Do you like WW2 grand strategy naval wargames?

[metadigital]

Believe it or not, I am actually familiar with the WW2 history of Jap as a derogatory term.  Posting the cover of a comic book is not necessary.  It's just a mistake that I frequently do since Jap is a quick abbreviation of the term Japan when I am writing typing on a keyboard.  Much in the same way I'll use a term like Brit.  It's also, for better or worse, a term I hear a lot when playing WW2 games.  When everyone else is saying it, it's easy to let it out yourself.

 

 

I'd recommend staying away from War in the Pacific official forums however.  The racism flying around there is rampant.

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Actually my father used to use the term "nip" as a perjorative, and "jap" was almost affectionate.

 

SINGAPORE FALLS!

 

 

After 1.5 months of hard fighting, the Japanese finally broke through, and 50,000 troops were forced to surrender. 

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They cut off the water supply in the war.

[alanschu]

I'm familiar with the term 'Nip" as well. Though I'm not as familiar with the term 'jap' being affectionate.

 

 

And Singapore as become an annoying base for which the Bettys can bomb me and cause heavy damages to my airfields in the dutch east indies!!!

[metadigital]

I said "almost" affectionate, as in "compared to 'nip'". :D

 

Yes, my father was not very politically correct.

[Colrom]

I think I like Nipponese or Nihonjin best these days.

[alanschu]

I speak English, so I refer to it as Japan.

[alanschu]

All sorts of updates going on now.

 

 

After the IJN bombarded Guadalcanal a few times, I sucked it up and brought those 4 battleships + change as I mentioned earlier. And a couple months later, the Japanese tried raiding it again, only to meet 16" and 14" batteries! While the Colorado (with the 16" guns) took heavy system damage, I didn't suffere a whole lot of flooding. I sunk one of their DDs, and made mincemeat out of one of the Japanese Battleships. I had hit it 4 times and caused heavy damage in the first encounter, and in the second encounter of the night, I got in another 3 hits and a torpedo as well. Many of the escort cruisers and destroyers had heavy fire damage and suffered many hits as well. Easily a tactical victory for the Allies.

 

I also did another probe to the Marshall Islands, this time with 4 different aircraft carriers. Unfortunately, right when I got there, there were severe thunderstorms suspending flight operations. Since there were no flights either way, I stuck around, though I ended up losing my element of surprise that I would get from zooming in at high speed with the carriers. The Yorktown took 5 torpedo hits and was at 80% flooding. I switched all of my fighters to Combat Air Patrol (CAP), and covered the Yorktown as it limped away, dispatching the 3 repair ships from Pearl. The fire damages were quickly put out, but the flooding damage, while dipping at first, steadily started to increase, even with the repair ships attached to it. When it finally made it to Pearl, it was at 92% flooding. Now that it's at Pearl though, the flooding is going down by about 5 points per day. After that, it's off to San Francisco for heavy repairs.

 

 

I have also been pushed completely out of Burma, and have Chinese Forces on the East Border, and Indian/British forces at the North Border. The big problem is that the only way to get decent supply lines if from the south through Malaya and Siam, both owned and operated by the IJN. I'm hoping on cutting through the middle of Burma with the Chinese troops (and the Burmaese troops that retreated over the Burma road) to cut the supply lines of any troops to the North. Unfortunately supplies are an issue, so I started flying supplies in over the blockaded Burma road into Yunan directly. These transport craft will be instrumental to my operation in Burma, which is not able to be supplied directly from either China or India. The roads are too crappy, and just mere trails. Optimally I'd love to take back Rangoon, as all supplies north must go through the hex just north of it. But Recon missions over Rangoon show 12 infantry divisions. I guess that's not happening any time soon.

 

 

I have also started the full evacuation of planes from south Java Island. The Japanese have landed significant troops there, and the air units are just too precious. Unfortunately I can't get too much to India, but I can get most of them to Australia. I also found the upgrade aircraft function, and apparently I checked off "User Defined Aircraft Upgrades" which is nice, as it allows me to replace some of the really obsolete units in Australia. Australia also got a squadron of Kittyhawk fighters, which I zipped over to Guadalcanal, and have been instrumental in turning back Japanese air raids and protecting convoys at port unloading their supplies.

 

 

It's now April 1st, and the Philippines is still holding off. Though their time is numbered. They are significantly entrenched, so I can cause casualties to the Japanese fights, but most of their casualties are just disablements, rather than outright kills. Since they are now completely out of supply, every hit against me results essentially in a death, since I do not have the supplies to return disabled units to the battle. This is on top of the natural attrition I get from being out of supply. GG guys, you put up a valiant fight and helped buy me some time. Perhaps keeping those troops occupied is what will help me hold Guadalcanal.

[Llyranor]

Philippines

[metadigital]

He will return.

[jaguars4ever]

Poor Llyranor's getting skooled by Alan again, I take it?

[alanschu]

He will return.

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Mr. MacArthur will indeed!

 

 

And no, this is just against the AI.

 

If he were to get the game, I'd probably play as Japan since they have the historical disadvantage, and more micromanagement with industries and whatnot, and I've already played the game a bit.

 

 

Though I believe he was commenting on it being too much time investment.

Edited December 28, 2006 by alanschu

[alanschu]

The mass evacuation of Soerabaja and middle Baja Island.

 

I'm keeping troops station at Batavia on the north side for now, since there are still important flight ops going on out there.

[metadigital]

It does look very interesting.

[alanschu]

That screenshot is also my submarine "minefield."

 

It's a bit less useful now, but there was a ton of transport ships moving around in that area, as well as the main Japanese Carrier Task Force (though I don't think I ever got a submarine shot against. My commanders don't have high enough aggression to risk fighting through the picket of ASW escorts).

[metadigital]

Looks like you've got the entire Pacific fleet in the Java Sea!

[alanschu]

Hahaha. The details are a bit hard to see, but most of those are single units of submarines. I also split up each transport evacuating from Java Island to make it harder for Japan's airforce (including these retarded Bettys that have either AP bombs or torpedos and a range of like 1000 miles....I'm guessing the Americans were crying for Nerf of it and the Zero to start the war). to isolate them. They were able to get one task force, a transport with a minesweeper. They're limping their way to Darwin, but I don't think they are going to make it.

 

 

 

In other news, April marks the milestone of a refit for many ships. So a lot of my ships just got upgraded. Most upgrades consist of just upgraded AA weaponry, and many of my ships now have some form of RADAR, which I imagine will only help immensely. Unfortunately, I just had the ships set to auto update, and updating the ship causes a small amount of system damage, so most of my destroyers have about 15 system damage. Since I prefer to not send things out with more than 5 system damage, it means i have to repair these. Which means that the repairs on the BB Maryland, which had 99 system damage at Pearl Harbour, and is now only at 88 System Damage, is going to take even longer to update.

 

Oh well.

 

On the plus side, the extra AA from the fast cruisers and the Aircraft Carriers is only a bonus. Anything to stop those pesky Bettys!!!

[metadigital]

Aren't those Bettys the planes that were sent over in the first wave of the Battle of Midway, that got completely wiped out by the Japanese carriers (before the second wave of better planes destroyed those same carriers)?

[alanschu]

It was the one that Yamamoto was shot down by P-38s in.

 

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-air-su...enemy/betty.htm

[alanschu]

Well, now the Japanese are airstriking Guadalcanal from Rabaul. 100+ Bettys with about 40 Zeros as an escort.

 

I have planes at the base, but they had to be crated to be shipped there, so they aren't built. And they keep bombing the airfield and damaging/destroying planes before they can be built. I'm trying to do some night raids with my long range patrol boats (who'd never survive during the day), but the best they've done is a single Betty. And given the range of those beasts, they can fly them in from almost anywhere it seems. At the same time though, it's bound to be more expensive for him than for me. Or so I hope!

 

 

Here's more bad news. Those evil Bettys made a port raid on my bombardment defense task force, and got a few torpedo strikes against the USS Colorado. It's been limping its way back to Brisbane, but suddenly my crews were unable to slow the flooding, and it's steadily gone from 50% to 80%. Only just now has it taken a bit of a dip. I'm a bit worried if she's going to make it back to port.

 

 

 

She's due for an upgrade too, if she can make it back. Gets better AA guns and RADAR. Given the 16" guns she has, I'd rather not lose her. For a bit the flooding was going up by 5% a day, and I'm still 7 days away from port! Plus there are enemy submarines lurking in the area!!!

 

Come on you can do it!!

[alanschu]

Aren't those Bettys the planes that were sent over in the first wave of the Battle of Midway, that got completely wiped out by the Japanese carriers (before the second wave of better planes destroyed those same carriers)?

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I was reading up on the SBD Dauntless, and came across this.

 

Seems as though it was the TBD Devastator Torpedo Bomber that drew the attention of the Japanese Escorts, allowing the Dauntlesses to have free attack vectors to the ships relatively unhindered.

Edited December 29, 2006 by alanschu

[Calax]

Well, now the Japanese are airstriking Guadalcanal from Rabaul.  100+ Bettys with about 40 Zeros as an escort.

 

I have planes at the base, but they had to be crated to be shipped there, so they aren't built.  And they keep bombing the airfield and damaging/destroying planes before they can be built.  I'm trying to do some night raids with my long range patrol boats (who'd never survive during the day), but the best they've done is a single Betty.  And given the range of those beasts, they can fly them in from almost anywhere it seems.  At the same time though, it's bound to be more expensive for him than for me.  Or so I hope!

 

 

Here's more bad news.  Those evil Bettys made a port raid on my bombardment defense task force, and got a few torpedo strikes against the USS Colorado.  It's been limping its way back to Brisbane, but suddenly my crews were unable to slow the flooding, and it's steadily gone from 50% to 80%.  Only just now has it taken a bit of a dip.  I'm a bit worried if she's going to make it back to port.

 

 

 

She's due for an upgrade too, if she can make it back.  Gets better AA guns and RADAR.  Given the 16" guns she has, I'd rather not lose her.  For a bit the flooding was going up by 5% a day, and I'm still 7 days away from port!  Plus there are enemy submarines lurking in the area!!!

 

Come on you can do it!!

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Question from the 'nut gallery, Why not send a support ship?

[alanschu]

Unfortunately I have none near Australia. Though the idea of sending one of the ones near Pearl (which I kept there since Pearl is still my main base of operations, and I was running Carrier probes out of it) has certainly occurred to me now!

 

There's not a whole lot of AR repair ships coming up in the cues, but I can convert large AK transport ships into a variety of ships, ARs being one of them. I just recently made one of those conversions (and had accidentally made one a while back as I played with the game). The only problem is that it takes 180 days to refit the transport. I have a rather insanely large amount of AK ships near India, that aren't doing nearly as much as my Pacific Transport fleets, so I will probably convert some of them.

 

On the plus side, the USS Colorado just reported that she had made it into the harbour. The first day saw a drastic decrease in flooding damages from 90% to 81%, so I think she's going to be okay. I've also sunk two of the subs floating around in the area. Once she's been patched up a bit, I'll send her to Sydney, which has a slightly large port (port size 10 rather than 9, and the only way to get a 10 is by starting the game with it, so Brisbane is maxed at 9...which is still excellent), and it also has dedicated ship repair yards. This provide a small (but given the repair time of a Battleship, quite helpful) boost to repairs, and is also required for the upgrade she has planned. The upgrade I suspect will include replacing the crappy .50 cal AA guns with the 20 mm Oerlikon, which is just superior in every way. And it will probably place a radar on it, which will help with my naval detection and naval accuracy.

 

 

In other news, much of the "damage" from upgrading ships at Pearl Harbour and the West Coast is done, so many of my ships have significantly improved AAA, as well as Radar units. Not very effective radars, but I'll take something over nothing! Many of the destroyers have also gone from 2 Depth Charge racks to 6, so the few subs I have seen will pay the price! Man I can't wait for the Destroyer Escorts and their insanely accurate Hedgehogs when dealing with those things!

 

 

And the Philippines is still holding on! It's been a constant stream of deliberate attacks by the Japanese to wear me down. I know most of my damage isn't permanent (I'm not destroying as many units, but I am disabling them), it should slow down their advances as they'l have to recuperate. I've also moved Chinese forces to the mainland base that's connected to Hong Kong. Two HUGE armies of over 100k troops each (most troops are 'just' support troops, not all infantry). Almost 1000 guns per side as well. If the Philippines is going to last 5 months, I expect this one to be quite a doozy as well. I may try to sneak a squad (since China has a million of them, and if a division gets destroyed, they immediately get it replaced to simulate their ability to have pretty much infinite men, relatively speaking) around back and onto the rail line to cut off the supplies, and then let logistics take care of the rest, but it has a port, so they could just get supplied by sea. Time to bring in the submarines! The few troops in Burma are slowly trickling into Yunan now as well, where they can finally have a warm bed to sleep in an recover and regroup.

 

 

I've also slowly withered down the persistent airstrikes against Guadalcanal. In the 1/2 month that my 3 fighter capable squadrons have been there, they have shot down over 100 planes, including many of those damned bettys!!! The Zero is losing it's effectiveness, as the Early War advantage that they get (due to the Allies not respecting its effectiveness) to their maneuverability will reach 0 (starts at +5 in December) come May. As a result, the airstrikes are less extreme, allowing me to finally rebuild and repair grounded airplanes. With help from the AA guns below, I've effectively held off airstrikes with usually around 15-20 fighters (with excellent commanders) and 10 or so Fighter Bombers (which aren't very good, as they don't have super charger engines and lose maneuverability every 1000 feet above 10000 feet. Given the bombers attack at 12-14k, it's a bit of problem. As a result, they have only accounted for 20 of the 100 kills). I have them run combat air patrols at 29k feet (even with the poor high altitude ability of the P-39D Aircobra Fighter Bomber, I'll still take my chances with the speed gain of striking in from above). I usually trade kills, but have plenty of aircraft in reserve on the base below (they just need to be built haha). The Kittyhawks and P-40E Warhawks are virtually identical planes, and they both have around 40 kills so far. The Kittyhawk caps at 16 planes, but the P-40E (and the Aircobras) are full 72 plane fighter groups, so once I can get those up high, I'll feel very comfortable with my air superiority over Guadalcanal.

[Girias_Solo]

Tell me, what is the AI like?

 

The reason I never bought this game was because I kept reading how **** the AI was on the matrix forums, and that you basicly had to play as the Japanese to have a challenge.

 

True or false? What can the AI do? How would you rate it?

 

I have heard good things about Birth of America, so any wargamers might like to pop over to matrix and check it out.

[alanschu]

I haven't played the game long enough to really know how the AI is doing.

 

I don't see most of the stuff they are doing. Like any large scale wargame, there's likely going to be issues because of ahistoric things I try doing.

 

I guess the "dumbest" thing I have seen him do so far is throw a lot of planes at Guadalcanal, with me slowly wearing him down. But I don'tk now how much the Zeroes and Bettys cost, so meh.

[alanschu]

I just had some fun with conversions, and converted about 10 large transports into various auxillary ships. A few repair ships (always invaluable, since it reduces down time), as well as some Submarine tenders (I can reload torpedoes at a size 3 port instead of a size 8 port), and Mine Layer Tenders (as long as there are supplies, I can load mines, rather than needing a size 9 (!) port.

 

I also just commissioned a transport fleet, to be escorted by 6 Flush Deck class Destroyers, from Pearl Harbour to Brisbane. I mostly just want to get the Flush Decks down to Australia for the extra ASW, and they aren't much use for a fleet navy (crappy AA ratings, as well as mediocre gun capabilities). It does have 2x2 depth charge racks though, which will come in handy. My air patrols just spotted another 3 submarines off the coast of Australia, and while I've sunk at least one and likely another, I'm a bit worried how many of them may be running around. Right now all I have in Australia are 3 destroyers, and a handful of Minesweepers (which happen to have depth charge racks on them).

[metadigital]

I have planes at the base, but they had to be crated to be shipped there, so they aren't built.  And they keep bombing the airfield and damaging/destroying planes before they can be built.  I'm trying to do some night raids with my long range patrol boats (who'd never survive during the day), but the best they've done is a single Betty.  And given the range of those beasts, they can fly them in from almost anywhere it seems.  At the same time though, it's bound to be more expensive for him than for me.  Or so I hope!

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Wow, that is quite a detailed game.