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Kylaer posted:Airdrop counterattack on a meaningless speck of nowhere? Banzai If it’s not meaningful now, it’ll become meaningful when thousands of men are fighting to the death for it. Banzai!
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Apr 25, 2024 03:47
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I'm not really sure why he captured Ebon. Can it be built into something?
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Apr 25, 2024 10:53
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Gort posted:I'm not really sure why he captured Ebon. Can it be built into something? With the near infinite supply of Sea Bees and absolutely infinite supply of supplies? I'm sure it can get turned into an extra level 1 or maybe 2 airbase for fighters to hang out in.
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Apr 25, 2024 11:51
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Gort posted:I'm not really sure why he captured Ebon. Can it be built into something? 
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Apr 25, 2024 12:47
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Gort posted:I'm not really sure why he captured Ebon. Can it be built into something? It's a 0 (1) base right now, so the max size of both port and airfield are 4 IF he wants to spend the supply, time and energy to build that high. Doubtful. At best he could probably push it to a level 2 airfield within a reasonable amount of time to be able to launch torpedo and dive bombers. Level bombers wouldn't be able to fly effectively out of there (and he'll have huge issues with base overcrowding). At level 1 it can support defensive CAP missions, level 2 would allow light offensive missions. Level bombers need level 4 for medium type and level 5 for heavy type to not have significant penalties to load, distance and op losses. Its not that great of a prize TBH, but could serve as a resource sink. If it was me in his shoes I'd defending it a bit but not put too much effort into securing it. Then again, if it was me I wouldn't have taken it in the first place.
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Apr 25, 2024 14:02
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It's just a sandbar, huh? Lord only knows why anyone would have enough interest in it as anything other than a scout platform.
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Apr 25, 2024 16:09
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Materant posted:It's just a sandbar, huh? Lord only knows why anyone would have enough interest in it as anything other than a scout platform. Well, look at every other island in the Gilberts and Marshalls. Tarawa, Kwajajein and Enewetak are not much bigger. The entire Central Pacific campaign in WW2 was all about getting small, lovely islands that couldn't be sunk.
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Apr 25, 2024 16:38
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Allied bombing is so OP, they bombed a hole in the middle of that island!
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Apr 25, 2024 17:01
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nono see it's actually a circular landing strip. Just needs a bit of crushed coral or concrete and another island nearby for all that hangar stuff. Unless you really want to go all in and build an underwater hangar and ammo dump. And a barracks or some poo poo in a corner, who cares.
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Apr 25, 2024 17:50
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  Hayabusa gets wooshed.  Getting wooshed is all part of an escort’s job, of course.  Prompt sweep, always appreciated.  Hopefully that's clear for the Nells now.  Delhi next.  Not how I’d like to see it go.  On time sweep over Agra too, excellent.  Might not have killed him but I’m sure he’s chased off.  And it is clear for the Nells.  Meh.  Better than nothing I suppose.  Now the Army’s turn at Agra.  Not great either to be honest.  A second wave hits harder, but on an engineering unit.  Storms over Tarawa.  We still take a relatively large amount of damage.  Umboi.  Haven’t seen them here for a few days.  But they’re going to wreck the place in one pass by the look of it.  Pulling all the stops out.  Liberators from Australia too.  Maloelap.  Hitting hard here too.  Very hard.    How the hell does he have CAP here already?  Well, that could have been worse, I suppose.  And there’s still CAP left!?  At least we hit pretty hard this time.  One last wave of Hellens.  No CAP at Ajmer today.  They’re not done with Umboi yet.  Although there really can’t be much left standing after this morning.  Agra. This shouldn’t be too challenging.  Textbook, I couldn’t have asked for it better. And the pursuing units have made it all the way into the next hex.  That’s the end of the 31st armoured then. I don’t think we fought them on fair terms once   Bangalore goes well again. Could he be running out of supply here?  Oops.  Oh well, you win some you lose some.   A decent day overall.  Not so much in the air  Nells aside we did better than I thought.  I-177 succumbs to her wounds.  The second of the Etorofus is commissioned at Tokyo today.  And at Osaka   At Chiba the 42nd division continues to muster with the formation of the artillery regiment. A couple more weeks for everyone else to arrive.  One of our destroyed construction companies reforms at Tokyo. I did not know that if a unit starts out restricted it has to be bought out again when reformed. Not a big deal in this case, but with a division or an HQ more of a concern.  And a brand new battalion. Give me more engineers, more more more.  Today at least the game is listening to me, with another battalion arriving on Okinawa.  The 16th recon regiment has all but ceased to exist, but then recon regiments barely exist in the first place, so no big deal.   The main stack of 2k AV is pushing on for Delhi.  We need to throw everything, and I do mean everything, at these guys tomorrow.  On the ground we have a decent amount of AV, mostly armoured, but also in separate little independent battalions and regiments. I think we can do it, but they do need all the help they can get.  The Anns are flown into Gwalior to try and bog down the 8th Indian. Thankfully they don’t seem to have any armour there, so even without being bombed it will take two or three days for them to break into the pocket.  Three more construction units, a couple of small IJA garrisons and a JNAF field unit are shipping off for Truk and then the Marshalls.
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Apr 25, 2024 19:08
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With that CAP are you still going to try for the paradrop?
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Apr 25, 2024 19:48
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wedgekree posted:Going good places in India. And yay! Tone and the DD's seem to have survived! I'm quite sure Delhi will need a seige, the only way it won't is if he retrreats without a fight. And since there's nowhere of importance to really retreat to, I doubt he will do that. Caconym posted:Stock witpae has like 20 different japanese aircraft engines. Some are widely used, some not so much. Sometimes the same plane family suddenly starts using a new engine on the next model, so gently caress you if you didn't pay attention and planned ahead, no new planes for you until you scale up engine production. Yeah, exactly. The problem with that is that there's a defined and clear optimal path to take, so there's no actual fun game decisions to make, just tedious busywork. So we masively simplified it, although it has had some unforseen consequneces, mainly that becuase I can't build R&D factories they can't convert over to production when the planes become avilable, meaning rampingup production takes a lot longer and the date to enter service is often actually later than it would be in vannila, even if the plane is thoerteically unlocked a month or two earlier. Cimber posted:It's a 0 (1) base right now, so the max size of both port and airfield are 4 IF he wants to spend the supply, time and energy to build that high. Doubtful. At best he could probably push it to a level 2 airfield within a reasonable amount of time to be able to launch torpedo and dive bombers. Level bombers wouldn't be able to fly effectively out of there (and he'll have huge issues with base overcrowding). It's a (0)(0) actually, no potential for air or port. So at most he could develop it to a 3 3, if he threw ridiculous resources at it. I think his plan for the marshalls is to take everything easy he can and just try to saturate the airspace to block off any of our movements. I'm not entirely sure yet if it's a good plan or not, but I'm worried that it might be. SerthVarnee posted:nono see it's actually a circular landing strip. I wnder if you could build a cambered runway so you could have a curved airfield. Cimber posted:With that CAP are you still going to try for the paradrop? We were never going to try the paradrop until the KB arrives and does them over for a day or two anyway, at which point the CAP would be suppressed.
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Apr 25, 2024 22:24
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So what in general are your strategic plans for the moment? Take over India but the cities you have to seige and dig in and withdraw some units to use elsewhere? Do you have plans for other offensives or mostly defensive buildup in locations for now?
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Apr 25, 2024 22:30
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Pharnakes posted:
Wait you never saw the imagined airport of New York?  I believe this was dreamed up before the invention of gravity being in effect all the way to the ground. perhaps a few balloons to help the passengers get down?.
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Apr 26, 2024 08:25
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Just 4 guys hidden in the water tower driving rc plqnes in a circle, duh
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Apr 26, 2024 12:56
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I'm quite excited about the next phase of the war, the Japanese Raj is a stunning accomplishment but Alikchi is getting froggy in the Pacific and the US industrial machine is ramping up. Can you leave fortresses like Bangalore to wither on the vine/be irrelevant or do they produce too much of their own supply and units for you to just leave a token besieging force while moving all the heavy guns, tanks, and infantry formations to a new invasion? It looks like about a month until the Kido Butai at Singapore are back in action? Are you going to have two carrier battlegroups for greater coverage and more options, or are you going to keep them close to each other for mutual reinforcement against whatever he's currently got operating? I guess you probably could aim at conquering Perth, since I'm not sure it's any less defensible than northern Australia... Or you could go for all of Australia... Or you could always raid Pearl Harbor again. 
habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 16:22
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Since India fell in spite of the scripted reinforcement wave, I'm positive that the US will fall in a similar fashion. Or comedy option, you want to keep China quiet, but no one said anything about the Soviets now did they? What's he gonna do, send reinforcements from India?
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Apr 26, 2024 16:43
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  RO-62 is spotted before she can attack.  Right, we’re going to win this time.  Spitfires!!!   CAP is down at Ajmer.  And the wider area it seems.  Sweeping Shortlands?  And Katherine?    More.  We are ready for this.  The Nells start the bombing in India.  Not exactly fantastic.  And we’re up against at least two regiments here.  Trying again at Jodhpur.  These things are just invincible.  Oh, what’s this?  Leaving units on commander discretion sometimes results in stupid poo poo, and sometimes they decide to hit a target that isn’t even shown on the map, like this.  It’s the Army’s turn.  You can really see the difference that the Hellen’s armour makes, compared to the unarmoured Nell.  Anns doing their harassment thing.  And even hit something in the process.  More Hellens.  Dauntlesses at Shortlands?    The problem we have at the moment is our defensive perimeter is considerably larger than our ability to adequately garrison it, particularly with aircraft.  Speaking of, more bombing of empty airbases.  At least it does keep him busy, I suppose.  He hasn’t bombed Gove for a few days.  Hopefully the storms protect us from the worst.  Umboi is getting a good pounding though.  Jaluit.  Jaluit has no airfield, or potential, so it’s pretty low priority.  So many Mitchells.  Some stragglers wander into Katherine.  We’re doing well here, at least.  A second sweep has found his LRCAP.  Easy kills.  Now it’s our turn to overclimb.  Although ironically this is the worst result so far.  Delhi is up.  Keep whittling him down.  Some Vengeances are active.  I don’t understand why the CAP was so light, we’re only one hex from the base.  No real harm done.  That’ll be Gove out of action in one day, probably.  Direct bombing of the coastal guns in the afternoon.  Still not done with Gove.  We’ve found some more random CAP.  And get a decent result.  The follow up to yesterday’s attack. It looks promising.  That’s the stuff.  I had no need to worry our armour wasn’t up to the job, then.  Their AV at Bangalore really is falling now. Maybe by the time we’ve finished in the north it’ll actually be at a level we could realistically attack.   It’s pretty terrifying, just how many Mitchells and Liberators he has in the Central Pacific now.   At least one of those loving Spitfires died!  Hardly war ending.  Kobe commissions another of our premier destroyer class.  The 46th naval guard unit reforms at Tokyo. I’m sure they wouldn’t have been restricted, maybe all reforming units are assigned to general defence and thus restricted?  On Hokkaido two construction battalions arrive at Sapporo, the 12th & 21st.  I’ve spotted these guys before, I’m not sure what’s up with them.  It’s very scary how quickly he’s managed to get an airfield up here.  Just because I haven’t responded yet doesn’t mean I won’t, Alikchi.   The pocket is complete, and we can collapse it.  Our other tank group will continue the push south west.  The army will go for the main stack.  While the navy will provide CAS for the Guards Tank.  As far as I can count the hexes it shouldn’t be possible, but I have a hunch he’s somehow shuttling this convoy between the two off map areas in the night without ever leaving them exposed to the carriers. Maybe we can intercept.  I was really hoping to avoid having to sprint again, but I can’t see any other realistic choice. We need those transports dead if we are to have any hope of retaking Ebon, which I would really like to do. Not so much because Ebon is super important, but just because doing so will reset the three month clock of Alikchi’s time table to take it back again.  At 17 hexes the closest we could get without sprinting would be 8, which is outside of the normal range of anything but the Jills, and completely beyond the capabilities of the Judy’s.  We’ll leave the anti shipping role to the dive bombers, and have the torpedo bombers perform ground attack.  We’ll have the landbased Zeros sweep.  And send those poor, abused Nells in again.  At Truk we start loading the three regiments of the 43rd division into three separate amphibious TFs, for Alinglaplap, Maloelap and Mili.  We might have four carriers stuck at Singapore for another year, but that doesn’t mean they can’t contribute to the fight. I haven’t done this yet because we’ve been struggling to meet the needs of the active fleet for the latest aircraft, but we’ve finally got most of them upgraded. I don’t know if we’ll actually deploy them yet, but if we can get the airfields in the Marshalls upgraded enough to make room for them, another four carriers worth of strike will be a very nasty surprise for Alikchi.  I was going to try and force the Torres Strait again, but I don’t think it’s really worth the risk with only two carriers as escort.  Most of these fighters here are probably damaged, I think there’s an opportunity to take air superiority over Groote for a while.  If we’re not going to risk the Torres Strait, then maybe this can provide a bit of a distraction from his bombing of New Britain.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:12
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Are you doing manual control of your subs, or is it computer auto taskforces? Manual control is much better but holy poo poo is it tedious. Computer control has my subs doing stupid crap like patrolling off Seattle.
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Apr 26, 2024 19:23
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  RO-63 misses a Clemson.  And then proceeds to get hosed up.  The happy times are definitely over.   Sailfish also misses.  But of course we can't do anything about it.  So does Flying Fish.  A lot of subs about at the moment.  Ro-67 survives her encounter at least.  Come on, ten to one. That has to be enough?!  Seriously??  He’s still got a little LRCAP up over his retreat.  But we miss him.  Ajmer now.  Better.  One Beaufighter over Groote Eylandt.  Well whatever, surely we’ve chased him off at least.  Still interested in Shortlands it seems.  Sweep is late here, but maybe we’ll get away with it?  Doesn’t look like we’ll achieve anything anyway, to be honest.  Let’s hope the rest of the Nells have the sense to stay grounded.  Some of our stragglers trickle into Jodhpur.  Well apparently we didn’t lose anyone.  Still one Hurricane over Ajmer.  Hurricanes are easy enough.  Here comes the strike against Ebon.  The torpedo bombers are to suppress the troops who have made it ashore.  Which they do a fairly poo poo job of.  Groote Eylandt.  It looks like there’s not much here, but we do mess up the runway nicely.  Dauntlesses back at Shortlands.  No more ships for them to bomb here.  And the Mitchells do a better job of runway suppression.  The Venturas are being risked again.  A shame they slowed the infantry down, but nevermind.  He’s going for the port too at Shortlands.  Again with the weak CAP.  And I missed the in game screenshot, sorry.  Boomerangs try their luck too, but miss.  And now it’s Gove’s turn.  At least every bomb falling on Giove or Umboi isn’t falling on Darwin or Rabaul.  And there’s a lot of them.  Poor Gove.  How many of these loving things does he have   Too many.  And now the carrier’s second strike.  OK weather.  Terrible targeting priorities, as usual.  Finally hitting something useful.   Well yes great, but maybe hit one of the giant loving fat transports instead??  Meh.  Welp. No troops on board, so that means they’ve already unloaded everything, and all we’ve got is at best one APA and one AKA.  The other Nells didn’t stay grounded.    No CAP here today.  The Anns sally forth despite the weather.  One unit slowed at least.  Bangalore is definitely showing a trend.  Collapsing the pocket.  Not today, but it won’t be long.   Well, I’m extremely disappointed by the carriers’ performance, to put it mildly.   I guess we bombed enough Warhawks to almost even the losses.  I’m not even sure about Ammen.  Either way, look at the amount of loving AA this thing has. And ASW. And radars   Another E at Nagoya today.  Okayama though has finished one of the pre war Yusen Ns, extremely useful for their speed.  The 42nd’s recon regiment is formed today.  And in the north, the 47th division starts mustering.  An unknown quantity of carriers spotted south of the Gilberts and within sprint range of Ebon. This severely limits our options for making a second day of it.   If the CAP refuses to work the way it should, we’ll try LRCAP.  We’re going to go head first at Delhi again.  I’m angry with myself for not realising what a large convoy Alikchi was sending, but mostly I’m angry how lucky he’s got with our carriers completely dropping the ball. I can’t face just letting him get away with it without trying one more time though, and if we can get the Shimakazes into combat at night they should rip poo poo up with those 15 torpedo broadsides. 126 torpedoes in a combined broadside from these girls, surely that will hit something even with my luck??  This leaves the carriers with distinctly inadequate escort, but I’m going to bluff it.  Strike is dialled down to range four, which will stop them going after anything parked at his current bases.  I think Tennant Creek is an appropriate target for tomorrow.
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Apr 27, 2024 14:16
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Oh god, I want the bloodbath turns
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Apr 27, 2024 16:35
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Well this will be interesting.
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Apr 27, 2024 17:12
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hopefully not 'interesting' enough that it's game ending.
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Apr 27, 2024 17:24
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We'll see! Blood for the pixel god!
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Apr 27, 2024 18:14
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Cimber posted:hopefully not 'interesting' enough that it's game ending. I don't think this could be a Midway type situation. Pharnakes has too many carriers not present (this is what, 1/4 or 1/3 of his carriers, if that?) and Alikchi has like 20 Essexes and god knows how many Independences and CVEs rolling off the assembly lines. Even if those carriers are Alikchi's entire available carrier fleet and he loses them all, he's done everything so far with minimal carrier backup and he's still got zillions being produced. Meanwhile, if Pharnakes loses this whole fleet, he's still got the carriers "repairing" in Singapore, the ones currently interdicting India, and whatever's under construction in the home islands or doing tasks elsewhere. That's not to say it's insignificant. Assuming it actually comes to a carrier vs carrier battle and some flattops get sunk or even badly damaged, it'll have real implications for the continuing battle over the Pacific islands. Pharnakes has more carriers active so can absorb the losses better in the short term, but every one he loses is gone forever. Meanwhile, Alikchi has effectively infinite carriers coming as long as he can drag things out--but he's only got a handful active right now, so it'd be (another) major setback if they get roughed up and would probably force him to reconsider any advances in the region for a while. And I think if Alikchi was going to quit for morale reasons he'd have done it when it was clear he was going to lose all of India. Which was quite a while back and he's still going strong. I mean, IIRC Pharnakes has already technically won a major victory in game terms, but both players agreed that they wanted to see it out to the end.
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Apr 27, 2024 18:50
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I hope both Alikchi and Pharnakes coordinate and post their turns roughly at the same time
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Apr 27, 2024 20:53
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wedgekree posted:So what in general are your strategic plans for the moment? Take over India but the cities you have to seige and dig in and withdraw some units to use elsewhere? Do you have plans for other offensives or mostly defensive buildup in locations for now? For India we need to win as quickly as possible, and we will fortify the hell out of the key defensive hexes, so Bombay, Calcutta and whatever jungle rough cities that aren't just asking to be ignored by Alikchi. SerthVarnee posted:Wait you never saw the imagined airport of New York? Uhh, no, that's a new one on me. habeasdorkus posted:I'm quite excited about the next phase of the war, the Japanese Raj is a stunning accomplishment but Alikchi is getting froggy in the Pacific and the US industrial machine is ramping up. Can you leave fortresses like Bangalore to wither on the vine/be irrelevant or do they produce too much of their own supply and units for you to just leave a token besieging force while moving all the heavy guns, tanks, and infantry formations to a new invasion? There'll be no more invasions, it's completly out the question. Like you say, despite everything, Alikchi is actually several months ahead of schedule in the Pacific, and I don't like it at all. India has been a great source of VP, and there's another good bunch to come still, but it doesn't actually do anything to prevent Alikchi bombing the home islands. As I can see it he has two realistic paths to victory now, one is to invade Java in the next six months or so, and the other is a conventional island hoping campaign followed by strategic bombing. I wasn't too bothred about the later becuase we've won every carrier battle so far, but this doesn't seem to have slowed him down at all. So now I am pretty worried, because I don't know what else I can really do, and if he gets into position to bomb us 6 months early that is really going to be a game over I fear. Cimber posted:Are you doing manual control of your subs, or is it computer auto taskforces? Manual control is much better but holy poo poo is it tedious. Computer control has my subs doing stupid crap like patrolling off Seattle. All manual, yes. Not that there's anthing wrong with patroling off Seatle, as long as its the really long ranged subs doing it so they don't spend 90% of their time transiting. Zurai posted:I don't think this could be a Midway type situation. Pharnakes has too many carriers not present (this is what, 1/4 or 1/3 of his carriers, if that?) and Alikchi has like 20 Essexes and god knows how many Independences and CVEs rolling off the assembly lines. Even if those carriers are Alikchi's entire available carrier fleet and he loses them all, he's done everything so far with minimal carrier backup and he's still got zillions being produced. Meanwhile, if Pharnakes loses this whole fleet, he's still got the carriers "repairing" in Singapore, the ones currently interdicting India, and whatever's under construction in the home islands or doing tasks elsewhere. I'd have won an auto victory if we didn't fiddle the VPs to make auto victories essentialy impossible. When you see in the intel screen major victory, that doesn't mean I have already won, it means that as the current VP ratio stands when the game ends (01/01/46  ) I would win a major victory. Of course, the VP ratio will not be the same then, not at all. In order to win properly I need to keep Alikchi from getting more than 1.8 times as much VP as we have, and then run the clock down. It's definitely doable, but it's very far from guaranteed. We might look utterly dominant now, but the cracks will show soon enough. And indeed, they're really there to see already for the last several months, if you were looking. mercenarynuker posted:I hope both Alikchi and Pharnakes coordinate and post their turns roughly at the same time I haven't heard from Alikchi for a couple days, but I've got it ready to post. Feel free to request it in here once he posts it.
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Apr 28, 2024 00:18
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Pharnakes posted:
It's wrong when you are the allies.  quote:And indeed, they're really there to see already for the last several months, if you were looking. I would imagine the air battles in India, while looking nice just due to weight of numbers are a sign, where the more advanced allied aircraft are starting to even odds, the bombing in the south pacific with all those 2E and 4E bombers is shutting down fields, the increased ASW efficiency of the allies, and finally the reduction in bonks on the part of allied subs are all cracks you are referring too. Honestly this is the part of the game that is the most interesting to me. Japan at the height of its power but unable to take the inititive any more, allies starting the long march to the home islands. How does the IJ player defend? 1941-1942 is just a curbstomping by the Japanese, 1945 is the same for the allies. Its 1943 with some degree of parity that makes it a lot of fun. I wish they had a grand campaign that started here. Cimber fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Apr 28, 2024 |
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Apr 28, 2024 01:01
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