Potsdam: Downfall - a debriefing.

Oberon · 05-26-13, 01:42 PM

So, the war is over, one way or another, personally I'd like to think that we were invaded by lizard-like aliens with weaponry from sixty years in the future and we were forced to band together to defend our Earth, but either which way, now we can reveal our nefarious schemes!

This is the last turn I have on record, if anyone else has something more recent, do post it:

http://www.warplanner.com/turnfiles/3240/[downfall]]_1944WinterAxis_1434_Sea_Supply.war

Oberon · 05-26-13, 02:46 PM

"The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of 1 rolls"
Yamamoto Isoroku

As winter 1944 rolled around, Japan was facing some major challenges in the Pacific, the US Navy seemed to be everywhere whereas the Imperial Japanese Navy was clustered into three naval groups. The lack of major naval engagements since the US invasion of the Marshall Islands in 1943 meant that the majority of the Japanese carrier fleet was intact and unbloodied, however the experienced pilots that had carried forward the assault on Pearl Harbour in 1941 had been greatly eroded in the bloody battle of the San Cristobal islands in Fall 1942, as the USN edged ever closer to the Japanese mainland the new pilots on board the IJN Akagi waited for the opportunity to prove themselves.
Meanwhile in the cold expanses of Russian wilderness north of Vladivostok, Japanese soldiers listened to the BBC World Service reporting Soviet soldiers poised to strike at Berlin with a grim certainty that they would be the next to feel the teeth of the bear.

Meanwhile, in Task Force 1, on board the Yamato, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto looked over the plans for 1945 with the knowledge that this year would either make or break the Imperial Japanese Navy, and indeed, Japan itself.

It was expected within the next two turns, the US Navy would move into our captured oil fields, and that would be the end of our access to oil. Thus if there was to be a climatic naval battle with the USN (and I was convinced that there was) it would have to be soon.
Raptor may be unlucky at rolling dice, but he is not stupid, so my hopes of being able to intercept his fleets without them being under allied air or submarine cover would be quite low, however it was my hope that the clash would occur somewhere along the red line marked above. Most likely around the area of either the Phillipines, Formosa, West Carolines or Marianas. I did not know what Raptor had left in terms of battleships and flat-tops, but I had across three Task Forces:
3 x DD3
2 x CA2
1 x CA4
3 x BC3 (Kirishima, Haruna and Kongo)
2 x BB3 (Ise, Hyuga)
2 x BB5 (Musashi, Yamato)
1 x CVL2 (Ryujo)
10 x CV3 (Akagi, Unryu, Shokaku, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Taiho, Zuikaku, Amagi, and Kasagi)

Task Forces 1 and 2 were the strongest with 3 acting as reinforcements to whatever clash 1 or 2 got in to. The hope and aim was to create the battle within an area where all three Task Forces could reach the battle and use their combined might to smash the USN.
I was under no pretences that this would win me the war, Japan cannot win this game, but Japan can last longer than Fall 1945, thus giving the victory to the Axis. It was hoped that by giving the USN a bloody nose in early 1945 it would take longer for the USN and, indeed, the B-29s, to reach mainland Japan, thus shrinking the window of opportunity for Raptor to drop some buckets of sunshine on my cities (because Raptor without a nuclear program is...well...not Raptor) and raising the possibility of an Axis victory.
Of course, the Soviet Union was the other big unknown factor, as were British forces in Thailand. Well, Thailand and the entire French Indochina was a write off, and while I would do all I could to stop the Soviets crossing to Sakhalin, there was little I could do to stop them smashing through Manchuria once they were finished with Germany.

After the great naval clash of 1945, what was left of the Imperial Japanese Navy would return to port and act as anti-aircraft guns and anti-invasion guns, aircraft would return and be converted to kamikaze units and then we would wait for the enemy to come to us.

The war itself was predicted to end in the region of Fall-Winter 1945, perhaps, under favourable conditions, lasting as long as Spring 1946. Either way, it would deliever an Axis victory, however given Raptors strategic cunning I was not betting on an Axis victory as it was not likely that Raptor would follow the path I was trying to lay for him, and might very well have smashed straight through the line in the central Pacific and gone for Guam. Then I would have been forced to rely on either a warship from the future suddenly arriving, or Yamamoto being sent back in time to 1905.

My Biggest Mistake:

Unquestionably the Marshall Islands. Instead of attacking the invasion fleet, I withdrew, partly out of a failure to understand the situation and partly out of fear of damage to my precious carriers. I didn't realise that the invasion fleet was lightly defended, so I let it go, and let the Marshall Islands fall, beginning a process that would bring the United States to my doorstep. However, given the historical state of the Pacific War by the beginning of 1945 compared to the situation in Downfall, I was moderately happy with my progress.
The attack on the Soviet Union would probably be retrospectively considered my second mistake, however given that the Soviets would likely not get around to attacking me until around the historically accurate time and we did manage to knock the Soviets out, briefly, then I consider it a mistake worth taking and one that I would take again.

By the way - the password for the Task Force for the Axis is flasche.

Banzai!

Oberon · 06-07-13, 10:48 AM

Am I the only one who had plans then?

Raptor1 · 06-07-13, 11:05 AM

I'll get to it soon. The real world (damn it for all eternity) conspired to deprive me of the vast majority of my free time over the last week with merciless efficiency.

Raptor1 · 07-20-13, 04:17 PM

Alright, this is long overdue, but better late than never:

Curiously enough, at least in the Pacific theater, I'm fairly certain you were, indeed, the only one who had plans, Oberon, at least by the point the game stopped. Oh, certainly, I had a plan in 1942. A grand offensive that would have brought the US Navy to the doorstep of the Japanese Home Islands, destroyed the Japanese fleet along the way and knocked you out of the war. One sharp blow and the war is over. Problem: It required my forces to be at least somewhat competent, which turned out not to be the case.

The point I completely threw away my plans was, of course, when my Fast Carrier Task Force was obliterated at the Battle of the Marshall Islands. I basically gave up on trying to win any sort of straight fight at that point and kept going on the sole basis that if my fleet can't achieve its mission, it's better off being dead anyway, which I was certain is what was going to happen. Of course, the Japanese fleet withdrew, letting me have the Marshalls, which was rather fortunate. My entire conduct of the war after that point was a result of this battle, and it went sort of like so:

Each turn I'd look for any targets I could find that I could either completely negate air cover over or achieve air superiority over, uninvert enough naval forces to invade as many of those targets as I could and as many fast carrier forces to cover them, then send them out to attack. From the way the Japanese withdrew despite getting an absolute victory in the Marshalls, I figured Oberon will not engage at all unless he had superiority, and so I was mostly counting on being left alone as long as I stayed away from any sort of risk; I cannot lose a battle if I'm not in one to begin with. I would then rearrange my forces to allow me the ability to strike at as many targets in the following turn (thus forcing Oberon to stretch his forces thinner if he wanted to defend everything, or leave areas exposed), while always leaving at least one uninverted carrier TF somewhere ready to intercept. This was based on the same logic; a lone TF probably wouldn't do anything, but if Oberon doesn't want to risk his carriers to the point of withdrawing from a battle he's won, then it might dissuade him from making counter-attacks.

This strategy would not have gotten me where I wanted at all, it would have just gotten me where Japanese defences were weakest. The Marianas and West Carolines were far too heavily defended, and though I tried isolating them, my attempts ended up being failures. I could probably have risked my forces more and perhaps I would have been able to get some sort of decisive victory, but after the Battle of the Marshalls I basically had zero confidence in my ability to achieve anything. If it ever did come to a battle, I was going to fight on until my forces either won or died trying, as with that battle. It would have only served them right.

By the end of the game I was basically set to invade the Dutch East Indies, which was mostly defenceless. I was hoping to avoid a naval battle until Oberon's fuel ran out, but that probably wouldn't have happened. I don't know who would have won it, or what would have happened afterwards, and I guess we shall never know.

My Biggest Mistake:

It's hard to call things like the Marshalls battle a mistake, more like a case of terminal bad luck. I think my biggest mistake was not building up enough destroyers and transports at the start, which left me very limited options when it comes to redeploying and uninverting forces, constraining me greatly at the beginning of the game. Another one which probably wasn't my fault was the invasion of Singapore; the confusing wording of the rules for Singapore's fortress led me to believe that I'd get the fortification bonus after recapturing it, and my forces were carefully calculated to be able to hold it on the following turn (by which point I could reinforce). That turned out not to be so, and Singapore had far greater defences after Oberon took it back, though at least it diverted the Japanese fleet from the Pacific theater for a while. I also think my shipbuilding program didn't turn up so well, at least it didn't feel like I had nearly as many ships to use as the Allies did in the last game.

My Greatest Victory:

Despite my constant failure to achieve anything in this game, there was one thing I did which I think succeeded spectacularly and that was Operation Dracula, the counteroffensive into Burma which ended up destroying the Japanese army in India completely. Operations in Burma started failing in the last turn of the game as well, but the initial invasion worked out perfectly.

The password for the Allied TFs was...fly, I believe.

Did I forget anything? Oh, right, this...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon

(because Raptor without a nuclear program is...well...not Raptor)

You've often said I'd win eventually despite my horrendous luck because I have got the atomic bomb and you have not. So, about that luck...we've tried this this 'atomic weapon program' thing and, well, it just sort of turned out to be a massive failure. We're not sure what Einstein, Bohr and all those other guys were on, but we're pretty sure Aristotle had it right all along. In any case, there was no nuclear program after...1941, I think. I had no plans for what I'd do if I actually managed to drive you out of the Pacific before time ran out, of course. I suppose I'd have been forced to try an invasion of the Home Islands, but that's a pretty difficult proposition and I'm not sure I'd have the resources to actually make it succeed in forcing a surrender (and with my luck the invasion fleet would have been sunk by a random typhoon or something).

So that's that. I think my best chance in this game would have been a draw, and since I know I would never get my best chance I guess I would have just been defeated outright. I won't blame everything on the dice (though they certainly didn't help with anything!) or on special rules favouring the Japanese (which I've refrained from complaining about here, since their annoyance might well stem from my personal uselessness); I almost certainly could have done things better and the Pacific is fairly hard to get used to compared to the European theater, but that's how it is. So, to sum everything up: Vengeance, I shall have it, sooner or later!

Oberon · 07-20-13, 04:39 PM

It...

I....

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!

Ah...ha....hahaha...hahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

Ahem...

Seriously?!

All the time I spent preparing for you to pull some sort of diabolical master plan out of your hat, or nuke me back into the warring states era...and you...you had no plan at all?

Excuse me, I'm just going to go and start the Fourth Impact now...

05-26-13, 01:42 PM	#1
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	Potsdam: Downfall - a debriefing. So, the war is over, one way or another, personally I'd like to think that we were invaded by lizard-like aliens with weaponry from sixty years in the future and we were forced to band together to defend our Earth, but either which way, now we can reveal our nefarious schemes! This is the last turn I have on record, if anyone else has something more recent, do post it: http://www.warplanner.com/turnfiles/3240/[downfall]]_1944WinterAxis_1434_Sea_Supply.war

06-07-13, 11:05 AM	#4
Raptor1 Navy Seal Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Stavka Posts: 8,211 Downloads: 13 Uploads: 0	I'll get to it soon. The real world (damn it for all eternity) conspired to deprive me of the vast majority of my free time over the last week with merciless efficiency. __________________ Current Eastern Front status: Probable Victory

05-26-13, 02:46 PM	#2
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	"The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of 1 rolls" Yamamoto Isoroku As winter 1944 rolled around, Japan was facing some major challenges in the Pacific, the US Navy seemed to be everywhere whereas the Imperial Japanese Navy was clustered into three naval groups. The lack of major naval engagements since the US invasion of the Marshall Islands in 1943 meant that the majority of the Japanese carrier fleet was intact and unbloodied, however the experienced pilots that had carried forward the assault on Pearl Harbour in 1941 had been greatly eroded in the bloody battle of the San Cristobal islands in Fall 1942, as the USN edged ever closer to the Japanese mainland the new pilots on board the IJN Akagi waited for the opportunity to prove themselves. Meanwhile in the cold expanses of Russian wilderness north of Vladivostok, Japanese soldiers listened to the BBC World Service reporting Soviet soldiers poised to strike at Berlin with a grim certainty that they would be the next to feel the teeth of the bear. Meanwhile, in Task Force 1, on board the Yamato, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto looked over the plans for 1945 with the knowledge that this year would either make or break the Imperial Japanese Navy, and indeed, Japan itself. It was expected within the next two turns, the US Navy would move into our captured oil fields, and that would be the end of our access to oil. Thus if there was to be a climatic naval battle with the USN (and I was convinced that there was) it would have to be soon. Raptor may be unlucky at rolling dice, but he is not stupid, so my hopes of being able to intercept his fleets without them being under allied air or submarine cover would be quite low, however it was my hope that the clash would occur somewhere along the red line marked above. Most likely around the area of either the Phillipines, Formosa, West Carolines or Marianas. I did not know what Raptor had left in terms of battleships and flat-tops, but I had across three Task Forces: 3 x DD3 2 x CA2 1 x CA4 3 x BC3 (Kirishima, Haruna and Kongo) 2 x BB3 (Ise, Hyuga) 2 x BB5 (Musashi, Yamato) 1 x CVL2 (Ryujo) 10 x CV3 (Akagi, Unryu, Shokaku, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Taiho, Zuikaku, Amagi, and Kasagi) Task Forces 1 and 2 were the strongest with 3 acting as reinforcements to whatever clash 1 or 2 got in to. The hope and aim was to create the battle within an area where all three Task Forces could reach the battle and use their combined might to smash the USN. I was under no pretences that this would win me the war, Japan cannot win this game, but Japan can last longer than Fall 1945, thus giving the victory to the Axis. It was hoped that by giving the USN a bloody nose in early 1945 it would take longer for the USN and, indeed, the B-29s, to reach mainland Japan, thus shrinking the window of opportunity for Raptor to drop some buckets of sunshine on my cities (because Raptor without a nuclear program is...well...not Raptor) and raising the possibility of an Axis victory. Of course, the Soviet Union was the other big unknown factor, as were British forces in Thailand. Well, Thailand and the entire French Indochina was a write off, and while I would do all I could to stop the Soviets crossing to Sakhalin, there was little I could do to stop them smashing through Manchuria once they were finished with Germany. After the great naval clash of 1945, what was left of the Imperial Japanese Navy would return to port and act as anti-aircraft guns and anti-invasion guns, aircraft would return and be converted to kamikaze units and then we would wait for the enemy to come to us. The war itself was predicted to end in the region of Fall-Winter 1945, perhaps, under favourable conditions, lasting as long as Spring 1946. Either way, it would deliever an Axis victory, however given Raptors strategic cunning I was not betting on an Axis victory as it was not likely that Raptor would follow the path I was trying to lay for him, and might very well have smashed straight through the line in the central Pacific and gone for Guam. Then I would have been forced to rely on either a warship from the future suddenly arriving, or Yamamoto being sent back in time to 1905. My Biggest Mistake: Unquestionably the Marshall Islands. Instead of attacking the invasion fleet, I withdrew, partly out of a failure to understand the situation and partly out of fear of damage to my precious carriers. I didn't realise that the invasion fleet was lightly defended, so I let it go, and let the Marshall Islands fall, beginning a process that would bring the United States to my doorstep. However, given the historical state of the Pacific War by the beginning of 1945 compared to the situation in Downfall, I was moderately happy with my progress. The attack on the Soviet Union would probably be retrospectively considered my second mistake, however given that the Soviets would likely not get around to attacking me until around the historically accurate time and we did manage to knock the Soviets out, briefly, then I consider it a mistake worth taking and one that I would take again. By the way - the password for the Task Force for the Axis is *flasche. Banzai!*

06-07-13, 10:48 AM	#3
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	Am I the only one who had plans then?

07-20-13, 04:39 PM	#6
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	It... I.... WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?! Ah...ha....hahaha...hahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA Ahem... Seriously?! All the time I spent preparing for you to pull some sort of diabolical master plan out of your hat, or nuke me back into the warring states era...and you...you had no plan at all? Excuse me, I'm just going to go and start the Fourth Impact now...