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I still think Pharnakes should invade Perth. e: Snipe! Very big-time update on the last page.
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Apr 30, 2024 22:49
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I guess this sort of thing is going to happen to every IJN player at some point, due to the sheer number of CVs that the Allies can put to sea. When the IJN has ten carriers and the Americans are floating 30 CVs it gets rather grim.
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Apr 30, 2024 23:27
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Woof. Can those damaged carriers even put a CAP up to defend themselves anymore?
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Apr 30, 2024 23:50
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tatankatonk posted:Woof. Can those damaged carriers even put a CAP up to defend themselves anymore? IIRC no plane can fly off a Carrier if the system damage + flotation damage is > 50. This applies to every carrier hit today. The cap that was in the air landed on island bases, so at least they can be useful.
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May 1, 2024 00:08
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Tuna-Fish posted:IIRC no plane can fly off a Carrier if the system damage + flotation damage is > 50. This applies to every carrier hit today. The cap that was in the air landed on island bases, so at least they can be useful. I'm frankly surprised the carriers didn't sink. IJN damage control isn't nearly as good as USN damage control (Unless they modded that or turned it off), so any hex movement should theoretically cause more damage to the carriers.
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May 1, 2024 00:23
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At this point I imagine it is important to try and combine all your remaining carriers into one force, otherwise you have little way of resisting his advance through the Marshals. Gather everything together for one final decisive battle!
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May 1, 2024 01:21
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Part of the problem is that Alikchi doesn't even really have many full CVs right now. It is interesting that the major damage came from an effort to be irritating to Alikchi and snag a short term tactical victory by forcing the US to spend time planning an amphibious assault to re-take Ebon instead of using that time to attack somewhere more important... despite it not being strategically important to Pharnakes. I feel like that happens a lot in real life.
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May 1, 2024 01:38
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The idea of hiding those carriers in an atoll that's tiny even by Pacific atoll standards is really funny to me. The boats will be bigger than the islands they're hiding among!
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May 1, 2024 02:20
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Pirate Radar posted:The idea of hiding those carriers in an atoll that's tiny even by Pacific atoll standards is really funny to me. The boats will be bigger than the islands they're hiding among! Someone remind me, once ships are docked do they get immune to Naval Strike and have to be Port Striked?
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May 1, 2024 08:23
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I just realized the date of this battle was a year and a day after the historical Battle of Midway.
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May 1, 2024 17:53
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Alchenar posted:Someone remind me, once ships are docked do they get immune to Naval Strike and have to be Port Striked? Once their fleet is disbanded and they are just listed as stuff in that port? yup, Port Strike or nothing. I believe being on fire limits your ability to take a ship out of the fleet and into the "dock".
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May 1, 2024 18:20
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Sorry for laughing at this particular bit of misfortune, but I think it's quite funny how the carrier fleet, in the effort to keep from striking at any of the bases, ends up exactly in the middle of a 4-hex spot of empty ocean while everything it could potentially strike at is just out of the set range.
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May 2, 2024 01:43
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TheDemon posted:Sorry for laughing at this particular bit of misfortune, but I think it's quite funny how the carrier fleet, in the effort to keep from striking at any of the bases, ends up exactly in the middle of a 4-hex spot of empty ocean while everything it could potentially strike at is just out of the set range. That’s pretty much precisely what happened to me in our game. I range-capped my carrier aircraft to ensure my strike didn’t take off with half loads, and rolled the dice on where I thought he was going. I rolled wrong, and the Japanese range advantage meant that Pharnakes was exactly one hex out of range, and the reciprocal wasn’t true.
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May 2, 2024 03:19
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ngl I am chuffed that Alikchi got a win, must feel amazing for him after the last gestures at entire game
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May 2, 2024 03:59
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  I-173 is forced down in the Gilberts.  I-27 next door takes a couple tickles.  But gets away the second time.  And the third.  No CAP over Jodhpur, but plenty of weather.  None here either.  But some at Delhi.  Well, we’ll take evens.    Still, should be clear now.  Jodhpur first though.    There were thirty bombers reported here yesterday!  That Scythe is still over Delhi and has gone even higher!  gently caress him anyway.  But he does claim a Tojo.  We get one on the ground with this wave.  And he’s still there when another sweep arrives.    This is good.  Our LRCAP outside Jodhpur engages.  The weather isn’t quite so bad here.  Venturas aren’t supposed to be good!  Gasmata.  Blah blah blah.  Only one Zero left near Jodhpur.  And he didn’t manage to get one.  He’s got the bombers out near Delhi too.  Poor 16th recon regiment, they can’t catch a break.  Boomerangs getting a little ambitious there.  They’re never going to hit anything at high altitude level bombing.  Gove.  Not much so far.  He’s throwing everything he’s got to save Jodhpur.  It’s not going to be enough. I hope.  Dawin   Looks promising.  That’s the stuff.  Roi Namur is bad.  There’s nothing much here to be bombed but we need this airfield.  This is what we just can’t counter. Long range bombers coming in from the FoW and denying us airfields we can’t afford to defend.  We’ve caught these bombers though.  And only one makes it through.  And that one eats flak.  The guns I put at Gove are disappointing in their results, though.  The CVLs turn at Jodhpur.  Better than the marine sentais anyway.  Yes please.  What is he thinking.  Sploosh.  First Darwin and now Rabaul.  The weather has worsened over Gove in the afternoon.  They still hit something.  And now Lae.  Thick jungle here.  Mili.  Minimal damage.  lovely at Umboi.  And it shows.  More at Darwin?  All through this time   We needn't have worried.  Another.  Oh well, we’re doing good so far.  And it looks like we aren’t going to get a carrier strike. Which is very good because I don’t know what that is still near Ebon, but it terrifies me.  And we’re out of the airphase, thank you.  Boosh.  Much closer odds this time, but we make good inroads anyway.  Quieter at Bangalore today.  Still refusing to give up.    Ooops!  Someone's career just ended.   Well.   Did pretty loving good in the air today, if half of it was due to Alikchi overreaching with the Liberators. I suppose he was gambling I’d strip everything to the Marshalls, which I would but the Tojos are too short ranged to go, so.  Just Tenryu so far.  Maizaru starts a nice “B” cargo ship, due for the 26th of October.  Yokohama a tanker, 4th of April.  And a second at Tokyo.  We’re unspotted here, and Taiho has got things more or less under control. Far from a guarantee of survival yet, of course.  Shokaku is not in such good shape, but she does have a chance, maybe.  Zuikaku though has fought the good fight for long enough. Rest in pieces beautiful lady.  Not quite what I’d had in mind for bait, but maybe it works? With any luck Medake will be reported as a CV, and he’ll think any less damaged CVs went straight for Truk, while one or more cripples got stuck and couldn’t move. No idea why they didn’t just sink Zuikaku though, the weather is fine.   Taiho is going to make a sprint tonight for Ebadon in the north of the Marshalls. If nothing else I want to not have all our eggs in one basket.  Shokaku we are sending to Jaluit. I am much less sure about that, because he is surveilling the island. But it’s been a couple days since the last overflight by the look of it, and the port levels might just help Shokaku deal with the fires.  We shall most certainly be returning the favour here today.  The Nells don’t seem to be having much luck at Jodhpur, so we’ll send them to Lahore again, I think.  Our light tank units have fought extremely well, but we need to wait for the guards tank to digest their pocket and for the infantry to catch up before we can tackle Ajmer.  The battleships might as well bombard Karachi before they go to Bombay for ammo and fuel.
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May 2, 2024 19:02
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Even if Taiho and Shokaku survive they'll be in the yards for a long time, but limiting the CV losses to just Zuikaku would be quite a lucky recovery after how many hits they took.
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May 2, 2024 19:25
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Honestly having seen Alikchi's update of the 5th (he provided video) it's a little heart-breaking that all three carriers aren't already sunk given the amount of hits they took. The RNG really sided with Pharnakes on that one, particularly with the absence of major engine damage allowing for a speedy withdrawal.
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May 2, 2024 20:50
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Even more interesting, the scuttling of that one carrier with all those extra planes stocked in it, might convince Alikchi that he got more than that single carrier.
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May 2, 2024 21:04
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Shame about that carrier. But you got lucky. And nailbiter! Good to see Alikchi doing well. By scuttling the carrier do you save the pilots/officers on it? And how long till your carriers come out of the yards at Singapore?
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May 2, 2024 21:31
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  Splat.  Well, it’s something.  No CAP over Jodhpur.  Still some at Delhi.  I would have hoped for at least even   Second wave before strike, nice.  Even this time.  Clear for the Nells at Lahore.  Despite the tiny airbase and the target rich environment they don’t really achieve anything.  Still one Hurricane over Delhi.  OK ish weather.  Very nice.  And now that Hurricane is under our next sweep.  Not that we get him anyway.  I’m very surprised we are doing so much damage here, it’s a level nine airfield and there aren’t that many planes left, whereas at Lahore with a level one airfield and about the same or even more targets we did poo poo all   Sweep arriving at Ailinglaplap.  They casually wreck us, but whatever, there’s taskforces at sea, the carriers didn’t hide and we are going to lose both of them. gently caress!  Venturas wander into the LRCAP at Jodhpur.  They were barely better than Hudsons IRL  Well, at least they didn’t do much damage.  Thunder at Gasmata.  Not much damage yet.  More at Jodhpur.  Apparently those three Venturas swept our CAP away??  They still don’t do that much damage at least.  And now the Boomerangs.  Lae.  Jungle is hard to bomb accurately in.  Gove.  Light from this wave.  I’m sure there’s plenty more to come.  Umboi Island.  Storms here too. Maybe there will be storms over the carriers?   Here come the Liberators for Alinglaplap.  Straight through, of course.  And no bad weather here  There’s too many.  We’re not even half way through 1943!  More.  The CVLs’ turn at Jodhpur.  One for one isn’t great, but I’ll take it.  Welp, end of the road for Shokaku.  It’s pretty clear how this is going to end.  There’s no coming back from that.  And Taiho   They didn’t even have escort, and didn’t need it.  I had thought that maybe when they didn’t attack in the morning we’d somehow get away with it, but no.  Suppression of our runways continues.  A couple of our destroyers were forced to be left behind as they ran out of fuel.  Despite being literally stationary we somehow only lose one.  Ro-103 misses a minelaying convoy.  Well, we’ll do some damage here at least.  The Indian army continues to be a nice punching bag and source of VP.  A good day at Bangalore.  Just give up already.  That’s just ridiculous.   I honestly thought we were at least going to save Taiho   Not a great day in the air.  The worst bit is I have no idea why that didn’t work. I went back and checked the orders from the end of turn and it should have. Oh well, witp giveth, witp taketh away.  Mitsuki Maru is here to save the day!  Eikyo Maru is somewhat more useful.  We lay down another of these really rather poo poo oilers at Sasebo, due on the 17th of October.  And at Maizaru a rather nice base unit arrives.  Welp.  The gut punch is he hasn’t overflown Namorik, we could have just sat there and we’d have been fine. Well, Shokaku might not have been.  We just can’t defend against the combination of Hellcat sweeps and Liberator bombings. Our only chance is to shut down Tabiteuea, but I really can’t see how to do that. If only we still had three more carriers    There’s nothing for Chuho to do but return to Truk. This will at least give us three operational carriers, it should have been six and we could have really forced Alikchi to wait at least another half a year before finishing the Marshalls campaign.  At least we can ship some more AA out to Truk. We are going to need it.  I don’t know if he’s garrisoned Finschhafen yet or not, so we’ll send a suicide squad to find out. If he hasn’t and we can get ashore here, I’ve got a plan to force him to fight hard here rather than bypassing.  Apparently Hyderabad (Singh) is the cool place to be now, if you are a RAF bomber, so we’ll bomb there.  And since there seems to be minimal flak there, we’ll send the Nells too.  That means we don’t need to sweep Jodhpur tomorrow, and can focus on LRCAP over our advance.  Time for the main advance into Delhi. 2.5k AV so far, with another 1500 or so to catch up over the next week.
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May 5, 2024 19:23
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Pharnakes posted:The worst bit is I have no idea why that didn’t work. I went back and checked the orders from the end of turn and it should have. I think someone said in one of the threads that there are restrictions on disbanding ships into port if they're too damaged or have the wrong type of damage?
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May 5, 2024 20:39
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Zurai posted:I think someone said in one of the threads that there are restrictions on disbanding ships into port if they're too damaged or have the wrong type of damage? Oh yeah that rings a bell. I reckon that's actually in the manual somewhere. One of the few times the game says 'oh no we're not letting you pull an invisibility cloak'. E: Really glad that Alikchi gets the full outcome he deserves.
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May 5, 2024 20:42
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Oof, messy. THree CV's lost, and 300 or so planes? That's brutal. Kudos to Alikchi for the turnaround. And looks like getting aggressive there bit back hard.
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May 6, 2024 00:32
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  I-17 misses a juicy looking freighter.  At least she only takes a light rattle in return.  RO-103 has a somewhat harder time.  The battle wagons are back at Jaluit.  There’s not really that much here for them to hit.  Of course, Hake doesn’t miss.  Although to be fair it looks like Liverpool Maru will probably make it.  Here comes the sweep at Alinglaplap.  Better than I’d expected!  Maybe we can get revenge at Delhi.  Nope.  No CAP over Hyderabad, at least.  Fulmar? That’s what you went for??  I wonder if he moved the bombers, I think he probably did. I’m not quite sure where to, though, he’s rapidly running out of options.  The sweep didn’t even do anything!  And pants weather.  Well that sucks.  If that CAP is still there untouched…  Well, there was one less Scythe, I suppose.  We’ve been doing far better than I could have expected, I suppose it couldn’t last forever.  It’d be nice to at least get some supply hits, though.  The Empire strikes back!  Rather ineffectually.  Your daily report from Gasmata.  Hey, we damaged a Mitchell!  This Wellington done hosed up.  Ayup.  Mitchells next.  Are you taking the piss?  19 Zeros left in the CAP and they can’t even shoot down one of a two ship Mitchell flight.  Please god tell me we can shoot a Vengeance down at least.  One we can! Also note CAP numbers, 11 Zeros expended their fuel and or ammo against those Mitchells to achieve nothing.  Blenheims next.  Let’s hope they weren’t saving the best for last, because that’s the CAP done.  Anyway, on the other side of the world.  How could we ever defend against this if we can’t handle two Mitchells.  Mili’s turn to get Mitchelled.  I’m feeling like Mitchell is an areshole, to be honest.  He certainly gets around.  Relatively light damage.  Let’s see how our CAP fairs at Maloelap.    I think we can thank the storms more than our own efforts for that.  And here comes their VBs to play.  I hadn’t expected these guys to survive if they did get attacked.  I did think we might have managed to shoot down at least one Dauntless.  More at Ailinglaplap.  Not even cheating is enough advantage for our Zeros.  Ohh, and he’s hitting Kwajalein too.  Did the Rex of all things get a Dauntless!?  Well ouch. Clearly Kwajalein is no longer viable as a forward base.  He’s sending some to Jaluit, too.  Balls, I forgot to move Shokaku’s escorts on.  Shortland’s turn to get trashed.  And trashed it gets.  We’re crossing the Ganges behind Delhi. I’ve lost track a little bit, but I’m sure we beat up the 31st/C recently, how have they recovered this much??  Well, recover from that if you can.  I’ve been carefully not getting my hopes up, but I’m almost ready to believe he is running out of supply in India.  Bangalore I thought they really had, but now his AV isn’t going down anymore.  Today these guys will surrender, right?  ???   Never mind carriers, I don’t really see how to stop him just rolling across the Pacific in the next six months purely on the basis of land based air.   Somehow we actually come out even in the air, albeit only by being propped up in results in India.  I’d have rather sacrificed these ships for more than a handful of dead Hellcats, but what can you do. Not much as it turns out   The next Etorofu is laid down at Tokyo. 41 days for completion.  And at Fukuoka a “D” class, due in 61 days. Better than an “E” at least.  The 47th cavalry regiment arrives at Hirosaki. Just waiting on the engineers now to form the 47th division.  We are going to have to start using our CVEs. Until now I haven’t because I haven’t seen much use for them, ASW patrols being much better left to the Nells that can’t be torpedoed in return, but if we keep them all together they can muster nearly one hundred Zeros for a CAP if they carry no strike. No strike is completely useless for a fleet engagement, but for escorting convoys past Alikchi’s land based air it’s exactly what we want, without tying down and risking fleet carriers. First though they are all due upgrades to give them some actually half way respectable AA for self defence. Well, except Hosho who is pretty hopeless, frankly.  This right here is what I really can’t work out how to counter. This is the Sentai responsible for CAP over Maloelap today, out of the twenty flyable aircraft who arrived for CAP today, two have been destroyed, and in exchange they (probably) caused one Liberator to crash on landing. That isn’t actually a bad ratio given that a Liberator is worth two points, the problem is the fourteen damaged airframes that are now stuck here while Alikchi can bomb them with impunity. This phase of the game is entirely new territory for me, it feels wrong to just write off the Marshalls six months before the US attacked them in real life, but there is a potential road to a victory in the overall campaign I think and I can’t afford to succumb to sunk cost fallacies.  Even if we could somehow get these birds back up in the air (we can’t on such a small airfield), it wouldn’t help with the inevitable sweep. Not defending isn’t an option, but defending just results in the same outcome only with some extra points for Alikchi. Technically it buys time, but we can’t afford to pay that price for a day or two, we need months. Maybe the Marshalls are actually indefensible, I don’t know, (I’ve never even read an LP covering this phase of the war) but if so I am in major trouble since I’ve been operating on the assumption that after all our naval victories last year the Marshalls would not fall until the historical date at the very earliest.  I’m not at all sure we are going to manage to force Alikci to attack, but it’s only 6% to go on the forts at Tarawa.  Only two hits, but nasty ones.  Liverpool Maru will indeed survive, barring a repeat attack.   The 37th division and the 6th guards are going to bypass Delhi and push on. This leaves him a line of retreat from Delhi, but he’s more than welcome to use it as far as I am concerned.  We have arrived at Jodhpur, time to see what we are up against.  Delhi is all but destroyed, we are going to shift the majority of the Hellens to attacking what’s left of his tanks.  I’m nearly certain that Jacobad is his new bomber base, but until we can get some reconnaissance done we’ll send the Nells to Ajmer, where the might be a few kills to grub.  We’re withdrawing two CVLs, Inaba and Harima from the Arabian Sea for the Pacific.  We’ll try LRCAP of Gasmata tomorrow, but we can’t risk it for more than one day.
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May 6, 2024 22:17
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Are the Marshall's worth fighting and burning so many resources for? Defending everywhere means defending nowhere and all that. Would it perhaps be prudent to fortify the hell out of Enewetak and leaving sacrificial delaying forces in the rest of the islands?
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May 6, 2024 22:46
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I don't know precisely what comes in the reinforcement's package, but I think one issue might be having triggered the India reinforcements. That was a lot of material for Alikchi above and beyond the US industrial war machine. It possibly freed up land based fighters and bombers that he would have otherwise needed to commit to that theater and allowed him to start pushing more quickly in the Pacific and New Guinea.
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May 7, 2024 16:33
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It's difficult to compare to the meta because this is a homebrew game and you are already past the Japan auto-win on points marker, and you've homebrew denied yourself a whole carrier fleet. Given the way the game has been drawn up, mind 1943 for a carrier battle that enables the US to start contesting the island chains isn't unreasonable. 1944 is the point where the game literally goes "hey US player, remember every carrier you lost? Have a replacement, plus these extras" while the Japan player has to make do with what's in the build queue.
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May 7, 2024 17:32
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Alchenar posted:It's difficult to compare to the meta because this is a homebrew game and you are already past the Japan auto-win on points marker, and you've homebrew denied yourself a whole carrier fleet. Given the way the game has been drawn up, mind 1943 for a carrier battle that enables the US to start contesting the island chains isn't unreasonable. the 1 for 1 replacement part was turned off if I recall correct. But at that stage it doesn't really matter much.
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May 7, 2024 21:01
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SerthVarnee posted:the 1 for 1 replacement part was turned off if I recall correct. But at that stage it doesn't really matter much. Eh, if the Japan player does very well (or if the US player is careless/unlucky, the conditions were very much in place in this game before several carriers got houseruled away) then it's entirely possible for them to create a deathball KB of elite pilots that can smash any TF the US player could possibly hope to put together - but for the rule that ensures the US will always have superior CV numbers in 44.
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May 9, 2024 19:00
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  I-157 jumps at ghosts.  The USN battlewagons are back.  But they don’t hit much. I’m not sure why he’s pounding Jaluit so hard, does he think there’s still some ships hiding in port here?  We’ll shoot Karachi up because why the hell not.  We don’t hit all that much either.  A third bombardment. This one might be an invasion  Not yet anyway.  RO-35 is chased off.  We have no CAP up today.  Nor do they here. They’re airpower in India is all but eliminated I think.  And here comes the bombers. poo poo weather though.  Well, it should be enough to keep his tanks disrupted.  And a second wave does a little more.  Bombing Jaluit too.  Maybe he just forgot to change the orders?  He hasn’t totally forgotten about Alinglaplap.  Rough.  Shortlands.  Less rough.  Still a little CAP over Delhi.  Gottem.  Their carriers launch at Mili.  I think we can survive that.  Dauntlesses at Gove?  He’s back at Groote Eylandt then, and Mornington too.  Dauntlesses seem an odd choice when the Mitchells have been doing such good work for him, but I suppose he wants something better able to deny naval access.  And the Aussies have found some remaining Vengeances somewhere.  One Wellington at Jodhpur.  It does not have a good time.  Oops.  Well, at least they aren’t trained it seems.  I don’t know why Tama Maru is here, she shouldn’t be. Probably the auto routing freaked out over the air threat and did a stupid.  Not only Dauntlesses at Gove then.  Yes please!  We have no fuel here, or any port to speak of, so whatever.  Umboi Island.  We’re so hosed up here he’s hitting diminishing returns I’m pretty sure.  RO-35 is spotted again.  Recon by fire at Jodhpur.  Not nearly as bad as I thought it might be.  But it’s gone quiet again at Bangalore.  Surely this time.  That’s just ridiculous.  402:1 but they are allowed to retreat with only minimal damage. Mind you, I’ve seen worse. I once had a single bulldozer hold up an entire division for three days.   No disasters.  Exactly even in the air since we lost two Emilys and he lost one Liberator.  The calm after the storm.  Boring, but useful. Finished today at Nagasaki.  This, on the other hand.  The 30th recon & engineer regiments arrive at Keijo. In five days the artillery will arrive and the 30th division will be ready to deploy. A nice bonus is they form attached to the unrestricted 14th army.   With his carriers departing, now is the time to evacuate what we can from the Marshalls.  I’m determined to get these reinforcements in. We have to hold the Marshalls until at least October time, because at the moment if he takes them the way is clear all the way up to the Bonins  We can garrison the other Islands relatively quickly if I burn the hoarded political points to strip Korea and the Home Islands, but nothing other than time can get the fortifications we need up.  This of course means sortieing the carriers, escorted by the entire Yoshino class of destroyer leaders.  And what big girls we can summon at short notice. All the same I rather fancy our chances against New Mexicos in the dark with the bombardment penalties factored in. The Yamatos are only a week behind, and I have a dim idea of luring him into thinking we only have older battleships in the Pacific at the moment, given we did show the Yamatos in the Arabian Sea.  It’s important too that we get at least something to Kuasie Island before he does.  Bold of him to assume I won't swing some Zeros back if needed now that his carriers are withdrawing.  And now just to pray for good coordination between sweep, escort and strike.  He’s also looking a little vulnerable at Mornington Island here.  It’s absolute bullshit that this regiment was allowed to retreat rather than surrender, but thankfully we had the recon unit ready to pursue.  I don’t think we need the Guards Tank to take Japiur and Ajmer in the end, so we are launching them on a deepstrike towards Lahore. It should be essentially open road ahead of them the whole way, and only take around ten days.  We’re going to transfer the Hellen hammer over to Indore.  Let’s see if we can finish this in one day.
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May 12, 2024 14:17
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Oof, three carriers down and a thousand points or more amongst them plus plane losses. How much does that set you back? ANd when do the ladies at Singapore come online? And you have any more decent ones coming out of the shipyards or this about it until the end of the war? And do you get to adjust your building/production any via house rules? Ie, get to produce fewer pilots and more planes or get more ships made? Not sure if the agreement you have with Alikchi prevents you from doing that or it's at that point in the game where the engine won't permit any.
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May 12, 2024 18:34
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Pharnakes posted:I once had a single bulldozer hold up an entire division for three days. Goddamn, what a machine! And yeah, I'm also curious as to how far off the return of the carriers at Singapore are. I'm also wondering if your plan is to fortify the hell out of Indonesia, the Phillipines and the Marianas so as to prevent the strategic bombing of the home Islands and enough oil for the fleet for as long as possible. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 12:35 on May 13, 2024 |
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May 13, 2024 12:30
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B25D1s are the first attack bomber rated variant, so unless you have additional house rules skip bombing should soon commence.
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May 13, 2024 21:13
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   Smack. One probably won’t do very much, though.  Maybe it’s some dry dock time at least?  Right at the moment I’ll take whatever we can get.  Uhh, what?  It’s not an invasion at least.  Can’t feel good for them men on Tarawa when the enemy is coming from the north now.  No CAP at all over Delhi!  Didn’t hit much, though.  The Lysanders are back.  They hit even less.  I decided to maintain the LRCAP over Gasmata for one more day.  A good investment I think.  Gove.  A bit of everything.  Now heavies.  Very little with this wave.  Storms at Shortlands.  Didn’t seem to help all that much.  Flying with half loads here isn’t helping him hit stuff.  Well gently caress.  Somehow most of them are through.  But they don’t catch any planes.    What I wouldn’t give for a bomber not made of tissue paper.  Mitchells, for example.  If we win this war the entire Mitchell design team are going to be put to the death. Unfortunately, we probably won’t  Jaluit.  Why is he still port bombing here, not that I am in any way complaining.  More Mitchells into the LRCAP.  It’s very hard not to feel bitter about the relative results between this and Mornington Island.  One Rex trying its best at Ailinglaplap.  Its best can't possibly be good enough, of course.  At least it didn’t get shot down.  And he stays out of it for the next wave.  And the third.  This is the convoy carrying four carrier’s worth of aircraft I think, so vigilance from the escorts is appreciated!  No CAS, so that’s not great.  Despite that we do OK.  Good, even. Taking the forts down isn’t nothing, albeit if we’d had the CAS I’m pretty sure we’d have won outright.  Bangalore is going back up again??? How the gently caress is it possible for him to have got supplies back in here?  Finish this for gently caress sakes.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH   A few disappointments there.   Perhaps my least favourite part of playing Japan is if I slip up in the slightest we lose half the bombers committed on a good day. Meanwhile the Allies can plough into a perfectly formed CAP trap and we lose more fighters than we get bombers   Nothing lost here today at least.  Oryoku Maru arrives at Fukuoka. She is the second last troop ship we will build.  Another shitbox at Maizaru.  We’ll convert a bunch of our smaller cargo ships into tankers at Nagasaki.  And in Manchukuo the army musters another airfield unit. We can never have too many of these.  We are fully spotted already, so no surprises are possible.  RO-65 has taken a bomb from a patrol in reward for her efforts, but it’s hardly fatal.  I admit Alikchi played me pretty well here, though. Putting only bombers there then removing them after one day was a good idea.  Clearly we didn’t fly here today because of the weather, but I think we’ll continue with our plans for tomorrow. We probably wont catch anything on the ground, but just loving up the airfield again is useful.  Without air support and at the end of our logistics tether we need to rest for at least one day before we can attack again.   We just have to keep chasing these aseholes.  I’d imagine they will escape before we can hit them, but if not our two divisions should show them a good time.  Inaba, Harmia, Zuiho and Hiho set off for the Pacific.  We are going to go and contest the Solomon Sea a little.  And since I’m sure Gasmata is going to attract every Hellcat and Corsair in 500 miles tomorrow, we will LRCAP the cruisers instead.
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May 17, 2024 18:46
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  Ohh, he’s back to night bombing. He didn’t do that last month.  I could do without it to be honest.  This wave misses aeroplanes at least.  Rabaul too.  Trying to fight back has previously been worse than just taking it.  Especially considering the opportunity cost of taking a fighter unit off day time operations.    Shallow water, but that doesn’t help.  Maloelap is on the list today it looks like.  And he’s sweeping Rabaul!  We just have to hope that was a probe and he doesn’t have any follow up bombers queued.  Somehow we still have a Rex up for the next wave.  And hopefully he survived?  CAS flying over Jodhpur today, good.  Although it looks like it’s mostly being targeted at the non combat units.  It should at least cause some disruption for the other combat units here.  And the army even disables a couple of squads.  Good job we did have the LRCAP up over our cruisers.  Hopefully we can keep it up.  Unescorted Dauntlesses shouldn't pose much threat.  One through, I’m not too worried.  And they miss.  After yesterday this feels very cathartic.  No CAP again over Delhi.  Supply hits would be nice. It’s interesting that we take no flak damage at all though. I know he has guns here, could they really be that badly out of supply? I have a hard time believing it, if so he was being absurdly careless about his logistics into India.  The army sends a second wave to Jodhpur.  Damnit, they’re not all going for the bait, but at least there’s storms.  But the first torpedo goes straight in   That’s some powerful bad luck there.  He’s being serious about sweeping Rabaul. Assuming he doesn’t have bombers on the way this actually works out perfectly for us.  Boomerangs, how cute.  Still slows us down of course.  More for Rabaul.  And more for Gekido, but Gekido is no longer there.  In the afternoon the Avengers try for our cruisers. This means our LRCAP is renewed so we shouldn’t have too much to worry about.  Nice.  The CVLs have decided to get back in the game, who knows why.  I think we can probably stop this now and settle for just blocking resupply.  Beauforts trying their luck next.  It isn’t going to make up for yesterday, but it might make up perhaps half the losses if we’re lucky.  They didn’t escape.  Thank you.  Groundhog day.   Well apart from Gekido getting unlucky that was a decent enough day.   Dauntless are almost as vulnerable as our bombers.  Jingei succumbed to her wounds then.   Yay.  The army raises a company of light AA. They are moderately useful at damaging dive bombers but otherwise pretty useless.  And at Hirosaki the final component of the 47th division.  I don’t know if this is some kind of an attempt at a breakout, it’s extremely half assed if so. But by complete coincidence the Guards Tank will be passing through this hex tomorrow, so we can bottle them back up in Delhi.   We are ready to attack again at Jodhpur.  We will push on to Ambala.  We must put the CAP back up at Rabaul now, of course.
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May 22, 2024 19:15
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  I-157 misses a convoy.  RO-67 is being hunted.  And they are still night bombing.  This will get old fast.  The weather at Katherine should shield us.  It does.  The second most annoying thing about being night bombed is the raid fragmentation and consequent ballooning of the screenshot budget.  This time they hit something.  Mornington Island is active again, it seems.  A steady if hardly war ending attrition.  And this wave really actually gets pretty good hits in.  I-157 at least manages to get her torpedoes off this time.  But pays for it.  And RO-67 takes a hit too.  RO-60 isn’t taking it lying down.  That was probably not the best idea.  I-173 surfaces to deal with a landing craft.  Sadly, an empty landing craft by the looks of it.  I-27 takes one too.  Only one Warhawk over Groote Eylandt.  Sweep of Kwajalein today.    No CAP over Delhi.  And no supply hits either.  Jodhpur CAS has arrived, good.  And at least partly target frontline units, it looks like.  The Anns found a little LRCAP.  But they escape unharmed.  A second wave of Hellens keeps up the good work.  The strike arrives at Groote Eylandt. I’m a bit annoyed this Warhawk is still up.  Decent bombing conditions.  But only one aeroplane destroyed on the ground.  Even with relatively minimal casualties, the disruption should help a lot.  Another Warhawk destroyed on the ground. I’m not sure what’s up with the CAP Warhawk, it seems a bit of a ghost.  Lysanders.  We’re not even trying to move here, so this achieves very little.  And Boomerangs, the other dregs of the barrel.  Here we are marching, so this is mildly annoying.  No Warhawk this time.  Definitely no CAP over Delhi.  Attempt two at Jodhpur.  Very nice.  We smash them, really.  He must have got supplies back in here somehow, has he got some insane logistics setup from the Maldives? That makes no sense.   Taking Jodhpur is nice.  One Hellcat. One Hellcat  RIP RO-65, a brief hero.  A thicc tanker at Kure today.  And at Nagasaki I-12 is laid down.  Are those battlecruisers coming out to play in the Solomon Sea?  Our cruisers here are distinctly outgunned, but I really want these two to have a chance to shine. Torpedoes are highly unreliable weapons, to put it mildly, though.   Time to see what exactly we are up against in Delhi.  If we’re not getting any supply dump hits at Delhi, we’ll shift all the Hellens to suppressing resistance in advance of the next big fight.  Their extremely convenient decision to retreat towards Ajmer and not Hyderabad means we can send the infantry to harass the survivors.  While the tanks are free to push across the Thar. Of course, the road network isn’t great, so it will take ten to twelve days to cross, assuming he doesn’t manage to bomb us. Actually, looking at the road network there, it makes no sense to cross from Jodhpur, we should go back to Ahemdabad and then up the coast.  The 56th Recon has made contact again.  The Guards Tank will knock whatever this is back into Delhi, if they don’t outright surrender. The reported troops could perfectly well have been dealt with by the recon regiment here already, but I didn’t order an attack incase Alikchi moved more men out of Delhi, resulting in us making an attack against very bad odds. Which, as we have seen several times, is often the decider in what could otherwise be a stalemate.  I think we’ll keep bombing Groote Eylandt for one more day. With Mornington Island also suppressed, it won't be easy for him to get up LRCAP here.  I don’t think this one is a trap. There’s been no fighters reported here for quite a few days.  On second thoughts, the timing is all wrong for these guys to be the Commonwealth battlecruisers, they are far more likely to be USN CAs, in which case I rather fancy our odds. There is, of course, only one possible leader for such an enterprise.  Alikchi has neglected to suppress Gasmata these last few days, which, combined with us shooting up the naval strike in the area yesterday, gives me the confidence to attempt aggressive manoeuvres.  The danger with resupply runs, other than the obvious, is that as we reach the destination we become vulnerable to sweep, which taskforces are otherwise immune to. Of course, on the other hand sweep requires to be targeted, so there is that. All we can really do is stack up the LRCAP to supplement the carriers as best we can, and hope.  A convoy of engineers has arrived at Truk, and we immediately start loading two construction battalions for Kuasie Island.  And one for Ponape, where we have a head start. With their decent size these two islands are key to preventing, or, let’s be realistic, delaying, a breakout from the Marshalls. They are also noticeable for their isolation, his strategy of creeping up on us by occupying every little atol we can’t afford to defend will simply not work here, he has to engage us directly to make progress.  I’m going to start stripping the Home Islands of AA for the frontline. Obviously this is a risk, but at the moment I judge it a minor one. The risk isn’t that we lose them, I’m completely OK with that, the risk is that we get bypassed and then Alikchi leaves them to rot. If he doesn’t take the atol they are on and destroy the unit, then we won’t be able to repurchase them for use in another line of defence. I think that so long as the IJN remains a credible threat, bypassing isn’t much of an option for Alikchi, though.
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May 25, 2024 11:55
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Looks like things are going to get interesting the next few days! Looks like at this point your subs aren't doing much of anything. Is Allied ASW getting too good or you just not getting lucky?
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May 25, 2024 23:05
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I'm sure you've answered this before, possibly even to me, but can't Alikchi just ignore everything you're doing in India and Australia and go straight through the smaller South Pacific islands and then up to Japan proper? In any traditional wargame, making such a big conquest would create a buffer between you and your enemy that they then have to reconquer, and/or gain you a lot of resources that you can use to further strengthen your position, but WITP doesn't work that way, does it? The show in India is fun for the thread to watch, but does it gain you anything in game terms?
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May 25, 2024 23:23
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Kylaer posted:I'm sure you've answered this before, possibly even to me, but can't Alikchi just ignore everything you're doing in India and Australia and go straight through the smaller South Pacific islands and then up to Japan proper? In any traditional wargame, making such a big conquest would create a buffer between you and your enemy that they then have to reconquer, and/or gain you a lot of resources that you can use to further strengthen your position, but WITP doesn't work that way, does it? The show in India is fun for the thread to watch, but does it gain you anything in game terms? All the India conquests contribute to Pharnakes' enormous score advantage in the lower left, which is why it says "major victory" right now. Alikchi could ignore India and try to island-hop to an airbase in B-29 range to drop Little Boy on Tokyo, and maybe doing that successfully would count as "winning the war" to some people, but in the game the points matter.
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May 25, 2024 23:42
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IIRC the game isn't measuring if 'Japan can win against the US' but moreso how much better they do than in reality. Since the US has -such- a huge production advantage they'll win eventually. What matters is that you do better/worse than you did historically. So (please correct me here if wrong) Pharnakes is getting a ton of points from India that will be hard to get back for Alikchi.
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May 26, 2024 01:34
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