War in the Pacific - Alikchi Vs Pharnakes Moron Slapfight Edition

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > War in the Pacific - Alikchi Vs Pharnakes Moron Slapfight Edition

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Just caught up, interesting going so far. Seems like the navy side is well into the "quiet" phase after the initial flurry of fuckery when the Allies' stuff is spread out all haphazardly. What do we think made it out from Force Z? I don't play the game myself, but it seems likely that at least one of Repulse and Ark Royal sunk.

Just in general, I don't have a good handle on what the Allies still have for capitol ships in this extremely early stage. For actually mobile forces, it's... Enterprise, Lexington, Yorktown (or if not, very soon), a couple British battlecruisers, 3-4 relatively undamaged US BBs, and whatever light carriers I forgot existed? With another 5-6 damaged BBs from Pearl, plus whatever is alive yet of Repulse/Ark Royal/Prince of Wales under repair, and Hornet on the way in a couple months?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2021 03:43

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:12

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

Of Force Z i'm only confident about Repulse. Hermes we know for sure got away, and therefore it seems only sensible to assume Ark Royal did too. Prince of Wales is probably very nearly done with her repairs by now I'd imagine.

In addition to that he now has or very shortly will have Formidable and Indomitable, plus the R class dreadnoughts.

The Americans have Enterprise, Lex, Yorktown, the Hamilton explodey boxes and the Constellation explodey boxes.

Plus Australia and Tiger are around somewhere.

I still can't believe you picked off an unescorted Saratoga on the third day of the war. Even if you didn't manage to truly sink a single battleship (and I think the Nevada at minimum went down since it was listed with fire and heavy damage both days), you still came out ahead of Pearl's historic outcome.

orangelex44 fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Jan 27, 2021

# ¿ Jan 27, 2021 06:58

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

I see the Enterprise is as blessed in this universe as it was in reality. Should have been sunk twice already and we're only two months into the war!

# ¿ Feb 2, 2021 20:48

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

From what I've heard, the game is balanced such that Japan has to be really aggressive in order to have a chance to win. It's basically not possible to do a slow push without taking risks, because a) Japan has some temporary bonuses that expire after 3-4 months and b) the Allies' power ramps extremely quickly and in a way that you have no way of stopping or slowing. You basically are required to take everything you can and win at least one major combat early in order to get the necessary buffer for the late game in '43 and '44. The Allies cannot be allowed to sit back and delay with no pressure.

And the current scenario is actually worse for this as best I can tell. Yes, we ganked Saratoga but most of the big non-American ships were only damaged, not destroyed - as were most of Battleship Row. They're going to come back in a few months, and combined with the expected rate of reinforcement the balance of forces is going to flip from Japan-favored to Allies-favored extremely quickly. Pharnakes has to start forcing engagements while he still has the upper hand so that he can pare down Alikchi's forces and extend the time where things are relatively even.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2021 15:41

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Well drat. With this just another stroke of atrocious luck, or were you actually being too risky with her? It seemed like you had a decent escort.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2021 20:24

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

So there's really no way for you to tell your main carrier group, which has been moving in absolute secrecy, that it's a stupid loving idea to randomly bomb a couple small freighters with 50 planes on your way to surprise attack one of your enemies' major naval bases? This game is so weird sometimes.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2021 21:52

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

steinrokkan posted:

I always wondered if this siphoning of fuel between ships while underway was something that actually happened IRL, especially on such scale, and without any support ships.

Fuel siphoning yes, navies still do this today. Whether they did it at scale without support ships I'm less sure about - I know it's possible to go from warship to warship with no special fueler in between, but I don't know if it would be routine.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2021 15:30

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

Are the numbers for aircraft losses from ground bombardment accurate? Is it possible that the numbers were under-reported, or is this one of those quirks of WitP that you know for certain that yet another well-planned foray largely failed in execution?

As a side note, that Midway assault seems very... ambitious. Of course, given how consistently your other plans have come off, I fully expect that you'll pull off the naval side just fine, but discover that somehow Alikchi put juuuuuust enough men there that you could land but not actually finish the invasion - so that the KB which is in the Indian Ocean and already overdue for refits is required to steam full-speed across two-thirds of the map to screen a second wave while Zuiho/Shoho lose all their planes to land-based air. Not a catastrophe, but also a massive loving headache and another addition to the death of a thousand cuts.

On the bright side things seem to be going OK on land (with the exception of that expedition in Thailand, which was ominously quiet today).

# ¿ Feb 16, 2021 19:57

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

aphid_licker posted:

Go Umikaze! You can do it!

What's your estimate for the Colombo attacks? You said that it's a high-capacity shipyard, so damaged ships have pretty good odds, but all those fires+heavy damages we've seen reported must've sunk something

IIRC you can actually make a decent estimate based off of point gains (even if the log won't tell you explicitly)... and he hasn't gained a whole lot there either. More than zero, but it's almost certainly less than a dozen ships.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 22:07

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

The Midway invasion will reach their next steer point in the night and can turn east, keeping at all times 21 hexes from Midway and its Catalinas.

Wait, I'm confused, are you steaming around the island to hit it from the east?

And also, can we get a theater-wide map update at some point? It's hard to get a mental picture of how everything is going - I don't have a clear handle on obscure place names in the West Indies (sadly). It's not always obvious how to connect the dots of Burma through Indonesia and New Guinea into the Solomons on up through Guam/Wake/Midway to the Aleutians.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2021 21:21

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

gohuskies posted:

At the risk of violating op sec, Alikchi posted a zoomed out strategic map of the theater with key locations labeled on their twitter account a couple days ago, on the 20th. You can check that out if you want, though obviously we observers aren't to share any information. I think mentioning that it's there isn't giving away anything valuable to Pharnakes.

Thanks!

# ¿ Feb 24, 2021 03:46

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

aphid_licker posted:

You want to take Ceylon and Darwin?

Those are actually probably the easier ones to take than Fiji is. Fiji is a lot more important though, since it sits right on top of the most direct path from the US to Australia. Darwin seems like it'd be the easiest of the three to take (although maybe the hardest to hold, and perhaps not all that important so long as the airfield is locked down anyway).

The bigger question I have is whether it's reasonable to get all three. Ceylon and Fiji are really far away from each other, and Fiji in particular is a cannot-lose objective for the Allies. I don't think there's quite enough time to manage it before Allied reinforcements combine with ships coming in from the dockyard are strong enough to defeat these small invasion task forces. Maybe if this Midway Hail Mary lands it's possible.

There's a reason the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first step towards shifting the initiative IRL.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2021 21:07

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

I forget, what's the assault strength going to be at Midway?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 23:43

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

wedgekree posted:

He has.. What, 3 CV's (Enterprise, Yorktown, Lexington) at this point for the USN, one CVE/CVL (Hermes I think)? At least historically.

Historically yes, but this scenario adds in at least one more British carrier (Arc Royal) along with a couple not-yet-seen weird American toys in "a pair of 16�-gunned hybrid battlecarriers, Hamilton and Scourge, that quickly become the USN�s great white elephants". Indominable should also be around somewhere too IIRC. Possibly other surprises too, I don't think we really know if or how the Allied reinforcement pipeline has been adjusted.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2021 06:06

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

We might have taken Soerabaja without much fighting but we rolled unbelievably badly on capturing the facilities, not just badly but quite literally the worst possible outcome, everything is trashed, 100% of the oil and 99.9% of everything else.

The shipyard is 1/48 functional, the heavy industry 1/32, the light 1/80, you get the idea. gently caress.

The only buits worth repairing are the oil and maybe the heavy industry, but that�s 350k of supplies alone. For reference our entire war industry is worth 28k supplies a day, and that�s raw production. By the time you deduct upkeep we�re lucky if we have 20k supplies a day to use.

Getting kind of tired of the game loving us this hard at every turn. Seriously, I�ve seen multiple divisions fight over a hex for weeks and the damage comes out way less than this. I�ve never seen a hex be obliterated like this before.

Oof. Is this something that Alikchi could have done - preemptive burning or whatever? Or is it genuinely just a single roll on capture that hit the 1% low end?

What's the effort->return balance here? Is there an argument that it's all just a write-off because the cost to fix the oil/industry won't be recouped during the expected timeframe you'll be uncontested on Java?

# ¿ Mar 6, 2021 20:47

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

In yet another example of WitP's bizarre design philosophy every facility costs a flat 1000 supplies to repair, so everything from a resource site representing mines and farms to an aircraft factory or an oil well.

In terms of return, HI produces 2 supplies a day, so a 500 day payoff, LI 1 supply and refineries 1 supply, so 1000 day payoffs.

Given the absolute most a game can last is 1,634 turns it is immediately obvious that repairing damage to light industry is never going to be worth it.

The others are a but more complicated. HI has a decent chance, this early in the game anyway, so paying itself off and more, but unlike LI which produces only supply, it is also required to produce HI points for all our other production. SO the decision to repair it or not is more than just can it be reasonably expected to stay intact and fuelled for more than 500 turns.

Likewise since we need fuel to run our ships and our HI, we have to pay the costs for the oil even though the game might well not last 1000 turns.

Refineries are different again - there is no point having a refinery surplus, and since the Home Islands have significant refineries but no significant oil production, the traditional answer is to repair the oil but not bother with the refineries, keeping the fuel produced by the surviving refineries in the DEI for tactical use and shipping the surplus oil home.

However this assumes an average of around 30% damage to facilities, whereas we are running something like 80% all told. So we might well be forced to repair quite a large chunk of refineries, since there is no point in accumulating unrefined oil points either.

Ugh, that's awful - have you talked to Alikchi about this at all? I'm not sure if Japan can handle these massive early RNG setbacks, and it's going to be loving awful to know you're in a losing position by mid-'42 and still have to grind out four more years of playing. It's not like this was anything that you or he did in particular, this is just real poo poo luck that's compounding on your other poo poo luck in not finishing off major ships.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2021 05:40

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Out of curiosity, what's your estimated timeline to swap from offense to defense? Or are you planning based on bases conquered instead of the calendar date? Your wiggle room until an alt-history Midway can occur has shrunk a lot since the British carriers are still alive.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2021 19:06

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

I think that if you're Japan and just managing to be on-schedule versus IRL then you are, by definition, on track to lose the game. Pharnakes is slightly ahead on the ground (mostly because of the Philippines), but behind at sea (one American carrier is down early but the big British ships are alive, Pearl was total poo poo, and Japan is down one light carrier from the 1/10 chance of a US torpedo actually working). Add that in with much higher than expected damage to conquered infrastructure and it's just not adding up well for mid-to-late-'42 once the US really starts gearing up.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2021 22:33

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

We are distinctly behind "reality", although we have largely chased both the historical and new forces out of the SRA, we haven't sunk much if any of them. Thanks to a recent OPSEC leak I have discovered that even Repulse survived, so the RN is essentially intact, just out of action for a few months.

Because we have gained temporary supremacy at sea, we have managed to stay more or less on schedule on the ground despite a few stubborn defences, but at this rate if we can't land some real punches we will be forced onto the defensive by summer at the latest.

It sounds like what we need is a decisive victory. Perhaps we can ambush the American carriers if we move aggressively against a position they see as vital... not Pearl itself, that would be too risky, but we have just established that while Midway might not suit for a land invasion there are substantial land-based air forces there that are worth destroying.

orangelex44 fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Mar 7, 2021

# ¿ Mar 7, 2021 23:52

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

I mean it's pretty objectively the best choice. Japan can't really take anything truly vital before the Allies start getting major toys, so why risk it? The only reasons not to play it out that way are for little things that aren't simulated like the enslavement of POWs, borderline genocide, and public fear/outcry for revenge.

That being said I don't think Alikchi is really playing that way - or at least isn't intentionally playing that way. Remember that the Allies had a lot of important early-war ships get sent to the shipyards; right now I think the ratio of operational fleet carriers is something like 3-8 in Japan's favor. It's about to start switching very quickly due to reinforcement and repair, but the early months of the war are Japan's one chance to actually spread and take important bases. From late '42 onward all offensive operations are going to be raids, not conquests.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2021 02:35

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Relatively quiet day given how things were going earlier in the week.

Any actual news or assumptions on Indomitable? Is it reasonable that the "Yorktown" sinking is actually her, or are we totally in the dark pending some other type of confirmation?

Ceylon in general seems to be going very well. It sounds like the next planned step is into India, but I'm wondering why not push for Burma first? It's super cut off, and getting the UK out of there would let you start moving resources out of Thailand.

Any plans for Darwin? Or has Ambon held out long enough to make it unreasonable until after the landing bonus expires at the end of the month?

# ¿ Mar 17, 2021 21:16

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

As for Burma, why invade it first? There's a bit of oil there but otherwise nothing special, and like you said it is cut off. That just means we can ignore the significant number of troops he has there and blitzkrieg across India without any opposition.

Conversely if we invade it doesn't really get us anywhere, since, well, it's cut off. His presence in Burma is no threat to us at all, Thailand doesn't really have much resources and the ones it does have can easily be shipped down the railway to Singapore, even if he did have torpedo bombers that could hit shipping in Bangkok, which he doesn't.

Burma is a horrible trap for whoever puts troops in there, and since he has put lots we will leave him to it.

I guess the logic would be that you would be taking troops/planes/supplies out of a backwater theater (Thailand/Burma) and push them to the front of an important one (India). Of course, that cleanup process would take a decent amount of time and I can understand the thinking that time is way more valuable than the troops right now. It just hurts to see Burma there as an ongoing threat to the backline, albeit a relatively minor one. I don't know how self-sufficient the area is, and whether Burma can continuously supply a couple air wings. Ground-wise it's probably not a huge concern unless the Allies try some hail-mary backdoor push towards Bangkok (starving and being bombed the entire way most likely).

It's an interesting approach to the early war in general, at least from the perspective of someone who doesn't actually play WitP. Is mostly ignoring everything south and east of Rabaul in favor of a strong push towards the Indian Ocean somehow a mechanically favorable option over trying to cut off the Australia/US supply line and pushing out the buffer zone Pearl-wards, or is that just the way this game ended up playing out? I can see advantages to both strategies from a pure "lines on the map" point of view. Both of them have the same opening anyway, it's vital to get the Dutch supply/oil centers and secure the backline of the Philippines and Singapore.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 01:23

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

I mean for not being flashy those subs have sunk a fleet carrier and a battlecruiser in the first 3-4 months of the war. Up until Indomitable got blasted the subs were debatably ahead of the KB in effectiveness.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2021 00:46

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Right now I think Japan is pretty obviously winning the sub war. The only really big think the Allies have bagged is a flight carrier, while Pharnakes got a fleet carrier, severe damage (or worse!) on another carrier plus a battlecruiser, and something like 3-4 tankers.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2021 02:49

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

I'm not sure where you got this extra carrier from, or a battlecruiser for that matter. Our submarines have sunk Saratoga, and heavily damaged New Zealand.

Meanwhile aircraft of various kinds have sunk Kortenaer, and heavily damaged Ark Royal, Hermes, Repluse () and Indomitable. Indomitable is probably sunk but I'm not going to fully allow myself to believe that until I see some hard points evidence.

I had thought one of Ark Royal or Hermes was a sub hit, and forgot about Kortanaer entirely. New Zealand was classified a battlecruiser, wasn't it?

# ¿ Mar 20, 2021 23:19

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Is the Darwin operation going to be on-time to catch the invasion bonus? Or is it looking to be a couple days too late?

# ¿ Mar 21, 2021 22:22

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

I feel like the best way to have an early Japanese two-engine fighter is to take a Zero, turn it upside down, and glue it on the bottom of a second Zero. You can even keep the second pilot for redundancy!

# ¿ Mar 23, 2021 06:32

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Knowing this game it's probably centered around the side of the hex that the ship last entered the hex, unless said ship has a current movement order in which case it centers around the side of the hex it's exiting from except that it "knows" if the ship's going to ditch it's orders and will center on the actual exit tile which means you can use the circles to figure out a 2% edge case somehow.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2021 03:41

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Didn't he get some units evacuated from Singapore, too?

# ¿ Mar 25, 2021 02:56

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

wedgekree posted:

Ow. Rough day all around. And stalemate. Nice playing though. Also I guess putting the KB on 'rest' means they also can flesh out their air groups again. Does the IJN get better trained replacements in this mod than they did historically? Or have you lost a lot of your elite pilots by now?

IIRC, it'd modded such that both players get moderately trained pilots by default - but the Allies get total rookies for the first year or so, and they turned off the mechanics for manually training pilots using other pilots. Or something like that, I don't exactly know how WitP works.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2021 22:56

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Nice job on the tankers. What's the count on those up to now? 10 or so, if we guess that the last two today will be going down?

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 18:34

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

So what's the new summary as we head into April? It seems to me that March went very well (at least in the back half) to make up for the more lackluster February. Ceylon and Darwin are big strategic wins, some of the island holdouts finally went down, and a bunch of Allied tankers sunk means that even though the big combat ship count is low they'll struggle to keep them at sea in the back half of this year.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2021 19:47

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Man, those battleships at Ceylon have done some work. Are those also the same ones that did the big airport bombardment at Darwin a month ago?

# ¿ Apr 4, 2021 21:08

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Oof, rough times for the Commonwealth. Granted that right about now is the absolute peak of Japanese power (although the high-water mark is still to come, while the Allies get their poo poo together)... it's still pretty good to see some of the plans finally come through for once.

That being said, the other shoe is gonna have to drop eventually. The American carriers have been real quiet - IIRC they have some early upgrades right about now that need yard time - and they're going to start getting massively reinforced soon. The Solomons/Fiji/Coral Sea theater has been much too quiet given it's strategic importance. Are there any plans to start refocusing that way or has High Command determined that it's better to win even more and better on the western side?

# ¿ Apr 9, 2021 22:01

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

I am very happy with how committed he seems to both southern India and Burma. Bengal must, surely, be lightly defended.

I feel like this is foreshadowing.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2021 18:29

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Zurai posted:

Honestly, right now it feels mostly like a comp stomp to me. I hope Alikchi starts actually doing things soon. I realize the IJN has a big advantage early on, but I don't think he's actually made a significant move with his navy... ever. I'm not counting the obsolete BBs that tried to engage the initial Ceylon landing forces.

I don't know if that's a fair assessment. Alikchi can't possibly face the Kido Butai right now, and his submarine campaign is doing pretty drat decent work around Rabaul. He's probably doing ahistorically bad in civilian vessel losses but conversely he's done pretty well in salvaging his military assets. Between the April refits of the US carriers and waiting on repairs to the ABDA remnants, there just hasn't been much opportunity to counterpunch. Hell, IRL the Doolittle raid was only in 18 April and was largely a PR stunt anyway. The first big fight would be Coral Sea starting right about now, but that was when IRL Japan went east. Pharnakes went west, which adds a couple thousand miles to the distance the Americans would have to travel to reach significant Japanese naval assets. Alikchi's aggressive submarine positioning could easily imply he's trying to draw in ships to ambush with the carriers, but with the fog of war there's no way to know that. Remember that even Midway was a defensive operation for the U.S.; Guadalcanal was the first proper offensive and that's in August. it's not fair to be expecting the Allies to push aggressively until the back half of '42.

# ¿ May 3, 2021 21:52

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

I find it darkly funny that Milne Bay has somehow continued to escalate in that same stupid way as so many other historical battles.

Japan: "We're just gonna grab this quick, it's not really that important so we won't invest much but it should be a minor annoyance a year from now."

Allies: "Japan's landed some troops here, there aren't that many and we don't super care but it looks like it should be an excellent place to train our bombers in the meantime."

Japan: "For some loving reason the Allies are bringing dozens of bombers to loving murder these 200 guys... we're in fighter range though, so let's put up some CAP. Probably should also throw some engineers in and fort up, we'll save some supplies that way."

Allies: "Why in the hell are there Zeroes sweeping over this pissant little base now? And is that a level 2 fort? What the hell are they planning here... better bring in the surface ships to smash the place, they're in-theater anyway and we can gain a bit of initiative to start slogging towards Rabaul."

Japan: "Why are there battleships here? Good thing we brought the Kido Butai out this way, they can quick divert to murder these dudes before the US carriers show up."

Allies: "Oh poo poo, that's got to be the majority of the Japanese carrier fleet.... Maybe we have an opportunity here..."

Milne Bay: "This place sucks dick can we leave please"

# ¿ Jul 11, 2021 16:22

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Hold on, are Burma and the far East Indian front now officially cut off from the rest of India with that last push (at least by rail)? Because that's a pretty big deal.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2021 15:27

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Pharnakes posted:

Remember this post.

Christ, it gets worse? That stupid little beach has already caused the sinking of two fleet carriers (albeit indirectly), what's left to escalate to? The entirety of the Japanese battleship fleet? An entire army corp?

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to see it, but this poo poo is worse than Gettysburg as far as one-upsmanship through ignorance goes.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2021 02:18

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 21:12

orangelex44: Oct 11, 2012; Definition of orange:

Any of a group of colors that are between red and yellow in hue. Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Old Occitan, from Arabic, from Persian, from Sanskrit.

Definition of lex:

Law. Latin.

Yeah, what'll kill him won't be the carriers - it'll be the endless swarm of land-based air and submarines, backed up by an infinite amount of freighter capacity.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2021 01:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > War in the Pacific - Alikchi Vs Pharnakes Moron Slapfight Edition