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Watch the orders for the two carrier groups get separated again...
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Jun 26, 2021 21:13
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Velius posted:I don’t know why, but I’m always a huge IJN fanboy in these games. As horrible as imperial Japan was the ridiculous odds and hopelessness make it hard to not root for them in games. So I guess I’m going to be frantically F5ing the next few days! Imperial Japan was obviously horrible, but we all know that so I don't see any point in rehashing that when it has no bearing on the mechanics of WitP anyway. As we keep discussing the mechanics of WitP are such a bizarre take on reality that I don't view it as really connected to reality anyway. For me it's "here are the rules of this hosed up, weird universe, now solve them for wining". All the changes Alikchi made only adds to that for me, whereas conversely I find DC:B an interesting take on the real thing, but I don't really enjoy playing it because it does rub in my face how horrible everything is. It's definitely the closest any game is to a representation of the strains on high command, but that's not necessarily a good, or rather at least fun, thing. I haven't actually explicitly said this because I feel on SA it goes without saying, but Imperial Japan was bad, and this whole project is in no way intended to portray them in a good light. Magni posted:I mean, if it's too risky but works? It may still have been too risky and you shouldn't repeat it, but no reason not to take advantage of it working out this time. Pride comes before the fall and all that, but I strongly feel we have the moral advantage at sea, and he is looking for ways to limit his losses and escape, rather than trying to think how to kill us. "If you think you're losing, you are losing" - Sea Sun Tzu, probably. So yeah, I'm going to keep taking risks and pushing him hard, because the fact I take those risks indicates I'm not scared of him, and that he should be scared of me. We are nothing if not a paper tiger (except in carriers) and a soon as we let him think he can win, he will. Rogue0071 posted:While this perspective makes sense in the long term, I think a few of you are seriously underestimating how long Japan tends to remain top dog in WITP. Japan is generally favored in any major carrier engagement until the USN has Hellcats (production starts in April 1943) and the Essexes (you get one in May 43, and another pair in July 43). This can be extended even longer if the Allies lose major battles early in the war. Even in our historical timeline, which featured an enormously lopsided US victory at Midway, the US didn't launch its counteroffensive until August 1942 and faced a swingy series of battles to maintain that offensive falling to, at times, one operational fleet carrier in the entire Pacific. In this timeline, where Pharnakes has avoided major carrier losses, the US lost a fleet carrier to a submarine, the mod appears to be weighted quite in Japan's favor in terms of carrier strength early, and according to the OP the US loses some of its historical Essex production to get more battleships instead, I wouldn't be surprised if Pharnakes is still at least strongly competitive for if not fully in command of naval superiority in any given location up to a year from now. The think about Midway is the bias people assign to historical outcomes. The natural tendency is to assume what really happened was, if not inevitable, then very likely. Not to downplay Japans mistakes or the achievements of the USN, but Midway was not a likely, let alone inevitable, outcome in my opinion. Had Midway been say, a trade of two for two, which would been likely enough, then Japan would have remained dominant in the pacific until either some other kind of disastrous engagement, or until the arrival of the first three Essexes in mid '43 decisively tipped the numbers in the USN's favour. In this timeline we've get two more carriers already in Tairyu and Donryu, and then next year another two by July followed by a third in November. Granted number three is Unryuu so scarcely a match for an Essex, but the point is if he doesn't Midway us we are matching his build pace until spring '44. Assuming we trade roughly evenly, as in WitP we can usually expect to, he can't look for naval dominance for at least another two years. Of course, all of that could completely fly out the window in either direction over the next few days  aphid_licker posted:Pharnakes, the update itt is one of my low-key highlights every day and I wanted to say thank you for doing this I'm glad to hear it, doing this is a ton of work, and it's no fun if people aren't getting something from it. I'm thoroughly enjoying running the thread, but I don't think I'd do it again. Affi posted:Not expecting a carrier confrontation seems like it could be a very costly mistake? I think you're reading more into that than there is, it's not like I'm doing a Nagumo at Midway (Or a me at Soerabaja  ) and setting the strike up to bomb Ndeni or anything, all I've done is lower our strike altitude from a conservative 15k to an aggressive 10k. As I'm only expecting us to face battleships and maybe a little land based CAP, I've gone for the lower altitude for increased accuracy, so if we do get in a major carrier fight we will take maybe ~15% more loses to our airgroups, but on the other hand we will be more accurate. Pretty much just swings and roundabouts anyway.
Pharnakes fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jun 26, 2021 |
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Jun 26, 2021 22:56
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Pharnakes posted:Imperial Japan was obviously horrible, but we all know that so I don't see any point in rehashing that when it has no bearing on the mechanics of WitP anyway. As we keep discussing the mechanics of WitP are such a bizarre take on reality that I don't view it as really connected to reality anyway. For me it's "here are the rules of this hosed up, weird universe, now solve them for wining". All the changes Alikchi made only adds to that for me, whereas conversely I find DC:B an interesting take on the real thing, but I don't really enjoy playing it because it does rub in my face how horrible everything is. It's definitely the closest any game is to a representation of the strains on high command, but that's not necessarily a good, or rather at least fun, thing. This. It's a game, this is just moving pieces around on a board and rolling dice, and is no more enacting a genocidal campaign of imperial conquest than playing COD makes you a mass shooter. And in strategy games the side with fewer resources and the odds against it is often the more interesting one to follow.
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Jun 26, 2021 23:41
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For the record, this thread is one of the highlights of my day every day- a lot of times I hold off on lunch until I see there is an update.
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Jun 27, 2021 00:03
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punched my v-card at camp posted:For the record, this thread is one of the highlights of my day every day- a lot of times I hold off on lunch until I see there is an update. Pharnakes is an extremely competent and knowledgeable WitP player, but is also doing an excellent job at chronicling a grand campaign (really more like a GC+++ due to the campaign changes) multiplayer match, which is at least an equal accomplishment, if not even greater.
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Jun 27, 2021 00:41
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It's already tomorrow for most of the theater, show us the carnage! 
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Jun 27, 2021 00:53
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Pharnakes posted:
The thing is, and I agree with what you're saying about Midway, US anti-air capabilities expanded so fast that I'm not necessarily sure the Japanese would have maintained the same sort of dominance (or at least it wouldn't have mattered as much) regardless of Midway. If you look into the pilot accounts of Santa Cruz, you're getting hardened, veteran pilots who were basically shaking after(if) they landed after dealing with USN AA. Yes, concentration of strength is important for diluting the effectiveness of defenses, and so two extra carriers (say Akagi and Hiryu, as those were the two that could have very nearly escaped for one reason or another) would certainly help with that, but just how much is very debatable. It needs to be remembered that a lot of the pilots of 1st/2nd Carrier Divisions did survive Midway, because they were the priority evacuees from the stricken carriers even before situations were written off as hopeless. It was Santa Cruz that really devastated the actual veteran flight crews of the IJN. 1943 ended up being a down year for the carriers of both sides, and while for the USN it was mainly due to a lack of flight decks, for the IJN it was a lack of pilots - they still had enough flight decks.
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Jun 27, 2021 01:19
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Yeah I read this every day before going to bed basically!
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Jun 27, 2021 01:29
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I, too, eagerly go through each update each day waiting for hilarious and terrible things to happen.
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Jun 27, 2021 01:32
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punched my v-card at camp posted:For the record, this thread is one of the highlights of my day every day- a lot of times I hold off on lunch until I see there is an update.
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Jun 27, 2021 02:02
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MrYenko posted:Pharnakes is an extremely competent and knowledgeable WitP player, but is also doing an excellent job at chronicling a grand campaign (really more like a GC+++ due to the campaign changes) multiplayer match, which is at least an equal accomplishment, if not even greater. This can not be seconded enough - if you look through LPs on the matrix forums, they're mostly just low effort text dumps of the combat with minimal commentary. Very few people there have anything interesting to say. The combination of meticulous screenshots, commentary, humour (this is after all a silly endeavour, which is part of what makes it awesome), and the high level of play and understanding of the game mechanics make this a real unicorn in the world of of ridiculously detailed grog games with 90s graphics. If aliens came to earth and asked about Gary Grigsby, you would show them this LP.
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Jun 27, 2021 03:03
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pthighs posted:This can not be seconded enough - if you look through LPs on the matrix forums, they're mostly just low effort text dumps of the combat with minimal commentary. Very few people there have anything interesting to say. The combination of meticulous screenshots, commentary, humour (this is after all a silly endeavour, which is part of what makes it awesome), and the high level of play and understanding of the game mechanics make this a real unicorn in the world of of ridiculously detailed grog games with 90s graphics. If aliens come to earth and ask about Gary Grigsby our planet is doomed.
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Jun 27, 2021 04:23
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punched my v-card at camp posted:For the record, this thread is one of the highlights of my day every day- a lot of times I hold off on lunch until I see there is an update. Thank you again Pharnakes for such a good thread.
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Jun 27, 2021 06:57
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farraday posted:If aliens come to earth and ask about Gary Grigsby our planet is doomed. *that one very deep trailer voice, you know the one* Gary Grigsby is The Last Wargamer
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Jun 27, 2021 11:16
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vibrating with anticipation for the Sunday update 
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Jun 27, 2021 14:01
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*banging on table* SINK THE FLEET SINK THE FLEET SINK THE FLEET
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Jun 27, 2021 14:30
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  Our submarines have shot at an oiler!  Yeah yeah, whatever.  They did of course choose the smallest possible target  These submarines around Truk are really pissing me off.  Our ASW Nells don’t seem to be willing or able to engage them, and our destroyers are of course hopeless in the deep.  At least they missed.  We are on 100% moonlight, but the weather isn’t brilliant over Trichinopoly.  No hits scored.  Or with subsequent waves.  Hopefully only one hit.  Only one hit, but it doesn’t look good.  Why do you go for the smallest possible targets?   argh  Early morning and the Yamatos have arrived at Ndeni. No sign of their battleships yet, but this looks kind of juicy all the same.  First hit goes to them, not that it’s going to bother Yamato.  She isn’t about to take that lying down, but she’s struggling to get her main guns on target.  Hibiki starts tearing into Woodworth.  While Musashi goes for the low hanging fruit.  Yamato quickly decides that this looks much easier than a desperately maneuvering Vincennes.  Jefferson lasts about three broadsides and then Musashi finds Vincennes’ range.  Meanwhile our destroyers are burning their torpedoes like there’s no battleship fight tomorrow, but finally one of them hits the more or less crippled Woodworth.  Who snaps in two like a rotten log, whilst Fubuki engages Gridley.    The battleships are still all over Vincennes, and Musashi scores a second and then third 46cm hit.  “Severe” you say   Apart from that first 8” hit Vincennes hasn’t hit us at all, Gridley on the other hand has managed to set fire to Musashi, Fubuki and Hibki, and Hibiki is really burning quite badly.  Vincennes rolls and plunges, and now there is nothing to distract from Gridley.  After confirming the range with her secondaries Yamato proceeds to hit Girdley three times with one broadside.  And that’s about the end of that.  Into the air phase, and our Zeros are a bit quicker out of bed than the Tojo pilots it seems.  Fantastic work from our pilots, as usual.  And a couple of stragglers arrive to finish the remnants.  Which they neatly do. Sadly the weather looks set to prevent us really capitalising on this.  Back to thunderstorms over Bandoeng.  We’ve gone from 50% or more of Sallies damaged per sortie to 10% though.  By the time the Sallies arrive over the Imperial Guards a random Lightning has turned up from somewhere, but he causes no trouble. Not that he needed to.  Wave two at Bandoeng is slightly more successful.  The Tojo sweep, post strike as usual.  But they finish the Lightning off.  He’s going to make life miserable for us trying to retreat here it seems.  Most of his effort is likely to go here around Bezwada though I expect.  Hopefully this shouldn’t cause us too many issues.  I really feel no need to respond to these.  Trying his luck again at Gasmata, but we ought to be pretty well recovered here by now.  We got one   Booyah bitches.  There are of course more where they came from.  No outright kills this time   The Marauders move their attention to Daly Waters, then proceed to eat poo poo despite excellent conditions.  The carriers launch their first, very small, strike.  It’s on the surviving xAP.   But why did I chicken out of pushing past Ndeni  We’re range 8 from what I’m sure must be the battleships, plan A would have landed us at range 5   And here it goes. Range 8 strike, 250kg bombs only. I am so angry with myself.  We could do this all day and it’s not going to bother them much.  The one time we would really like our planes to go for lower value targets their bombs might actually hurt, they focus entirely on the battleships  Some stragglers land a few more bombs.  It might still be good weather around Daly Waters, but to the west it’s miserable again.  And they totally refuse to hit more than one unit at the moment.  CAP looking rather brisker at Bombay today.  But we’re through.  Off to a good start.  That’s enough though I think.  Let’s find out what we are up against at Daly Waters.  A tank battalion. I am not very enthusiastic about that.  Funny how the Australian unit is pulling back, I’d have though he’s going to blow through us at Daly Waters and at least probe our defences at Katherine.  The Fortresses are back at Vizagapatnam, but this time we have CAP. Will it be enough?  Cloud conditions aren’t ideal either thankfully.  We lose a Zero but prevent any damage on the ground.  Bezwada is also hopefully at least a bit protected by the weather.  It seems so.  The Betties are going for Port Blair rather than whatever the ship spotted yesterday was it seems.  They do some damage at least.  Somehow the Battleships have ended up stuck at Ndeni and the carriers are sending them no CAP.  Fortunately with three Dauntlesses this doesn’t really matter.  Presumably these were marine planes stationed on Ndeni.  Substantially less dramatic at Bandoeng today.  I see he has cut the number of troops in Calcutta again.  This was rather even yesterday, but today we come out nicely ahead.  We wallop them again outside Howrah but they retain sufficient discipline to retreat.  Resistance outside Bezwada proves considerably stiffer than anticipated.  It turns out this was a mountain gun regiment, and we chase them off, forcing them to abandon half their guns in the process.  Alikchi is a very cautious player, but even he is going to attack hard here tomorrow I’m sure.  Relatively light losses at Jessore today.   Not nearly as spicy as that could, should, have been   Definitely time to call it a day at Bombay. But somehow one reported Fortress down has become nine?? Not complaining!  RIP Mike Maru, you were involved in many of our most important amphibious operations.  A New Orleans class is a solid kill anyway.  Palembang finally reaches the size five airfield, taking us to a combined size of nine and meaning we can store as much oil and fuel here as we want without spoilage.  Only minor damage to Yamato’s group, but they burnt a ton of ammo for such an insignificant engagement.   Musashi has somehow managed to empty her main guns completely. Since they are going to have to go back to Truk to rearm, we might as well have them bombard Ndnei with whatever they have left.  But what to do with the carriers? Now if I was him I’d be booking it out of the area ASAP, with Fiji being the obvious destination. But we have just enough fuel to get down there, still at full speed, and have a ~50% safety margin for returning to Rabaul. So gently caress it, let’s do it. We weren’t aggressive enough this turn, let’s fix that!  The oilers are leaving Truk tonight just in case my fuel calculations are off   We are going to see if we can get the Nells at Rabaul to night attack these ships at Port Moresby, for which we will need night phase search.  Whilst Ise & Hyuga are setting up for another bombardment of Port Moresby.  Junyo and Hiyo are off on their first active deployment to the Indian Ocean via Singapore.  We’re definitely done at Bombay for now, but we might as well send Settsu and the cruisers in to say goodbye.  Now that we are here, we may as well try and open up another hex face to Calcutta.  Not like this is going to prevent him from wrecking us at Daly Waters, but this is as good an opportunity as any to bomb tanks in the open.  We’re going to trial sending the Sallies in at 10k over Bandoeng, and see how the flak is.
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Jun 27, 2021 17:51
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I hope this is like a whole week of naval chaos. Some kind of anti-infrastructure week or something
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Jun 27, 2021 18:01
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Mount McKinley and Thomas Jefferson are two pretty juicy kills. The first is an amphibious assault command ship, which the USN only built like 8 of for the whole war. And the Jefferson is a brand new 12k-ton amphibious assault transport, something he doesn't have a lot of this early. Also, that might have been a bunch of tanks going glug glug glug there. Also, he's putting more and more american planes into India now. And good ones, too, not just the crappy old P-40s. B-17s and new B-26s, to say nothing of the P-50 and P-38 squadrons already there. I'd say that's a start for the whole goal of forcing him to commit US assets to India. Magni fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jun 27, 2021 |
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Jun 27, 2021 18:47
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I don't have time to watch video LP's anymore and I've always preferred screenshots anyway. This is the best of all possible worlds, provided you're not a pixel person in India.
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Jun 27, 2021 21:12
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Bombay living up to its name  Are the Yamatos different in this mod? The icon on the naval combat screen looks like a 4 turret ship, or maybe I just never noticed it before.
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Jun 27, 2021 22:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:vibrating with anticipation for the Sunday update Sorry to hype you all up for today, but maybe it will pay off tomorrow. Or not  Not sorry at all, turns out knowing the future is a great to gently caress with people Magni posted:Mount McKinley and Thomas Jefferson are two pretty juicy kills. The first is an amphibious assault command ship, which the USN only built like 8 of for the whole war. And the Jefferson is a brand new 12k-ton amphibious assault transport, something he doesn't have a lot of this early. Also, that might have been a bunch of tanks going glug glug glug there. You're right about Jefferson, but the Mount McKinley you're referring to hasn't even been laid down yet. It's a common enough name for a ship after all, this particular example is a C2 cargo converted at some point by Alikchi into a rather ersatz troop ship, so nothing to get majorly excited over. The vehicles are sadly probably just motorised support, combat devices always unload first so unless you intercept a convoy at sea usually you end up drowning the cooks, medics and jeeps mostly. I'm pretty happy with how India is going, even if we aren't making massive inroads in territorial terms, anything he moves there is going to take him weeks if not months to move out again, if and when we decide to push east. CannonFodder posted:I only read it on my laptop because trying to follow it on my phone is a foolhardy proposition. That means when I get home on Saturday there's a whole lot of action for me to catch up on, and now I'm waiting for Sunday's strike because it looks like the South Pacific is going to get very very hot! Welp, looks like you're going to have to wait till next weekend to find out what happens then. Lakedaimon posted:Bombay living up to its name Yes, our Yamatos are to the A140L proposal with a 10 gun Pensacola style turret layout and COSAD.
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Jun 27, 2021 22:57
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  Ok today, today is going to be the big one. I know I said that yesterday but this time it’s really happening.  But first we bombard Bombay to pretty decent results given that we only had two cruisers and Settsu.  And then Ndeni.  Also a solid result in the circumstances.  Our MTBs encounter another freighter trying to slip away, but being daylight refuse to engage. Are our girls going to bump into those battleships now? Even low on ammo I don’t relish Kongos having to engage standards.  Another tiny tanker’s luck runs out.  She was on the East Timor > Soerabaja route.  Meanwhile, our submarines   I mean, I suppose to be fair there might not have been anything else to shoot at here.  Our Zeros from Diamond Harbour are straight off the mark as usual. Our girls are through the battleship threat for this turn at least. On to the strikes!  What it is about this specific set of circumstances that means we always utterly wreck them I do not know, but I kind of love it. I suspect it is something to do with him using what must be at least half a dozen squadrons with only a handful of planes each giving them coordination penalties or something.  He’s sweeping Gasmata today  I would imagine he is as shocked by our success against the Fortresses yesterday as I was, but he’s going to have to try harder than that to push our CAP down.  Come on, cut the bullshit and get to the good stuff!  Well this is kind of good I suppose.  Mop up over Bengal.  Clear skies and no CAP for the Salies.  How will bombing at 10k work out for us at Bandoeng?  They are definitely running low on ammo for the guns. We used to be taking 50% or more damages at 15k, now we are 10% at 10k. Progress!  This is almost certainly just a truck, so hardly the most exciting. Still, we are definitely into the next phase of the battle here.  Our carrier pilots are not very good at getting out of bed early it seems.  This is just the kind of result we need here. Now show me a carrier strike!  Thunderstorms closing in again around Daly Waters.  The Anns manage to explode a few cooks anyway.  He’s really low on air frames in Bengal right now, and hopefully after we damaged a bunch at Bombay it will take him three or four days to bring them back east.  The Sallies at Daly Waters itself have marginally better conditions than the Anns did.  A shameful display.  Oh god we have carrier on carrier, and they launched first!  Inadequately escorted, our CAP rips into them, but that’s still a decent chunk of bombers through. The weather is on our side for once, but this could be brutal!  Soryu is the first to come under attack.  Hiei is doing a good job of drawing attention to herself as she hurls a wall of tracers aloft.  Many misses later Zuikaku is the first to take a hit  Followed shortly after by Hiryu, hit by a lone incredibly skilled or lucky Dauntless.  We must be getting close to the end of it now, but not before Zuikaku takes another. This is the kind of treatment that IJN CVs really can’t handle  Probably nothing fatal yet. *Probably*  Full report.  No sign of our strike yet, and here comes another wave with our CAP depleted and out of position. Are we about to get Midwayd? There is no big enough to describe my current emotions. They’re through again, going for Atago first this time.  Definitely showing less target discipline than the first wave.  Fine by me!  Leave Zuikaku alone you fucks! At least she doesn’t look very on fire.  Hiryu is getting nice and toasty, but for the moment is still able to dodge and weave.  Round two, clear! Please send out a good strike   No, seriously, please.  This is torture.  We’re not going to fly are we  Blenheims still suck at least.  I dont care anymore.  Their strike arrives at Daly Waters. Still bombing at 1k feet.  This is all that can be spared from Bombay I suppose.  OK we’re doing it. In a very half assed fashion but we are doing it.  Despite a good escort we take heavy losses. Weather is light cloud.  And this is a good start!  Enterprise is here too.  And Hornet. The flak is of course very heavy, although not extreme. I feel they might be a little under escorted.  Boom! The first one is always the hardest, once their speed is down they become very vulnerable.  So of course we switch to attacking Enterprise.  And that’s it. About two carriers worth of strike. Let’s pray there’s another four on the way, although I would say at this point we are ahead.  This is clearly one carrier’s wad.  “Lucky” Lex immediately takes another one in the opening salvo.  And then another one from the same spread!   But don't worry.  The Kates have been doing superb work, but the Vals land the odd hit too.  No sign of secondary explosions yet, but all the same, USN carriers are not that much more durable than ours.  I would go so far as to say Hornet is in the bag at this point.  And there she goes, the second fleet carrier to be positively confirmed as sunk.  Sadly there’s no way to know which carrier launched that strike, but they are hot poo poo whoever they are.  They aren’t out of the fight yet, but without escort these Dauntlesses aren’t getting anywhere.  Well, other than to pad our pilots' kill boards.  They are brave, I’ll give them that.  And nine even get through!  gently caress off! Leave Hiryu in peace you grubby bastards.  The rather embarrassed CAP pounces on what’s left after the flak.  We should be getting a few freshly minted aces today I hope.  Betties at Port Blair. I sincerely hope this doesn’t mean half the Kido Butai is not going to launch!  Clear skies, but they miss everything anyway.    Calcutta drags on.  Slowly but steadily, we are making progress here.  Perfect timing, just when our reinforcements arrived!  He has a real sense of the worst possible time to counter attack, although I’d have preferred the engineers not to take the brunt of the damage like that.   Good day? Bad day? You tell me    Major carrier actions are always bloody affairs, but we come out decisively ahead, thanks in no small part to those suicidal Dauntlesses, and also that Hornet looks like she still had Devastators. Devastators really are complete pieces of poo poo, and with their maximum range of five hexes wouldn’t have been able to reach us and thus they were never launched.  I am genuinely surprised intel didn’t claim Lexington, and the Enterprise for good measure.  Hornet is of course of major significance to them. One Yorkie down, two more to go.  Today's arrival, a military cargo ship.  Tabiteuea reaches the first level of port and airfield.  Tachekaze hit a mine at Bombay.  This is the half that took the brunt of the attack. Also as you can see we have a ton of reserve fuel, because we stopped considerably short of where I ordered them to. Presumably they decided to do this inorder to keep optimal strike distance from his carriers.  Hiryu’s flood damage isn’t even major  Apparently we can do damage control after all? Who knew?   Well we definitely know where to send our submarines for tomorrow.  But what to do about the carriers. It is of course extremely tempting to push our luck now we are ahead, and Lexington would only need a couple more hits to push her over the edge. But on the other hand there’s still Enterprise, plus presumably Yorktown, and those two flight deck battlecruisers, and maybe even some stuff from the mod I don’t know about at all. But then agressions is, as just demonstrated, how you win carrier engagements. Also he has to know that Yamato & Musashi aren’t with the carriers anymore, and he knows that Ise & Hyuga aren’t here, even if he might not know exactly where they are so that just leaves us with the Kongos and the Atagos to escort our carriers with, which is exactly what we are doing. So he might decide to risk a lunge with the Constitutions. But this is our one and probably only opportunity to actually win the war.  After much agonising we go for this. Taking the dog leg should keep us out of reach of any desperate charges whilst still putting us comfortably in range of Fiji for tomorrow. We will continue to use a 10k strike altitude, now that we have them on the run. I also go through the leaders and discover that on the whole the strike groups are lead by men who could be charitably described as incompetent fucksticks. So that explains why our strike was so mediocre  We’re going to try and interrupt their retreat here, although they will probably escape this turn.
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Jun 28, 2021 15:16
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kantai kessen here we come  basically an ideal result! it was looking a little dicey during that first strike from Alikchi.
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Jun 28, 2021 15:50
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BANZAI!
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Jun 28, 2021 16:08
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TORA TORA TORA!!! goddamn this is the stuff of legends
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Jun 28, 2021 16:31
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Oh yes. Table pounding continues! Nice job on the Hornet, and three torps and a bomb in Lexington-- ouch for Alikchi. Even with crap flight leadership that's great stuff, if you swapped those leaders and targets are still in range tomorrow might be the new day that lives in infamy. Also, the ghost of a certain poster might have knives out for you if you put some fish in the Enterprise. Broken Box fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Jun 28, 2021 |
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Jun 28, 2021 16:51
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Whatever timeline, Hornet can't catch a break. I can't believe an actual Kantai Kessen is happening.
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Jun 28, 2021 17:04
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Glorious carrier on carrier fight! One sunk US CV, one more with moderate damage. So there's still Enterprise about and probably those two BC's. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings! How your own airgroups on the CV's doing? And that's a lot of dead Dauntlesses.
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Jun 28, 2021 17:14
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Every day I read this thread for days like today. Glorious.
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Jun 28, 2021 17:31
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Pharnakes posted:Sorry to hype you all up for today, but maybe it will pay off tomorrow. Or not quote:Welp, looks like you're going to have to wait till next weekend to find out what happens then. It's all good, I usually read the Tuesday update before heading out, so maybe I'll get to see some action before I lea Pharnakes posted:
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Jun 28, 2021 17:36
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I have been looking diligently through Grey Hunter's thread and cannot find the "Yes...ha ha ha...YES" picture. If someone else has it, now would be a wonderful time to post it. But I found this one which is also nice. 
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Jun 28, 2021 17:37
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we get to find out what would have happened if it was Tamon Yamaguchi commanding the Kido Butai instead of Chuichi Nagumo
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Jun 28, 2021 17:38
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I'm kind of astonished 1000 lb SAP bombs did that little to our CVs.
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Jun 28, 2021 17:41
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Jun 28, 2021 17:48
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Night10194 posted:I'm kind of astonished 1000 lb SAP bombs did that little to our CVs. I believe that WitP models near misses as hits in the combat reporting but this is just vague recollections on my part.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:12
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Hell yeah
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Jun 28, 2021 18:23
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Night10194 posted:I'm kind of astonished 1000 lb SAP bombs did that little to our CVs. I'm surprised that there were no torpedoes from the US air strike. And I had a little lol when one of Pharnake's torps did a 
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Jun 28, 2021 18:25
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I believe that WitP models near misses as hits in the combat reporting but this is just vague recollections on my part. That must be it; RTW2 does the same thing with your pilots reporting bomb hits. Mind, those near misses can still gently caress someone up!
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Jun 28, 2021 18:28
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CannonFodder posted:Yeah, that would usually be a recipe for destruction. I think Pharnakes mentioned the Devastators didn’t have range to strike. Generally the US dive bombers are really amazing (so players may resize groups to emphasize those? Not sure), while the Vals are mediocre by comparison. The Japanese torpedoes are also better, but harder to hit with.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:30
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