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Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Well, didn't get on quite at ground floor for this LP, but close enough. And always fun watching Grey Hunter LPs, and him obliterate his own fleet gloriously lead the nation he skillfully chose to complete victory.

As for a lucky ship, let's go with IJN Shigure. Maybe we can be even luckier than the real one.

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Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Well, Grey already nearly bombed my paternal grandmother as, just like in real life, she lived in Honolulu at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Dud even landed up the street from her house in a different yard.

Neither of my grandfathers are likely to be involved though, as one was flying Catalina patrols on the East Coast, and the other ended up just barely missing the war and ended up on MP duty in Berlin.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

pthighs posted:

It would work just fine if you had a Flying Boat Aircraft Carrier.

Well, there were always such fine ideas as the F9C Sparrowhawk or XF-85 Goblin. Because why bother with ships when you can just mount your fighters on other planes(or airships, as the case may be)? :v:

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

NGDBSS posted:

To put things in perspective, the Yorktown had to be hit on several occasions before the Japanese finally managed to sink it at the Battle of Midway. In contrast, each of the four Kido Butai carriers in that battle ultimately sank as a result being hit with one (not necessarily identical) wave of bombers. (I'm counting hits here, not attacks, considering that carriers could and did dodge hostile fire with judicious maneuvering.) That's why I chose my lucky ship to be the Mogami - it was one of the few IJN ships that successfully pulled off damage control (after colliding with one of its sister ships and then being bombed). Funny enough, it eventually sank after ramming another Japanese cruiser as an example of the IJN's tragicomedy.

To be fair, there is another aspect to this. While IJN damage control was overall infamously terrible, the Midway result also came about due to more than a few lucky factors. The dive bombers managed to arrive and attack the Kido Butai just as the carriers were reloading their aircraft, which is by far their most vulnerable point of carrier operations since all the ammunition and fuel actually has to be out on deck, which was something US carriers generally managed to luck out in avoiding. Also, the US had already noticed one fire hazard that could be mitigated in flight deck operations involving the fuel that the IJN didn't realize until after Midway. Soryu and Hiryu had also been compromises to begin with since they were built under treaty limitations, and the IJN had favored stuffing as many planes as they possibly could on them over more safety measures. The three fleet carriers Japan built that weren't conversions(Kaga, Akagi, ...Shinano), compromises(Soryu, Hiryu), or built under emergency limitations(Unryu-class, which were effectively just modified Hiryus) actually were well-designed and could take damage. While one of them was crewed by morons(Taiho[) both the Shokaku-class performed quite well, with Shokaku] herself heavily damaged twice and managing to survive. Both her and Zuikaku's sinkings were a result of hard hits that likely would have sunk any carrier in the war.


You could of course also bring up the fact that the plane that actually found the US carriers was delayed in launching by 30 minutes due to a malfunction in Tone's catapult, but given relying on cruisers to be the eyes of a carrier battlegroup in the first place was rather silly, you could probably just chalk that up to doctrinal faults rather than a lucky break.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Incidentally, Paraguay just reactivated their Stuarts and Shermans.


Paraguay keeping M3 Stuart, M4 Sherman tanks in service

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

To put this in some perspective, let's compare the Type 93(Long Lance) torpedo used on IJN surface ships with its nearest counterpart, the Mark 15 used by the US. Even aside from being much harder to detect in the water due to said lack of a bubble trail, when set for maximum range it could travel 40 km, as opposed to the Mark 15's 13.5 km, and travel said distance at 38 knots, almost half again as fast as the Mark 15. Oh, and it carried a significantly larger warhead. When set for its normal effective range, 22 km, it reached speeds of 50 kts, again compared to the Mark 15 which had an effective range of 5.5 km, with a speed of 45 kts.

The real issue, as stated, was their volatility combined with how widespread on ships they were. While the torpedoes didn't actually explode harder than their counterparts on account of the pure oxygen, though the larger warhead meant they did cause a larger explosion in the absolute sense, they were far more likely to explode in the first place from unexpected shocks - like say a nearby shell hit. This was compounded by the fact the IJN felt heavy cruisers should have torpedo armaments as well. Destroyers are already really flimsy, heavily relying on not getting hit in the first place, so the increased risk of Long Lances exploding is absolutely worth the all the benefits they bring. The issue really was whether they were actually worth it on cruisers, which ARE supposed to be able to slug it out with anything aside from battleships - introducing a very vulnerable weak point that can potentially cripple or sink said ship if they even get glanced.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Grey, the AI has its heavy bombers operating at ~12,000 feet lower than your medium and light bombers. You might just want to drop their altitude. A lot.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Night10194 posted:

Wasn't that the case with the entire concept of a BC, considering how often they just loving exploded?

No, that was only a hallmark of the British ones, and even then it wasn't a matter of design so much as all the safety protocols they were violating in regards to ammunition and powder storage.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Tirpitz was essentially an over 800 ft long immobile target, and over the course of the three Tallboy raids they scored a total of 3 direct hits on it (plus a few near-misses). Given the number of bombs dropped, that equates to about a 5% hit rate, and that's with excellent bombing conditions (latter two raids had fairly good weather; all three didn't have to deal with fighter coverage or all that much AA coverage).

As mentioned, the Tallboys were simply gargantuan bombs that were going to wreck anything they hit, so the lovely hit rate didn't really matter so long as they eventually hit with something. Case in point, the very first Tallboy that hit Tirpitz went entirely through the ship and exploded on the seabed. I'll repeat, the bomb went entirely through a battleship. 12,000 lb bombs do not gently caress around.

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 22:10 on May 19, 2016

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

If I recall correctly, Hurricanes and Spitfires got wrecked in the Pacific mainly because the the British ignored advice in regards to aerial tactics, and mostly used the same tactics that they used on the western front - i.e. dogfighting worked fine with 109s, so they went dogfighting with Zeroes too. Except that early war the Zero was possibly the best dogfighter around, and US tactics had evolved to take advantage of their superior speed with planes like the P-38 to do sweeps, rather than get bogged down in a furball where they'd get outmaneuvered.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

It's two cruisers and a destroyer, they're not landing on anything, unless there's also an undiscovered transport fleet behind them. They are just in an incredibly strange position. I'm actually mildly amused that the final remnant of Task Force Z is somehow here, with some US cruisers, rather than the Indian Ocean.

Anyways, given just how close they are, might as well unleash Yamato - maybe she'll actually accomplish something in this war. It's not like she'll have to sail particularly far either, so at least the fuel issues regarding sortieing her hopefully won't be quite so bad.



edit: Actually, where is Yamato currently docked in this LP? She spent most of the real war in Kure, which is actually absurdly far away from where that TF is. They're up at the very north tip of Hokkaido, and Kure near the southern tip of Honshu.

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 06:34 on Jun 24, 2016

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Jobbo_Fett posted:

...It doesn't help that DD Shirayuki has no ASW capabilities as it does not carry any depth charges.

That is, of course, unless he upgraded it, but I don't think Grey's mentioned anything about upgrading ships.

Wait, what? Shirayuki is a Fubuki-class, and they certainly should be carrying some. Surviving ones were modified late in the war to carry more, but even at the start their stock armament should consist of depth charges.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

The first batch of Fubukis not having depth charges without an upgrade seems really strange. All three preceding classes of destroyers to the Fubuki-class carried them as well, so it's not even a matter of Japan suddenly realizing destroyers should be carrying them or something. I'm actually somewhat suspicious of the game on this point, since looking around I'm generally seeing it stated that they carried 18 stock, with an early war upgrade to 36.

Not contesting the general shittiness of their effectiveness or ASW tactics (and May can burn in hell for getting them to somewhat fix this point), as those are well-known - and 18 seems like a pathetic number to carry as well. But them not carrying any seems extremely unusual. Especially since by this point they've been in service for well over 10 years, so there has been plenty of time for upgrades in the past.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Grey Hunter posted:


Our pools are stong in everything but combat planes – you will be happy to know I sorted my factory issue, it seems you need a certain level of supplies to build/repair factories, and I was not at that level – I gave all the bases 10K supplies and they suddenly began to repair themselves.
Its cost me a fair chunk of Kate production though.

Given you really want to be retiring the Kate ASAP, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'd imagine dumping production of those to try and get Jills (and Judies, for that matter) online faster wouldn't exactly be the worst idea - or, if the game doesn't actually model the restrictions on what CVs could operate it, try and get Grace production online.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Grey Hunter posted:

Jills won't be around until '43 - although I'm trying to speed that up!

There's a reason I added faster, after all. :v:

Anyways, great carrier kill - only many, many more to go.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Maybe USS Lexington and USS Yorktown(CV-10 & CV-16, the Essexes) keep their original names of USS Cabot and USS Bon Homme Richard if the original ones are still floating? I can't imagine the game would actually reduce the number of CVs the US gets even if they're still floating - though whether it just ends up with original names or if there ends up being 2 of each sailing around is something I don't know.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

goatface posted:


I don't think I've heard of a direct boarding action in the modern era.

Various pirates - mostly operating off Africa - do board cargo ships, to sail away with and ransom, when they can get away with it, so it does still happen. A proliferation of additional warships and PMCs offering security for ships sailing through those areas has been cutting that down though.

But assuming you're talking about nation states, the modern era has been pretty sparse. Probably the most notable ones being the British boarding U-110 and the US boarding U-505, mainly to acquire Enigma machines. There have been a few more recent incidents though, like US Special Forces boarding a tanker seized by Libyan rebels.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Was Nachi actually traveling alone, or was the rest of a naval squadron just not present in the action? If she was alone, bad. No warship should be alone without even a few destroyer escorts, even if hunting transports.


Anyways, we've lost our first major warship, and only 2 years, 2 1/2 months ahead of her historical sinking - though thankfully without the war crimes.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Ah, yeah, Hayashio. Funnily enough, I do remember seeing the escort listed in the screenshot - and then promptly forgot while writing my post after seeing Pitt's post.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Bismarck, while only displacing roughly 2000 tons less than Iowa, was also almost 70 feet shorter. That tonnage-to-length difference is actually fairly massive, not some minor difference. Iowa also used 4 propellers and, well, Bismarck really probably could have used a fourth as well.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

goatface posted:

I was thinking more in their general survival and expedience of the Norwegian campaign. Though that probably would have been helped more by some additional heavy and light cruisers to pad out the Kriegsmarine and let them soak the losses they took.

Not really. The heavy losses in cruisers they took was more due to horrific planning than lack of numbers. You do not try and sail cruisers past a fortress through an extremely narrow straight that offers no room to maneuver.


A White Guy posted:

The Gulf of Finland, by the end of Summer 1941, was so of the most densely mined waters in the world. Ignoring this, St.Petersburg itself was defended by the island fortress of Kronstadt, which was modern compared to other coastal fortresses of the era, with reinforced concrete pillboxes, a series of defensive fortifications, and most importantly, a number of absolutely massive 30.5cm guns which would've sunk even the most modern German battleship. The Germans had already showed that they had serious issues attacking even coastal batteries from the prior century during the Invasion of Oslo. An amphibious assault on St.Petersburg would've ended with a one-sided slaughter of the German attackers.


Basically this. Amphibious invasions are *hard*. D-Day, which was against comparatively lightly defended fortifications, cost the lives of around 12,000 men.

...Um, no, 30.5 cm guns aren't massive. At all. That's a 12" gun, which would have been relatively ineffective against either the Scharnhorst-class or Bismarck-class. Not to say that a naval invasion wouldn't have been suicidal, but trying to say a few 12" guns would have been incredibly dangerous to modern battleships is just plain wrong. Can they do damage? Of course, but barring truly large numbers of hits, or incredibly lucky ones, they're not a particular threat. Incredibly dangerous to transports of course, but they're hardly the only reason why said amphibious assault would have been insane.

For point of reference, the US was generally using 14" or 16" guns in important coastal artillery emplacements.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Note that Chokai didn't literally blow up. That's a situation mostly limited to British ships (and Taiho) :v:. Having her launchers explode just caused extensive damage to the middle of the ship and, most crucially, knocked out her engine and steering. That combined with taking a 500 lb bomb a few minutes later (and the IJN fleet leaving) basically made her unrecoverable though.

She was actually still afloat hours later when she was scuttled by a destroyer.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

wedgekree posted:

Wow, congratulations! You have four cruisers to potentially maul and a bunch of ships to shoot. All you need now is to manage to catch thier carrier task forces under the guns of the Yamato and all will be complete!

I'm only seeing 2 cruisers to shoot. Vincennes was apparently sunk today, which is only leaving Chicago and New Orleans currently seen in the bay. Chicago was also seen singly yesterday, if that's what you're thinking of.

But yeah, this was a great haul, and with any luck it will continue.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Just about all scuttlings of capital ships in the Pacific, on either side, I'm aware of were done with torpedoes off friendly destroyers. The 5" shells would have been basically pointless, so that portion was indeed effectively just a waste of ammunition. Blowing giant holes under the waterline, with no damage control operating on the ship, theoretically sinks a ship fairly fast.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Grey Hunter posted:




I call Captain Kurita into my office. I explain to him that we need to know the threat level at Nomau. He has been given the opportunity by the Emperor himself to scout the area to see what air defences they have ahead of a general attack.

I wish him luck.

But, but WHY are you risking one of your modern Kagero-classes for the mission? You should have given him a Mutsuki-class or something, to truly prove his grit.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Ardeem posted:

I see a couple of rare birds, and what the hell are those Texans doing way out there?

That's... a really good question. Why the hell did the AI ship trainers to the Far East? Were there any already in-theater that we're forgetting about?

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Shoho and Mikazuki are definitely going down, Kasumi could go either way and while it doesn't look like Akagi is going to sink, she's almost certainly hulked. Shokaku and Zuikaku are still relatively fine, but are they still capable of combat operations? I'm guessing they can given Grey's remarks, unless he's just conducting the second strike with the lighter CVs/CVLs/CVEs, but I am curious how the game determines whether a carrier can conduct flight operations or not.

For the US, even aside from the CVs almost everything in that fleet is probably in trouble. Two fleet oilers going down could completely gently caress over the smaller ships even if they don't take any hits if there's not a port or another oiler reasonably nearby. I also have no clue why a bloody 21kt battleship like the New Mexico is even in a carrier battlegroup.

On the trade, losing one relatively bad CV (Kaga and Akagi were not good CVs for a number of reasons) and a CVL in exchange for possibly 3 or 4 US fleet carriers would be a great exchange, even accounting for the stream of Essexes about to start coming. Being lucky enough to have land bases in range to accept aircraft that lost their carrier is simply a great bonus.



edit: Actually, what damage did Jintsu take? Jintsu didn't appear on one of the damage reports at the end, but the combat report had her taking a bomb hit. Curious since someone did select her as her ship.

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Nov 15, 2016

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

RA Rx posted:

Don't each of the Yorktown-class carriers have 90 aircraft?

If they started with 360, 28 onscreen losses and 98 operational losses yesterday, I'd think they still have like 200 left? People seem to think only one deck is operational, whereas the 98 operational losses suggest to me combat attrition + one deck lost.

Why's everyone so sure that the Enterprise and Yorktown are out of action? I could see the Yorktown unable to do combat operations with its fires, but the Enterprise despite taking both a bomb and a torpedo was not listed as having significant damage or fires.

Everyone wasn't sure Yorktown or especially Enterprise were necessarily out of action yet, they were saying that assuming a second day of battles they're screwed. Both side have at least one fleet carrier deck out of action, but the US both had fewer to begin with and took heavier operational losses, meaning their efficiency for a second day dropped far more. That's not even counting that Grey has multiple surface fleets in the area too that may be able to catch them, given they ran into each other at spitting distance.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Technically the fires probably wouldn't sink Akagi, they'd just leave her a floating hulk. :v:

Ron Jeremy posted:

This actually happened, though not to carriers and due to storm and not enemy action. Close enough.

TF 38 was low on fuel after performing actions in support of the Philippines. They got hit by a typhoon and were unable to replenish underway. The little guys were riding so high due to low stores and fuel that three destroyers capsized and sunk. Other ships pumped seawater into their tanks for ballast and managed to ride the storm

Yeah, Halsey's Typhoon. Really shouldn't have happened in the first place.

And they actually did almost lose a CVL in that incident, when some of its planes were knocked loose into bulkheads and started fires.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Historically the only other fleet carriers Japan would finish are Taiho and 3 Unryu-class carriers (Unryu, Amagi & Katsuragi), with all four not commissioned until mid-to-late 1944. Hell, the Unryus haven't even been laid down yet. There were more Unryus under construction, as well as a follow-on class planned, so depending on how much Grey can (and has) modified shipyard construction priorities he could probably get a few more late next year.

Note that even the first Essex has not actually been commissioned yet (not until next month), with the next not commissioned until February next year, so if Grey actually can remove all US fleet carriers currently in theater, even with the loss of Akagi, he's in a reasonably good position for the time being.

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Nov 16, 2016

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

RearmingStrafbomber posted:


Unless plans have changed, Grey is still on track for late '44.

To be fair, that IS what I said - It's dependent on if and/or how much Grey has changed the priorities. Like I really hope he's cancelled Shinano by now. :v:

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Surigao Strait was ALSO a night battle. :v:

The US also brought 6 battleships, 5 of which had been sunk at Pearl, along with a huge number of support ships (4 heavy cruisers, 4 light cruisers, 28 destroyers) compared to the IJN with a whole two battleships - specifically the two rather aged Fuso-class - with only a single heavy cruiser and four destroyers in attendance. And the US destroyers still did most of the work, with one battleship and 3 destroyers sunk well before the gun lines even closed. The massed guns of the US fleet did manage to sink the other battleship and, uh, that's it.

The OTHER part of the IJN force that was supposed to go through the strait with them did manage to sink that surviving heavy cruiser, Mogami, later that (very early) morning though.

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Nov 19, 2016

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

I am kind of wondering what Katori is doing in an actual battlefleet though. I mean, we're talking about a cruiser that was explicitly designed and built to be used for training purposes, not combat, and among other issues Katori is the slowest ship in the fleet by a huge margin at only 18 kts; 7 kts slower than the next slowest ships, the two Ise-class battleships.

Great haul though.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

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.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Bomb(s) was probably irrelevant given it was still running flight ops days later, but you're right that the torpedo hit may have caused complications. For instance, if it opened up a fuel storage area, combined with the fleet losing those 2 oilers(probably the only two in the fleet), and you have a carrier that's going to be running out of oil fast with no way to replenish it. Not something that would show up right away, but would still doom the ship several days later if they can't effect another solution. Alternatively, it ran into some sort of weather that tore the torpedo hole open again.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Dreamsicle posted:

Grey commissioned Ryuho as a carrier 5 days before it was in real life. I wonder how Grey is doing with Industry.

Maybe she just wasn't bombed by Doolittle in this timeline. Said additional repairs had to have taken a few days.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

A fair number of those "Scuttled, not salvaged" ships were, in fact, refloated in '43 by the Italians with at least some in decent enough shape that returning them to service was considered, though the armistice ended any of those plans. Hell, the Allies raised Commandant Teste as second time (after being sunk again in '44) after the war and considered a CVE/CVT conversion of her, before finally consigning the ship to be a storage ship for a few years.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

From a legal standpoint, ships that are war graves are also still the property of the nation they sailed under. So salvaging them without the approval of said nation is blatantly illegal by international law as well.

These also aren't professional salvaging companies pulling this poo poo, so the methods they use are incredibly primitive as well. A lot of those sunken ships still have large quantities of oil locked away in them, and the brute force methods the salvagers use are just blindly blowing new rents in the ship to knock salvage loose. Repulse and Prince of Wales are of particular concern, given their size and them sitting at both a relatively accessible depth and not in particularly well-policed waters. There's already oil leaking from them from illegal salvaging efforts in the last few years, and if one of these jackasses accidentally blows a huge hole in one of the larger reservoirs within, you're looking at a potential ecological disaster.

Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Unfortunately it's a dual issue of many of the waters in the South Pacific where the vessels sunk are controlled by countries that are too corrupt, have too weak a navy/coast guard and/or just don't give a poo poo to stop this stuff, and the governments of Commonwealth countries in particular have been extremely weak at leaning on them or actually enforcing their rights. In addition to that unbelievable poo poo about Jutland ships getting salvaged - and while not in England's territorial waters, that's close enough that there's no way in hell that should have happened and then not been prosecuted - see Australia's response to HMAS Perth getting salvaged. Utterly pathetic response.



Crazycryodude posted:

Didn't we have this exact conversation a week or two ago, or was that the MilHist thread?

Must have been MilHis, because it definitely didn't happen in this thread.

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Lord Koth
Jan 8, 2012

Yeah, that was a great day. Two AA cruisers and a fast battleship, along with at the very least crippling Enterprise and putting at least a few hits on Lexington - and that's if they're not both caught in the next day or two, in exchange for the possible loss of an early 1920s-era destroyer and potentially Mutsu(at the very least she'll be out of action for several months for repairs) is an insanely good trade. Hell, even if Mutsu does go down it'd be a far better end than she got in real life, where she sunk due to a main battery magazine explosion while sitting at anchor.


Jimmy4400nav posted:

Lets consult the table!

Looking at the chart (though its late here and I might be missing numbers) we can expect 12 new American carriers by the end of next year. Currently we've sunken most of the pre-Midway carrier force.


Now we just have to content with the 32 Essex's slated for construction! :suicide:

Only 5 of those are fleet carriers though, with the rest being CVLs. Still dangerous, but loadouts for CVLs tend to be distributed differently compared to proper fleet carriers and even if total plane numbers are generally equal they're less dangerous. They're also easier to sink, which means exchanges with fleet carriers tend to go against them as well. Those 5 fleet carriers are also spread out through the entire year, so Grey has at least a year to run wild before they achieve parity again - assuming the AI doesn't just feed them one by one into the South Pacific, in which case it'll take far longer for enough to be produced at once to make up for the AI doing silly things.

The final thing of note is that the Allies also just lost a huge number of trained aircrews over the past few day, which in many ways is even more devastating than the loss of the carriers themselves. This is the real reversal of history, as the loss of all the elite aircrews at Midway, and many of the remaining ones at Guadalcanal in August, were what kept the remaining IJN carriers out of the war in 1943, rather than anything else. Obviously the US doesn't have Japan's insane training policies that resulted in there being virtually no pool of replacements for naval aviators, but they've still just lost a huge chunk of experience that can no longer be passed on to help train the next wave, and a huge chunk of the IJN's elite actually survived this time, whether on a destroyed CV or not, which these now less experienced crews will still face.

How does the game model the later Essexes coming off the line? The US only commissioned 17 before the war ended, though admittedly they'd slowed construction in late '44. Does the game model the traditional dates, or does it assume the accelerated rate they'd have initially been launched at?

Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 10:03 on Nov 29, 2016

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