a devastating victory and more a smack to the face of American industrial might. Right now Grey's at a rough parity of carrier strength, but in every other category, he's going to start falling behind. The Allies are just now beginning to really start having more of everything, and it gets worse and worse. Hopefully Grey makes it to December 1943 without losing any more CVs or experienced pilots, because the loss of airframes is really going to start showing soon.
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Nov 22, 2016 10:31
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wedgekree posted:he Everyones ragging on me for losing a carrier, but lets be fair, I'm going to loose them at some point - and killing 2 (3 in my wildest dreams) enemy carriers and two battleships for the loss of one of my own and a near useless light carrier is a good trade - I's have loved it to be none, but when there are four allied carriers in the air, that would be a long shot - I got lucky with just the two! Really, look at Midway, this is considered an amazing American victory, but they still lost one of three carriers. In the long game, the Essex class ships are going to ruin me, and I'm going to lose, I'm just trying to do better than history - and with three confirmed carrier kills, I'm doing that! Now all I have to do is not collapse like a paper bag when the Allies do hit me....
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Nov 22, 2016 10:42
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Why do you insist on grouping extremely slow ships with fast ones in the worst possible TF combinations?
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Nov 22, 2016 10:46
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I like giving the ai a chance....
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Nov 22, 2016 11:24
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What a week! Keep up the good work, Grey. We all know how this is going to end, but we're all along for the ride 
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Nov 22, 2016 11:45
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Ngh... All Grey needs to do to survive out 1946 with more points than the Allies is sink another ten Essex-carriers or so, without losing any of his own. You can do that right, Grey? Or is it more like 20+? Or is 10 enough to slow down the Allies enough to 'win' by having more points in 1946 (as if the Green Machine would've stopped)?
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Nov 22, 2016 12:11
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Grey Hunter posted:I like giving the ai a chance.... I respect this answer.
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Nov 22, 2016 15:16
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I recently read a really excellent AAR on the Matrix forums where the Japanese player made it to September 1945 or thereabouts after playing an extremely aggressive early game where he took almost all of Australia outside of Sydney, took giant chunks of India, killed every single Chinese unit on the map, and then attacked the Soviet Union in 1944 with all his veteran Chinese units. He made it through most of the game with the IJN intact, too, so by the time the Allied player was invading China, Korea, and the home-islands there were massive battleship brawls with dozens on both sides just slugging it out. It got bloody and the Japanese player didn't call it until there was a mini-race for Berlin with American and Commonwealth units approaching Tokyo from the West and Soviet units approaching from the East.
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Nov 22, 2016 15:20
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Generation Internet posted:I recently read a really excellent AAR on the Matrix forums where the Japanese player made it to September 1945 or thereabouts after playing an extremely aggressive early game where he took almost all of Australia outside of Sydney, took giant chunks of India, killed every single Chinese unit on the map, and then attacked the Soviet Union in 1944 with all his veteran Chinese units. He made it through most of the game with the IJN intact, too, so by the time the Allied player was invading China, Korea, and the home-islands there were massive battleship brawls with dozens on both sides just slugging it out. It got bloody and the Japanese player didn't call it until there was a mini-race for Berlin with American and Commonwealth units approaching Tokyo from the West and Soviet units approaching from the East. I would like to read this. Got a link?
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Nov 22, 2016 15:48
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NastyToes posted:Can someone explain why Grey is a croctopus? I understand every other reference in that image, but the croctopus stumps me. Because he is BUILDING a BOTE
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Nov 22, 2016 16:01
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Mikl posted:I would like to read this. Got a link? http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3790373 There it is, witness the power of a fully armed and operational Japanese empire.
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Nov 22, 2016 16:02
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Grey Hunter posted:Everyones ragging on me for losing a carrier, but lets be fair, I'm going to loose them at some point - and killing 2 (3 in my wildest dreams) enemy carriers and two battleships for the loss of one of my own and a near useless light carrier is a good trade - I's have loved it to be none, but when there are four allied carriers in the air, that would be a long shot - I got lucky with just the two! Nah, you've been doing great. You've seized carrier control of the Pacific until probably mid 1943, allowing you time to take a few more bases before getting ready for the onslaught. You've mostly saved your carrier pilots and planes as well, as your homeless pilots were able to reach land. Don't forget that you took out two fleet oilers as well during the big air battle. Losing those can really hurt the Allied tempo of operations in the future. Basically, I think you've given yourself an extra 4-6 months of consolidation time before the Allies can mount a serious offensive. That's extra months of exploiting the DEI for oil, extra months of digging in and building defenses, and extra months to train pilots.
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Nov 22, 2016 17:06
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Hey, is that the first time we've seen Lightnings?
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Nov 22, 2016 18:23
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RA Rx posted:Ngh... All Grey needs to do to survive out 1946 with more points than the Allies is sink another ten Essex-carriers or so, without losing any of his own. You can do that right, Grey? Are the Japanese victory conditions really that bad?
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Nov 22, 2016 19:42
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Ron Jeremy posted:Are the Japanese victory conditions really that bad? Japan is really not in a position to actually win against the Allies. Your goal as Japan is to do better than historical Japan.
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Nov 22, 2016 20:01
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Ron Jeremy posted:Are the Japanese victory conditions really that bad? The Japanese never stood a chance against a dedicated America, the game reflects that very well. A statistic mentioned by Jon Parshall in "Shattered Sword" said something to the effect that the Japanese could've destroyed every single American ship afloat everywhere in the world on December 7th, 1941 while taking no losses of their own and they still would've been outnumbered again by early-1943.
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Nov 22, 2016 20:01
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Ron Jeremy posted:Are the Japanese victory conditions really that bad? He needs to have more points by the end of 1946. It just gets hard to do that with dozens of fleet carriers and tin cans coming your way.
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Nov 22, 2016 20:05
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I meant the game victory conditions. But IRL, had the Japanese won in Mahanian fashion at coral sea and/or midway, the war would have turned out very differently. Probably would have taken also a successful defense of Guadalcanal, but yeah I don't see the Japanese war effort as purely in vain. I think we're colored more by hindsight.
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Nov 22, 2016 20:10
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Gully Foyle posted:and extra months to train pilots. You do have a pilot training program, don't you Grey? 
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Nov 22, 2016 21:07
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A 15kt liner is nice.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:20
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Ron Jeremy posted:I meant the game victory conditions. Actually, if anything we probably overestimate Japan's chances.  http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm Jonathan Parshall of Shattered Sword fame has a good writeup here of just how hosed Japan was. In every kind of war production they were far behind the US alone, let alone with the UK and USSR included. Unless they were sinking ten Allied ships for every one they lost, in every naval battle and encounter, indefinitely, there was a literally zero percent chance of them achieving a favourable outcome, especially when you consider that Germany lost so after August 1945 the entire warmaking potential of the US, UK, and USSR, any one of which could have economically overpowered the Japanese, would have been directed at destroying them.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:24
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I'm not sure what the Japanese could have done to destroy the political will for the US to continue the fight, but without that, there is no way they aren't losing.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:34
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That article is a great read. By 1945 the US was 50% of global GNP and was growing at 15% per annum. It was growing by more than Japan's total GNP every year.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:39
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My grandfather was on the Idaho in WWII. I think this may mean that in this alternative timeline, I will never exist.
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Nov 22, 2016 21:58
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MrMojok posted:My grandfather was on the Idaho in WWII. I think this may mean that in this alternative timeline, I will never exist. We can only hope. pthighs posted:I'm not sure what the Japanese could have done to destroy the political will for the US to continue the fight, but without that, there is no way they aren't losing. They could've developed nukes first. Short of that, I don't think they could've managed.
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Nov 22, 2016 22:14
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vyelkin posted:especially when you consider that Germany lost so after August 1945 the entire warmaking potential of the US, UK, and USSR, any one of which could have economically overpowered the Japanese, would have been directed at destroying them. In that LP I linked earlier this because so evident. The Japan player did about as well as humanly possible but in the Summer of 1945, uh oh! Turns out you've only been fighting half of the allied war machine! You could shoot down every single B-24 and B-29 in the Pacific and you'd still be facing heavy bombers because thousands of 8th Air-Force B-17s show up once they're done flattening Germany.
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Nov 22, 2016 22:29
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And they're basing these thousands of B-17s where exactly, against this theoretical incredibly competent/effective Imperial Japan that has conquered and held the boundaries of the southern and eastern edges of their Co-Prosperity Sphere? The distances involved in the Pacific theater were absolutely massive and even the B-29, with a range of over half again as much as the B-17, needed small island fields to launch from to reach Japan that weren't captured even historically until early 1944 - ones that this theoretical Imperial Japan would still own. And given the B-17's significantly shorter range, you suddenly need bases all that much closer.pthighs posted:I'm not sure what the Japanese could have done to destroy the political will for the US to continue the fight, but without that, there is no way they aren't losing. Given the disruption when Truman took over, combined with multiple Allied leaders really wanting to reorient towards the Soviets, it's not completely impossible to imagine that in a timeline where by 1945 there have been far, far less gains combined with far heavier losses by the US, that a legitimate attempt at peace could be negotiated. Now realistically it still wouldn't happen, as the Imperial Japanese military was absolutely psychotic and would probably have their own officials assassinated for suggesting peace, but we're already into heavily into theory-crafting so eh. In this case it's not so much about breaking the political will of the US so much as redirecting it somewhere else that it already wants to go (and in fact historically did go very shortly after WW2 ending anyways). Pearl Harbor is 4 years in the past right now, and there are already other events to attract public attention - like what the Red Army was doing in Germany - in areas of the world (Western Europe) far more relatable to the average American than the Far East.
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Nov 22, 2016 23:31
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Japanese victory necessarily has to be a political victory. A big victory like i mentioned has to include a rethinking of naval policy. The Americans already did this in the IRL timeline when they were unable to reinforce the Philippines like they planned to prewar. A theoretical us navy comes off that big loss and must re-evaluate. They could refocus and prosecute the war with their fleet submarines operating from the west coast and Australia and India. They could wait for their industrial capacity to catch up and try to re-fight the same battle in a year or two. What happens though if they can no longer supply pearl? I don't think a separate peace is out of the question.
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Nov 22, 2016 23:53
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Lord Koth posted:And they're basing these thousands of B-17s where exactly, against this theoretical incredibly competent/effective Imperial Japan that has conquered and held the boundaries of the southern and eastern edges of their Co-Prosperity Sphere? The distances involved in the Pacific theater were absolutely massive and even the B-29, with a range of over half again as much as the B-17, needed small island fields to launch from to reach Japan that weren't captured even historically until early 1944 - ones that this theoretical Imperial Japan would still own. And given the B-17's significantly shorter range, you suddenly need bases all that much closer. I'm talking about this AAR: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3790373 Even the best played Japan was still withdrawing to the home islands by 1944 having more or less safely and completely evacuated from Australia and India.
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Nov 23, 2016 00:23
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In that game njp did very well on the ground and in the air but never really hampered the allied carriers much by comparison. On the other hand, his opponent went for the sir Robyn hard, meaning he avoided all meaningful combat for the first year, even as it meant Australia and India were being heavily bombed. From a political standpoint it's gamey as he'll since in no way would that have been allowed by the allied nations, but it meant he was able to get overwhelming naval superiority even faster.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:17
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Generation Internet posted:I'm talking about this AAR: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3790373 I can't remember if it was that one or another but there was one AAR where the Japanese player did basically nothing wrong save for not committing to Burma heavily enough. They drove hardcore toward the best planes possible and organized an amazing subchasing fleet that completely defeated the Allied submarine offensive. Up until halfway through '44 they hadn't lost a carrier and dealt heavy carrier and battleship losses to the Americans in every large engagement. Things went downhill on land after '44 when the British overran Burma, Thailand, and Indochina, with Singapore falling the year after. Still, they had a large merchant fleet and given the fact that had were able to keep the oil areas of the Dutch East Indies they were able to bring oil and resources to the Home Islands well into '46. The losses started mounting in '45, though, when the Allies had run out of fleet and light carriers and just started throwing task forces of fifty or more of escort carriers at the Home Islands. They lost more than a few carriers, but when the Allied player tried an invasion of Hokkaido they were able to bait them into a massive engagement with the entirety of their carriers and battleships in addition to a every bomber that they could fit onto the airbases in Hokkaido. The Allied player lost a massive amount of carriers, their remaining battleships, and the transports loaded transports they needed to continue the invasion. The Allied player threw in the towel in early '46 when they had basically lost all hope of beating Japan before the clock ran out. A Japan led by an amazing player can actually get the multiple decisive battles that the actual Japan could have only dreamed of. Still, they only got to the bargaining table with just the Dutch East Indies to show for it 
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Nov 23, 2016 01:33
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RZApublican posted:I can't remember if it was that one or another but there was one AAR where the Japanese player did basically nothing wrong save for not committing to Burma heavily enough. They drove hardcore toward the best planes possible and organized an amazing subchasing fleet that completely defeated the Allied submarine offensive. Up until halfway through '44 they hadn't lost a carrier and dealt heavy carrier and battleship losses to the Americans in every large engagement. Things went downhill on land after '44 when the British overran Burma, Thailand, and Indochina, with Singapore falling the year after. Still, they had a large merchant fleet and given the fact that had were able to keep the oil areas of the Dutch East Indies they were able to bring oil and resources to the Home Islands well into '46. The losses started mounting in '45, though, when the Allies had run out of fleet and light carriers and just started throwing task forces of fifty or more of escort carriers at the Home Islands. They lost more than a few carriers, but when the Allied player tried an invasion of Hokkaido they were able to bait them into a massive engagement with the entirety of their carriers and battleships in addition to a every bomber that they could fit onto the airbases in Hokkaido. The Allied player lost a massive amount of carriers, their remaining battleships, and the transports loaded transports they needed to continue the invasion. The Allied player threw in the towel in early '46 when they had basically lost all hope of beating Japan before the clock ran out. That's not one I've seen, it's not the njp va wargmr ones that much I know. I'd love to read it though.
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Nov 23, 2016 01:48
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Velius posted:That's not one I've seen, it's not the njp va wargmr ones that much I know. I'd love to read it though. Agreed, after powering through the above linked one this morning, would love to read this one.
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Nov 23, 2016 02:22
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