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Things are getting spicy!
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Dec 29, 2023 21:03
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The loss of those landing craft would be crippling were you Japan. As it stands you just used that assault shipping to good effect, but how do you get those troops out again with them lost? Are you planning to extract them after landing base forces, or leaving them in place until you can get your carriers in a few months to provide extraction cover? Presumably you'll hunt down the Milne Bay forces in a couple of days.
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Dec 30, 2023 00:04
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Velius posted:The loss of those landing craft would be crippling were you Japan. As it stands you just used that assault shipping to good effect, but how do you get those troops out again with them lost? Are you planning to extract them after landing base forces, or leaving them in place until you can get your carriers in a few months to provide extraction cover? Presumably you'll hunt down the Milne Bay forces in a couple of days. I have the base forces loaded and ready - though the task force has turned around while there are carriers out and about. And I haven't had the chance to unload all the heavy equipment for the American infantry at Milne, either. I could send a regiment chasing the evicted garrison, but I'd rather just cut them off at Buna & let them wander and get bombed in the jungle. They have no roads to march over; our guys have at least the cruddy road of the Kokoda Track. Should be a win. pthighs posted:Things are getting spicy! Absolutely. These posts are just gonna keep getting longer and longer as the US war machine kicks into high gear. May 2, 1943 .jpg) There are still a couple thousand troops left to unload at Nauru. Today will hopefully be a quiet day of consolidation there. .jpg)  .jpg) We’re also going to hammer the garrison some more. Two more bombardment TFs incoming - the last led by two American battlecruisers. .jpg) I forgot to stop these guys. .jpg) Thunderstorms, zero moonlight, it’s a little silly and dangerous. Oopsie. .jpg) USS Phlip lightly swats I-173 and continues on her way. .jpg) Daybreak, and unloading continues at Nauru. Everyone should have sailed away from Milne Bay by now. .jpg) The Dutch are still prowling around their old colonial holdings. The next wave of American subs based at Perth and Exmouth will be focusing on the Java/Borneo/Sumatra area. .jpg) His subs are still hugging the west coast, but we are responding. .png) Having an “am I having a stroke” moment re: escorts lately. .png) I only have two squadrons defending Cawnpore at this point, but they’re a couple of my best. .png) The boys defending Bareilly are NOT the best, clearly. Can’t tell if these Zeroes are flying from Lucknow or Benares, need to do more photo recon. .png) The two squadrons of Hurricanes based in Bhopal all flew out last night. .png) He is wise to start hammering Milne as soon as we’ve taken it. This is a port attack, it’ll suck up supplies and make unloading our support troops (once it’s relatively safe) even more difficult. .png) Another wave. Thank you, Lord, for the thunderstorms. Our damaged transports should get away, and they’re missing a bit more than they would’ve. .png) The Beauforts at PM wake up! Unfortunately, an APD is very difficult to hit with an air-dropped torpedo. .png) Oh dear, he has a strong CAP here this turn. That’s a problem. .png) I guess shooting up the first wave wore them out! The Hurricanes shoot down the Zero remaining and the Wellingtons make unbothered runs. .png) Feeling lucky. .png) Feeling pretty lucky! Once again, the goal isn’t so much casualties as it is disruption and bogging down. .png) Putting these fragile guys to use. .png) Those three LB-30s are still happily pitting the Gove runway. .png) After fantastic targeting yesterday, the enemy suffers catastrophic targeting today - chasing after a task force unloading in Port Moresby and running into the newly-buffed CAP as a result. Three squadrons of Spitfires - from Normanton, Cooktown and Cairns - flew in last night, and two dozen transports and other auxiliaries flew out, in preparation of an expected enemy raid. This is not the expected raid, but we swarm them anyways. This is the kind of shredding that tends to make Japanese players turn their task forces around. We’ll see what happens. .png) This is the target he wanted to hit - the fleeing, crippled transports. Some incredibly accurate bombing, really. Doubt they’ll make it to PM. .png) .png) Scary sweeps! But no Allied fighters over Milne today. It looks like he’s really putting Gasmata to use now. .png) Jodhpur Hurris find nothing opposing us over Ahmedabad. A target for the Liberators, tomorrow. .png) President Taylor, Adoniram Judson, and Katoomba sink before we hit the PM phase. (Side note: Why would you name your son after this guy, maybe the most D-tier Bible character imaginable?) .png) Tarawa target practice continues, and will continue indefinitely. The Avengers and Dauntlesses are set to naval attack primary/ground attack secondary, so if the IJN suddenly pops up within range we can respond. .png) VT-71 is hitting the port, hoping for those supply hits. If I can keep bombing him and prevent resupply for a few months, Tarawa might be worth taking instead of skipping. .png) I need to dump about 15,000 more supplies on Abemama and build the airfield up a couple of levels, then it’ll replace Tabiteuea as my frontline airbase. .png) No.. you need escorts.. ugh. The Cooktown/Cairns P-38s do not accompany them. .png) I’m just feeding him now  .png) I need to keep the heat on Gove and Umboi, deny him alternate airfields. If I can confine him mostly to Gasmata, Rabaul, and Darwin, things become much simpler. .png) I’ve said this before, but Horn Island and Terapo are SUCH useful bases. .png) Third & final wave. .png) Oh right, and he has a major airbase on Guadalcanal at Lunga. These Nells miss, but our few days of uncontested disembarking at Nauru are over. .png) Dangerous, torpedo bombers with that range based at Lunga. This wave goes after the Free French heavy cruiser Algérie and suffers for it. The French AA is solid, brings down a Nell outright and damages a few. .png) Our flak is still a pretty good deterrent, but this wave scores a hit. .png) Another kill for him today. The stretch of ocean between Hawaii and Palmyra is murderous, lately. But this is what I get for being lazy and impatient - it adds a few days to travel up from Panama to San Diego and join an escorted convoy, but.. you don't get sunk. I'm not having a stroke, I'm having an Admiral King moment. .png) More unloading, of course. .png) After fending off the Nells, the big guns come to bear on the island. .png) Jubbulpore. .png) We’re gone! The Bhopal garrison has been extracted and will move with their rescuers towards Agra. .png) Bangalore. .png) Boy, if I’d kept the Americans here, they might have held out a long time, huh? .png) Nauru has fallen!  .png) Pockets of the enemy remain, but the facilities (such as they are) are ours. Summary & Orders .png) If it weren’t for the Beauforts and the sunken ships, this would be a fantastic day. As it stands, it is merely “pretty solid.” I'm dreading the next turn, though; I'm in a bad position in several places, and I'm correcting mistakes I made weeks or months earlier. "Distractible man playing complicated game at a slow pace" problems. Alikchi fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Jan 1, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 02:54
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Goonspeed you good Sir! They shall call you the MacArthur of the seas!
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Jan 1, 2024 03:16
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wedgekree posted:Goonspeed you good Sir! They shall call you the MacArthur of the seas! Not sure if thats a complement. MacArthur was a terrible general 
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Jan 1, 2024 03:17
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So how the score in the air?
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Jan 1, 2024 05:00
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ChaosDragon posted:So how the score in the air? I'm gonna say 'lots'
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Jan 1, 2024 05:01
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wedgekree posted:Goonspeed you good Sir! They shall call you the MacArthur of the seas! Cimber posted:Not sure if thats a complement. MacArthur was a terrible general Yeah I'm gonna go with I already am the MacArthur of the seas. In any case, I found a suitable post for The General.ChaosDragon posted:So how the score in the air? Getting better. I should go back, run the numbers, be more specific than that, but the new models of fighter are making a difference. I'm surprised by how valuable the P-40K has been, especially. May 3, 1943 .png) Kongo and Kirishima bully their way past Port Moresby’s PT boat defenders, obliterating poor PT-179 with a single 36cm shell. PT-174 sheers off after receiving a burst from one of Kawakaze’s 13.2mm Hotchkiss MGs. Several PTs launch torpedoes, but none score a hit. .png) Next up are Kota Agoeng (unloading guns and trucks) and the USS Rathburne. Historically, she converted to an APD - and she probably would have survived if I’d gone with that. Here she heroically charges Kirishima and scores a torpedo hit! She then goes down under a hail of 150mm secondary gunfire. RIP. .png) Evade combat? You’re PT boats at night! Battleships are afoot! Well, they probably would get picked apart, but to decline fighting entirely.. Someone’s getting fired. Looks like both Mornington and Port Moresby are about to be bombarded, no point in shoving that many battleships into those hexes and NOT doing it. .png) Kind of funny to destroy anything in particular, with 0% moonlight and storms. .png) Did he ship in more AA here? I’m putting these B-25s on naval search (maybe even naval strike?) tomorrow. .png) He chose a good time to hit PM. At least these ships were carrying only supplies, not men or equipment - and PM is already above 60,000 supplies. Still, this hurts. Kagero shivs Adhara with two torpedoes very neatly, not a shell fired. Kongo cleans up the rest, including the two poor destroyer-escorts. Tough to be a Clemson/Wickes guy today. .png) I’ve been sending a string of single xAKs and (preferably) xAKLs to Groote and Mornington, usually escorted by minesweepers and subchasers, if anything. They’ve been keeping both bases in supply, supplemented by a sustained C-47 airlift. One of those task forces is caught outside Mornington. Destroyer Uzuki puts Alabaman down with a single torpedo. The two minesweepers are rapidly sunk by 410mm and 200mm shells. .png) Back to PM and Kongo and Kirishima do their bombardment. This is an excellent performance for two battlecruisers at night, but not enough to really dent PM. Gunning down all those PT boats and DEs and transports expended time and ammunition. .png) Mornington Island’s turn. This is a truly exemplary bombardment. Look at those casualties! .png) Daybreak! Kagero, Kawakaze and Kongo sink a PT boat apiece. .png) Tamanami picks off PT-180 immediately and it gets worse from there. This engagement is actually in the hex just “left” of PM, towards Australia.. Kongo & Kirishima are heading west, not back east where they came from. .png) Completely understand running away right now. Driving a glorified speedboat at a battleship in broad daylight is stupid. .png) The Mornington bombardment force’s next encounter in the Gulf of Carpentaria: a large minelayer, escorted by another minesweeper. USS Weehawken (originally SS Estrada Palma, a Florida car ferry) and USS Direct are ignored. Good! .png) I turned this one around last turn. Too late. .png) Need to get past these guys and to the sweet, juicy tankers they’re shielding. .png) Interesting little engagement. No one’s shot down, but we damage three of the four Tojos quite badly. .png) The remaining Ki-44 over 46,22 is swatted effortlessly by a Spit. .png) Looks like Junyo and Hiyo are in the Gulf of Carpentaria, too. That’s most of the Japanese carriers accounted for. Six disabled at Singapore. Tairyu and Donryu near PM, Junyo and Hiyo near Mornington. CVLs.. not sure. I bet some are in the Marshalls or Carolines somewhere. This attack continues today’s theme: heavy hit, not a knockout blow. Normanton is full of engineers and AA. He’ll have to keep up the pressure to accomplish whatever he’s trying to accomplish here. .png) .png) .png) The giant swarm of Helens reappears over Bellary. They’re not super effective. .png) The CVE USS Sangamon sailed out of Cairns overnight to try her hand at the enemy. (Along with HMS Hermes, but Hermes carries no strike craft, only short-ranged fighters.) Her air group sticks together and finds Donryu and Tairyu, but their attack is a disaster, with every last fighter and bomber shot down. .png) Excellent! .png) That ought to slow them down. .png) A squadron of Wellingtons peppers Ahmedabad’s runway. .png) Not bad work here, either. .png) Blenheims… you tried. .png) Useful! .png) We’re slipping past them now. .png) Spreading the love around today. .png) A few extra hits on Ahmedabad! .png) Rough day for these Nells. Most of the transports are gone, and the destroyers are very hard targets. .png) Bad weather helps too! .png) Scratch CAP over Terapo is more than enough to fend off these unescorted Nells. The Kittyhawks are at the proper (low) altitudes. .png) Can’t forget Tarawa’s daily raids. .png) This squadron will fly as far west as it can overnight tonight - hopefully to Australia. I need non-Beaufort torpedo bombers in the Gulf of Carpentaria/Torres Strait area ASAP.  More Rabaul Nells. Only one gets away.   Unfortunate. Again, it would be nice if the P-38s set to escort tagged along.  Look who’s back at Gove! One Zero is shot down by a Liberator’s .50 cals, and both somehow make it back to Tennant Creek.   The Lunga Nells may have temporarily used up their stocks of torpedoes? That’s a 60kg bomb hit, not a problem.  Nope, okay, this wave does have torpedoes. All misses, though.  Another wave, more misses.  These Nells are wising up. The Terapo Kittyhawks have been feasting on them all day. Of this wave, the is immediately shot down and the rest turn back.  A pair of wandering Wildcats from USS Sangamon’s VF-37 are unable to prevent these wide-ranging Nells from torpedoing this (empty, returning from Horn Island) transport.  Jubbulpore.  38,31. I hadn’t commented on it yet, but you can see that the Japanese have occupied now-abandoned Bhopal.  Bangalore Forever.  Yet another day I didn’t expect Bellary to hold.  Good casualty ratio too! Summary & Orders  Insane day. All his heavy hitters are out to play, and all my proper CVs are still in the yards. Tomorrow should be even more insane. Also: check out SIGINT. They shifted the 65th Brigade’s planning target from Groote to Mornington. Invasion imminent? He could even land at Normanton, I suppose. We send a brigade from Rockhampton to help garrison it. code:
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Jan 3, 2024 04:10
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Guess it's an 'it could be worse' sort of day! You lost some transports, but nothing extremely huge and valuable, and most of them offloaded stuff.
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Jan 3, 2024 04:34
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Yeah the hornet's nest appears thoroughly stirred. Hopefully you can organize some good naval strikes into Carpentaria while he's got so much shipping in the area, sending stuff in piecemeal is likely going to get chewed up by CAP and AA. If that radio report is true, how dug in are your bases in the area?
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Jan 3, 2024 12:41
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Interesting day. Losing the transports is...not really _that_ big of a deal? I'm playing against the AI now after I picked this game up for 15 bucks during the sale, and the allies have a metric shitload of AKs, and xAKs. Oh, I was also reading on the official WitP forums that naval search is bugged to gently caress. Don't do focused search, set search to 360 degrees and 12 hexes and you'll get better results.
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Jan 3, 2024 20:05
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Oh yeah, the AK doesn't matter at all in the grand scheme of things. APA and similar fancy troop transports or specialist amphibious ships are much more rare.
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Jan 3, 2024 20:51
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Terrifying Effigies posted:Yeah the hornet's nest appears thoroughly stirred. Hopefully you can organize some good naval strikes into Carpentaria while he's got so much shipping in the area, sending stuff in piecemeal is likely going to get chewed up by CAP and AA. If that radio report is true, how dug in are your bases in the area? This is an interesting question that deserves a map-answer:  Normanton has 16,000 troops and level 6 forts, so I feel pretty secure there, even if only a few hundred of them are actual front-line infantrymen. Mornington Island, as you can see, is a bit more vulnerable. They could hold off a brigade, but not a division. Cimber posted:Oh, I was also reading on the official WitP forums that naval search is bugged to gently caress. Don't do focused search, set search to 360 degrees and 12 hexes and you'll get better results. Really? I'll have to look into this. May 4, 1943  IJN subs here along with ours. This is surely the most ships that have ever been in the Gulf of Carpentaria at once, what with most of Japan’s battleships hanging around.  Speaking of! Poor Spearfish.  He’s sent in a group of destroyers to fight Groote’s PT boats. Wise not to risk his battleships and cruisers.  They mostly just speed past each other and miss at 2,000 yards.  Et cetera. Good job on the PTs evading and breaking off.   This is a Landing Craft Mechanized, being used as a nighttime supply barge from Normanton to Mornington Island. RO-107’s deck gun makes quick work of her. I’m glad the LCT got through! These RO-100 class subs are really nasty. The speed with which Japan is going to accumulate modern submarines over the next year is terrifying. And he’s good with his subs!  Looks like Arare hit one of our defensive mines. The field at Groote is quite large. Mornington’s will be replenished today, if our minelayer survives.  Arare is attempting to limp back to Darwin, I think. Our PTs let them go.  Truly overkill.  500 turns into the game, have I finally stumbled backwards into decently layered fighter altitude settings? This went fantastically! The Kittyhawks and Spits did particularly well.  No losses on either side. Bareilly CAP is looking healthy this morning!  Our turn to fumble an attack. I should have left more fighters available to escort - five or six scythes might have been able to at least protect a few TBFs. As it stands, they’re nearly all shot down.  He’s bombing Jamshedpur airbase. This will consume supplies and make it harder for me to fly out evacuees.   Etc, etc.  Unescorted Helens! A feast for us.  A continued feast. Maybe he thought the Kongo/Kirishima bombardment was more effective than it was?  That’s most of a squadron of TBFs sucked into the Umboi Tojos. Not at all the target I wanted, and totally unescorted. This game needs a “don’t fly unescorted” checkbox.   I guess all the Tojos were so busy gorging themselves on Avenger they missed the Beauforts. Who are accompanied by at least a paltry escort! Even Beaufighters will keep Japanese fighters busy enough sometimes… Anyways, good hits. I’m guessing they were unloading supplies at Umboi. Being able to torpedo poo poo in the Bismarck Sea is big.  No escort I can muster is really capable of taking on seventy Tojos without getting mauled, but most of the RAF & RAAF bombers actually make it through to delivery their payloads. Once again, any escort is miles better than no escort. Silver lining to a very bloody nose.   Back to Australia - the Beauforts wisely turn around, but the Mitchells press on. 4 of them survive to make runs on the Donryu. She and her sister are (until Taiho completes) Japan’s most modern carriers, equipped with the new 100mm DP guns. Three of those four Mitchells are picked off by the flak.  Another wave. Australian Vengeances escorted by P-39s. One Vengeance survives to drop bombs on Donryu; they miss and don’t make it home.  Dunno how all seven Beauforts made it home, but I’m grateful.  We have a lot of B-25s and B-24s making fruitless naval attacks today. They’re intended to exhaust and whittle down the CAP over enemy carriers, hopefully allowing a torpedo or dive bomber to slip through. I think we’ve already run through our torp and dive bomber attacks for the day, though, so this is a bit pointless.  These B-25s do a fantastic job keeping the Zeroes away with defensive MG fire. Clean runs on Tairyu. Again, if these had been torpedo-armed Beauforts, or those TBFs..  Well, wearing down the pilots and aircraft of Tairyu and Donryu is a worthwhile endeavor. I may still be able to take advantage, if he keeps them hanging around close to the Australian coast.  Missing Amagi now..  Sweep over Bellary. Is today the day?  Japanese CAP is totally porous right now, but all we can do is miss it. Not a great feeling.  And so on.  He’s pushing hard with the Zero sweeps today! Two fresh-ish Hurricane squadrons flew in from Jodhpur overnight and provide the numbers edge here at Bareilly.  PM phase, and blessedly bad weather limits the fighting in most areas. This is still happening, though. Keep on whittling away!  “Go after those carriers? No, whatever xAKs are floating off Umboi are closer and therefore more important. Time to die.”  This is more like it! No hits, alas.  Still trying to keep his army from coalescing and pursuing me around here.  Lopsided. And I don’t think our bombers have done any damage here all day.  Alright, Wellingtons never fail to inflict at least some casualties, but this is still not worth it.     And so forth.  I believe this will be the last day of real danger at Nauru. Unloading is basically complete, and engineers are already at 30% of the way to a level 1 airfield. As soon as it’s complete, we fly in Corsairs. In the meantime, I think this particular Liberty Ship will survive.  Another wave misses.  Again, it would have been cool if these guys had gone in BEFORE the Beauforts and Vengeances and Avengers got pulverized, but hey.  Even a destroyer can’t dodge airdropped torps forever.  Jubbulpore. We are flying out the Chindits from here.  38,31.  Bangalore.  Tomorrow, we will finish off the survivors on Nauru.  Bellary!  Looks like I’ll be able to shock attack tomorrow, kick the crap out of these two little IJA recon regiments. Summary & Orders  Blood, blood, blood, blood! code:
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Jan 6, 2024 21:12
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So uh ow. That's a lot of dead planes.
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Jan 7, 2024 00:20
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Alikchi posted:
Source seems to be this: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10683&t=400722&start=20 Seems like the detection malus for 360 degree search is too small, or the automatic 4-hex search is used for all hexes in plane range or something. Or the malus is just applied to detection level, meaning you get more hits, but lower DLs on the hits, we can't be sure when the test criteria was "The detected TF reported seeing a plane" and not the actual DLs the spotting side got. If the "better" search just results in a lot of detection level 1 hits, they will be reset to DL 0 on the next 12-hour pulse, so effectively not very useful and may not even be visible (I'm not sure if the order phase takes place within a 12-hour pulse or between them, that is if the reduction of DLs happen between last turns day pulse and the orders phase or during turn resolution just before the night pulse.). "Interesting, but needs more testing" would be my verdict.
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Jan 7, 2024 02:46
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I love the overwhelmingly decisive intel you get in this game Tokyo Bay Fortress is located at Yokohama/Yokosuka(113,61).
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Jan 7, 2024 10:35
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SerthVarnee posted:I love the overwhelmingly decisive intel you get in this game The insistence on reminding you where Tokyo Bay Fortress is became a running joke in Grey’s threads. That and whichever places the AI kept insisting on sending men to die in.
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Jan 7, 2024 11:41
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Pirate Radar posted:The insistence on reminding you where Tokyo Bay Fortress is became a running joke in Grey’s threads. That and whichever places the AI kept insisting on sending men to die in. It really is the funniest, jankiest feature. I don't remember if I moved Tokyo Bay Fortress to Yokohama as a joke or Pharnakes did. Really useful against a human opponent though. In this game it's allowed me to repulse the invasion of Midway in 42 and just now it's bought me a precious few days to lay mines and spawn PT boats before he showed his hand. Caconym posted:
Yes. I think I'll slowly start 360-ifying my coverage where it makes sense. I need to shuffle my PBYs around anyways. An AVD is en route to Nauru - that'll be a good central position for a squadron. May 5, 1943  Ro-107 is still hanging around between Mornington Island and Normanton.  That’s almost definitely a kill.  And there’s Ro-101! There must be at least half a dozen Japanese submarines in the Gulf.  Given how horrible the American battlecruiser’s protection is, this could have gone incredibly poorly. Constitution, Constellation and their escorts are heading north to bombard Mili.  I wonder if they had time to unload before they were sunk? Probably not.  We still have a few useful aircraft defending the Gulf! Also, Uzuki hits a freshly-laid mine and is sunk. USS Weehawken successfully slipped by everyone, laid the field overnight, and is hiding near Normanton now.  Ikazuchi receives a thousand-pounder from an SB2U. This is probably the last combat mission Vindicators will fly before I replace these last few with SBD-5s.  Doing a little damage before he flies aircraft in to defend his prize.  Cool!  These three Mitchells needed something to do and this looked good.  The B-24s based at Abemama atoll are hitting Maloelap today.   Seems like nobody’s home.  He’s sweeping over Jubbulpore. If he starts doing LRCAP instead I could lose a lot of C-47s.  PM air phase. When the weather really sucks…  This was a naval strike, probably the last from the shattered Avenger squad based at PM. It’s time to order some sweeps over Umboi.  Tarawa’s daily hammering. There is a small & growing USMC aerial contingent in Australia (which I have kept an almost entirely Army show so far). These Corsairs and Dauntlesses might fly west, become a part of it.  We love Wellingtons, don’t we folks? Yes we do!  Alright, no more bombing Cawnpore. Ow.  Just a bad idea, after yesterday.  This is how it goes: I see that he’s vulnerable on the ground and plot a shock attack, then decide to secure the win with air support. He anticipates all of this and sets up a decent CAP. We lost three top-of-the-line Spits in the opening moments of this attack.  Alright, enough of this foolishness. B-24s are too valuable and inaccurate for naval bombing unless I’m trying to flood the zone with aircraft, like yesterday.  A bit wasteful.  Stoppppp    We lose Claiborne, too.  First bombardment here at Bhaunagar. I hope it takes longer than I expect it will. Our men are badly undersupplied.  38,31.  Bangalore. There’s not much infantry left supporting this siege. Could I force him out of the hex? That AV disparity is tempting but it would probably go poorly.  This is just a division and change, the IJA will bring the full 1000+ AV for this one. Cawnpore can’t hold forever - and I need to be sure to control my own lines of retreat. No more sieges, no more kettles.  The last of the Naval Guard are wiped out. Coast clear, start planning for the next invasion.  Bellary.  Good shock attack! They retreat in an awkward direction, though. Summary & Orders And that’s it.  Bad ratio, but after yesterday this doesn’t feel so bad. The Spitfire and B-24 losses do hurt.  Why not keep rolling while his carriers are busy around Australia? We’re already fully prepped for Makin, have more than enough troops, and the assault shipping is free for use. Expect the loading to begin in the next week or so. Hamilton and Scourge depart Pearl with escorts in anticipation of this operation. code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jan 8, 2024 |
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Jan 8, 2024 00:02
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Good turnaround after things yesterday! A dead IJN DD is always good!
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Jan 8, 2024 00:07
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In case you were curious, Weehawken is a town in New Jersey on the Hudson River facing Midtown Manhattan.Tiny town right next to Hoboken. I used to work there.
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Jan 8, 2024 02:10
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Alikchi posted:
But Tokyo Bay fortress IS at Yokohama/Yokosuka, because that is where Tokyo Bay starts. It's at the mouth of the bay.  quote:Yes. I think I'll slowly start 360-ifying my coverage where it makes sense. I need to shuffle my PBYs around anyways. An AVD is en route to Nauru - that'll be a good central position for a squadron. I'll post this in the other thread too, but wow... I ran some tests and I'll never set another search arc again. I modded the Coral Sea scenario to test, for manageability. (E: tested on beta 1123) I tested with three japanese TFs stationary in different hexes, but all at range 9 from Port Moresby. The TFs ranged from 6 ships at 25k tons, 16 ships at 61k tons and a carrier TF at 10 ships and 91k tons. (TFs 4, 7 and 1 in the scenario) All three were within a 60 degree arc.  The search squadron was VP-11 out of Port Moresby, flying PBY-4s, with 55-70 NavS-skill and ~70 exp.  I ran the test for a total of 40 turns, so 120 potential detections (3 TFs x 40 turns). 10 turns each at 30% search with arc (single pass) and 60% search with arc (double pass), and then 10 turns each at 30% and 60% search and no arc. Range 10 for every test.  Detections and spottings were pretty much equal between arc and no arc, going up with the number of planes flown. At 30% search I spotted the TFs about 60% of the time, at 60% search about 80% of the time. But! The no arc planes got double(!) the detection levels. 10/10 detections were common in the no arc group, and 5/5 more common in the arc group (I never got more than 9/9 in the arc group, and that only once). From 0/0 unspotted to DL 12/10 on the first day of 60% search, no arc...   Weather didn't seem to matter much if at all for search, I got 10/10s in thunderstorms and 1/4s and total misses in clear sky. So setting search arcs seems to be actively harmful even if you KNOW the enemy is at that bearing, to say nothing of the chance of the enemy being outside the arc. It's of course possible the effect changes with increasing range, I think I'll run some more tests at max betty range just in case. Other trivia: - If a TF reported being seen in the OPS log, is was always visible to the enemy on the map next turn. The flavor text (snooped, followed, shadowed, sighted, detected etc.) did not seem to matter. - If a TF reported being seen by a specific plane model (PBY-4 Catalina) it was always the correct plane, but when they reported generics like Float Plane, Patrol, Recon or LevelBomber, it was almost never correct (but they at least never mistook the Catalinas for carrier planes).  - The "TF Spotted" mouseover text the japanese got was NOT always correct, that is, they were commonly spotted even when "TF Spotted" was missing, but never unspotted if it was present. - The OPS log of the observing (allied) side was garbage, and never generated a message for actually observed TFs. This has to be another bug. The only exception was when they reported seeing a specific ship or ship class, the positions of those were correct. But that happened once in those 40 turns and 85 observations. None of the other 84 were visible in the Allied OPS log, ONLY on-screen during the turn resolution and on the map in the next orders phase. Every single "PBY-4 from VP-11 reports X japanese ships at Y, Z heading foo, speed bar" was random bullshit like you get even when no enemy is present.  When I think of the collective player-hours spent painstakingly setting search arcs through the years... 
Caconym fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 01:29
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Christ 
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Jan 9, 2024 05:41
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Thank you for doing that testing. I tend to leave my CVs on 360 search out of laziness, so maybe that's why they always seem to do ok with spotting. I wonder if ASW would have the same issues?
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Jan 9, 2024 06:35
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MeatloafCat posted:Thank you for doing that testing. I tend to leave my CVs on 360 search out of laziness, so maybe that's why they always seem to do ok with spotting. I wonder if ASW would have the same issues? Anecdotally yes, I previously used the same modded scenario to test ASW vs NavS missions for sub spotting, since the manual states NavS will occasionally spot subs. (TL;DR: almost never, NavS is NOT a poor mans ASW) So there's 10 japanese subs stationed around PM as well in my setup, and I set some squadrons to ASW no arc and they regularly spot all 10. Haven't run a dedicated arc vs no arc for that though. It's a bit annoying to test ASW, as the editor doesn't let you customize pilot skills directly, only XP. So you can add pilots with high XP, and they'll get good skills in the skills associated with the plane types of their squadron. But Patrols only get good NavS skills, and no plane type seems to inherently grant good ASW skills, so they all suck with ~30-ish ASW skill. Even with 5 squadrons of Catalinas and Mitchells set to 100% ASW I have never seen an actual bomb hit on a sub in these tests. Lots of detections and attacks and "SS reported HIT" messages, but no actual damage to the subs. I assume this is a pilot skill issue as subs really do get hit occasionally in "real" games, but it makes stuff like altitude effects on ASW effectiveness very hard to test. I'd need to train up good ASW skills within the test scenario, and I can't be assed to do that. I also confirmed that ASW TFs will never react to subs spotted by planes. I don't think they can, as sub detection levels are reset each phase, so a sub TF will always have a DL of 0 during the naval reaction phase. Maximum DL is only halved, but actual DL is set to 0. Something will have to spot the sub before the ASW TF can react, but the naval reaction phase comes before the air phase, so... Subs get a chance to attack before the reaction phase, and this will add to the DL of the sub, so I assume that an ASW TF can react IFF a sub makes an attack within its reaction range during the same 12 hour pulse. Subs also get an attack chance during the movement phase, and once again at the end of the naval phase, but only the first attack chance will enable an ASW reaction. Haven't tested that though. (Subs won't react eighter, this was added in one of the patches, as they kept reacting into port minefields when patrolling outside)
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Jan 9, 2024 11:49
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That is all extremely useful to know, Caconym. Thank you for doing the legwork!Caconym posted:
Actually horrifying! May 6, 1943  Weehawken narrowly escapes destruction at the hands of Ro-107. She and USS Direct have had a charmed week. Ideally, their luck will hold through the strait and home to Townsville.  Well, I feel silly having flown in the SBDs and half the fighters overnight. Only solace I can take is the high damaged/low destroyed numbers. If he doesn’t do a followup bombardment I can fly aircraft out as they’re repaired.  Our bombardment is less effective for a few reasons. One, I remembered to set the floatplanes to help, but forgot to set them to fly at night, so they are absent. Two, Mili Naval Fortress. Plenty of 15cm and 14cm guns. One 15cm round even takes out an unprotected 5in mount on Constitution. Reno and Dewey might need a week or two of fixing.  These poor guys at Bhaunagar. I should have dug them at Jodhpur or a defensible crossroads.  I am tempted to pick off these Helens with Beaufighters. They might just have the range.  Yeah, they would have the range from Jodhpur. Assuming the Bhaunagar pocket lasts through the turn, it’s doable.  Now our bombers start showing up. We’re focusing on this hex today: the two retreating semi-motorized regiments. I can’t allow him to cut off my eventual retreat from Cawnpore with them.  Thunderstorms will limit the damage we do.  A belated sweep against null opposition.  The Karachi B-24s continue working over Bhopal, where the weather is much nicer. The Tojos do a decent job disrupting our runs.  No opposition for this wave.  The Beaufort bomb load is so underwhelming compared to the Wellington.  Also underwhelming compared to the B-25! Six 500-pounders per Mitchell on this sortie.  Jesus Christ. Our Warhawks wisely bug out when they realize approximately 150 fighters are waiting for them. That they managed to secure kills and escape cleanly is a minor miracle.  I was expecting some of those enemy fighters to be providing cover for his troops here, clearly!  Jubbulpore sweep. Again, no LRCAP yet, as far as I can tell…  The Helens are having a field day with these fellas. They’re under a restricted and locked headquarters, so I can’t fly them out. This is stupid, IMO.  One last naval strike by a B-24 squadron. Looks like they’re concentrating in Gove now. Impressive performance from the P-38s!  What are you doing. Are you trying to defect?  You should be flying into these thunderstorms with your pals!  And.. I guess that’s it for the air phase! Bhaunagar.  38,31.  Bangalore.  And Cawnpore. This doesn’t favor him yet, but soon will, I’m sure.  Bellary, not Bareilly!  We gain a few forts (level 1s in India, a level 4 and a level 5 in NORPAC). This port at Ndeni will be useful if we ever decide to dive headfirst into the Solomons. That seems less and less likely these days. Summary & Orders  Not great, not terrible.  That bombardment could have been a lot worse! Salvageable airframes abound.  On their way south. code:Alikchi fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 22:35
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That was a lot of fighters on CAP holy poo poo
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Jan 9, 2024 23:08
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That strait on the northeast of Australia is a bastard for me as well. I'm doing the 'GTFO of the DEI' phase of the game now, and I've lost a few ships to subs patroling that area. I found that if i set my task routing to coastal they do better. Into Cooktown for some refueling, then hug the coast behind the great barrier reef down to Brisbane. My APs going to PM take that root, and shoot out at flank speed when they have to cross. That seems to work pretty well, limiting my exposure. As soon as my B17s I managed to pull outta Clark Field and are sitting in Brisbane right now get a few more weeks of AWS training, they'll be put to good use. BTW, troops that are moving via rail don't take themselves out of strategic movement when they get to their destination, do they. Or is there a way to put them into combat mode that I'm not aware of? I've had a few engineer units sitting with their thumbs up their asses and not building forts because I didn't realize this. [edit] Also, when do my air replacement pools start to not suck? I'm getting 1 P40 a day right now, which isn't great, and I have a lot of squadrons sitting on the west coast with 4-5 planes and about 20 pilots doing nothing. Cimber fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Jan 10, 2024 |
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Jan 10, 2024 01:35
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Cimber posted:That strait on the northeast of Australia is a bastard for me as well. I'm doing the 'GTFO of the DEI' phase of the game now, and I've lost a few ships to subs patroling that area. I found that if i set my task routing to coastal they do better. Into Cooktown for some refueling, then hug the coast behind the great barrier reef down to Brisbane. My APs going to PM take that root, and shoot out at flank speed when they have to cross. That seems to work pretty well, limiting my exposure. As soon as my B17s I managed to pull outta Clark Field and are sitting in Brisbane right now get a few more weeks of AWS training, they'll be put to good use. I usually either run them through Perth instead, since they won't have anything important to do for a while anyways. Unless I just shovel EVERYTHING into Java, Palembang and Port Moresby. It takes for-loving-ever to switch every single Australian unit over from reserve command to useful command btw. In case of the shoveling thing, I still end up stuffing all those DEI ships into Perth. Oh and regarding air replacement pools? Well...1942 sucks.
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Jan 10, 2024 09:05
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I... ah, found something else... Naval search (and ASW) range is bugged. It stops at range - 1. Search at range 9 will never find a TF at range 9, only at 8 or closer. Same for ASW, if you want to search to range 2 you need to set range 6, not 4. (ASW ranges are halved, rounded down). I tested with odd ranges like 3 and 5 as well, in case the subtraction happened before the halving but to no effect (so the actual range is range - 1 for NavS and (range/2)-1 for ASW). Naval strikes themselves will fly to the full range set. This has rather serious implications for naval strike squadrons set to some percentage search, you have to set them to 1 range more than you want to strike at, with the implication that if something else spots an enemy at that range your strike will fly there, maybe with extended loadouts or without escorts...
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Jan 10, 2024 12:19
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SerthVarnee posted:I usually either run them through Perth instead, since they won't have anything important to do for a while anyways. Understood. I've actually started shooting stuff over to Perth and then the southern coast. Can someone explain to me why I can't move Restricted Aussie troops via ship to PM? It's annoying as gently caress that to move troops to reinforce PM I'd have to spend the political capital to move them to ABDA command just to put them on a freighter to cross the channel. How long before this stupidity ends and I get decent HQs?
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Jan 10, 2024 14:54
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Cimber posted:Understood. I've actually started shooting stuff over to Perth and then the southern coast. You don't have to move them to an actually relevant HQ. Just pick the cheapest one you can find. I usually dump them all on the 1 Australian corps or something similarly named. As for how long until the stupidity ends? well...1942 sucks.
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Jan 10, 2024 17:17
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Cimber posted:Understood. I've actually started shooting stuff over to Perth and then the southern coast. You can't put restricted troops on ships because then you'd be able to move them anywhere, which would defeat the point of having them be restricted. (You can march restricted troops overland across borders but that is generally considered an exploit and house rule banned in mp games.) Re: HQs, note that it's 1/4 as expensive in political points to move to an HQ within the same leadership hierarchy as to a different one. (In mp, it's generally house ruled not to move land units to unrestricted air HQs to exploit this but this is still cheaper for units that have an unrestricted land HQ within the same hierarchy as their restricted HQ.) Rogue0071 fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Jan 11, 2024 |
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Jan 11, 2024 03:22
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Rogue0071 posted:You can't put restricted troops on ships because then you'd be able to move them anywhere, which would defeat the point of having them be restricted. (You can march restricted troops overland across borders but that is generally considered an exploit and house rule banned in mp games.) I gotta say, this whole restricted/unrestricted thing is kinda wonky.
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Jan 11, 2024 04:18
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Cimber posted:Understood. I've actually started shooting stuff over to Perth and then the southern coast. IRL there were tons of Australian soldiers who signed up for local defense military service when they were worried Japan would invade mainland Australia and were very unpleasantly surprised when their terms of service came to include New Guinea. WITP does a bad job of encompassing all these political issues but some of them really were real. And if you really want Australian soldiers, you should (ahistorically) be evacuating those Aussie brigades from Malaysia ASAP. Those are a huge early game land piece that you can play wherever, if you can get them out. gohuskies fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Jan 11, 2024 |
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Jan 11, 2024 06:06
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gohuskies posted:IRL there were tons of Australian soldiers who signed up for local defense military service when they were worried Japan would invade mainland Australia and were very unpleasantly surprised when their terms of service came to include New Guinea. WITP does a bad job of encompassing all these political issues but some of them really were real. Yeah, unfortunately I can't get them out now, they are busy defending Singapore. I'm mid January in my game, and I think I did too much 'GTFO' too early. I saved a lot of shipping out of DEI, and sacrified a lot of coastal mine sweepers to let bigger things out now. Had a rather major oopsie last turn when I was doing a raid on the Marshall Islands. Got bapped by some land aircraft and Enterprise took a torpedo because I had forgotten to put my planes off training. Oh well, whats 3 weeks in the yard for Big E? Anyone wanna play multiplayer?
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Jan 11, 2024 14:10
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Cimber posted:That strait on the northeast of Australia is a bastard for me as well. I'm doing the 'GTFO of the DEI' phase of the game now, and I've lost a few ships to subs patroling that area. I found that if i set my task routing to coastal they do better. Into Cooktown for some refueling, then hug the coast behind the great barrier reef down to Brisbane. My APs going to PM take that root, and shoot out at flank speed when they have to cross. That seems to work pretty well, limiting my exposure. As soon as my B17s I managed to pull outta Clark Field and are sitting in Brisbane right now get a few more weeks of AWS training, they'll be put to good use. To give you an idea of your aircraft replacement schedule (bear in mind that this also include the European and African theaters, but is only the US numbers) 
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Jan 13, 2024 21:02
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Yeah, its insane how much the US spit out both to its own forces and to allied countries. When the beast got awoken, it sure as hell was pissed. (oh, and as an aside, I'm doing a PBEM game against someone and saw on intel they were shipping their HQ units to a base closer to the front. Sent a few CAs, CLs and DDs to the target area, sunk them all and gave him 5K in troop losses. HQ units? Our fighting troops don't need no HQ." )
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Jan 13, 2024 21:34
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Rough you really didn't get anything out of his debacle in Carpentaria. So many chances on the carriers with the big bombers, but no diver bombers going after them.
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Mar 7, 2024 21:08
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Tiger Crazy posted:Rough you really didn't get anything out of his debacle in Carpentaria. So many chances on the carriers with the big bombers, but no diver bombers going after them. I didn't really time my attacks properly tbh. The B-24s were never going to hit the carriers, but if they'd made their runs before the dive bombers, the CAP might have been exhausted enough to get a few through. I also should have started flying the Hellcats and Corsairs over sooner, shouldn't have flown in the cream of my dive bombers and fighters to Groote to get bombarded the next morning.. but I'm still really happy we managed to actually avert a Japanese attack. I thought he was bringing in reinforcements when I saw his landing ships back at Mornington! Also: I have fallen well behind the current turn here! I'm putting together a narrative/summary/overview post for May 7-16. It will look something like my old lptest updates. Normal posts for May 17th & 18th are already written. I may go from daily posts to weeklies, or possibly compromise? Sets of three days? The problem is I am a fundamentally lazy writer who's also very tired.
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Mar 8, 2024 03:31
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So what's your take of the end result of things as far as it went tactically/strategically?
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Mar 8, 2024 04:46
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