Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

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larryfulkerson
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

ORIGINAL: Chattez

If the Japanese are going to be successful, they are going to have to move harshly and quickly
before the allies rebound. The clock is always ticking for the Japanese player.

Japan can pursue a "western" strategy--invading India-- but it will require a full commitment of resources, including capital ships and carriers. But this means 1) removing the carriers from any use elsewhere in the Pacific; and 2)
placing them in a vulnerable sea without much land-based air cover, for several turns.

Alternately, the Japanese might pursue a "southern strategy", and try and cut off Australia from the US. Seizing the island bases means that allied planes cannot make the transit by air; and presents the allies with major problems in reinforcing Australia. Australia itself may then be invaded.

But again, this will require a full commitment by Japan, and will place the balance of the Imperial navy where the allies
can find it; and it will be without much land-based air cover.

But a choice must be made, and made early in the game, since the Japanese carriers cannot be risked with impunity.

A less risky, but more difficult, option, is to leave the conquest of India to ground forces alone. If Australia is taken (or at least invaded) one can assume that Japanese units there may not be able to be evacuated later (as the strengthened allied navies will then prevent that). But the allies will have to spend time liberating the area; and since Japan is playing for time, that may serve a useful purpose in itself.

Finally, if any attempt at taking Hawaii is made, this must also be done early in the game. The allies must recoil from any early confrontation with the entire Imperial fleet; and there is just a chance that a successful invasion might be made on one or more of the islands. The Imperial fleet will have to rely on its only planes for air cover (no land-based planes), but early in the game
the allies are not strong enough to penetrate this. However, this again risks the carriers, which Japan cannot afford to lose, should they fall prey to an allied attack.

Remember, the control of the Pacific rests on "ten ships"--the Japanese carriers.

As long as Japan has those carriers, its forces can go anywhere it wants, and close off the Pacific to the allies.

Once those ten ships are lost, it is the allies who can go anywhere; the Imperial Army can only buy time.

It must be the allied goal to destroy those "ten ships", and then move in on the home islands (securing
island bases for air cover as they go).
Excellent summary there Chattez dude. Thanks for posting. Now I know what I'm doing wrong....I'm trying to do all three
directions at the same time. And welcome to the forum and for posting your verbage. Feel free to post your thoughts here.
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

Here's the result of one carrier's worth of planes attacking a stack of Allied ships. They received not a scratch and my planes
were almost totally wiped out.

EDIT: There were three carrier strikes and all three had results similar to this one.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by thomasharvey »

When shelling a land target from sea it is extremely important to have any BB at a range of two hexes from the target. (I fudged a little on their range as the scale of the map would not really allow for that but it is close. It is important they have the extra range reflected.) That way the BB does not suffer loss. Then for the other ships I recommend using only destroyers to fire when adjacent to the target. The destroyers will take losses but you get replacements for them. The cruisers can be in the hex if there are ground troops but do not have them do direct fire. Any ship doing that gets point blank fire from every gun in the target hex. In an invasion, the BBs safely fire two hexes away, the cruisers escort ground troops but do not use direct fire and the destroyers go in with direct fire. At the end of the combat some ground troops may still be at sea escorted by the cruisers with the destroyers having loses or wiped out. Any ground troops at sea without any escort are destroyed very easily by anything the enemy fires at them so avoid that.
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

ORIGINAL: thomasharvey
When shelling a land target from sea it is extremely important to have any BB at a range of two hexes from the target. (I fudged a little on their range as the scale of the map would not really allow for that but it is close. It is important they have the extra range reflected.) That way the BB does not suffer loss. Then for the other ships I recommend using only destroyers to fire when adjacent to the target. The destroyers will take losses but you get replacements for them. The cruisers can be in the hex if there are ground troops but do not have them do direct fire. Any ship doing that gets point blank fire from every gun in the target hex. In an invasion, the BBs safely fire two hexes away, the cruisers escort ground troops but do not use direct fire and the destroyers go in with direct fire. At the end of the combat some ground troops may still be at sea escorted by the cruisers with the destroyers having loses or wiped out. Any ground troops at sea without any escort are destroyed very easily by anything the enemy fires at them so avoid that.
Great ideas. Thanks for this analysis. I think it's a great way to go.
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Chattez
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by Chattez »

The combat results at Pearl look like what the US Navy expected to happen: no battleship could be sunk by airpower.

Thus the battleships parked in rows at Pearl Harbor would have been safe, because they would have put up a solid wall of flak which would have prevented any attacking planes from getting through.

(I think Kimmel found out otherwise, though...)





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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

And this is from an email from Thomas:

I saw your post showing an air strike with disastrous results to the Japanese. Something is clearly wrong here. When I do that with the same game version, but perhaps different naval rules in place, the opposite happens. All the American ships are lost with no losses to the Japanese aircraft.


Did you assign the attacking aircraft to the stack of ships? Not the actual harbor but the ships? There is no need to send in the zero fighters on the strike as they automatically escort if they are within range from the ship they are based on. They have greater range than the bombers so they are always in range if based on the carrier that launched the bombers. If you attack with the fighters they actually attack the ships which can cause them losses and uses up their supply status. They have to do defensive work on the next turn in case you are attacked by the enemy so they should always be on air superiority to be safe.

Getting back to the attack, there is something wrong. If you attacked the ships in this set up there is a defect somewhere. It should be a successful attack and it is when I do it on my computer with the current version of the game.

The scenario totally fails as a concept is you can't have a successful air strike with that set up. The older version does a good job. Has the new naval rules made this happen?

This scenario is based on naval combat and under the old engine, while not perfect, does a good job at it. It will not work properly just as a land combat scenairo.
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

I've formed a ring around Wake island so the Allies can't ship in some more troops and I've got all the ships
assigned to do an airfield attack. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

I went to the editor function of the game engine and loaded the scenario and then chose to edit the deployment of the
forces and then the drop down menu shows the controls I can change and I notice that the attrition divider is set to 5
and I'm wondering if it should be changed to a different number for the new game engine so that the Jap air power
is stronger and the Allied ship defense is less robust. Anybody have a preference where it gets set at?

EDIT: Thomas informs me by email that adjusting the attrition divider will just change the losses for both sides at the
same time and that's not the problem we're having here. Something else needs to be adjusted yet. I'm at a loss as
to what slider or control or event it might be.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by sPzAbt653 »

The AD is the same for both sides, so I don't think that is the source of the issue. My first thought would be that the US planes are assigned missions and they are therefore intercepting when in fact they should be in church or sleeping off a hangover. If they have missions assigned, try unassigning them and see what happens. And as Tom said, attack the BB's only with your Torpedo and Divebombers.
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
The AD is the same for both sides, so I don't think that is the source of the issue.
Thomas and I agree with you. There's something else that needs adjusting I'm guessing.
ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
My first thought would be that the US planes are assigned missions and they are therefore intercepting when in fact they should be in church or sleeping off a hangover. If they have missions assigned, try unassigning them and see what happens.
Thomas informs me they were on "rest" status. I'll confirm and inform you if it's different.
ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
And as Tom said, attack the BB's only with your Torpedo and Divebombers.
You two guys are better players than I am. Of course that's the proper course of action. I have no
excuse for my action except that I've obviously gotten in the habit from other games to assign some
fighers just in case there's ever a chance that the fighter units all fail their morale check and don't
fly. In this case they have such a high readiness and proficiency that they'll probably never fail
such a morale check and WILL fly and there's no reason to worry about that. Okay. You win.
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

Here's the Gameplay options I'm using for this playtest.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by sPzAbt653 »

Thomas informs me they were on "rest" status.

Ok then, you might want to enable the 'sitreplog' in the Opart.ini file to see what is happening during the combat.
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
Thomas informs me they were on "rest" status.
Ok then, you might want to enable the 'sitreplog' in the Opart.ini file to see what is happening during the combat.
Good idea. Yeah, I saved my game and then did an end turn to get to the Allied side to take a look at the Allied
aircraft and the Yorktown Fighter group and the Lexington Fighter group were both on AS missions but all the
rest of the Allied aircraft were on rest status. So........your suggestion has merit.
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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

Oh, and before I forget to mention this, I opened the game editor and then opened the scenario and then
did a save to the same name, and THEN started the game, loaded the scenario and it didn't say I was
using the wrong equipment file.

EDIT: I captured some strategic bases near Port Moresby

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

Okie dokie.....now it's the Allied turn and here's the situation around Rangoon. You'll remember that the Japs blew the
bridge over the rive Kwai and a British division emerged from Rangoon moved NE and attacked the Jap paratroopers
and forced them off the bridge. The Allied engineers assigned to fix the bridge are still moving down the coastal road
in Burma so it'll be a turn or two before the bridge can be fixed and the Japs may be there in force when they arrive at
the Bridge. But the British have to protect Rangoon from the Japs in case the Japs repair the bridge and assault
across it.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

I had already dug in the Marines at Bataan when I decided to look into the supply situation and I was alarmed to find out that
Bataan is out of supply already. The Japs have a toehold and I expect them to advance toward Manila. I expect that because
that's what I plan to do when I'm the Japs.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

After the bombardment that the Marine garrison at Guam received they are down to their last Rifle Squad and it's
looking like it's almost all over at Guam. Wake island still has it's Coastal Defense guns and 12 Wildcats for air
cover and might last longer than Guam will.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

I moved General MacArthur and his HQ staff from Manila to Darwin via boat. In real life he was probably enscounced at Brisbane
or Sydney instead of Darwin but I'm going to leave him at Darwin to act as supply source for Allied aircraft there to rest and refit.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

I found this PBY unit at Pearl that volunteered to fly out to Midway and look around for Jap ships. The KB was last seen moving NW
from Midway's direction. So perhaps more than one PBY unit is indicated for Midway. There's already a spotter plane there, a
Kingfisher unit with a range of 12 that I can move back to Pearl if need be to make room for more PBY's.

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RE: Playtest of Pacific at War 3 25 14

Post by larryfulkerson »

I flew some PBY's from Pearl out to Wake island and there just happened to pop into existence a stack of Jap ships and
an aircraft unit. A close inspection of the group reveals that none of the ships appears to be a carrier and that probably
means that the aircraft is a spotter plane, a "Jake" unit. I'm now wondering how far away the Allied carriers are and can
a strike be launched on this stack of ships. Probably not. I'll look into it and give you a full report.

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