Making Gorn great again. Nobody named Steve allowed

[geofflambert]

Also no one named Stephen, Steph, Estefan, Stefan or any other variation allowed here. If your actual name is one of those excluded, please use a pseudonym. Girls named "Stevie" are welcome without restriction.

I'd like to keep this thread fairly businesslike, unlike all my other threads. I'll add color when appropriate and time allows.

I'd like this AAR to be neophyte friendly, which is to say lots of explanation in detail and a minimum of OT material (but use your own judgement there). Feel free to post relevant questions and criticisms to you heart's content here and humour (for the most part) and other stuff in my other thread "The Gorn Supremacy".

[dave sindel]

Are you able / willing to share your plans ? Your goals for the "amphibious bonus" period ?

[zuluhour]

Oh so tempted.............

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Also no one named Stephen, Steph, Estefan, Stefan or any other variation allowed here. If your actual name is one of those excluded, please use a pseudonym. Girls named "Stevie" are welcome without restriction.

I'd like to keep this thread fairly businesslike, unlike all my other threads. I'll add color when appropriate and time allows.

I'd like this AAR to be neophyte friendly, which is to say lots of explanation in detail and a minimum of OT material (but use your own judgement there). Feel free to post relevant questions and criticisms to you heart's content here and humour (for the most part) and other stuff in my other thread "The Gorn Supremacy".

Etienne

Bonjour. A question/request. Will you/Can you please provide lots of pictures with this AAR to aid being able to follow what is going on?

Merci

[geofflambert]

I have begun doing my first turn going through my air units with a fine toothed comb. Here's a guiding principle I try to keep in mind: The Pacific War is above all other things an air war. Especially for the Japanese player air crew training is critical. For the Japanese there are two groups of aviators which are entirely separate (unlike to some extent the US Marines and USN, or any UK or Commonwealth forces. The Japanese are not rich in anything and certainly not in available recruits for aviation. This is particularly true for the IJN. The war cannot be won without aircraft carriers, their aircraft and aircrews. Furthermore, the job of being a naval aviator is more complex than one necessarily is for an army aviator. In my doctrine torpedo bomber crews must be proficient in naval search because of the superior range of Kates over Vals. The opposite is true for the USN. Training to attack with torpedoes is a whole separate program and can only be done with torpedo planes, initially Kates, Jeans, Mabels, Bettys, Nells, Emilys and Mavises. Val crews must be proficient in naval attack with bombs and ASW. ASW because you don't need a lot of range to protect your CVs from submarines. It is handy if both your Kate and Val crews were proficient at ground attack, but less of a priority. Don't plan on using carrier aircraft for doing recon, that is not a proper mission for an aircraft carrier or a valid reason to risk same. US excluded here as in many things because of their almost infinite resources. The need for training IJN TB crews in torpedo attack is so great that most of the planes I listed above that are not assigned to carriers must concentrate on training aircrews to do torpedo attacks. Because the IJA doesn't have aircraft of sufficient range to search vast areas of the Pacific, some of the IJN 2 and 4 engine bombers will have to be employed in that way, and especially initially Bettys and Nells in the DEI as active anti ship missionholders. IJN fighter crews need to be proficient in one thing: fighting. Ground attack, naval attack and especially strafing anything is prohibitively expensive. I'll do a little of that anyway on day 1 but I won't train for it.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

Also no one named Stephen, Steph, Estefan, Stefan or any other variation allowed here. If your actual name is one of those excluded, please use a pseudonym. Girls named "Stevie" are welcome without restriction.

I'd like to keep this thread fairly businesslike, unlike all my other threads. I'll add color when appropriate and time allows.

I'd like this AAR to be neophyte friendly, which is to say lots of explanation in detail and a minimum of OT material (but use your own judgement there). Feel free to post relevant questions and criticisms to you heart's content here and humour (for the most part) and other stuff in my other thread "The Gorn Supremacy".

Etienne

Bonjour. A question/request. Will you/Can you please provide lots of pictures with this AAR to aid being able to follow what is going on?

Merci

I am quite proficient at that.

[geofflambert]

Back to business. The IJN has a severe shortage in the game of available recruits. An Allied player can understand this by looking at the UK pools. Sad. The only significant attrition that is sustainable is in carrier battles, where you cannot avoid significant attrition. IJN aviators have so much training required that fully half or more of your active crews must be doing nothing but training. Here's where the IJA aviators come in. You must train them to do tasks that you might otherwise intuitively assign to navy crews. Naval search in areas where their aircraft have sufficient range (such as the DEI). ASW from any and all land bases. As I mentioned, DB crews in the IJN need to be proficient at ASW, and it's also not a bad idea for IJN TB crews to be good at it since they are going to be doing search anyway, but they can't afford to be used to do that from land bases, the army has to do that job and they have some wonderful planes for doing just that. Ann, Mary and to a great extent Lily should be used in that capacity, guarding ports and various chokepoints where US subs will proliferate. I have even used Sally and Helen in that role.

The point is this: Preserve IJN planes and aviators, and conserve IJN planes and aviators. You'll never really have enough of them. Preserve by keeping them out of fights and enemy airspace when unnecessary. Conserve by training them to the max so that attrition favors you (which it almost never does) and they can contribute more efficiently to the destruction of floating enemy airbases.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: dave sindel

Are you able / willing to share your plans ? Your goals for the "amphibious bonus" period ?

That period is not a driver. You use it as best you can to do that which is prudent. I will perhaps do imprudent things on occasion, but just to avoid being boring.

[Lowpe]

A lot of JFB's over expand their Navy planes. They use Carriers to resize groups and CS to resize Floatplanes.

This puts a huge demand on the Naval Pilot pool.

I think past the first three months of the war, the Zero and then the Nick (to the degree you have them) are your primary anti-bomber/air superiority plane. Sweeping with Oscars gets real hard, real fast.

So from your description you plan on having a fairly mild 1942 in the air...if the Allies let you?

When the George arrives you plan on using that defensively?

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: Lowpe

A lot of JFB's over expand their Navy planes. They use Carriers to resize groups and CS to resize Floatplanes.

This puts a huge demand on the Naval Pilot pool.

I think past the first three months of the war, the Zero and then the Nick (to the degree you have them) are your primary anti-bomber/air superiority plane. Sweeping with Oscars gets real hard, real fast.

So from your description you plan on having a fairly mild 1942 in the air...if the Allies let you?

When the George arrives you plan on using that defensively?

My approach is winning carrier battles. Jack and George are very nice planes and I will certainly build them but since they aren't carrier capable I'll likely use them for CAP over important airbases only. You're right about Oscar until you get to Ic. I will use them aggressively to sweep as long as I have an advantage and again because they will have army pilots. Tojo is my air superiority weapon but there are situations where she hasn't the range and Oscars do. Oscar really isn't much different than Zero except in armament especially early on. I will however use them judiciously until IIb when they have armoured cockpits. Also, beginning with IIa you have a very serious fighter-bomber capable of sinking ships. I keep that in mind. I have a lot of respect for Oscar, I just wish they were properly armed from the get-go. In the meantime before Frank, Tojo will do most of the sweeping and dying. Anyways, if you have a disadvantage in aircraft quality, the only way to overcome that is with numbers, and the IJN simply cannot play that game as long as they have carriers to man. If you send twice as many Oscars against a given number of P-38s, you may get results you can abide.

[pontiouspilot]

I'm curious about whether Gorna is related to Ben Doone??

[Zorch]

May I be permitted a small joke?


I'm shocked, shocked, to find turns being played here!

[geofflambert]

C'mon, there's plenty of room in the other thread for that stuff, and I'm still contributing there.

[Zorch]

<Sniff>Well all right...

[geofflambert]

OK, those who frequent the thread "Off to see the Lizard" and post there, and you know who you are, the following is Tippy Top Secret and please don't give it away, even though I expect my opponent expects it. Here is strategy being unveiled. Just a bit of it anyway. I hate two Allied ships with a passion. I hate them more than any other two Allied ships. I hate them because they are fast. In addition one of them is superlatively armoured and the other is a killer. I'm talking about PoW and Repulse. When I played the Allied side I used them as the core of a screening force for the US CVs. My day one plan takes that into account although I fear I will not get them. A subject I will discuss a little is in the same way it is better to sink an enemy ship at sea than do so in harbor is that the enemy ship sunk at sea will not come back. In that same way enemy aircraft destroyed in the air are preferable to enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground. It's highly unlikely you'll kill any aircrews when you are severely abusing enemy aircraft on the ground. Not saying don't do that, I'm saying airframes for some are easier to replace than pilots.

[Zorch]

How about Boise? She can wreak havoc with transports until her ammo runs out.

[geofflambert]

The only people who discuss running out of ammo in this thread are Viagra salespersons. Are you one of those, Zorch?

[Zorch]

I respectfully beg to differ. The only people who don't run out of ammo are the good guys in Hollywood movies, the kind of movies where the bad guys never hit anything.

[geofflambert]

Well, Spielberg has so far not made a movie about him, but should. Fearless Fosdick never failed to get hit but they were always just flesh wounds.

[geofflambert]

How did this start? This kinda stuff was supposed to be segregated into other threads. Everyone try harder.