Miller (J) vs Mr Kane (A)

[PaxMondo]

double post

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Miller

And finally the points tally. He overtakes me on the 30th Aug and no doubt for the rest of the game. My a2a losses have been absolutely brutal. And the final kick in the balls is the attacks on his air TFs at Paramushiro Jima reveal that 2 CVs I thought had gone down in the Feb 44 actions are still alive and very much kicking, so only 4 CVs he lost that day rather than the 6 I thought[:(]

You may still have some big VP gain days in the future. Mr Kane is not known to back down from a challenge, so as the Allies move forward, it's your turn to make CAP traps and mine nets and sub gaggles for him to move into. The key in the endgame is unpredictability. You have big airfields and big ports at your disposal and combined with the KB that can give you a local advantage for a few turns.

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Well, I’m going to offer some thoughts, but take them with some caution as I am an AI player.

You’ve played very well so far in the sense of where the boundaries currently are, but you have finally arrived at the time of transition for IJ … the most dangerous time.

Economics.
Supply. At 5M for 9/1/44 it isn’t bad. Of course you always want more, but this isn’t way low or anything like that. Make sure you keep it dispersed around the HI. A lot of supply is lost in bombing raids, keep it dispersed as best you can and lose less.
Fuel: So HI will consume about 15K/day, 450K/month. So you have 10 months’ worth of full production HI left IF you put all of your fuel into it and if you are able to preserve your HI factories from B29 raids. Granted you are still making some fuel, but in terms of big numbers, you need to be thinking in this context.
HI: you are low here for me, but given your current perimeter it isn’t terrible at all. Converting 1.7M HI into 1E AC equivalents, you have less than 45,000. You’re actually building 2E and 4E as well, so it is like 32K AC total left to build. 2K AC/month for 16 months. Assume the rest of the HI will be converted to ARM/VEH … 6000 HI/day => 180KHI / month. This also assumes you will lose most of your HI production within 9 months; you’ve been playing very well, if you extend this date then things get much better for you here. And of course, there is the additional HI production from above to help as well. Net of your ARM/VEH production you can add an additional 9K/day => 270K/month. That’s over 5000 potential aircraft each month you keep the HI at full steam. A big deal. I am assuming your NSY/MSY are shutting down very soon; there should not be much left to build ….
ARM/VEH: very low. Keep ARM and VEH factories running wide open for rest of the game … you have a lot of units coming and you will need a lot of replacements. ARM points will just fly off the board.

So, basically you are in pretty good shape. The path for IJ victory is a very thin line, and while you have a couple of areas of concern, the IJ is all about that. Keep a close watch on your HI pool ... convert as much as you can into end products ASAP: engines, ARM, VEH pools cannot be bombed. Build away.

Great game thus far.

Thanks for the in depth analysis Pax. I must admit I'm clueless about how the economy runs, all I've ever done is try and ship back as much oil and fuel as I can. Looks like I will have enough to put up a decent fight till mid 45, providing I can keep him from doing too much damage to the mainland based industry....

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Miller

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Well, I’m going to offer some thoughts, but take them with some caution as I am an AI player.

You’ve played very well so far in the sense of where the boundaries currently are, but you have finally arrived at the time of transition for IJ … the most dangerous time.

Economics.
Supply. At 5M for 9/1/44 it isn’t bad. Of course you always want more, but this isn’t way low or anything like that. Make sure you keep it dispersed around the HI. A lot of supply is lost in bombing raids, keep it dispersed as best you can and lose less.
Fuel: So HI will consume about 15K/day, 450K/month. So you have 10 months’ worth of full production HI left IF you put all of your fuel into it and if you are able to preserve your HI factories from B29 raids. Granted you are still making some fuel, but in terms of big numbers, you need to be thinking in this context.
HI: you are low here for me, but given your current perimeter it isn’t terrible at all. Converting 1.7M HI into 1E AC equivalents, you have less than 45,000. You’re actually building 2E and 4E as well, so it is like 32K AC total left to build. 2K AC/month for 16 months. Assume the rest of the HI will be converted to ARM/VEH … 6000 HI/day => 180KHI / month. This also assumes you will lose most of your HI production within 9 months; you’ve been playing very well, if you extend this date then things get much better for you here. And of course, there is the additional HI production from above to help as well. Net of your ARM/VEH production you can add an additional 9K/day => 270K/month. That’s over 5000 potential aircraft each month you keep the HI at full steam. A big deal. I am assuming your NSY/MSY are shutting down very soon; there should not be much left to build ….
ARM/VEH: very low. Keep ARM and VEH factories running wide open for rest of the game … you have a lot of units coming and you will need a lot of replacements. ARM points will just fly off the board.

So, basically you are in pretty good shape. The path for IJ victory is a very thin line, and while you have a couple of areas of concern, the IJ is all about that. Keep a close watch on your HI pool ... convert as much as you can into end products ASAP: engines, ARM, VEH pools cannot be bombed. Build away.

Great game thus far.

Thanks for the in depth analysis Pax. I must admit I'm clueless about how the economy runs, all I've ever done is try and ship back as much oil and fuel as I can. Looks like I will have enough to put up a decent fight till mid 45, providing I can keep him from doing too much damage to the mainland based industry....

I love it when Pax swoops in and solves my economic analysis!! Much better than running all of the number (incorrectly) myself. He also has just been through it so many times he know the range of success vs difficulty for the Japanese in the late game.

As you get to the end of the line airframes your losses could moderate as well.

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Miller

ORIGINAL: PaxMondo

Well, I’m going to offer some thoughts, but take them with some caution as I am an AI player.

You’ve played very well so far in the sense of where the boundaries currently are, but you have finally arrived at the time of transition for IJ … the most dangerous time.

Economics.
Supply. At 5M for 9/1/44 it isn’t bad. Of course you always want more, but this isn’t way low or anything like that. Make sure you keep it dispersed around the HI. A lot of supply is lost in bombing raids, keep it dispersed as best you can and lose less.
Fuel: So HI will consume about 15K/day, 450K/month. So you have 10 months’ worth of full production HI left IF you put all of your fuel into it and if you are able to preserve your HI factories from B29 raids. Granted you are still making some fuel, but in terms of big numbers, you need to be thinking in this context.
HI: you are low here for me, but given your current perimeter it isn’t terrible at all. Converting 1.7M HI into 1E AC equivalents, you have less than 45,000. You’re actually building 2E and 4E as well, so it is like 32K AC total left to build. 2K AC/month for 16 months. Assume the rest of the HI will be converted to ARM/VEH … 6000 HI/day => 180KHI / month. This also assumes you will lose most of your HI production within 9 months; you’ve been playing very well, if you extend this date then things get much better for you here. And of course, there is the additional HI production from above to help as well. Net of your ARM/VEH production you can add an additional 9K/day => 270K/month. That’s over 5000 potential aircraft each month you keep the HI at full steam. A big deal. I am assuming your NSY/MSY are shutting down very soon; there should not be much left to build ….
ARM/VEH: very low. Keep ARM and VEH factories running wide open for rest of the game … you have a lot of units coming and you will need a lot of replacements. ARM points will just fly off the board.

So, basically you are in pretty good shape. The path for IJ victory is a very thin line, and while you have a couple of areas of concern, the IJ is all about that. Keep a close watch on your HI pool ... convert as much as you can into end products ASAP: engines, ARM, VEH pools cannot be bombed. Build away.

Great game thus far.

Thanks for the in depth analysis Pax. I must admit I'm clueless about how the economy runs, all I've ever done is try and ship back as much oil and fuel as I can. Looks like I will have enough to put up a decent fight till mid 45, providing I can keep him from doing too much damage to the mainland based industry....

You could make '46 ... just depends upon:
1. Your plane build strategy: what models and numbers
2. How long you can keep the HI economy intact. Every month is a big deal. Many players (both sides) don't realize this.

[Miller]

1st-30th Sept 44

He launches his first night B29 raids on Palembang during the last week of this period. At first he targets the oil and does only a few points of damage, but then switches over to manpower attacks and the fires torch 140 oil in just two days. This despite 70 NF and plenty of AA based there. He loses about 20 B29 so far. At this rate he will pretty much destroy the bulk of it by the end of October. Therefore, with a shortage of oil in the HI I have turned off the refinery here and everywhere else and am picking up all the oil I can whilst still able.





Meanwhile above is the current situation in Malaya/IndoChina. As you can see he has bulldozed his way to the coast in IndoChina in no time with his armour. Vinh will fall soon and then it's full speed ahead for Hanoi and Haiphong then a link up with his troops in SE China. The bulk of my troops are still at PPK (red circle) about 4k AV being beseiged by a similar amount. As usual he is trying to flank me and cut them off but I'm currently doing a withdrawal down the rail line further south.

[Miller]

Meanwhile, in China[:(]





Orange: Still holding ok in this area, but that will change when his units start pouring in from IndoChina in a few weeks time.

Yellow: He breaks through at Ichang and south of Nanyang and I have no choice but to retreat to Hankow or face having my troops cut off. No doubt rather than try and take Hankow head on he will prbably attempt to move SE of there in the direction of Shanghai. As you can see he has also broken out to the east of Nanyang with a 2K AV stack that is brushing aside all the lightly defended bases in its wake, he will be at the east coast in Haichow within a fortnight, and therefore fighter escort/sweep range of the eastern HI bases....

The red lines are my planned next defensive line positions. Whilst he has complete domination of the skies, I did try one final large 2E raid on his HI at Chungking, however the weather grounded 200 sweepers who were intended to clear the way, and despite large escort I lost 150 bombers to his massive CAP there, just my luck.

[Miller]

SOPAC





The only other area of action at the minute. He takes the circled bases with fast transport/LST TFs covered by zillions of Fletcher DDs. I only attempt to interfere by air but it costs me 100 DBs in return for zero hits. Looks like he may be looking to cut off any route for the remaining oil being shipped out of Borneo.

I currently have 5 Divs on Java and a few bits and pieces in and around Timor. I'm wandering if it's worth keeping them there now considering he will probably close most of the Palembang production with night bombing from Bangkok soon enough? I could certainly employ those divs better in southern China or on the Manchuria border, thoughts?

[PaxMondo]

ORIGINAL: Miller

1st-30th Sept 44

He launches his first night B29 raids on Palembang during the last week of this period. At first he targets the oil and does only a few points of damage, but then switches over to manpower attacks and the fires torch 140 oil in just two days. This despite 70 NF and plenty of AA based there. He loses about 20 B29 so far. At this rate he will pretty much destroy the bulk of it by the end of October. Therefore, with a shortage of oil in the HI I have turned off the refinery here and everywhere else and am picking up all the oil I can whilst still able.

Remember, oil or fuel, its pretty much the same for you. Oil can only be moved by tankers, but fuel can be moved (inefficiently yes, but still moved) by xAK's. I tend to leave refineries running as it is simply easier to move fuel and supply as compared to oil.

ORIGINAL: Miller
Meanwhile above is the current situation in Malaya/IndoChina. As you can see he has bulldozed his way to the coast in IndoChina in no time with his armour. Vinh will fall soon and then it's full speed ahead for Hanoi and Haiphong then a link up with his troops in SE China. The bulk of my troops are still at PPK (red circle) about 4k AV being beseiged by a similar amount. As usual he is trying to flank me and cut them off but I'm currently doing a withdrawal down the rail line further south.

This is the first big hurdle in trynig to prevent the loss of too many IJ units. How do you plan to evacuate you SE forces or are these all committed to the last stand at Singers? What do you have holding the line Hanoi or is your MLR further east?

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Miller

1st-30th Sept 44

He launches his first night B29 raids on Palembang during the last week of this period. At first he targets the oil and does only a few points of damage, but then switches over to manpower attacks and the fires torch 140 oil in just two days. This despite 70 NF and plenty of AA based there. He loses about 20 B29 so far. At this rate he will pretty much destroy the bulk of it by the end of October.

That's going to depend on how long the B-29s hold out. Remember that he only gets just over 300 of the first version, and the next ones don't come until November. Losing 20 in two days is not great for him, and it will likely get harder to do as much damage as the first attempt with each strike, especially considering the number of damaged planes he probably has as well.

In my initial attempt at the endgame I'd made the last transit North with fuel around the turn of 45. No more after that. I had much less supply than you do now and still the game was hard fought until July 45 when a bombardment run I was attempting stalled half way to target and was completely wiped out.

There is a lot left to do for him here and the DEI strat bombing doesn't gain VPs, so he's losing B-29s but only limiting your industrial output into the deep future.

[Miller]

"This is the first big hurdle in trynig to prevent the loss of too many IJ units. How do you plan to evacuate you SE forces or are these all committed to the last stand at Singers? What do you have holding the line Hanoi or is your MLR further east?"

I'm doing a staggered withdrawal slowly down the railine to prevent him flanking me. I will keep the majority of the units in Malaya till the late game. Hanoi would just be a small road bump for him, maybe hold him up a week or less if he commits his 4E bombers to attacking the troops there.

[Miller]

ORIGINAL: obvert

ORIGINAL: Miller

1st-30th Sept 44

He launches his first night B29 raids on Palembang during the last week of this period. At first he targets the oil and does only a few points of damage, but then switches over to manpower attacks and the fires torch 140 oil in just two days. This despite 70 NF and plenty of AA based there. He loses about 20 B29 so far. At this rate he will pretty much destroy the bulk of it by the end of October.

That's going to depend on how long the B-29s hold out. Remember that he only gets just over 300 of the first version, and the next ones don't come until November. Losing 20 in two days is not great for him, and it will likely get harder to do as much damage as the first attempt with each strike, especially considering the number of damaged planes he probably has as well.

In my initial attempt at the endgame I'd made the last transit North with fuel around the turn of 45. No more after that. I had much less supply than you do now and still the game was hard fought until July 45 when a bombardment run I was attempting stalled half way to target and was completely wiped out.

There is a lot left to do for him here and the DEI strat bombing doesn't gain VPs, so he's losing B-29s but only limiting your industrial output into the deep future.

Well he has made no more attacks on Palembang for the last few turns so you may be right. According to the a/c losses list he has lost 220 B29s, so maybe he needs to pause for a while longer.

[Miller]

1st-31st Oct 44

Well the good news is he has not tried anymore attacks on the Palembang oil, the bad news, just about everything else[:(]

Malaya:





My stack continues its slow march south (red circle) harried by his stack, about 4.5k AV to my 3k. He tried a deliberate attack on them but came off badly so I'm happy to let them march south at 4 miles per turn. As you can see he tried to cut off supply at the base circled in green by taking it with paras, along with Singora a few hexes south, however I had anticipated such a move and with the help of two Divs lifted from Java soon recaptured the latter. He still holds the other base but is cut off from any supply or retreat path so will take this back when I get enough AV in place.

A British invasion of Sabang looked likely halfway through the month but as soon as his recon picked up a few of my surface combat TFs in the vacinity he fled back to Singapore.

[Miller]

China

A disaster in the making.....



His units from Indo China steamroll the defenders of Hanoi and Haiphong in a few days and press on to Nanning which falls to a 3k AV assault from two Aussie divs and British armour. Everything in the red circle is now set to retreat to Canton, but I doubt much, if any, will make it.

Meanwhile, in the orange zone I continue to stand my ground. He is trying to march units through the woods towards Wuchow and/or Kukong and I'm trying to counter with what I have. To the east the yellow arrows indicate his next likely point of advance. I have a strong garrison at Nanking so that would be a tough nut for him to crack. I'm currently scraping up a few more units from the HI to try and stem the tide, most will be going to Shanghai.

[Miller]

SOPAC





Amphib invasions of Babeldaob, Peleliu and Talaud-eilandean covered by just about all his fleet occur during this period. As you can see Peleliu falls easily and despite having a div plus support behind 9 forts Babeldaob will fall within the next week thanks to constant naval and air bombardments. I only try to interfere with the Talaud invasion but it costs me 150 a/c just to sink a couple of DDs.....The green circle is the current location of his CVs on the 1st Nov, probably about to attack the troops at Talaud. I won't be trying to interfere...

[Miller]

Industry:





Supplies dropping slightly as I continue to pump it into China. Fuel has been stable as I continue to get oil shipments to the home island refineries. HI is stable, increasing by a tiny amount each day. I've upped both Arm and Veh factories, as you can see I'm desperate for Veh points.

[Miller]

Score

I'd imagine at the current rate he will get a 2:1 auto victory early 45, as no doubt his B29 assault on the home islands will begin soon.

[Miller]

1st-30th Nov 44

Not a bad month all things considered.

No strat bombing by Kane at all. I'm sure that will change next month. Nothing much happening in Malaya. My stack reaches Chumphon and they manage to get a weeks rest before his stack moves into it as well. Can't see him making a breakthrough unless he goes around me. I retake the base on the rail line to the south at Nakhon Si Thamarrat and eliminate his troops there in the process. I now have decent AV at every base on the rail line all the way down to Singapore to prevent any further para captures.

Meanwhile in China:





I manage to get six divs that I feared would be cut off out of Kweilin and they now sit in the WR hex two hexes to the SE. His stack of Aussie/Brit units will soon arrive there. I'm not sure if I will have enough firepower to stall them for long, ultimately I will have to fall back on Canton. He is also marching on there from the west as you can see, but I have a decent blocking unit in place (circled). The central area around Changsha has not changed but he is trying to flank me to the east of Hankow (yellow arrows), I'm moving units to counter. He sweeps and bombs my bigger bases but I don't bother contesting in the air now.

[Miller]

I did manage one nice raid on Chunking airfield however[;)]





Nice to torch 100 B24 on the ground, would have been even more had more than half my bombers took off to attack.....

[Miller]

SOPAC/South PI area:

He continues to build up Talaud-Eilanden south of Mindanao. I decide to pay a visit with the bulk of my fleet near the end of the month and get a decent haul:





Yamato and Musashi are the main killers with the DDs finished off by the KB the next day. So 3 modern US CLs, a couple of old dutch crap and about 10 DDs for 5 of my own, not a bad exchange at this stage of the game. No sign of his main fleet since he used them to cover his Babeldaob invasion last month.