Topic: Coming soon: War in the Pacific, Struggle for Japan, an After Action report

[Vipre]

I'll just never be convinced of the inevitable win is all.

There were some wins and the resulting base/port/airfield captures that were critical to the Allied offensive in the Pacific.  It doesn't really matter imo how many bombers you have if you have no carriers or airfields close enough to launch them from. Even with the A-bomb imagine if the ship delivering it had been torpedoed before instead of after delivering it.

I give credit to Matrix for offering a toggle for the Jap Sub Doctrine. Even pointed out in the manual how restricting operations in that field helped secure an allied victory.

Wish I had 70 floating around, I'd give history a run for it.

[AcePylut]

That's kinda why I'm hesitant about WitP, seems like alot o fun, but also seem tied into "historical" production numbers.
I have no problem with dealing with (for example) Japan's inferior industry, but I'd like to be able to have the choice to build (again for example) a smaller number of superior fighters, or to try building more battleships and fewer carriers.
It sounds like it's pretty easy to mod though, so might be possible to play around with it.
 

WITP is tied into historical production numbers.  No matter what, the US are simply going to produce too much ships planes and supplies for the Japs.

You don't get the choice to build more ships, however, you do get to set your aircraft production to produce different models in different quantities, so you can get the "late war fighters" earlier in the war... but you don't get to tweak Jap pilot training, so those pilots aren't going to be very experienced.  You really have to protect your starting pilots - becasue these guys are elite.  So you have to pull back depleted squadrons, transfer in some pilots, train them a bit, and back to war.  If you lose too many good pilots on stupid missions (flying supply transport missions in thunderstorms for example), you hurt yourself later in the war.

Don't get me wrong, the game - to me - is fun (and you might be thinking that I'm just saying that because I've only had it a couple of weeks - but I played the crap out of Uncommon Valor, which was very similar except it only dealt with the Solomon Sea battle when that was hot and heavy).

Dracho and I started a game, never finished it.  If you read this aar I started on it, I detail a lot of the nuts&bolts of the game.  http://www.dynaverse.net/forum/index.php/topic,163368063.0.html


All in all, though, WITP is definitely a game for a niche market, of which, sounds like it's not your type of game..  It won't appeal to everyone, but it does to me.

[AcePylut]

On starting on Dec 7th... well if Dec 7th was going to play out the same every turn no matter what, they'd start the game on Dec 8th.  There is a Grand Campaign that starts on Dec 8th for those wishing that option.

So if Dec 7th isn't going to play out the same every time no matter what, there has to be options to play around, within limits.  And there are.

One option is "Dec 7th Surprise".  If "on", then basically most US planes won't fly, and the japs do increased damage (this turn only, however.  So there's no magical "eat the health pack to restore ship power".. .hehe been waiting to say that).  If "Off", then the US is considered "at war" before you set orders for Dec 7th, and all your planes will fly, if they can.

Another option is "Vary Setup".  In that, the US Carriers will be in 1 of 4 places (there were 4 US strategies at the time, the computer randomly selects one of them)  - OPERATION OUTFIELD - Admiral Kimmel sends US forces to Midway, Johnston Island, and Wake Island; air Units in Central Pacific, Philippines, and Malay are more dispersed.... - OPERATION INFIELD: - Admiral Kimmel forms surface fleet and keeps it in Pearl Harbor area,  and brings both Carrier TFs close to home port. This opening usually produces fierce Carrier battle on turn one near Pearl Harbor (so the manual says lol.  more like US CV's get butchered 80% of the time.).... - OPERATION HOME PLATE:- Kimmel assumes safer course and is pulling all TFs into port.Surprise is likely, and Japanese can find 2 US Carriers in Pearl Harbor port......- DECEMBER 7th SURPRISE: - Standard turn one is played.

And the third option is Historical First Turn.  If "On" neither the jap nor yank can move forces around on the first turn, so you're are "locked in" to the historical Dec 7th Attack.  If "off", then the japanese can relocate all their forces upto a certain distance (within limits), basically this allows the Jap Dec 7th 6CV Death Star to send it to either the Phillipine Isles or Rabaul.. .and just completely forgo the "sunk 2 BB's and pissed off a nation that can outproduce us into nothingness woot good job guys" attack on Pearl Harbor... but no matter what the Japanese do, they can't change the "pissed off a nation that blah blah blah"

[AcePylut]

I'll just never be convinced of the inevitable win is all.

Wish I had 70 floating around, I'd give history a run for it.

It doesn't sound like you'd like the game, so might be better served saving your 70$.

[Vipre]

I'll just never be convinced of the inevitable win is all.

Wish I had 70 floating around, I'd give history a run for it.

It doesn't sound like you'd like the game, so might be better served saving your 70$.

I can be quite delusional when necessary so I can always tell myself the Japs can win. 

After all there is a Japanese Decisive Victory level, so it has to be theoretically possible.

[AcePylut]

Yeah, it's just that a Jap Decisive Victory means the Jap is still fighting as of Jan 1, 1946     

[AcePylut]

Just for you Lord Hexx  hehe, it's december 10th, and check out what my Signals Intelligence has shown me..  (this is two days in a row!)...

[Vipre]

Yeah, it's just that a Jap Decisive Victory means the Jap is still fighting as of Jan 1, 1946     

A win's a win. On level ground, meaning no nukes, a Jap DV as of scenario end means they managed a draw which shifted two levels in their favor per the time limit rule. Fighting the Allies to a standstill when history says the Empire should be a smoking husk by that time is an exciting prospect.

[AcePylut]

Here's Operation Leave on December 11th, a shot of the action int he PI.  That big red line going from North Central to South West... that's my ships fleeing the PI.  In the ocean to the east and north east of the PI are my subs, hunting the "mini-KB" of Jap light carriers used in that theater.  Japs have landed on the SouthEast and North Central portion of Luzon, and have my boys at Clark, Manila, and Bataan in a pincer move.  Japs control the airspace over everything you see, as a result of them waxing all my airfields on dec 7th.

[Hexx]

Just for you Lord Hexx  hehe, it's december 10th, and check out what my Signals Intelligence has shown me..  (this is two days in a row!)...

<sigh> crappy American intelligence.. pick's up the CBC and thinks it's something useful..

Hey does this have Canadian forces? Weren't much involved- directly-in the Pacific campaign, mostly as part of British units iirc, but did have a formation (although I'm not sure it was of big enough scale to be represented in the game) at Singapore. And we had plans to transfer a number of ships and an army division for the campaign after the war in europe ended.

Did they make it in?

[Panzergranate]

It is an interesting fact that the airship CV USS Makan patrolled the very area the Jap carriers launched their attack from on December the 7th 1941. If it hadn't been forced to ditch into the sea during a freak storm in 1938, the Japanese would have had to find a way of eliminating or avoiding it and its air patrols. Perhaps even abandoned the idea as being impossible to pull off. History could have been very different.

Space Empirse  is a strategic wargame and one of my tactics is to place a large number of my obstelete and older technology warships in large numbers near jump points so that the AI enemy scouts scan them, see that a large armada of warships is waiting, and avoid attacking. The fact that the ships are not really up to scratch isn't detectable, as the AI only counts the hull types and not how the vessels are equiped.

I played the same trick on my teenage son, who was supposed to be an "Ally" in campaign, but can't be trusted as such. Sure enough he'd checked out a jump point, saw a collection of old and obstellete cruisers, destroyers and frigates and so decided to disolve the alliance with an attack. I had a giant armada of 200 state of the art serious warships sat out of scanning range behind a planet in the sector. I eliminated his only ships covering several star systems, including his home system, and took all of them without a fight.

Strangely enough, he wanted to negotiate a new Alliance after that, but with control of his core systems and shipyards, I didn't need him as an ally anymore. Then the computer AI launched an invasion of his remaining territory....

Big Picture strategic games are qiute addictive and involving. History is full of instances where wars have been won or lost by a simple bad call. The Japanese faffing around with aircraft payloads during Midway is one such example.

The thing is, in warfare, bad calls take on a momentum of their own and can't be easily reversed.

You shoud try playing French in any wargame.... terrible command and control structure.... non-existant for 90% of their tanks (no radios) and troops still use runners and pidgeons.

Even the Russians were better than equiped and organised than the French were. Sadly let down by obstellete ammunition and propellants in 1941.

I presume that the Russians in Manchuria are inactive against the Japanese in the game or are they sticking to history??


 

[Vipre]

Russia has a few triggers...

The Japanese side (if played by a human player) must maintain a minimum garrison in Manchukuo in order to avoid Soviet Union (Russia) Activation.

Some scenarios, however, will already have Soviet activation set. Also, the Soviets will activate
automatically on August 1, 1945 if they have not been activated until that time.

If the Japanese player moves a unit into the Soviet Union or in any way attacks a
Soviet unit or base, the Soviet Union is immediately activated.

[AcePylut]

Canadian and Canadian forces are in the game.  They are part of the "Canadian Command", which is also a restricted command so you have to spend political points to set them to another HQ to move them out of Canada proper.

Vipre's got the Soviet Triggers listed for Soviet activation. 

[Vipre]

Of course, I plagiarized the manual. 

[Panzergranate]

Actually the Soviet - Japanese front was active in a small way, with skirmishes right up until 1945, with the Russian forces there starved of support, due to the bigger fight against the Axis forces in the west.

The japanese exploited this to advantage, but as the war progressed, they became starved of resources and manpower. By the time the Russians returned, hell bend on payback, the Japanese forces in the way were in a sorry state.

The Manchurian Front was a kind of forgotten war, as were the US fighting in the Aleutian Islands.

Remember that the Japanese were basically camped on Soviet territory for quite a number of years, during WW2, amd even tried to colonise it with Japanese settlers.

What pictures of Soviet forces in the conflict generally show them on horseback and wearing British style Pith Helmets or French style "Hadrian" helmets.

I have a picture of the results of a point blank hit from a Jap 70mm. field gun into the side of a BT7, during the actions there, with an HE shell. Needless to say, as HE has no effect against armour plate , no matter how thin, only the only damage is lost mudguards and a couple of bent wheels. The tank and crew survived to fight another day.

What tanks the Soviets had were mainly BTs due to the advantages of a medium tank capable of 60 MPH plus on open plains. Against Japanese tanks, they always had the advantage in armoiur, firepower and reliability.

[Hexx]

Actually the Soviet - Japanese front was active in a small way, with skirmishes right up until 1945, with the Russian forces there starved of support, due to the bigger fight against the Axis forces in the west.

The japanese exploited this to advantage, but as the war progressed, they became starved of resources and manpower. By the time the Russians returned, hell bend on payback, the Japanese forces in the way were in a sorry state.

Really???
You have any sources or is this along the "Japanese detonated the Abomb " claim you posted a bit back.
Haven't read anything about it in years, but iirc the Japanese and Soviets fought a small number of border conlficts up until '39, then signed the peace treaty which held until the Soviet's invaded in '45.
By which time the Soviet's were using mainly T34's of various marks transferred with the bulk of the invasion army from the Western front.

[Hexx]

Canadian and Canadian forces are in the game.  They are part of the "Canadian Command", which is also a restricted command so you have to spend political points to set them to another HQ to move them out of Canada proper.

Cool
Well taking the Japanese on using only the Canadian forces would likely be a challenge.
I'll have to give it a shot. 

[Dracho]

Guess I need to read the manual.. I played around with the tutorial last night and didn't realize how much isn't like Uncommon Valor.  I learned quite a bit just doing that, but I need to do a couple of things:

Figure out how to reduce the fortification level of an island before I attack it
Learn all the ship abbreviations, and the special ship functions, like the command transport.

[Vipre]

Most referenced way in the manual is attacking with Combat Engineers in the force. They get a special "destroy fortification" phase during combat. Outside that I'd guess air and shore bombardment but I couldn't find a reference in the manual to that.

[AcePylut]

Ship abbreviations are kinda hard in a way... the ones that got me were the "Ax" abbr.s

So I remembered it like this

AK - trAnsport, Kargo
AP - trAnsport, Personell
APD - trAnsport, Destroyer
AG - trAnsport, barGe
AR - Repair
AS - Sub tender
AV - aViation tender
AVD - aViation, tender, destroyer
AGP - Pt boat tender
AGC - Amphibious Barge Command
ML - MineLayer
DM - Destroyer Minelayer

TK - Tanker, Kargo (I.e. carries fuel from port to port, but can not replenish ships at sea)
AO - trAnsport, Oil (oiler - can replenish fuel at sea)

With fortifications, you have to bombard the crap out of it I think, otherwise use Infantry Combat Engineer Regiments in your assaults.  Fastest way I've found in playing around is to use combat engineers.  You lose men, but it goes a lot faster than trying to reduce forts by bombarding with ships and planes