Islands of Destiny: RA 5.0 Japanese Side

[Canoerebel]

As a practical matter, this doesn't happen.

Theoretically it's possible for massive conflagrations to destroy (as opposed to damage) industry. I've never heard of this happening in a PBEM contest. Even raids scoring thousands of hits setting more than a million fires didn't create firestorms. I think those using atomic bombs likewise reported inability to start firestorms that destroyed industry, though I'm not sure about that.

I think there were some mentions that such a thing had been known to happen, but I haven't seen anything on it.

In this game, I think the highest I ever got fires was somewhere around 350k, so I wasn't even in the right solar system. Had I thought it possible to achieve within reason (say, 1 million), I might've tried. At 20x the points, destroying industry would be worth the high cost of predictably concentrating on a particular base.

[Lecivius]

I may have worded my question poorly. I know firestorms don't happen. I was curious if residual fires (or something along those lines), maintained over several cities across several days, would allow the damage and therefore the daily VP total to creep up into the thousand per day range as opposed to the 500 or so you were getting.

[Canoerebel]

You'd probably stand a better chance by sending large daylight raids targeting specific industries. Manpower raids seem more likely to score hits but a bit more diluted in effectiveness.

Large raids against light opposition (light because you guessed right and found an underprotected target or because you'd cleared the way by sweeps) targeting large amounts of Resources, Light Industry and Heavy Industry, among others, could exceed a thousand points a day. I think Lowpe had experience with that in one of his games.

I didn't achieve those kinds of results because my raids were smaller, due partly to my limited bomber pools and partly to my preference for spreading things around to limit risk a bit.

[John 3rd]

I concur with Dan's opinions here.

He really didn't start amassing serious VPs with his strategic bombing until he really went after my AFs. I believe he was scoring more VPs by destroying airframes (which there were thousands spread throughout the Home Isles) then by Strat Bombing.

The truth is my Fighter Force was fully committed and tapped out by March 1, 1945. When I gave in to pressure to use Kamikazes off Korea, the losses to my Fighters were horrific. They did well but I could not recover my Fighter Plane pools after that. Pilots stayed...ok...kind of...but I could not bring the lost airframes back easily. I knew better then to use the Kamikaze but decided to try it. Remember that my plan was always to use the Divine Wind when the invasion of the homeland occurred and they could be set to attack at a range of 1 or 2. My hope was to wound the Invasion Forces who would have been covered by less effective LRCAP.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd
When I gave in to pressure to use Kamikazes off Korea, the losses to my Fighters were horrific. They did well but I could not recover my Fighter Plane pools after that.

Well, to be fair to the kamikazes, it is my opinion that you waited waaay too long to employ them in a meaningful fashion. If meaningfully combined with the KB and LBA in the Philippines, they could have have been much more effective.

Most folks that have used kamikazes in number talk about downgrading their aircraft to second or third tier airframes. I don't think you did that. So, instead of getting rid of dregs of your planes, you elected to use front line or tier two airframes. Perhaps this was a feature of your mod-you had fewer second or third tier aircraft in inventory. Also, with the exception of the unsupported / unbacked attack off of Korea, you had few attacks with meaningful numbers of kamikazes, instead you elected dribs and drabs of penny packets in seeming backwaters.

Use of a downgraded airframe for the kamis would have forestalled any argument against losing your best and brightest fighters for defense of the homeland. Also, without reviewing this attack, I don't recall you using fighter types per se for the attacks. Did you use A6/A7s for the kami mission? [&:]

I'm not saying I thought you played kamikazes poorly. But I don't get the impression that you really-o truly-o gave them their fair shake. To me, your implementation is of a 'coulda-been / shoulda-been a contender'.

ETA: As an inveterate Trekkie, I loved "The Undiscovered Country" only for the bits where Sulu got his own ship. I feel the way he did when he was trying to get the Excelsior into position to save the Enterprise, but the transwarp drive was just not fast enough for his liking.

If the combined kamikaze / LBA / CV air was a threat to break either the engine or the game score, but the only possible savior for the Japanese homeland it must be attempted. To complaints that it (the engine) will fly apart, I can only reply: "Well, fly her apart then!" Sulu was right.

[John 3rd]

The fighters lost were the ones ESCORTING the Kamikazes. Lost probably 4-500 over 3-4 days.

I used Judy/Jill/Peggy/Frances because I had BUCKETS of them. Built those airframes continuously once they came on-line.

[jwolf]

ORIGINAL: John 3rd

ORIGINAL: AcePylut

Ok first question: Why didn't you challenge the Death Star with the KB when he invaded the DEI, Phillipines, China, or Korea? What was your thought process during the time (of course hindsight is 50/50 fwiw)

The best chance to hit his Death Star was in the SE DEI when he started the move north. I seem to remember that my CVs had just entered into an upgrade cycle at that point so I was out of position for any sort of meaningful early attack.

This brings up another point. In Dan's AAR he mentioned several times that many of his capital ships, including most of the carriers, were way overdue for refits. But he made the decision that it was better to keep them on duty and maintain the pace of operations. That's not to say there's always a clear answer or right decision, but the question "to upgrade or not to upgrade" is a key part of each player's long term planning.

[John 3rd]

Arguably the upgrade in question is one of the bigger ones of the war. It was a big AA boost so I took it.

Dan's decision was correct in that he had a gadzillion ships so NOT doing the upgrades didn't impact that much. Add to that each of his reinforcement convoys brought NEW ships into the theatre and it makes a bunch of sense to me. Good work on his part.

[Canoerebel]

That was an interesting balancing act. I have no doubts that I made the right decision, but other players would've seen it differently and planned accordingly.

I did manage to upgrade most of my CVEs. But all the early-war CVs were still due for their 10/43 upgrades.

[John 3rd]

Why did you never stop my Tanker runs? We have spoken of it forever in the AAR.

When you took Formosa, it was OVER. All you had to do was finish taking Mindanao and Ternate then I could not have moved the shipping back-and-forth. We waited anxiously every time I moved the near 50 Tankers. Yes--They were sometimes escorted by the CVs but not always. Would have been a great way to crush the Fleet and end all hope within the match as early as January 1, 1945. As it was, I never, ever ran out of fuel or oil and the economy kept right on humming along building stuff.

[Canoerebel]

John Dillworth asked that question in my AAR about ten days ago. This was my reply:

Allied objectives, from the start of the war: (1) attrition the enemy fleet; (2) interdict the flow of resources from the DEI; (3) close on the Home Islands to engage in strategic bombing. (I think I posted to that effect a dozen times in the AAR, as many of you might recall).

As Big Tent successfully unfolded in October 1943, I was in position to work on (2) but it was also clear John had gaping holes in his defenses that would allow me to achieve (3). To my way of thinking, (3) was more efficient than (2) - shooting in the head is quicker than strangling - so as long as those gaping holes existed, I steered the Allies north rather than west. Luzon was open. Coastal China was open. Formosa was open. The Shanghai region was open. Korea was open.

Bear in mind I have limited experience in the late game. I had picked up the idea from some excellent players that it was possible to score "a thousand points a day" via strategic bombing. Had I been able to achieve that kind of success, the war would've ended in early '45 (probably February) and these questions wouldn't even come up. But I couldn't achieve that, partly due to my inexperience, partly due the learning curve; partly due to John's fighters and tactics, and partly because I think bombing from Luzon and even Formosa against an an alert, experienced foe is far harder than folks think (it was for me, anyhow).

But what about all those convoys? Interdicting them would take far more time and resources than people realize and would exact an opportunity cost far greater than what I was doing. I knew I was better off with Death Star in the Yellow Sea region, handling the direct throttling of the Empire rather than working a time-consuming and possibly inefficient strangling campaign in the south. Invading Korea is simply far better than trying to stop ships in the DEI.

Detaching smaller carrier forces or combat TFs or strike aircraft wouldn't work either, at least not efficiently. John usually used carriers to escort his convoys. If I detached carriers down that way, I'd have to use overwhelming numbers or risk him consolidating and ambushing. Ditto for combat TFs. And Allied strike aircraft didn't have the numbers or range. I tried a few times and they got chewed up. I tried enough to know that devoting assets to an uncertain strangling campaign was less efficient than employing them in China and Korea where things were much more certain.

Base forces, supply, and bomber and fighter quality and pools also entered into the equation. I need supply in Korea, not at Talaud Eilenden or Morotai hoping to eventually catch some merchantmen poorly escorted.

I had 8k AV in Korea and 11k in northern China. Supporting them while also engaging in fullscale strategic bombing was an immense undertaking at the end of a supply line that stretched from San Fran to Pago Pago to Townsville to Boela to Manila to Shanghai and Gunzan. It took everything I had to keep that LOC running smoothly. And it did run smoothly but there wasn't time or assets necessary to truly interdict enemy supply/fuel in the DEI.

Ditto 4EB. I could've bombed Palembang and Balikpapan but they were well-protected. I didn't want to devote rare resources to bomb those bases, indirectly earning points, when they could be employed directly in earning points.

There are players who would've seen other ways of doing things and could've done better. But I bet there's alot of players who would've followed the siren song of sea power - wanting to use combat TFs and carriers to pursue and engage. But when the enemy leaves his heartland wide open to invasion, the job becomes moving the armies and air forces forward, and the navy's primary role becomes serving and defending rather than attacking.

That's what was going through my head.