The Let There Be Calm Upon the Waters AAR

[gwgardner]

or ... how Japan invited six great world Empires to join the Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere.

The US, the Commonwealth, France, the Soviet Union, the Netherlands, and China - all have been invited. Japanese 'meet and greet' delegations are enroute even now to get the ball rolling.

Japan's AXIS partners are headed in from afar too. If all goes right, everyone will meet up for a confab somewhere around ... oh, shall we make it Dehli?

[gwgardner]

Only one house rule this time around. All the land and air forces that start the campaign in Japan, Korea, and Manchukuo will stay within the boundaries of their starting province/country, unless the same is invaded.

[gwgardner]

Dec 7, 41

The war is not even one minute old and the Admiral Nagumo, leading the carrier force into Hawaiian waters is presented with a dilemma. Subs sent in advance have spotted a small US task force at sea. Upon rendevous with the Strike Force, still maintaining radio silence, the subs surfaced to signal the news. Nagumo risked a lone recon flight, which at long range spotted what appears to be US carriers. The whole purpose of the intended strike against Pearl Harbor is to catch the US carriers in port. So Nagumo has a choice - commit his strike to the spotted carrier(s) at sea? Or go ahead with the strike against Pearl Harbor?

[first respondent to this question gets to make the decision. Nagumo will do whatever is advised.]

[Josh]

Strike the carriers!

(this goes against my historical feelings but so what)

[doomtrader]

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

Only one house rule this time around. All the land and air forces that start the campaign in Japan, Korea, and Manchukuo will stay within the boundaries of their starting province/country, unless the same is invaded.

You might want to freeze them

[Severian]

Destroy carriers Garry Halsey will be in trouble And remember - Nippon needs you, Emperor needs you

[Henri]

Catching the carriers at sea is different than surprising them in port. They will have their crews and CAP. Expect heavy damage even if you win (and you could lose a carrier batle at sea).

Save the game and try the carriers. If it doesn't work out, reload and go after Pearl.[:'(]

Henri

[cpdeyoung]

And if the Pearl thing is not quite right, reload and try again, or maybe the carriers again.
You can always just reload and try again.
Just like they did in the real war?
 
No offense, but I'd be careful of that way, it's a slippery slope.
 
Make your choice.  Fight it out.
In an AAR we are trying to follow actual decisions, with consequences, not a sculpted, botoxed version.
 
Chuck

[balto]

Concur with Severian 100%.

This is your second AAR and both times you spot the carriers. So I think it is safe to assume we can all spot the Carriers if were are Japan (I am thinking of buying this).

So please hit the carriers so we can see what happens.

Heck, we may discover that the Scenario/Campaign needs to be reworked such as in the initial Carrier placement needs to be at a distant location.., very very distant or else the Japan player will nail them everytime and the game is over.

Looking forward to more AAR. Heck, I wish you would have stayed with the other and had both going at once! Thanks again.

[gwgardner]

Nagumo has listened to his advisers, and will attack the carriers. No save and reload. He has this one shot, and will skidaddle back to either the Central Med or Home waters, depending on damage.

[I'm thinking that the 'detection probability' setting needs to be ratcheted down. I like there to be a chance that the US carrier(s) would be detected at sea before the Pearl Harbor attack, but it didn't happen historically, so personally I'd like to see it a relatively difficult proposition. Of course that is moddable, but probably should be for the default scenario setup. For that matter, detection across the board should perhaps be lessened, until a navy/air force has a higher tech level.]

[gwgardner]

The Admiral has given his intelligence officer 15 minutes to evaluate the recon report. There is bad news, which makes the decision to strike at the US carrier force even more problematical. It seems that the pilots actually only saw one carrier. It cannot be confirmed that there are more. Where are the others? At least three US carriers are thought to be in the Pacific at this time.

But the decision has been made. The attack will be directed at the carriers.

[gwgardner]

I'm getting a bad feeling about this attack. The US carrier Lexington is in the target force. At full strength, until it took one hit from dive bombers launched from the Akagi. All of my carrier groups are at reduced strength. Yikes.

[cpdeyoung]

I would be careful in the "Central Med" if I were you.  The Royal Navy and Commonwealth forces are going to give you a very hard time in the Suez.
 
Chuck

[gwgardner]

After all six Japanese carriers struck the enemy task force, the action can be considered a major failure. Pilot reports indicated that 1 US CA was definitely seen going under the water, another CA was burning from at least two successful strikes. But the Lexington survived. It took six hits, but as it started out at full strength, it is obviously able to limp back to harbor for repairs. No other carrier was reported by the pilots.

I'm majorly disappointed that I didn't get any critical hits on the Lexington. Bummer.

The Lexington was able to sortie one flight in retaliation against the pilots of the Soryu, and did one SP of damage.

So we are left with a US Pacific Fleet that is barely scratched.

Adviser Josh, and his colleagues, all of whom advised this course of action, have been placed under 24 hour watch for fear of seppuku. Admiral Nagumo has assured them that he takes full responsibility for the failure.

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: cpdeyoung

I would be careful in the "Central Med" if I were you.  The Royal Navy and Commonwealth forces are going to give you a very hard time in the Suez.

Chuck

OOps, Central Pac. Heads will roll for this mistake.

[balto]

WOW! This is hugely interesting. Thank you.

If I am reading this FORUM correctly, the US probably only has 1-2 ports that can repair CVs (Hawaii and California). So is it possible you could turn your whole attack force into a CV hunter? That may be dumb, but I was wondering.

[Severian]

Adviser Josh, and his colleagues, all of whom advised this course of action, have been placed under 24 hour watch for fear of seppuku. Admiral Nagumo has assured them that he takes full responsibility for the failure.

So bad for us, so bad [:D] PH as Nagumo's major failure - something new in history [:)] Emperor is dissapointed [;)]

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: doomtrader

ORIGINAL: gwgardner

Only one house rule this time around. All the land and air forces that start the campaign in Japan, Korea, and Manchukuo will stay within the boundaries of their starting province/country, unless the same is invaded.

You might want to freeze them

How does one go about freezing them? You mean in the data files? Or something available in game?

[gwgardner]

ORIGINAL: balto

WOW! This is hugely interesting. Thank you.

If I am reading this FORUM correctly, the US probably only has 1-2 ports that can repair CVs (Hawaii and California). So is it possible you could turn your whole attack force into a CV hunter? That may be dumb, but I was wondering.

Well, there is Seattle, San Fran, LA, Anchorage. I haven't tried repairing in a foreign/allied port, but that may work too.

I've thought about just hanging around in the Hawaiian zone to go ahead and strike at Pearl or the Lexington again, but I'm leery of trying it. If the AI is good enough to hit me with land-based strikes, and those other carriers, I'm in trouble.

[Henri]

Actually when I tried it as the Japanese I actually sank the CV Lexington, but no sight of the other US carriers. As with you, the problem was the damage to my carrier fleet. They all start at not much more than 60% and after Pearl Harbor, they were down to 30% - 50% (they can also be attacked from Pearl, since surprise is lost), which means that each carrier will require 5 to 7 points of repair to build it up to full strength, and since only one point can be fixed per turn, this means a long time in the repair bays.

I hope that this one point of repair is PER PORT, otherwise it will take the rest of the war to fix the carriers...[X(]

In the real war, the Japanese carriers DID hightail it back West, so it is not unreasonable to get them fixed, at least to some extent.You might have to consider having them fight at less than full strength during your rapid expansion phase.

The Japanese player must remember that his main objective is not the US, but the resources in SE Asia, and that Pearl Harbor was at best only a delaying move. A high priority must be put upon the Philippines where IRL the incompetent Macarthur did not even have any CAP up (hope that it the same in the game).

Good luck!...[:D]

Henri