Do you like WW2 grand strategy naval wargames?

[alanschu]

Wooo, some bad weather grounded much of the Japanese airforce, so I had some days to get some planes built, and now am consistently able to shoot down more planes than they can shoot down of mine. The Zero escort has been particularly beaten up, which should making shooting the Bettys fish in a barrel!

[alanschu]

News from the Chinese front. 150k Chinese troops have laid seige to Canton, near Hong Kong. Both parties have commenced launching artillery barrages back and forth. I'm hoping on having some units sneak around and cut off their direct supply line to mainland Japanese occupied cities. Make them support it from sea, and hopefully distract attention from the South Pacific.

 

It's a city tile, with size 9 fortifications. This one is going to take a while!

[Calax]

Ever think about having a fantastic AA ship park itself in a protected harbor that's under constant air attack?

 

Also, Can you hit land with those big 'ol pop guns on your boats?

[alanschu]

I did have that. When I was worried about the shore bombardments, I had a fleet of heavy ships in the area warding them off. They had decent AA coverage. Then the USS Colorado took a few torpedoes because the Japanese figured that they were a juicier target than my airfield. So I got them the heck out of there. The problem with trying to rely on boats is that if he chooses to attack my airfield, I don't know how effective the AA fire will be from boats in the harbour, or in a nearby task force. Boats in harbours directly can be sitting ducks. I also do have a fair bit of ground based AA emplacements, which help out on the raids. I'd prefer it if they didn't get a chance to drop their bombs though It's less of an issue now though, as I seem to have obtained air superiority over Guadalcanal. A few days of thunderstorms halted air strikes, and let me get additional planes servicable. After slowly wearing down the Japanese squadrons, I was able to get back to back days where I had a net +20 kills, and Japan has since slowed/ceased its attacks. I also just recently upgraded the airfield to level 4, which lets smaller level bombers take off without penalty. The Hudsons taking off from there didn't waste much time, scoring two hits on two different transports in the first two days they were operational.

 

 

As for my boats hitting land, I'm assuming you're talking about the base I'm sieging in China. Unfortunately, to the east is mainland Japan, to the south is the Philippines (which as valiant the remaining forces have been to hold out until May 1942...they're going to be kaput soon and most of the island isn't mine), to the west is Indochina, and the entire area is what I would call "Japanese Waters," there's no way I'd risk it. Some plane would spot me, and he'd sent out the ships and planes, and sink me good! Furthermore, most of them are still finishing up their repairs from Pearl Harbour on the West Coast of the USA. Most of them are pretty close, but the USS Maryland is still at 65% systems damage. A bit more at Pearl Harbour, and then I'll send her back to San Francisco which has a huge naval repair yard (plus not a constant stream of ships with minor damages that take away from time to work on the Maryland). Other places like Los Angeles, San Diego, and Seattle are also capable of speeding along repairs. The Colorado, and a few other BBs and CAs are in the Australia area, which would probably be an even tougher gauntlet to run to get to China for a bombardment mission. The island chains of the South Pacific are swarming with Japanese vessels and land based aircraft.

 

 

I have been doing a steady stream of bombardments in India with some of the capital ships sent to me from Britain. Unfortunately, they just requested a withdrawl of a Battleship (and two destroyers) to recall them to the European Theatre.

 

Also, since it is May, I am able to upgrade British planes now, so some of the poorer planes have been replaced with slightly better ones. They don't have as long range, so it's a bit more defensive, but they are the Hurricane Fighter Bombers and are significantly better at air combat than the Wirraways they replaced. They're more maneuverable, faster, more armored, and better equipped. They'll be key for when I make my push back into India.

[Calax]

It'd be a gambit but you could try to rebase a smallish task squad (primairly ASW and AA ships covering a Battleship or somthing) to the western side of the conflict zone. (easiest way would probably be to dodge south by austrailia then slip back north west.

 

I don't exactly have your strategic map in front of me so I don't know what you are looking at but Having some sea power in the area that isn't on "strings" so to speak (ie on loan from the brits) is probably a good idea in the long run.

 

By the way, do the russians actually do anything? or are they just sitting there?

[Girias_Solo]

Can the player take over one area of the allied war effort? Lets say I only wanted to be the Aussies, or US, or Far east, China, etc. Can the AI handle the rest? Or is it the entire Allied effort?

 

Does Japan come with a similar system? China front, south pacific, etc?

 

I could see myself enjoying the game for a time, but it might be a massive management headache doing every bit of the planning, especially for one commander.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

So Llyranor, when can I sign up for that Doomsday tutorial newsletter of yours?

[Llyranor]

Leave me out of this.

[metadigital]

News from the Chinese front.  150k Chinese troops have laid seige to Canton, near Hong Kong.  Both parties have commenced launching artillery barrages back and forth.  I'm hoping on having some units sneak around and cut off their direct supply line to mainland Japanese occupied cities.  Make them support it from sea, and hopefully distract attention from the South Pacific.

 

It's a city tile, with size 9 fortifications.  This one is going to take a while!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Does the game include the Japanese germ warfare, where they drop bubonic plague spores in a bomb? "

[alanschu]

Can the player take over one area of the allied war effort? Lets say I only wanted to be the Aussies, or US, or Far east, China, etc. Can the AI handle the rest? Or is it the entire Allied effort?

 

Does Japan come with a similar system? China front, south pacific, etc?

 

I could see myself enjoying the game for a time, but it might be a massive management headache doing every bit of the planning, especially for one commander. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

If you look at the map in the very first post, the map is cut into regions, and you can set those regions to computer control if you want. It seems to do okay from a land campaign, and the air campaign is okay, but outside of submarines, I think the game still wanted me to take control of the boats, since they didn't really seem to do anything. As I learned the game, I slowly unlocked parts of the campaign. That's for the grand campaign though. There are smaller campaigns that only take part in certain regions, and over smaller timeframes, which may be what you're looking for.

 

It'd be a gambit but you could try to rebase a smallish task squad (primairly ASW and AA ships covering a Battleship or somthing) to the western side of the conflict zone. (easiest way would probably be to dodge south by austrailia then slip back north west.

 

I'm not too worried about needing ASW near India. All of the subs seem to be near Australia, and I have a fair bit of Airforce in the area, and have scored a few hits on ASW patrols. I also have some American and Australia DDs, and some Patrol Boats and mine sweepers, patrolling the area aggressively. I've killed 5 subs there in the past month.

 

I don't exactly have your strategic map in front of me so I don't know what you are looking at but Having some sea power in the area that isn't on "strings" so to speak (ie on loan from the brits) is probably a good idea in the long run.

 

The British Sea Force in India is still pretty beefy. They don't do withdrawl requests too often, so I still have 3 Battleships, 1 Battlecruiser, 2 Fleet Carriers, 1 Escort Carrier, and a host of heavy/light cruisers and destroyers. They routinely do a bombardment mission at Aykab, on the east side of the Bay of Bengal on the India/Burma border. Some of my Carriers are damaged (plus the British Carriers have way, way, way smaller detachments than the USA does....34 planes versus 90!), and undergoing repairs, as well as the BC Repluse and the very excellent BB Prince of Wales. I'm a bit too scared to do too much, without knowing precisely where the enemy Carrier Fleet is.

 

I do have 3 or 4 older Battleships at Australia. The BB Colorado was limping into Brisbane after all. I just relocated her to Sydney (has a larger port and naval repair factories), and there's a Tennessee class undergoing a refit to have better AA and Radar installed. I am sending a large amount of troops, air force and boats to Sydney via the South South South Pacific

 

 

By the way, do the russians actually do anything? or are they just sitting there?

 

The Soviets are inactive in the game until August 1945, since they signed a 5 year Non Aggression Pact with Japan (and are focusing on Germany anyways). If Japan invades Russia, then all bets are off, though I doubt the AI will do that. As a human player, Japan also needs to keep an appropriate strength Garrison in Manchuria in the area, otherwise the Soviets will wake up early. Stuff like this is usually exempt as the AI, though at the same time the AI is probably also exempt from taking troops out of Manchuria.

 

Right now I just have everyone set to accept reinforcements (so they'll get upgrades for their guns....that 37mm AT gun can change into a 76mm AT gun for example), and have their airforce set to maximum training.

 

 

Does the game include the Japanese germ warfare, where they drop bubonic plague spores in a bomb?

 

It does not look like it (though Pacific Storm does). I think the only superweapon is the Atomic Bomb.

[Calax]

just noticed somthing... Can you use land based arty in Austraila to hit New Guena? (or however it's spelled?)

[alanschu]

Not that I can tell. You can only attack targets in the same hex it seems. Though I still hold New Guinea at this time, so it wouldn't be an issue.

 

Was it possible to actually shoot artillery across into new guinea?

[metadigital]

According to my father the Australians had two big guns ... and one blew (itself) up. (The US had more equipment than they could use. He told me they all used to go to the US camp for pancake breakfasts!) I would expect they were firing at the next mountain range / valley, though, not across island bays ..!

[alanschu]

Each hex represents 60 miles, so I think it'd be pretty good to shoot 60 miles :D

 

 

The big 18.1" guns on the Yamato I believe have a range of 30-40k on them, not that hitting anything would really be possible (outside of a shore bombardment) given the curvature of the Earth.

[metadigital]

Some of the big ships have guns that shoot about that far, too, don't they? Over the horizon, in other words. :D

[alanschu]

Yup, the Yamato was one such ship. The biggest in fact. Has 18.1 inch batteries that could shoot 42 km!

 

I have been fortunate enough to have NOT encountered the Yamato so far, though I would love to put a torpedo into her side!

 

I remember reading an assessment between the two big boys, the Yamato and the Iowa Class Battleship. It seemed as though the Japanese still used radar assisted visual spotting for where the shells were landing, and it was suspected it would not fare as well in a long range naval battle, as it could not accurately tell where the shells were landing relative to the ship. The Iowa on the other hand, had a superior RADAR, which could also be used to train the guns, and it could also accurate detect the tops of the splashes from long range shells falling over the horizon. For it's time, it sounds like a pretty impressive boat. In fact, the Americans were pretty smart with incorporating radar assisted fire control for both their main batteries, as well as their AA guns.

 

I'm an Iowa fanboy, and I get my first one in 617 days! :D

[metadigital]

Go, go Iowa!

[alanschu]

An on June 18th, 1942, the Allied Armed Forces in the Philippines have officially capitulated to the Japanese Aggressors.

 

 

Unfortunately, it means those 80k japanese troops in that area are going to be going somewhere else instead. A valiant effort.

[metadigital]

Go, go Iowa!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... and the Chinese!

[alanschu]

Speaking of them, the Siege of Canton has gone on for many, many days now. By my estimate, it seems like 240k chinese versus 120k Japanese.

 

The one bad thing is that if Japan decides to shore bombard this city, I'll probably be in a world of hurt. Some Chinese bombers are getting in airstrikes however, to help with the attrition. I'm still just doing bombardments however. I wouldn't dream of fighting in a town with full fortifications with only twice the soldiers. The airlift of supplies is finally starting to payoff, as most units seem to be meeting their supply requirements, which will help them fight more effectively.

 

I also got a bit lucky in Burma. I noticed one of my bases were bombed out of a strike from Mandalay, so I switched some of my bombers (that were softening up the cities at the line) to do an Airfield attack on Mandalay. The result was a 4 pronged attack, including 48 LB-30 Liberator Heavy Bombers, and it resulted in around 30 damaged airplanes on the ground alone, plus a few fighters that tried scrambling and were cut down by a combination of defensive fire from the bombers, as well as the P-40 escort. While many planes were damaged, not a single one was destroyed on my part. A severe blow to Japanese operations in the Far East theatre.

[Calax]

not gonna drop a sub or two to prevent an offshore attack on your Far East Front?

[alanschu]

I do have some submarines in that area. They don't always attack though. For an attack to happen the units have to be in the same tile (which shouldn't be an issue, since they'll be in the coast hex), and the commander of the sub has to determine whether or not to attack (commanders with high aggressiveness can help), as well as his ability to get a strike. Assuming of course, that the torpedoes don't dud (a problem the Allies had to start the war), and that the destroyer escorts don't pick him up.

 

I have not had much success in attacking large capital ships with submarines, in part because it wasn't part of the US doctrine (sounds like the Japanese are much more willing to go after big ships, yet tend to avoid merchant ships, if I enable their historical doctrine), and also because they tend to have a large number of escorts. I've only had a handful of attacks from subs on Battleships and Carriers, and only one successful attack. And this was despite my "minefield" of subs in the Dutch East Indies which made it impossible to enter a hex in the Java Sea without landing in one that had one of my submarines. Stupid sub commanders and their self-preservation!

 

In any case, I made a huge raid on the Marshall Islands with 5 carriers (Saratoga, Lexington, Hornet, Enterprise, and Yorktown), as well as a surface fleet consisting of Pennsylvania as the flagship. Unfortunately the Pennsylvania took 4 torpedoes. As it limped its way back to Pearl, it has accumulated 91% flooding damage, and is about 12 hexes away from port. I probably should have made a pitstop at Johnston Island, which while only having a small ship, could have at least docked and had repair ships fix the flooding. I don't think she's going to make it back. She gained about 12% flooding in the last turn alone.

 

I also have been doing night raids of the Shortlands near Guadalcanal, despite a boondoggle that gave escorts permission to open fire (which meant my destroyers moved into firing range, and put themselves in firing range as a result), the island was hit pretty hard. But the Marshalls took a beating. A combination of successful bombardments from the remainder of the surface fleet, as well as airstrike after airstrike, left the airfield totally destroyed, and effectively shutdown flight operations. As a result, I was able to expend the rest of my sorties purely on bombing the living crap out of Kwajalein (the main base), destroying probably around 80-100 planes, a submarine, and 3 cargo vessels. The surface fleet bombarded for 5 days, expending most of its ammuntion, while the carrier flew persistent flight operations for 6 full days. The infrastructure on that base is devastated, and I'm preparing an invasion to the Gilbert Islands just south of the Marshall Islands, which will let me set up a land airbase to cover invasions of each base on the Marshall Islands. The 1st and 2nd USMC divisions, and the 52nd USMC Raider division are preparing for an assault, and while the Pennsylvania is probably a lost cause, she'll be replaced by the USS North Carolina, first in a series of new "fast battleships" of the US Navy. She can keep up with most carriers, and has 9 16"/45 guns to rein fire down upon the enemy. Hopefully Penn can survive, but given how long it's taken to get the Maryland (damaged to 99% system and 90% flooding during the attack on Pearl Harbour, and is just now at 70% system damage, and has made her way back to San Francisco), she'll be out of commission for quite some time.

 

Assuming she goes down, it will be the first major capital ship loss for the Americans in the war. The USS Wasp is about to come into the theatre, which will give me 6 fleet carriers in the region (since we have not had a battle of Coral Sea, nor a Battle of Midway, none of my carriers have seen much combat). Once refits of the current CVs are finished, and the Wasp arrives at Pearl, I plan on having 3 Task Forces, each consisting of 2 carriers, to parade around and try to make thing miserably on the Japanese.

[Calax]

Suggestion... during a major series of combats try to keep a couple of Damage control ships near your primary formation so that you can keep severly damaged ones afloat longer.

[alanschu]

July 21, 1942.

 

The truth final hit home today for the United States Navy, as the damaged USS Pennsylvania capsized and sunk just 200 miles west of Pearl Harbour. The USS Pennsylvania had taken multiple torpedo hits from Japanese bombers during a raid in the Marshall Islands. Despite the best efforts of her crew, and the crew of the neighbouring ships, they were unable to stabalize the repairs. While the raid on Kwajalein was deemed a success, Admiral Nimitz commented that the loss of such a vessel places a solemn mood around the events.

 

The news does not come at a great time. Allied withdrawls from the Dutch East Indies continue into Australia, following the loss of the Philippines just last month. While the Japanese advance in India and China has been slowed, there's been little opportunity for the Allies to effectively strike back at the Japanese. With the USS Wasp set to arrive in the Pacific theatre, United States Armed Forces stress to the American people, as well as those in India, New Zealand, and Australia, that events are in motion to help push back the Japanese aggressors.

 

 

[alanschu]

Suggestion... during a major series of combats try to keep a couple of Damage control ships near your primary formation so that you can keep severly damaged ones afloat longer.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

What do you think I did? She was escorted practically immediately by the Repair Ship Vestal, and the Repair Ship Sage Brush arrived a few days afterwards. She survived 17 days after being hit with multiple torpedoes.

 

I learned my lesson when I almost lost the BB Colorado in Australia (at which point i promptly sent a repair ship down there as well. It's not like I wasn't expecting to take some hits from bombers. Unfortunately, when out at sea, there's just not much that can be done. Damage Control ships aren't miracle workers. They just slow the bleeding. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania was bleeding a bit too fast.